Last night the PinBoard crew were invited to a preview screening of the highly anticipated biopic, ‘Marley’, which reaches all good cinemas on Friday 21st April. Produced by Kevin Macdonald, he manages to transport the viewer into both the world surrounding Bob Marley and his music, as well as the points in history that play a huge part in defining his sound, providing a huge emotional connection to one of the most influential musicians/activists/songwriters of all time. Using archive footage and stills (used with permission of the Marley family estate and for many, shown for the first time) we are taken on a definitive journey of his life…

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Monday night saw a world music double header at the Barbican. Buena Vista Social Club prodigy and Havana Cultura star Roberto Fonseca accompanied by full band, coupled with London’s own Ayanna Witter-Johnson as support, made for a truly complete evening. Read my review after the jump.

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Wednesday night saw Portico Quartet take to the stage at York Hall in Bethnal Green. Having never seen a gig at the renowned boxing arena before I was keen to see how the ‘school hall’ venue would deal. The answer – very well. Very well indeed. Read the review after the jump…

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SBTRKT. “Who?” Subtract. “Nah never heard of it!”

Some may have said that a year ago and understandably too. Known this time last year as ‘another’ tadpole swimming in and out of the world of Electronic music, SBTRKT was yet another DJ/Producer from London who every once in a while would throw a blog a bone by remixing a relevant piece of music. Those that were more on the ball however, realised that although enrolled in the class of ’10, Aaron Jerome could quite possibly reign valedictorian come 2011.

Fast forward to summer this year, off the back of a few EP’s and remixes, ‘Wildfire’ quite literally spread. First through the blogs, then the clubs/tastemaker radio DJ’s, then the mainstream. “Summer banger” would be an understatement, even our most beloved emosh rapper – Drake – took to the beat. And with Aubrey in tow, the Stateside crossover was set: the intricate wobbles, smart punches and thumping bass positioned in all the right places allowed ‘Wildfire’ (featuring Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano) to garner it’s place and became a staple in many a summer playlists. But most promising was that even with the success of it’s first single, SBTRKT’s self titled debut would throw a number of surprises our way, surpassing expectations and becoming a strong accelerator for Electronic in the mainstream.

Sophisticated, circuitous and timely in its entirety, SBTRKT welded together the essence of 90’s UK garage and 2-Step together with the punchy Dubstep influences of the noughties and melted it within American style Soul & R&B. These influences, all piled up on top of each other within an album made of original compositions gave way for this debut to stand on it’s own merit. With producers throwing the proverbial ‘wobble’ onto anything with a pulse these days, it was refreshing to hear SBTRKT deliver a cohesive collection of tracks as well as collaborating with an inspired array of artists. Opting for a more song-focused LP, as opposed to a show-and-tell style production project – SBTRKT kept his audience in mind and curated an album packed with enough energy for the raver, sufficient downtime for low-end head and an abundance of musicology for the ‘academics’.

The albums opener ‘Heatwave’ nods to and explores Junglist sounds; With a deconstructed Amen Break and Sampha’s atmospheric, building wails, as the low end flutters rather passionately. Then as the BPMs rise and the lyrics fade, the puissance is turned up a notch with tracks like ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Ready Set Loop’ – both favouring a more beat oriented focus with minimal vocals.

A key factor which makes SBTRKT’s debut such a strong contender this year was his foresight, featuring some of the brightest and most exciting homegrown talent. Jessie Ware, Roses Gabor and his most frequent collaborator Sampha each help to bring his productions alive. It is his chemistry with Sampha though that really shines through – armed with one of the most distinct voices, his breathy tone and succinct delivery style adds a fantastic dimension to SBTRKT’s compositions.

The chilling, unguarded tale of ‘Hold On’ allows for Sampha’s higher register to flourish, suited beautifully to the smooth bass rumblings and twinkling percussion. ‘Something Goes Right’ shuffles between the stuttering nature of 2-Step against Sampha’s buttery lead vocals – striking the right balance between instrumentation and song, realism and dreams, producer and singer. ‘Never Never’ bravely explores the indecision of relationships as the vulnerability of the lead vocal explains “see I‘ve never never had so much to gain / and threw it all away / and if I ever ever had the chance again / I’d probably do the same”. SBTRKT sits humbly alongside his muse(s), mixing live drums with funky synths, whilst his vocalists take focus.

Delving in, out and around sounds, SBTRKT is a rich textured tapestry which significantly pushes boundaries. Masqueraded in very few words – SBTRKT allowed his debut to speak louder than any thing else. The music won.

SBTRKT – iTunes / Amazon / Spotify

For some, it may be a controversial decision to induct a remix album into an ‘Album of the Year’ list. But, unlike most remix albums this one redefines the original, re-contextualizes it and most importantly reintroduces a quondam icon to an entirely new generation – making Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX’s We’re New Here one of the most culturally significant LP’s of 2011.

The legend of Scott-Heron runs subterraneous – his far-reaching, weighty career arguably spawned the birth of Hip Hop. Besides revolutions not being televised and people in the bottle, what more need be said? While our main protagonist Jamie Smith aka Jamie XX is a still a fresh face on the block, who in just a short span has established himself as one of the most influential producers of the past three years. It was Smith’s spatial injections on the Mercury Award winning album by his band The XX that catapulted this young adopted-Brixtonian into the niche consciousness. Combine this with his assault on the remixsphere (Adele, Radiohead, et al), a signature sound and general defiance against BPM guidelines in one of the hardest communities to appease (Electronic), and you have in the making perhaps one of British music’s best offerings to the world right now. Amalgamating these very two different visionaries could have easily resulted in travesty or conversely, utter genius – an ethos record label XL have long relied on… 2011 would suggest its a model that works for them.

Using acapella’s from 2010′s I’m Here New (originally produced by XL boss Richard Russel), along with select material from Scott-Heron’s back catalogue, XX reworked the project through his own ears. Ears that have been forged by a confection of sounds including (but not limited to) Hip Hop, House, 2-Step, Soul, Funk, Disco, Bass, Club and Jazz – all of which are prevalent throughout We’re New Here. It is this feat that makes Smith such a formidable force, his ability to produce “anything he wants” at such a high level is staggering. His productions are at times ‘tropical’, but suggest the steel pans of Notting Hill carnival if a black hole ruptured through the pavements of Portobello and sucked your loved ones into the aloof. Persistent in melancholia – even Drizzy needed a piece for Take Care – it’s a paradox that works impeccably with Scott-Heron’s noticeably fragile, but cogent voice. In parts this suffused method has heartbreaking results (see: the monstrous ‘NY is Killing Me’), aided now in part with the knowledge that just 3 months after it’s release the world would lose it’s most beloved wordsmith.

Songs like ‘Home’ channel the spirit of the Caribbean, using the instruments of a paradise lost to supremely chosen effect, extenuating Gil’s post-drug ravaged, songlike slurs. Whereas ‘My Cloud’ adopts a more glitchy, low-fi vapor, floating on a bed of anesthesia. Hip Hop can be auscultated on songs like the ‘Running’ and ‘The Crutch’ – Smith cited sampling aficionado RJD2′s Deadringer as a notable inspiration in his past and that’s finally been allowed to flourish on this album, allowing our musician to evolve. The opener rockets Gloria Gaynor’s ‘Casanova Brown’ into space (a theory Jamie knows best), transforming it into a demented double-kick, bass battling, falling star. Then there’s the piercing heart monitor bleeps of ‘NY is Killing Me’ as we cardiac, spiralling into the metropolis-abyss, only to find a redemptive heaven somewhere off the horizon with the uplifting 4×4 and classic House chord staccato of ‘I’ll Take Care of You’.

Reference after reference, the ample scope of Jamie XX’s production penchants is reason enough to celebrate the life of his muse. We’re New Here, is the perfect balance between Gil Scott-Heron’s heart and the Jamie XX’s head.

We’re New Here – iTunes / Amazon / Spotify

For many this was the year that R&B was revitalised, which is ironic because when PinBoard first began a few years ago, contemp’ R&B was a proud forte yet it reigned at the nadir of intellectuality. Sad times. Thankfully a fair few sentimentalists have recently re-visited the sounds that shaped their formative years & brought an era back under the microscope. For me, it was Jamie Woon who really kicked-started some of that at the tail-end of 2010 with post-Darkchild stylings (and some mnemonic UKG riddims, another deep-seated passion of ours). It’s been a long time since D.C. warned us about the Writing on the Wall or Kelis displayed her fruity Kaleidoscope - a long time since a genre who’s golden era came and went with the 90′s/early 00′s became… challenging again.

What Woon delivered with Mirrorwriting was clearly a result of a transatlantic influence. His London-isms shine through with paranormal 2-Step, Dub & Bass tendencies, whereas melodically he borrows from the smooth tonal favours of American R&B. And while vocally he kept things quite lucid, it was the texture and innocence of his voice that tied all those dangers together like gossamer threads. Then there was the songwriting – creating the kind of metaphysical poetic imagery and spiritual motifs that R&B harmonizers all too rarely risk wrapping their lips around.

‘Night Air’, co-produced by the holy father of mod 2-Step, Burial, was a stellar opener. A track so tropical and expansive, yet so subtle and quiet – it became the perfect ode to eventide with the insects. Follow that with songs like ‘Spirits’, ‘Echoes’ and the breathtaking outer-limits of ‘Gravity’ and you began to see an artist willing and able to explore the slightly darker caverns of music whilst staying the right side of melodic and not veering into the wrong lane of self-indulgent. It can’t be ignored that some songs, although brilliantly constructed are clearly aimed towards a mainstream/radio market – Woon’s second single ‘Lady Luck’, which originally possessed a more ‘earthy’ sound was transformed on Mirrorwriting into a shiny, studio counterpart. The same can be said about ‘Street’ and ‘TMRW’ – which all feature a fantastic, singable hook. Even during these periods Woon was still cunning enough to inject a certain amount of Funk to try satisfy the most defiant of ears. Indeed for any left-of-centre musician it can be difficult to please both underground and overground, with their material’s objective descending into a war tug between either snobs or simple-minds. But our artist very much spends twelve tracks trying to strike the most tumultuous of balances and swings more often towards the experimental than the transparent – perhaps his bravery and that of quiet co-producer Royce Wood Jnr. should be admired.

Plus it was also the year that we saw major labels behave a little less pussy and actually commit a daring musical act or two in trying to infiltrate the mainstream consciousness with inventiveness. Mirrorwriting debuted at #15 on the UK album charts, a respectable feat Woon and his supporters should be proud of. Though it is impossible to ignore the tough quota which Woon had to meet this year. Released just two months before Mirrorwriting, James Blake’s full length album ticked the ‘singer/songwriter Post-Dubstep’ box right off the bat – which meant while Woon received critical and to some extent commercial success, the impact of his album wasn’t measurable as instantaneously. What resulted however, was an LP that through word-of-mouth has become an unravelling discovery for many new listeners, with a jigsaw sonic that even in this day and age won’t be outdated come next year. After all, it takes a smart soul to borrow something from the bygones, and make it sound like it’s ahead of it’s time.

Mirrorwriting – iTunes / Amazon / Spotify

We were first introduced to Jono McCleery when he supported Jamie Woon on his Mirrorwriting tour earlier this year. We were all taken back by the myriad of influences coming through both his vocals and instrumentation displayed through his songs.

The songs found on McCleery’s debut album There Is are complex, they create a labyrinth of sonics which only unravel through continuous play. His drums are at once mellow, yet compellingly persistent and when layered beneath the commanding voice he possesses, create an entirely unique collaboration. From distilled resignation and sadness to heartache, pain, love and hope – his voice seeps in emotion.

McCleery’s debut single ‘Tomorrow’ is undoubtedly the albums centrepiece – it begins with a lush extended instrumental, with heartbreak strings, a lonesome guitar and enough silence for a wondering mind to stay satisfied. Bringing together the quiet intensity of Folk, the exotic nature of Far Eastern influences and the dignified grace of Classical, ‘Tomorrow’ begins in the most beautiful fashion. By the time Jono’s deep, reassuring vocals interrupt, accompanied by an off-kilter, continually shifting time signatures (a persistent highlight) – it’s evident that this is an artist in his own paradigm, occupying a world of sound customised by his own influences.

As a full body of work continuum – There Is fails to falter; Songs like ‘It’s All’ with it’s darker Withers-like tendencies is glued together by a besieged piano, aching bassline and a frantic breakdown that feels like it’s running a mile from femme fatale carnivores. Then there’s ‘Stand Proud’ which borrows the spirit of Gospel – a sustained organ plays before Jono testifies his turmoil. And the open interpretation of ‘She Moves’ acts as evidence of Jono’s song writing ability; It’s meditative tone and obscure melodic structure builds into a ghostly ode to love… A noble and graceful closing number.

While objectively it’s fair to say the album has been commercially ignored, critically overlooked (shocker) and unspoilt by hype – the self-effacing, gimmick-less creator behind this work begs for none of those. Clearly motivated by self expression, There Is is evidence that McCleery is an artist comfortably evading convention. His debut is so rich in musicology, so steeped in multitudinous influences and performed with such conviction – it deserves a place as one of the years best albums.

There Is – iTunes / Amazon / Spotify