Music

Root Source - Roots Sound

Breaking Through From Underground

Spinning The Groove At 1RPH:

One Revolution Per Heartbeat

Historical Mission

Neutralising Nihilism

Ever since our Ancestors were kidnapped and trafficked Westward to ‘make Britain great’, our music has buoyed all our generations’ spirits against drowning in a tsunami of cowardly deceit and cruelty arising from spiritual bad faith and nihilism. Still, after 400 years’ of divisive colonialism the cruel greed continues till we accept it and submit to it as the rightful order of things. Taking away hope and purpose is always a mark  of oppressors.

The small axe of Bunny, Bob and Tosh cut down a big tree. But they left a little stump behind, tricky to trump the stubborn kind.

From the first ships that trafficked us, each generation of musicians has kept our hearts pumping and feet tapping with pride and joy, resisting cold with warmth, cruelty with sympathy, denigration with elevation. The music of Abracadia is very much part of that long and wide resistance against nihilism.

Peace to the east and rest to west, reggaematic sound we come with the best, pass any test, loved by the blessed. The time and the hour of musical power, lifting the spirit high. This is a time of great opportunity, open the door Ubuntu community, live one-love is the one little shove, to see the wicked tumble from the rumble of the humble.

Hard times, rough, not good old days, and still the same old record plays: when times get dread natty dread get going: the music is a river and the river is flowing. Truth is: we march on. The Tonic Roots is part of  what comes NEXT.

Take 3. And… Spin it!

The Tonic Roots

Roots Tonic For The Soul.

The Tonic Roots don’t follow that. They know the music is all related and all one song, one love, one heart.

African Heritage music in England too often gets pinned to this niche or that, which can be limiting in many ways.

The Tonics’ daring debut album, TreeSongs, uses some of the forms we all grew up on to go places nobody’s been before.

Yes, it is basically a Reggae album, people music, but unusually it includes a Roots Reggae version of the classic ‘Afro Blue’ and a Nyabinghi treatment of ‘My Favourite Things’, both inspired by John Coltrane’s versions of those tunes. Raw Jazz comes even closer to the surface with the Monk/Blakey inspired duet ‘Prophet Malik’, while Papa Legba steps right in with an African vibe straight from hills of the motherland. 

This Reggae album is solidly bluesy, with deep African roots plus a twist of Funk, a hint of Latin and just a zhuzh of Jazz. It feels like bringing the family back together again after a long time apart.

Sound Revelations

Good Vibrations

Picking up where Mittoo, Ranglin and Hibbert left off, the debut album ‘Treesongs: A Windrush Breeze’ brings you the mellow bluesy side of Reggae with the deepest African roots and a hint of Latin vibe.

Produced in Uganda, Jamaica and London, ‘TreeSongs’ is the real thing: Improvised musical statements and conversations between three players with something important to say: get the feeling of the healing when The Tonics are revealing.

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The Tonic Roots

Meet


  • Sticks and Wind.

    As a child in London’s 70s jazz scene, Remi picked up drums from whoever was around: especially Victor Feldman, Michael Silva and Phil Seamen, plus snips and tips from Art Blakey’s lips and more.

    Remi’s come far since listening to Tubby Hayes practising cycles of 5ths on vibraphone half the night in the old basement behind Harrods.

    20 years later Remi taught himself to play those same cycles from memory, on marimba. That led to recording with the likes of Mad Professor, Johnny Clarke and Barry Isaac and supporting such names as Joseph Hill’s Culture and Freddie McGreggor live through the 80s and 90s.

    Windwise, melodica is a new self-taught avenue too. His main wind influences from early childhood: Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. Late teens led to Augustus Pablo.

    Now Remi puts it all together with his own unique sound, matured for 50 years like a decent rum.


  • Buttons, Bass And Keys.

    On piano and organ, Max Ayinde carries the swing every time. With the drum-motor running, his bass and keys drive the groove of every song on the album.

    As an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, he can always jump in on guitar or hand drum too to add that crucial something extra here and there when needed.

    Composer, arranger, pianist, organist, bassist and guitarist, as Count Kujo, Max Ayinde led his own 9-piece band on the Brighton music scene for some years before hitting London as a freelancer.  

    Not only is Max Ayinde a super-talented multi-instrumentalist and composer, he is also a first class sound engineer and recording studio technician with a fine ear for the elements and facets of sound. He really understands the sound that we’re aiming for and can deliver it.


  • Stringman

    An easy natural as comfortable in a village hall as the Albert Hall, Day is one of London’s leading senior gospelists.

    A top flight chorister, Day is also a gold star multi-instrumentalist who brings so much more than just knowledge, experience, taste and fluency in guitar, vocals, bass and keys.

    Day brings more than just a sympathetic ear and responsive reflexes. He’s a musical kindred spirit.

    Day Levale makes the Tonic Roots complete, so in the groove that the whole band sounds like a single continuous instrument.

    Ultimately it is the feel in Day’s playing that is so at home on this album. That comes with the fluency to play exactly what the music makes him feel in the moment and with the taste for that always to be just right to the ear.