Fate 258
WHY 2K

All Nations Records new instalment in 2021 is all about a sweet stepper riddim involving three new artists on the label. First comes the magnificent voice of Amelia Harmony from UK delivering a message of hope when all lessons get learned, followed by a dangerous dub version. Next is legendary underground Rastafari singer Ramon Judah, hailing Jah to come and deliver us from trials and tribulations. Last but not the least is female artist Jah 93 from Japan who reinterpreted the riddim with a mellow but strong line of melodica. The maxi 12” is wrapped up wisely by a straight version of the riddim built, arranged, mixed and mastered by Simon Nyabinghi.

Joel Holmes is a phenomenon that fits perfectly into the musical scenario of the next years. 35-year-old american jazz pianist and 4 times Grammy nominated. He was the musical director of Carl Craig’s Synthesizer ensemble as well as the keyboarder in legendary Grammy wining band of Roy Hargrove (the IT jazz artist from the late 1990ies, who later died.) Holmes is always hunting for the new, so he moved to Berlin a few years ago. Being interested in what’s happening in that new dance world.

Para One · SPECTRE: Machines of Loving GraceMachines of Loving Grace, available in half speed mastered 180g double lp housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish. Machines of Loving Grace, the new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. It is an object freed from constraints, formats, genres, territories: the gospel of a new world. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion, his previous LP, this lover of electronic music, who has also been putting his sensitivity to the service of movies (soundtracks for Céline Sciamma in particular) opens with this record a new dimension in his artistic career. “I needed to break away from patterns and systematisms of formats, and take unexpected turns. To do so, I had first to allow myself to do so”. Allow oneself and maybe above all confront oneself – with one’s childhood, with one’s childhood’s ghosts, and what fantasies, ideals, memories, and grey areas they harbor. He had to go back – without giving up on his position as an adult, as a full-fledged artist – to the sources of his imagination, to the moment when music was holding almost mystical power. And then revisit it to make something new out of it. Just like Sanity, Madness & the Family (the feature film directed by Para One that he just finished and of which it is a consubstantial part), Machines of Loving Grace has an investigation around a family secret and the father figure as its starting point.

Dublin’s Woozy label premieres on wax with Radial, the debut EP from newcomer Coe. 3 dubstep-informed club weapons b/w a percussive rework from Or:la.The title track recalibrates mid-noughties FWD> pressure, suspending us in an E-licked smog before puncturing the rave-lry with thrusting bass stomps and fervorous IDM-adjacent drums for an electro-id crazed stomper. Say (KL Tribute) flexes Coe’s wub mechanics, presenting computerised sound chaos before dropping a half-step hungry wobble fest, mounting the pressure on the ‘floor to a near combustible, skanking peak.On the flip, 403 slightens the pace for a chugging techno/electro zinger with a faint dembow shell, sounding like the soundtrack to a sinister salsa dance. Or:la’s drum-tastic Radial rework sees us out, conducting an orchestra of percussive pistons akin to a ravey engine room for a mid-tempo grooving killer.