In certain musical circles I’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon, Scandinavia has been hot shit for a couple of years now. No, I’m not talking about the umpteenth wave of indie pop to come from Sweden and Norway, though Peter, Bjorn and John and I’m From Barcelona have been getting their fair share of attention lately. I’m actually referring to the intersection where jazz and downtempo meet, an area that’s been given many names including acid jazz, broken beat (though that doesn’t really fit) and nu-jazz. That no one can agree on what to call the movement is somewhat irrelevant, though, because the important thing about the latest subversion of jazz isn’t what it’s called, but what it sounds like. For that, we have Jazzflora, a compilation series put out by Dealers of Nordic Music. Jazzflora is a great introduction and a landmark compilation for the genre.

Ïony, an electronic duo from Gothenberg, Sweden, is one of the featured artists on the Jazzflora CDs. Most of the duo’s music relies more heavily on beats and blurbs than the usual nu-jazz crowd, but “Logic of Space” serves as a perfect bridge between night-owl jazz and beat-heavy downtempo, the two combining to form a fantastic late-night urban soundtrack. The Jazzflora series is full of atmospheric excursions like this one, and the two albums are worth tracking down if you suddenly find yourself hankering for some Scandinavian nu-jazz.

As art school side projects go, Kitty Craft has to be one of my favourites. As the nom de plume of Pamela Valfer, Kitty Craft sounds like a very twee name, and in this case names don’t lie—they just bend the truth a bit. Like a less quirky, more dreamy Solex, Kitty Craft trades in drum machine breaks and samples, but with a twee-pop sensibility. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s Valfer’s girlish vocals on top of the whole thing. The whole enterprise is delightfully free of self-consciousness, and Kitty Craft’s first album proudly proclaims on the package exactly what you get: Beats and Breaks from the Flower Patch.

This is music made for the light breeze of a gorgeous spring afternoon. Back when I was in university I seriously contemplated making a music video for “Half Court Press”; it would’ve been filled with little kids riding big wheel tricycles and flying kites, and guys playing basketball in the park, and all that good stuff. (This is a good time to mention that I lived next to a park. I probably could’ve just aimed a camera out the window in April.) Most of Kitty Craft’s catalog sounds roughly the same; Catskills is more of the same with better production, and since 2000 the project has mostly run out of steam—an EP mysteriously appeared a couple of years ago, but apparently no one noticed. But what Kitty Craft lacks in variety, it makes up for in purity of intent: no grand statements, no pretension to importance, just the smell of freshly cut grass wafting through the open window, captured and pressed onto vinyl.

It appears that the Japanese have become very good at jazz as of late. Jazz has its own storied history in Japan, but the most recent resurgence hit in the past decade or so. Kyoto Jazz Massive was the first step; the brothers Okino took a jazz foundation, mixed in a healthy dose of various electronic genres, and kickstarted the nujazz genre in Japan. Since then, the Massive have put out an album and collaborated with other likeminded artists, which brings us to Sleep Walker. Though Kyoto Jazz Massive was originally a DJ group, they seem to do just as well when the electronics disappear—the duo took on producer duties for Sleep Walker’s debut album in 2003, which features some great tenor saxophone work that some call reminiscent of Pharaoh Sanders. Not surprising, since the jazz legend has played with Sleep Walker on at least one track, the title track to 2006’s The Voyage.

I am about as poor a connoisseur of jazz as exists in this world; I have never heard a whole Miles Davis album, I know one John Coltrane song (maybe two), and the story remains the same for nearly every jazz great you care to name. I remember being in a jazz club in NYC once, during a high school trip, and I can’t tell you for the life of me where we were in the city or who the performers on stage were. I remember they were pretty good, and that there was a two drink minimum. What Sleep Walker brings to the table, however, is exactly the sort of smoky atmosphere I’ve liked most about the jazz I’ve heard. Whether it’s the lively quick-step of opener “Ai-No-Tabi” or the soulful slumber of the final track to Sleep Walker’s first self-titled album, a song called “Ai-No-Umi,” Sleep Walker evokes the sound of summer nights and urban nightlife, a whirlwind of revelry and celebration followed by the quiet contemplation of the long walk through the forest of towering skyscrapers, through the tree-lined streets and spotlit park paths, up to the apartment and straight into bed.

Complete non-sequitur post so I could put this on the site:

This is officially old, since this apparently went viral on Friday. But whatever.

Bonus material:

If you’re one of the seven people who used to really love Esthero back in the day, then this is for you. Her debut album, Breath From Another, got its fair share of hype in 1997 as a somewhat offbeat (and fairly upbeat) trip hop album, with Esthero’s unique vocal style garnering her comparisons to Bjork thanks to the first single, “Heaven Sent.” Everything about the album seemed to scream summer in Toronto, from the cocktail hour lounge-hop of “Anywayz” to the low-key downtempo of “Superheroes.” But the best track from the era was one that didn’t make it to the album itself.

The title track from the album is a flamenco-tinged bit of drum’n'bass-influenced hip-hop, and stands well enough on its own. But almost from the time I bought the album, I’ve heard far better versions than the album rendition. Back when review websites were still excited about posting low-quality audio clips, the Sun Media website Jam! had a review of an Esthero live show that was accompanied by a fifteen-second clip of Esthero performing “Breath From Another” live. For about a year I tried desperately to find a full version, I liked it so much. Her live performance was, to me, the very sound of the nightlife I was missing out on as a high school student—fresh, exciting, and apparently powered by a funkified bass guitar and a live breakbeat drummer.

I never did find a recording of any of her live shows, but that’s fine—it turned out an even better version came out before Esthero hit the live circuit. Charlie Clouser is best known as one of the people who helped Nine Inch Nails achieve its signature sound in the early and mid-90s, but lately he’s been putting his skills as a composer to work in the film industry, scoring movies like Saw 2 and television shows like Las Vegas. That sort of work calls for a lot of versatility—there’s no way you can get away with making a show set in a casino sound like the inside of a slaughterhouse—and so it’s no surprise that, given his success in this most recent phase of his music career, he was able to give “Breath From Another” a highly polished sheen. His Orpheus Floating Mix improves on the original in almost every way, a fine late 90s example of what a remix should sound like (because, remember, this was the age of Electronica, when people listening to the radio were still getting used to the idea of rock songs being remixed). How Esthero managed to attract the likes of Charlie Clouser to play with her material is beyond me, but it was a great move; unfortunately this mix got buried as a b-side on the single to “Heaven Sent,” meaning practically no one has ever heard it.

Bobbi Humphrey, if you were of a certain age and musical persuasion, is one of the greatest women alive. Though she continues to tour to this day with a band called The Original Superstars of Jazz Fusion—a name so obvious and showy that it wouldn’t even pass muster as an ironic band name today—Humphrey actually deserves the self-proclaimed honour. During the 70s she hit it big, playing flute alongside the likes of Duke Ellington and Stevie Wonder and scoring a number of hits herself while on Blue Note. Billboard gave her the honour of Best Female Instrumentalist in 1976. By all accounts she is a talented and successful musician and artist.

But I’m not of the age and musical persuasion that puts Bobbi Humphrey on a pedestal; I wasn’t alive during the 70s and barely know what fusion is. But Humphrey still elicits an odd and completely artificial sentimentality from me. You see, the likes of “New York Times” and “Uno Esta” make me think of the joyous rapture of pop culture ephemera; it’s the sound of old game shows, WKRP in Cincinnati, polyester, and all the other ineffable qualities of the 70s that today only exist in the hermetically sealed time capsule that is The Price Is Right. It’s the strangest case of sound-triggered memory I can imagine; the opening to “New York Times” evokes so strongly and yet so vaguely memories of an era I never experienced.

And damn, was that era ever groovy. Humphrey had an ear for pop and R&B, and so her music straddled a number of stylistic lines. Surely this is what made her so popular, and her music so fun to listen to. I get the feeling, though, that perhaps Humphrey was too successful in her aims; her sound became, at least in some circles, the sound, which must be why I get that flood of artificial memories: I’ve already heard lesser copies of Humphrey and her ilk in every old commercial and news report, every 70s movie with an elevator scene and every episode of The Price Is Right. It feels, strangely, like home.

Perhaps you’ve seen this strangely awesome Japanese music video floating around the internet lately. It’s chock full of style, samplers and mermaids, probably one of the coolest music videos you’ll see all year. The band behind it is Hifana, a Japanese duo, and the backing track is “Wamono,” off their 2005 release Channel H. It’s a CD/DVD release; the CD contains the music, while the DVD contains videos for every album track. Fitting, then, that their label should be W+K Tokyo Lab, a boutique label owned by ad agency Wieden + Kennedy. Because “Wamono” is the sort of slickly-produced, playfully addictive eye candy you’d expect from a creative advertising campaign.

So what, exactly, is Hifana? Sitting somewhere between hip-hop, turntablism and breakbeat, the duo of KEIZOmachine! and Juicy (aka Keizo Fukuda and Jun Miyata) started playing around with samplers around the turn of the century after leaving a belly dance percussion group. The emphasis on percussion remains to this day; nearly every sound on a Hifana track, from the obvious bass beat to the whimsical samples, is a rhythmic component first and foremost. The duo’s other striking feature is their animated alter-egos, as evidenced by the video for “Wamono.” (A cartoon hip-hop group? Where have we seen that before…?) The difference between Hifana and Gorillaz is that the duo show up in the flesh as well. Obviously that’s Fukuda and Miyata at the end of the the “Wamono” track, and they show up in a couple of live-action skits on the Channel H DVD as well.

The Front are five Vancouver guys who’ve put together an awesome hip-hop concoction that sounds far fresher and organic than the usual expensively-produced radio fare. They’re a band that’s obviously put the emphasis on its live performances; this unreleased track, performed for CBC Radio 3, hits all the right spots thanks to the great flow and the lively jazz-influenced backing players. Between these guys and the instrumental No Luck Club, it seems as though there’s a thriving urban scene in Vancouver, easily the least urban of Canada’s large cities.

If anyone remembers Esthero (and chances are you’re a Torontonian if you do), it’s from the last time she did anything of real significance—1998, the year she released Breath From Another. Back then, the young Toronto singer (and sister of J. Englishman, another Canadian artist of minor repute) was backed by beats and production courtesy of Martin McKinney, known to one and all simply as Doc. The duo put together an album that feels like a heady Toronto summer night, mashing together hip hop, soul and trip-hop and finishing it off with a voice that recalls Bjork and Alanis Morissette at the same time.

Arguably it’s all very 1998, and arguably it’s not that interesting from a historical standpoint. The album gained some cultish attention divided between the urban and alternative crowds, but little mainstream success (aside from video plays for “That Girl” on MuchMusic). Shortly after they finished touring, Doc and Esthero parted ways—Doc continuing his producer duties, most notably for up-and-coming Toronto singer Graph Nobel, and Esthero working with a number of other collaborators, including Ian Pooley, the Black Eyed Peas and Danny Saber. For all of that, however, neither one seemed able to replicate the mildly successful formula of Breath From Another, all but assuring each one the status of “producer” or “singer,” but not quite the fuller recognition of “band” or “artist.” At least, not until seven years later.

In 2003, whispers of a follow-up Esthero album started to spread amongst her small but dedicated fanbase. Having stayed just off stage right with backup vocal credits for a number of high-profile artists, it was hard to tell if Esthero would ever have ambitions of penning and performing her own material again. OG Bitch, an EP that also served as an advance sample of a forthcoming record, came out in 2004; it’s been almost a year since then, and the associated album, Wikked Lil’ Grrrls, is only now breaking cover.

Since her 1998 album, Esthero’s picked up quite a few connections in the industry, meaning her new album is backed by a more formidable army of producers and collaborators this time around; I dare say it’s filled with as many “featuring” credits as any other hip hop or R&B album these days. Other things have changed too: she’s on Warner Brothers now, a nice promotion after her previous label, Work (a part of Sony), went under, and she’s got a cute little Parental Advisory icon on the front of the album. Oh, and the music.

I guess no one would mistake anything on Wikked Lil’ Grrrls for a 1998 retread; that much is evident. Considering the many twists and turns in her career, it would’ve been foolish to expect otherwise. But there are warning signs all over the place, from the many B-list contributors to the first track, “We R In Need Of A Musical ReVoLuTion.” Aside from the creative spelling and capitalization (apparently indicating a target audience of 14-year-old IM users), the song also features a rebellious Esthero railing against the likes of Ashanti and R. Kelly for not pushing the boundaries (or, in the case of R. Kelly, pushing the wrong ones). Which is great, but one wonders whether she’s framed the debate improperly; instead of thinking of “the shit on the radio” as something to be fought, how about treating it as something to ignore? “ReVoLuTion” seems strictly sixth-grade in more ways than one.

And yet there are still nagging little things that make it harder to write her off. Get past the subject matter and the title, and “Revolution” turns into a decent album opener. Other songs are similarly qualified successes; for example, there’s “Fastlane,” featuring honest-to-goodness Canadian talent like Jelleestone. And then there’s Esthero’s staunch claim that she still calls Queen Street home—possibly a plea for street cred. But there’s also the matter of the show she played last month with—wait for it—Ron Sexsmith, the Oscar Peterson Quartet and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A quirky bill for a woman we hope still has some quirks left in her.