East Side Radio Album of the Week Presents
The Shores of Infinity – Menagerie (AUS)
Australian 9-piece Spiritual Jazz group Menagerie announce their highly anticipated fourth album The Shores Of Infinity – representing the 3rd LP to be released by Freestyle Records from the Melbourne-based Jazz ensemble, founded by producer, songwriter, guitarist, DJ and recording artist Lance Ferguson (The Bamboos, Lanu, Rare Groove Spectrum, Machines Always Win). Menagerie have taken a refined approach to the spiritual jazz movement born out of the 1970’s – replacing beatless freakouts with cool broken beat jazz grooves with patient hard bop melodies with whispers of streaming consciousness vocalised with subtlety rather than agenda.
Bewitched – Laufey (ICELAND)
The ascending star of Icelandic music, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Laufey is straight out of a twinkling Nordic fairytale. And the spell she casts is one spun from jazz and classical-inspired, heartrending songs has her riding on a shooting star. This week, she releases her sophomore album Bewitched. Inspiration appears bountiful in the realm of love for Laufey – her ability is steeped in years of discipline, building a foundation and stamina for big band standards and string sonatas. Classically trained in piano and cello, yet not shy to take the stage with a Gibson ES-335, it is rare that a level of skill such as this is matched with such creative humility.