Aketi Ray - From Ever Since (F-Ire Records)

Band leader, melodica player and percussionist Mikolaj 'Mikus' Gorecki summarizes the project as follows: "I was listening to a lot of digital dub tunes, and much as I love that sound, I felt there was a lack of dubwise music getting made that had that live instrumentation feel of the 60s and 70s. At the same time I didn't want to just rehash the past - the best you can do is come close to replicating that sound, you definitely won't beat it - so I wanted to try something different, and bring in other connected jazz and African influences to the mix and try to take the music somewhere new. Sometimes when people fuse different music traditions it can sound a bit like a collage, the elements are all there, but they don't actually fuse together. I think we have our own sound, and it's greater than the sum of its parts.". Even though 'From Ever Since is an entirely instrumental album, Mikus still puts there's a message to the songs: "The music definitely has a message. For each track we had a very clear subject in mind when writing it, but it's down to the listener to tune in to that and take from it what they want. Sometimes you can say more with the abstract language of music than you can in words.". Our personal recommendations: the New Orleans jazz flavor of 'They Don't Care', 'Call On His Name', driven by Kevin Robinson's flute melody, 'Sinai', similar but this time with Mikus' melodica in the leading role, the Ethio-jazz influenced 'Temple Ball', and the delicious soul jazz-like closing track 'Heartease'. Dub with a difference!