El Michels Affair HHV Records 19 Items

From oblivion

Multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels AKA El Michels Affair started his career as a musician with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, a 60s and 70s funk revival band signed to Daptone Records. Likewise, he helped out as saxophonist, organist and drummer with the Mighty Imperials, a Meters house band on the Brooklyn label Soul Fire Records. He first appeared on the 2002 release of the 12" vinyl Easy Access Parts 1 & 2 as a Soul Fire Records session musician. The founder of the Soul Fire label decided to sell his studio equipment to Michels in 2004, and he and bandmates Jeff Silverman and Nick Movshon started their own label called Truth & Soul Records shortly thereafter. Inspired by funk, soul, Afrobeat and the jazz of the ‘60s and ’70s, Michels began recording music with his ten-piece live band. In Michels’ bedroom studio, using an 80’s home recording module (Tascam 388), they produced their first tracks, which were a deliberate departure from the standard funk that was flooding the market at the time. With a vision of soul music that combined the cinematic quality of soundtrack recordings with the recording aesthetic of early reggae, the album began to take shape.

Warm and crackling lo-fi sounds

The label’s first long player was born, Sounding Out The City (2005) El Michel Affair’s warm and bass-heavy lo-fi sounds were an immediate success, leading to performances with Raekwon and various members of Wu-Tang Clan. These performances set the stage for further collaborations on instrumentals for the Wu-Tang Shaolin Series. These can be found on the vinyl Enter The 37th Chamber, released in 2012. Four years later, the EP Strange Boy b/w No Surprise was released, a collaboration with The Shacks that includes instrumentals and lo-fi mixes. Another classic is the 7" Vinyl Tearz, a cover of Wene Randy’s After Laughter (Comes Tears). Return To The 37th Chamber is the highly anticipated sequel to 2009’s Enter The 37th Chamber, in which Michels not only reinterpreted Wu’s compositions for a live band, but also paid homage to RZA production with all-analog production. With synths, heavy metal guitars, triumphant horns and Chinese instruments, he makes the classics shine in new splendor. Head-nodding beats can be heard on the 2020 album Adult Themes, which Michels says is the soundtrack to his imaginary movie and is full of complex melodies to keep your ears on their toes. With Yeti Season, El Michels Affair takes us to another place in time; Piya Malik’s ethereal voice provides the perfect counterpart to the Turkish-tinged funk and an almost Mumbai Esken interpretation of soul. Following on from this, Michels has released The Abominable EP, which gives us the rest with unreleased tracks, alternative takes and instrumentals from the Yeti recording session.

A cinematic interweaving

El Michels Affair’s influence has ranged from concerts with the Mighty Imperials and Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings to releases on the Daptone Record label. His cinematic interweaving of soundtrack music and timeless soul led him to collaborate with one of the world’s most notorious rap groups, Wu Tang Clan. Almost as if in a domino effect, numerous hip hop artists sampled Michels’ songs, from Ghostface Killah, Just Blaze and Jay-Z up to J Dilla, J.Cole and Travis Scott. He created his own niche in his bedroom, where soulful instrumentals with a lo-fi retro aesthetic are at the forefront. The musical quality has attracted bands like*Lee Fields*, The Arcs, The Shacks and many more to be heard in collaboration with the producer.