Category: jazz

Throwback: Happy 92nd Birthday, Lou Rawls!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 92ned anniversary of the birth of the legendary Lou Rawls.

New Audio: Copenhagen’s Smag På Dig Selv Shares Pulsing, Dance Floor Friendly “Let’s Go!”

With the release of last year’s full-length debut, SDPS, Copenhagen-based jazz punks Smag På Dig Selv (SPDS) — Oliver Lauridsen (tenor sax), Thorbjørn Øllgaard (baritone sax, bass sax, vocals) and Albert Holberg (drums) — firmly cemented the trio’s reputation as one of most boundary pushing groups out on the contemporary Danish scene. With a sound that’s an explosive, party starting mixture of acoustic techno, punk energy, jazz and 90s EDM, the Danish trio have begun to make the round of the international festival and touring circuit, playing sets at Roskilde Festival, SXSW, The Great Escape, Eurosonic, Winter Jazzfest NYC and Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage.

SPDS’s highly-anticipated sophomore album is slated for a March 2026 through Stunt Records. The album’s second and latest single, the TMI Tammi-produced “Let’s Go!” The track is a mix of sneering, in-your-face punk attitude, ambient electronics, pulsing beats, thunderous Viking drumming and modal-influenced jazz that’s mind-bending, mischievously unhinged yet accessible and dance floor friendly.

“Let’s Go!” was composed last October. The band retreated to Albert Holberg’s 200 year-old summer cottage in the idyllic landscapes of North Zealand for a weeklong writing session. Originally, the plan was to create techno, but the autumnal, Bon Iver-like atmosphere shifted the overall mood. Instead, the trio leaned into simply being a band, playing together n silence and letting the music speak. And what would up emerging was a compromise between their initial intentions and a newfound urge to explore the idea of “ambient Viking band” — brought to life with TMI Carmen’s swaggering, maximalist production.

New Audio: Jerk Shares Slinky, Chilled-Out “stealthy, she moves!”

Prolific Brooklyn-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Kinney is the creative mastermind behind Jerk. And with Jerk, Kinney has released five albums and several EPs that has seen him craft a sound that draws from J. Dilla, Madlib, Patrice Rushen, Earth, Wind & Fire, Louis Cole, Knower, and Roller Trio. Never content with just music as a creative output, Kinney is also an avid writer and video essayist.

Kinney will be releasing the first part of a two EP narrative cycle, continuing the rollout of as night falls. Slated for a November 14, 2025 release through DeepMatter Records, the two EP cycle reportedly sees Kinney pushing his solo project’s sound into new territories, taking listeners on a journey through a single night while exploring the darker side of human nature through a fusion of electronic influences, midnight funk and forward-thinking jazz.

Created with long-time friend and collaborator Martine Wade (drums), the EP is the follow-up to last year’s Mood Swings, which received airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Huey Morgan and Jazz FM’s Tony Minvielle.

The EP’s latest single, the Wyatt Rydleweski (bass) co-written “stealthy, she moves!,” is a slinky bit of chilled-out and groovy, 70s jazz-fusion-inspired funk jazz that — to my ears, at least — manages to recall JOVM mainstays Mildlife and Confusions-era L’Eclair, but with an earthier, grittier quality. “In our journey through the night, this is the soundtrack to those that must move without trace,” Kinney says of the new single.