UK alternative music pioneers The Underground Balloon Service are releasing their first single recorded in mainland Europe, “Out Past Wijgmaal.”
(portaltaxi.net/music) – Powerhouse prodigy of funk from So. Cal’s Orange County, Jara Harris, has released his flagship solo LP, “Only.” The full-length record will appeal to fans of modern funkadelia such as the work of Prince, Outkast, or Lenny Kravitz, although Harris’ “Only” also has strong undercurrents of rhythm ‘n’ blues, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, jazz, and soul. The long-awaited album is an exceptional value as well, containing fifteen original tracks — a whopping sixty-minutes’ worth of excellent music played way down deep in the groove, performed, recorded, and engineered entirely by Harris, himself.
The overall tone of “Only” is described in the album’s liner notes thus: “This sound is so visual that the best chance of getting it, is to paint it with other artists as the ingredients. So take Sly Stone, George Clinton, Prince, Bootsy Collins, Rage Against The Machine, Fishbone, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, Musiq Soulchild and throw it all into a blender… And it somehow came out structure and made total sense.”
Jara Harris does not usually produce solo records. His music career began at the age of four, playing percussion in his family band, the 4 Js. However, by sixteen Jara had begun producing his own solo music on a Teac Porta-One four-track recorder. All his writing and performances were original and held to his own strict standards of quality. This led to fronting his own modestly successful band, Jarasound, and afterwards to a job playing bass for the Jackson 5’s Randy Jackson in a band called Randy and the Gypsies. Jara also played bass for Jose Feliciano’s Grammy-Award winning album of 1990, “Cielito Lindo.” Following this, Harris wanted greater breadth of creativity and started his second band, Slapbak. Slapbak would prove to be Harris’ most personal project until this solo release of “Only.”
About the message his record tries to convey to his fans, Harris says, “This album talks about mistakes, having to live with the outcome of your actions even though you’ve changed. But it’s also about reaching the end of your rope and realizing that, sometimes, you have to just walk away and start over.”
Plain to see (and even more plainly heard), Jara Harris’ “Only” isn’t anywhere near the end of his rope, or of anything else but a long wait. Fans of funk rock can pick up this album from digital distributors everywhere.
-S. McCauley
Staff Press Release Writer
MondoTunes
The LP “Only” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download
MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.
ARTIST CONTACT INFO:
eMail –
traklightent@yahoo.com
website –
www.slapbak.com
