Vancouver’s Cobblestone Jazz, a band comprised of world-renowned techno producer Mathew Johnson, programmer Tyger Dhula and keyboardist Danuel Dante who are known for their hype live shows and their jazzy, minimal techno sound heard on the track “Creator”. Johnson’s own tracks have received critical acclaim and have been caned by Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin and Tiga. Cobblestone Jazz has been steadily creating a buzz around Europe, and was recently featured on Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 1.

Also representing the West Coast is 8-member band 1 Luv along with vocalists Amaila Townsend, Deanna Teeple and Dawn Pemberton. Their groovy, soulful, jazzy house track “Starz” explains why this band was discovered by uber-crew Jazzanova and was featured on their Secret Love 2 Folk compilation and how their music has been finding its way into the crates of people like Phil Asher, Osunlande and Benji B. Starz is taken from 1 Luv’s debut album Neophilia on Sonar Kollektiv.

Required Listening 1 was a taste of what was being cooked up in Toronto’s backyard, Volume 2 expands the terrain to show the rest of the world what’s blowing up in Vancouver, Toronto, as well as Ottawa and Montreal. Compiler & Do Right label boss John Kong continues his journey across Canada to join the dots between hip-hop, funk, soul, future-jazz, broken-beat, house, techno and everything in between. Required Listening 2 is the second volume in this compilation series that really does require listening.

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