Drummer, producer, songwriter and bandleader Mackwood today releases his much anticipated debut album Master Changes, out now. Having already graced festival stages including Cross The Tracks, Wilderness and Brick Lane Jazz Festival this summer, Mackwood and his formidable live band will play a headline show at Peckham Audio on 22nd October to celebrate the release of Master Changes. Buy here.
Inspired by the UK’s rich electronic and soundsystem culture, Mackwood warps what we usually understand as jazz into thrilling new shapes and unpredictable forms, melding modern production with live instrumentation from his 6 piece band at West London’s 5dB Studios. Named after a sci-fi novel about a nuclear apocalypse, Master Changes, is influenced not only by a vast range of music, spanning from Curtis Mayfield to Nubya Garcia and Holst to Four Tet; but also by literature and wider conversations on identity, connection and the human condition.
Having cut his teeth drumming and producing for some of the UK’s most exciting and forward thinking artists, including Col3trane, Nilufer Yanya, Jordan Rakei, Eliza and Blue Lab Beats, as well as creative collectives like Levitation Orchestra and The Silhouettes Project, the release of Master Changes signals a new era with the London native now at the forefront.
Speaking on the album, Mackwood explains: “The process of making this album has felt like a lot of experimentation and scrapbooking, but there are core energies joining from one idea to another. I deliberately drew on a wide range of ideas over a period of time, but arranged and played it all with the same set of musicians, so the sound world is always shifting around the same core palette. Excited to see it come to life!”
Growing up in a music-loving family of English, Lithuanian Jewish and South African heritage in Shepherd’s Bush, where local music lessons weren’t just classical piano, but also west African drumming, an obsession with rhythm from a young age resulted in Mackwood going on to study with Tomorrow’s Warriors and then at the prestigious Guildhall School of music. This diverse upbringing led to him combining his formal training with elements of the breaks, soul, dubstep, drum & bass and house of his formative years to create his own progressive take on modern jazz.
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