Listening to the new Surprise Chef album and thought i’d create a thread where we can talk about this kind of stuff. Got big into this kind of stuff in recent years, especially the likes of Surprise Chef, The Heliocentrics, El Michels Affair, Ghost Funk Orchestra, The Sorcerers etc. Basically any kind of stuff that is made to sound almost like a rare record that hip hop producers sampled in the 90s.
Who you digging?
Talking of the new Surprise Chef, i’m really loving their new one. Just getting to the end of it now and i’m about to start it again despite having loads of other stuff to listen to today…
I loved it too.
It reminded me of Orions Belte, particularly Mint and Villa Amorini.
Maybe this is really obvious but it sounds like you’d love David Axelrod’s stuff.
Oh I do, his first two are so so good. Can’t be a hip hop fan without knowing him or Bob James haha
Some stuff I’ve not heard so I’ll be digging in over the weekend.
I think this Salvator Dragatto album from last year may scratch this particular itch if you’ve not heard it already:
I’m not familiar with David Axelrod, so put on Songs of Innocence. Delighted to hear Holy Thursday and realise that’s where Lil Wayne got the sample from 
Paging @rich-t
Don’t know about any of the new stuff but keen to learn
Not new or instrumental but this started playing in my head when I saw the thread title
All is welcome. The “cinematic” part was done with the more epic tracks with vocals in mind.
Love this kind of stuff. This from 2023 is one of my favourite albums in years
One of my favourite albums of this year (so far) is the ‘July Blue Skies’ album by Jimi Tenor & Cold Mink Diamond which features this kinda thing…
Most of the album is more laid back, bit balearic even but it’s all lovely stuff.
Some of those newer Grails albums have a bit of this about them:
The Natural Yogurt Band are really good.
Edit - just listened to a bit more and I’m going to revise it down to ‘quite good’.
oh, and those Axelrod-produced Electric Prunes albums are insanely good:
There’s also this which was very, very famously sampled:
I also like SFJ (previously called Sunglasses For Jaws). Their ‘Room In Europe’ album from 2023 is great but features a fair amount of vocals.
They’ve released 2 great instrumental singles in recent months in collaboration with someone called Rachel Kitchlew which i’m guessing are going to feature on an upcoming album…
Excellent thread idea @paulo . Love a fair bit of Heliocentrics stuff. i’ll be checking out Surprise Chef later too.
Huge grin on my face here. That’s so funny hearing it “nude” as it were
It’s been used in a eBay advert recently. I remember thinking “oh nice, it’s the original” when it came on as I was convinced the beat was about to kick in haha
Wonder how many people in confused when they heard it.
This is a great record with excellent guest spots from Roots Manuva and Fontella Bass. Cinematic Orchestra at their absolute peak.