China welcomes UK’s Kusha Deep Music
It’s been a a busy time time for Kusha Deep Music over the last year,
label head Darragh Jye turned the attention from making radio shows to producing an album which had been long awaited. The album titled ‘Sinners To Angels’ was written for the band KU who up until now had been a collective of different musicians, but now looks like settling into a firm line up.
The first single by KU ‘Haunted Dancehall’ which went out through Kusha Deep
in the summer of 2005 and was picked up by radio stations around the globe,
making some new friends at the BBC, Music TV in LA, RDU Radio in NZ to British
Armed Services Radio in Iraq. The track had been produced by Orlando Allen who
comes from the Gong linage, any trippers from the 70’s will remember their off
the wall records and uncompromising attitude towards the music industry. Orlando
the son of Daevid Allen the Gong maverick has proved himself in his own right
and stands out as one of the best composures and producers around. Darragh and
Orlando had worked together in Australia recording two albums which took them on
some interesting directions, one being a live shamanic dance record which works
around certain frequencies and breathing techniques to bring about a natural
ecstasy hit with no comedown, the other being a soul hip hop flavoured affair
for a collective called Chillum proving the diversity of where they could go
musically.
The hard work seems to of paid off with the latest KU release an EP titled
‘Heads Up’, which is picking up where the last one left off as radio stations
have started to play-list the record already.
The EP features four tracks from the album and bring the sound of the KU into
the light properly, its slightly more rocky than the last one which had opted
for a hybrid reggae flavour. This release produced by Darragh, set out to spread
the KU sound globally. The songs for the album have been written over the past
ten years but till last year had not been recorded due to commitments to other
projects. The turning point come when it had to be done now or never be heard by
any one other than the inner circle and those who had seen some of the acoustic
gigs in Europe, Australia and US. So everything else is on hold till the album
is done, which looks like being finished by late February 06. For those of you
who cant wait you get a hit by going to the Kusha Deep website and getting a
copy.
There are plans to do some festivals this summer if all goes accordingly.
Kusha Deep have also signed a new world music artist called Julian Franks who
has a varied history in writing and performing music.
His last album has been bubbling for the past 12 months collecting a huge army
of supporters from Benjamin Zephaniah ,Al Scott, Record Producer (Asian Dub
Foundation, The Oyster Band, The Levellers), Dave Meegan, Record Producer
(worked on U2's Joshua Tree, Rattle & Hum, and producer of Marillion’s last
album). Julian’s also collected excellent reviews from Paul Elliot, writer for Q
Magazine and MOJO, picking up great quotes from Acid rocker Arthur Brown along
the way.
Born in London, Julian started drumming early - and was introduced to the world
of jazz & live music by his father., also a drummer ,Julian took his first Tabla
lesson in Southall, London with Ismail Sheikh. Sheikh himself was a student of
Alla Rakha, Ravi Shankar’s long time Tabla player and father of *****ir Hussain.
There is an impressive list of musical credits which Julian has also been
involved over the years performing with Nick Pynn ,(Steve Harley's *****ney
Rebel,) as part of Arthur Brown's 'Crazy World of Arthur Brown' and with
Jambience at Peace One Day (2002,2003) supporting Faithless, Starsailor, One
Giant Leap, Jimmy Cliff, Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), and the Festival of Flight
supporting Nitin Sawhney.Julian has performed at Glastonbury Festival 3 times,
twice
There’s an excellent new remix taken from one of the tracks on the album ‘Beyond
Face And Name’, that takes the world music tip on a tribal house excursion, so
far getting a good reaction in Club-Land and Dance Radio. Julian is currently
shooting a video for the releases which will include footage from this numerous
trips to India and Nepal where he composed the music for the album.
And that’s not all the label has also signed a deal with one of the biggest
music distributors in China who also make MP3 players amongst other electronic
devices, using some of the tracks from Kusha Deeps Majestic Retrospective
compilation album in the new MP3 player, so a whole new audience across Asia
will also have the pleasure of tuning into the Kusha Deep sonic adventures. This
connection looks likely to build a big outlet for artists associated with the
label over the coming months. Its all looking up for the little label with big
ambitions who have also clocked up some top downloaded tracks on ITunes
recently, if you are searching though the Itunes maze just put the album titles
or the artists and your away.
www.kusha-deep-unlimited.com
info@kusha-deep-unlimited.com
contact 00 11 44 (0) 7746605254
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