More excellent and previously unreleased instrumental 1970s roots from 12 Tribes musical director Pablove Black and cohorts. Side A has an instrumental cut of the sublime rhythm used for Ewan Naptali's classic "Africa Awaiting Its Creator", the flip side has another instru titled "Sons of the Most High", which we think was voiced by Dan Hutson but never released.
20-jähriges Jubiläum: Erweiterte und remasterte Vinyl-Neuauflage des epochalen Debüts von Band of Horses, dem Indie-Rock-Klassiker "Everything All The Time" aus dem Jahr 2006. Diese erweiterte Ausgabe kommt im Klappcover und einer Bonus-LP mit seltenem und unveröffentlichtem Material, alles frisch gemastert von JJ Golden und gepresst auf opakem gelbem Vinyl. Musikalische Transzendenz zu erreichen, ist echt schwierig. Wenn es klappt - ein großes ,wenn" -, dann passiert das ganz natürlich, und vielleicht weiß das niemand besser als Band of Horses, deren bahnbrechendes Debütalbum ,Everything All The Time" auch nach zwanzig Jahren noch genauso lebendig und, wenn man so sagen darf, transzendent wirkt wie bei seiner Veröffentlichung im Jahr 2006. Gitarrist und Sänger Ben Bridwell gründete Band of Horses 2004 in Seattle, nachdem er fast zehn Jahre lang bei Carissa's Wierd, den melancholischen Lieblingen des Nordwestens, gespielt hatte. Carissa's Wierd machten wunderschönen orchestralen Pop, dessen Songs unerschrockene Geschichten von Herzschmerz und Verlust erzählten, gewürzt mit defätistischem Humor. Band of Horses entstand aus den Überresten dieser beliebten Band, getragen von Bridwells warmer, halliger Stimme und seinen holzigen, verträumten Songs, die vor Spannung, Sehnsucht und Hoffnung nur so strotzen. Mit einem neuen Vertrag bei Sub Pop und einer Reihe großartiger Songs im Gepäck nahm die Band ihr Debütalbum "Everything All the Time" mit Produzent Phil Ek in den Avast Studios in Seattle auf. Mal rau und episch (,The Great Salt Lake"), mal zart und nachdenklich (,St. Augustine", ,Monsters") - "Everything All The Time" ist ein Album, das wunderschön von zerbrechlichen Höhen und Tiefen geprägt ist. Das ist Teil des Genies von Band of Horses: Sie schaffen intelligente, klassische Bewegungen innerhalb ihrer Songs und meistern dabei eine perfekte Balance zwischen Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, Ruhe und Manie, Liebe und Angst. Und natürlich gibt es da noch die massive Single ,The Funeral", die zu einem prägenden Song dieser Ära wurde und weiterhin neue Generationen von Fans und Künstlern gleichermaßen inspiriert. Neben unzähligen Film- und TV-Platzierungen wurde der Song von Kid Cudi gesampelt und vom renommierten Produzenten und Multi-Instrumentalisten Gryffin in einen 2025 Dance Edit verwandelt, der allein in kürzester Zeit 2,5 Millionen Streams ergattert hat. Anlässlich des 20-jährigen Jubiläums des Albums präsentieren Sub Pop und Band of Horses nun die definitive Momentaufnahme der Band zur Zeit von "Everything All The Time". Für diese Jubiläumsveröffentlichung wurde das Album komplett remastered, das Artwork überarbeitet und zu einer Gatefold-Hülle mit Liner Notes von Phil Ek erweitert. Begleitet wird das Album von einer zusätzlichen LP mit Bonustracks, darunter die Tour-EP von 2005, eine Fundgrube bisher unveröffentlichter Studio- und Live-Tracks sowie Raritäten wie ,The End's Not Near" (zu hören in The O.C.) und eine Demoversion von ,The Funeral".
Seit über einem Jahrzehnt ist THE NEAL MORSE BAND eines der beständigsten und einheitlichsten Kollektive des Progressive Rock. Mit "L.I.F.T.", ihrem neuesten Studioalbum und dem ersten seit "Innocence & Danger" aus dem Jahr 2021, kehren Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Eric Gillette, Bill Hubauer und Randy George mit einem Werk zurück, das sowohl Reflexion als auch Inspiration verkörpert. "L.I.F.T." wurde unter Zeitdruck während einer Phase großer Veränderungen geschrieben und aufgenommen und fängt die kreative Chemie der Band in ihrer instinktivsten und inspiriertesten Form ein.
Konzeptionell setzt "L.I.F.T." die Tradition von NMB fort, Geschichten mit spirituellen Themen zu erzählen, und kombiniert emotionale Tiefe mit der für die Band typischen progressiven Rock-Größe. "Ich würde sagen, es ist die Reise eines spirituellen Helden", erklärt Morse. Auf "L.I.F.T." klingt NMB sowohl revitalisiert als auch vereint. Das Zusammenspiel zwischen den einzelnen Mitgliedern und die Lebendigkeit der Songs sorgen für ein neues Gefühl von Ausgewogenheit und Spannung. "Wenn alle an einem Strang ziehen und sich dafür begeistern, geht es schnell voran", sagt Morse. "Dank der Arbeit aller, einschließlich Rich, haben wir das meiner Meinung nach wirklich geschafft. Ich glaube, wir haben hier etwas ganz Besonderes geschaffen."
"L.I.F.T." wird als limitiertes 2CD-Digipak (inkl. Bonus-CD mit Instrumentalstücken), Standard-CD-Jewelcase, Gatefold-2LP und als digitales Album erhältlich sein.
Originally dropped in 1980 as part of Taking Care of Business, The Ted Coleman Band's only album, this 7" captures that sweet spot where jazz-funk meets rare groove perfection. 'If We Took the Time' is pure sunshine - think Roy Ayers on a slow afternoon, Billy Wooten in full cosmic flow, with shimmering vibraphones, velvet basslines and vocals that radiate soul from the Garden State to the cosmos. On the flip is the liquid and lively smooth and sexy delight 'Can You Feel It ' with buttery vocals and more cosmic bliss. Two glorious sounds.
The Lower Angel Band are a British folk-rock band formed in Warrington, Cheshire in 2025.
The band blend folk rock and pop, weaving in traditional instruments and warm keyboard textures beneath a rich, blues-inflected female vocal from front-woman, Vicky Williams. Their style is marked by memorable melodies and lyrics that explore everyday life and spiritual growth through stories and reflections. Since forming earlier this year the band have been drawing crowds across Warrington and the surrounding area. Notable performances include 'The Narrowboat Sessions' and Newton Festival 2025. The Lower Angel Band also have support from Radio Warrington - having starred on their Country & Folk Show in October.
'All In' as a whole, is inspired by nature, endurance and reflection. Each song derives from personal experiences and discoveries - following both the physical and spiritual journeys taken along the way. This album celebrates the human experience of both the highs and the lows of life, 'All In' together.
Swan Song
The vinyl LP at the heart of this éthiopiques 31 tracks 2 to 11 was one of the very last vinyl records ever released in Ethiopia. But above all it represents, we felt, the absolute masterpiece of the Ethiopian Groove – the Swan Song of Swinging Addis. The album leaves a clear idea for posterity of the level of sophistication and mastery that modern Ethiopian music had achieved, before being crushed under the Stalino-military heel of the Derg – as the bloody revolution that was unfolding came to be called.
Ethiopia1976.
The Revolution that broke out in February 1974 rolled on in a ruthless march. The whole of Ethiopian society was utterly stunned. The bouquets of flowers handed joyfully to the first tanks of the coup d'état were to wilt very rapidly. From September 1976 to February 1978, 18 months of Red Terror (the name given by the junta itself) spilled blood throughout the country. This fratricidal conflict took its heaviest toll among students and youth. The shift from feudalism to a cruel and primitive Stalinism left the country's citizens deeply traumatised, and snuffed out any pretence of activism, whatever the sector of society. This ice age was to last for seventeen long years.
ሙሉቀን፡መለሰ Mulukèn Mellèssè Muluqän Mälläsä
It was three tracks by Muluken that served as the opener for éthiopiques-1 more than 25 years ago. Seven more tracks appeared on éthiopiques-3 and 13, all accompanied by The Equators, which was soon to become the Dahlak Band.
The first track, Hédètch alu, also the very first piece that Muluken ever recorded, left audiences both unsettled and amazed. Reflecting the singer's extremely young age (he was just 17 at the time), this angelic voice mystified many, who thought they were in fact listening to a feminine voice. He was not yet 22 when he released his last vinyl record in 1976 with Kaifa Records (KF 39LP), one of the very last to be issued in Ethiopia, before the cassette tape became the dominant medium for music distribution – and before the new revolutionary regime put a stop to all independent musical life, via an unspeakable barrage of prohibitions and other persecutions.
Mulu qèn, literally, “A well filled day”. This tender maternal intention wasn't enough to ward off the cruelty of fate. His mother's premature death drove Muluken to leave his native Godjam, in northeast Ethiopia, to live with an uncle in Addis Ababa. Born Muluken Tamer, he took his uncle's last name – Mèllèssè.
The spelling Muluken appeared in his administrative records. Transcription of Amharic to the Latin alphabet, both in Ethiopia and for scholars, gives rise to controversies and quibbles that can never be neatly settled. French allows for a closer approximation of the original pronunciation, thanks to its battery of accent marks, confusing as they may be to anglophones.
Between rather accommodating administrative record-keepers and the various versions that pop up in interviews given by the artist, Muluken's year of birth oscillates between 1953 and 1955…
1954? One thing is certain: the artist's talent made itself known very early indeed, because he got his start in 1966-67, at the age of 13 or 14. Photos from the period attest to his extreme youth. It's a strange sort of initiation for a very young teenager to become a sensation in the heart of Addis's nightlife at the time, Woubé Bèrèha – the Wilds of Woubé. And what's more, in the club of the Queen of the Night, the Godjamé Assègèdètch Alamrèw herself, the very same that was portrayed by Sebhat Guèbrè-Egziabhér in his novel-memoir Les Nuits d’Addis Abeba2… The legendary female club owner who is remembered to this day by the capital's ageing boomers.
Muluken first tried his hand at the drums, before he grabbed the microphone. He emigrated briefly to the Zula Club, across the street from the old Addis Post Office, one of the ground-breaking bars of the burgeoning musical scene, before joining the Second Police Band in 1968, for around three years. He spent a few months with the short-lived Blue Nile Band founded by saxophonist Besrat Tammènè. As the musical scene grew increasingly successful, and pulled slowly but decisively away from its institutional ties, Muluken released his first 45rpm single in February 1972 (Amha Records AE 440). It was included in two LP Ethiopian Hit Parade compilation albums in September of the same year. All in all, Muluken released eight two-track 45s and the same number of original cassette tapes between February 1972 and 1984, the year that he departed for permanent exile in the USA. After converting to Pentecostalism in 1980, Muluken gradually abandoned all secular musical activity. In 1985, at the end of a concert in Philadelphia, he decided to quit concerts and recording for good. Mèlakè Gèbré, the historic bass player from the Walias band who was playing with him that night, recalls that everything appeared so irredeemably diabolical in Muluken's eyes, that it was to be the end of his contribution to Ethiopian Groove.
The end of the story, the beginning of a legend.
Dahlak Band, forgotten by History
Aside from his personal history and vocal talents, it must be remembered that Muluken Mèllèssè was one of the biggest names in the musical innovations that marked the end of the imperial period. These éthiopiques aim to convince those who are just discovering this hidden gem... As for Ethiopians themselves, they are to this day captivated by this singular and atypical figure in the Abyssinian pop landscape – even though he withdrew from public life some 40 years ago. Incorrigible devotees of poetic twists, of more or less hidden meanings, Ethiopians appreciate above all the care Muluken took in choosing his lyrics and the writers who penned them, such as Feqerte Haylou, Alemtsehay Wodajo and, here, Shewalul Mengistu (1944-1977). Love songs, written by women, a far cry from the conventional drivel that pleases sappy sentimentalists.
Muluken is equally acclaimed for his perfectionism when it came to music, the opposite of the overly casual approach that is all too common. He remained a faithful partner of musicians who came from a lineage that borrowed from several inventive and pioneering bands (Venus, Equators, Dahlak). Amongst them were certain artists who began their musical lives with Nersès Nalbandian at the Haile Sellassie Theatre and who come of age in around 1973 – at just the wrong time, you might say. Among them were the pillars Shimèlis Bèyènè (trumpet), Dawit Yifru (keyboards) and Tilayé Gèbrè (sax & flute). Most notably Tilayé Gèbrè, certainly one of the most important musicians, composers and arrangers of his generation, of the end of the imperial era, and of the early years of the Derg.
It was only in 1981 that a miraculous opportunity arose for Tilayé to escape the Stalinist paradise of the dictator Menguistou Haylè-Maryam. Once again it was Amha Eshèté (1946-2021) who provided a solution. The spirited and courageous producer, who had been in exile in Washington since 1975, succeeded, thanks to his incredible perseverence, in bringing the Walias Band to the USA. It was, in fact an extended Walias Band comprising ten musicians3, six of whom chose to slip away after a few concerts and the recording of an LP (The Best of Walias, WRS 100). Tilayé Gèbrè was one of these. He has been living in the USA ever since. There he joined the then-nascent Ethiopian diaspora, which lived largely unto itself, and was making only very modest headway in the American musical market. It seems unfair that Tilayé Gèbrè and the Dahlak Band were not able to benefit earlier from the public recognition that they do deserve.
A similar draining away of the top-rate talents would lead to the reorganization of the major groups of the “Derg Time”. The remaining artists spread themselves around between Ibex Band (renamed Roha Band), Ethio Star Band and a remodeled Walias Band. That spelled the end of the Dahlak Band.
With this record, produced by the essential Ali Abdella Kaifa a.k.a. Ali Tango, we can appreciate everything that the Derg not only destroyed, but also prevented from flourishing. This gem of Ethiopian-style afrobeat came out in 1976 (and, by way of a parenthesis, before the FESTAC 1977 in Lagos, which was attended by an impressive delegation of Ethiopian musicians — although Fela was already personna non grata in his own country). Despite everything that might distinguish this ethio-groove from Fela’s music – no colonial axe to grind, no question of political confrontation with the authorities, no claims to negritude or Africanism for the Ethiopian musicians, and less extrovertion! –, this LP fits beautifully into the saga of intense and electrified soul of the new “African” groove that Fela and Manu Dibango embodied so well from that point onwards.
In restoring this record to its place in the afrobeat epic, it can be seen that, if nothing else, the timeline bestows a legitimate pedigree and a historical primacy to works that had no international impact when they were originally released.
Warning! Masterpiece!
Two years after releasing the Frontier's Edge EP, the Budos Band are returning with their first full-length since 2020's Long in the Tooth. Titled simply VII, the new album sees them doing what they do best: laying down hypnotic, horn-spiked grooves that menace and mesmerize in equal measure. Produced by Budos guitarist Tom Brenneck with Simon Guzmán engineering, VII features 11 tightly constructed new tracks that draw on the group's wide range of influences, sounding like only the Budos can. It's music for getting down, for nighttime drives, and for alternate headspaces _ a beguiling mix of mystery and rhythm that stands with the formidable work they've released in their two decades of recording. VII was recorded in California and serves as the Budos Band's first full-length album on Diamond West, the independent label founded in 2023 by Tankel and Brenneck. It's also the group's first album to include instrumental contributions from percussionist Rich Tarrana, who previously played in the Frightnrs. All told, it succeeds in opening up some new sonic spaces while staying tethered to the intuitive, unique musicality that made them such a sensation from the jump.
Japanese detective drama theme song by Yuji Ohno, who composed music for "Lupin the Third" and others, is reissued on 7"!
Composer Yuji Ohno has composed music for many TV series and films, including the "Lupin the Third" series and "Inugamike no Ichizoku" (The Inugami Clan). The theme song for the 1978 TV drama "The Great Chase," for which he was also in charge of music, is being reissued in analog form for the first time in 47 years since its original release.
This 12' release is the fourth in the series in support of the Kuzoku film Bangkok Nites. Both songs here are covers of The Countryside is Great', a 70s luk thung classic originally sung by Runghpet Laemsing. The song, which plays a pivotal role in the film, is re-titled on the A side by Ozawa and the Babylon Band, who deliver a funky version with winsome vocals by Katsuya Tomita, one of the film's directors, who, as Ozawa, also plays the leading role in the film. The Babylon Band is led by Iwao Yamazaki, who has a long-running relationship with Kuzok films, he is the sound engineer of Bangkok Nites. The AA side is a version by the Tokyo-based synthesizer quartet Kufuki, with vocals by Rifu Otsu, a singer/voice performer and master of shigin. Cover art by Shinsuke Takagi of Soi48.
The Selenites Band - Journey on Az Ma'ar Moon An Ethiofuturist odyssey With Journey on Az Ma'ar Moon, their third studio album, The Selenites Band continue their exploration of ethiojazz, deconstructing and reinventing it to project it towards the stars.
Conceived as a journey to an imaginary moon, each track becomes a stage in an interstellar narrative, where myths, ancestral rhythms and Afrofuturism intertwine.
Between heritage and experimentation, the group deploys a groove from elsewhere: a mystical, cinematographic and resolutely modern trance.
