BBE - Modern Love (May 2021 BBE Music)

BBE Music is thrilled to announce the release of Modern Love, a diverse compendium of specially commissioned cover versions of rarities and classics in tribute to David Bowie.

Featuring an array of artists such as Jeff Parker, We Are KING, Meshell Ndegeocello, Helado Negro, Khruangbin, Matthew Tavares, Nia and more, Modern Love seeks to champion Bowie’s lesser-known connection to soul, R&B, jazz, funk, and gospel. The prominent jazz influences throughout Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, were a key inspiration for curating this collection of reimagined Bowie songs with these artists. The resulting album is an eclectic tribute featuring a group of artists who not only fit together creatively, but who, like Bowie, straddle different worlds musically, with soul and jazz at their core.

Modern Love offers a fresh look at Bowie’s trailblazing career, aiming to highlight the often overlooked relationship between his back catalogue and musical genres traditionally pioneered by artists of color. The project was curated by music executive and DJ Drew McFadden, alongside BBE Music founder Peter Adarkwah. “I felt that the connection between Bowie and R&B, jazz, funk, gospel and all things soulful, had never really been explored before — at least not so much in covers, which tend to lean more towards rock and pop,” says McFadden. “Certainly, there’s been plenty of Bowie covers over the years, but none that have really tapped into what seems to have been a big part of his core musical

style and direction.”

Modern Love is an interactive sonic map. Here, seventeen artists make their way into the varied regions of his sundry catalog and circle back with seventeen unique re-imaginings of both his cornerstone and lesser-known tracks. Some, in atmosphere, feel like a sly alternate take from original sessions (Khruangbin’s ethereal, funk infused version of “Right” from Young Americans); others nod at the source, then wink before diving into the deep waters of another musical stratosphere (Sessa’s sexy Tropicalia-drenched “Panic in Detroit” from Aladdin Sane). Still others take tunes down to the studs and then re-arrange the moody interiors: Meshell Ndegeocello’s pensive “Fantastic Voyage” from Lodger and Tavares’ clever take on “Heroes” which is restructured into a kinetic hardbop-esque backdrop, fronted by ice-cool, held-back vocals. The bullseye these artists aim for is Bowie’s fearlessness. “Fame was an incredible bluff that worked,” he once reflected. “Very flattering. I’ll do anything until I fail. And when I succeed I quit too.”

Modern Love packs us off on a journey that balances on risk’s sharp blade. Track-to-track, it explores what happens when a musician throws out notions of should and safe and stretches beyond the known. These artists use Bowie both as a guide and a prism: A way of being and seeing. Their offerings, widely divergent, explore the inheritance from an artist who freed himself from labels, genres and, consequently, pigeonholes. While he was at it, he decimated fixed notions about territory (or terra) itself; boundaries hemmed-in his creative process, but his essence remained free to roam. He may have vanished in earthly form, yet, as he also promised in the lyrics of “Modern Love,” But I never wave bye-bye . . .” This compilation assures us that his spirit swirls around us. His force is alive to all of us and, here, it is summoned with an incantation that celebrates possibility. 

1. Life On Mars – Miguel Atwood-Ferguson 04:22

2. Sound and Vision – Helado Negro 03:21

3. Lady Grinning Soul – Kit Sebastian 03:48

4. Soul Love – Jeff Parker, The New Breed 04:43

5. Panic in Detroit – Sessa 03:44

6. The Man Who Sold the World – The Hics 03:28

7. Right – Khruangbin 05:08

8. Silly Boy Blue – Nia Andrews 02:37

9. Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family – Foxtrott 03:11

10. Move On – L’Rain 04:00

11. Modern Love – Jonah Mutono 03:19

12. Where Are We Now – Bullion 03:31

13. Tnght – Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby 03:35

14. Golden Years – Léa Sen 02:56

15. Fantastic Voyage – Meshell Ndegeocello 03:58

16. Space Oddity – We Are KING 04:45

17. Heroes – Matthew Tavares 08:41

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Marc Ribot: Songs of Resistance 1942 - 2018 (Anti- Records September 2018)

“Every movement which has ever won anything has had songs,” says accomplished New York City guitarist Marc Ribot. For his new political album Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 – with a September 14 release date on ANTI- Records - Ribot set out to assemble a set of songs that spoke to this political moment with appropriate ambition, passion, and fury.

photo by Barbara Rigon

The eleven songs on the record include a few original compositions as well as traditional songs that are drawn from World War II anti-Fascist Italian partisans, the U.S. civil rights movement and Mexican protest ballads. It also features a wide range of guest vocalists, including

Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Justin Vivian Bond, Fay Victor, Sam Amidon, and Ohene Cornelius, Tift Merritt, Domenica Fossati, Syd Straw.

At a time of such overwhelming social turmoil, finding a focus for this kind of project is challenging. Nevertheless, Ribot’s purpose remained clear. “There’s a lot of contradiction in doing any kind of political music,” he says, “how to act against something without becoming it, without resembling what you detest. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what to do, and I imagine we’ll make mistakes, and hopefully, learn from them. But I knew this from the moment Donald Trump was elected: I’m not going to play downtown scene Furtwangler to any orange-comb-over dictator wannabe. No way.”

Portions of the album’s proceeds will be donated to The Indivisible Project, an organization that helps individuals resist the Trump agenda via grassroots movements in their local communities. More info on The Indivisible Project can be found at www.indivisible.org.

1. Marc Ribot & Fay Victor - We Are Soldiers in the Army 05:27

2. Marc Ribot & Tom Waits - Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful) 03:37

3. Marc Ribot, Steve Earle & Tift Merritt - Srinivas 06:09

4. Marc Ribot, Sam Amidon & Fay Victor - How To Walk In Freedom 05:44

5. Marc Ribot & Ohene Cornelius - Rata de dos Patas 04:46

6. Marc Ribot & Meshell Ndegeocello - The Militant Ecologist (based on Fischia II Vento) 04:10

7. The Big Fool 06:34

8. Marc Ribot, Steve Earle & Tift Merritt - Ain't Gonna Let Them Turn Us Round 03:23

9. Marc Ribot & Fay Victor - John Brown 05:53

10. Marc Ribot & Syd Straw - Knock That Statue Down 03:50

11. Marc Ribot, Justin Vivian Bond & Domenica Fossati - We'll Never Turn Back 04:33

Produced by Marc Ribot

1,3-11 Mixed by Kamilo Kratc @ Brooklyn Recording (Brooklyn, NY) & Soundworks Recording (Queens, NY)

1,3,4,7,8,9 Recorded by Daniel Schlett @ Strange Weather (Brooklyn, NY)

5,6,10 Recorded by Randall Dunn @ Brooklyn Recording (Brooklyn, NY)

11 Recorded by Ryan Kelly @ Studio G (Brooklyn, NY)

2 Recorded by Karl Derfler @ The School Bell (Sebastopol, CA) & Mixed @ The Shack (Crocket, CA)

Additional Overdubs Recorded by Alexis Berthelot, Chris Boerner, Bogdan Chavez, Jack DeBoe, Ryan Kelly, Gregory Smelley

Additional Editing by Jay Yow, Alexis Berthelot

Mastered by Scott Hull @ Masterdisk

Art Direction & Design by Bryan Collins

Cover Photor by Lewis W. Hine/George Eastman House/Getty Images

Photo of Marc by Ebru Yildiz

Project Coordinator & Management: Mary Ho / Noise Inc

PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT: THE INDIVISIBLE PROJECT (501c4) www.indivisible.org

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Kathleen Brennan, Jesse Bauer, Sheila Bowers, Michèle Desfrenne, Sara Fadabini, Joe Henry, Yuka Honda, Buddy Miller, Alison Riley, Andy Taub, Shanta Thake Kriegsman, Trixie Whitley

marcribot.com

New Album Out now ANTI- Records

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Meshell Ndegeocello - Ventriloquism (NAÏVE RECORDS March 16, 2018)

In the canon of R&B, the '80s are frequently dismissed as the genre's most soulless decade. Nelson George called it "the death of rhythm and blues" in his book of the same name, citing the now infamous Harvard Report on marketing black music (commissioned by then-CBS Records exec Clive Davis) as the impetus for the industry's switch from indifference to a vested interest in R&B. By 1980, he writes, CBS' roster of black artists had jumped from two to 125 — and as the decade progressed, that sonic integration led to a watered-down R&B sound. Synthesizers replaced live bands. Commercial radio quelled the funk with the Quiet Storm. "Crossover" became the profit motive for packaging black artists for white consumption.

But if you were coming of age in the '80s, like a teenaged Michelle Lynn Johnson — who took on the name Ndegeocello around the same time Prince began musing over the woman in the raspberry beret — all those behind-the-scenes industry machinations are incidental to a period whose output soundtracked your adolescence with some of the most emotionally indulgent R&B and pop of the latter 20th century. Meshell Ndegeocello has always been a soul conjurer of sorts, bent but never bound by tradition. With her latest body of work, Ventriloquism, out March 16, she splits the difference — stitching together a wide swath of songs that reflect what we remember, and even regret, of the era in which her own artistic sensibilities were taking root, distilling its clichés into a rootsy, bluesy folk romp.

As with most cover sets, the story is in the song selection. What may at first seem like a random mix of one-off hits from beloved-but-unsung artists (Force MDs, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Surface, Al B. Sure!) and influential megastars (George Clinton, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, Sade) is actually a carefully curated homage to some of the era's definitive sonic innovators. It's a perfect collection for an artist whose genre-bending fusion of rock, soul, funk and R&B befuddled an industry still beholden to racially-coded designations (i.e. "urban") when she entered the scene.

Full Force, the muscle-bound hip-hop band and production crew who would go on to contribute early hits to 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys a decade later, is represented here with its flirty bop for Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, "I Wonder If I Take You Home." Al B. Sure! and his cousin and co-producer Kyle West, who turned the wannabe rapper into a viable R&B act and Right On! magazine teen heartthrob practically overnight, stumbled upon a precursor to Teddy Riley's New Jack Swing with the release of Sure's 1988 debut In Effect Mode. Ndegeocello's guitar-laced interpretation of the album's first single, "Nite and Day," conveys a maturity far beyond the hormonal pangs expressed by a teenaged Al B. at the time.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who extended Prince's Minneapolis sound and left a sonic dent on the decade that nearly rivals that of their early mentor, get three nods with "Tender Love" (Force MDs), "Sensitivity" (Ralph Tresvant) and "Funny How Time Flies" (Janet Jackson). Even TLC's biggest hit, the Organized Noize-produced "Waterfalls" from 1994, finds its way into the mix.

It's not just who Ndegeocello redoes, however, but what she does to these songs that matters here. She recorded this album with her band (Chris Bruce, guitar; Abraham Rounds, drums; Jebin Bruni, keys and co-production) in Los Angeles, where they spent a lot of time listening to Neil Young's country-rock classic, Harvest. There's a sense of detachment and dissonance here that has as much to do with the wistful mourning of a period as it does the celebration of innocence. A cover of "Sometimes It Snows In April" — the Under The Cherry Moon ballad that resurfaced after Prince's death — captures both, playing like a national anthem of our collective sorrows.

"The year around the recording of this album was so disorienting and dispiriting for me personally and for so many people I know and spoke to all the time," Ndegeocello writes in a statement accompanying the release. "I looked for a way to make something that was light while things around me were so dark, a musical place to go that reminded me of another, brighter time."

Ventriloquism simultaneously plays with the contrasts between songs and the contradictions within them. Peep how Tresvant's "Sensitivity" gets a vaudevillian redux, complete with jangly banjo flourishes that, intentionally or not, both parody and applaud the song's gender-norm defiance: "You need a man with sensitivity / A man like me," Ndegeocello sings, purposely leaving Tresvant's pronouns intact. Her treatment adds a layer of history to an R&B hit that, even at the time of its 1990 release, seemed comical in contrast to the rising tide of hypermasculinity embodied in hip-hop, which dominated the streets despite having yet to receive black radio's full embrace. The gender study continues with the two big closers of the set: "Private Dancer," reset to waltz time, is slowed enough to sound like the funeral dirge that always existed at the heart of that song. And Sade's gigolo ode "Smooth Operator" gets revamped from Caribbean-inflected smooth jazz to a close cousin of UK drum and bass.

Ndegeocello's relationship with the airwaves has been tenuous from the start, and Ventriloquism stands in line with how she's consistently defied the industry's failed attempts to pin her down to the narrow parameters that largely defined '80s R&B. But beyond that, she reawakens the rhythm and the blues by returning songs to their original sender, wrapped in different packaging. The electro-bounce of George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" gets retrofitted into the gutbucket tradition from which it descends, with twangy guitars up top and a caterwauling vocal bubbling beneath. A country harmonica twists Force MDs' "Tender Love" from citified doo-wop into a sweet Appalachian bluegrass ballad.


"Early on in my career, I was told to make the same kind of album again and again, and when I didn't do that, I lost support," the artist writes. "There isn't much diversity within genres, which are ghettoizing themselves, and I liked the idea of turning hits I loved into something even just a little less familiar or formulaic. It was an opportunity to pay a new kind of tribute." Ventriloquism is more than a reinterpretation of songs from the era's urban/pop catalog; it's a resuscitation. Somehow, Ndegeocello breathes old soul into a collection of post-soul classics and elevates them to their rightful place in the pantheon.

Meshell Ndegeocello