Jassbusters

Nothing is ever straightforward with Connan Mockasin, and nothing should ever be straightforward with Connan Mockasin. Connan Tant Hosford aka musician/composer/producer Connan Mockasin is from Te Awanga (New Zealand) and this is his third album, recorded at Studio Ferber, Paris in one week with Nicholas Harsant, Matthew Eccles and Rory McCarthy. It accompanies a five part film called Bosyn n’ Dobsyn’ which stars Connan Mockasin and Blake Pryor. A smooth slow jam of an album. From soul growl to falsetto pleading it’s a rain-lashed soul groove with jewelled splashes of funks splashing on the window. It sits deep in the grooves. Slightly unsettling downbeat melancholia with almost music-hall crooning at times. A confident slide and groove across the dancefloor. A twilight last savoured sip of whiskey type of album - a downright downbeat classic.

An unclassifiable, unconventional album that neither picks up from nor abandons the modes of 2013’s widely-embraced Caramel or its 2010 predecessor Forever Dolphin Love, Jassbusters foreshadows a five-part melodrama titled Bostyn 'n Dobsyn, directedbyand starring Mockasin. Jassbusters soundtracks the unpredictable narrative of the television series in eclectic, electric ways. Whether bending genres for shits n’ giggles or collaborating with artists like James Blake (who might just appear on a Jassbusters track), MGMT, John Cale, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Connan Mockasin has always maneuvered in mysterious ways. After touring with the likes of Radiohead and Neil and Liam Finn (Crowded House), the Kiwi R&B surrealist continues assembling a cult around his theatre, nay spectacle, of life with Bostyn ’n Dobsyn.