more from
Brownswood Recordings
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Black Focus

by Yussef Kamaal

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £9 GBP  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Black Focus via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £11 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Black Focus via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £20 GBP or more 

     

1.
Black Focus 04:34
2.
3.
Remembrance 09:00
4.
Yo Chavez 03:59
5.
Ayla 00:46
6.
O.G. 00:46
7.
Lowrider 04:28
8.
9.
10.
Joint 17 08:19

about

The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London.

Taking inspiration from the anything-goes spirit of ‘70s jazz-funk, on albums by Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, it’s a loose template with plenty of room to experiment. The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training. Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.

“It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage

Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”

Both hail from South East London, crossing paths in 2007 as teenagers playing their first pub gigs around Peckham and Camberwell. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section.

credits

released November 4, 2016

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Yussef Kamaal London, UK

contact / help

Contact Yussef Kamaal

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Yussef Kamaal, you may also like: