“Excellent release.” Gilles Peterson, BBC6 Music
“On first listen, this could well be album of the year!” Mike Chadwick, Jazz FM
Teotima is a 16-piece jazz / afro-latin / soul ensemble from London. Guitarist-composer Greg Sanders started Teotima; taking the powerful, elegant but deceptively complex grooves of West Africa, Cuba and Brazil and adding the sensibility of classic American soul and funk.
As an intrinsically live project, all the individual band members are key to the project and their improvisation is a central part of the music. In 2013 Teotima recorded the LP ‘Counting The Ways’, released on First Word Records. Recorded as-live at London’s Fishmarket Studios under the watchful eye of engineer Ben ‘Nostalgia 77’ Lamdin, the record achieves a synchronicity that only this kind of old-fashioned approach can produce.
One of the most striking things about the music is its huge scope. The arrangements of Gil Evans and David Axelrod, grooves reminiscent of Arthur Verocai and the Fania All Stars, and the textures of artists like Floating Points Ensemble and Snarky Puppy. The band also feature the voice of Ellie Rose Rusbridge, known to some as the voice of The Beguilers.