Ebi Soda - Collaborations and Remixes Vol.1 (EP)
Photo Credit: @selectoruk and @northerncowboyfilms
Fresh from performing six shows at this year's SXSW festival and supporting club pioneer UNKLE (Mo’ Wax) at the Brighton Festival, jazz disruptors Ebi Soda share ‘Collaborations & Remixes Vol. 1’, a new project that brings together a plethora of talent from the wonderful and bizarre world of Ebi, while pushing the boundaries of jazz music with forward-thinking production. The EP was announced with the aspirational and infectious ‘Kim K’ featuring London-born, Turkish-Sri Lankan artist BODUR.
“The EP is more reflective of how we like to work collaboratively. We’d like to branch into the vocal world as a production team with a living sound bank. So we did that by making tunes with some of our nearest and dearest. The remixes come from our love of electronic music, and we are so grateful to have some of our favourite producers flip our tunes like this.” Band leader and trombonist Will Heaton aka VVilhem explains.
The new EP concept sees the band explore their influences outside of jazz and work with singers, MCs and those that sit somewhere in between. Collaborations come in the form of new tracks from the likes of vocalist J Harli on the UKG inspired ‘Please Don’t’ and a UK rap track ‘Runnin’, featuring Dream Mclean and Wallace Rice, members of the adventurous six-piece band 'Monster Florence,' as well as the ever-innovative rapperDame. While remixes taken from the band’s landmark album ‘Honk If You’re Sad’ are delivered by intergalactic sound dealer Ash Walker on a dub of ‘Yoshi Orange’, producer and one-half of Anushka, Max Wheeler, as well as one of the best DJs in the game, JD. Reid, and the band themselves who flip ‘Tang of the Zest’ into a sublime slice of glitchy electronica.
Born from ten-hour jam sessions in peeling Brighton bedsits, the technical parameters of a bootstrap recording process and the osmotic, multi-genre influence of internet music archives, quintet Ebi Soda have been steady-cultivating a unique sound amidst the exploding UK jazz scene. They proudly embrace a non-traditional approach, seeking to experiment and defy expectations at every turn.
From influences as diverse as Can, Lounge Lizards, BadBadNotGood, Ronin Arkestra, and The Fall, Ebi Soda have been supported by the likes of Jamz Supernova, Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2), and NPR (New Music Friday), including press accolades in The Vinyl Factory, Clash and Jazzwise to name a few. The band have also featured on compilations for Soul Jazz Records and Majestic Casual while performing atGilles Peterson’s We Out Here, London’s Jazz Re:Freshed, and EFG London Jazz Festival.