Dissensation – Benjamin Samuels

Sax-player, clarinettist and composer Benjamin Samuels has worked with everyone. The list of artists with whom he has collaborated is an eclectic mix, from world-beat connoisseurs to jazz-fusion virtuosos. More recently, however, he has shifted focus to personal projects, looking inwards for inspiration. “Dissensation”, Samuels’ solo debut album, is the result. The album is in many ways a reflection of his diverse musical experience. Over 10 tracks, we hear traces of everything from latin jazz, electronic music, nu-jazz to funk. In “New Trap (Hold My Shit)”, Samuels’ refusal to be bound by genre and style is on full display. The song, without sounding incongruent in the slightest, features both the warm sounds of horn-led cool jazz and the vocoder-heavy tones of contemporary R&B. Through “Dissensation”, Samuels weaves together the past and the present, taking old sounds to new places.

Our Roots Run Deep – Dominique Fils-Aimé

“Our Roots Run Deep”, Dominique Fils-Aimé’s fourth studio album, is sparse in both words and instrumentation. The nakedness of its sound, however, by no means takes away from its emotional weight and potency. Every word and note is placed with powerful intent—Fils-Aimé’s raw delivery sees that we feel the same pain, love, yearning and joy that she does. The album is a continuance of Fils-Aimé’s past projects exploring her African-American musical roots, drawing from a rich cultural lineage of Dixieland jazz, gospel, folk and African polyrhythms. These influences can be heard plainly on tracks like “Quiet Down The Voices” and “To Walk Away”. Through tender guitars, throbbing bass-lines and entrancing rhythms, Fils-Aimé’s bares her soul to us in a spiritual exploration of ancestry and self.