If music on the radio was as good as ‘A Supreme Vibe’ I’d start listening again.

April Records

Jonathan Rahbæk – Bass; Johannes Wamberg – Guitar; Jacob Broholm – Piano, Wurlizer, Synthesizer, Rhodes, Mellotron; Andreas Fryland – Drums

Guests: E. Brown – Vocals; Oilly Wallace – Alto Saxophone; Kuku Agami – Vocals; Patrick Dorgan – Vocals; Joseph Agami – Vocals; Jonas Due – Trumpet, Flugelhorn; Roald Elm Larsen – Tenor Saxophone; Pelle von Bülow – Guitar

I really like this debut by four Danish guys calling themselves The Supreme Court. A SUPREME VIBE has a bunch of guests from hip-hop, soul, and jazz.

‘That Oooh Yeah’ has E. Brown reminding me of Gil Scott Heron. His vocals are oh-so-smooth. I like the way this sounds. The drums and the bass are high in the mix. Electronics flow in and out of E. Brown’s great vocals.

Kuku Agami raps his way through ‘AM Roots.’ Drummer Andreas Fryland’s cymbals blur together with Agami’s raps. Oilly Wallace closes the track with a fine alto saxophone solo.

Bette sings in Danish, her native tongue, on ‘Hjem.’ Her voice is beautiful, ethereal, fragile; all at the same time.

Patrick Dorgan is new to me. After hearing his soulful ballad ‘Bird Seed’ I scoured YouTube for anything I could find by him. Andreas Fryland may be the perfect drummer for this project. He changes his drumming style a bit for every singer he plays behind.

Joseph Agami raps his heart out on ‘Dots.’ Jacob Broholm solos mightily on Fender Rhodes with drums and bass right beside him.

‘Passing Moments’ has an awesome melodic sing-songy rap by Al Agami. There’s a gorgeous flugelhorn solo by Jonas Due. Al Agami raps again on ‘Everything.’ I can hear the smile on his face while he’s doing this!

There are a few songs that don’t have vocals. It’s the four guys who make up The Supreme Court. These are the jazziest of the songs. Johannes Wamberg shines on guitar. He’s got a real bluesy laidback sound.

There is nothing boring about this recording. There are different sounding singers. You don’t hear the same people doing solo work. But at the same time there’s this really cool groove holding everything together.

The songs on this album are all short. The longest is four minutes. Maybe they’re hoping they’ll get more radio play that way? I used to love AM radio when I was a kid. If music on the radio was as good as ‘A Supreme Vibe’ I’d start listening again.

Reviewed by Tim Larsen