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Stings (album)
''Stings'' is the third studio album by English musician Kamaal Williams, released on 27 September 2023 under Black Focus Records. Background According to Williams, ''Stings'' "integrate more oriental imagery and add more melodic elements." Williams reportedly began composing the album on a newly purchased upright piano during the COVID-19 pandemic. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and Chicago in early 2022. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson features on the record as an arranger. The visuals for ''Stings'' were designed by Sascha Lobe and Kimberly Lloyd. On 29 March 2023, Williams gave an exclusive performance of the album's songs at a Roland store in London. The song "PKKNO" was released alongside the track listing announcement of ''Stings''. According to ''XLR8R'', ''Stings'' "is rooted in the South London jazz scene that birthed illiams but "levitates into the impressionist symphonies of Claude Debussy, nd hip-hop and electronic beats." Reception ''Passion of the Weiss'' ranke ...
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Kamaal Williams
Kamaal Williams (born Henry Wu, 1989) is a British musician and record producer. He began his career producing house and broken beat music as Henry Wu, but rose to prominence with drummer Yussef Dayes as Yussef Kamaal, releasing their only album '' Black Focus'' (2016). Williams has since released three solo albums under his record label Black Focus, including '' The Return'' (2018), ''Wu Hen'' (2020), and '' Stings'' (2023). Williams' musical style relies on improvisation, including live performances, and he creates music under his own genre of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and EDM which he dubs "Wu Funk". Life and career Early life and career beginnings Williams was born as Henry Wu in 1989, in Peckham, South London to a Taiwanese mother and British father who both worked as architects. Growing up, Williams took an interest in learning Mandarin and Chinese calligraphy. From an early age, Williams was involved with a number of creative pursuits. His interest in calligraphy, as well a ...
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Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has factories in Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. As of 31 March 2010, it employed 2,699 people. In 2014, it was subject to a management buyout by its CEO, Junichi Miki, supported by Taiyo Pacific Partners. Roland has manufactured numerous instruments that have had lasting impacts on music, such as the Juno-106 synthesizer, TB-303 bass synthesizer, and TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines. It was also instrumental in the development of MIDI, a standardized means of synchronizing electronic instruments manufactured by different companies. In 2016, ''Fact'' wrote that Roland had arguably had more influence on electronic music than any other company. History 1970s Having created Ace Electronic Industries Inc in 1960, Ikutaro Kakeh ...
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Apple Music
Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country, which broadcast live to over 200 countries 24 hours a day. The service was announced on June8, 2015, and launched on June30, 2015. New subscribers get a one-month free or six months free trial with the purchase of select products before the service requires a monthly subscription. Originally strictly a music service, Apple Music began expanding into video in 2016. Executive Jimmy Iovine has stated that the intention for the service is to become a "cultural platform", and Apple reportedly wants the service to be a "one-stop shop for pop culture". The company is actively investing heavily in the production and purchasing of video content, both in terms of music videos and concert footage th ...
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Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active users, including 195 million paying subscribers, as of September 2022. Spotify is listed (through a Luxembourg City-domiciled holding company, Spotify Technology S.A.) on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts. Spotify offers digital copyright restricted recorded music and podcasts, including more than 82 million songs, from record labels and media companies. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists. Spotify is available in most of Euro ...
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Electronic Music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroacoustic music). Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar."The stuff of electronic music is electrically produced or modified sounds. ... two basic definitions will help put some of the historical discussion in its place: purely electronic music versus electroacoustic music" ()Electroacoustic music may also use electronic effect units to ...
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Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, '' Pelléas et Mélisande''. Debussy's orchestral works include ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (1894), ''Nocturnes'' (1897–1899) and ''Images'' (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a r ...
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YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the List of most visited websites, second most visited website, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. , videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. Google's ownership of YouTube expanded the site's business model, expanding from generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching content without ads. YouTube also approved creators to participate in Google's Google AdSens ...
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Clash (magazine)
''Clash'' is a music and fashion magazine and website based in the United Kingdom. It is published four times a year by Music Republic Ltd, whose predecessor Clash Music Ltd went into liquidation. The magazine won the Best New Magazine award in 2004 at the PPA Magazine Awards and has won other awards in England and Scotland. Most notably, it won Magazine of the Year at the 2011 Record of the Day Awards. History ''Clash'' was founded by John O'Rourke, Simon Harper, Iain Carnegie and Jon-Paul Kitching. It emerged from the long-running Dundee, Scotland-based free-listings magazine ''Vibe''. Re-launching as ''Clash Magazine'' in 2004, it won Best New Magazine award at the PPA Magazine Awards and Music Magazine of the Year at the Record of the Day Awards in 2005 and 2011 respectively. At the turn of 2011, ''Clash'' took on an entirely new look, ditching its previous glossy feel and music-led design for an altogether more artistically-led approach. In 2013 it launched a Smartphone c ...
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Wu Hen
''Wu Hen'' is the second studio album by English musician Kamaal Williams, released on 24 July 2020 under his Black Focus label. It is considered to define Williams' own genre "Wu Funk", a blend of jazz, hip-hop, contemporary R&B and EDM. Other styles explored include funk, acid jazz, traditional jazz, breakbeat and house music. The album was announced simultaneously with the premiere of "One More Time" in May 2020; and was followed by "Hold On" in June and "Mr. Wu" in July. The second of the three tracks features the singer Lauren Faith. ''Wu Hen'' received generally favourable reviews from music critics, some praising Williams' drift from the sounds of its predecessor, '' Black Focus'' (2016), that informed him in his career with Yussef Kamaal, while others said the album's ideas shifted too urgently. In the United Kingdom, it reached number 2 on the Jazz & Blues Albums Chart and number 15 on the Independent Albums Chart. Background and recording ''Wu Hen'' is named after th ...
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Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 issues per year, distributing over 103,000 copies to over 2,600 locations across Canada. The magazine has an average of 361,200 monthly readers and their website, exclaim.ca, has an average of 675,000 unique visitors a month. History ''Exclaim!'' began as a discussion among campus and community radio programmers at Ryerson's CKLN-FM in 1991. It was started by then-CKLN programmer Ian Danzig, together with other programmers and Toronto musicians. The goal of the publication was to support great Canadian music that was otherwise going unheralded. The group worked through 1991 to produce their first issue in April 1992, with monthly issues being produced since. Ian Danzig has been the publisher of the magazine since its start. James Keast ...
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Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, session musician, arranger, composer, music director, producer, DJ, orchestral conductor and educator. He has contributed to over 500 recordings and scored for television and film with various musicians. Early life Miguel Atwood-Ferguson grew up in Topanga, California, an arts district in Western Los Angeles. His parents instilled in him an appreciation of cultures from around the world and an ethic of dedicated study. His father is a multi-instrumentalist, backing people such as Etta James, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Ry Cooder, and Johnny Otis. His mother was an educator with a passion for empowering those around her. Together his parents created a childhood environment rich in diverse sounds. As an infant when left alone in his crib, his parents put on repeat tapes with music by Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Bach and Brahms. At age four, Atwood-Ferguson's parents enrolled him in weekly violin lessons after he ...
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