Buscar:west k

Deep and wicked West African Disco ultra rarity (Recorded in Lagos, 1981) by the band of Cameroonian multi-instrumentalist, Francis Mbilong..
Don't sleep on this winner!

Born in 1952 in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Francis Mbilong, would go on to lead an exciting and diverse career all across West-Africa. From a very young age at the behest of a family friend, Francis studied harmonium, clarinet, saxophone, and many other instruments. He would eventually funnel most of his talent into the guitar, on which he would write the majority of his body of work. After releasing several recordings under myriad band names during the 1970s, Francis went on to form his longest-standing outfit, Revelation; a name under which he has released recordings as recently as 2020.

At the time of the release of Love Affairs by Revelation in 1981, Mbilong would spend most of his time gigging in a club called Phoenicia in Lagos, Nigeria. He preferred the ambiance of a luxury night club to the regular clubs in Lagos, and gigging there afforded him the privilege of sitting in on jam sessions when acts like Kool & The Gang, or Bob Marley were in town. Altogether his career was storied and multitudinous, and was made possible by his immense talent as a musician.

Love Affairs contains within its seven tracks, a heady, deep, soulful approach to boogie that is seldom tapped by other recordings of its time. Mbilong's careful and disciplined approach to songwriting sets this album in a tier elevated from the usual four-on-the-floor disco routine. Each song is more engaging than the last, and each pocket respectively deeper. Revelation serves a familiar live-off-the-floor energy with the precision and soulfulness of a group of musicians who are as comfortable with each other as they are talented. The infectious rhythms on this album are the stuff of earworms and dancing is mandatory.

DJ/producer Don Pascal has long been an advocate of fusing London’s sound system aesthetic with more traditional music from around the globe.

Following on from his 2014 release The Cali Experiment, (fusing Latin influences with the sounds of London’s underground club scene) we are happy to announce his forthcoming album The Dakar Experiment.

Featuring musicians from Senegal’s legendary evolving band Xalam, The Dakar Experiment is a sonic exploration fusing Senegalese musicianship and London’s Broken Beat scene.

As the homogenised sound of western pop permeates traditional music the world over, The Dakar Experiment offers an alternate pallet of influence, retaining tradition yet suggesting other possible paths.

The foundations of the album were laid at Henri Guillabert’s studio in Dakar over most of 2016 with Moustapha - Taffa – Cisse, Yahael Camara Onono and of course Henri and Don, then completed in London with an array of musicians, pulling on the city’s vibrant and re-emergent Broken Beat scene.

Featuring vocals by Lyric L, Rich BLK and Niara Scarlett, and remixes by EVM128, Trev and Xtra Brux, The Dakar Experiment is an exercise in finding what connects us in an increasingly divisive world.

Als Re-Release lässt Conrad Schnitzlers legendäres "Con" eine Ära wiederauferstehen. Conrad Schnitzler steht heute nicht nur für seine bahnbrechende Musik, sondern eigentlich für eine ganze Ära - er verkörpert einen gewissen Künstlertypus, wie ihn so nur die legendären 1970er Jahre hervorbringen konnten. Als in einer nie dagewesenen Abriss- und Aufbruchsstimmung eine junge Kunstszene allem Alten und Überkommenen - und in ihren Augen politisch korrumpierten - eine kategorische Absage erteilte, den Kunstbegriff generell in Frage stellte und die Forderung einlöste, dass Kunst und Politik immer zusammengehören. In diesem Klima entstand die Idee der Konzeptkunst, die Auffassung, dass das eigentliche Kunstwerk der immaterielle Gedanke ist, der ihm zugrunde liegt und nicht seine Ausführung. Eine Idee, die antikommerziell weitergedacht wurde, denn nun durfte, ja sollte, Kunst beliebig oft vervielfältigt werden, billig sein und war für alle. Zugleich darf Kunst fast alles und fast alles kann Kunst sein. Conrad Schnitzler ist Konzeptkünstler und verkörpert seine Zeit, wie kaum ein anderer - sein Lebenslauf liest sich wie ein Manifest der Unabhängigkeit, seine Musik ist radikal neu, mutig und zuweilen regelrecht antikommerziell. Der legendäre von ihm gegründete Zodiac Club war der vielleicht wichtigste Schmelztiegel und Motor der subversiven Kunst- und Musikszene Westberlins. Als einer ihrer Helden und Gallionsfiguren, nahm Conrad Schnitzler im Paragon Studio das 1978 veröffentlichte "Con" auf, eines der raren Kleinode, dieser Epoche und seiner Karriere. Stärker als in anderen Arbeiten ist der Einfluss von Tangerine Dream zu hören (deren Mitglied Schnitzler von 1969 bis 1971 war) und als professionelle Studio-Arbeit ist "Con" nicht zu sperrig und artifiziell, sondern setzt stattdessen auf klarere Songstrukturen und musikalische Eingängigkeit. Zu Recht gilt "Con" manch einem als Schnitzlers beste Arbeit. Fast 40 Jahre später erscheint das Werk nun als Re-Release auf CD, LP und digital.

The Kenyan music scene is one of the most diverse and vibrant in Africa. However, ask any Kenyan which pop music style truly represents Kenya as a nation and there is only one possible answer: benga.

Benga is a pop style with its roots in traditional rhythms, instruments, and melodies. Luo musicians from western Kenya brought the style to prominence in the late 60s but other cultural/linguistic groups in other parts of Kenya quickly developed their own localized variants. With its pulsing beat, interlocking guitars, extended solos, and rapid-fire bass, benga music has dominated the Kenyan music scene over most of the post-colonial period.

Kakai Kilonzo is one of only a handful of benga artists to attract a broad following across Kenya. He opened up his music to others outside his Kamba language and background by singing in Swahili, which is widely understood throughout Kenya. At the same time, with catchy melodies and engaging lyrics, Kakai sang about subjects that all Kenyans can relate to: songs on all aspects of love and marriage, on social responsibility, societal ills (like drinking and witchcraft), moral guidelines, national unity, economic development, and more.

The songs on this compilation are taken from across Kakai's recording career, spanning from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, shortly before his illness and untimely death in early 1987, aged only 33. No Wahala Sounds are proud to present this selection of hard-to-find 45s from Les Kilimambogo Brothers, which are being released on vinyl here, for the first time outside Kenya.

The vinyl version includes a free CD copy of the album.

Due for release on 31 July 2020. Interest for airplay from Tom Ravenscroft and Gideon Coe from BBC 6 Music, DJ Ritu from Resonance FM/SOAS Radio, Roger Hill from BBC Merseyside and Steve Barker from BBC Lancashire.

Outfitted with anthemic romps, tongue-in-cheek pastiches, and percussions that pivot from rolling adventures to rain hitting the windowpane, Intimacy's 'Across the Bridge' marks the artist's fifth release on vinyl and first release on Bouquet.
A grab bag of fun, dancefloor-ready tracks written across 2019, the EP delivers his aesthetic of old computers, sci-fi movies, and science class educational videos configured into deep, spacey line-toting bedroom techno and melancholic house.

The title track features a catchy electroclash-esque (!!!) saw wave bassline, complete with emo Roland D50 strings and bells, all laid over a very beefy electro beat. It crossbreeds a Drexciya strain of low-end thump with a chewy, Eurotrash bassline evoking that time you lost your wallet at Tresor in '98. Strings and bells from the Roland D50 introduce the same euphoric high found in most of the products crawling out of Perdue's lab these days.

'Angelo's House' is a full-forced banger built around a well-traveled sample of Angelo Badalamenti's theme from Twin Peaks, recorded from an Intimacy live set early last year.

The flipside leads with the spiritual acid techno masterpiece 'Datalore 66'. Bubbling basslines hit a boiling point when placed in sequence with flutes showing genetic linkage to the Hartnoll family. Highly reactive material.

'Eternal September' opens a portal to the earliest hours of morning via synthesis of swirling pads and snapping drums. Closing the EP in introspective fashion, the track shows just how much emotional range Intimacy can pull out of decades-old disciplines.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Parks Perdue is a Memphis-born electronic musician. A culmination of internet research and home listening in the club-barren Tennessee city, his style draws from stoned out Dutch West Coast concept albums, video game soundtracks, and old-school midwest house and techno. Perdue made his vinyl debut under the alias Intimacy in 2016 on the short lived UK, DJ Haus-run label Vector Works. Perdue is now based in Los Angeles, California.

Originally written and produced as the centrepiece to his 2014 FabricLive compilation, Erol Alkan’s ‘Sub Conscious' arrives on 12” vinyl and to streaming platforms for the first time, accompanied by two charismatic remixes from Manfredas.

Shimmering and undulating, the original cut of ‘Sub Conscious’ was designed with Fabric’s cavernous main room in mind, taking full advantage of any finely tuned soundsystem with a patient, rhythmic trip. Remastered here, the track evolves out of hazy darkness towards halcyon euphoria in a uniquely Alkan style.

Resident at Opium Club in Vilnius, cult DJ and producer Manfredas provides two hugely creative and alternative takes on ‘Sub Conscious’. The first works hallucinatory magic with a supple bassline and much of Alkan’s original stretched and repurposed around vampish oscillations and a westward vocal sample.

On the contrary, the ‘Stream Of Consciousness' mix sees Manfredas pitch down and strum the bones of ‘Sub Conscious’, unexpectedly delivering a lovingly lethargic, bottom-heavy jam that’s pure dub-side pleasure.

Re-release of the record originally released on 2016-02-05!

Remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin and presented in an exact replica sleeve of the original 1966 release by Stephen O'Malley.

sales information: Black Truffle is honoured to present the first vinyl reissue of the classic debut album from AMM, AMMMusic. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its recording in 1966, this reissue makes one of the cornerstones of the experimental music tradition available again in its original form, replete with Keith Rowe's beautiful pop art cover and the terse aphorisms by the group that served as its original liner notes. A testament to the interaction between the experimental avant-garde and the countercultural underground, the album was originally released on Elektra, recorded by Jac Holzman (the label's founder, responsible for signing The Doors, Love, and The Stooges) and produced by DNA, a group that included Pink Floyd's first manager Peter Jenner. (Pink Floyd paid tribute to AMM's influence on their improvisational sensibility with the track 'Flaming' on their debut album, named after the piece that occupies AMMMusic's first side, 'Later During a Flaming Riviera Sunset').

Formed in 1965 by three players from the emerging British jazz avant-garde - Keith Rowe and Lou Gare had played with the great progressive big band leader Mike Westbrook and Eddie Prévost played in a post-bop group with Gare - AMM quickly evolved from a free jazz group into something decidedly more difficult to categorise. By the time these recordings were made, two more members had joined the group: another Westbrook associate, Lawrence Sheaf, and the radical composer Cornelius Cardew. Then at work on his masterpiece of graphic notation Treatise, Cardew brought with him extensive experience of the post-serialist and Cageian currents in contemporary composition. Using a combination of conventional instruments and unconventional methods of sound production (most famously Keith Rowe's prepared tabletop guitar, but also prepared piano and transistor radio), the group performed improvised pieces often running for over two hours and ranging from extended periods of silence to terrifying cacophonies.

Evan Parker famously described the improvisational logic of AMM's music as 'laminal', in contrast to the 'atomistic' approach more common among the generation of British improvisers (Bailey, Rutherford, Stevens and co.) to which he himself belonged. AMM improvised in layers: layers of sound subtly rising and falling or abruptly starting and stopping without being propelled by the implied pulse of free jazz improvisation. Rather than a pulse, AMM's music began with the sound of the room in which it was played, the Cageian anarchy of silence. By embracing the non-synchronous simultaneity of layered sound, AMM was able to create a musical container into which nearly anything could be incorporated at any moment: on AMMMusic, long tones sit next to abrasive thuds, the howl of uncontrolled feedback accompanies Cardew's purposeful piano chords, radios beam in snatches of orchestral music (and, on the LP's second side, an extended fragment of 'Mockingbird').

AMM's clearest break with jazz-based improvisation concerned the idea of individuality. Where improvised music has tended to foster the development of idiosyncratic stylists who move freely from one group to another, AMM, initially through an engagement with eastern philosophy and mysticism and later though a politicized communitarianism, sought to develop a collective sonic identity in which individual contributions could barely be discerned. In the performances captured on AMMMusic

the use of numerous auxiliary instruments and devices, including radios played by three members of the group, contribute to the sensation that the music is composed as a single monolithic object with multiple facets, rather than as an interaction between five distinct voices.

- Francis Plagne

Robin Renoir lands on Neon Finger with this excellent 7" that many pose as an instant boogie - funk classic! With a clearly 80's sound and with fancy collaborations of Throwbakk, Roxy or Artur Uronen from Beverly Girl. Don't miss it!

‘Love & Peace’ sees Steve mixing up all of his much-loved ingredients to deliver a fresh new record that offers the perfect antidote for the troubled times in which we live. Full of hope for the future, it’s a great mix of boogie, blues, rock, Americana and folk – all delivered in Seasick Steve’s unique style. It’s a sizzler of an album that he can’t wait to release.
“In these crazy times seems to me there just ain’t enough love and peace to go around,” says Steve. “I ain’t exactly sure what this here record got to do with love and peace, but I figured I’d call it that anyways!”
Produced and written by Seasick Steve, this album sees him breaking with tradition. While some of it was recorded in his barn, the majority was recorded in Los Angeles at Studio 606 and at East West Studio 3. The album was mixed by Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton) and Steve at East West.

Ramrock Red Records are incredibly excited to present Kameelah Waheed – straight outta New Jersey. Brought to our attention by London DJ/promoter, Barry King, Kameelah immediately delighted us with her direct, no messin’ delivery, compelling, earworm hooks and beautifully crafted lyrics.

Teaming up with Kelly Murray on co-production on the ‘Original Version’, Kameelah unleashes a stripped back, jazzy hip-hop vibe punctuated with a Donald Byrd’ish trumpet riff. The North Street gang take the Donald Byrd flavour a step further with a full on nod to the Mizzell Brothers in the first North Street West dusty funk production. Releasing digitally around April 24th as a five track EP with a further 7” vinyl release around May/June, ‘Holding On’ is set to tick a lot of musical heads boxes.

Growing up in an Islamic household, sneaking snippets of worldly music into her household was close to pulling off a major heist during Kameelah’s teenage years. She was introduced to the world of sound from MTV, rap and house music and the live bands of the 80's courtesy of her older sister, along with tribal and island music that her mother played. Kameelah was encouraged to consider song writing as a career option when she received an opportunity to write for Bunny Sigler of Philadelphia International Records. Heading up the hip-hop rock band band, Gov’t Cheaze in 2000, Kameelah performed at Philadelphia’s Black Lily Film Festival as well as a set at the very first Roots Picnic.

Previous releases have included ‘Traveling’ by Kameelah Waheed & GC, produced by Larry Gold, featured on the ‘Beat Generation Compilation’ released on BBE, making the Top 10 Most Played on UK urban radio stations. In 2011, Kameelah Waheed and Government Cheaze signed with indie label, Philly Through My Ear (PTME) founded by Will Smith Sr. The self-titled CD can be found on iTunes.

Can you truly believe this record was released in 1965 ? Forging a brand new hybrid of space-age, easy listening and spy jazz the American pianist and composer born in New York in 1927, put together one of the cornerstone of the genre. Before switching to the Moog synthesizer ( right on time with the moon landing in 1969) he had some very influential theme music releases on MGM Records and Command. But The Man From O.R.G.A.N. was a monster in itself. How could you go wrong with this trio of guitars, a bassist and three guys playing percussion? And Dick himself bringing the Lowery Organ (and the Theater model in particular) to the front of the stage ? Dig yourself !

Blowing in like a cool breeze on a sultry Caribbean evening, LA reggae veterans the Lions drop by Names You Can Trust with a perfectly timed sentimental summer blast. Lovingly taken for another dance by the west coast crew, the Derrick Harriott 1967 rock steady classic "The Loser" is canon, a masterpiece of Jamaican sweet soul instantly identifiable from its first chiming piano notes. In a nod to the "disco mix" DJ versions pioneered by Harriott, the Lions mic man Black Shakespeare provides a period-perfect chat backdrop to the Impressions-istic harmonies of the band, giving the tune an au courant spin while staying wide of heavy-handed faux ragga. All said, we wouldn't have felt right about releasing this without running things by the family, so we consulted Duane Harriott who approvingly called it "a brilliant take on one of the best rock steady songs of all time! Not an easy one to cover well and the Lions smash it out the park."

The summer sun is high in the sky. A cocktail in hand. The soundtrack? Chiara. Steeped in Latin rhythms, produced with the golden touch of Francesco de Bellis (Francisco), this two-tracker is set to a serious groove. Beats chatter and mingle in the evening heat of “Rec”. Bass smoothness and brassy blasts are sweetened by Chiara’s vocals before dramatic strings flash like lightning, igniting this already energy-packed encounter. “Studio Line” continues that theatrical touch. Bold keys, echoing the cinematic grandeur of Italy, are supported by dynamic drum patterns as a vocal sample circles. Styles spin and spiral, the track twirling between genre tags refusing to be pigeonholed. Elements of East and West glide and pirouette hand in hand across this stunning 7”, Chiara offering the perfect soundtrack to dance from dusk to dawn.

Rival Consoles is 21-year old IDM-smith Ryan Lee West from Leicester in the Midlands of England. After having supported his city neighbours and label comrades Kyte on an extensive European tour in November 2008, West locked himself away all winter to finish his first full-length album, set to see the light of day in mid 2009. In the meantime fans of his debut 'The Decadent EP' will be pleased to hear that on February 23, 2009 Erased Tapes Records will release an exclusive 4-track 7" single / download bundle ? Rival Consoles' take on classical music entitled 'Helvetica'. Instead of X-Box versus Playstation, here West plays classical against dance music! Influenced by impressionists like Claude Debussy and modern electronic artists such as Autechre and Daft Punk, Ryan Lee West created a unique signature sound for Rival Consoles. A playful and brutal mix of electronic beats, emotive piano melodies and warm synth string arrangements. Ryan repeatedly performed at the Tate Britain Museum in London where he drew over 2000 visitors into his unpredictable, yet detailed sound drawings. He was the first to represent Erased Tapes Records at the British Music Week 2007 in Cologne, Germany. Limited to 500 copies only: with download code. Album due later in the year, and it will be one of the years hittest tips...

Strut kick off a brand new deal with the seminal independent black jazz and soul label Black Fire in May with 'African Rhythms 1970-1982', a comprehensive 2CD / 3LP compilation of Oneness Of Juju, led by Plunky J. Branch. Tracing their career from the band's earliest work in 1970 with South African exiled jazzman Ndikho Xaba in San Francisco, the compilation covers the band's journey to New York's loft jazz scene, forming Juju and releasing two landmark albums of hard-hitting percussive jazz on Strata-East. "I saw myself as a cultural warrior," explains Plunky. "We studied about Africa and tried to infuse our music with an African spirit." Moving back to his hometown of Richmond, Virginia during the mid-'70s, Plunky drew in a superb new group of musicians and vocalists and created the band's new incarnation, Oneness Of Juju, retaining the African influence but fusing his sound with funk and R'n'B on the classic 'African Rhythms' album. "We realised that, if we put a backbeat to the Afro-Cuban rhythms, people in Richmond and Washington D.C. could be drawn into it; it didn't change anything about our message." The change would lead to a series of enduring soul-jazz classics on Jimmy Gray's Black Fire label, including 'River Luv Rite', 'Plastic' and 'Don't Give Up' and their biggest crossover international hit, 'Every Way But Loose' in 1982, later famously remixed by Larry Levan. The band received renewed interest in their music during the mid-'80s as Washington D.C.'s go-go innovators cited the band as a major influence and rare groove DJs revived their albums for London dancefloors.

Produziert und aufgenommen von Arca, definiert KiCk i eine neue Ära in der Multiplex-Welt der venezolanischen Künstlerin, Sängerin, DJ, Performerin und Komponistin. Mit Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl und SOPHIE hat Arca zum ersten Mal Kollaborateure in ihre Welt eingeladen. Zuvor produzierte sie für Björk, Kayne West und FKA twigs, komponierte Musik für das MoMA, erschuf gewaltige Noise-Skulpturen oder legte bei Festivals als DJ auf. Mit KiCk i wird nicht nur die Freude gefeiert, die Arca in ihrem Leben finden konnte, sondern auch der manchmal beschwerliche Weg, den sie dafür zurücklegen musste. Ihre Bemühungen, ihr venezolanisches Erbe und ihre trans-lateinamerikanische Identität zu versöhnen, entpuppen sich als Reggaetón und spanischem Pop. Aber KiCk i ist nicht nur eine Pop-Platte oder eine experimentelle Platte, oder auch nur eine Mischung aus beiden, sondern alles auf einmal - und noch so viel mehr. Je nachdem, wo man die Nadel aufsetzt, findet man Bubblegum, raue Geräusche, elektronische Psychedelia, Balladen, Knaller, Gelächter, Tränen, Leidenschaft und Glaubensäußerungen - Klänge und Ideen, die nicht einfach miteinander verschmelzen, sondern gleichzeitig in einer Quantenüberlagerung koexistieren. "Ich möchte nicht an ein Genre gebunden sein", erklärt Arca. "Ich will nicht als eine Sache abgestempelt werden." Wo sie jetzt ist, endet das Nicht-Binärsein nicht mit ihrer geschlechtlichen Identität. Es ist zu einer Denkweise geworden, bei der keine eine Sache nur eine Sache sein muss, bei der mehrere Bedeutungen, mehrere Realitäten in überlagertem Gleichgewicht koexistieren können. In diesem Raum zwischen den Staaten, in dem das eine Ding das andere ist, hat Arca ein riesiges Feld unerschlossener kreativer Kraft entdeckt.

Like many electronic artists, Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles spent his early years experimenting with IDM, glitch and dance, but one consistent element in his musical journey has been his desire to create a more organic, humanised sound. Through these experimentations he has found a process of producing electronic music that feels close to this urge. Restricting himself to a small selection of analogue equipment, West engages his hands directly with instruments and is very selective about what he then records into the computer. He reduces musical parts even further, leaving enough space around the sound for it to breath.

‘Odyssey’ is a reflection of West’s quest to create atmosphere and space from minimal arrangements. ‘I don’t like music to sound overly laboured, so I restrict how much is going on. I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of reduction.’ The new 5-track EP was mastered by Naweed and will be released worldwide on October 21 in the form of a 12" Vinyl and Download via Erased Tapes.

‘Odyssey’ and ‘Voyager’ are both incredibly stripped down and have a great sense of space throughout them. It's all about using the right ingredients at the right points in time. A lot of these ingredients are short recordings, such as ice cracking, mechanical clicks, clicks from synth errors, sounds of debris, guitar plucks etc., which interact with the simple arrangements and create little hints of rhythm. I also love the technique of swelling in music, but I realised that hardly anyone has done that in electronic music. So when I first got the synth to swell in and out with the opening chords of ‘Philip’, it was a great moment. Because it creates a human mood in a matter of seconds, which is very difficult to do with electronic sounds. That track is very important to me, and I think it will influence how I make music in the future.’ – Ryan Lee West

West will perform alongside his contemporary composer mates Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm for a special electronic Erased Tapes night as part of London’s The Hydra series on October 18. The same day will also see a special in-store event at Phonica Records, where West will showcase the ‘Odyssey’ EP amongst other tracks on his beloved analogue gear, joined by South London artist Supermundane creating a live art piece in the shop window.

RIVAL CONSOLES IS 21-YEAR OLD ELECTRO ACID-SMITH RYAN LEE WEST FROM LEICESTER. INFLUENCED BY IMPRESSIONISTS LIKE CLAUDE DEBUSSY AND MODERN ELECTRONIC ARTISTS SUCH AS AUTECHRE AND SQUAREPUSHER, HE CREATED HIS UNIQUE SIGNATURE. A PLAYFUL AND BRUTAL MIX OF IDM ACID BEATS AND WARM, EMOTIVE SYNTH STRING ARRANGEMENTS. IN FEBRUARY HE RELEASED AND TOURED THE MORE QUIRKY "VEMEER EP" UNDER HIS SECOND MUSICAL ALIAS APARATEC, WHICH SOLD LIKE HOT CAKES AND EARNED HIM A LOT OF FANS. RYAN RECENTLY REPRESENTED ERASED TAPES RECORDS AT THE BRITISH MUSIC WEEK 2007 IN COLOGNE, GERMANY AND CRAFTED REMIXES FOR UPCOMING LABEL COMRADE AND PRODUCER JUSTIN LOCKEY (YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO). "THE DECADENT EP" WILL HIT THE UK SHOPS AS A FUSION OF TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY FORMATS - A 10" VINYL RECORD WITH A DOWNLOAD CODE, THAT ALLOWS THE PURCHASER TO BE ABLE TO GET THE ENTIRE EP PLUS BONUS TRACK DIGITALLY FOR NO EXTRA COST.

For their sophomore album, Chemical Reaction, Galaxians have stripped back the music and pumped up the vocals. Emma Mason's unstoppable voice elevates the group to a fully-formed musical act. This new LP is all about her voice.

Mason's powerhouse vocal on the West End Records-inspired Chemical Reaction beckons you onto the dancefloor. Jed Skinner's bright and breezy synth melodies allow the song to really breathe, whilst Sam Bell's front-and-centre conga groove (straight out of Double Exposure's My Love Is Free) and Matt Woodward's intricate rolls ramp up the track's energy and momentum. The shorter Mama Ghetto Vogue Edit is brought to life by Darren Pritchard, vogue dancer and mother of Manchester's House of Ghetto, who meets a neon wonderland in the electrifying video.

Elsewhere on the album, Heartbreaker champions female empowerment and personal freedom over a pounding boogie groove. It's a tight arrangement which drops into a delay-drenched Levanesque drum break before crescendoing back into a final chorus via one of Skinner's trademark JX-3P synth solos.

On the proto-house funk of Fight For Love, where Emma flexes her vocal chords to jaw-dropping effect, a failing relationship is thrust into the spotlight over a punchy Linn Drum groove. On the silky shuffle of after-hours jam Work It Out, which brings to mind the classic Sly & Robbie Compass Point productions, Emma croons about a lover, her voice cast in a softer, more subdued glow. Heat of the City sizzles with the essence of an urban summer, and is peppered with heart-stopping hand claps.

Third single Horizon sees the band in more reflective low-key mode, and could be their minor hit of the summer. There's some neat drum programming here, intertwined with Woodward's intricate fills and hi-hat playing.

On Not The Money, Mason's vocal shifts to a lower register in the mid-section, bringing to mind Grace Jones at her most commanding.

All in all it's a life-affirming experience, one born out of a sense of community and collaboration. Seven years on from their early explorations Chemical Reaction sees Galaxians retain sight of the principles that make their output, and dance music as a whole, so vital - commonality of experience, singular moments shared by a crowd, and rhythm as the best medicine.

While the ongoing global pandemic means our chances to gather and dance beneath deep blue skies are likely to be limited, there’s never been a greater need for warm, positive and life-affirming music. NuNorthern Soul has decided to do its bit by offering up a brand new 'Summer Selections' sampler that’s packed to the rafters with magical musical treats lifted from some of the label’s most potent forthcoming releases.

The EP begins with something rather special from Canadian producer Igor B: a gentle, sunrise-ready soundscape rich in languid hand percussion, bubbly synthesizer lines and glistening guitars. Entitled 'Deep Breath', the track is just one of the many highlights you’ll find on his forthcoming debut album, “Stranded Seaside”.

There’s a similarly tactile and immersive feel to 'Early Morning Ferry' by George Koutalieris, a Greek producer whose debut album 'Stop, Look, Listen' will be released by NuNorthern Soul later in the year. On his contribution to 'Summer Selections Two', Koutalieris wraps lilting, sun-soaked guitar solos and soft-touch electronics around a chunky groove that doffs a cap to the more laidback end of the 1970s West Coast rock spectrum.

Next up, long-time friend of the family Chris Coco delivers a stunning interpretation of 'Dinum', an overlooked neo-classical/ambient fusion track by Faroe Islands-based producer Kristian Blak’s Yggdrasil project. Coco’s simmering, string-drenched re-imagining is featured here as a teaser of NuNorthern Soul’s reissue of the 2014 track in the autumn, which will also feature a mind-blowing 10-minute rework by Mike Salta – an artist who is also featured on 'Summer Selections Two'.

This time round you’ll find Salta collaborating with Mortale on the starry, EP-ending ambient bliss of 'Bells of Burgibba', a deliciously drowsy mixture of twinkling electric piano motifs, chiming lead lines and woozy pads taken from the forthcoming “Celestial Hike EP”. It paddles in similar sonic waters to label boss Phil Cooper’s stretched-out, slo-mo Balearic dub of new signing Faint Waves’ 'Aphrodesia', a teaser of the artist’s “Islands In Time EP” which can be found elsewhere on 'Summer Selections Two'.

No NuNorthern Soul label sampler would be complete without a contribution from BJ Smith, an artist who has been with the imprint from its earliest days. Smith returns to the imprint with another reminder of his uncanny ability to deliver ear-catching cover versions that re-cast classic cuts as loved-up rays of Balearic sunshine. This time round Smith takes us on a huggable shuffle through Prefab Sprout’s 'All the World Loves Lovers', re-imagining it as a future Balearic anthem and a summer 2020 sing-along. It’s not only a sneak peak of what we can expect from 'Dedication to the Greats Volume 3', his first covers collection for nigh on six years, but also a life-affirming highlight of an EP that oozes musical positivity from start to finish.

Big South West energy here as young Bristolians Litherland make their debut on new North Devon label with the dreamy, rolling, old school / new school breaks of ' Ida's World'.

'Keffala Breaks ' drops the tempo, adds some grit, and keeps drifting along, before up and coming Italian electro duo Hiver finish things up with a deep and streamlined version of Ida's World.

Khruangbin has always been multilingual, weaving far-flung musical languages like East Asian surf-rock, Persian funk, and Jamaican dub into mellifluous harmony. But on its third album, it's finally speaking out loud. Mordechai features vocals prominently on nearly every song, a first for the mostly instrumental band. It's a shift that rewards the risk, reorienting Khruangbin's transportive sound toward a new sense of emotional directness, without losing the spirit of nomadic wandering that's always defined it. And it all started with them coming home. By the summer of 2019, the Houston group_bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, guitarist Mark Speer, drummer DJ Johnson_had been on tour for nearly three-and-ahalf years, playing to audiences across North and South America, Europe, and southeast Asia behind its acclaimed albums The Universe Smiles Upon You and Con Todo El Mundo. They returned to their farmhouse studio in Burton, Texas, ready to begin work on their third album. But they were also determined to slow down, to take their time and luxuriate in building something together. Musically, the band's ever-restless ear saw it pulling reference points from Pakistan, Korea, and West Africa, incorporating strains of Indian chanting boxes and Congolese syncopated guitar. But more than anything, the album became a celebration of Houston, the eclectic city that had nurtured them, and a cultural nexus where you can check out country and zydeco, trap rap, or avant-garde opera on any given night. In those years away from home, Khruangbin's members often felt like they were swimming underwater, unsure of where they were going, or why they were going there. But Mordechai leads them gently back to the surface, allowing them to take a breath, look around, and find itself again. It is a snapshot taken along a larger journey_a moment all the more beautiful for its impermanence. And it's a memory to revisit again and again, speaking to us now more clearly than ever.

Louis Armstrong is one of the most important jazz musicians. He belongs to those who transformed the local music scene born in the Southern States of the United States - around New Orleans - into an international language.

It was in the 1920's, in Chicago, that he recorded his first records with His Hot Five and His Hot Seven. His personality and his natural enthusiasm, combined with his talent as a trumpet player and singer, helped him pave his way to success.

He traveled the United States with his orchestra throughout the 1930's and the 1940's, and appeared on television sets from all around the world throughout the 1950's and the 1960's. In five decades, Armstrong's music had evolved into jazz music, then known as a familiar universal language, popular on five continents.

The four sides of this double album revive the history of jazz, from "Muskrat Ramble" to "Hello Dolly".

What was it Dorothy said?

A few months back, we released Westcoast Goddess' LPH debut, The Inner Snoopy, a classic house EP reincarnated as one of those giant rainbow-colored lollipops. And that really wasn't enough, so now we have a second four-tracker from the guy, a continuation of the technicolor adventure through nightclubs in the Kingdom of Caring.

Pop it on and feel the sugar rush, feel your pupils dilate, feel your heart race and swell with joy.

A new sub-label of the longstanding Canadian electro imprint Suction Records, Ice Machine — focusing on old-school wave/post-punk sounds — is thrilled to present a new, deluxe reissue of “Pow Wow”, the debut 1982 solo LP from Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder. Now expanded to a double-LP, and also released on CD/digital, it’s a definitive reissue which now includes Mallinder’s early solo discography in its entirety. This collection of mutant dub/funk/postpunk sounds just as fresh and contemporary in 2020 as it did in 1982 (note Autechre’s inclusion of standout cut “Del Sol” in a mix earlier this year), and highlights Mallinder’s crucial contributions to Cabaret Voltaire.

Some words from Mr.Mallinder on the scene and era from which “Pow Wow” was born: “It was an interesting, and inspiring, time. The primal caterwaul of punk was dying and lots of really significant things were emerging from the fires. Much looser vibes were in the air and there was a much more exploratory feel. Punk had championed a visceral, anti-intellectual approach but in truth the real characters brought so much more to the table, and what began to happen - from people like The Pop Group to Throbbing Gristle, and emerging scenes from No New York to Factory Records - is we began to embrace the art of it all. There was acknowledgement of the importance of books, films, graphic art, and experimentation with all those mediums. We were just as interested in turning over rocks to see what lay beneath, as throwing them. There was a sense of new magik emerging.”

“Pow Wow” was commissioned by the Fetish Records label, and recorded at the Cabs’ Western Works studio, where Mallinder would spend his days recording with Cabaret Voltaire, and continue on alone into night recording his debut solo material. “I slept very little in those days,” he adds, continuing: “It was done on 8 track and very multi-tracked, so lots of recording, then bouncing, and overdubbing, to get the integrated feel of the tracks. I became very adept at pressing record then jumping onto equipment to play it - it was actually a very 'live' record in that sense. I've always seen rhythm at the core of what I do so I loved the layering of counter rhythms. The sequence/arpeggiator parts were all drum machine triggers that were played live. It was about creating a distinct groove so arrangements came from weaving in and out of those linear grooves. It was fun to play everything from drums, guitars, keys, trumpet, percussion, tapes… and record and produce it all. Prince got it from me!”

Surprisingly, Mallinder’s first solo LP would also prove to be his last - that is, until last year’s critically-acclaimed solo return “Um Dada”, on Dais.

This new edition of “Pow Wow” contains 14 songs, and is housed in a recreation of the original, iconic Neville Brody jacket, painstakingly recreated using scans of Brody’s original artwork elements. The 2LP vinyl edition is in a reverse board, thick-spine jacket, and adds a 12”x24” folded poster/insert, featuring unused elements from Brody’s original designs, sketches, and instructions for the LP. The CD edition comes in a reverse board, 6-panel digipack.


2-11 from the Pow-Wow LP on Fetish Records, 1982.

13-14 from the Temperature Drop / Cool Down 12” on Fetish Records, 1981.

12 from the Fetish Records compilation The Last Testament, 1983.

1 edit from the Pow-Wow Plus LP on Fetish Records (Japanese pressing), 1984.

Jazz funk and gritty rare grooves ensemble from down under - Kerbside Collection - return with their third record "Smoke Signals"! Continuing in a down home, instrumental approach, but this time crafting newer ideas and flavours into their spectrum of warm, analogue, dusty grooves from much more Fender Rhodes electric jazz elements, to New Orleans sprinklings alongside their 60's inspired West Coast style.

"Smoke Signals" continues the wilder tones, textures and 'library' sounds of extra instrumentation found on their last output "Trash or Treasure", whilst introducing hints of fusion and cinematic analogue electric colours into the mix bringing things into early 70s territory. Opening with the lush, analogue synth and keys palate of "Waiting Game", reminiscent of some classic Air "Moon Safari" grooves, before the album properly begins with a fresh rendition of the Rhodes heavy Cedar Walton 70's jazz funk classic "Jacob's Ladder".

Then straight into the street-styled jazz bongo breaks and funky flute of "Traffic", a skankin' New Orleans reggae homage to one of its finest Creole dishes, featuring funky Hammond organ courtesy of guest Jake Mason (Cookin' on 3 Burners) and tasty piano work from multi instrumentalist Andrew Fincher who handles both guitar and keys on the whole record.

The middle of the record comes with a steaming afro funk workout, and a low slung N'awlins styled blues 'n' soul groove, both featuring the fruity, low-end brass action of Papa Jo on the big baritone sax, before taking a gentle emotional breather with a delightful, soft, soulful, Rhodes ballad, and a 'waltz-jazz-wig-out' attributed to their label's A&R Mr Mellow (reminiscent of some humorous UK acid jazz à la Corduroy and James Taylor Quartet) featuring some beautiful jazzy Flugelhorn, and acoustic double bass.

The album wraps up with another cover - a grittier reinterpretation and arrangement of a Bob James 80s jazz funk classic "Westchester Lady" complete with funky flute and soaring guitar solo, before finishing with the explosive rock funk workout and title track "Smoke Signals", rounding out a record with a full spectrum of handmade jazz funk, reggae, soul, library and gritty rare grooves all recorded to tape machine.

Oracolo is Skinshape’s second full length originally released in 2015 and now remastered for 2020. The album plays out like the soundtrack to a psychedelic Spaghetti Western. ‘Old Days’ is one of a handful of vocal-lead tracks on the release that along with ‘Summer’ and the cinematic album title track, ‘Oracolo’ conjure references to bands like Can, The Bees or modern pysch pioneers Tame Impala. The instrumentals peppered throughout like the Quentin Tarantino-esque gem ‘Mandala’ and Motown reminiscing ‘Rubber Gloves’ highlight Dorey’s superb talent as an arranger and composer. Don’t let the vintage sound fool you either. All of his magic is original, without a sample in sight. Every instrument either played by Dorey himself, or his array of guest friend musicians. For the Oracolo artwork, Skinshape joined forces with acclaimed New York based artist Jared Buschang. This is one of Buschang’s early pieces simply named ‘Untitled’. The Picasco-esqe style makes the perfect visual representation for the music within.

Historic cassette of first Tuareg guitar studio recording. Newly restored and remastered. Tuareg guitar gets the electronic treatment, with a reissue of the cassette by legendary Nigerien composer Abdallah Oumbadougou. Produced in Benin in 1995, “Anou Malane” is one of the first studio recordings of Tuareg guitar. The genre, known for minimal folk ballads performed on acoustic guitar, is transformed with a full-on 90s swinging groove. Abdallah Oumbadougou is one of the original creators of Tuareg guitar music. Active in the Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s, his early compositions were politically charged, addressing the fighters scattered in the desert. These low-fi recordings were recorded on boomboxes, and found their way throughout the diaspora, passed through clandestine networks of cassette dubbers. In exile, Abdallah traveled to Benin to record an official release with Nel Oliver, a West African producer known for his work on a number of seminal boogie and afro-funk records. Oliver’s influence is heavily felt on the recordings with early digital techniques of programmed drum effects and backing synthesizer, transforming Saharan political ballads into Afro-boogie anthems for the discotheque. The resulting album went on to become a classic and pushed Tuareg guitar and the rebellion into the public consciousness

With a hybrid jazz based on African grooves, Ethio-oriental melodies and psychedelic dub this Belgian five-piece creates an atmosphere where ancient and modern sounds fuse into a powerful, hypnotic and groovy sensation.

Receiving critical acclaim for their second album 'Artifacts' (2017), the Belgian quintet are pleased to announce the release of their much-anticipated third album entitled 'Future Flora', released 12th April via Sdban Ultra on vinyl / cd / digital.

Piloted by saxophonist/flutist/composer Nathan Daems (Ragini Trio, Dijf Sanders, Echoes of Zoo), the input of notorious musicians, drummer Simon Segers (MDC III, De Beren Gieren, Stadt), cornet player Jon Birdsong (dEUS, Beck, Calexico), keyboardist Wouter Haest (Voodoo Boogie) and bassist Filip Vandebril (Lady Linn, The Valerie Solanas) leads to the specific universe that only Black Flower is able to create.

Where debut album 'Abyssinia Afterlife' (2014) and 'Artifacts' (2017) bathed in an atmosphere of psychedelics, mythical figures, ancient sounds and modern cultures, new album 'Future Flora' refers to the power of plants and their importance for the future.

"'Future Flora' is a metaphor for the importance of feeding and watering powerful and revolutionary ideas and initiatives that can save our world. You can compare it with plants that fight between the paving stones of the city for their future. These "urban warriors" need water to survive and grow. Their future and ours depends entirely on how we look at the plant world", says Daems.

Black Flower's musical cross-pollination of sounds and rhythms remain on 'Future Flora', but there is still room for a more Western touch with Romanian and Maloya (Réunion) influences. Daems developed his own arrangements where Western, Oriental and Ethiopian scales and chords are fused together to create a real mix of traditional instrumentation and modern electrical vibrations.

The strong underlying groove is omnipresent, but the room for psychedelics, folklore and experimentation grows. Songs like new single 'Hora de Aksum' combine modern western rhythms with doses of Balkan eccentricities while 'Future Flora' takes you on a psyche-delicious 21th century Ethio-dub-jazz trip with echoes of Mulatu Astatke and Fela Kuti.

"The general feeling that dominates is that of strength and perseverance. The feeling that we have to fight for our future and that we have to do it now! The whole album is interspersed with this atmosphere and sounds swirling, haunting and ecstatic. For those who once saw Black Flower live at work, this energy will be extremely recognizable", he adds.

Muzz ist eine neue Band, die aus Musikern besteht, die man vielleicht schon aus anderen Bands oder Projekten kennt. Allen voran natürlich Paul Banks, Sänger von Interpool, Teil von Banks & Steelz oder auch bekannt durch seine Soloprojekte Banks oder Julien Plenti. Die beiden anderen Mitglieder sind Matt Barrick an den Drums (The Walkman, Jonathan Fire*Eater, Tour-Drummer bei den Fleet Foxes) und Josh Kaufman, der ein Teil der Indie-Folk-Band Bonny Light Horseman ist und bei Produktionen von The National, The War On Drugs oder The Hold Steady mitgewirkt hat. Paul + Matt + Josh = Muzz

2xLP: Wide Spine, pressed on Gold Nugget vinyl with spot gloss printing on cover

About:
Free Nationals are best known as Anderson Paak's live band, until now. Band members Kelsey Gonzalez (Bass), Ron "Tnava" Avant (Keyboard/ Vocoder), Callum Connor (Drums) and José Rios (Guitar) have graced the stage at Coachella, opened for performers such as Beyoncé and completed World Tours alongside J.Cole, Bruno Mars - the list continues. Paying homage to the musical legends that paved the way before them; Free Nationals means The first people of America, Indigenous to the land before Columbus came. Staying Indigenous to the funk, Free Nationals pay tribute to inspirations such as Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Herbie Hancock and Al Green by incorporating musicianship while pioneering musical euphoria for a new generation.

Embarking on a journey from Italy to Anatolia and from Africa to the Americas, Nelson of the East soars over imagined landscapes in his debut, motion picture- inspired album, Kybele. Plug in your headphones, drown out the world, and set
out on a mystic voyage of Earth through the lens of Kybele, the Anatolian goddess of wild nature.

With the world in flux and isolation taking its toll, musical escapism has become a much needed pastime for today’s armchair adventurers. Treating recorded sound as a vehicle of time travel, Milanese artist Nelson of the East (N.O.T.E) takes listeners on a journey through kaleidoscopic soundscapes with his debut album Kybele released on Tartelet Records.

Skillfully weaving the sounds of East and West, the nine-track LP fuses Turkish and cosmic influences with a strong electronic backbone into an otherworldly soundtrack of our time.

“The feeling that passes through the record isn’t straight. It changes, it turns, it is never predictable. Never being able to predict which landscape you arrive at next or where the music is taking you is key to enjoying the sound journey,” says Nelson. “

Named Kybele after the Anatolian goddess of nature, fertility, mountains, and wild animals, the record is a continuous saga that takes from the Berlin-based artist’s own adventurous spirit. Following his previous EP releases Night Frames and Phase Alternating Lines, Nelson explores new territories on Kybele.

The album opener, “Explorer,” is an exhilarating build up to what could be a 80s sci-fi movie, showcasing Nelson’s knack for cinematic moods. “Draw Me,” speaks to the artist’s intention of making a “snare album,” with an irregular, dominating beat untethering it from time or boundaries. “What I realize while I was writing the rhythm part is that the more you keep a beat simple the more difficult it becomes to make it interesting. So I just put down some rules to follow. For example, using swing as smoothly as possible, or using lot of syncopated sequence over the straight 2-4 groove,” says Nicolas.

Another thing Nelson achieves in this album is ambience, or the “motion picture touch” as he calls it. Tracks like the wild and obscure Culto, with its Anatolian nuances and middle eastern-sounding scales are made by layering synths to achieve an orchestral effect.

Other tracks capture the musician’s penchant for African and Brazilian grooves, like the Saudade mix of Burning Palm. On the B side, the Italo-flavored Phase Lines comes through with shimmering synth and electronic drums complete with hazy vocals delivered by DJ Rayne and Nelson himself. Yahuda dives into dark, melancholic electro with a Detroit feel not far from the sounds of the great Drexciya.

The album closes with ZETA, a track that could easily double as an obscure cinematic composition. The nine-track LP is strictly limited to 300 copies, pressed on 180g vinyl with artwork by The Emperor of Antarctica. No repress.

new quartet by Samuel Rohrer, Max Loderbauer, Stian Westerhus & Tobias Freund In the present era of media saturation, the artist's dilemma has shifted away from the question whether to fuse disparate stylistic elements, towards the decision of which energies to draw upon: a situation most rewarding for those who listen to musicians navigating this limitless terrain. One such journey, the captivating full-length release from Samuel Rohrer's new Kave quartet coming out this May, is bringing together players who are equally well-versed in the quick-thinking mechanics of free group improvisation and the compositional strategies of contemplative / ‘ambient’ electronic music. With Rohrer acting as creative director and most of the quartet sharing synthesizer duties, there’s a strong sense of unified purpose to this set, and a narrative flow that never causes the listener to focus on one constituent part at the expense of the whole. At the same time, the players know all well that cohesion counts for little without those constituent parts being compelling in their own right. Rohrer and Loderbauer, for example, have previously crafted a unique techno-organic approach with the Ambiq trio, and the lessons learned from that partnership are put to inspired use within this new configuration. Stian Westerhus’ contributions on guitar and vocals, along with Tobias Freund’s electronic reinforcements - Freund also has worked since many years with Max Loderbauer as NSI - all conspire to make something that Rohrer aptly compares as “forest”-like. It’s a descriptor that will have vastly different meanings for each listener. For Rohrer, it refers to music that is confident in the “deep-rootedness” of its foundations and defined by a density and mystery easily confused with darkness, while nevertheless proving its bright vitRight away, on the introductory odyssey 'Cambium' the quartet sets out to make good on this metaphor, creating a hypnotic foundation for what is about to unfold during the next 42 minutes, with brooding, slow, 'searchlight in a fog,' synth washes and percussive stridulation. The twin 'Hibernation' tracks show all the unique elements beginning to coalesce: the emotional tenor is one of vulnerability that melts into the determination of 'staring into the void', a temperamental state challenging to represent authentically in music. The atmosphere of psychic challenge effort lessly gives way to the faintly nostalgic glimmers of 'Giant Peach' - a literary reference to the macabre whimsy of Roald Dahl.
The ultimate dissolution of barriers between organicism and synthesis is accomplished on the majestic 'Divided We Fall', a title referring to Westerhus’ smoky vocalization that winds into a double helix formed from electronic surges.
Again, the ease with which it all comes together is mesmerizing, and while there’s an aura of risk accompanying this walk through the woods, there’s a much more enduring impression of carefully orchestrated growth and change.

Lamunai Records is proud to announce Titik Api, the 2nd opus of the Indonesian master Harry Roesli, recorded in 1975. Political activist, prominent member of the Tradisi Baru Movement (New Tradition) who
emerged in the 1970s, Harry Roesli worked with musicians, poets, playwrights who were commited to experimenting indonesian traditional culture. Titik Api is another successful effort to blend Indonesian's traditional instruments, such as gamelan, with Western music from progressive to funky hypnotic groove.

Ground Tactics returns to Midgar Sands for his second release on the IDM/Leftfield focused side catalogue of Midgar Records. Over the past five years, Midgar has developed its sound through inventive records by the likes of Wata Igarashi, Forest Drive West, Susumu Yokota, and Retina.it, among others. Having developed from a music producer into a sound alchemist and tuning fork practitioner, Ground Tactics (aka Colin Tobelem) is moving beyond sound, Ground Tactic’s treatments inspire the addition of symbolic values in life – devoted to the purpose of seeking deeper meaning and knowledge of one’s self, to serve in the process of humanity’s transcendence. In a world uniting for self-reflection as a necessary step to spark our precious virtues into Light, Reality Implant symbolizes the start of a techno-prophecy: introducing the coming of a new era in which multiple realities and timelines merge together.

Disco divas, Funky queens and Glam ladies in 70's and early 80's Taiwan!

Due to it's extremely complex history, Taiwan in the 70´s saw the creation of some incredibly special music in which the sounds coming at the moment from the west collided with the special sensitivity of Taiwanese musicians, creating a delicious mixture you´ll need to hear to believe.

"Taiwan Disco" shines a light on the music created by Taiwanese women during those years (70´s & early 80´s) to present a mind-blowing collection of songs with sounds ranging from wild Funk to Space Glam, exotic Disco or fuzzed out Soul. Here´s the ticket to some crazy Taiwan nights, get those dancing shoes ready, it´s time to shake it!

Repress

Leading lights of the neo ambient rhizome alongside Huerco S’ West Mineral label, Experiences Ltd has already amassed a cult following after just one release - ULLA’s ‘Tumbling Towards A Wall’, now returning to relay a sublime, probing debut of crackling, cross-continental communications from mdo, Ultrafog, and Nikolay Kozlov, aka Folder.
Weft from dematerialised ambient tropes spooled between their respective bases in Kansas City, Tokyo, and Samara in Russia, ‘New Path’ slots fuzzily into an expanding prism of contemporary ambient music which echoes the purpose and effect of the original thing via traces of ‘90s/‘00s experimental techno and minimalist rhythms. Their sound effectively recalls K. Leimer’s systems music as much as the Pole’s eerie dub malfunctions; running a lushly frayed and decentralised style that embraces a gently psychedelic sort of chaos and lysergic, hallucinatory vision in an up-to-the-moment way shared by the likes of Huerco. S and uon.
If original ambient was analogous to THC and LSD, and in the ‘90s MDMA, then the effect of Folder’s music, and that of their peers, adds the putative, lushly dissociative effect and non-linearity of Ketamine and psilocybin to that formula. As such ‘New Path’ attempts to follow new routes through your neurons, sparking at new junctures of style and form that better reflect and counter a current psychic state of stasis and anxious anticipation.
Coming from the label behind those cult ‘bblisss’ volumes of 2016-2018, listeners can trust their needs for relaxation and otherworldly curiosity will be sated by ’New Path’, as it courses from iridescent ambient noise in the titular opener, to the laminal diffractions of ‘Plasma’, and soothing textural abstraction of ‘Reset’, shoring up in ‘Node’ as though oceanic ambient currents have individually lead them to this bobbing buoy inthe middle of a noumenal ocean.

Killer 13-track compilation of 70's music from Mauritius that evolved from the original sega genre - the music of the slaves as well as their descendants, sung to protest against injustices in Mauritian society.

Created at the crossroads of Afro-Malagasy, the 70s strain fused Western and Indian cultures, pop, soul and funk arrangements, syncopated polyrhythms, saturated guitars, psychedelic organs and Creole vocals. Although the exact origins of sega remain unknown, it contains vocal and percussive practices that originated from Madagascar, Mozambique and East Africa. A social escape and a space for improvisation, satire and verbal jousting, it transcended everyday life and made room for the expression of conflicts and the transgression of taboos.

The main instrument of sega is the ravanne, a large tambourine-like drum made of a large wooden frame and goat skin. It is accompanied by the maravanne, a rectangular rattle filled with seeds, and other homemade forms of percussion. Eric Nelson a solo guitarist and arranger, set up the band Features Of Life which, in the mid 70’s, gave birth to a new sound. Fuzzy distorted guitars and funky beats invite each other to play over the unbridled beats created by fabulous drummer Raoul Lacariate.

The band accompanied a new wave of singers, including the atypical Joseph Roland Fatime aka Ti L’Afrique, a hyperbolic and hyperactive character, a fan of blues and James Brown who launched an explosive raw, and funky style of sega.

Kamasi Washington's wide-reaching double album Heaven & Earth arrives on Young Turks. Much like his previous releases, Heaven & Earth once again finds Kamasi setting out to expand the minds and horizons of all who encounter his music. Recorded as a double album, this expanded canvas gives his trademark tones the opportunity to offer a wider than ever before selection of fully immersive, freestyling psychedelic jazz that carries a distinctly spiritual edge.In an instant, Heaven and Earth really burrows deeper into the external cosmos that we were left circling around the edge of with his debut long-player, The Epic (released in 2015 via Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label), yet it also carries us further into the distance of the deeply cinematic overtones that his debut Young Turks EP, Harmony of Difference pointed us in the direction of. While it is both instantly recognisable as a Kamasi Washington recording, Heaven and Earth's luxurious running time matched with a searching narrative sees Kamasi breaking out of any sounds or scenes he may be associated with, smoothly transcending into new, dynamic and sonically experimental levels and counterpoints of his now widely praised signature sound.
Washington convened his band, The Next Step, as well as members of the long running collective The West Coast Get Down at Henson Studios in Los Angeles to record the 16 tracks on Heaven & Earth. The music was composed, written and arranged by Washington, with new arrangements of jazz and bebop legend Freddie Hubbard's 'Hubtones' and iconic kung fu film theme 'Fists of Fury,' as well as one song by bandmate Ryan Porter. Thundercat, Terrace Martin, Ronald Bruner, Jr., Cameron Graves, Brandon Coleman, Miles Mosley, Patrice Quinn, Tony Austin and many more contribute to the album.Stretching out at two and a half hours of entirely newly recorded music, Kamasi Washington paints a vision of Heaven and Earth that is spread across two sections with eight movements apiece. It sees him wrestling with and attempting to make sense of the meaning of both Heaven and Earth within his mind and his place within the wider universe as a whole, with the Heaven side representing the world Kamasi sees inwardly, the world that is a part of him, while the Earth side represents the world he sees outwardly, the world that he is a part of. An existential experiment with saxophones that's set to take you on a journey that is as widely thrilling as it is deeply searching.

Vesa-Matti Kivioja has been making waves as an integral part of the multi-faceted Ljudverket & Meltdown Deejays crews in his native Finland for many years. His productions merge 80's ambient & library stylings with John Hassell-esque soundscaping, live percussions and vintage drum-computer programming drenched in fathoms deep kaleidoscopic dubbing and mixing. This particular EP is all of the above, the sound of rural Western Finland thawing after the hard-bitten winter months, each track inspired by Kivioja's fascination with various species of lizard, hence the EP & track titles.

Sepultura’s acclaimed 1989 album, Beneath The Remains, marks the band’s major label debut on Roadrunner. Widely regarded today as a thrash-metal classic, the album perfectly distilled the Brazilian band’s potent mix of piercing melodies and pummelling rhythms.

In December 1988, brothers Max (guitar/vocals) and Igor Cavalera (drums), Paulo Jr. (bass) and Andreas Kisser (guitar) recorded Beneath the Remains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with producer Scott Burns. Soon after it's release in April 1989, the album was hailed by fans and critics alike for standout songs like “Inner Self,” “Primitive Future” and the title track. The album has been remastered especially for this collection.

The Deluxe 2CD Edition also features nine unreleased “mixdown” recordings taken from the Beneath the Remains sessions at Nas Nuvens Studios in Rio de Janeiro. Highlights include versions of “Lobotomy” and “Mass Hypnosis,” as well as instrumental versions “Slaves Of Pain” and “Sarcastic Existence.”

The studio tracks are complemented by unreleased recordings of the band performing live on September 22, 1989 at the Zeppelinhalle, West Germany. The concert features songs from Beneath the Remains (“Primitive Future” and “Inner Self”) and the band’s previous albums (“Troops Of Doom” and “Escape To The Void”), along with covers of Black Sabbath’s “Symptom Of the Universe” and the Dead Kennedys “Holiday In Cambodia.”

Founded by the Cavalera brothers in 1984, the group recorded two full-length albums – Morbid Visions (1986) and Schizophrenia (1987) – before signing with Roadrunner Records in 1988. Since then, Sepultura’s dynamic studio recordings and intense live performances have earned it fans everywhere.

The current version of Sepultura (Derrick Green, Paulo Jr., Andreas Kisser, Eloy Casagrande) released a new album, Quadra, on February 7 and will tour the U.S. this spring. Former members Max and Igor Cavalera – who perform together in the band Cavalera Conspiracy recently completed a sold-out European tour in December 2019.












k 2) Inner Self (Mixdown) Instrumental
[l] 3) Stronger Than Hate (Mixdown) [Instrumental]


[o] 1) Sarcastic Existence (Mixdown) [Instrumental]
[p] 2) Slaves Of Pain (Mixdown) [Instrumental]

[r] 4) Hungry (Mixdown) [Instrumental]

Kicking off the new decade, Control Freak co-founder Customer Service makes his production debut with five tracks of adventurous outsider electronics.

On the A-side, ‘Dance First, Think Later’ is a bass-heavy dancefloor destroyer guaranteed to send the club west. It's followed with the ethereal sound design and off-kilter rhythms of ‘Recalcitrance’.

On the flip, ‘Betty’s Audition’ takes the pace down a notch with rolling, hypnotic drum programming and plenty of low end punch, whilst ‘B1SM’ deploys a skeletal breakbeat - one for the early hours. Rounding things off, ‘Exquisite Corpse’ locks into a rigid 4/4 groove combining acid with delicate, textured pads.

Control Freak Recordings is the sister label of London-based party Cabin Fever. They are next at The Cause on 20th March with Inga Mauer and Dark Entries. In April they head to Corsica Studios with Anthony Linell and Barker.

In 1981, London-based E.G. Records released the debut album from a young Ghanaian group called Edikanfo. Edikanfo quickly rose to international notoriety following the release of “The Pace Setters” because of the infectious, forward-looking highlife meets afro-funk synthesis the band committed to tape. But the album also caught an additional wind of publicity due to its producer, the already legendary British musician and sound conceptualist Brian Eno. During that time, Eno was researching and openly propagating West African musics. He often mentioned his love of Fela Kuti and called his own rhythm-driven experiments the search for a “vision of a psychedelic Africa.” He had recently been collaborating with The Talking Heads on their Avant-funk masterpiece “Remain in Light” and with The Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” an album which foretold the sort of cross-pollination and global music interconnectivity that today we take for granted. Eno and Edikanfo’s work together at Studio One in Accra (Ghana) was yet another inspired morphing of soundworlds and processes and a significant touchstone for both artists. As Brian Eno recently noted: “the actual recording sessions were joyful - the band played with such verve that you couldn't resist.”



But just when the sky seemed the limit for Edikanfo, the coup d’état in Ghana on the last day of 1981, tragically put the brakes on the band’s quickly developing fortunes. For years after that, the country endured enforced curfews at night, which of course ultimately gutted the live music scene in Accra and elsewhere. Because of this and other financial setbacks, the band ceased activity and its members spread out in exile, all over the world. It clearly seemed as though the story of Edikanfo, one of Ghana’s greatest bands of that era, had come to a premature end.



Now, almost four decades later, Edikanfo has returned. And with its surviving members gearing up to reissue and tour their classic 1981 album, “The Pace Setters,” the band is once again excitedly pointed towards the future.

"A Western Circular" is Will Archer’s debut under his new nom-de-plume, following early EP's- and an Album under the now-retired Slime moniker. Within ‘A Western Circular’ lies an exciting- and varied crew of guest artists including MF DOOM,Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Sudan Archives & Laura Groves, all contributing vocals to his rich, dexterous compositions!

An Album that’s been in the works for the past half-decade, ‘A Western Circular’ is a bold, reflective piece that directly relates to Archer’s personal experiences of life and death, centred on one particular week where they breathed with equal intensity. Ostensibly, it’s a poignant reflection on the duality of the human condition.

Be With hereby presents aural perfection.

Don’t let the title mislead you, “Much Too Much” by Sass has just the right amount of everything, whether you’re talking about the vocal or the instrumental. And that’s as true now as it was when it was originally released back in 1982.

In 1981 The Jack Sass Band, as they were known, were still working the NYC club circuit. Along with the likes of Change, The BB & Q Band and High Fashion, they were part of the Little Macho Music phenomenon and that’s how they ended up in an 8 track studio on 7th Avenue near 20th Street, where Little Macho recorded demos.

Produced by the band’s vocalist Mic Murphy, who also wrote the track along with fellow band member LaForrest Cope, the band needed just one session to capture “Much Too Much”. The recording studio just so happened to be run by Silvio Tancredi and when the tracks were finished he offered to put them out on his 25 West record label. The vocal version and an instrumental mix were released as a 12" the following year. Mic tells us this meant Sass “were one of the few bands to have a record release while still playing on the club circuit. So the reaction exceeded our expectations at the time”.

According to Mic “Much Too Much” was something a little different from the band’s live sound at the time, “it was more R&B smoothed out than the more funk rock we usually leaned into”. Indeed, the track glides with grace, poise and patience. The elegant, easy tempo, combined with the magnificent melody and Mic’s signature sublime vocal conjures magic. The blend of deep boogie-funk power and heavenly sweetness is both infectious and goosebump-inducing.

Over on the flip-side, the instrumental slaps harder. Without Mic’s vocal it’s just pure groove, with nothing to stop you vibing all night - the bassline, the drums and the melody still connect. Hard. Pick your side, you won’t lose.

Working directly with Mic Murphy means that the audio for this re-issue of the classic 12" comes from the original tapes. Cut at 45 RPM and released in a plain sleeve, we’ve made sure this record is well up to the job of having a permanent place in every DJ’s bag. As far as we’re concerned, this is essential stuff.

Mic told us just how much it means to him to have “Much To Much” re-issued: “It’s an amazing feeling to have something you created almost 40 years ago still have relevance and even more amazing to be considered among the Northern Soul boogie anthems. And it’s especially important to me that we’re available again on vinyl”.

Moscow's leading deep and underground house label Deepology presents a series of releases, Four Seasons. Four releases, vinyl only, each corresponding to a specific season of the year.

The first record, EP 1, includes four tracks by residents and friends of the label - an international team of the artists from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and Finland.

Limited edition of 300 copies. Spread the analogue love!


DJ Feedback:

Mark Farina, Sascha Dive, Luna City Express, Martin Landsky, Jimpster, DJ Linus, Charles Spencer, Nick Holder, Terry Francis, Jay West, Igor Marijuan (Ibiza Sonica FM), Glenn Underground, Jesus Gonsev, Robert Owens, Patrick Lindsey, Lars Behrenroth, Carlo Gambino, Mucho Soul, Finest Wear, Fer Ferrari, Sumsuch and more.

We’ve worked with Ian Willson to reissue his insanely good, self-released West Coast classic “Straight From The Heart”. Privately pressed and originally released in 1985, this is the only album Ian ever put out. A magical blend of AOR/sophisticated funk/synth-boogie/spiritual jazz and modern soul, it’s a spellbinding record of many colours.

You might already know “Straight From The Heart” for the dubby-disco paranoid-balearic anthem “Four In The Morning”, and it’s easy to assume this is probably just another one of those one-track LPs. But trust us when we say it’s definitely not. This is an impressively slick record from start to finish, just ask those modern soul DJs and AOR collectors who’ve managed to find a rare copy in the last 35 years. It could’ve (should’ve?) been number 1 all over the world back in 1985.

Album opener “Think About It” is all sorts of right. It’s emotional. It’s tops-off. It’s funk in its purest form. And take the proto-modern-funk of the title track (half Dâm-Funk / half Dâd-Funk).

The shimmering, spiritual Bossa-Jazz of “If I Were You” serves as the album’s soaring centrepiece. A gorgeous suite of Cosmic vibes to get Gilles frothing, it sounds like nothing else on the record which makes sense given that it was recorded a couple of years earlier, and is the only track on the LP that wasn’t recorded in Ian’s own studio.

Side B opens with the propulsive ode to love that is “Two Is Better Than One”. Wonderfully sparse when it needs to be, it’s also richly percussive and that special kind of California-warm. Frenetic, speaker smashing synth and horn workout “Funk Invasion” dares you not to dance and “A Game Called Love” is heavily indebted to Prince with its lush, deep funk stylings. The sweeping sax-drenched instrumental “Song For Katelyn” is head-nod, beat-heavy AOR for that melancholic magic hour we spend our days longing for. It all adds up to the ultimate BBQ record.

Almost all of “Straight From The Heart” was recorded over a few months between 1983 and 1984 on Ian’s brand new Otari 8 track in the Oakland, California studio he built just the year before. Only “If I Were You” was recorded elsewhere, at Bay Sound in 1982.

A “full time poor musician” at the time (and he says he still is), Ian produced the album himself and played all of the instruments, except for guitar. That’s Peter Fujii you can hear, his good friend from growing up together.

Tower Of Power, Average White Band, Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder was the list of influences Ian gave us when we asked. No wonder the record’s just so easy on the ears.

And why did he put the record out himself? Simple, he had no idea how to go about getting a record deal.

When we first got in touch with Ian he had no idea that “Straight From The Heart” had become something of a cult record, let alone that there were those of us out there that thought the album deserved to be pressed again. The original tapes have long since been lost so this re-issue was only made possible by remastering Ian’s one and only pristine copy of the finished LP.

The end results have been worth the work, including reproducing the original’s unmistakeable sleeve. Ian Willson’s “Straight From The Heart” is yet another Be With release that will find an easy home on the shelves of those of you who up to now have only dreamt of finding a copy and also those of you who who never knew it even existed.

Palette 71 kicks off with legendary Warp artist Plaid on remix duties. Transforming the title track, re-synthesized 909 samp-les and lua scripted sequencing, Plaid builds melodies and ar-rangement to epic proportions in classic Plaid fashion.

Tejada’s new EP is an homage of sorts to the sample heavy production style of the late '90s. "Limiting the options and just creating and manipulating a batch of samples is my happy place,” says Tejada. The title track hints back to a personal favorite, Optical’s "Moving 808s." While the sound is quite different, the approach is similar: samples, editing, some fil-ters and not a whole lot more opens up a lot of creative possi-bilities without too much getting in the way. Of course, the bass plays an important role. Combing through some older influences of varying styles, the production became more in line with Tejada classics like “Timebomb” and “Western Star-land,” both sample collage pieces focused on groove.

The final track, "Infinity Room" also follows this production process while resulting in a slightly moodier sound.

Introducing this debut release on Reptile Dysfunction from Aniche. A
super exciting Graduate of Doorly's Orbit DJ / Production Academy
project and new member of the Reptile Dysfunction clan.
Taking inspiration from his cultural background of old school Hindi
cinema and 90s Dance music, his sound is what happens when Eastern
philosophy meets Western electronica. This unique approach is what
makes Aniche a niche.

Voice of the Kano project and former percussionist of Eric Clapton, George Benson and Chaka Khan, Glen White in 1982 wrote and arranged "Be Free", one of the most intriguing and elegant Italian disco / boogie song together with the producer Louis "Gigi" Figini (former member of project "Koxo" alongside the unforgettable Leonardo Re Cecconi). An overlooked gem by the West Indian artist brought back to the musical community!

Entitled ‘My Heart Is Hungry And The Days Go By So Quickly’ Danish singer and songwriter Jacob Bellens presents his fifth solo album. Thanks to his unique voice and his talent for heartfelt melodies, over the years Jacob, also known as frontman of I Got You On Tape and Murder, has become one of the most distinctive figures on the Scandinavian music scene. Slightly darker in tone than its predecessors ‘Trail Of Intuition’ (2018) or ‘Polyester Skin’ (2016), the new album lets us see the world through Jacob’s eyes.
Somewhere between left-field pop and a classical singer/songwriter approach, the songs were recorded in two sessions with producer Mads Brinch, drummer Tobias Laust, bass player Jonas Westergaard, keyboardist Malthe Rostrup and guitarist Tobias Fuglsang. “So many good friends and amazing instrumentalists have contributed to the sound“, explained Jacob. “And mostly, people were playing what they felt the song needed, which was an incredibly inspiring way of just letting the process develop naturally, and take on a life of its own.” As such, the recordings give off a distinct light-footed and organic feel. Rich in metaphors, the lyrics deal with personal perceptions based on everyday life occurrences that at the same time hint at the meaning of life in general - or at least suggest a higher perspective. The sonical expression is timeless but also modernistic and the lyrical point of view is refreshingly diverse, never just black or white. The sad songs have uplifting, often surreal qualities, and the lighter, uptempo songs also invite to a certain darkness. A flower basket full of difficult emotions, sprinkled with magical fairy dust that somehow makes everything worthwhile.

3 years after the release of his debut EP « Seize The Day », DJ, producer and founder of Roche Musique Cezaire is back with another evocatively named project : "Attraction".

Faithful to himself, he creates a sensual ambience made of warm and swaying tones, the sweet fruit of the melodic groove which always drives him. Once the eyes closed - the imagination becomes fertile and takes us back in a 90’s daydream accompanied by hypnotic synths. Regardless of the place, it’s all about lightness and smooth vibes.

Between G-Funk influences and francophone contemporary soul, the 5 titles EP unveils the producer’s taste for retro and voluptuous sounds, echoing to the universal theme of desire.

“This second EP is to me a logical follow-up which falls within my path. Of course, its central theme is attraction, but by that, I refer to one thing : making your dreams come true. ”

BEHOLD! The inaugural long player from Wick Records - The Mystery Lights! In an era when the city kvetches that there are no good NYC bands, when half of the music scene has split for sunny California, the Mystery Lights are an anomaly. Not only did these bold young men reverse the direction - optimistically migrating east against the tide from the west coast, but they also immersed themselves in the action and diversity of New York City. Organically unfolding over the nights, months and years, the Lights' sound has evolved into a fuzz-fueled, hopped-up 21st Century take on '60s garage pebbles, and artful '70s punk, that is all their own.

If you've ever seen the Mystery Lights live, then you've experienced the otherworldly energy and conviction they exude on stage, compelling their rabid fans to emphatically entwine themselves into an electrified mob. This album is a testament to that. Recorded at The Daptone House Of Soul by (Grammy Award winning) engineer, Wayne Gordon - shortly after their debut single sold out - it marries the Lights' youthful, visceral energy with seasoned song-craft and musicianship far beyond their years.

The Mystery Lights are living proof that vital contemporary music, in this case real-deal rock 'n roll, can still be dreamed, constructed, and thankfully recorded in the Empire City.

Unreleased album from 1981, a collaborative project by David Behrman, Paul DeMarinis, Fern Friedman, Terri Hanlon and Anne Klingensmith recorded at Mills College in 1981.

Previously known only to cognoscenti through an obscure self-released three-track 7”, this is the first publication of the complete album, an outrageous confection that mixes art-song and theatrical monologue with live electronics. Starting life as a performance art piece described by the artists as ‘Western Performance Noir’, the record centres on a series of texts written by Friedman and Hanlon in which female narrators comically embody a series of iconic roles (The Recording Artist, The Former Movie Star, and The Rancher). Other lyrical themes include recurring references to the notorious cannibal pioneers, the Donner Party, an ironic take on Japanophilia, and the luscious “Archetypal Unitized Seminar,” a satirical poke at self-help culture, whose lyrics are rendered in Indian raga style to the accompaniment of electronic glissandi and toy noisemakers. Delivered by Friedman, Hanlon, Klingensmith and special guest Maggi Payne in forms ranging from spoken monologue to Country & Western waltz, the texts are accompanied by instrumental and electronic contributions by Behrman and DeMarinis. Musically, She’s More Wild is truly unique, demonstrating these two pioneers of live-electronic performance adapting their signature processes to something approaching a ‘pop’ format: we hear the gliding, frequency-sensitive electronics familiar from Behrman’s classic On the Other Ocean and the mutant hacked Speak n’ Spell heard on DeMarinis’ Songs Without Throats propelled by drum machines and twisted into song forms. Perhaps comparable only to the David Rosenboom and Jacqueline Humbert’s contemporaneous Daytime Viewing in its interweaving of performance art tactics, high-tech electronics and pop sensibilities, She’s More Wild is an essential document, both immediately gratifying and ultimately thought provoking.

Robin Renoir lands on Neon Finger with this excellent 7″ that many pose as an instant boogie – funk classic! With a clearly 80's sound and with fancy collaborations of Throwbakk, Roxy or Artur Uronen from Beverly Girl. Don’t miss it!

Fantastische Best-Of-Compilation des venezuelanischen Ambient/Electronic-Musikers Miguel Noya mit remastered Highlights seiner Karriere seit seinem Solodebüt, dem deepen Sci-Fi-Electronic-Werk "Gran Sabana" (1984). Inspiriert von Brian Eno, Jon Hassell und Tangerine Dream vereint Noya Ambient, Space-Electronica, Soundtrack, Psychedelia und organische Geräusche zu einem intensiven Sound, der sich - ähnlich japanischer Ambient-Produzenten - mit einer eigenen Note von den westlichen Pendants abhebt.

We were first introduced to Marumo’s ‘Modish’ album via DJ Okapi's amazing resource the ‘Afrosynth’ blog, which archives South African bubblegum/disco from the 80s & early 90s. Aside from this blog, this music would otherwise remained unknown outside of South Africa, apart from the most hardcore of digger and record collector.
‘Modish’ was originally released on Spades Record in 1982 and was recorded by producer West Nkosi, who was a member of supergroup ‘Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens’. He worked with the big hitters in South African music such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Teaspoon & The Waves, Patience Africa and many more. Marumo were made up of a group of musicians from the Athlone School for the blind in Bellville, close to Cape Town. The band members, John Mothopeng, Munich Sibiya, Simon Falatsi and Marks Mbuthuma, had previously played in the groups Batsumi, All Rounders and The Orations and came together to record this versatile album. It covers a wide number of genres from Sotho soul, Mbaqanga, disco-funk, gospel & spacey-synth slow jams.
Flash forward 30 or so years later and lost dead-stock copies of the album start to appear and Marumo’s music begins to be heard across the world in the DJ sets of Motor City Drum Ensemble, Invisible City Editions, Floating Points, DJ Okapi and others.
We included the afro-disco-funk beauty of 'Khomo Tsaka Deile Kae?’ on our Mr Bongo Record Club Volume Three compilation, but felt ‘Modish’ needed to be available and heard in it’s entirety. We hope you enjoy!

Following a successful EP in 2019, featuring remixes from Osunla
& Pocz, Olindo Records are proud to present “Wono”, the debut collaborative album from Koichi Sak& Afla Sackey.

The album is a deep exploration of Koichi's love of both electronic and West African music, in close collaboration with Ghana-born master percussionist, singer, band leader, teacher and songwriter, Afla Sackey.

Featuring 7 tracks ranging from the meditative “Yamb”, which features master kora player Kadialy Kouyate, to the acid infused, slow house workout of “Niege”. Passing through a contemporary highlife take on advance single “Suolo” and an album version of the previously released “Jingo”.

Koichi Sakai is a London-based producer and DJ, a well-known head in London music circles thanks to his role in co-founding the legendary Afrobeat Vibration nights alongside Dele Sosimi. He has previously recorded and released music with Kay Suzuki as Afrobuddha, and they recorded a set together for Boiler Room.

Afla Sackey is leader of 10-piece afro funk and highlife orchestra, Afrik Bawantu, and the man who the likes of Kokoroko call when they need some extra power on the percussion or a singer to lead their Church of Sound tribute to Ebo Taylor.

Koichi Sakai & Afla Sackey’s first collaborative project on Olindo Records, the “Wono” EP released late last year, received widespread support, particular from Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 6 Music, Defected Radio, Mafalda, Hector Plimmer & Zakia (NTS), Tony Minvielle (Jazz FM), Tim Garcia (Música Macondo/Jazz FM), Music is my Sanctuary, TwistedSoul, Mari* & Papaoul (Worldwide FM), Alan McKinnon and DJ Harv.

We still have copies of Koichi Sakai’s Wono ep OR004 and Betsayda Machado LP ORLP003 should you like more.

Kicking off 2020 – Great Circles takes a step away from the dance floor with the release of the monolithic new work from Philadelphia-based artist Radere, ‘I Do Not Want What I Have.’ This long-in-gestation set of slow burning electronics and shadowy drones is part of the label’s growing selection of releases dedicated to deep listening, following on from the 2017 Prefix Moniker LP.

Radere is the ongoing project of Carl Ritger, who has worked under the nom de plume since 2009 and has deep ties to the Great Circles family. He played some of his earliest shows at Inciting HQ, the recently shuttered, label-affiliated venue, and invited Justin Gibbon AKA Westov Temple and Great Circles label founder to contribute to some of his earlier recordings. While he started out as a more straightforward ambient guitarist, Ritger’s work developed into more experimental textures as he explored modular synthesis and processed found sounds.

Ritger’s releases from his time spent living in Denver, CO c. 2011-2018 are marked by a particular strain of east coast nihilism and an angular aesthetic that keeps the listener off balance. Now back in his native Philadelphia, the two long-form pieces that comprise ‘I Do Not Want What I Have’ represent a perhaps more nuanced meditation on pain and loss. “Spitty Kisses,” the 15-minute album opener, takes aim at the listener with a brutal salvo. It is almost sadistic in its sonic intentions – acerbic modular sound and abrupt stuttering in the material leave a listener personally affected. “You’ve Been A Ghost Your Whole Life,” on the flip, delivers a salve for the A-side’s wounds and resolves its masochistic tones.

Written through a period of intense personal trauma as a means to seek comfort and solace through creative action, it’s clear that the puerile humor of nihilism is gone and grown out of in Ritger’s work.

FFO: taking long walks off of short piers, the legend of the monk Kelpius living among the trees of the Wissahickon, traditional creation and destruction stories in polytheistic faiths, and John Coltrane.

The record is accompanied by a digital-only series of remixes by friends of the artist and regular collaborators, including new works from Borne and Shivers, as well as Great Circles alums Westov Temple, Chaperone, and WOLF DEM.

Imagine a Kerri Chandler track anthropomorphized, then jammed into a Japanese purikura photo booth for a series of bedazzled, glittered, and airbrushed headshots. Imagine that image set to music. What do you hear? Westcoast Goddess' The Inner Snoopy, a frenetic house workout that is puzzlingly contemporary, classic, and alien.

The four-track EP kicks off with the title track, a cloud of cotton candy, supersaturated hot pink, threaded with twinkly bells and a bass shuffle that flips and flops around with cheerful abandon.

“Limelight Golden Age” and “Murder at Passion Cove,” the two tunes that follow, assume a quietly sinister tone, introducing minor-key piano pounds and pinched synth riffs that stretch to the heavens to complicate the overwhelming joyousness of the instrumental palette and arrangement.

A subtly ironic 12-inch that satirizes and lampoons the bubblegum, technicolor sounds from our hyperactive age while hearteningly finding beauty within it all.

Bah — words, words, word! It's wildly fun party music imbued with idiosyncratic humor and life-affirming happiness.
Play it loud, play if often.

Following their first 7" in 2018 Budabeats Records is proud the release the debut LP of pioneering Hungarian Afrobeat supergroup, the Mabon Dawud Republic.

The band started out as the Fela Kuti tribute band for the very first Felabration event in Budapest.
In the past two years they created an impressive repertoire of their own tunes. The rawness you can hear on their early recordings transformed into a more mature and sophisticated sound, still deeply rooted in the traditions of West-African music.
They even toured in Ghana where they had the chance to record with highlife legend Pat Thomas, as you can hear on 'Gyae Abrabi'.
On 'Na Lie' they are joined by Fela's original Egypt 80 band member, keyboard player and singer Dele Sosimi.
Other guest performances include Ghanaian vocalist and kologo player Stevo Atambire (on 'Mawadioh' and 'Talk to Me') and vocalist Abate Berihun (on 'Nanu Nanu Neye').

Three years after their critically acclaimed and sold out Abrada LP the great and joyful Japanese afro groovers Ajate are back with their much awaited brand new album Alo!

Ajate is a Japanese band who plays a unique blend of afro-groove dance music mixed with Japanese traditional festival music called "Ohayashi". Formed in 2011 by the band-leader John Imaeda, Ajate consists of 10 Japanese musicians.

Another unique feature of the band is the use of hand-made bamboo instruments as well as traditional Japanese percussion. The "Jahte" is a bamboo-made xylophone or balafon with a piezo pick-up mic attached to each key, connected to a pre-amplifier to obtain a loud sound and to add some touch of dirty distortion to its warm and natural acoustic sonority.

The "Piechiku" is also a bamboo-made string instrument inspired by the west-African "Ngoni" or Moroccan "Guembri" instruments. The Piechiku uses strings of the Japanese traditional "Shamisen". This instrument is also played through a pre-amplifier and John sometimes adds some wah-wah effect to it. All these bamboo instruments are designed, made and named by John Imaeda himself.

On Alo you will also be amazed by the exceptional sound of the Japanese Shinofue flute, which was not on the previous Abrada LP. Now, add to this unique sound some well-crafted Japanese female and male singing and you get a killer mix of Afro-Funk flavored grooves with traditional Japanese music!

Since the release in 2017 of their Abrada LP on the 180g label Ajate has toured Europe twice and has played a memorable concert at the world famous Trans Musicales festival in France in 2018, which has been followed by another great KEXP Live session.

Here is some music you will not be able to hear anywhere else, by one of the most joyful Japanese band to hear on record and to listen live!

LTD editon - Orange vinyl and high quality download codes

Homemade synthesizers, banjo, guitar, recycled toys and broken electronic beats .. there’s more to Solo Moderna than just an unconditional love for analog tweaking. From his native town of Tilburg, Netherlands, Multi-instrumental virtuoso Bas Voorn is peaking in on all corners of the world, infusing Mento, ska, cumbia, Balkan, dancehall, dembow or afrohouse, into his minimal, joyful, 8-bit, approach towards electronica, to create strangely syncopated, ridiculously infectious grooves. It’s as if Kraftwerk and Señor Coconut went on a trip to Africa, the Balkans, the Caribbean and South America, and "Republica Moderna" emerged from these adventures. From the Balkan-Dembow of “Escúchame Como Soy” and the cumbia of the Washington-based Empresarios in “La Bandolera”, to the sun- kissed, afrohouse vibe of “Sonido SID Africano” and the west African “Republica de chonta”, Solo Moderna gleefully shifts from the acoustic to the synthesized to create a surprisingly coherent work. For Solo Moderna, life is not something to be taken so seriously. Instruments are toys, and Earth and it’s cultural diversity a playground. It is this unique lightheartedness and flippancy, moving you to smile, dance and enjoy life as it is, that makes Solo Moderna one of the few artists you can recognize immediately after an 8- bar snippet of a song heard in any club around the corner. Republica Moderna, his 3rd album to date, is a vibrant, delightfully upbeat, timeless homage to the world’s musical diversity.

This is GCLP157
It's an Orange LP and brings download Codes

Stap me! When you think you've heard it all, someone comes up with more earth shattering music, restoring your faith in humanity (well, almost). Back in the early 2000s, after locating those first Moondog 78s, and adding them to the mix at Honest Jons, assembling the compilation that became The Viking of Sixth Avenue, was a kind of musical cloud nine - a voyage of discovery, attempting to chart the worlds that Moondog had created. Now it's Spring again - as winter encroaches - and Mississippi expose us to some never before heard material. It's killer grade, recorded by yet another genius, Tony Schwartz, the pioneering Folkways field recordist, the first man to record Louis Hardin, aka Moondog, who in the 1950s also recorded a day in the life of a dog canine variety and a New York cab driver, among many others.

Behold! A survey of Moondog’s earliest recorded works - many of them unreleased until now - through a collaboration by Mississippi Records and Lucia Records. From 1954 - 1962 field recordist Tony Schwartz frequently checked in with Moondog, his favorite street musician. Tony Schwartz made recordings of Moondog’s earliest compositions as they were coming into focus. Sometimes these recordings were made right on the street as Moondog busked, sometimes they were made in Schwartz’s studio, and sometimes they were made on NYC rooftops. The resulting recordings, many of which had never been released, were deposited at the Library Of Congress as part of the Tony Schwartz Collection in 2006 when Schwartz passed away, and this record was culled straight from these original tapes.

Side one kicks off with an unreleased version of Moondog’s classic composition “Why Spend The Dark Night With You?” followed by the first ever complete recording of his “Nocturne Suite,” a beautiful piece of classical music performed with members of the Royal Philharmonic. The side ends with the complete “On The Streets Of New York” 7” EP, which was released on Mars records in 1955 and subsequently re-released by Honest Jon’s Records in 2004 on their excellent Moondog anthology. Side B features sketches of Moondog compositions never released, many with the man himself howling and chanting over his homemade percussion set.

Moondog’s music is as universal as it gets - part classical music, part Native American, part European folk, and part something completely unique. Moondog is one of the towering figures of 20th century music. This record comes with liner notes featuring never before released interviews with Moodog by Tony Schwartz and is housed in an old school “tip on” cover. All tracks fully licensed from the Library of Congress.

Elite level lost grime dubs used in legendary Wiley/Ghetts freestyles on Westwood, Wiley’s Tunnel Vision 5, and a whole host of grime clashes.

The first Be With foray into the archives of revered German library institution Selected Sound is one of our favourites on the label - the super in-demand Japan from Victor Cavini, originally released in 1983.

Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that never turn up. With Daibutsu the giant Buddha of Kamakura’s presence gracing the hefty front cover, this is a record bursting with dope samples for adventurous producers: it’s koto-funk madness!

Victor Cavini was the library music pseudonym of prolific German composer and musician Gerhard Trede. He was known for exploring instruments and styles from around the world (he played over 50 different instruments himself) and Japan is
his collection of 14 musical sketches painted with traditional Japanese wind and string instruments. These are the sounds of traditional Japanese folk music re-interpreted through Western ears, with the occassional contemporary twist. Contemporary for 1983, of course.

These “Pictures of Japan” are hypnotic, sometimes frantic, but always beautiful. The first twelve tracks offer airy explorations of koto and flute, with other strings and percussion being added and then given their own space. Indeed “Pictures of Japan XII” is just drums.

And then “Pictures of Japan XIII” seems to come out of nowhere. But the subtle sleaze of its full band sound still doesn’t quite prepare you for the towering climax of “Pictures of Japan XIV”.

This is Japan’s undoubted standout piece, completely and wonderfully at odds with the rest of the album. It’s the reason this has become such a must-have record. It keeps the traditional Japanese instruments but combines them with shuffling funk breaks, electric bass high in the mix and a Godzilla-sized psychedelic fuzz guitar sound that might actually be a traditional reed flute pushed to its limits. Whatever it is, it sounds awesome.

Recalling both Rino de Filippi’s Oriente Oggi and Giancarlo Barigozzi’s Oriente, the track’s a real head-nod groove for b-boys and b-girls alike that sounds straight out of a late 70s Yakuza film. Indeed, if you were told The RZA or Onra had cooked this up in the lab this century, you’d be convinced. It’s crazy that this dates from 1983.

The audio for Japan has been sensitively remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis to keep all the character of the original recordings. Richard Robinson has handled the careful restoration of the original Selected Sound sleeve. Essential.

From the moment of its release, Iñigo Vontier’s El Hijo del Maiz has become one of the most gripping albums of the moment. With South American and Middle Eastern sounds and his conception of music as ritual, the Mexican DJ keeps electronica in check as a valid mix of influences. The EP El Hijo Del Maiz (Remixes) marks the end of an episode which started, in good company, last autumn on the Lumière Noire label. The second track of his album, Bo Ni Ke, is distinguished by its original - almost implausible - universe, with a Japanese-inflected vocal filter and oriental flutes taking the beats into a crazy trance. Leaning on the 4/4 rhythm, Simple Symmetry’s remix of the track is also very playful (Iñigo Vontier recently remixed Nar for Simple Symmetry). The Moscow duo, noted in particular for the brilliant EP Plane Goes East released on Disco Halal (the Moscoman label which makes the link between east and west), pulls the track over to another - less terrestrial more psychedelic - universe, in their well identified ethno-underground style.

The remix of Bo Ni Ke by Nicola Cruz, French-born Ecuadorian producer, enlivens the track by playing on the sounds of voices and South American percussion. Also present in his fascinating album Siku released a year ago on the ZZK Records label, they overlap with the demonological whims of Iñigo Vontier but also those of Nicolas Jaar, who was revealed to him as he was starting out.

The inaugural track of the album Xu Xu (subject of the previous EP, only released as a digital version) has been remixed by Roman Flügel, allowing a vinyl release of this incredible track. You could pick out the science of this headliner in a million. Flügel has been on the electronic scene since the early days, learning the ropes under the aegis of prestigious labels Playhouse, Dial and Klang.
He has recently enhanced some emblematic tracks signed Daniel Avery, Koze, Âme, Radio Slave and C.A.R. and here once again the pioneer of techno is working miracles to create a more cerebral version of this track.

Concluding the EP with Thomass Jackson, his co-founder of the label Calypso Records, who we will soon be able to find on the compilation / family portrait of the label Lumière Noire From Above Vol. 2, Iñigo Vontier offers up a genre-busting version of the title Marijuana, like an ataxic play time, deliberately smoky for an explicitly licentious title.

Still deeper forays into the musical landscape of the Windrush generation. A dazzling range of calypso, mento, joropo, steelband, palm-wine and r’n'b. Expert revivals of stringband music, from way back, alongside proto-Afro-funk. An uproarious selection of songs about the H-Bomb and modern phones, prostitution and Haile Selassie, mid-life crisis and the London Underground, racism and solidarity, the Highway Code and a 100% West Indian Royal Wedding.
For example some frantic British-Guianan joropo music-hall about Eatwell Brown from Clapham, who starts out biting off a piece of his mother-in-law’s face at a party, then devours everything in his path… a chunk of Brixton Prison, a Union Jack, a policeman’s uniform. Or Marie Bryant — collaborator of Lester Young and Duke Ellington — taking time off from skewering the South African PM Daniel Malan at her West End revue, to contribute some arch, swinging filth about uber-genitalia. Superior sound, courtesy of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas; lovely gatefold sleeve; full-size booklet, with full notes, and fabulous previously-unseen photographs, including a set from the family archive of Russ Henderson (who led the first, impromptu Notting Hill Carnival march, in 1966).

Available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1984, Outernational Sounds proudly presents Build An Ark pianist Nate Morgan’s second outing for the celebrated Nimbus West label – the conscious and spiritualised sounds of Retribution, Reparation.

Pianist Nate Morgan (1964-2013) was a central figure on the Los Angeles jazz undergound. A core member of the circle around the legendary bandleader, pianist and community organiser Horace Tapscott, Morgan had been part of Tapscott’s U.G.M.A.A. (Union Of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension) since he was just a teenager, and was a key member of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, known as ‘The Ark’. Through the 1980s and 1990s he kept the PAPA flame alive, organising the Ark’s sprawling songbook, running legendary jam sessions, and keeping LA’s deep jazz roots well watered. By the early 2000s he was bringing hard won knowledge to a new generation as part of the Build The Ark collective. He was a musician’s musician, at the beating heart of the radical, community-minded Los Angeles jazz network that Tapscott and his associates had first put together in the early 1960s.

Retribution, Reparation was the second of the two LPs Morgan recorded for Tom Albach’s storied Nimbus West imprint. His first, Journey Into Nigritia (Outernational Sounds OTR- 008), had been a declaration of arrival laced with energies drawn from Cecil Taylor and Coltrane. One year later, with nods to Herbie Hancock (‘One Finger Snap’) and Ellington (‘Come Sunday’), Retribution, Reparation was a confident statement of purpose. Politically charged with pan-Africanist and Black nationalist sentiments inspired by Marcus Garvey, and titled with uncompromising directness, the album focusses the soundworld of the Ark into a surging, restless masterpiece of spiritualised modal jazz. With Danny Cortez on trumpet and Ark stalwart Jesse Sharps on saxophones the frontline is explosive (this set is also one of the few places the extraordinary Sharps can be heard in a small group setting), while Fritz Wise and Ark regular Joel Ector hold down the rhythm section. Morgan’s forceful, Tyner-like chords and virtuosic solos and bind the music together. From the poised drama of the opening dedication to Tapscott’s U.G.M.A.A. (‘U.G.M.A.A.GER’) to the propulsive militancy of the title track, Retribution, Reparation spreads the word: ‘Advance to Victory, Let Nigritia Be Free!’

London-based folk-psych-country band The Hanging Stars return with their eclectic third studio album, A New Kind Of Sky, due out on 21 February 2019. Carrying on their exploration of transatlantic psychedelic folk and cosmic country, the new album blends twelve-string, harmony-laden lullabies with soft rock anthems to create a guilded box of bucolic folk-rock. As well as the band’s signature wistful pastoral escapism, there are lyrical concerns about the recent past; the systematic division of people, values, facts and humanity in The West in general - and the UK in particular. The band weave the same thread they have always woven but this time with a more unified vision, creating a kaleidoscopic poncho for these times.

The Hanging Stars comprise songwriter, singer and guitarist Richard Olson, Sam Ferman on bass, Paulie Cobra on drums, Patrick Ralla on guitars, keys and vocals, and renowned pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte. Returning guest Collin Hegna from Brian Jonestown Massacre plays an instrument called a Marxophone on “Choir of Criers”. They also welcome Sean Read of The Rockingbirds and Dexy's Midnight Runners, who adds horns to “Three Rolling Hills” and “I Was A Stone”.

The main bulk of the recording for the new album was done live in the studio at Echozoo in Eastbourne with Dave Lynch. For the first time, the band decided to dive straight in to the recording studio following their German tour in 2018. Having lived in each other’s pockets and playing their new songs every night, the band were as tight and primed as they could possibly be. There ensued a few, very long, days of recording, capturing the essence of the band in their element.

The songwriting process was even more collaborative for this album, with the usual co-writes between Richard Olson, Sam Ferman and Patrick Ralla enhanced by Joe Harvey-White’s arrangements and Paulie Cobra’s harmonies. The biggest difference is that Sam Ferman sings lead on the first single “‘(I’ve Seen) The Summer in Her Eyes”, a song about lost love and self doubt channeled through two and a half minutes of garage pastoralism.

The album’s title track “A New Kind of Sky” tells a story from the point of view of somebody who idealises a past that never existed. The band go glam-rock on the stand-out track “I Will Please You”, a tale of a cult leader/world leader and his irresistible (for some) charm from the point-of-view of his most recent victim and “Heavy Blue” is a country music tale of drunken debauchery seen through the eyes of an inexperienced young man. The triumphant trumpet-driven song “These Rolling Hills” is a minor-key tale of a journey into the hills of Marin County, California undertaken by Paulie and Richard to visit friends Asteroid No. 4, with a most interesting outcome.

The Hanging Stars released their debut album Over the Silvery Lake in 2016, which received plaudits from broadsheets such as The Times, who described it as; "An album with enough of a hazy, sun-dappled charm to make the capital's dreariest weather bearable”, as well as The Guardian, who said; “Mersey-laced harmonies and just a whiff of the Gun Club.” They picked up a good amount of support at 6 Music and “The House on the Hill” scored a much-coveted 10/10 by John Robb on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable.

Their second album Songs For Somewhere Else in 2017 received critical acclaim from the likes of Uncut (Revelations article), Shindig (several features and 4* review) as well as The Quietus and The Line Of Best Fit, plus radio support from Gideon Coe and Bob Harris (they performed an Under the Apple Tree Session for Bob Harris in January 2019).

Whilst playing their own successful sold-out headline dates, the band were invited to share the stage with Teenage Fanclub, The Clientele, Wolf People, The Long Ryders and GospelbeacH, as well as playing festivals such as Liverpool’s International Festival of Psychedelia, Red Rooster, Ramblin' Roots, UK Americana Festival and The Long Road.

Yes, we know the soul and funk world of the glory days, big labels, radio shows and bands amid a social context of segregation. A context that starts becoming less important when this music genre enters the mainstream in the late 70’s to eventually fade away at a fast pace in the 80’s until its complete disappearance in the 90’s and beyond. This time though, we dive a bit deeper into the hoods, because the social context of today ain’t no greatly different and it has its very own music, deeply rooted in the sounds of the early days, although more immediate and dense of beats and urban feel.

We are in Chicago, a place where every 2 hours someone is shot, and every 14 hours someone is murdered. It ain’t no Iraq or Afghanistan but one of the biggest and most sophisticated cities in the world. In the city’s west and south sides, which are considered the heart of Black America, gang rivalry is tearing its people apart. It has become so brutal that both police and perpetrators agree that this urban warfare is out of control. I started this release process after Yann sent me an heads up on this song and it took me most part of last year to build some mutual trust with Lay Lemons aka Biggz from North Lawndale, main area in the west side of the city and one of the most dangerous places in the world. When I first contacted him, Lay was having a hard time (and still does) as his daughter Raven was caught innocent in a gang shooting crossfire.

After the following investigation, the FBI (yes, big gangs are federal business) arrested and charged some members of The Four Corners Hustlers, yet Raven’s murder has no responsible and Lay suddenly lost his daughter overnight in the summer of 2017. He simply couldn’t concentrate on music, and the silly requests from a mad Italian with his crooked english were probably sounding to him like aliens speaking from outer space. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Lay’s cousin, sound engineer and recording studio owner living today in Detroit, so accept my gratitude Mr. Tony Amos.

Lay Lemons has never been involved with gangs nor was Raven, nowhere near that business. They are people of music, family and religion trying to survive in one of worlds toughest places. This song, its vibe, the beats, the voice... Are coming straight out of their hood, written around a fire bin on the side of the street and put together with 3 instruments. It has no chorus, it’s verses all the way through, it is a kind of prayer to the unknown in the hope of salvation through everyday strength.

Lay Lemons I salute you.

The first release in Ernesto Chahoud’s ‘Middle Eastern Heavens’ reissue series for BBE Music, we are delighted to present Lebanese maestro Ihsan Al-Munzer’s 1979 album ‘Belly Dance Disco’.

In late 70's and early 80's Beirut, Lebanese organist, composer and arranger Ihsan Al-Munzer made a series of pioneering synth-driven fusion albums that reimagined Middle Eastern music. The records came at a pivotal time in Lebanon’s musical history of avant garde experimentation that was blossoming, just as the country’s 15-year civil war took hold.

Ihsan Al-Munzer’s first release as a solo artist, ‘Belly Dance Disco’ aimed to fuse ‘Western’ modern music and bellydance to make it more accessible to the local audience in the late 1970s. “I wanted to put a mixture of European beat with Arabic percussion, but I made the European rhythm and harmony very easy to listen to for the Arabic ear – soft and understandable” says Al- Munzer.

Today, the composer’s music has made the return journey back to the West; with tracks on the album featured by hip hop artists such as Mos Def, who sampled Al-Munzer’s composition ‘Joy of Lina’ on his 2009 song ‘The Embassy’.

The 10-track album was released in 1979 on the legendary Voix De L’Orient label, which was also home to pioneering Lebanese composers The Rahbani Brothers. One of the earliest artists to introduce the synthesizer to Middle Eastern music, Al-Munzer leads the band, playing the main melody lines on the Kawai Organ and Solina String Synthesizer. Three of his original compositions feature on the album, alongside creative re-imaginings of Turkish and Arabic folklore and modern classics, pushing the boundaries of bellydance music to chime with the international scene.

Al-Munzer’s five titles from the 1970's and 1980's are part of BBE’s ‘Middle Eastern Heavens’ reissue series, a collection of groundbreaking productions from Lebanon, curated by Lebanese DJ, compiler and music researcher Ernesto Chahoud.

Notes by Natalie Shooter, a music journalist and researcher based in Beirut, edited by Will Sumsuch.

Canyons are places of mystery and beauty. The interesting thing is, while they are one of the great wonders in the history of planet earth and attract scientists of all kinds of disciplines, they have also been a popular retreat for artists and musicians. You will have heard of Topanga Canyon, Rickie Lee Jones and Chicago recorded here. Laurel Canyon is even more well known, a mythical place where Crosby, Stills & Nash developed their unique vocal sound while hanging around Mama Cass' place. Or was it in Joni Mitchell's house on Lookout Mountain? Ok, you get the picture. There is something unexplainable, almost magical going on in canyons.

Maybe that's why Andy Platts and Shawn Lee were thinking of "Canyons" when they wrote and recorded their third album as Young Gun Silver Fox. With "West End Coast" and "AM Waves" these two very talented musicians, singers, songwriters, arrangers and producers already explored all things Westcoast, AOR, Softrock and Boogie. But - especially if you are a into the golden age of this sound running from circa 1976 to 1984 - you will be aware that there is no return once you started digging these unconditional musical delights with their timeless compositions, untouchable musicianship and refined arrangements. The great albums from that era appeared when punk broke and the musical establishment was shaken to the ground. Today they sound more up to date than ever. Who would have thought back then?

On "Canyons" Young Gun Silver Fox turned it up to eleven. They are nothing but "Kids" cruising in the fast lane, totally over the top searching for the "Dream Woman", touching down in Tokyo caught in a "Long Distance Love Affair", imagining the theme for a lost 70s TV series starring "Danny Jamaica", being on the winning side in a "Private Paradise", getting deep and soulful in "Things We Left Unsaid" and wondering how to spread "All This Love". Their bass lines, sound layers, brass arrangements and harmony vocals are immaculate. Everything fits perfectly. Just like this. "Who Needs Words" when everything is crystal clear? Exactly!

"Canyons", after all, are magical places of rare beauty. (Mr. Mellow - Porcaroc Club/Mr. Mellow's Sunday Scene/Soho Radio).

Eastwood Rides Again follows the theme of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry & The Upsetters previous classic, Return Of Django - and like that one, the groove isn’t just the rocksteady rhythms you’d expect – but also maybe this more spacious version of the style. They got their funk on with the inspiration of Spaghetti Westerns and soul music. The record is largely instrumental and it's a representation of Perry’s significant production skills. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was a pioneer in the 1970's development of dub music and worked together with artists such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. Nowadays he’s still performing and recording music.

Rarely does a record so perfectly encapsulate the essence of Hawai‘i.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Hawai‘i’s live music scene was at its peak. Countless clubs, lounges, and bars filled the islands. Musicians embraced and experimented with all manner of ideas.
Among them were Steve Ma‘i‘i and Teresa Bright, a harmonizing guitar-and-bass duo that floated somewhere between nostalgia and an unassuming island sound. They could fill a concert hall or bring the family together at a backyard kanikapila with their music.
Both singers share backgrounds rooted in native Hawaiian culture; Steve once the bassist for musician/ activist George Helm, and Teresa the daughter of hula dancer Carol Bright and musician Daniel Bright. Together, they crafted a refreshing approach to jazz standards, traditional Hawaiian tunes, and hapa-haole classics.
Steve and Teresa enchanted every listener they encountered, including engineer Rick Keefer, who convinced the pair to record at his Sea-West Studios in nearby Hau‘ula.