Michael Franks
Practice Makes Perfect

The Brkn Record is a new project led and produced by Jake Ferguson, the co-founder and bass player for the UK’s foundational deep jazz outfit the Heliocentrics. With fellow Heliocentrics co-founder and legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has been a regular collaborator with globally recognised artists including Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, Melvin Van Peebles, Orlando Julius and many others. The Architecture of Oppression Part 1 represents Ferguson’s debut as a bandleader and orchestrator, and manifests as a committed and soulful response to ongoing and systemic anti-black racism, social oppression and state violence both at home in London and across the globe. Combining poetry, testimony and song with rich and cinematic backdrops, Ferguson has produced a sui generis sound that conjures flavours of Arthur Verocai, Ennio Morricone, classic library productions, Madlib-style deep-jazz beat science, and psychedelic soul. With bandmate Malcolm Catto on drums, Ferguson draws on their long years of collaborative experience in the Heliocentrics to build an album of striking texture and depth.

Stimulator Jones brings that playful, no-frills spirit to a new instrumental beat album, Low Budget Environments Striving For Perfection. Its title was inspired by Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists, describing, “the setting and manner in which most of my music and art has been created – trying to do the best I can with limited means and resources. It’s the DIY philosophy.”Described simply as “tape hiss, turntables, and THC”, Low Budget Environments… is a record born out of Stimulator Jones’ lifelong love of hip-hop. It sees the singer and multi-instrumentalist compiling the hip-hop beats he’s been creating since getting his first sampler as a teenager. These are, he says, “pure, uncut, straight forward beats – no clever arrangements, no cerebral overindulgence, no cute stuff, no vocals.”