Label Strut Records has been putting out some consistently amazing music for the past few years. Last year, they really rocked my socks off with their third edition in the Inspiration Information series, an album by the legendary Mulatu Astatke and The Heliocentrics. They’ve got a new Astatke album (his first studio album in over 20 years) coming out at the end of March which will be great but they also have a fantastic new album by The Souljazz Orchestra, out now, entitled Rising Sun.
A largely acoustic album, the sounds on this brilliant release are rooted in African rhythms, gorgeous jazz and varying styles. The musicianship is where it’s at with musicians that easily travel into different modes and keys before always finding their way back home – even when it isn’t exactly to the tonic. And that’s just the thing, even when they’re all over the place, there is still a richly warm tone to their sound and in every sense of the word, this is an exceptional album.
The artwork is astounding as well and the label took to it so much that they decided to make a video inspired by it. Here is that video for the song “Agbara,” off that aforementioned album – Bryan
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