Impossible Ark recognises that music is many things to many people, and believes in celebrating that diversity and delivering World class artists, concepts, performance and production to your turntable, CD player or iPod with every release. The label is the brainchild of producer Ben Lamdin (aka Nostalgia 77) and bassist Riaan Vosloo, whose highly successful collaborative work on Tru Thoughts has produced six popular albums - from the live recordings of the Nostalgia 77 Octet to studio-based explorations on an experimental jazz and funk tip - and most recently saw them joining forces with the legendary Keith and Julie Tippett for the uniquely brilliant and highly acclaimed ‘Sessions’ LP.
Lamdin explains the motivation to found the label, which was borne of the vibrant and eclectic London jazz scene: “When I started the Nostalgia Octet I met so many great musicians but I was surprised that there wasn’t really a recording culture. In that respect Impossible Ark was a response to a need. It’s about focusing musicians’ minds on creative statements, but above all it’s about making some classic modern records.”
And on this stunning compilation you will find the blue-eyed country soul of Jeb Loy Nichols sitting harmoniously alongside Lamdin’s hotly anticipated new Afro-funk project, the Skeleton; the other-worldly sounds of the Rhythmatic Orchestra rubbing shoulders with the highly regarded experimentalism of Examples Of Twelves; and many more treasures besides.
The Guardian - “Makes the Cinematic Orchestra Sound like dabblers”
Gilles Peterson - “When it comes to jazz of a sure blessed quality it doesn’t get much tighter than the work of Impossible Ark”
Bobbito Garcia - “I got the African Mailman 12”, love every single song on both sides [it’s] on my voicemail today”
Andy (Mr) Scruff - “Quality, life affirming up tempo dancefloor jazz, soulful & heavy the way it should be…. blows my mind every time I hear it.”
In the words of Benedic Lamdin: “Skeletons is a made up band. I kid you not - it doesn’t exist. These musicians never stood in the studio together, they just passed through my house or left some scraps of sound behind after sessions we were working on… “Some of the music here started life as commissions for a library music company, pastiches and forgeries paid for by the current vogue for a certain style of African jazz. Once I’d done a few though I couldn’t stop, it was my default preoccupation, something for me once I’d finished working on other people’s albums. It was relaxation, something that didn’t matter whether it worked or not. The whole LP was made like that, done in the time between recording jobs.
