Sunny Side Up cover

Sunny Side Up

Released

Melbourne in Southeastern Australia may be geographically isolated but despite — or perhaps because of — that, it has a remarkable music scene. With more venues per head of population than anywhere else, it’s a magnet for the country’s musicians, and so jamming and intersecting bands and collectives are the norm across styles, but especially in soul and jazz. Sunny Side Up is a compilation put together by the UK’s Gilles Peterson, in his periodic local showcase series that has also featured London (We Out Here) and South Africa (Indaba Is) are built on stunning instrumental proficiency, all of it in service of music that loosely falls under the umbrella of jazz, but also maps out to a whole universe of musical styles. There’s Philadelphia-indebted neo-soul —particularly in the work of singers Allysha Joy and Audrey Powne; there’s a hint of the off-grid rhythms of the California “beat scene.” The ghosts of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Don Cherry are ever present, but you’re just as likely to hear the influence of Masters At Work, Theo Parrish, or João Gilberto — as well as elements of the city’s own thriving experimental electronic scene. It is, in short, a vibe.

Joe Muggs

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