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DOME 30 YEARS, Vol. 2

We continue to celebrate our 30th birthday as one of the world’s leading independent labels specialising in soul/R&B and jazzy grooves by releasing the second of two album collections.

25 US and UK artists are featured on Dome 30 Years Vol. 2, with tracks spanning from the label’s biggest hit of the early Nineties, the Leon Ware-composed Independence by Lulu, and the song that launched Beverley Knight’s career in 1995, Flavour of the Old School, to new tracks recorded especially to mark the label’s birthday – like Shaun Escoffery’s Set Me Free, the Michele Chiavarini Lounge Mix of Full Flava’s Nature Boy and the brilliant reunion of Anthony David and Algebra Blessett on Heaven. Also included is the brand new Drizabone Remix of Dennis Taylor’s most popular song Smile.

Many of the artists included are pre-eminent in soul music, notably Incognito, George Duke featuring Eric Benet, Rahsaan Patterson, Eric Roberson with Will Downing, Brenda Russell, Khari Cabral Simmons featuring India Arie, Carleen Anderson with Paul Weller, and the ex-Soul II Soul team of Simon Law and Caron Wheeler.

We have been blessed to work with so many talented artists in our quest to deliver the finest in soul, R&B and dance music, and many of our newer followers around the world are only now starting to discover just how many gems there are in the label’s vaults.

DOME 30 YEARS Vol. 2

Release: June 24 2022

DOME 460D

https://ingrv.es/dome-30-years-vol-2-pqo-7

DOME 30 YEARS, Vol. 1

When Peter Robinson launched Dome in 1992 after working in A&R for major labels, little did he imagine that the label would still be going strong three decades later.  Yet here we are in 2022 and Dome is celebrating its 30th birthday with the release of Dome 30 Years Vol. 1, to be followed in June by a second volume.

25 tracks spanning early releases like the Lulu/Bobby Womack Top 30 hit I’m Back For More and Richard Darbyshire’s majestic This I Swear, via Hil St Soul’s timeless version of Until You Come Back To Me and Brenda Russell’s Bluey-produced Latin favourite Make You Smile, right up to the present day and new music from Jarrod Lawson with his take on the Isleys’ Footsteps In The Dark, the Nigel Lowis Mix of Dennis Taylor’s In The Mood and a new take on  jazz funk classic Could Heaven Ever Be Like This from Incognito feat. Bluey.    

The label has been blessed to work with so many talented artists from the US and UK in its quest to deliver the finest in soul, R&B and dance music, and many of its newer followers from around the world are only now beginning to discover just how many gems there are in the Dome catalogue. This compilation will help that process of discovery, and there are many more great artists to be featured in Volume 2.

Dome Records Vol. 1    29/04/22 on all digital download/streaming platforms

Full Flava, led by UK producer/songwriter Rob Derbyshire, have over the past couple of years released a series of remixes of key songs from their 20-year history. Working with a stellar line-up of US and UK female vocalists - including CeCe Peniston, Chantay Savage, Carleen Anderson, Donna Gardier and Incognito’s Joy Rose - they cover a wide range of styles from disco to Latin, soulful house to soul-jazz.

Refreshed is a 2CD collection of remixes together with new cuts like Get Down Saturday Night, a 2021 take on an Eighties club hit, with a powerful soul vocal from Chantay Savage, Music Is My Way Of Life (JKriv Remix), sung by Kelli Sae (already a #1 track at Traxsource.com) and Rod Temperton’s Love X Love featuring Izzy Chase, with a Latin-flavoured mix by Incognito.

Among the most streamed Full Flava recordings are September, also featuring Chantay Savage, remixed by Sunlight Square; You Are The Universe featuring CeCe Peniston, remixed by Michele Chiavarini; “Was That All It Was, a disco era Philly favourite featuring Carleen Anderson, given the soulful house treatment by Micky More and Andy Tee; and the Stevie Wonder composition Betcha Wouldn’t Hurt Me, with Donna Gardier on vocals. Blue Lab Beats bring a soul-jazz twist to Stories, also featuring Carleen Anderson.

REFRESHED DOMECD350
Release: October 1 2021

• Available on 2CD
• and to stream

Jarrod Lawson, the singer-songwriter-keyboardist from Portland, Oregon who emerged seemingly out of nowhere at 37 with a debut album that took the jazz and soul world by storm, has completed recording of his long awaited second album.

Titled BE THE CHANGE, it will be released worldwide by Dome Records on October 30 – on CD, 2LP vinyl and on digital platforms - preceded by the title track as a single.

He is accompanied by a band that benefits from the rhythmic presence of Grammy-nominated percussionist Sammy Figueroa, whose playing in a lengthy career has graced albums by artists as diverse as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Hall & Oates, Carole King and Chic.     

Lawson’s trademark layered harmonies and vocal phrasing, his jazz fusion arrangements and his stunning keyboard skills are in evidence throughout the 11-track album, notably on “Be The Change”,  “Universal Chord” and “How Long”.   On the beautiful, intimate “I’ll Be Your Radio” he is joined by Moonchild’s Amber Navran on vocals and flute and her fellow members of the Los Angeles alternative R&B trio who contribute clarinet and flugelhorn. On the smouldering torch song “Love Isn’t Always Enough” Max Ribner’s trumpet and flugel provide the perfect mood-setting accompaniment.  

Describing him as the “blue eyed soul boy of jazz”, the London Evening Standard wrote: “It’s not just Lawson’s wide ranging tenor and ability to swing, scat and groove that has made him the biggest soul-jazz sensation in years.  It’s the way he’s bringing spirituality back to a genre that had lost its depth”.  

Jarrod received a Soul Artist of the Year Award from the UK’s Jazz FM in the wake of the release of his debut set and was Album of the Year runner-up at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards.He has performed at the North Sea Jazz and Love Supreme festivals among many in Europe, Indonesia’s Java Jazz festival and a number of festivals in his native US.  He has also played Billboard Live in Tokyo.   A European tour, originally scheduled for July 2019, has been rearranged for May 2021. 

“If you look at Incognito as being the flagship of my career, consider Citrus Sun as being the indulgent - and for fun only - speedboat that rides alongside her”

That’s Bluey explaining his love for Citrus Sun, as they release their fourth album Expansions and Visions on Dome Records (Worldwide release on August 14).  “This band is our getaway, our live-for-the-moment statement”, he says.    And for the second album running, the band did literally get away - to Krabi on southern Thailand’s West coast, where they enjoyed a life of beach and boat trips by day and writing and recording by night.   

A gritty reworking of the Ashford-Simpson classic “California Soul” features Noel McKoy, with background vocals from Jamiroquai’s Valerie Etienne and Hazel Fernandes.   

Valerie takes the lead on a blistering version of Lonnie Liston Smith’s “Expansions”, described by Bluey as “a pivotal song in the soundtrack of our lives – a song most of us used to dance to in the London clubs”.

Legendary UK guitarist Jim Mullen returns to the line-up for the third time on “Expansions”, “Stay You” (a Seventies-styled tribute to the late Leon Ware) and a driving, funky instrumental “Hard Boiled”.  

Featured on much of the album is the youngest addition to the band, 22-year-old Indonesian harmonica sensation Rega Dauna.

It was 20 years ago that HIL ST SOUL released their groundbreaking debut album SOUL ORGANIC.  The team of Zambian-born vocalist Hilary Mwelwa and producer Victor Redwood-Sawyerr (VRS) had been working away in a North London studio creating a unique blend of neo soul, jazz and R&B that impressed critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

And now, to coincide with a September show at London’s Jazz Cafe, where Hil first appeared in 2000, Dome are releasing a 20th Anniversary Edition of the vinyl album - now in a gatefold sleeve and with three additional tracks.

The 16 tracks in the 2LP set include “Strictly A Vibe Thang”, which charted on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, “For Your Love” and Hil’s acoustic version of “Until You Come Back To Me”, which ended 2000 as the most-played vocal track of the year across US Smooth Jazz radio stations.  In the ensuing two decades it has been Dome’s most downloaded - and one of the most streamed - tracks.

Billboard magazine enthused: “Brimming with R&B/hip-hop/jazz-flavoured rhythms and image-rich lyrics….Even Aretha’s ‘Until You Come Back To Me’ glows again under Hil’s touch”.  And talking about lead single Strictly A Vibe Thang, US magazine Radio & Records  wrote: “You can’t sit still on this one.   While listening to this infectious tune you got to move something – even if it’s just your big toe!”    

The bonus tracks on the new release are the acoustic version of “Until You Come Back To Me”, the VRS remix of “Just A Matter Of Time” and “Down To Business”.