This is a sampler of songs the label Premier Cru Music wants to release in 2006. And like the River Drum album by Francisco Mora Catlett this just oozes class and quality proving that Premier Cru is an apt choice of name.
Auricle are George Katsiris and Borahm Lee. Do Ai is a nice downtempo song that fuses electronic and soul with a female singer while the instrumental Goodbye Studio offers more soul with a live feeling.
An artist you should look for in 2006 is Afra Behn. Looong Green and Seasons:Spring are great modern soul songs somewhere between Sylk 130, Alma Horton and Alison Crockett.
Empyreal Coalition are an all-star experimental jazz ensemble. With featured artists Roy Ayers, MeShell Ndegeocello and Bobbi Humphrey you know that you get nothing than quality. If the two songs Babalu Aye and One Of A Kind by the Empyreal Coalition are exemplary of a future album than we will soon hear a renaissance of deep and spiritual moving jazz music.
The two ¡Brasil! cuts are from a forthcoming compilation of Brazilian music from the 60s and 70s compiled by Jonathan Williams. Carcara could’ve easily appeared on a 60s movie (you know the ones with a music score by Henry Mancini for example). The instrumental Bamba is a nice midtempo track with a groovy key solo.
The OuterZone Orchestra features Francisco Mora Catlett, Carl Craig, Craig Taborn and Marshall Allen. Suny is a spacey future jazz slow groove which may need some time to appeal to you (well, I needed some time). Carl Craig’s edit of Empyreal Coalition’s Babalu Aye isn’t bad and takes the song into a new direction but, alas, for me it looses something of the spirituality and magic the original version has.
[edit: and here I was wrong and got confused. The two songs have the same name but that’s actually the only connection. This Babalu Aye is just a different version of the album edit from the Outerzone Band. Well, in these days you really never know if a song with the same name isn’t a remix of another. Especially if a good remixer deconstructs a song and comes up with something totally different from the original. Mea culpa!]
All in all Premier Cru will certainly have a very good year with some strong releases. And I have have a few artists more to look for in 2006.

Tracklisting of 1er Cru: 1. Auricle - Do Ai/ 2. Auricle - Goodbye Studio/ 3. Afra Behn - Looong Green/ 4. Afra Behn - Seasons: Spring/ 5. Empyreal Coalition - Babalu Aye/ 6. Empyreal Coalition - One Of A Kind/ 7. ¡Brasil! - Carcara/ 8. ¡Brasil! - Bamba/ 9. OuterZone Band - Suny/ OuterZone Band - Babalu Aye:Carl Craig Edit | Promo 2006 Premier Cru Music

For more infos visit premiercrumusic.com.