Article
Lucy

Albums
Alphabets Heaven
AREA C
Aidan Baker
Black Devil Disco Club
Cluster
Dakota Suite & Errante
Davis & Machinefabriek
Deaf Center
Fancy Mike
FM3
Forest Swords
Frivolous
Hakobune
Kyo Ichinose
Juv
Deniz Kurtel
Sven Laux
Lucy
Stephan Mathieu
Joel Mull
Near The Parenthesis
Netherworld
nunu
Fabio Orsi
Penalune
Pleq
port-royal
Rainbow Arabia
Todd Reynolds
Roedelius
Rosenqvist and Scott
Steffi
Sublamp
SubtractiveLAD
Tapage

Compilations
Back and 4th
Future Disco Volume 4
SMM: Context
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo

EPs
Aardvarck & Kubus
Corrugated Tunnel
Debilos
Djamel
Tolga Fidan
Flowers and Sea Creatures
Anne Garner
Mike Jedlicka / Cloudburst
Mo 2 Meaux-2
Proximity One: Remixes
Darren Rice
Sepalcure
Sharma + Krause
Josh T
Talvihorros
Francesco Tristano
Widesky
Dez Williams

Alphabets Heaven: Jay's Odyssey
King Deluxe

On his premiere Alphabets Heaven release, Jay's Odyssey, London, England-based Jonny Wildey serves up thirty-two minutes of brain-addling stutter-funk that'll have you cranking up the system, easing back, and soaking up the serenading tunes. Wildey's boombastic head-nod has its ears close to the ground, as it picks up signals from innovative beat-makers on both sides of the Atlantic. Listening to Alphabets Heaven's tripped-out brew, names like Flying Lotus, Teebs, and Eskmo come to mind, but there are nevertheless hints of a personalized vision in play, even if parallels can be drawn to like-minded producers in this post-Dilla era.

“Blue Garden” gets things started promisingly with a dizzying swirl of harp strums, skeletal bass throb, and synthesizer squeals gradually giving way to legato electric guitar strums and wiry beats. With a vocal borrowed from Alessi's Ark album Notes from the Treehouse (Virgin, 2009), “Woman” can't help but call Flying Lotus to mind, given the way the vocal snakes its way through a stuttering playground of harps and hazy beats. “Walk On” likewise finds snippets of female vocalists straddling the edges of a neon-lit, clip-hop pulse, while “Devil,” driven by a broken beat pulse, wends a funkier route through its flickering landscape of vocal fragments and synth flares. Wildey even takes a few moments to dip into drum'n'bass during “All Night” though the tune rarely stays in place long enough to be reduced to a simple genre exercise. The closing track “Elizabeth” (featuring Jo D's soulful murmur) suggests Wildey's music works best when he settles into a particular groove and allows the material to develop organically out of it. The mini-album's fresh cuts roll through slow-motion head nod (“Squuaares”) and tripped-out boom-bap (“Frank”), splattering its stop-start rhythms with vocal fragments and sub-bass thunder along the way. Jay's Odyssey certainly sounds like a promising debut to these ears, and one expects that next time ‘round Wildey's sound will be even more fully-formed than it is here.

March 2011