New single and video ‘Kingdom’ from Menagerie’s fourth album
2 years since their last full-length, the highly acclaimed Many Worlds, Australian 9-piece Menagerie are back with new single and video “Kingdom”, which announces their highly anticipated fourth album The Shores Of Infinity, to be released September 1st 2023 on esteemed U.K label Freestyle Records.
Menagerie is the Melbourne-based jazz ensemble founded by producer, songwriter, guitarist, DJ and recording artist Lance Ferguson, also the driving force behind The Bamboos, Lanu, Rare Groove Spectrum and Machines Always Win.
“Kingdom” builds a groove with sinewy bass, phased-out Fender Rhodes and angular horn lines. The second section opens into a syncopated vehicle for the masterful Trumpet of Ross Irwin. Here is contemporary live jazz-funk influenced in equal parts by the music of West London’s Broken Beat movement as well as Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd.
Menagerie‘s debut album They Shall Inherit saw the light of day in 2012 via Tru Thoughts, before releasing The Arrow Of Time on Freestyle in 2018 and the critically acclaimed Many Worlds in 2021. Inspired by both the post-Coltrane generation of the 70’s and the current ‘New Wave Of Jazz’, Many Worlds made serious waves internationally, being championed on Worldwide FM, Jazz FM and Jazzwise. Menagerie were nominated in the Best Jazz Act category of the 2021 Music Victoria Awards, and in 2022 performed as part of the esteemed Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Now, two years on from their last full-length album, Menagerie are back with The Shores Of Infinity, further expanding their sound out into the music universe, a forward-looking, rhythm-heavy expression of contemporary Jazz that is steeped in the tradition but somehow also defies genre pigeonholing.
“Kingdom” out digitally on July 28th 2023 via Freestyle Records
