Koralle x Yawuh ft: Lorenzo Morresi - Shangri-La (Single)

Italian jazz beat maestros Koralle & Yawuh team up for collab album ‘Primo Quarto' (LP/Digital. Artwork by Tomo Oriyama, Tokyo. In stores: 24th Oct).

'Shangri-La' is the first single. An earthy soul jazz tune with a solid groove but a chilled vibe and lush arrangement of guitar, bass, synth, flugelhorn and trumpet: It borrows its title from the utopian Tibetan city of the same name. 'Shangri-La' features fellow Italian producer Lorenzo Morresi, best known for his cosmic excursions on labels like 22a and Schema.

"Primo Quarto is an Italian expression that refers to the first quarter of the moon," Koralle and Yawuh explain: "The lunar phase when the moon is half-illuminated and half in shadow. For us, this moment captures the emotional core of the album: a balance between light and dark, the seen and the hidden, clarity and mystery."

Primo Quarto is a record full of late night tales about beats and jazz (you guessed it) and a musical friendship that manifested itself in an apartment building in Bologna after dark. 13 tracks produced and mixed on the first floor (where Yawuh lives) and on the fourth floor (where Koralle’s studio is located). With the help of an A-list of local musicians (Matteo Magnaterra, Piergiorgio Perrella, Giovanni Tamburini, Gianluca Arcesilai), three MCs from the US (Anti Lilly, Tiff The Gift, Physical Graffiti) and producer friends Saib (Berlin), Phlocalyst (Luz) and Lorenzo Morresi (Milan).

When Yawuh is not doing music with Koralle, he runs  the label collective Beat’s Tailors and is part of the jazz Hip-Hop group Unword.

Koralle needs no further introduction: he is one of Italy’s best beatmaker-turned-musican period. From Bassona – his 2024 weird jazz / world music album with Francesco Giampaoli to Eat The Kiwi Skin – the best UK rap album produced outside of the UK with London MC Isatta Sheriff on mic duties – Koralle is our man from Bologna. On his three solo-albums on Melting Pot Music he has perfected his signature his jazz beat sound and hooked-up with artsits like FloFilz, Turt (Summers Sons), Twit One, KeepVibesNear, Pachakuti, Kuranes, Kid Abstrakt and Figub Brazlevic.