Review: Andre Espeut & Stefano de Santis - Wanna Know What’s On Your Mind (Ramrock Records)

Well it wasn't on our minds that Andre Espeut & Stefano de Santis would team up for a Lovers Rock summer, check out 'Wanna Know What’s On Your Mind' on Ramrock!

Regular readers may well be surprised to hear that Andre Espeut (last seen HERE teaming up with Inkswel as well Robert Burbridge - see HERE - and King Bee on Ramrock Red Records - see HERE) would get together with Stefano de Santis (a Ramrock regular - see HERE) at North Street West studio in Hastings via London and Rome, to produce 'Wanna Know What’s On Your Mind', original and dub, which are perfect lovers for a Sunday (and the rest of the week). 

Stefano says, "I met Andre in 2022 through some of his work. From the very first listen, I was struck by his tone and versatility, and I remember immediately thinking how great it would be to do something together.  Shortly after the release of my first EP, I received a message from him asking if I wanted to collaborate. “There you go, the law of attraction works perfectly!” I thought. We started working together, and a lot of great, diverse music has been coming out of it.   A common ground for our collaboration has been reggae. Both Andre and I grew up with this genre, and it was beautiful to reconnect with that vibe, since it’s not something we usually play and create, even though we both love it deeply".

 
Coming out just after Chilled Cider festival (which is just down the road from the much missed Wilkswood Reggae Festival and the news of the passing of Dubheart's Bongo Steve; RIP) this is the much needed boost to spiritual roots reggae and dub.

Let's hope by next years' Chilled Cider Festival I'll have a vinyl copy to play!

BUY LINK / PRE-ORDER:  RR014 Andre Espeut & Stefano De Santis 'Wanna Know What's On Your Mind' EP | Andre Espeut, Stefano De Santis | Ramrock

Artist: Andre Espeut & Stefano de Santis

Title: Wanna Know What’s On Your Mind 

Release date: 10th July, 2026
Label: Ramrock Records
Cat. No: RR014
Format: Digital / Bandcamp

Review: Stefano De Santis - Sick With Rhyme ‘North Street West’ Remix EP (Ramrock Red Records)

It's been a touch over 6 months since we had the release of Stefano De Santis' 'Unreachable Galaxy EP' (see review HERE), but there's no sign of the Ramrock production line slowing down as The North Street West trio get back in the space ship to reach out to those galaxies.

You'll recall that Stefano De Santis is an Italian musician/composer/producer and produced his "modern jazz-funk" on an array of keyboards from Fender  Rhodes, piano, clavinet, Prophet 5, Moog, Solina String Ensemble, Juno 6! Form the remix, Ashley Beedle jumps on the drum programming stool, Darren Morris adds some new keyboard jazzness and with Jo Wallace arrangements with get two new versions.

The remixes of 'Sick With Rhyme', with vocal and dub versions, do bring the BRUK sound up-to-date as its Bugz In Attic phazers are locked on to CDr/Co-Op, the Herbie style keys are in-tune with the broken dancefloor and there's 'Lyric L' telling you that, "ya gotta move to ya booty la la to this".

Going to be hearing this from DJs Gilles Peterson, Colin Curtis, Kev Beadle etc along with Ramrock's very own Ashley Beedle of course.

Artist: Stefano De Santis

Title: Sick with Rhyme ‘North Street West’ Remix EP

Release date: 3rd July, 2023

Label: Ramrock Red Records 

Cat. No: RRR044

Format: Digital / Bandcamp

Review: Stefano De Santis - Unreachable Galaxy EP (Ramrock Records)

It's been a while since we last caught up with Ramrock Records with thier 'Over Again' release by Mr Bird featuring Greg Blackman (see review HERE) but they have been on a roll ever since and their lastest, Unreachable Galaxy EP, is a monster of modern jazz-funk and more. 

Stefano De Santis is an Italian musician/composer/producer has a thing for all your favourite keyboards from Fender  Rhodes, piano, clavinet, Prophet 5, Moog, Solina String Ensemble, Juno 6 (so you know this is going to sound incredible already) and he does all the drum programming too!

He's definitely got his fingers on the keys when it comes to jazzy bruk dancefloor Lonnie/Herbie/Deodato inspired space funk; what more could anybody need? A four tracker that touches the jazz-funk dancer in all of us.   Particularly 'Cosmic Days' (with a nod to Azimuth 'disco') and 'Unreachable Galaxy' are a diggers dream (Ramrock Red Records having done the hard work for us in this case) and then merge all this (if you can imagine) and bring in the fashionable BRUK underground for 'Nova Laze' and 'Sick With Rhyme'.  

Totally Worldwide FM with usual suspect fans already like Gilles Peterson, Colin Curtis, Ashley Beedle, Kev Beadle etc. so expect to hear much more of these tracks soon.

Ramrock/ Ramrock Blue/ Ramrock Red · 01. Stefano De Santis - Unreachable Galaxy

Artist: Stefano De Santis

Title: Unreachable Galaxy EP

Release date: 28th October, 2022

Label: Ramrock Red Records Soundcloud.com/ramrockrecords

Cat. No: RRR034

Format: Digital