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Artist - Various
Title - Beats, Bites & Oxle Selected by Rainer Truby & Oxle
Label - (Sonar Kollektiv)
Released - 19.11.07
Posted 22.09.07
Following the success of Homecooking, Jazzanova have teamed up with Rainer Truby to share their love for the combined magic of wine, food and music with their new cookbook, Beats, Bites and Oxle. They have delivered a superb compilation dowsed in jazz and soul without a filler in sight.
The LP kicks off with the superb 'Claire' from Christian Prommer's Drumlesson LP. A lovely piece of future jazz dance with haunted chellos and the rich piano rises that fans of his Strings Of Life cover will adore.
Henrik Schwarz takes Slope's 'Keeping It Up' down a similar path whilst Desney Bailey pours her heartfelt and soulful felt vocals over the slo mo deep house groove.
Extended Spirit's 'Solid Water' gets the Truby Trio treatment. Gentle deep piano chords gels with the techy soundscape, then in comes a killer drum break and the track takes on a kazzy drum and bass influenced form - think Kruder & Dorfmiester.
Lifted from Clara Hill's Folkwaves 'Sideways' LP comes 'Everything'. Featuring Marc Mac, this has that grand 4 Hero feel and comes with the trade mark strings and oodles of soul - a future classic!
Norman Weeks & The Revelations drops 'I Just Wanna Sing For You' and we just have to get our groove on. More lovely jazz keys mingle with Norman's old school styled vocal and the female backing is great too. If you are feeling Amp Fiddler you need to buy this LP for this track alone.
Georg Levin takes us back to deeper 4/4 territory with 'Leisure Suit'. Great for warming the floor, this is an essential track for fans of Dixon et al.
If you missed it at release the brilliant 'Black Star' by Tokyo Black Star it is available here in it's full length version. Rich Medina's vocals have never been so touching and the instrumentation always reminds me of early Detroit records from Derrick May, Juan Atkins... Gem!
Nomumbah featuring the ever great Nadirah Shakoor offers up 'Like A Rainbow', and wow is it proper deep house builder. The flood gates of soul open after a top drum break, leaving us basking in a sunny groove that literally "let's the music fill you mind". This tune - released for the first time - is a beautiful, deep house cover version of a song by the fusion-jazz band Amanita that can be found on the Sonar Kollektiv Brazilian music compilation 'Paz e Futebol'.
1 Luv hooks up with Izabela on 'Neophillia' and the soundtrack is a beat laden nu jazz gem that has superb vocals and cool scat at the start. Think Silhouette Brown and you're in the right camp. Prolific deepness!
Isoul8 featuring Valerie Etienne bring 'Give It Up' and it is oozing with Stevie Wonder-esque soul. A little bit 80's in vibe but the aural palette tells me this is more recent than that. With subtle instrumentation, this builds and builds and grows on you with each play.
Next up Clara Hill meets Vikter Duplaix on a 'Paperchase'. It's all about the chunky drums and a deep pounding bassline on the track, and C & V bounce off each other very nicely. I can see the Southport Soul heads going nuts for this.
Jazzanova return to 'That Night' with Clara in tow and deliver a Live and very laidback and somber jazz version that really tugs on the heart strings. You know when you have listened to a song for years then one day here a different version and the vocals all of a sudden make total sense? Yeah? Well it' one of them! Recorded in the Sonar Kollektiv office to make it extra special.
Soulphiction get out their 'Love Thang' and snuggle up for a cozy bit of head nod action. A lovely blend of hip hop beats, soul, jazz and breathy vocals. The kind of thing that is most at home in a bar or in your lounge.
Eva Be featuring Pegah Ferydoni round the LP off in style with a beautiful acoustic come electronic folk number. Great vocals, really great, and the delivery makes the tale feel real. Taken from her recent album 'Moving Traveling' on Sonar Kollektiv's sub-label Best Seven, this reminds me of Sade singing over a Beth Orton instrumental. One of those that creeps up on you then smacks you round the head with it's brilliance!
The CD is accompanied by a very special book,
bound in linen, that includes 48 pages printed on high quality paper & beautifully illustrated by
Maria Tackmann.
Rainer Truby is a man of many passions and a fountain of musical knowledge. He has shared this knowledge with Jazzanova - from old jazz classics and house rarities to the newest music productions. He made a name for himself with many successful projects such as the
Abstract Jazz Journey mixes for the label King Street Sound, the sampler series
Glucklich on Compost, and, of course, with the famous band Truby Trio that he formed with his friends Christian Prommer and
Roland Appel. Not only did Rainer
Truby share his enthusiasm about music, he also passed on his other big passion to the Jazzanova team - a love for good wine. In 2004 he started to organize the famous Beats and
Oxle exhibitions in Freiburg at the Waldsee Inn. Every new exhibition is an occasion for him to share his love for wine in a nice musical atmosphere, and to present the best bottles that the wineries of his region can offer.
The question of "which wine for which dish" became a hot topic of conversation between Rainer and Jazzanova. Instinctively he got himself involved in the making of Homecooking last year with his personal wine tips for the first cookbook from Sonar Kollektiv. This year they've imagined and created a new book called Beats, Bites and
Oxle, where the flavour of a delicious dish meets that of a gorgeous glass of wine. They've selected 6 vineyards from the region of Baden-Wurttemberg in the Southwest of Germany. In the book, each winemaker presents his vineyard with 2 of his favourite recipes, as well as the bottle of wine that accompanies this moment of gustative pleasure.
With Beats, Bites and Oxle, Sonar Kollektiv multiply the pleasures once again - so lay the table and leave the rest to your hosts Jazzanova and Rainer
Truby.
Rating - 10/10
Reviewer - PT
