First Word are delighted to present the latest addition to our increasingly diverse roster: the hugely talented Ross McHenry with his debut solo album Distant Oceans - featuring twelve mighty tracks that dance and weave along the styles of jazz, hip-hop and many more experimental sounds.
Ross is an ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association award) nominated composer, producer and bass player whose diverse body of work carefully walks the line somewhere between instrumental jazz and the current wave of post-Dilla producers. His previous projects (including The Shaolin Afronauts) have seen him tour worldwide and led to him taking part in 2010's Red Bull Music Academy (where he met label-mate kidkanevil amongst others).
Ross McHenry's debut album Distant Oceans brings together six of the world's foremost musical innovators for the first time on record. The ensemble features one of the most exciting and in demand producers and keyboardists in the world today, Mark de Clive Lowe, the rhythmic foundation of renowned NZ ensemble Electric Wire Hustle, Myele Manzanza, multi-instrumentalist and composer Adam Page and leading Australian instrumentalists Dylan Marshall, Jon Hunt and Luca Spiler.
Distant Oceans takes influences from the LA beat scene, and the modal jazz movement, through the lens of contemporary music production. Imagine John Coltrane meeting the Brainfeeder collective and you're somewhere close to the sound of Distant Oceans.
