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 Zakir 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 Cockney 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.
2012
