French musical collective Monsieur MÂLÂ — Balthazar Naturel (sax), Robin Antunes (violin/mandolin), Nicholas Vella (keys), Swaéli Mbappé (bass) and Mathieu Edward (drums) —features musicians, who have played with a who’s who list of internationally acclaimed artists including De La Soul, Mayra Andrade, CHASSOL, Ibrahim Maalouf, China Moses and a lengthy list of others.
Last year, the act released their tropical and summery debut single “Misemo,” a genre-blurring composition centered around a sinuous bass line, soulful horns, twinkling strings and stuttering polyrhythm within an expansive composition. And as the band explained, their debut single encouraged the listener, whoever they may be, that sometimes you just need to dance, and it all go for a little while, at least.
Since then, the act has released a handful singles including “Lunitudine,” “Cor Anglais in E Minor (Op. 3)” that have received attention and airplay from Jazz FM, WorldWide FM, Music is My Sanctuary, Soho Radio, TSF and Le GriGri Radio. Building upon a growing profile, the French collective’s latest single “Koss 5” further establishes their genre blurring sound and approach. Centered around plucked strings, twinkling and arpeggiated keys, skittering drums, the slinky and expansive “Koss 5” features elements of funk, jazz fusion with some Makosa rhythms. As the collective explains the composition is an emotional tribute to Manu Dibango, who some of the band members have played with in the past.
Directed by Stan Amsellem, the recently released video for “Koss 5” features a collection of actors of various age groups playing as the members of the band as kids, as adults and as older adults. In some way, the visual plays to the power of music and creativity, suggesting that as long as one is creative, they’re forever young.