Suche:n ko

Long out-of-print release available digitally for the first time. Extensive notes by a local writer in English and French. Previously unpublished family photos. Urbanized traditional music at a dance-floor-friendly tempo. The very definition of an "Awesome Tape From Africa". Roger Bekono made a deep mark in the contemporary history of Cameroonian music through the four-on-the-floor, ribald intensity of bikutsi. The Ewondo-language dance-pop style that forms an undulating tapestry of interlocking triplet rhythmic interplay came to international prominence in the European "world music" scene as the 90s began. But the relentless sound of bikutsi developed in Yaoundé at the hands of Bekono and many others, as it developed from a village-based singing style performed mostly by women into a cosmopolitan music force that rivaled the popularity of established musics like Congolese rhumba, merengue and makossa. With his unique—some say suave—voice, Bekono contributed much over a period of more than 10 years as part of the evolution of this traditional rhythm-turned-urban dance movement. Bekono worked with legendary producer Mystic Jim, who had built a prolific home studio along with a crack team of musicians. They joined as part of the production of his self-titled album, which became known locally as "Jolie Poupée," the name of the album's lead single and most popular song. For "Jolie Poupée" Mystic Jim programmed the kick or bass drum, adding effects to have a heavier bass. Overall the album represented a new level of finesse and professionalism for his second release. In the middle of 1989, Jolie Poupée was released by the label Inter Diffusion System and aggressively hit the radio, discos and national television. The music video for the title track was on loop on TV. It felt like everyone was talking about it, even artists in adjacent music scenes like makossa. The album came out on vinyl and cassette and remains Bekono's best-selling recording to this day. With Jolie Poupée Bekono finally made an impact outside Cameroon as the record captured listeners in some Central African countries like Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Sao Tome & Principe. In these countries, we find the Fang or Mfan people (also known as Ekang), Bantu-speaking ethnic groups that are also found in Cameroon. This umbrella language group includes the language in which bikutsi is mainly sung. Most of Bekono's songs are in French, Ewondo (of which Beti is a dialect) and Pidgin. The four songs on Jolie Poupée are all considered bikutsi classics. On September 15, 2016, Bekono died of a long illness at the age of 62. In the wake of his passing the media published a wave of tributes, thanking him for what he did for Cameroonian music. He was an admired musician, songwriter and guitarist, and some of his old colleagues and some of the new generation of performers showered Bekono with vibrant tributes via social media, many of which noting something to the effect of: "The artist dies but his works remain."

Wiederveröffentlichung des Umse Albums aus dem Jahr 2008 als Vinyl! Das 2008er Konzeptalbum des Ratinger MCs ist durchweg an eine Tageszeitung angelehnt. Seinem eigenständigen und ebenso intelligenten wie humorvollen Stil ist Umse hier durchgängig treu geblieben - nicht zuletzt dadurch konnte er sich stets deutlich vom aktuellen Hip Hop-Geschehen in Deutschland abheben. Chefredakteur Umse nähert sich auf diesem 12 Song-starken Konzeptalbum sämtlichen Themen von "Politik" und "Wirtschaft" über "Kontaktanzeigen" hin zum "TV Programm", dem "Wetter" oder den "Todesanzeigen" mit einem Augenzwinkern: Als Aufhänger dienen all seine persönlichen Erlebnisse zwischen bundesweiten Liveauftritten bis hin zum Fernsehabend auf der Couch. Umses technisch versierter, leidenschaftlich kreativer und perfektionistischer Schreibstil lädt den Hörer hierbei zur akustischen Langzeitlektüre ein. Die Beats auf "Rheinisches Blatt" stammen von Deckah, Firstar, Tesk und DJ Radrum. Besonders die Verwendung zahlreicher Vokal-Schnitte aus der ersten Golden Ära Hip Hops deutscher Machart, machen "Rheinisches Blatt" zu einem Hip Hop-Album klassischer Prägung, mit welchem die Fans der ersten Stunde definitiv ihre Freude haben werden.

Frisch nach ihrem Vertrag mit From The Vaults kündigen die epischen Doom-Metaller ALTAR OF OBLIVION die Veröffentlichung der EP "Burning Memories" an. Die fünf Tracks wurden 2016 aufgenommen, kurz nach der Fertigstellung der dritten Full-Length der Band. Nun, sieben Jahre später, ist die EP endlich bereit, das Licht der Welt zu erblicken. Auf ihr beschwört die Band klassischen, zeitlosen Epic Doom Metal herauf, während sie gleichzeitig unter der düsteren Ägide dieses nordischen Kollektivs Neuland erkundet. "Epic Doom ist kein Subgenre, an dem sich viele Bands auch nur versuchen, geschweige denn darin brillieren, geschweige denn es ausbauen, daher verdient der Fünfer aus Aalborg ein großes Lob dafür, dass er diesem tiefgründigen Außenseitersound neues Leben einhaucht.

Mit der frostigen Melancholie von Candlemass, der mystischen Dramatik von Solitude Aeturnus und der barbarischen Kraft von Solstice mischen AOO neue Ebenen emotionaler Verletzlichkeit durch den Robert Smith-ähnlichen Gesang von Mik Mentor und verlieren sich nie in schleppender Düsternis, sondern bewahren die traditionellen Metal-Grundlagen mit einer starken, klaren Gesangslinie, einem kräftigen Galopp und einer packenden Melodie" Chris Shantler (Metal Hammer UK).

»Nifbin Circle« is the fourth release by Detlef Funder, aka Konrad Kraft, on the Cologne label aufabwegen. Sounds generated with two apps on the iPad,provided the basic structures and the sound space. The strangely enraptured textures created in this way, with a subtle percussive touch, were partly combined with supporting beats in the course of further processing. Thus, after more than 30 years, tracks with rudimentary melodies and rhythms were created again.

»Nifbin Circle« is the fourth release by Detlef Funder, aka Konrad Kraft, on the Cologne label aufabwegen. Sounds generated with two apps on the iPad,provided the basic structures and the sound space. The strangely enraptured textures created in this way, with a subtle percussive touch, were partly combined with supporting beats in the course of further processing. Thus, after more than 30 years, tracks with rudimentary melodies and rhythms were created again.

Tapestry is a work born from collaboration, homage and the best sound.

“La Collaboración” is created when Arturo Bambini, a producer, jazz bassist and full-time musician, meets a young Lynx 196.9 on the other side of the world, a poet and rapper from Philadelphia who captivates him with his rhymes. And its deep and melancholic tone.

From this understanding arises this work, “El Homenaje” by Lynx to Carole King's Tapestry album, whose sound accompanied him throughout his childhood.

“Tapestry” lives up to its name and like a good “Tapiz” it was built with scraps in the form of collaborations such as Dirty Winters, Simón Taibi or the masterful Kool Keith (AKA Dr. Octagon / Dr. Dooom!)

All this sewn with the mastery of Arturo Bambini, the Italian musician based in Barcelona, ​​who with his red tracksuit and rat head wraps us through hip hop and jazz with an urban cadence taken from the very heart of the "best sound".

Rober Nikolajev (Estonia) — a man with many hats: runs lo-fi house projects as Nikolajev (Incienso, Collect-Call, Sad Fun) and DIMA DISK (with Ragnar Rahuoja); runs noise events KONSUM; a co-owner of Tallinn’s IDA Radio. For Muscut, Robert prepared a 7 track (almost dark) ambient album imbued with the melancholy of Estonian autumn with spoilers of the forthcoming eternal winter.

The album Symposium Musicum is developed from field recordings, interviews, and observations collected in the villages of Podolínec, Lomnička, Levočské Vrchy, and Kolačkov - all areas of the eastern and north-eastern Slovakia with significant Romani enclaves. The pieces resulting from these interactions encourage the listener to tune in for a delicate negotiation of language, (audible) gesture, and storytelling.

The collaboration with the local participants appears lighthearted and whimsical on the records, but this seeming easiness is clearly a result of devoted fieldwork planning and committed post-production. The curated compositions represent and emphasize not only performative aspects of the acoustic activities but also point attention to seemingly non-productive aspects of creation, such as silence, hesitation, observation, perception, or waiting.

Sound experiment and preservation is not the only goal of the project. Some of the records capturing acoustic activities in peculiar places but also carry an element of social novelty that accompanied their making - according to the locals in Lomnička, the recording visitors were the first non-Romani persons who spent the night in the village.

In many instances, these recordings explore liminal spaces that have lost their original function (a church ruin or an out-of-business grocery store) and became a lively territory for acoustic exploration and playful reciprocity. For instance, in track 7, "Kavka", local children used crackling leaves as percussion devices.

Such moments betray a high level of engagement in the subtle details of the recorded spaces and their social ecologies. According to the creators, their creative processes involve "a social sound practice" as an attitude towards exploring sound in its social setting.

Symposium Musicum leaves behind many aesthetic conventions of sound capture and what is considered "musical", including the usual notions of a linguistic unit, narrative, memoir, and play. Instead, it engages in a self-reflective questioning of the way we listen to the world around us.

This project invites us to experience places outside the divided sociolinguistic provinces, resulting from multigenerational displacement and neglect of the Romani communities from the explored areas. The result is in many ways revelatory and poetically impactful.

Kusōzu : Nine Death Stages is the second album by the Tokyo trio Archeus, which consists of Keiko Higuchi (voice, percussion, trombone, shamisen), Shizuo Uchida (bass strings), and TOMO (hurdy gurdy, voice). It follows their debut, self-titled and self-released CD and cassette from 2021 and is further proof – if any were needed – that these musicians, who’ve known each other for some time, but only started playing together relatively recently, share a telepathic communication, improvising together, fully in the moment, and as one. Where their debut album featured four extended improvisations, Kusōzu is an object lesson in economy and clarity – nine tracks, thirty-three minutes, everything that needs be said and nothing more.

All three musicians are incredibly active in the Japanese underground. Higuchi currently plays with Sachiko in Albedo Fantastica, adding Uchida for Albedo Gravitas; Uchida and Higuchi team up with Masami Kawaguchi (guitar) in vDBG. She’s also recorded with improvisers such as Naoto Yamagishi, Yasumune Morishige, and Shin-Ichiro Kanda. Uchida is also a member of MAI MAO, Kito-Mizukumi Rouber, Hasegawa-Shizuo, UH, and TERROR SHIT, and he’s recently recorded with improvising guitarist Takashi Masubuchi; TOMO has previously been a member of Tetragrammaton and Pouring High Water, and has recently performed live with Mick of Kousokuya, Mitsuru Tabata, Keiji Haino, and Daisuke Takaoka.

While Higuchi and Uchida have been making music together for some time now, they appear careful not to impose their previously articulated lexicon to bear on Archeus. There are trace elements of their playerly voices still present – the stretchy, plastic scrabbling on bass strings from Uchida; Higuchi’s murmurations of tone, and sudden plunges back down to earth, vertiginous and woozy – but there are other things going on here, particularly with TOMO joining in the action. His hurdy gurdy is a wild card in a group of wild cards, here cranking out burred, purring drones, there fidgeting through floods of notes, cranked up really high, ducking and weaving between Higuchi and Uchida as the three pursue the eternal now that is core to the best improvised music.

Archeus seem to work alchemically, transmuting their base matter into gold. Named after the Buddhist art practice of kusōzu, the graphic painting of nine stages of a decaying corpse in the open air, “to demonstrate the effects of impermanence,” as scholar Gail Chin once wrote.

Kusōzu : Nine Death Stages is Archeus at their most rigorously attentive to each other’s playing, and by the end, the music is itself thinking and feeling.

Die Blue Flames 7"-Singles sind unter Sammlern und werden von Liebhabern des frühen R&B und des Proto-Mod-Sounds sowie von denen, die ihre Freude am Ska-Beat gesucht. Obwohl sie vor fast einem halben Jahrhundert veröffentlicht wurden, wurden sie tatsächlich bis heute nie wieder auf Vinyl neu aufgelegt. Für Ace schien es eine Selbstverständlichkeit zu sein, sie auf dieser Blue Flames-EP zu kombinieren. Für das Sleeve hat Ace das Titelfoto von Georgie Fame direkt vom original Fotograf Val Wilmer lizenziert. Auch Dean Rudland würdigt in den Liner Notes die Story dieser Georgie Fame-Band. Zu sagen, dass diese vier Tracks großartig klingen, ist untertrieben - diese Blue Flames kochen auf Gas.

Super 10th relaese on this Nerland label for pure tekno acid sounds !

"To think, this all started with Posture, a record done with some minor misunderstandings in play. Primaruly due to the language barrier between Arturo Banbini and I. To now a fully conceived project, unbelievable and simply God's work. To be honest, I wanted to pay homage to one of the greatest album I've ever heard (Tapestry, Carole King). A Rose to you, you've been nothing short of an inspiration to my music."

Jackson Bailey aka Tapes joins MIDA with a 7” packed to the brim with jazzy vignettes. This little plate holds six servings. Finely tuned frequency signals as cymbals & drums, nutty gliding arps, playful keys shot all over the place backed by a firm low end. Sweet kooky business. Moving around with ease, it’s surely got dub sprayed all over it, but in its fidgety core lies a deep nod to library music.

On June 16th, 2023, Steven Julien and Kyle Hall return with their first EP together in ten years, CROWN. The record follows earlier EPs the duo created under their former alias Funkinevil, 2013's Ignorant and 2012's Night/Dusk. The record once again brings together two artists from opposite sides of the pond—Julien hailing from London and Hall representing Detroit—with a shared love for soul in its purest essence.

Opening "Page 1", a pitched-down vocal by James Massiah pronounces, "My plan—won't let you take it from hand." That alone could be considered the nut graph of a record about taking ownership, created by two vanguards in the electronic music scene that, a decade ago, insisted on infusing their music with soul in a commercial club circuit lacking in it.

Assembled from a few years-worth of studio jams in Julien's studio, Crown dials up the staticky warmth present on earlier Funkinevil tracks like "Dusk" and "In The Grid." Across seven songs, Funkinevil shaves off some of their tougher elements, instead shooting for pastoral melodies and funky basslines, like on "Page 2", where Vicky Flint's flute flutters sleepily over breaks and a groovy Korg synthesizer. But the atmosphere on the EP is also grander than ever—on "Page 5," Cloud's wistful melisma soars over Flint's bleating saxophone and wandering sci-fi synths.

With all this attention to funky musicality, it's only fitting that two legends specializing in the craft would land on the B-side—Däm Funk revs up "Page 3" with a slamming kick and his unmistakable coolness, and Reggie B turns "Page 5" into a sludgy, jazzy dance party.

In the words of Julien, "I think a lot of people have forgotten about what this whole thing is about. Musically, artistry and everything. So I'm happy this is what we represent on this project."

Taiwanese label JIN records enters autumn 2022, with a new promising release by South Korea’s Yetsuby. As always searching for gems in the pan-Asian domain, JIN is delighted to have Yetsuby for its latest/6th release.

On this EP, one-half of the ambient duo Salamanda, Yetsuby showcases her expertise in mood setting soundscapes, taking listeners on a sound journey across a wide array of musical spectra.

Opening on A1, Yetsuby reinterprets a traditional Korean folk story of a bear devouring garlic and green onions, transforming the animal into a human being. Aptly named ” Bear Becomes The Human,” she transforms the transformed, turning the bear into a buzzing modern drum & bass-fused energetic tune. It turns out garlic is a powerful source after all.

B1’s “Jelly” showcases Yetsuby’s talent for stripped-back glitch music: With a minimal bass and drum pattern, the track gently muddles along and presents itself as well suited warm-up track for the earlier hours of any party.


For the remix sides, Cleveland delivers a vinyl only remix of “Bear Becomes The Human” with a futuristic house tune filled with jungle like drum pattern and techy yet smooth atmosphere on A2.


On B2, New Zealand’s Eden Burns takes an entirely different path on his reinterpretation of Jelly. Embarking from the original pattern, he turns the original into a slow brewing psychedelic trance cracker that seems most suited for the early morning after hours that need an energy boost.

Mit der Single UNITED konnte sich der DJ & Produzent MARK OH wieder eindrucksvoll in den deutschen Single-Charts zurückmelden und an seine großen Erfolge nahtlos anknüpfen. Nach UNITED folgt nun die Follow-Up Single, und die hat sich gewaschen: SCATMAN !!!

Exit Planet Earth continues its exploration of the world of electro universe with an expansive, extended six track EP, featuring The Advent x Zein Ferreira, DeFeKT, London Modular Alliance, Konertymi and Zobol. The Advent, whose weekly Gardening Club residency in the mid-90s helped to drag electro out of the realms of the retro and back into the future, team up with Zein Ferreira for a Kraftwerk-on-speed extended mix of 'CarpeDiem', before London Modular Alliance's more moderately paced but still squiggle and bleep laced 'Lump of Coal' plus a 'beats' breakdown for the DJs. The B-side brings us the acid-powered 'Pulssi' by Konerytmi, the bouncy, breakdance-friendly 'Radar' by DeFeKT, and the relatively pure, optimistic sonics of Zobol's 'Data Wars'. Thumbs up all round.

Das selbstbetitelte Debüt von ENVY OF NONE, der bunten Zusammenrottung von Gitarrist/Keyboarder Alf Annibalini, Rush-Gitarrist Alex Lifeson, Bassist Andy Curran (Coney Hatch) und Singer/Songwriterin Maiah Wynne war eine der spannendsten Grenzgänger-Platten des Jahres 2022 und hat sich bis heute nicht abgenutzt. Die Band schreibt schlicht verdammt gute, emotional greifbare und musikalisch fesselnde Lieder in einem Spannungsfeld aus State-of-the-Art-Elektronik und Rock/Pop-Tradition.

Die nun nachgeschobene EP "That Was Then, This Is Now" dient ihrem Titel entsprechend als Standortbestimmung und enthält zwei Tracks aus den Debüt-Sessions, zwei Remixe und das erste nach "Envy of None" komponierte ´That Was Then´. Stilistisch war das Quartett von Beginn an so vielseitig, dass man nun nicht von einer zusätzlichen Erweiterung ihres Repertoires sprechen kann - doch das famose Songwriting bleibt erhalten, und für Rush-Fans noch besser: Lifesons Spiel schimmert noch einen Tick präsenter durch.

´Lethe River´ ist dem Album-Opener ´Never Said I Love You´ relativ ähnlich, aber insgesamt doch ruhiger. Darauf folgt mit ´You´ll Be Sorry´ sachte brodelnder und zischender Industrial light, der ebenfalls auf "Envy of None" hätte stehen können - was ja auch plausibel erscheint, weil beide Stücke im gleichen Rutsch entstanden sind.

The music explores Ekko´s feelings and possibilities, and the unpredictability of the improvisational music is a parallel to an echo that speaks freely. What happens then? «Hva nå, Ekko?» is a commissioned work by Liv Andrea Hauge, written for Festspillene i Helgeland 2022. The ambition behind the work is based on exploring improvisation in a bigger jazz ensemble. Composed by Liv Andrea Hauge, it´s performed by some of the foremost young jazz musicians on the Norwegian stage: Ragnhild Moan, Signe Emmeluth, Torstein Lavik Larsen, Marte Eberson, Fredrik Luhr Diecthricson and Andreas Winther. Drawing on Liv Andrea´s compositions and collective improvisations, the work appears as a collective project colored by tight interaction, and through the hour long work it´s notable how much the musicians enjoy playing with each other. Liv Andrea Hauge is an Oslo based musician, originally from Mosjøen in Northern Norway. She has studied jazz piano at the Norwegian Academy of Music, and despite her young age and carriere she has put a mark on the Norwegian music stage, with bands such as Kongle Trio and Ladybird Orchestra. In 2022 she released the album “Live From St.Hanshaugen” with Liv Andrea Hauge Trio, mentioned as one of 2022’s best Norwegian jazz albums

Yugoslavian synth-pop band Videotex formed in 1982 but settled on its more lasting line-up in 1983 with Anja Rupel on vocals, Janez Kriaj playing bass, Iztok Turk drumming, and Matja Kosi and Nina Sever both on keys. A year later they broke through with their Videosex 84 debut album and then had another local hit with the follow-up, 1985's Lacrimae Christi. It now gets a first-ever international release, all remastered and on nice heavyweight vinyl. The group had plenty of mainstream hits - two of them are on this album in the form of 'Sivi dan' (or Gloomy Day) and 'Tko je zgazio gospo?u mjesec' (or Who Ran Over Mrs. Moon), played some big concerts and even appeared on national TV before eventually splitting up in 1992.