Cerca:j cub

When you mix Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Cuba and Australia, you find yourself with many cultures. We represent Africa, sure, but also we represent diversity. That is the essence of Ausecuma Beats. We want to come together, to bring all people together to share the knowledge of what we have learnt.

We all see the hard work that lies ahead in the future. It’s not easy, and we all have different ways of thinking. But there is also something we all share, and that is humanity, and family. We have to teach our children, to help them on their journey.

This album can be defined by the song Tombo. It’s about giving respect to your teacher. All the knowledge we bring to this album has come from someone who in their turn gave it to us. If you like the music, you hear it, you dance, great! But remember, someone created this, they gave it to us, and now Ausecuma Beats are giving it to you. So we dedicate this album to our teachers.

The name of this album is Musso; it means woman. We want to dedicate this album to those who gave us life. It doesn’t matter how strong we are, how tough we are, or how lucky we are in the chances we have been given. There is always someone who is worrying about us; there is no-one who can be thinking about us more than our own mother. So this album especially is dedicated to the women in our lives, and is sending respect to all women around the world. - Boubacar Gaye, Melbourne, July 2021

With endless Afro-latin percussion & drums patterns woven throughout ten tracks of tropical dance floor heaters, Italian multi-instrumentalist and master percussionist, Worldwide FM presenter and director of the Yoruba Soul Orchestra, Gabriele Poso is to release his seventh LP, Tamburo Infinito, via New York record label Wonderwheel Recordings. Recorded in Lecce in the south of Italy and almost entirely on his own (unlike previous productions), the undisputed star of the show is once again the drum and the percussion, the Tamburo Infinito.

Although born in Italy, Gabriele has always looked across the Atlantic for inspirations and rhythms, and this album is no different. This time his sonic adventures took him to the French West Indies and the French Caribbean island like Guadeloupe Martinique, "I'm in love with everything about the sound of their drums, it's very unique warm and deep sound."

The album kicks off with the hot & sticky Ritmo, setting the tone for the record with a kaleidoscope of tropical rhythms and influences. First single La Bola is jammed full of exultant horns and syncopated drum beats carried on the back of a driving, funky bassline. By the time the horns drop in on the aptly named Party People the carnival is in full swing over jubilant percussion and spaced out synths.

Gabriele Poso's musical passion has taken him around the world, initially to Rome, then to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and most recently, Berlin. Between 1998 and 2001, Gabriele delved deep into the study of Afro-Cuban percussion, first at the "Timba" School Of Music in Rome, under the guidance of the most important representative of Afro-Cuban culture in Italy, Roberto "Mamey" Evangelista. Later in 2001, he moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico to attend the "Universidad Interamericana De Puerto Rico" to continue his studies, finally culminating in a masterclass at "Escuela Nacional De Arte" in Havana, Cuba.

2008 saw the release of Poso's debut solo album, From The Genuine World, released on Yoruba Records, Osunlade's label, which sparked a career performing around Europe and the rest of the world. His second solo album, Roots of Soul arrived in 2012 on the German label INFRACom!, his third solo album entitled Invocation in 2014, on the German label Agogo Records with other full length efforts released on renowned British labels, Barely Breaking Even (Awakening - 2018) and Soundway Records (Batik - 2019), culminating in an impressively deep and diverse catalogue of solo work.

You have to know how to move away from the rich, strong and noisy streets, if you want to discover another Havana. A Havana far from the tourist circuits and preconceived images. A Havana where one discovers bucolic, but hard and stripped too after slow journeys in the crowded buses, a Havana with which Al Quetz maintains a passionate history since more than fourteen years.
Installed in one of those neighborhoods that can only be reached by going deeper into the alleys, from the open window of the studio comes the sound of banging drums and thumping bass. The sound reaches the streets on which the day rises.
The place wakes up in a growing tumult, with some rare engines coughing, conversations under the windows, songs of the street vendors , an urban ballet sets up as the sun darts its rays.
Far from the musical clichés with percussions and horns, Cuba is an island bombarded with influences that one discovers.
An island which vibrated for the jazz, the soul, the psychedelic rock , from the waves coming from the Caribbean to those of the bulky neighboring ogre.
A musical flowering as varied as abundant that the glorious post-revolutionary label Areito has on thousands of recordings,
and that Al Quetz has designated as the sole source of his samples to compose Habanologia.
From the ambiences that punctuate the local daily life caught by his samplers, he let the melancholy infiltrate his hip hop beats, the nostalgia melting in the depths of his grooves. Nostalgia in the Cuban air, even during moments of intense laughter, which never totally disappears.
Habanologia restores these moments when the song of the birds has extinguished those of the cars. Where, sitting on a doorstep, we comment on the life of the neighborhood, we watch the women's swaying at eye level. The whole day if necessary, the coffee at one peso, after a certain hour, which leaves its place to the Planchao rum. Wandering through its streets where a chance encounter can itself bring others and lead to the essence of the habanera life. From Regla, after a short trip on the bus-boat that crosses the bay, savor the end of the day, observe the capital from afar, let the nocturnal insects ensure some arrangements and drift towards mysterious horizons, bringing to the contemplation of the place and the moment.
A flute, a keyboard, percussions or a voice. Al Quetz also invited his friends from the island or elsewhere to decorate his productions with their live touch. To share with him this Havana for which he covered his tracks, mixed times and distorted space-time to make it timeless.
To write with Habanalogia, a declaration of love to the Cuban capital, to make Havana, His Havana.

Malamanya burst onto the recording scene with their self-titled debut in 2017, a bonafide tribute to the traditional sounds of Afro-Latin music in Cuba and the Caribbean, and perhaps more notably, that tradition's evolution into New York City's quintessential '70s street sound,la salsa. At first glance, you might wonder how this 9-piece orchestra out of Minneapolis of all places would manage to tap into such a sound, but the group's pedigree and vintage recording chops tell the real story. Tracked and mixed inpuroanalog at bass player and engineer Tony Schreiner's Brown Bag Studios, and featuring a multi-national mix of players from around the world, the group's first two original compositions make for an impressive debut on Names You Can Trust. Led by the fiery female voice of Cuban immigrant Zusel Balbìn, "La Tormenta" is one of the finest examples of modern-daysalsa durato come out in recent years. The recipe here includes huge orchestration complete with dual trombones and a rhythm section entirely in step with the group's impressive following ofsalseros —and the flavor is nothing butauthentico. The B-Side "Frio" features the group's complimentary lead male voice incantadorandcongueroLuis Ortego Castrellon. It's a double shot of peak dance floor design, and a prime example of the group's growing international appeal, wherever the taste for the sauce is desired.

Recorded in Havana’s famed Egrem Studios, the group displays a cohesion forged by an intense performing and touring cycle. The musical conversation that began in the Areito studios three years earlier blossomed into an easy, intimate dialogue between good friends - allowing full, fearless musical expression and risk-taking outside of their comfort zones.

Building upon Perez Prado’s dissonant, near avant-garde vision of the mambo, and highlighting the Lucumí subtext of Cuban rhythms and styles, the band continues to explore, develop and expand the island’s rich rhythmic palette and repertoire - pushing the conventions of what is considered “mambo” - and drawing deeply from folkloric and religious traditions seldom heard in popular music. 16 Rayos is here to shine its musical rays on us, warm our hearts, and irresistibly move our bodies.

When Orquesta Akokán burst onto the global music scene a mere three years ago, their no-holds-barred 21st century take on the venerable Cuban mambo lit up stages around the world with a fierce and unremitting joy. Singer José "Pepito" Gómez, Chulo Records producer and multi instrumentalist Jacob Plasse, and arranger Michael Eckroth joined forces with a carefully curated selection of Havana’s most extraordinary musicians as Orquesta Akokán, polishing Cuban mambo’s golden sound to a luminous, contemporary sheen. Along the way Orquesta Akokán imbued these legendary Cuban grooves with a renewed vitality and powerful sense of akokán ---the Yoruba word used by Cubans to mean “from the heart” or “soul.”



On the Cuban side of the equation the Orquesta boasts some of the island’s greatest instrumentalists culled from members of near-mythical groups such as Los Van Van, NG La Banda, and Irakere (notably César Lopez, Orquesta Akokan’s point man in Havana). The ensemble for 16 Rayos shines a light on Cuba’s musical families and multigenerational legacy with the participation of two fabled Vizcainos on percussion - Roberto "Tato" Vizcaino Jr. and his father Roberto Vizcaino Guillot, a member of Chucho Valdes’ seminal 90’s quartet. Another family duo added their masterful legacy to the recording, with trumpeter Reinaldo “Molote” Melián bringing in his son, Reinaldo Melián Zamora, to play trumpet on several tunes alongside lead trumpet Harold Madrigal Frías. The winds and brass are rounded out with a rich saxophone section made up of young lion Jamil Shery and Germán Velazco (musical director for Pablo Milanés)on tenor, with Evaristo Denis on baritone and César López on alto, along with Yoandy Argudin and Heikel Fabián Trimiño on trombone. Coros were sung by Eddie Venegas and Luis Soto. Significantly, Orquesta Akokán added strings to the ensemble for the first time, with the participation of violinists Amelia Febles Díaz, Jenny Peña and Anabel Estévez Acosta, whose virtuosity stems from the classical training for which Cuban musicians are so renowned. The power and grace of Pedro "Tata" Francisco Almeida Barriel’s vocals lead the way on “4 de Octubre” and “Llegue con mi Rumba,” evincing why he is considered one of the Cuban rumba’s premier exponents. Another highly recognized singer, legendary guarachera Xiomara Valdés - who’s shared the stage with legends such as Beny Moré and Omara Portuondo and received the Ministry of Culture’s Distinción por la Cultura Nacional de Cuba as a significant contributor to Cuba’s musical legacy - is the featured guest on the title track.

It's back-to-back hits with the return of the Names You Can Trust split single series featuring two new emerging artists and record debuts.

After years on the local New York scene as DJs, collaborators and permanent fixtures amongst the brightest of musicians and artists, Raspadura has spent a long time brewing behind the curtain, tucked away in the musical minds of real life partners Josue Granados (Sonidero Mixteco, Los Taxis) and Dayan Silva (Dayansiiita). Their coming out party as recording artists is a perfect encapsulation of the duo's raucous but delightful energy. "Pa Que Gocen" is pure punkera, but seasoned with a deep musical appreciation that abounds in the timeless tropical music universe, and surely a precursor to further recording adventures, as this debut should warrant. The appeal is obvious as soon as the needle drops. Silva's enchanting vocals grab you immediately, with tales of sweets upon sweets. Pure visions of dulce, panela and miel are chanted over the rhythm of Granados' low down ska-beat and hypnotizing tres cubano. For Raspadura, dessert is first!

Come fly with Grupo Pernil in this ode to the timeless vibes of gypsy rumba, merengue and guaracha. Featuring an international all-star cast of musicians from travelling adventures and collaborations of recent years, "Danza de la Cabra" was originally conceived at home in the NYCT studio, and later brought to life with additional sessions inside Amsterdam's Heat Too Hot and Barcelona's Nación Funk studios. This one-off instrumental recording turned into a case of severe psicodelica, under the influence and improvisation of the group's talented players and percussion professionals, then amped and electrified for maximum effect with a touch of studio magic and a taste for local iberico. Featuring members of Greenwood Rhythm Coalition, Conjunto Papa Upa, Fundación Tony Manero and Los Fulanos.

Following 12"s from Ricardo Tobar and MANASYt, the third release on Tel Aviv's MUSAR welcomes rising UK star and Super Hexagon label boss, J.Wiltshire. The Laghan Pux EP finds Wiltshire sharing his psychedelic electronic side and brings his versatile skills together, serving up four completely different soundtracks. The gleaming sci-fi gem 'DESklep' opens the EP as a pure melodic IDM track loaded with Cornwall style while the bass-heavy title track 'Laghan Pux' is pumping as a dark & sharp peak-time trippy beast. On the B side, the mysterious Roy of The Ravers, gives you an interpretation of what proper acid sounds like, whereas 'Chained Releases' takes you on a deep and hypnotic adventure into space, full of warm guitar melodies and trancey synths.'Summon Them' closes the EP, an ambient magic piece for a hazy, orange morning where the birds just woke up and the trees singing for the first time to break the day.Early support from: Josh Wink, Danny Daze, Cinnaman, Marcel Dettmann, AME, I:Cube, The Hacker and more...

Omara Portuondo, the leading lady of the Buena Vista Social Club, is one of Cuba’s most celebrated voices.
The album ‘Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portuondo’ was released in 2000 in the wake of the phenomenal reception of the original Buena Vista Social Club album, and was remastered from the analogue tapes for its 2019 LP reissue. Omara is backed by a dream band formed of many of the original Buena Vista Social Club members including Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals), Rubén González (piano), Compay Segundo (guitar) and Orlando ‘Cachaito’ Lopez (bass).

To celebrate the “Women In Music” theme of this year’s National Album Day, this classic album will be pressed on limited edition purple colour vinyl.

180g vinyl gatefold sleeve edition. A leading figure of Latin music, Xavier
Cugat spread the rhumba, mambo, and cha-cha-cha all over the world,
becoming one of the greatest stars of the genre.
While born in Spain, bandleader Xavier Cugat spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba, where he became a brilliant violinist and arranger. Cugat was a
leading figure in the spread of Latin music, and after moving to New York City
he became the leader of the resident orchestra at the Waldorf-Astoria before
and after World War II, where he gained perennial fame. He would become
known as the “Rumba King”. Compiled here are 21 of his greatest hits, recorded during his finest years.

Horace Tapscott's Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. If P.A.P.A. doesn't have the interstellar rep of that other famous Arkestra, and if the name Tapscott doesn't ring bells like Monk or Tyner, there's a reason why: in an industry dominated by record labels, a band that doesn't record doesn't count. And the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra didn't record for nearly twenty years. But recording success was never their concern -- they weren't about that. First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project.

From their base in Watts, UGMA got down at the grassroots. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. But they never released a note of music. It was the intervention of fan Tom Albach that finally got them on wax. Determined that their work should be documented, Albach founded Nimbus Records specifically to release the music of Tapscott, the Arkestra, and the individuals that comprised it. The first recording sessions in early 1978 yielded enough material for two albums, and the first release was Flight 17. The album commences with the magnificent title track. It is effectively in three parts. It begins with unaccompanied pianos. Then the ensemble embark on a dense, circular and mechanical movement, a platform for horns and pianos to swoop and dive. We return to Earth with a beautiful solitary flute. The second track, the piano-centric, ‘Breeze’ is different to ‘Flight 17’ in intensity and also brevity but it is quietly as daring as the title track. It concludes with a moving lush wash from the full Arkestra, which sound almost like strings only more substantial. These first two tracks take full advantage of the texture of the unusual mix of the various instruments. Next though, it’s a significant change with ‘Horacio’, which is an exuberant Latin infused jingle. It’s unlike anything else on the album. I like to think it was named after the conductor’s Cuban alter-ego! ‘Clarisse’ gracefully switches between slow blues and bop and is bookended with a grand vaguely East Asian theme. The busy bass line introduces ‘Maui’. As with the previous track, it moves between a number of contrasting melody lines and rhythms but there’s still space for a tuneful sax solo.

This is a must-have album. I think the first two tracks on their own make this release essential. Kevin Ward/UK Vibe/Boomkat

Summer was conceived as an entry point for Sonae to access and wrestle with difficult themes, to engage with them authentically, artfully, personally. It was also the starting point for a collaborative audio-visual project with video artist Jennifer Trees (the confronting multimedia installation that premiers in September 2021 at Stadtgarten, Cologne).

Summer articulates these ideas using the unique musical and sonic language that Sonae has been developing across previous releases. The expressive textures and tender melodics of 2015’s Far Away is Right Around the Corner; the atmospheric noise and brute unease of 2018’s I Started Wearing Black; the vicious edges of her 2019 remix-tape Music For People Who Shave Their Heads. Summer is haunted by blistered cellos and spectral string drones, the elegant and emotive movement around diatonic harmonies that echo the classicism and bucolic themes of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (1775). Like Vivaldi, Sonae’s work is programmatic, presenting a progressive, intensifying narrative and suggesting aural phenomena of the natural world - buzzing insects, breaking rocks, waves crashing, dust and heat rising - and characterising the seasonal spirit as capricious, volatile and punishing. In these ways, Summer is related to pastoral traditions of European classicism, evoking the aura of doomed and dust-blown gothic grandiosity. It also has feet firmly planted within the lean, sound worlds of underground techno - pulsating four-on-the-floor beats with deep, vibrational sine-wave sub kicks; elegantly bleak, distorted atmospherics that straddle the uncanny space between corrosion and euphoria. The result is a visceral and poetic listening experience. Original, highly affecting, fully engaging body, mind and soul. (…)

Sonae’s music evokes imagination, provokes emotion, and disrupts and defies expectations. She explores the edges and intensities of experience, creating audible and embodied sensations that suggest the physical, atmospheric, and psychological effects of global warming on a living organism. We feel the fatigue, the slowness, sweatiness, dizziness, the sensations of uncomfortable warmth and burning; the atmospheres are hazy, dark and heavy, articulations are brutish and tactile, crunchy and sharp; there is restlessness and resignation, desolation and awe.

Summer is not a warning. It is not an explanation or an argument. It offers no answers. Summer simply holds up a mirror and asks us to experience and behold both the beauty and the brutality of our present reality. It is a work of protest, grief and hope, and it functions as a space for the listener to reckon with these truths and sensations for themselves. (Leah Kardos, London, June 2021)

Sonae (Sonia Güttler) is a German electronic producer and DJ, based in Cologne. Her acclaimed debut album was released in 2015 with Monika Enterprise (Berlin) followed on the same label with her second album in 2018 : ‘’I Started Wearing Black’’. Her Third album ‘’Music For People Who Shave Their Heads’’ has been released in 2019 with bit-phalanx (London).
Sonae plays live solo and with the label collective Monika Werkstatt at places like Institut Für Zukunft (Leipzig), Meakusma Festival (Eupen), Ausland (Berlin), Pop Kultur Festival (Berlin), Fusion Festival (Germany), Uh-Fest (Budapest), Cafe Oto (London), 23rpm Festival (London) The Cube (Bristol) and more on the same bill with Squarepusher, Plaid, Darkstar, Kyoka, Frank Bretschneider, Tim Exile.

Ten years after of the passing of Dutch blues singer Harry Muskee on
September 26th 2011, the Cuby + Blizzards Foundation presents the very
last encore of the legendary blues band.
Internationally Cuby is best known for The Window Of My Eyes, which, apart
from being a national chart hit in Netherlands, was also featured in the
soundtrack of the George Clooney film “The American”.
Sound engineer Ed Roose delved into his archives and came up with a memorable live album. One more time Grolloo Blues with Harry ‘Cuby’ Muskee, whom
we miss but who shall never be forgotten.
National blues lovers cherish his body of work, which is now complete.
Harry Muskee - Vocals Erwin Java - Guitar Helmig van der Vegt - Piano & Organ Herman Deinum - Bass Guitar Hans Lafaille - Drums Horns: Mikl s F rst Bert
Pfeiffer Peter van Soest Wouter Schueler

DJ Pantha joins the Time Is Now family serving up a weighty cut of bassline driven goodness. Born and raised in Dudley DJ Pantha's career began in 2007 and this saw the start of hits such as 'Bully boys', 'They can't do it' and the most successful to date 'Candy Shop'.

DJ Pantha is one of the pioneers of Bassline and has spent the past 14 years mastering his craft, now finding himself with his own unique sound. Pantha links up with Bristol based label Time Is Now for his first vinyl release.

While the world continues to be in a bizarre mixture of feelings and circumstances, we can thankfully still hark back to last fall when the sophomore LP from the elusive and innovative KAMM band, Cookie Policies gave us an opportunity to reflect on the past while fully looking toward the future.
The album presented a beautifully unique blend of listening-oriented music styles, combining the early roots of the four producers and their pre-DJ formative musical travels. It is now our great pleasure to introduce an EP set of specifically dance floor-focussed remixes that take the diverse textural arrangements and expansive sonic bliss of the LP and stretch it around some solid percussive membranes, sure to excite many DJs and dancers out there in the wild as things begin to reopen.

KAMM band members Dave Aju, Alland Byallo, Kenneth Scott, each chose one original album track to rework with a more propulsive feel and from Aju's psychedelic West Coast breaks rendition of the noir-esque "CCBPGC", to Byallo's high vibe leveled-up flight of "Bird Call", or Scott's bold section-by-section recreation of the sprawling "The Soft Glow Of Electric Sex" laser-designed for heads-down late night club sessions, the boys came through to say the least. The real A1 treat of this reinterpretation package however comes from unanimous artist choice and label favorite I:Cube, whose majestic take on "Shleem" sees the veteran producer and master remixer move the bubbling ambient piece into bumping and rich space-age deep house territory, equal parts angelically uplifting and pure 5am club-belter/mind-melter.

marbled 12" Vinyl

Seamless to our first release of the Stone Techno series we are presenting the second edition of this unique concept. Each artist has been given a sample library consisting of recorded minerals from the Ruhr Area. The task was pretty clear, to create a track exclusively out of those sounds. The results are remarkably differing from each other and showing the huge creative potential of this project, which is a collaboration between the world famous Ruhr Museum foundation and The Third Room collective.

While Matrixxman delivers us an ambient driven masterpiece, RODHAD shows us his impeccable skills to create an ever-evolving tension in his dub techno influenced approach. Yan Cook on the B-Side is exploring the full potential of those samples to honor the industrial era and its machines, while T3R-Resident VNNN. is hailing with his hypnotic grooves the late hours of an extensive musical journey.

We hope you enjoy this imposing line-up of artists and its different styles within the release. There is more to be coming. Stay tuned!

Fractal City, the latest Cubenx album is a collection of terrestrial jams and arachnean ambient ballads that are particularly apt for urban listening. If its predecessors cracked the musical codes in force and shone by the versatility of their references, this new opus offers its listener an intense and symbolic sound environment.


The raw material of Fractal City was first conceived as a series of sound patches, designed to run in parallel with Canadian digital artist Maotik's installation. Broadcasted in real-time by generative patches reacting to various external and non-human data, those musical excerpts have been rendered in hundreds of nuances and extended over infinite durations. This unusual approach confers to the recording of the finished album's outstanding immersive strength.

Recorded live on a single track over a short period of a few weeks, the nine compositions of Fractal City capture the obsessions of its author for postmodern urban landscapes, and the revelation of new perspectives on the city of Paris.

The opening piece `Ssarg´ seems to hide the figure of the Mexican ambient producer Jorge Reyes. Cubenx built a cocoon of energetic layers, a new home of the mystical kind harmoniously integrated in a flourishing rainforest ecosystem.

`Transect ´refers to the urban development model of the same name, which is based on a division of the city into autonomous "fractal" zones. It also echoes the concept of "metro polarities" which considers the city as a mosaic of social groups. "By cycling in the evening with a friend, we could get away from the city centre to the suburbs of Paris. The contrasts are striking. You move from chic districts to bedroom communities, from industrial zones to improvised caravan camps. But there is a kind of energy in this heterogeneity that pushes you to always pedal further."

A few miles away, it would look like Art and urbanism have tried to level the cultural and social discrepancies of the outskirts of Paris. "Architectural sites like the Arcades of Bofill are splendid. There are completely extravagant projects, which seem to emerge from nowhere."
These buildings with ambitious aesthetics off the beaten tourist track, deteriorate over time and often remain far from the expectations of the local population. A feeling of nostalgic beauty is particularly perceptible on the slowest and most introspective ballads of the album as 'Urban Decay', 'Hagel' or 'Axe Majeur'. The producer leaves nonetheless no room for melancholic emptiness. "Every time, I have the impression that urban culture is taking its rights back and that young people appropriate the places in one way or another."

Just like `Transect', ` Quantified' and `Fractal City' present themselves as mirrors of a daily urban life in constant motion. All three are empowered by an overheated factory, which dispatches hypnotic beats and burst of analogue compressors with a clinical precision and direct them straight away to the reptilian areas of their listener's brains.

The sequencing leaves however space and time to take breath and makes way for aerial sonic excursions of spiritual and enlightened nature. On `Human Dilemma', Cubenx shows some concerns to opening the Pandora's box of transhumanist theories. While a long cosmic wave gives the listener a feeling of perfect fullness, a dizzying guitar distortion cast doubts on long term outlooks. `Smash Other' on the other way alternates gentle dissonances over an ocean of white noise and concludes the album on ethereal note.

With ´Fractal City", Cubenx eludes his irreconcilable love for shoegaze pop song and techno to concentrate exclusively on the production of mutant experimental materials. The result is an uncanny musical object, rich in image and sensation. Cubenx give us a guiding framework, enthralling enough to engage the listener to a tour of town. But he leaves it to the sole listeners to design their own projection of the city.

160 gram black vinyl LP, with glossy color jacket, and 8 page full sized color booklet with lyrics, rare photos, and notes by Hamisi Delgado, Werner Graebner, and Salim Zahoro.

Formed in the mid-1950s, Kiko Kids Jazz created a stunningly unique sound amidst an explosion of Tanzanian guitar bands in the years leading up to the country’s independence. Defined by Salim Zahoro’s warm voice and the heavy tremolo of his electric mandolin, Kiko Kids Jazz incorporated their love of early acoustic Cuban Son, rhythms from their home town of Tabora, the exciting and competitive scene of acoustic/electric dance bands in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi, the poetic strains of Taarab and Arabic music, and the tranquility of coastal Tanzania.

The results are both comforting and intriguing: expressive, strung out melodies on Salim’s mandolin and subtly com-plex percussion lock into deep grooves of thumping acoustic bass, jerky rhythm guitars, and Cuban-style trumpet breaks. The kind of sounds that can be approached from several rhythmic angles, until it all gels in the mind and soul.

Despite being one of the most beloved and innovative bands of their time, this is the first Kiko Kids Jazz LP ever re-leased, consisting of our favorite songs from 1962 and 1965, all beautifully remastered from original tapes and press-ings. We were fortunate to work with bandleader Salim Zahoro before his passing at age 85, shortly before the completion of this record.

Recommended for fans of Cuban Marimba Band, the Zanzibara and Ethiopiques series, Lipa Kodi Ya City Council, Original Music, etc.
Produced in collaboration with Salim Zahoro (1936-2021), Werner Graebner (Jahazi Media) and Hamisi Delgado. Licensed from Mzuri Records.

London based band Son Yambu are back with their second album full of original son Cubano, continuing the Buena Vista legacy that put Cuban music back on the world map in 1997. Featuring a new line up of the very best of Cuba's musical diaspora, 'Tremendo Ambiente'reflectsthe evolving nature of the music whilst at the same time paying homage to its roots. Recorded in London, 'Tremendo Ambiente' features Son Yambu's traditional 'sonora' sound of two trumpets.Made up entirely of original songs, the album features a varied collection of Cuban and Caribbean rhythms.

Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London

With the Buena Vista Stars, including Candido Fabre. Based on a true story and filmed in the exotic countryside outside Havana, this remarkable and engaging film will move both your spirit and your feet with its unforgettable passion and intoxicating music. The soundtrack and live performances in the film include some of the legendary Cuban artists who appeared in the box office smash, Buena Vista Social Club.

MAMBO MAN is packed with musical contributions from Cuban legends including; Candido Fabre, Maria Ochoa, Alma Latina, David Alvarez, Arturo Jorge, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa, Juan De Marcos Gonzalez and the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

REVIEWS Rome Prisma Independent Film Awards

“There is rather the mature and conscious gaze of two authors who want to represent Cuba, and the story of the protagonist, with truth and love. With this awareness, each shot conveys a charm superior to that of a good staging. This film, made with passion, penetrates the audience to the rhythm of music and tells us about a whole, small, precious universe, absorbing its beauty and misery. “Mambo Man” is a bit like Cuba: beautiful, kind and melancholic.”

J.B. Spins, Joe Bendel

“It’s a dynamic, colourful film, with bustling markets, lively clubs, friendly outdoor cafes, and—best of all—a remarkable soundtrack of classic Cuban music, which is a focal point of the film.”