Stee Downes 2008 album "All In A Day" is a beautiful soul album, straying away from his more known House tunes. This LP is slept on ranging in a variety genres including Jazz, R&B, Soul, Electronic... Definitely seek out this LP. Below is a lil 411 on Stee Downes
STEE DOWNES - OBVIOUSLY LAZY VERSION (INST) 2008
Soul-boy Stee Downes has been involved in music from a young age playing bass, guitar and keys. Completing his sound engineering studies in 2002, he left Dublin for the Netherlands where he was intent on pursuing his musical path.
While in Amsterdam he began to focus his attention on writing and production. London based outfit “Loose Ensemble” got their hands on one of his demo's and asked him to feature on two tracks for the “Catalyst EP” which was released on Foundation records. Following on from this he later collaborated with Echoplex's Ed Eustace to be part of Vinylvibes first release which received DJ support from people like Dom
Servini, Rainer Truby and Michael Ruetten.
On returning to Dublin in 2006 he was inspired by the positive reaction and was determined to develop his vocal talents, combined with song-writing to create a unique sound. He began to build his repertoire and put together a live show, later supporting Roy Ayers, Amp Fiddler, Herbie Hancock, Bugz in the attic, Fat Freddys drop, DJ Spinna, Money Mark and many more.
In April 2008 he teamed up with old friend and musical counterpart Ishfaq to record his debut album “All in a day”. They settled into the studio in Croatia and recorded the album in two weeks. Coming from the same school of thought and heavily influenced by similar music they formed a solid partnership and played all the instruments on the project.
Being a DJ for over ten years Stee credits much of his influence to a wide range of music including Soul, Jazz, Funk, House, Techno and Latin music hailing artists such as Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Miles Davis, Prince and D'angelo as having the biggest impact on him in his early years.
His debut album was released on Sonar Kollektiv in late 2008 entitled "All in a day". This was a collection of songs he had wrote over a period of two years and the album received amazing reviews across the globe, winning him best single for 'Asunder' in the French radio awards alongside Jazzanova, Mr Scruff, Jose James and Alice Russell. The record is a fusion of all his accumilated influences from Reggae, Soul, Funk, House and Brazilian. Subsequent to his album release Stee delved into his house music roots producing "No retreat" which was released via Alex Barck's (Jazzanova) "Based on misunderstanding" series. He is currently working with Motor city drum ensemble (Four Roses/MCDE) , Lovebirds (Freerange/winding road) and Johnwaynes (Compost) for future album and EP releases in 2009. He has also featured on two tracks for Dublex inc's latest album "Pheonix" on Infracom and also on Diesler's forthcoming album on Freestyle records.
Stee is also a passionate DJ that has played alongside Trus Me, DJ Spinna, Simbad, Rainer Truby, Mark E, Theo Parish and Greg Wilson. His sound ranges from Deep house to Techno, Soul to Funk and Disco to Jazz.
