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Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

£11.49

This album is the result of a chance encounter in 2005. November, a cold market day in Portobello Road with all the customary Portobello ingredients: crowds snaking by the stalls selling flowers and fruit and vegetables, the Salvation Army on guard outside Woolworths, Italian tourists milling around looking for Julia Roberts’ blue door. Only thing, the soundtrack was different. Instead of the panman in the Santa hat playing Christmas carols, there were strains of Ellington and the swagger of brassy funk cutting through the morning fog. Stationed on the corner of Talbot Road… eight horns and a drum kit are rocking Ladbroke Grove.



Since our initial meeting Honest Jon’s and HBE have stayed close. We pretty much bought the entire runs of their first two ten-inches with IF Music reputedly selling at least 200 copies without a struggle. In 2007 they contributed a monster of a track — Sankofa — to our Tony Allen remix project, Lagos Shake. This made a stirring fanfare for our Chop Up shows last summer, and in London, Lyon and New York, HBE tore it up both as leaders and in support of artists as diverse as Victoria Williams and Candi Staton, rousing and tender in turns.



Recorded on the back of the Africa Express trip to Lagos last October, during a three-day stop-over in London, with the drummer’s stool shared by Malcolm Catto from the The Heliocentrics, Sola Akingbola from Jamiroquai, and the one and only Tony Allen. Another friend from the Nigeria trip, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers turned up at the session: handed Paul Simenon’s bass, parked up in the studio, he muttered, “Woah, so this is the thing that this was written on”, hammering out Guns Of Brixton.

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Additional information

Artist

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Catno

HJRCD42

Year

2009

Country

UK

Product Type

CDs

Format

CD

Media Condition

NEW

Sleeve Condition

NEW