Review: Kilumi is an album that Kenyan DJ/producer Coco Em started writing during the height of the pandemic in 2020, and explores elements of different sounds that kept her going throughout this difficult time. These studio experiments resulted in 70 ideas, each one reflecting a different shade of her musical style, which then further developed into this wonderful collection of seven tracks for Paris/Berlin-based imprint InFine. Starting with the smokey atmosphere of the deep and ethereal opening cut "Pace", be hypnotised by the sublime polyrhythms of "Yi Ingi" and an equally immersive and entrancing arrangement underpins a powerful message by vocalist Sisian on "Land (Black) First". This is followed by the sensual and evocative "Mbeni" featuring Janice Iche's breathtaking vocal delivery.
Review: Installing a new set of artists into its roster is the Infine label with a remix EP of the Glassforms album that Bruce Brubaker & Max Cooper released last year. Headlined by the likes of Donato Dozzy and Laurel Halo, there's also a shorter edit of the album's epic halfway track "Two Pages", and additional to that there's the experimental noise version by Tehranian producer Tegh. Daniele Di Gregorio leads the way with Dozzy in a piano variation of "Two Pages" while Laurel Halo takes on the sustained chords and epic strings of the original album's closing track, "Opening". Get your more traditional version from the Glassforms edit.
Review: How can we not think of James Ivory's classic Room With A View everytime this phrase is mentioned...or is it really that we're all just stuck in a room? In Rone's case it's as if, at large, this album has what it takes to get us out of bed and chase down the days in a burst of colour. Take the inspired motifs in tracks like "Human", "Babel" and "Sophora Japonica" to the Burial-esque, deeper and dubby material like "Reverie" and "Liminal". There's riffs, twinkling arpeggios and rolling progressions not far from Oni Ayhun in "Nouveau Monde '' alongside the outlandish claviers and drone of "Le Crapaud Dore". All with what's happening outside right now, a room with a view is a good place to be.
