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New single release from Ian Ventress

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Friday 14th October saw the WORLDWIDE DIGITAL release of our latest single. In conjunction with VJ Media, which is run by our friend Vivienne Neville (a Plankton artist herself) we are pleased to release the debut single from songwriter and performer IAN VENTRESS called “MAMA”, which is a truly joyous Gospel and African flavoured celebration of motherhood, with a slice of rap thrown in for good measure!

Ian’s journey to this point in his musical journey is not your standard story. Based in the north east of England he is a successful businessman but alongside his business activities Ian has always had an interest in writing poetry and this has most recently extended and led him to explore his creative talent in songwriting.

This unplanned and unexpected foray into songwriting brought him into contact with Vivienne Neville, who is of course an experienced songwriter and recording artist. Ian then went into the studio to record with Paul Worthington at Broadwater Studios in Gateshead. Feeling much more comfortable with songwriting than performing ‘out front’ on his own, for this first release from those sessions Ian has drafted in some talented artists and contacts to assist him with the vocal duties. “Mama” features the deep rich tones of the wonderful Lu Ndaka and the song also has a fabulous musical twist with a rap section performed by Consept.

“I’m now working on an album’s worth of material”, Ian informed us recently. “It will be a collection of songs of varying styles and different genres of music and as well as singing myself, as with the Mama single, we are going to be featuring some great talented guest vocalists on some of the tracks too. I’m very excited about the coming months and what they might bring!”

Not many people can describe their first release as ‘Gospel with a rap break and a big helping of African Vibe’. After this great song which so joyously captures what mothers mean to all of us we can’t wait to see what’s coming next from Ian Ventress

To watch the official MAMA video (Click here)

The single is available on all leading music download and streaming sites Worldwide. Here are the direct links to the single on the UK and USA site of iTunes and Amazon.

iTunes UK (Click here)     iTunes USA (Click here)

Amazon UK (Click here)    Amazon USA (Click here)

Follow Ian on his Facebook page: (Click here)

Old recordings available again

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A few months ago we were digging around in places long since visited doing some recording research for our friend (radio presenter and Christian music aficionado) Mike Rimmer and we came across two long deleted releases from the rock band FRESH CLAIM (which is led by Plankton’s founder Simon Law).

One of them, the live album “No Claims Bonus”, a very raw and passionate recording that perfectly captures the atmosphere and emotion of early Fresh Claim gigs, has been the subject of requests for re-issue for a while now, so we decided to give them a dust down and make them available as digital releases on all major music download and streaming sites Worldwide, including iTunes and Amazon.

“It’s great to make these releases available again,” states Plankton partner Keith Dixon. “With these releases it means all of Fresh Claim’s albums (and EPs) are now available again – albeit on digital. The live album was always a favourite of Fresh Claim fans so it’s great news for them. These recording were not full studio recordings as ‘Soapbox’ was a ‘session’ recording – meaning recording the band performing live, but with no audience! We did it this way as we wanted to make a release available at a very cheap price so school kids could buy them after the band played lunch time gigs etc.”

“As the releases were originally only on cassette with quite basis artwork – printing artwork was a whole different world back then! – we’ve had to adapt the artwork too, to fit the digital square box style! And, we’ve made them available at a lower price than the other Fresh Claim releases already available too”

Watch this space for more historic releases being released into the world of digital in the future

If you want to know more about FRESH CLAIM (Click here)

 

Darn Funk Orchestra awarded

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Plankton Records very own THE DARN FUNK ORCHESTRA recently picked up an award at the Praisetek Gospel Music Music Awards for their “services to Gospel Music” following years of live gigs in all types of venues and then earlier this year the long-awaited release of their debut album SOUL FOOD – on Plankton Records of course!

The band were obviously delighted to receive the award and we are delighted for them too!

Find out more about THE DARN FUNK ORCHESTRA on their Facebook page: (CLICK HERE) or visit their artist page on this website: (CLICK HERE)

The album SOUL FOOD is available on all major digital music download and streaming sites Worldwide, including iTunes and Amazon and on CD from this website (CLICK HERE) and, for UK customers only also from Amazon (CLICK HERE)