The Very Good Agency

Departure Lounge In Session

If you’re a regular reader of this site or just had a flick back through some of our old posts, you may have noticed a bit of info on our very good friend (see ‘Artists‘ link above) O.G (A.K.A Oakley Grenell).  A man with many musical/creative talents that always seems to have a few different projects on the go. Recently one of his bands Departure Lounge (a mix of Christchurch musical ‘Allstars’) released  their second album “In Session” and have been doing some touring in New Zealand to celebrate.  So to keep our readers in the loop I thought I’d add this info from a recent press release:

“They are some of Christchurch’s top players, featuring six musicians with a reputation for excellence in search of the good groove.

Departure Lounge will release their second album In Session on November 3, serving up ten crisp musical biscuits of psychedelic groove. “In Session” captures Departure Lounge‘s solid reputation for soulful, mood-swinging melodies and a dynamic live performance that is a must-see for fans of progressive music.

It was, after all, a celebrated live performance that initiated the journey of Departure Lounge when Grenell collected some of Christchurch’s best jazz musicians for the 2005 Christchurch International Jazz Festival – a performance that was so electrifying that the recording was released as their first album a year later, Departure Lounge – Live.

The line-up is led by Grenell on guitar, who released his solo album Moving On in 2008 to critical success, and features drummer Nick Gaffaney (Cairo Knife Fight, Golden Horse), bassist Johnny Lawrence (Solaa), Cameron Pearce on trumpet (head of Chch Jazz School), saxophonist Chris Burke, pianist Darren Pickering, and the percussion duo of Sum Suraweera and Kurt  Dyer (Solaa).

Joining the band as guests on the album are vocalists Mara TK (Electric Wire Hustle), soul star in-the-making Mark Vanilau, and new recruit Roslen Langton (LA Mitchell). In Session was mixed by electronica pioneer The Nomad at his Fresh Produce studio in Melbourne, mastered by Grammy winner George Lambert of Massive Masters in the UK, and will be distributed by Border music in NZ. This will be Grenells seventh album released on his independent record label Central Records based in Christchurch.

It all adds up to an album with a damn-good groove from this exceptionally talented group of musicians!

Clip of Oakley playing Live on RDU:

…Yossarian

Tags: Funk, Jazz, lounge, New Zealand Artists, Soul

3 months, 3 Very Good Australian tours.

Very Good things are happening now that the spring has arrived and everyone’s coming back out to play… 3 tours coming up over the next 3 months are definitely going to make for some great nights out, first up in November it’s Batucada Sound Machine visiting from New Zealand to drop their massive 13ish piece bands sound on your doorstep if your in Sydney, Melbourne, or Robe. BSM are partnering up with some other great live acts along the way, making for some pretty sweet lineups including King Tide,  LABJACD, Pataphysics, and heaps of wicked local and international artists at Melbournes AWME and Robe Festival, (dates and ticket info  at the end of article)

Dec 3rd will see the first friendly battle of Olmecha Supreme VS Pataphysics at Canberras ANU Bar. The tour will hit most cities in Australia before Olmecha Supreme carries on to play the Woodford Folk Festival Dec 30th. These two 5 piece multi genre heavyweights go head to head, as well as being joined along the way by some special appearances including Laneous and The Family Yah, Budspells, DJ JC and DJ Mike Who among others. You can get a feel for what will be going down from

Olmecha Supremes awesome live performance at the De La Soul Concert in Wellington.

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As if this wasn’t enough, just confirmed in Sydneys world famous live venue The Basement, a performance from New Zealand’s incredible neo soul duo Oakley Grenell and Mark Vanilau. Stepping aside from their hectic solo and group projects, the duo will start in Sydney on January 14th and work their way around the east coast from there. This will be the first time that the duo have toured Australia together and with them will travel some of Australias finer jazz musicians and special guests.

Oakley Grenell and Mark Vanilau – Moving on live at Red Bull Studio New Zealand

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Batucada Sound Machine plays:

Gaelic Club, Sydney – with King Tide Nov 19th – Get your tickets From Moshtix

AWME Black Box Melbourne Nov 20th – Get your tickets to AWME

Ruby’s Lounge, Belgrave Nov 21st with Pataphysics – Get your tickets From Moshtix

East Brunswick Club Melbourne with LABJACD & Pataphysics Nov 26th- Get your tickets here

Robe Village Fair Robe Nov 27th and 28th – Get your tickets here

Olmecha Supreme VS Pataphysics plays:

ANU Bar Canberra – Dec 3rd, Beach Rd Bondi – Dec 4th, Gaelic Club Sydney – Dec 5th, The National Hotel Geelong – Dec 11th, First Floor Melbourne – Dec 12th, Hotel Great Northern Byron Bay – Dec 17th, Cooly Hotel Gold Coast – Dec 18th, Hi Fi Bar Brisbane – Dec 20th.

You can check out more from the artists in their artist profiles or at:

www.myspace.com/olmechasupreme Olmecha Supreme

www.myspace.com/brotherpataphysics Pataphysics

www.myspace.com/batucadasoundmachine Batucada Sound Machine

www.myspace.com/kingtidesydney

www.myspace.com/labjacd

Tags: Australian Artists, Blues, Collaborations, Funk, gigs, hip hop, Jazz, New Zealand Artists, Soul

Erik Truffaz Quartet with NYA – The musical background is perfect to have sex on it………no?

…………………..Every now and then… not so often… but just every now and then I hear something cool. Something so cool, that I stop whatever I’m doing and check it out. Being fortunate enough to be surrounded by music, musicians, and artists of all types on a daily basis, I begin to develop a shell that makes it hard for another song to break it. The Erik Truffaz Quartet with NYA is the newest group to smash that shell, and for the last 8 minutes… absolutely no work has been done

Erik Truffaz with NYA – Sigfried

Born in 1960 in Switzerland, Erik Truffaz is a contemporary Jazz trumpeter who combines elements of hip hop, rock, and dance and occasionally partners up with some talented vocalists in order to create his own eclectic mix of down beats & dance music. Writing several albums on Blue Note,  The latest Truffaz release ‘Arkhangelsk’ is a mixture between pop songs, french songs, and jazz grooves like the one seen above in the video that stole 8 minutes from me.

A smoothness that’s hard to put into words, however the quasi-english chat that you’ll find on the youtube clip for ‘Sigfried’ made me laugh with the question “The musical background is perfect to have sex on it……… no?” and answered “It depends on the sex partner, but it certainly is an excellent song”.

Nice one Europe

Erik Truffaz with NYA – Yuri’s Choice

…bs

Tags: breakbeats, hip hop, Jazz

Over – Pataphysics featuring Vida-Sunshyne

Following  the first single from Pataphysics new album “The Ology Unknown” ‘Cloaked Guerilla’, the second single ‘Over’  featuring Vida-Sunshyne has just been released along with this great film made by eep! productions.

Check it out!

Pataphysics – Over (feat. Vida-Sunshyne) from eep! productions on Vimeo.

Many thanks to eep! productions, and all others involved in the creation of this clip.

enjoy.

…bs

Tags: hip hop, Jazz, lounge, Music video

Pete Philly and Perquisite update

Yes yes y’all, it’s been too long since we’ve last hit you up. We wanted to send you this earlier but in light of our hero passing away last month we did some proper soul searching and MJ listening sessions first.
So here goes:

Stuff we’ve been doing:

– We’ve played at a couple of European festivals last month. We were at ‘Flow.Er’ in Catania, Sicily on June 27th. Next came ‘Rheinkultur’, Germany’s biggest free open air festival, which was great. Check out the short video on our website. The week after we’ve played at ‘Frauenfeld Open Air’ in Switzerland alongside The Game, 50 cent, Gentleman, N.E.R.D, Sammy Deluxe and many others.

– Perq has been composing the score for Dutch movie “Carmen van het Noorden” which will see it’s theatrical release this autumn. The movie which features Tygo Gernandt and Sanguita Akkrum in the lead rolls will have it’s premiere on September 24th at the Dutch Film Festival. The soundtrack, which will entirely be produced by Perquisite, features the cream of the crop of Dutch hip hop including GMB, Typhoon, Sticks, Jiggy Djé, Turk and Duvel and will be released the same day through ‘Unexpected Records’. For more news on this check out www.myspace.com/perquisite.

– Pete produced the remix for and featured on Jiggy Djé’s song “Ik heb je”. A video has been shot last week to accompany the single. Check out the song over here.

– Pete also featured on Candy Dulfer’s new album “My Funk” and The Kindred Spirits Ensemble’s song “Shining Liberation feat. Pete Philly”.

– Perq has made remixes for De Staat, Voicst and Kim Hoorweg. Check them out by clicking on the links:

De Staat – Wait For Evolution (Perquisite remix) (free download)

Voicst – A Year and a Bit (Perquisite remix)

Kim Hoorweg – The Moment I Open My Eyes (Perquisite remix)

– Pete has been playing the lead in the play “Man From Nowhere” and is currently writing new songs. Follow him on twitter to know what’s up:  www.twitter.com/petephilly

– Perq has won the prestigious ‘Duiveltje’ award for best producer of The Netherlands.

Pete Philly and Perquisite – Empire

Stuff we’re gonna do:

– After this summer, we’ll be doing our last tour for an undefined period, which we’ve called the ‘Final Celebration Tour’. It’ll be a reprise of the theater tour that we tried out last year. In this tour we will present our material in the most musical and intimate way possible. We’ve enlarged our live-formation to 13 people including a horn section, a drummer and a string quartet and we will play songs that we usually don’t perfrom in our normal live setup, like ‘Believer’, ‘Amazed’, ‘Mellow’ and ‘Grateful’. This tour will be a celebration of all that we, as a group, have accomplished in the last 5 years. Check our website for the dates. Don’t miss out on this one!

And an announcement:

– After 3 years of touring with us, a couple of months ago our saxophone player Remco Keijzer has decided to leave our live formation to pursue his other musical ambitions and move to Australia. We’ve enjoyed playing with Remco a lot and wish him lot’s of luck with his solo career! Keep an eye out for Remco‘s quintet! At the same time we welcome Floris van der Vlugt as our new saxophone player. Check out his website right here.

Stay blessed and stay safe,
… Pete & Perq

Tags: hip hop, Jazz, Soul, World Music