For over ten years the collective from Berlin known as Sonar Kollektiv have been at the forefront of delivering cutting edge music by an eclectic group of artists. Their blueprint has been to place emphasis on quality recordings without dwelling on the number of units that are sold. Their latest record “SK200” marks their 200th release and serves as a testament that the formula certainly works. “SK200” contains seventeen tracks of some of their finest work this year and beyond. The disc starts off with “Sun Children” by Soulphiction, a soulful ambient tune with strings from their early 2008 release “Do You Overstand?!”. Thief contributes to the ensemble with “Somewhere”, a warm up-tempo tune with nice synth arrangements. The jazz quartet Quasimode is also featured here with “Objects In The Mirror”, which features the superb vocals of Carmen Lundy who is certainly one of our finest vocalists in jazz today. Label veteran Clara Hill sings sweet folksy melodies on “Ocean Queen”. There are also contributions from the likes of Roland Appel, Lars Bartkuhn, Benny Sings and many more. This is a wonderful record that is loaded with great performances. Just another example of why Sonar Kollektiv is one of the premier record labels around today.
