Heritage II Mark de Clive-Lowe

• 1 O-Edo Nihonbashi 07:34
• 2 Bushidō II 06:07
• 3 Ryūgū-jō 07:06
• 4 Isan 01:03
• 5 Shitennō 05:54
• 6 Mizugaki - reprise 01:43
• 7 The Silk Road 06:36
• 8 Mirai no Rekishi 02:34
• Total Runtime 38:37

Info for Heritage II

Day turns to night as Mark de Clive-Lowe’s Heritage II takes us from the meditative zen of Heritage into a world of jazz and Japanese roots culture fused with hip hop, drum’n’bass and broken-beat.

‘Heritage is a legacy we receive from our ancestors to pass on to future generations. It’s the thread that holds us together in lineage and cultural identity,’ posits jazz and electronic music pioneer Mark de Clive-Lowe. The half-Japanese half-New Zealander presents his new album Heritage II - the partner and second installment to his critically acclaimed album Heritage, a deeply personal exploration of his Japanese cultural and ancestral roots.

“Heritage is what gives our relatively short lives context and meaning in the bigger picture of generations past and future. We are the new ancestors, and with that in mind, it’s important that we act - and contribute - accordingly. This is my identity search and journey to better understand where I’ve come from, what ancestry means to me and where I’m going to. ”

Heritage II opens with a meditative solo piano introduction, conjuring up the evocative folkloric sounds of the preceding part one album, which soon gives way to a J Dilla inspired interpretation of the traditional folk song “O-Edo Nihonbashi” - de Clive-Lowe programming beats, basslines while playing piano and keyboards live along with his band. Although the Heritage albums were recorded over three nights live at LA’s Blue Whale and one subsequent day in a North Hollywood studio, nothing you hear is overdubbed or the result of post-production “studio magic”. De Clive-Lowe’s live workflow often sees him labeled an “alien”, leaving audiences captivated by his seamless juggling of grand piano, synths, drum machines, samplers and more to create layer-upon-layer of musical stories in real time.

O-Edo Nihonbashi gives way to “Bushido II” (the way of the warrior) - recontextualizing the familiar theme from Heritage into a wildly experimental drum’n’bass ride, evoking images of great Japanese samurai warriors in full fighting mode. These opening two compositions set the scene for Heritage II - the flipside of the coin to Heritage - continuing the same story, but with new perspectives.

‘I came up loving jazz, hip hop, drum’n’bass, house, broken beat and so much more. I like to lean into these different inspirations at the same time, balancing the sonic aesthetics and stylistic approaches in unexpected ways. That’s a huge part of my own ‘in’ and ‘yo’ (yin and yang in Japanese) balance in my process and creativity. To be able to bring all of this together with musical stories of my ancestry, roots and identity is something that’s very special to me.’

De Clive-Lowe resumes his culture-rich journey throughout Heritage II, showcasing his breadth of skill as a producer, composer and instrumentalist. An artist who is as indebted to the jazz greats as much as hip hop, house and experimental music icons, de Clive-Lowe challenges us to leave our preconceptions at the door and follow him down the path on a journey of his own discovery. Like his peers Kamasi Washington, Makaya McCraven and Robert Glasper, de Clive-Lowe isn’t content to simply play the jazz lane and he purposefully reaches across a diverse palette of genres and influences to create something quite unlike anything else.

Heritage II captures the essence of childhood folk-tales (“Ryūgū-jō - The Dragon Palace - immortalized in the story of Urashima Taro), Buddhist myths ('‘Shitennō’ - The Four Heavenly Kings - exploring the idea of ancestral protectors and guardians) and ‘The Silk Road’ - a broken-beat riding composition born from de Clive-Lowe’s learning of the identical scales used in both Ethiopian and Japanese traditional music - ‘these musical building blocks, or DNA, of traditional melodies and harmonies in Ethiopia and Japan are literally identical. Not approximately, but exactly. Understanding this helped me conclude that a common musical language traveled the old world Silk Road as much as trade, commerce, customs and learned knowledge. This is inspired by that idea and imagining a whole new world which it all leads to.’

On Heritage II, de Clive-Lowe is joined by a cast of world-class musicians: Josh Johnson (Leon Bridges/Esperanza Spalding), Teodross Avery (Talib Kweli/Mos Def), Brandon Eugene Owens (Terrace Martin/Robert Glasper), Brandon Combs (Moses Sumney/Iman Omari), Carlos Niño (Build An Ark/Lifeforce Trio) and Tylana Enomoto (Kamasi Washington/Bonobo) - who all contribute stellar performances in support of de Clive-Lowe’s music.

‘These are not only my favorite musicians, but my friends, and that they were all able to be part of this project really means a lot to me. They’re all such incredible musicians, and no one brings any ego to the table - that’s one key thing that makes it possible to explore this music with a real sense of vulnerability and honesty.’

Heritage II is the partner album to Heritage. The album’s original artwork by Tokio Aoyama depicts Bon Odori - a summer festival dance under the night-time sky - surreally all happening inside de Clive-Lowe’s grand piano...

Mark de Clive-Lowe, piano, Fender Rhodes, synths, live electronics, programming
Josh Johnson, alto saxophone, flute
Teodross Avery, tenor saxophone x ("Bushido II", "Isan" and "The Silk Road" only)
Brandon Eugene Owens, bass
Carlos Niño, additional percussion
Brandon Combs, drums
Tylana Enomoto, violin (“Ryūgū-jō” only)

Mark de Clive-Lowe
is a musical wizard on stage - juggling grand piano, synths, live sampling and beat making all on-the-fly, brought to life with a casual ease that’s mind-boggling. Pianist, composer, jazz musician, live remixer and electronic music producer, the Japanese-New Zealander was raised primarily in New Zealand where he learned piano from a young age developing an avid passion for jazz through his father’s record collection. In high school in NZ and Japan, he fell in love with sample-heavy 90s hip hop and early UK drum’n’bass – laying the foundation for a lifetime of genre-bending sonic adventures.

During formative decade at the epicenter of London’s underground music scene, Mark helped evolve the broken beat genre alongside some of the UK’s most forward-thinking trailblazers, establishing himself as a new voice in progressive electronic music and leading global tastemaker DJ Gilles Peterson to designate him “the man behind a million great tunes”. While in London, Mark released his albums ‘Six Degrees’ (Universal) and ‘Tide’s Arising (ABB/Columbia) and established his unique jazz-meets-electronica sound touring the world, prompting Jazziz to write with 20/20 hindsight in 2019:

“way before jazz hybridity became a worldwide phenomenon, de Clive-Lowe was busy designing its blueprint.”

Relocating to Los Angeles in 2008, his club night CHURCH was soon taking his signature sound of technology and beat-infused jazz mash-up from coast to coast and around the globe, seeing him on stage with multiple generations of the world’s most respected jazz, soul and hip hop artists - “equal parts jazz club, dance party and live remix experiment” as he likes to describe it, bringing his love for all things jazz, beat and DJ culture into one seamless blend of community, culture and connection. His 2019 release Heritage - a two-part double-album - sees Mark deep dive into his Japanese roots and ancestry through the lens of jazz and electronica - an immersive and evocative soundtrack transporting the listener through MdCL’s own experience of Japan along with his love for its history and mythology. Downbeat offers:

“de Clive-Lowe’s notion of truth on Heritage ultimately reaches beyond the individual, beyond his lineage and into the cultural moment we’re currently living”.

With his 2021 Motherland NFT Collection drop and entrance into the web3 space, Mark’s ancestral deep-dive has evolved into an audio-visual offering with a 40-minute immersive film - blending footage he shot in Kaga, Japan set to a solo performance of ancestrally-inspired compositions presented as an intimately meditative, stripped-down solo performance. As an artist who has been an early adopter of new technology throughout his life, seeing Mark explore blockchain technology and NFTs is no surprise.

Whether he’s remixing classic Blue Note Records in real-time, on stage joined by instrumental masters like Kamasi Washington, Pino Palladino or Eric Harland, improvising introspective solo piano or creating live soundtracks to classic film material, Mark de Clive-Lowe is an artist in constant evolution. He has performed with Harvey Mason, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Dwight Trible and Jean Grae; remixed Shirley Horn, Hiatus Kaiyote, Mantombi Matotiyana and Jerry Goldsmith; and recorded as producer and collaborator with artists all over the planet. Having released twenty albums and contributed to over 300 releases, he is among the most prolific of his generation.

Mark has performed across the US and throughout the world. He has given feature performances at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Smithsonian, The Lincoln Center and is Founding Artist in Residence for La Ceiba Festival (2020). He is also a recipient of the 2021 U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship.

"(the) avant-garde soulful Pianist/DJ/Producer delivers his lifetime of journeys to different musical ports in a concise package, seamlessly... transporting not just in genre but in emotion and spirit." - Huffington Post

"a beautiful marriage of hip-hop, traditional Japanese music, and Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, all with some electronic music flourishes. This is some insanely good stuff that has reverence for all the music that it references." - Raw Select Music

"a musical force unlike any other" - Popmatters.com

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