Renegades - Track by Track - Part 4

Part 4 of the new album track by track breakdown. The previous postings are here: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

and of course, the 12" ltd edition vinyl sampler EP is out now worldwide! @ Dusty Groove / Juno / Rush Hour and more....


11 Emergency featuring nia andrews



The beats and music demo for this one was made in London when I was on a Europe Tour and had a day off there. Not wanting to waste time, I made sure I was in studio making music. I think I did 6 tracks that day - 4 of them are on the upcoming new Sy Smith record; 1 is an upcoming Lady Alma track; and the other is right here. I love that loping swing on a head-nod beat - lazy and bouncy at the same time. nia heard the demo when we were doing a show together in San Francisco - the ipod was on shuffle, it came on and she made it clear she wanted to write to this one. I love the different flip she's brought to it - almost a country vibe! Pino Palladino laid bass on the change bringing a whole other vibe to those sections and Mike Feingold took it home on guitar.

12 Everything featuring Ovasoul7



I met Ovasoul7 in NZ back in 2000 - he sang on the original demo of 'Move On Up' I released on Bugz in the Attic's label (I think that original demo was included on the Japanese version of my album 'Six Degrees') and we collaborated a few times after that - on a remix I did for German trumpeter Til Bronner, I also got him behind the mic for the collaboration I did with DJ Spinna, 'Surely' on his BBE album 'Here to There'. We reconnected together with Spinna again on the house joint he put out 'You Should Be Loving Me', but even with all those collabs, we never laid down a straight collaboration track until now. I wanted this track to be the light at the end of the journey, make the listener know that "everything is all right". The vibe is jazzy and soulful - Bembe Segue is on backing vocals along with Richard Spaven on additional live drums and Mike Feingold on guitar complimenting it all perfectly.

13 Interlude II



From the same one-day marathon studio session in Atlanta with drummer Lil John Roberts - this was another of those magic moments that was just too special not to share. It's a twisted, dark jumble of improvised rhythms and harmonies that somehow keeps resolving in the most unexpected ways.

14 Alabi featuring Sandra Nkaké



The album finishes returning to the theme it all started with - this time in full length form. Sandra Nkaké is French-Cameroon and for whatever reason, everytime we get together she goes fully tribal - something of a departure from her usual more soul and jazz styles. The original demo for this track was recorded in Amsterdam on another day-off-let's-hit-the-studio day, this time it was me and Richard Spaven on drums. I got a vibe up on the MPC, we improvised and recorded and there was the basis of the track. Sandra heard the demo and laid the vocals down in 3 straight takes - again, a totally free-flowing vibe. One section made perfect sense as a chorus chant so we tracked that up, and it fitted perfectly - a tribal summoning for everyone to come gather together. NZ guitarist and producer Jeremy Toy laid some guitar one day passing through studio, and the final seasoning was Miguel Atwood-Ferguson's viola solo. After we tracked the strings for 'The Why' he recorded a couple of improvised takes through this track and it was the perfect final element. The resulting flavor is somewhere between afro-beat, free jazz and some sort of cosmic future vibe. I don't think I've heard anything quite like it!


RENEGADES drops worldwide on Tru Thoughts Records NOVEMBER 14 worldwide (Nov 12 Japan / Nov 15 USA / Nov 21 UK / Nov 14 everywhere else!). The next blog post will be on some of the technical aspects of the project and the artwork :)

Listen to snippets from the whole album via amazon here...