Jordan Rakei / Various Artists - Late Night Tales: Jordan Rakei (Green Vinyl) (Late Night Tales)

Format:  Exclusive  2 x 180g Green Vinyl LP
Cat No:  ALNLP61X

Late Night Tales celebrate their 20th anniversary with the release of multi-instru- mentalist, vocalist and producer Jordan Rakei’s majestic compilation. The 28-year-old modern soul icon effortlessly stamps his own jazz and hip-hop driven sound all over this gorgeous array of handpicked tracks. A beautifully layered blend that is mirrored in the music he’s made, it comes as no surprise that such a supremely gifted songwriter should deliver a mix that is all about the song.

Rakei, born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia, moved to the UK in 2015; he released his debut album, Cloak, with Oz label Soul Has No Tempo, but his two subsequent LPs, Wallflower and Origin, came out on Ninja Tune, the former #2 in Album Of The Year for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide poll, while Origin was nominated for Best Album at the AIM Awards. Jordan had this to say on his upcoming mix:

As Jordan says, there’s so much more to the song selection on Late Night Tales’ latest outing than a random collection of artists. Many have some sort of personal connection, so just as Bonobo provided a platform for the breakout of Khruangbin on a previous LNT, this may have the same effect for Rakei’s friends. After a soothing opener from Fink, good friend and big influence Alfa Mist (part of the Are We Live collective) delivers ‘Mulago.’ “I want to champion their sound and show the world how good he is, and I thought it’d be fitting to start the mix with family,” says Jordan.

Next up is Charlotte Day Wilson with ‘Mountains,’ followed by ‘Count A Heart’ from Moreton, an exclusive collab- oration with Jordan, who grew up on the same street in Brisbane, Australia. “She was the first artist I ever collabo- rated with, and one of the first artists to be involved in my career,” he explains. Elsewhere we hear Scottish producer and multi-instrumentalist C Duncan’s haunting ‘He Came from the Sun,’ Barcelona collective Oso Leone deliver a dreamy ‘Virtual U’ and Bill Lauren’s ‘Singularity,’ which evokes a striking sense of time and place.

Snowpoet’s ethereal ‘Evitenity’ is a “long mediative nar- rative over a beautiful soundscape,” which at times seems chaotic, nicely juxtaposed with undeniable beauty, and Maro’s kooky songwriting shines on ‘Always And Forever.’ Long-time buddy Armon-Jones contributes ‘Idiom,’ and Jordan’s exclusive cover version is a two-for-one, Radio- head’s ‘Codex’ merging with ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Home’ by Jeff Buckley and another exclusive, original com- position by Jordan, ‘Imagination.’

The latter works as a piece with the spoken (Spanish) word voiced by movie director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, and The Reve- nant,) who is a big fan of Jordan’s. “He messaged me when I went to L.A and asked to come to my show. I was in such shock and we hung out after. I thought it would be nice to get him to do this in his native tongue, because I don’t think that’s been done yet on the series.” It certainly is a family affair. Not the blood is thicker than water kind, but certainly musical kindred spirits.

TRACKLISTING:

A1. Fink - Covering Your Tracks
A2. Alfa Mist - Mulago
A3. Charlotte Day Wilson - Mountains
A4. Moreton feat Jordan Rakei - Count a Heart (Exclusive track)
B1. Puma Blue - Untitled 2
B2. Connan Mockasin - Momo's
B3. C Duncan - He Came From The Sun
B4. Oso Leone - Virtual U
B5. Joe Armon-Jones & Maxwell Owin - Idiom ft Oscar Jerome
C1. Snowpoet - Everternity
C2. Maro - Forever & Always
C3. Homay Schmitz - Speak Up
C4. Bill Laurence - Singularity
D1. Jordan Rakei - Lover, You Should've Come Over (Exclusive Jeff Buckley cover version)
D2. Cubicolour - Counterpart
D3. Jordan Rakei - Imagination(Exclusive new track)
D4. Alejandro González Iñárritu - Imagination (Exclusive spoken word piece)