Dynamite Cuts & The George Semper Music Archives present you this third in a series of soulful dancers 'Do You Know' from Patti Williams! Her powerful, gospel inflected perfromance on the rare gem A, 'Do You Know' is an anthem of Women overcoming scorn.
Written and Produced by George Semper, as part of her unreleased album, 'Do You Know' was recorded at Original Sound Record Hollywood in 1969. The master recording lay dromant in the vault until now!
Buscar:re lay
Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by heat or pressure without melting it to the point of liquefaction. The material produced by sintering is called sinter. The word sinter comes from the Middle High German sinter, a cognate of English cinder.
Born in the mid-60s, German musician and sound designer Uwe Zahn came on the scene of electronic music with his debut full-length album for DIN, titled “Atol Scrap.” In the very same year of 2000, the influential City Centre Offices label has signed Arovane for his majestic “Tides,” which has withstood the test of time for over two decades now. Back then, electronic music was split between the dance floors and the bedroom listening, with the latter carrying the now-famous acronym for Intelligent Dance Music. And Zahn’s compositions were indeed just that – more than a gimmicky, knob-twisting, stuttering randomization of experimental rhythms and tone, Arovane’s music evoked real emotion which has assembled his followers from around the globe. But his arrival on the scene was more than a predictable trajectory. Zahn’s sound began to take shape in the late 80s when the cut-up hip-hop beats were layered with synthesizer pads and looped samples. This experimentation progressed into what the 90s coined as breakbeat and glitch.
As the 2000s rolled over, and the monumental imprints, such as Skam and Warp, honed their staple repertoire defining the future of electronic music, City Centre Offices had a staple of their own. Often referenced alongside Boards of Canada and Autechre, Arovane’s sound quickly gained a discerning audience, tuning into his melancholic melodies, advanced textures, and complex polyrhythms. The pinnacle of his production was released in 2004, when suddenly, on “Lilies,” Zahn signed off with the final track, which he has titled “Good Bye Forever.” And then there was silence. For nearly nine years, the scene and yours truly mourned the loss of Arovane, assuming that he’s given up. That is until, in 2013, Zahn came out with a brand new album, “Ve Palor,” on the surviving post-IDM imprint, n5MD.
While on hiatus, Uwe spent his time researching, reconnecting, and reflecting on all he’s built. The sound experiments went on, and so did the music scene, morphing, dissolving, re-shaping itself into a new form for new followers. During that time, Zahn spent some time with sound design, creating patches for Access Virus TI, as well as sample packs for various sound developers. After “Ve Palor,” Zahn began collaborating with various musicians from around the world, exploring, directing, and fusing their distinguished sound with his own. On his subsequent releases, he shared credits with ambient artists Porya Hatami, Hior Chronik, Darren McClure, and even yours truly. During our collaboration, Zahn often described the process of building a new vocabulary for our very own defined language, with which my piano spoke through sound.
With nearly two dozen studio releases under his belt, numerous EPs and singles, and just as many appearances on various compilations, Zahn continues to split his time between his fascination with sound design, sonic programming, and musical composition, which sees the light via his ongoing projects, releases, and contributions towards audio plug-ins, software synths, and sound sets for advanced hardware. It’s effortless to slot Zahn’s sound between the genres, scenes, and names, but very difficult to peel apart, define, and then express the essence using words. However, what is simple and essential for the ones who understand, is recognizing, admiring, and subsequently falling in love with all that is encompassing of Arovane. (by Mike Lazarev)
It’s been nine years since Antoni Maiovvi released Trauma on Bordello A Parigi. Since then, and before, the Bristol born artisan has been honing and refining his audio craft with explorations into electronics, soundtracks and rock. Now, in his latest musical incarnation, Maiovvi returns with Birds of Paradise. This avian themed four tracker is beyond anything you’ve heard from this synthesizer wizard. Complex, deep and layered, the EP is testament to a talent rarely heard. From the sheer elation of “Flycatcher”, which pivots and weaves, the listener is taken away. Throbbing rhythms and astral melodies are unfurled, arpeggios rumble as key scale ever higher in the heady notes of “Widowbird”. A steady kick is the morning song of “Streamertail”, warm computer tones scudding next chords that trill with optimism. Birdsong, a feature of the EP, is ever present in this agile and textured close. Drawing on his predilection for movie scores, “Quetzal” completes this feathered foray. Pulsating, drums offer the updraft for a spread of sounds and shape to takes to the wing. A unique record from an artist soaring to ever greater heights.
Franco-Swiss composer & director of INA GRM François J. Bonnet, aka Kassel Jaeger, returns with a new solo album. Following a compositional approach stemming from the musique concrète tradition, without adopting a structuralist aesthetic, Shifted in Dreams explores a wide range of instruments and techniques, going seamlessly from instrumental improvisation to field recording, via micro-editing and the use of asynchronous loops. Mixing the electronic sounds of an ARP 2500 synthesizer with the acoustic drones of a positive organ, articulating guitar layers with the resonance of the Cristal Baschet, bringing together recordings of slamming windows and sound produced by complex modular synthesis patches, Bonnet offers a rich and generous palette of sounds, inviting a constantly renewed sonic investigation.
Orange Vinyl
Kero & Steph’s landmark collaboration Syndrome now sees a sumptuous release on vinyl and evocative music video, spinning data into densely layered visual treats.
Steph’s coolly ethereal voice and poignant writing drift in harmonies atop the sliced-up, glitched, hard-hitting precision of Kero’s productions. The unforgettable directness of her compositional sense is here, as her long resume of scores and placements would suggest. It finds an urban-technological counterpart in Kero’s frenetic sounds. The DU label boss is in full force straight from the chilling post-pop of the opening titular cut. “Walk in the park” is a production masterwork, punchy organic percussion against grinding bass. “Who am I to complain” is at once arresting and vulnerable with vocals, but still packs an emotional gut-punch in the accompanying instrumental. “Count down from 7” is more stripped down and urgent, melodic hooks propelled by lo-fi rhythmic mechanism’s menace.
For the remixes, Oberman Knocks unleashes utter digital destruction - computer memory banks dropped through a wormhole. That thoroughly deconstructs Mtch into composite textures -- and opens “Walk in the Park” to near-unrecognizable, yet somehow danceable mayhem.
The new physical and motion elements find a visual language for these sonic strata of imagination and digital construction. From designer Christoph Grünberger, known for his tome The Age of Data: Embracing Algorithms in Art & Design, we get the packed outer sleeve and 2D design. These enshroud a calm-looking Steph in a Shibuya Crossing-style trip inside Defasten’s geometries, opposite a catalog of branching visualizations and glyphs.
Defasten, known for his live AV work fusing virtual reality and performance, here explodes faceted 3D cubes, in the cover and further in the music video. These pulsing crystalline hyper-geometries delve into data as expressive medium, shifting and vibrating with the glowing tones and crisp percussive hits of Kero and Steph’s composition. It’s a rare music video that matches the music in intricacy and form - a world that can only exist in virtual space, but that feels as immersively dreamy as the sound score.
“Sugar coated fabric … in braided covers” and “silver linings” were never so tempting.
Building on the themes of her most recent album, `Medieval Femme', Fatima Al Qadiri's newest release sees her pairing up with fellow Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar. The EP - also titled `Gumar', Arabic for "moon" - is an homage to a style of lamentation singing that both Fatima and Gumar grew up with and were heavily influenced by, and for which the latter received formal training as a teenager. On these four short songs, Fatima provides a minimal counterpoint to Gumar's elegant vocals, a coalescence that powerfully and sympathetically complements and extends with cosmic, almost elemental depth. Serious and mournful in tone, the record ruminates on the subject of unrequited love, arguably the most common theme in Arabic music past and present. The cover is an original artwork by Kuwaiti artist Khalid al Gharaballi, Fatima's bestie and long-time collaborator.
KUF create emotion-laden dialogues across layers of time and dimensions of sound. With three albums the Berlin trio pioneered an astonishing inversion of the typical electronic band set up, by
pairing a plethora of disembodied, sampled voices with acoustic real-time interaction on bass, drums and keys.
'Yield', their fourth album, presents a shift in focus. Less weight on the vocal core – lots of new integrations of sampling, synthesis and band action in different constellations. This diversification of
sources pulls the conceptual stops out and yields a dazzling array of magical instrumentalism. Bold.
Catchy. Flourishing.
From 'Gold' to 'Universe', KUF solidified an irresistible marriage of android vocal cords and highly energetic beats. Their third album 'Re:Re:Re' applied the concept to remix/cover version hybrids of
classics from Macro's stellar back catalog, tackling originals by the likes of rRoxymore, KiNK, Patrick Cowley, Santiago Salazar and Stefan Goldmann. With proof that the concept could be applied with
supremely gratifying results to such diverse contexts, time was ripe to go back to the drawing board and reimagine the perimeter.
Now 'Yield' breathes the freedom of playful reassembly of the main ingredients. A sampler's cut-up capabilities triggered by frisky fingers. Persistent bass. Adamant drums. Rough soul, intertwined by
improvised outbursts and shaped with the aesthetics of raw MPC-based chunky techno. Twelve slices of hyper-integrated realtime magic.
One more drop from the Switch label vaults - another killer UK disco-boogie gem from T.J. Johnson, originally released in in 1982 and recorded at the legendary Landsdowne Studios!
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"Switch Records was started by myself alongside Bill Campbell in the early eighties", says Aaron Harry - a library music producer who began using Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park for his productions on the renowned Bruton Music label. The studios had been operating there since the late 1950s, becoming the breeding ground for some key & early UK jazz and pop records (owner Adrian Kerridge teamed up with Joe Meek to lay down the first recordings there in 1958). It was here that Harry and engineer Chris Dibble started to work together as a regular team. After spending some time at the studio observing them in action, Kerridge and (Burton MD) Robin Phillps "recognised what a good team Chris and I had become" says Harry, "so, it was inevitable that I would also make pop music alongside Production Library Music."
The output of the relatively obscure Switch label is the result of this work, and Freestyle has licensed 3 of the most hard to come by 12"s as part of their series of rare & foundation UK funk & soul records. This one, Pretty Lady b/w Come On Let's Do It (Let's Rock) is provided by T.J. Johnson - a talented and seasoned guitar T.J. Johnson aka T.J. Bedeau is still working the gig circuit to this day. Jump on it!
The electronic music producer and DJ whose catalogue of collaborations namechecks acts as diverse as Agoria, Green Velvet, Roman Flugel to Nitzer Ebb, Depeche Mode and David Holmes is set to release his 6th studio album The Strand Cinema on the 24th March on his own label PKR.
The last five years have seen an evolutionary shift for the electronic musician, undertaking more soundtrack work, including for film (Nightride on Netflix, Rough), radio (The Northern Bank Job BBC R4) and theatre (East Belfast Boy).
The Strand Cinema album is a tribute to the art deco cinema building , The Strand, where Phil’s recording studio is. A stirring and beautiful record, it seamlessly traverses the worlds of contemporary classical to beautifully elevated dance music with a recognisably cinematic influence. Managing to sound both grand and expansive, as well as minimal and introspective – it’s a record that explores the macro and the micro.
The opening track “Strand Cinema”, begins with a steady, gentle, looping pulse, almost recalling the kosmische ripples of Cluster, before sweeping and enveloping strings enter, resulting in a track that manages to sound both grandiose and tender in one fell swoop.
Lead single “Atlantic” perhaps most perfectly encapsulates the various sonic worlds that Kieran is operating in, merging a bordering on euphoric dance beat layered with infectious melodies, while remaining anchored to organic sounds, as strings and percussion collide with the driving and hypnotic groove of the track.
“Strike the Match” showcases Kieran’s talents for detail, in a track that feels almost palpably textural and rich in complexity but without feeling overly busy or superfluous; while “Elephant in Castle” utilises intense, almost gargling electronics, that drone with a foreboding and ominous tone, but also produces fractured moments of light, beauty and poignancy.
Created during Covid Kieran’s method was “To literally be like a tuning fork and ask: What's in my chest? If I were to describe what's inside me, and what's going on in the outside world, If I had to score that in a film, what would it sound like right now? I guess I sort of soundtracked my own life”
“One positive side of lockdowns was that we spent more time in natural surroundings where I’d make field recordings. I’d also record acoustic sounds: cello, violin, percussion, guitar etc and then create my own sample bank from all these single one-note sounds. So, creating your own loops and drones. The album was created from organic sounds manipulated by machines; melted, mangled and hacked with computers but machines only sound as good as the human spirit put into them.
The idea of nature and humans versus technology is the concept behind the album’s A/V show which debuts in Belfast in March before touring. Featuring works by 11 artists from across the worlds of film, animation, advertising, architecture, computer science and dance such as Scottish BAFTA nominated Simone Smith, LA based director Frederico Marzio Vitetta who is famous for skateboarding films like ‘Wet Dream’ with Spike Jonze, to futuristic CGI from BAFTA nominated Kris Kelly and a video from contemporary dancer Oona Doherty. onscreen visualisations that explores The visuals explore nature and technology along a timeline from past, present to future with cinema as a loose reference point with varying degrees of utopian versus dystopian moods.
US-based Mystery Circles is the next stop for Hiroshi EBINA following a previous outing here last year. This new cassette is another beautifully organic ambient soundscape with delicate pads and a sense of quiet hope and atomism. The beauty of the album cover really portrays the majesty of the music within as gentle chords linger in the air above warm and fuzzy drones. Some pieces are more empty that others which only lends the appearance of a wispy pad all the more weight while some grow in stubby intensity as sounds are layered up and draw you in ever deeper.
Raising the bar yet again, Night Owls' first single of 2023 lays yet another set of classic soul songs on you, flipped into the band's signature style. On Side A we find The Flamingo's beloved Doo-Wop/soul hit from 1959, "I Only Have Eyes For You," re-imagined to wind your waistline with Night Owls' longtime friend and collaborator - the one-and-only Chris Dowd from Los Angeles' legendary Fishbone on vocals. Known for tunes like "Pouring Rain" and "Everyday Sunshine" Dowd brings his signature soul drenched delivery with a hint of rude boy grit to match the rhythmic and tonal stylings of the group. Wanting to take things to the next level, producer Dan Ubick called in veteran underground Jamaican legend Tippa Lee (Stones Throw, Dub Club, Jammy's, Greensleeves, etc.) to sprinkle his magic rasta dust on top and deejay/toast on the track and the results are burning hot.
But wait, that's not all!! On Side B we find the beloved beat diggers classic "Live And Let Live," originally performed by Jimmy Jones in 1970 on Deke Records out of Chicago. For the Fender Rhodes-driven reggaefied version here, Night Owls roped in another longtime friend - Los Angeles kingpin and mover ’n' shaker, "Music Man" Miles Tackett to add his soulful vocals to the track and it's as buttery as cornbread from Cracker Barrel! Tackett is the mastermind behind globe-trotting funk/soul collective Breakestra (of which Night Owl Dan Ubick was a member) and legendary weekly L.A. dance parties like Funky Sole, Root Down and The Breaks. This side also includes Destani Wolf, who many will remember was featured on Night Owls’ version of “Let’s Stay Together”, providing the beautiful ‘verbed out backing vocals.
Third Pressing of Gilroy Mere's Adlestrop on blue vinyl with a blue cover.
Adlestrop is inspired by the remains of the rural railway stations, that were closed in the wake of the 1963 Beeching Report.
“This record started with Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop and a chance visit to the village that it takes its title from. I wanted to see the station, but found it was no longer there, all that remains is the old platform sign Adlestrop, now part of a local bus shelter. However as I walked around the village I was struck that; “all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire” were still singing away - like ghosts from Thomas’ verse.
Visiting Adlestrop spurred me to get hold of a copy of the Beeching Report which, in Appendix 2, lists all the services and stations recommended for closure in the 1960s. The names read like an epic British poem, from halts to branch-line stops and stations and singular terminals for public schools, mines, ferries and even an asylum. There’s Ravenscar where a resort was planned but got no further in its construction than the station, and a hotel - the grid marked out for the roads never laid. Bethesda, a short branch line from Bangor up towards Snowdonia, was used for slate and passengers and is now just a quiet green valley, Christ’s Hospital on the old Cranleigh Line, opened with seven platforms to cope with the daily flood of pupils attending the famous school nearby which never came as it was a boarding school. Many of the stations have vanished, with just fields and car parks left in their place, some are repurposed as houses, or shops, or abandoned as artefacts of a lone-gone industrial past.
Armed with a digital recorder, and with a copy of Beechings Report as my guidebook I made notes and recordings on my travels around the country, and used them as the starting point for a set of pieces that try to capture the fading layers of history, in the areas where the stations had once stood making sure each track retains something of the real place within them. Back in my studio I reacted, improvised, and crafted musical responses to each station, trying to capture the ghosts and former lives of the stations and their imprint on the present.”
Gilroy Mere is Oliver Cherer who trading as Dollboy, Rhododendron, and Australian Testing Labs as well as his own name has meandered his way through the backwaters of left of centre English folk, ambient and electronic music, issuing numerous albums of original music to much critical acclaim via highly regarded boutique labels such as Static Caravan, Second Language, Deep Distance, Polytechnic Youth, and Awkward Formats.
Thermal Shadow is a first-ever long player from Intertoto, and it is one that has very much not been rushed. This record comes after the artist has spent more than 10 years lost in sonic experiments and now they are all distilled into the eight tunes presented here on a limited edition cassette on the artist's own label. It's a mix of sounds that embrace mistakes, that keep the perfections in and layers up dust, texture, absorbing ambient and barely-there hints of rhythm. They are full of suggestive energy akin to that you might feel when queuing up outside the club and the highs and bass are bleeding out. It's an enticing collection for sure.
- A1: Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out
- A2: Golden Ring
- A3: Black Magic Woman
- A4: Man Of The World
- A5: Kerry
- B1: After Midnight
- B2: Bell Bottom Blues
- B3: Key To The Highway
- B4: River Of Tears
- C1: Rock Me Baby
- C2: Believe In Life
- C3: Going Down Slow
- C4: Layla
- D1: Tears In Heaven
- D2: Long Distance Call
- D3: Bad Boy
- D4: Got My Mojo Working
Gold Vinyl[48,32 €]
Das Warten hat ein Ende: Der legendäre Eric Clapton meldet sich mit einer bemerkenswerten neuen Veröffentlichung, ”The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions” am 12. November zurück.
Auf den 17 Songs spielen Clapton und seine langjährigen Bandkollegen Nathan East (Bass und Gesang), Steve Gadd (Schlagzeug) und Chris Stainton (Keyboards) akustische Interpretationen von Claptons Klassikern und eine Auswahl anderer Nummern, die Blues, Country und seltene Eigenkompositionen umfassen.
Das Projekt wurde ins Leben gerufen, nachdem Eric Clapton seine für Mai 2021 geplanten Konzerte in der Royal Albert Hall absagen musste. Auf der Suche nach einer Alternative zog er sich mit seiner Band in die englische Landschaft zurück und inszenierte ein Konzert, bei dem nur die Teilnehmer selbst anwesend waren, während die Kameras liefen. Das Ergebnis ist weit mehr als nur eine Aneinanderreihung
der größten Hits. Vielmehr handelt es sich um eine der intimsten und authentischsten Darbietungen von Claptons gesamter Karriere, ein Angebot, das einen echten Einblick in die Zusammensetzung seines atemberaubenden Katalogs gewährt.
„The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions” ist als CD, DVD, Blu-Ray und LP verfügbar .
Soreab – Sensitivity 6.0 Soreab debuts on Avian.
Dario Picchi, whose repertoire includes forays into Dancehall, Bass Music and genres less easily classified, alongside a spate of intriguing collaborations, keeps things sparse on Sensitivity 6.0. The six track EP offers up idiosyncratic takes on IDM, Techno and Ambient music with a focus on intricate sound design, showcasing the Baroque Sunburst label head’s admirable versatility as a producer.
Brazen opener Squirrel Stampede might surprise listeners expecting a more delicate approach from the EP title. Neatly layered and economic in its execution, it’s a forceful slice of modern Techno. Meditative follow up Trub marries a thick, undulating percussion line with a saccharine melody. Loose synths emerge sporadically from the sonic periphery, breaking up the rolling drum pattern to create a cinematic atmosphere. Closing out the A side is Giale Draws, an intriguing beatless piece with nods to both vintage Musique concrète and more contemporary compositions from the electronic music leftfield.
On the B side, Soreab ups the tempo and goes fathoms deep with the cavernous Dust Eater. Landing somewhere between Autonomic Drum & Bass and Dub Techno, it sets the tone for the dense… more
- 1: Rocking Machine
- 2: Part-Time Apocalypse
- 3: The Check In
- 4: Convenient Life
- 5: Garbagedump #1
- 6: A Fairly Normal Guy
- 7: Dinner For Two
- 8: The Masterwork
- 9: Self Reflection (Deep)
- 10: Big Money
- 11: Haunted Hotel
- 12: Checking Back
- 13: How Do You Spell Success?
- 14: Doubt
- 15: Failure
- 16: Hell
- 17: Twilight At The Shareholders' Meeting
- 18: Tears Of Love
Limited first pressing on clear vinyl. Dick Stusso's third album is a document of slow mental unraveling with a world in perpetual decay as its backdrop. With S.P., California-based singer and songwriter Nic Russo has created his most out-there and toothsome record to date, plunging his listeners into a strange and thrilling new world at every opportunity. S.P. is the first Dick Stusso record in four years, following his stellar Hardly Art debut In Heaven from 2018-but this latest missive is more of an indirect sequel to the buzz-building 2015 release Nashville Dreams / Sings the Blues, diving deeper into the fictional character Dick Stusso's crumbling psyche and dystopian surroundings. If our introduction to Dick was someone trying to pursue their dreams and turning into a failure as a result, S.P. reflects the moment where, in Russo's words, "The character is becoming unlikable. He's succumbing to what is taking place around him."Nearly half of its 18 songs-spanning countrified rock duets, Guided by Voices-recalling anthems, and outro noise-burst sound experiments-were completed before the pandemic, when Russo decided to take a beat and allow the music to sprout new, weird buds in his rehearsal space. With mixer Andrew Oswald accentuating the record's unique feel, S.P. bridges the gap between the ultra lo-fi confines of his 2015 debut Nashville Dreams / Sings the Blues and the lush echoes of In Heaven, with a few helping hands to fully flesh out Russo's vision. Grace Cooper (The Sandwitches, Grace Sings Sludge) contributes vocals to "Dinner for Two" and "Self Reflection (Deep)," while his father Marc Russo-a Grammy-winning saxophonist who's currently touring with the Doobie Brothers-lays down expert horn arrangements on "Garbagedump #1." The myriad of twists and turns on S.P. further establish Russo as a fascinating craftsman who's never bound to do the same thing twice.
- A1: Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out
- A2: Golden Ring
- A3: Black Magic Woman
- A4: Man Of The World
- A5: Kerry
- B1: After Midnight
- B2: Bell Bottom Blues
- B3: Key To The Highway
- B4: River Of Tears
- C1: Rock Me Baby
- C2: Believe In Life
- C3: Going Down Slow
- C4: Layla
- D1: Tears In Heaven
- D2: Long Distance Call
- D3: Bad Boy
- D4: Got My Mojo Working
Creamy White Vinyl[44,12 €]
Das Warten hat ein Ende: Der legendäre Eric Clapton meldet sich mit einer bemerkenswerten neuen Veröffentlichung, ”The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions” am 12. November zurück.
Auf den 17 Songs spielen Clapton und seine langjährigen Bandkollegen Nathan East (Bass und Gesang), Steve Gadd (Schlagzeug) und Chris Stainton (Keyboards) akustische Interpretationen von Claptons Klassikern und eine Auswahl anderer Nummern, die Blues, Country und seltene Eigenkompositionen umfassen.
Das Projekt wurde ins Leben gerufen, nachdem Eric Clapton seine für Mai 2021 geplanten Konzerte in der Royal Albert Hall absagen musste. Auf der Suche nach einer Alternative zog er sich mit seiner Band in die englische Landschaft zurück und inszenierte ein Konzert, bei dem nur die Teilnehmer selbst anwesend waren, während die Kameras liefen. Das Ergebnis ist weit mehr als nur eine Aneinanderreihung
der größten Hits. Vielmehr handelt es sich um eine der intimsten und authentischsten Darbietungen von Claptons gesamter Karriere, ein Angebot, das einen echten Einblick in die Zusammensetzung seines atemberaubenden Katalogs gewährt.
„The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions” ist als CD, DVD, Blu-Ray und LP verfügbar .
Cosmic synth. Polyphonic analog synthesizers and drum machines interpret ancient Saharan folk ballads in an imagined science fiction future. A proposed relaxation guide, sonically lying somewhere between ambient library music and minimal wave. Recorded in Niger and France in the late 1980s. All Recordings by Mamman Sani Abdoulaye. Recorded 1985 - 1988 at Studio Samira in Niamey, Niger and Studio Kham Mai in Paris, France. Instruments include Crumar Bit 99, RCA Victor 70, Yamaha RX5, and Roland TR-505. Painting by Maria Joan Dixon. Layout and design by Christopher Kirkley.
'Unconscious Collective' is the first album by PS5 - the new ensemble led by Pietro Santangelo (Nu Guinea, Slivovitz, Fitness Forever) - and it will be out for Hyperjazz Records on 21th May 2021.
It's a musical experiment where layered memories and hidden feelings resonate as if they arise directly from the most recondite part of the unconscious and produce a suspension of the stream of consciousness. With the aim to create a state of trance and override the human reason, this is an imaginary round trip across the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, ideally connecting Naples with North Africa and Latin America.
The arrangements wrote by Santangelo are based on great freedom of improvisation: while the melodic textures of the two saxophones didn't give any clear references, the other musicians followed the rhythmic pulse and its unpredictable ways. The music moves naturally along an imaginary line highlighting the ancestral connection between Jamaica and Ethiopia or between Nigeria and Cuba. In the background, Naples is a synthesis of all the sonic ingredients, mixed and cooked in its own mystical and spicy belly.
Besides Santangelo himself on the tenor and soprano saxophones, the collective is made up of: Paolo Bianconcini, a brilliant Neapolitan percussionist with a very deep Afro-Cuban background; Giuseppe Giroffi, young and talented alto and baritone saxophonist; the bassist Vincenzo Lamagna and the drummer Salvatore Rainone, both loyal members of the former Santangelo's trio.
Recorded live at the Auditorium Novecento in Naples, the legendary studio of Phonotype Records, 'Unconscious Collective' is mixed in analog format by Fabrizio Piccolo, and mastered by Davide Barbarulo at his 20Hz20KHz Studio.
Pietro Santangelo
Pietro was born, lives and plays in Naples. As a saxophonist and composer, he has released five albums with Slivovitz and one with his PS3 trio (Clinamen, Emme records 2017). Graduated in Digital Sound Processing at the Faculty of Physics of Federico II University, he is involved and engaged in the Italian scene of radical improvisation (Franco Ferguson, Elio Martusciello and Officina Arti Soniche, Collettivo NISE).
Multi-instrumentalist since forever, he has collaborated with Nu Guinea, Enzo Avitabile, Fitness Forever, Marzouk Mejri, Dennis Bovell and many others.
He's also author of soundtracks and electronic musician. He appreciates analog photography, loves walking outdoors. He hates biographical notes.
After last year's musical excursions to Central & South America and South Africa, Berlin-based reissue label "Matasuna Records" is once again making a detour to the USA for its first release in 2023. Two funk milestones by "United 8" and "Tony Alvon & The Belairs" have been selected from the archives of "Atlantic Records". Apart from a release as part of a Funk45's box set by Warner in 2004, the songs have only appeared on various bootlegs in the past.
Matasuna Records is thrilled tofinally release them as an officially licensed reissue with new mastering as a 7-inch vinyl single. This release is an absolute must-have for all funk enthusiasts, DJs and collectors.
"Getting Uptown (To Get Down)" by "United 8" is a funk classic released on Atlantic Records in 1972. The musicians of United 8 created an infectious sound with a combination of horns, guitars, drums and bass. The drums drive the beat and give the track its distinctive rhythm, while the bass provides a powerful, pulsating foundation. The horns add a jazzy note, while the guitar adds a funky touch.
The result is an energetic, danceable sound that still sounds fresh and exciting today. The song is timeless and has lost none of its appeal.It's no wonder that it has been featured on many funk compilations since the 2000s.
"Sexy Coffee Pot" by "Tony Alvon & The Belairs" is an explosive and energetic funk jointfrom 1969that immediately captivates the listener. The rhythm section lays down a steady, infectious groove, while the guitar and horns provide a funky, dynamic sound that complements each other perfectly.
It's no surprise that "Sexy CoffeePot" has been sampled and covered by so many hip-hop artists over the years, such as "Eric B. & Rakim", "Cypress Hill" or "DJ Shadow", to name a few. B-boys and B-girls also appreciate the upbeat vibe of this song, which has become a staple on battles.




















