For as far as long I can remember my dad has always been fighting every record I ever bought with old funk and jazz records, harpsichord music (Scarlatti doing my head in) and the odd Joni Mitchell. He was having none of my Aftermath records, and I would have NONE of his sneering Allegreto sonatas or Thelonious Monk. I reckon he was more disappointed to find me wiling out to Jay-Z than he was the first time he caught me smoking a cigarette. I’m grateful for my dad being a stubborn music elitist at times, as I enjoy jazz in almost all its forms today and whenever I need a bit of cheering up or calming down to do I can resort to some fusion and get my fix. Without the Dutch duo Pete Philly and Perquisite however, I wouldn’t enjoy jazz music as much as I do nowadays. Easylistening music, a good combination between hip-hop and jazz and ~fun for the entire family~. When I was ‘in doubt’ over this funny thing called jazz, I would put the difficult records away and vibe away to some Pete & Perq. Gradually my old man opened up to the rap game as well, win win for both.

Pete Philly and Perquisite were an Amsterdam-based hip-hop group heavily drawing inspiration from soul, jazz and broken beat. I was convinced that these guys were the creme de la creme of Dutch pop and hip-hop, and I still am. Not many mainstream Dutch artists get to their level anymore, if they even did before. They’ve collaborated with big a personal hero of mine, the saxophone-player Benjamin Herman, as well as the legend that is Talib Kweli, delivering solid singles time after time. The first song I’ve ever heard being “Insomnia” and my favourite one being the slightly cheesy yet brilliant Mellow“. I was sad to see them part their ways two years ago but I still give the three records they’ve released a spin whenever I feel nostalgic, and their songs still make me incredibly happy.

After a year of silence, the return of Pete Philly is a fact. He’s giving away an entire album for free to “clear his head”, to “do something back for the fans” and “experiment”. The album is definitely everything but a disappointment, even resembling The Roots at times. The album leans heavily on its beats, produced by Philly himself or by DJ PCM, a name known to people who are familiar with Pete Philly’s earlier work. This is what he said about the project called “Open Loops” himself: As I’m getting ready to record my upcoming album ‘One’ I first want to share my first installment of Open Loops. ‘Open Loop’ is a term coined by David Allen “An Open Loop is anything pulling at your attention that doesn’t belong where it is, the way it is.” It’s a thought that won’t leave you till you deal with it. My thoughts, of course, become tracks. I’m releasing one ‘Open Loop’ every week for fourteen weeks on petephilly.com You can download them for free and leave a comment to tell me what you think. I’ve put a lot of love into this project, so please feel free to share these tracks.

I’ve added three tracks out of fourteen, to grab the entire album head over to his official website PetePhilly.com and download the entire zip. I highly recommend you doing so, there’s some really good collaborations with Roos Jonker and the Benjamin Herman quartet on there I’m not sharing here so you’ll have to download it. Beautiful artwork added for every single track, too. You can thank me later. Do right, download everything.