Justin Adams (Robert Plant, Jah Wobble) has been described by the Guardian as “one of the most intriguing, enthusiastic musicians in Britain” and together with Gambian griot and master of the ritti, Juldeh Camara, has recorded a follow-up to their critically acclaimed album “Soul Science” which won a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award.
Mixing up raw blues, electric guitar and African roots, the reference points for this release are recordings from the 1950s by the likes of Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters.
To acheive the rawness and slight distortion meant a live feel was very important, Justin decribes the recording process: “The way we’ve gone for that is to record in a very live way in the Wooden Room at Real World Studios. You’ll hear the sweat and blood of the live performance, and all the scratchy bits!”.
With all B&W Music Club albums, we try and bring you something different and very special and would love to know what you think of it.
Excellent quality recording, really shines. I love these cross-genre mixes, the links between them are fascinating, if not my main listening.
Keep recording a broad variety of quality music and I’ll stay with the project.
Posted: Tuesday, 17 March 2009It’s great to finally have high quality downloads. Thank you for making the 24 bit/ high resolution versions available. I have enjoyed all the artists presented so far and look forward to your future offerings.
Posted: Tuesday, 17 March 2009I love the quality of all the music I have downloaded but it seems like the site has a “different equals superior” thing going on.
Classical music and traditional vocalists are being ignored for the sake of “NEW” (which by definition must equate to better with you) and I think it sad.
Let the high quality of the recordings shine with music most of us will listen to many times over.
I am six months into my membership and consider it a 50/50 proposition. It will be interesting to see where you take it.
Ken
Posted: Tuesday, 17 March 2009Afrobilly Sessions was my type of music since I love all kinds of blues music. This cooperation of musicians gave a new and adorable note to it. Also a very decent blues groove.
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009Hi,
sound quality is again excellent … I love it. The music itself is not really the type of music I normally go for .. still I ve enjoyed it – but it does not force me to repeatedly listen to it (which is the case with the album from portico quartet !!!).
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009.. I am still impressed overall. Hope to see new stuff coming up … and trying to attract my friends – as I think this activity MUST BE SUPPORTED as much as possible – hope that the musicians feel also comfortable with it .. but guess this is the case.
Thomas
As always, I loved the sound quality. It’s a great relief to be downloading albums that aren’t compressed to within an inch of their life.
Not 100% enthused by the music itself – a matter of personal taste no doubt.
Portico Quartet was amazing however. I saw them perform last week over in East London and found the experience to be extremely rewarding.
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009Hi,
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009to the commenter who thinks he has missed the album – it is still available until 23rd March so there’s still time to download and let us know what you think
Thanks,
Susanna
B&W
Hi Mark,
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009Unfortunately you cannot burn 24-bit FLAC Files to CD – you can burn the 16-bit one however.
Thanks,
Susanna
Interesting combination of African and western influences. Kele Kele was positive and fluently proceeding African rockabilly. But most I liked the groove in Achoo. Thanks!
Posted: Wednesday, 18 March 2009this is a great album. I love to let other people listen to it and talk about those two great artists and their brilliant musical instruments. very impressing, well done.
Posted: Thursday, 19 March 2009Good sound, nice music but not 96K but 48K, wich I thought it would be. Still wortwhile and better then CD.
Posted: Thursday, 19 March 2009Burning to CD should be no problem using XLD for Mac OSX to create 16 bits AIFF or Apple Lossless
I have the 24/48 version of this, and the sound quality is very good; I am looking forward to the next album when hopefully I can enjoy music more to my taste.
Posted: Thursday, 19 March 2009Not my choice of music. I tend to more conventional western styles. But quality was very good.
Posted: Friday, 20 March 2009Hi,
Posted: Friday, 20 March 2009This is an interesting album, reach sound quality, but difficult to compared against each of files, 16 and 24 bit Flac… BTW, I’m waiting for the next album, I hope it will be a Blues session …
Marc
Publisher
http://www.magazine-audio.com
Count me in the apparent minority who was disappointed in the sound of this album. First listen through my iPod on a noisy walk was great, but then playing on the main hifi I was struck by the very flat production. There appears to be very little contrast between loud/quiet.
In a few places it sounded as though the guys really made a strong push, but it did not actually result in any more volume from the speakers!
Very happy with the change to hi-res downloads, but why not 24/96?
Like the music though.
Posted: Friday, 20 March 2009In response to your recent email asking for feedback on Afrobilly Sessions. I have to say it’s not my style of music. I loved the Portico Quartet, but I did not enjoy this month’s Afrobilly.
I am a big fan of the 24-bit auido, as I am able to play it in full quality by burning a DVD of the music. It does sound amazing – matches the in-store speaker demo, which is impressive to achieve at home!
I am on a 3-month trial and have my fingers crossed for next month.
Posted: Sunday, 22 March 2009The Afrobilly Sessions was interesting musically, but not something I’d listen to very often. Kele Kele and Tonio Yima are the most likable for me.
Sound quality is a lot less than I would have expected. It is very ‘loud’ and overly compressed. My N801’s and I don’t like it at all, even at 48/24.
Posted: Tuesday, 24 March 2009personally I disagree with those who didn’t like the album, and I think that it really was amazing, and the quality of the songs sounded perfect on my 685’s. You can’t judge an album based only on the numbers that define its “quality”, yes 24/96 would be nice but this is still fantastic, and that is because of the artists themselves who got together to make original, creative and altogether beautiful sounding music.
Posted: Wednesday, 25 March 2009“Which download file format should I choose?
With Music Club you currently have a choice of three files and two Lossless file formats: Apple Lossless (16 bit) or FLAC (16 bit & 24 bit)….”
This used to be the case but today (26th march 2009) clicking on the Download Button – means I automatically just get a ALC Zip download. No FLAC option? I don’t want this I want the 24bit FLAC file! Why, because your FAQ is wrong!!
“45. Why dont you offer 24bit Apple Lossless
iTunes doesn’t support 24bit recording and all Apple Lossless music files are automatically converted back to 16-Bit by iTunes.”
iTunes DOES support 24bit files AIFF or Apple Lossless. It also support higher rates as well, (96Mhz) for example, so how about some higher quality options too like 24bit 96Mhz!!
So… how do I get the 24 bit FLAC files from MAC? Also I have never been able to login via Firefox on a Mac and have to use another browser…
Posted: Thursday, 26 March 2009Hi Russ,
Posted: Thursday, 26 March 2009I don’t know why the FLAC option isn’t coming up, please could you email musicclub@bwgroup.com with specific details of this plus your browser and OP details and we’ll ensure you get that option back.
Regarding Firefox, a number of people seem to have had a problem with that browser so I guess it’s best to stick to another one when accessing the club.
I’m going to look into iTunes and 24-bit because as far as I knew, they were automatically converted back to 16-bit.
Will stay in touch and thanks for this.
Susanna
B&W
Sorry, not to be so positive. The sound is great. But I feel the B&W selection seems to try to be too much unusual. I would prefer some more “regular” material. In order to enjoy music. I can tell you that 30 years ago , I loved (and still love), Genesis, ELP, YES, Gentle Giant, Pink floid etc.. So its not that I am waiting for hip-hop etc.. but something that it is more general – Just like LastFM finds for me very good new music. I found that I rarely listen to the discs I burned. As summary, let the sound support music and not the other way around.
Posted: Sunday, 29 March 2009