In keeping with our New Years promise, we are going to be featuring interesting new (and old) bands and other musical artists that we discover. The idea is to cover many different genres and to expose you to music that you may not have heard (or even have thought of hearing!). Every band might not be in a genre that you would normally listen to, but I encourage you to check each one out as I can promise you that every one will deserve a good listen. Who knows, we might be able to turn you on to some really cool music.
Our first feature is a band called Rockamovya. A friend of mine (thanks Jordan!) introduced me to these guys and a huge smile carved itself into my face 5 seconds into the first track and didn’t disappear until the music stopped.
What do you get when you combine:
- Jazz-heavyweight and Grammy nominated Will Bernard (Stanton Moore trio, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Motherbug)
- The entirely unique Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace. (Burning Spear,The Abyssinians, the cult film classic “Rockers”)
- The huge, round bass sounds of Ryan Newman
- Bubbling organ player Marcus Urani
- The groovy rhythm guitar and vocals of Harrison Stafford (from superstar Reggae-Fusion group Groundation)
Other than an honest-to-goodness supergroup, you get a solid, grooving and above all RIGHTEOUS Jamaican dub band with amazing excursions into jazz and many other musical flavors. While staying fairly true to a grooving dub feel, the music as a whole creates an entirely new sound that is at the same time very hi-fi and ‘crispy’, but at the same time warm and lush that just seems to envelop your head like a nice warm pillow.
A very diverse set of generational sounds such as Horsemouth’s 1960’s era steppers rhythms, Bernard’s 1970’s inspired jazz-funk licks, and the wholly unique 21st century roots sound of Groundation fuse together into a riddim that will appeal to listeners of just about any demographic.
You can find their CD on Amazon and you can download their entire album completely DRM-free in MP3 format.
Enjoy!
