The Very Good Agency

How open is your soul?

It’s not always easy to be a funk/soul band in New Zealand, if you can’t get your songs onto the filthy commercial stations, you are likely be ignored by the mainstream. Then you either have to slum it playing as a backing band on a kids TV show, or alternatively do the hard yards touring to build up a fan base the old fashioned way. Many artists have to go overseas to be taken seriously at home. Some of the true pioneers and innovators make it through either by sheer luck or through dogged determination, but many others are never fully recognised for their musical talents. Hopefully NZ collective Opensouls is a band that can reach their full musical potential and get the recognition they deserve both domestically and internationally. As the band bio on their website states: “Opensouls have been steadily rising through the ranks of the New Zealand music scene since beginning their musical journey in 2001. Comprised of 2 vocalists, M.C. Bjorn and singer Tyra Hammond, and a live band including Jeremey Toy a.k.a Ota (guitar/MPC), Julien Dyne (drums), Chip Mathews (bass), Stephine Brown (keys), Scott Towers (saxophone), Issac Aesili (trumpet/vocals) and Harlin Davey a.k.a Buttafingers (turntables/mpc), the collective possesses an abundance of musical flair and experience which they have used to great effect on their critically acclaimed debut album.”

Opensouls
Rise Up

With that many members in the crew OpenSouls should once again be in the running for “New Zealand’s Most Populated Band ” award with the only real competition coming from Solaa , but as some of the artists are in both outfits (e.g the mulit-talented Isaac Aesili), special judicial deliberation may be necessary. All jokes aside though these guys are straight up musical bliss, and should appeal to fans of funk, soul and basically groovy as shit! Their song “Turn It Up” has been doing the rounds on NZ student radio for some time now, helping to spread the love and build a following for this original kiwi group. Also well worth checking out, their track “Rise Up”… If you haven’t heard them yet, you best check them out. Then go buy their album “Kaleidoscope”, sweet sounds with lyrics you can relate to.

You can check out more from Opensouls at:

www.opensouls.co.nz

www.myspace.com/opensoulsspace

…Yossarian

Tags: Funk, hip hop, Jazz, New Zealand Artists

Pataphysics

With few Australian artists entering the scene in underground hip hop as of late (at least of any quality), it’s all good when you happen to come across a group as interesting and talented as Pataphysics. Based in Melbourne, Patrick Marks, a.k.a. Brother Pat, The Brown Militant, Pat Malone is self described as an “Australian/Sri Lankan(Tamil/Singhalese). MC/Trumpet player, rhythmic soundshapa, revolutionary poet, multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, arranger, teacher” – and I’m glad that he has put this together as it would be hard to describe what you experience when you are lucky enough to stumble across he, and his collective of musicians that are Pataphysics.

Finding a vocalist who can sound this good while delivering his own unique conscious thoughts is rare which was made pretty obvious by the crowds acceptance and involvement in the performance.

All too often when you are lucky enough to find a vocalist compelling, you find the musicians and P.A. aren’t up to the challenge… in this case, the P.A. was the only thing lacking with an incredible group of musicians in support. Pataphysics Avanipaala as a collective, deal with issues from local/international politics, Indigenous resistance, dreaming, eastern philosophy, life, existence and even spirituality, and the live show draws on elements of Sri Lankan Culture that bring a certain energy.

While The group are ever-changing they are currently based around the present line up of Rhymes, Beats, Percussion, Double Bass, Flute, and Guitar (with what I think was an electronic tabla) plus guest vocalists and a host of other friends from the Melbourne music community. The performance is captivating in a way that is not often seen live, on this particular night especially with a puppet show, random soliloquys, and freestyles incorporating all sorts of funky props. Tie these all in together and you have a truly enjoyable evening of awakening music, tie these all in together and you have… Pataphysics

You can check out more of Pataphysics at:

www.myspace.com/brotherpataphysics

www.pataphysics.com.au

be sure to check him out during his residency at ‘The Evelyn’ in Melbourne, Australia in September…

Tags: Australian Artists, Funk, hip hop, Jazz

Pete Philly and Perquisite release Mystery Repeats video

Pete Philly and Perquisite this week released the new video for their second albums title track ‘Mystery Repeats’. The video was directed by Amsterdam creative duo KGB and features dutch hiphopacts La Melodia, Blaxtar, Spacekees and Cmon & Kypski. Enjoy!

Tags: hip hop, Jazz, Music video

Amsterdams newest addiction

With the amount of projects, tours and festivals Pete Philly and Perquisite have been bumpin’ lately, it’s no wonder they are the new drug of choice in the pleasure capital of the world. Their new single which they named their second album after “Mystery Repeats”, was released in Europe this month including a remix by Tony Shift and 4 exclusive live theatre versions (You can download the single on iTunes). ‘Mystery Repeats’, the album, has been nominated in Pete and Perqusites home country, The Netherlands, for the ‘3voor12 Award’! The award, which will be given out by ‘3voor12’ on September 4th, goes out every year to the best album of that year, according to the voters on the 3voor12 website, fans can vote for them at: www.3voor12.nl!

In 2008 for the 3rd year in a row, Pete Philly and Perquisite have been selected to play at their favourite festival ‘Lowlands’. As well as this they are one of 3 of this year’s winners of the dutch award “Amsterdamprijs’!”. The other two winners are architect Marlies Rohmer and video artist Julika Rudelius. The award, which is the most important art award of the city, goes out every year to those artists who contributed in a special way to the arts and to putting Amsterdam on the map. It’s the first time that a hip hop group receives the award which, besides the honour, consists of a very nice sum of money.

Somehow in amongst all of these projects Pete Philly and Perquisite have just recently returned from Japan playing concerts as well as filming the video clip for recently released single ‘Empire’.

Pete Philly and Perquisite – Empire

The next year doesn’t seem to be looking much different for two of the worlds hardest working musicians playing at Mundial (Netherlands), Summerjam (Germany), Splash (Germany), Exit (Serbia), North Sea Jazz (Netherlands), Gurten (Germany), Nuke (Austria), HipHop Open (Germany), Open Air Lumnezia (Switzerland) and Sziget (Hungary) just to name a few.  In February, finally, they come over to tour Australia and New Zealand, brought to you by none other then The Very Good Agency. There’s some interesting collaborations the guys are working on with artists from Australasia too, so all you Aussie’s and kiwi’s who are fans… your in for some awesome crossovers with artists we’ve grown up listening, only with a funky hip hop and jazz twist.

you can, and definitely should, check out more of Pete Philly and Perquisite at:

www.petephillyandperquisite.com

www.myspace.com/petephillyandperquisite

Tags: hip hop, Jazz, Music video

Revive Da Live Crew – Jazz + Hip Hop

Infamous rapper, singer, actor, and rights activist Mos Def played Carnegie Hall last Saturday with his very own big band. www.okayplayer.com reported the highlight of the night however, to be an afterparty he played with Robert Glasper Experiment. Being involved with so many projects over his already accomplished career, it is wonder how he continually re-invents himself in various experimental art forms, yet always maintains such a high standard of performance.

Mos Def with Chris Dave & Robert Glasper – Thieves In The Night

This pairing of hip hop and jazz musicians was organised by Revive Da Live crew! who often pair the styles for intimate tours and track collaborations. Previously they have been responsible for pairing Guru with Grammy award winning trumpet player Roy Hargrove, and work with a range of jazz musicians, groups, poets and old school rappers including Q-tip

Guru and Roy Hargrove

With artists like this on their roster, Revive Da Live Crew are going to be well worth keeping an eye on, and Very Good will be sure to announce any projects that they bring to Australia.

You can check out what Revive Da Live are up to at:

www.myspace.com/revivedalive

…bs

Tags: Collaborations, hip hop, Jazz