Posted on 28 June 2022Group: Album of the day

Strata Records The Sound of Detroit – Reimagined by Jazzanova

Berlin based production collective Jazzanova come back with reinterpretations of songs lifted from the Strata Records catalogue, working in collaboration with US DJ Amir Abdullah and a host of Berlin based Jazz musicians and recording artists. Strata was an independent Jazz label that along with its sister label Strata East in New York would champion independent Jazz music in Detroit, releasing artists such as the Lyman Woodard Organisation, Kenny Cox, Sam Sanders and Wendell Harrison among others, forming in response to the Detroit Riots in 1968. What better collective then than Jazzanova to approach this project, a group of record collectors, DJs and musicians that have a deep fondness and respect for the label. The overall sound of the album is smooth and wistful, an accessible take on the Strata catalogue that should bring the label and its recorded music to new audiences. Spiritual in parts and airy and transcendental in others, an overall comforting and warm body of music that has managed to file some of the rougher edges of the Strata sound down to a more readily consumable palette of sounds. The album features vocals from Sean Haefeli, whose vocals have somewhat of a resemblance to Andy Bey and certainly add a new depth and dynamism to the tracks that were previously only ever recorded as instrumentals—such as Lyman Woodard Jr’s Creative Musicians and Kenny Cox’s Lost My Love. Album highlights include the Afro-inflected Creative musicians, the wonky and synth infused four to the floor of Saturday Night Special and the low-down, horn driven funk of Face At My Window which ebbs and soars.