New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Shares a Swaggering Banger

Throughout this site’s 13-year history, there have only been a handful of mainstay artists I’ve written about more than the wildly prolific, French electronic music producer LutchamaK.  The French producer and JOVM mainstay continued his well-earned reputation for being prolific: Earlier this year, he released the five-track EP Zirconium, which featured material that oscillated between different modes and genres, including tech house, breakbeats and more.

The JOVM mainstay’s latest EP, the recently released seven-song Let The Drums Go sees the French producer crafting material that meshes elements of tech house, breakbeats and electro pop among others. The EP’s latest single “Funk U Want” is a fun, swaggering banger that pairs old school house with contemporary production and an infectious hook that recalls Out of the Black-era Boys Noize.

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Summer Festival season is coming, y’all! And that means festival announcements. So let’s get to it, right? 

Newport Jazz Festival will be returning to Rhode Island’s Fort Adams State Park for its 69th edition. This year’s edition will continue the festival’s long-held tradition of hosting once in a lifetime performances that can only come as a result of Newport’s unique alchemy of intimacy and artistic community. 

The 69th Edition will take place August 4, 2023 – August 6, 2023 and will feature an eclectic and acclaimed lineup of artists including the legendary Herbie HancockDiana KrallCharles LloydVijay IyerJon Batiste, and Kamasi Washington, as well as a collection of Grammy-nominated and-winning artists including Samara JoyDOMi and JD Beck. The lineup also includes Big FreediaThundercatDJ Pee .Wee (a.k.a. Anderson .Paak), Big Gigantic, Alfa MistCautious ClayDurand Jones, and The War and Treaty

It’s an annual tradition for the festival to host special ensembles. And this year’s festival will include Newport Jazz artistic director Christian McBride’s annual Jam Dawn, MoodSwing, Scary Goldings featuring John ScofieldSuperblueOrrin Evans Quintet and the Bill Charlap Trio

With Memorial Day Weekend right around the corner, Newport Jazz Festival organizers announced some exciting new additions to the lineup that include JOVM mainstays The Soul Rebels featuring Rakim and Talib Kweli, Adi Oasis, Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood, Claudia Acuña, and more. A full list of the complete lineup is below.

3-day, 2-day and single-day tickets, as well as 3-day, 2-day and single-day parking passes are currently available through DICE. Full pricing is listed below. Children under 10 are free with a maximum of 2 children attending per ticketed adult. Children 10 and over will need to purchase a full priced admission ticket. For more information go to https://dice.fm/promoters/3gng

TICKET PRICING

3-Day Full Price General Admission: $281.19 (includes fees)

2-Day Saturday & Sunday General Admission: $193.64 (includes fees)

Single-Day General Admission: $100.94 (includes fees)

3-Day Parking: $69.01 (includes fees)

2-Day Parking: $46.35 (includes fees)

Single-Day Parking: $25.75 (includes fees)

NEWPORT JAZZ 2023 LINEUP

Friday

Joe Russo’s Almost Dead with Kamasi Washington

Kamasi Washington 

DJ Pee .Wee (Anderson .Paak)

Soulive  

DOMi & JD Beck

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet 

Big Freedia 

Alfa Mist 

Butcher Brown 

Endea Owens & The Cookout 

Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix 

Julius Rodriguez 

Saturday 

Jon Batiste 

Thundercat 

Big Gigantic Does Jazz 

Christian McBride’s Jam Jawn 

Charles Lloyd New Quartet 

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily 

Julian Lage

Superblue: Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter with Nate Smith & Huntertones Horns 

Orrin Evans Quintet

The War and Treaty 

Keyon Harrold 

James Brandon Lewis 

Sunday 

Herbie Hancock 

Diana Krall 

Samara Joy 

Redman, Mehldau, McBride, Blade: A Moodswing Reunion 

Scary Goldings featuring John Scofield 

Cimafunk

Cautious Clay 

Somi 

Pedrito Martinez 

Bill Charlap Trio

Charles McPherson Quintet

NEW ADDITIONS

The Soul Rebels featuring Rakim & Talib Kweli

Marcus Miller

Dave Holland New Quartet

Adi Oasis

Derrick Hodge

Armstrong Now: Louis at Newport

Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood

Bobby Watson All-Star Quintet

Jennifer Hartswick & Nick Cassarino Duo

Claudia Acuna

Melvis Santa & Jazz Orishas

Lauren Sevian’s LSQ

Camille Thurman with The Darrell Green Quartet

Matthew Whitaker

Ticket information is available here.

New Video: Divide and Dissolve Share Yearning “Indignation”

Melbourne-based duo Divide and Dissolve — Takiaya Reed (sax, guitar) and Sylvie Nehill (drums) — have long been focused on Indigenous sovereignty: Reed is Tsalagi (Cherokee) and Black, Nehill is Māori. As a duo, they released two albums 2017’s Basic and 2018’s Abomination through DERO Arcade before signing with Invada, who released their widely acclaimed third album, 2021’s Gas LitGas Lit Remix EP was also released in 2021 and featured reworkings and remixes of Gas Lit material by Moor MotherChelsea Wolfe and Bearcat

Last year, the duo toured across North America and Europe, opening for Low, which included a stop at Webster Hall, as well as headline dates and festival appearances. 

The acclaimed Aussie outfit’s fourth album, the Ruban Neilson-produced Systemic is slated for a June 30, 2023 release through Invada. Thematically, the album sees the duo exploring the systems that intrinsically bind us — and calls for a system that facilitates life for everyone. It’s a message that fits firmly with the band’s core intentions: to make music that honors their ancestors and Indigenous lands, to oppose white supremacy, and to work towards a future of Black and Indigenous liberation. “This music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence,”  Divide and Dissolve’s Takaiya Reed explains in press notes. “The goal of the colonial project is to separate Indigenous people from their culture, their life force, their community and their traditions. The album is in direct opposition to this.”

Recorded as a duo, the album according to Reed is a continuation of Gas Lit. “Because of what was built with Gas LitSystemic is able to express itself.” She adds, “The album is a prayer to our ancestors. A prayer for land to be given back to Indigenous people, and for future generations to be free from this cycle of violence.” 

Reed emphasizes that it’s crucial for their music to be instrumental. “I believe in the power of non-verbal communication,” she continues, “A huge percent of communication is non-verbal. We learn so much without using words.”  There’s one exception on the album, the spoken word track “Kingdom of Fear,” which features writer and artist Minori Sanchiz-Fung, who contributed to previous Divide and Dissolve albums. 

Last month, I wrote about “Blood Quantum,” a composition built around a dissonant and insistent thumping of crashing cymbals, thunderous snare, Melvins-like guitar sludge, wavering synths and horns paired with mournful yet gorgeously orchestrated passages meant to evoke brief moments of respite. The song is rooted in — and expresses awe-inspiring beauty and heart-wrenching anguish of human existence. “The heaviness is really important,” Reed says. “It’s congruent with the message of the music, and the heaviness feels emblematic of this world’s situation.”

“Indignation,” Systemic‘s latest single begins with a gorgeous introduction featuring looping and mournful saxophone and yearning strings that quickly morphs into the song’s second and longest section, a stormy and forceful dirge featuring power chord-driven guitar sludge, thunderous drumming and wailing strings, before ending with the mournful saxophone and yearning strings of its introduction. Divide and Dissolve’s Reed says that the song “is a prayer that land be given back to Indigenous people. A hope that future generations no longer experience the atrocities and fervent violence that colonisation continues to bring forth.”

The accompanying video continues the acclaimed Aussie outfit’s ongoing collaboration with director Sepi Mashiahof. “In reflecting on the powerful and vital messaging found in Divide and Dissolve’s music: decolonization, the destruction of white supremacy, and liberation from oppressive structures—this video is about the collective grief we experience about the lives we all could have were it not for the cruel and arbitrary systems of power that impede each and every one of our potentials,” Mashiahof explains. “The potential to truly love ourselves and each other is distorted by the agendas of vicious capitalist vultures who seek to emaciate our joys, bonds, and communities for their own gain. This video depicts an abstracted portrait of what suffering under these accelerating conditions feels like. Technology, dysphoria, dream-form sentience, transaction, and depersonalization constitute the thematic palette, laid upon the hope of shedding our current forms and transcending into boundless, beautiful ether.”