MUSIC

On this seven track album we hear MinaeMinae (alias Bastian Epple) playfully scurry through his dense soundscapes on a tightrope. The sounds lying somewhere on the crossroads of psychedelic trance, exotica, ambient and melodic dance music – veering further off orbit with nontypical rhythms and dystopian percussive patterns.

MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would cut up, repitch, and rearrange freely. Most of his tracks are a mix of analog, synthetic sounds and recordings of ethnic percussion and guitar. Recently Bastian began experimenting with modular synthesis and self made tape echoes - seeking a more reduced and minimal composition style compared to his earlier quite whimsical tunes.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian was never interested in kitschy folk sounds that everyone would mindlessly clap and sing along to, rather he took solace in the time he would spend delving into patterns and repetitions that pleased him. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to continue on this self-taught path of developing his musical language. He then started to experiment with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples, which his former village friends found too weird – then to eventually working with a small freeware DAW. Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe – initially enrolled in music but the frustration and doubt of not being able to produce the music he wanted led him into film and documentary media. During his studies, Bastian was living with Florian Meyers (Don’t DJ) for several years where they would philosophize life and music into the wee hours – he encouraged Bastian to start sharing what he’s been quietly working on all these years and slowly emerge from this anonymity which eventually led to his first release on Human Pitch last fall.

Disproportionate forms, color changes, backdrops weaved into the foreground, all lay the dense earth for Gestrüpp through Benjamin Kilchhofer’s artwork.

produced by Brad Osborne and a dub mix of Bunny Lee's roots classic by King Tubby.

Phillip Fullwood's 1979 dub album "Words in Dub" (1979), which he produced with Winston McKenzie, Black Ark and Channel One, fully utilized the skills he had cultivated with Burning Spear. The combination of great content and extreme scarcity has led to a frighteningly high evaluation of the album, and the original version is always sold for a very high price, a work that fans continue to crave. This is the world's first reissue with the original sleeve faithfully reproduced.

The 1988 album by Dr. Alimantado, a reggae singer & DJ from Kingston, Jamaica, who ran independent labels such as Ital Sounds and was part of the Rastafari movement, was praised by Johnny Rotten and popular among punk rockers. This is the first official reissue in 30 years! The Serananding Doc," with its laid-back synths and floating mix, and "Musical Selenographyseismic Rock," with its good vibes and dub rhythms straight out of the Ariwa recordings. This album is also recommended for those who like ON-U!

This 1973 album by Lee Perry's The Upsetters, released on the eve of the birth of Black Ark and their last album for Trojan, has been reissued on vinyl by Superior Viaduct's Antarctica Starts Here. This is a classic album that already combines elements of funk, reggae, and dub, as well as the reggae remake of Al Green-Love & Happiness.

Pressure Sounds reissues "Super Star-Disco Rockers" released from Weed Beat under the umbrella of UK Dynamic Sounds in 1977 for the first time, a famous album by a genius producer Bunny Lee! Tommy McCook, a famous saxophonist, was fascinated by the free jazz of John Coltrane who was active in the Jazz world at the same time, and King Tubby and Prince Jammy mixed the deep and beautiful music that he arrived at through repeated experiments with percussion of Rasta and militant beat. King Tubby and Prince Jammy mixed this masterpiece.

Augustus Pablo's first album, released in 1974, is a masterpiece of his stoic and exotic Far East sound.

The Kingstonians were a Jamaican reggae trio formed in 1966 by Cebert Bernard (aka Jackie Bernard), his brother Lloyd "Footy" Bernard and their mutual friend Lloyd Kerr. The Kingstonians, a Jamaican reggae trio formed by Lloyd "Footy" Bernard, Lloyd Kerr and their mutual friend Lloyd Kerr, released their only album in 1970 on vinyl reissue from Antarctica Starts Here, a 60s/70s label affiliated with Superior Viaduct. Recorded at Dynamic Studios between 1969 and 1970 and produced by Derrick Harriott. Recorded at Dynamic Studios between 1969 and 1970, and produced by Derrick Harriott, the album features a number of classic songs, including the skinhead reggae classic "Sufferer," which was like a soundtrack for the British working class in the 1970s.

Produced by King Jammy, this is a computerized, dancehall album. This is a dancehall album produced by King Jammy with computerized, great out-of-key vocals.

Produced by Linval Thompsonp, Revolutionaries' 1979 dub masterpiece has been reissued in 180g weight.

Originally released on Hit in 1977, "The Best Of Freddy McKay" is not a best of album but Freddy McKay's third album, recorded at Channel One and Harry J's studio and backed by the Revolutionaries. The Best Of Freddy McKay" is not a best of album but Freddy McKay's third album, recorded at Channel One and Harry J's studio and backed by Revolutionaries.

Pablo Moses's deep roots reggae, released in 1980, is a quietly feverish, isolated Rastafarian masterpiece. Official vinyl reissue.

Flesh Of My Skin is the most hallowed of all those reggae albums which remain unavailable, and Keith Hudson's key achievement in a career launched when as a fourteen-year-old he recorded members of The Skatalites on his Shades Of Hudson rhythm. Originally released in 1974, after a series of solid-gold productions for Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, John Holt, U-Roy and the rest, it projects Hudson's removal from JA to London and New York studios and transatlantic audiences, and inaugurates a sequence of albums - classics like Pick A Dub, Brand, Playing It Cool - which show his troubled experimentalism better suited to the LP than the cardinal 7" reggae format. Anchored here by Santa Davis and George Fullwood from the Soul Syndicate - alongside musicians like Augustus Pablo, Count Ossie and Leroy Sibbles - Hudson's mood is tormented and dazed, as on titles like Darkest Night, My Nocturne and Testing My Faith he struggles for Black senses of commitment - political, existential, religious - at its breaking point. Magnificently and deadly serious, hauntingly unique, unmissable and unforgettable.

From London, UK, comes a new star in the Dub world! Electro-funk producer Lord Tusk's reggae dub name, Sons of Simeon, has finally released his killer debut! The tenth release from Riddim Chango is the debut 10" single from London, UK-based producer Lord Tusk's reggae dub label Sons of Simeon. Funkin Even's Apron label and John Rust's Levels label, as well as working with legendary US MC Mos Def on an album and releasing a Vaporwave album under the name Sun Runners, Lord Tusk is known as a big sound system fan. He is also known to be a big sound system fan. Lord Tusk's killer Dub/Stepper was mastered at Transition Studios, known for their work with DMZ. The sound of the sound system is guaranteed stable!

Another killer release on Numero, and another killer package. Ten incredible albums culled from the deepest, weirdest co-op of record enthusiasts ever gathered under one banner. We’ve spared no expense packaging these, pairing the idea of the Art of Compilation with living and breathing art, creating little fortune cookies baked in a factory of forgotten dreams. Video games, pyramids, trading cards, matchbooks, mazes, lottery tickets, film canisters, yearbooks, and various other exercises in design absurdity. + Jackets are patterned with alchemy and astrology symbols + Fold-out maze of gold foil and metallic ink + Origami sleeve transforms into magnetic pyramid sculpture P-Funk and Prince & the Revolution led the world through the last stellar evolutionary stages of soul music as it was transmogrified through the pulverizing lens of the 1980s, when African-American culture gave way to an advanced African-Interplanetary civilizations. Self-actualized artists and visionaries followed, reflecting and refracting their own interpretations as if translated by Samuel Delaney or Octavia Butler. This unwieldily titled collection documents ten successful experiments in privately-issued scifi soul music, lonely transmissions from a planet in a state of cultural fugue. Packaged in a one-way portal to the further limits of expression. Some assembly required.

A1 E. Willey Von Huff-N-Puff - Just Wish You Were Here
A2 Walter Hawkins - Metropolis
A3 Same Womb - Alibi Eyes
A4 Cause And Effect - You Make Me Feel Brand New
A5 Candle Tribe - Candles

B1 T. Dyson & Company - First Time
B2 LaRhonda LeGette - Now You Sit Alone
B3 Iron Force - Stay
B4 Errol Stubbs - Spaced Out On Your Love
B5 Severed - Real Life

Don Drummond (1932-1969), the great trombonist and original member of Skatalites, remade the killer number Last Call! In the 80's, the song was remixed by Jah Shaka, and this re-recording featuring veteran DJ Ranking Joe is just as tense and killer!

This is the first release from the tape archives of Rashied Ali (1935-2009), the American avant-garde jazz drummer who played in a duo with John Coltrane and with such greats as Peter Brötzmann and Jaco Pastorius. These two sets were recorded in the spring of 1967, and are extremely rare and coveted by fans! Gatefold chip on jacket, high quality RTI pressing, perfect quality.

Gil Scott Heron, the black minstrel known as "Black Dylan" and one of the pioneers of jazz poetry, released his second masterpiece on Arista in 1975, which has been reissued in analog format! It is a masterpiece dedicated to the struggle against apartheid, nuclear power, and black liberation. Spiritual soul/funk. This is a piece of music that makes you feel a certain heat in its peaceful and groovy sound!

"Nice dub by Sly & Robbie of their Master Of Ceremony album. A Bunny 'Striker' Lee production. 1978"

Co-produced with Carlos Niño and scoring a 7.5 on Pitchfork, Jamael Dean is a prodigious 20-year-old jazz pianist and producer who has collaborated and performed with Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Carlos Niño. Jamael Dean's debut album is out now on the prestigious Stones Throw label. Influenced by his grandfather, the legendary soul-jazz drummer Donald Dean, as well as Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock, Dean is one of the most sought-after artists of the new generation. From the ethereal horn section, to the kaleidoscopic piano, to the chill-out microcosmic collage of sound, the vibes are tremendous. A chaotic cosmic soul-jazz masterpiece that mixes beat music, hip-hop, ambient and electronica. This is a masterpiece of chaotic cosmic soul jazz that mixes contemporary jazz, beat music, and experimental music, reaching out to listeners of many genres!

The Beaters – Harari was released in 1975. After changing their name, Harari went into the studio late in 1976 to record their follow-up, Rufaro / Happiness. In 1976 they were voted South Africa’s top instrumental group and were in high demand at concert venues across the country. 

Comprising former schoolmates guitarist and singer Selby Ntuli, bassist Alec Khaoli, lead guitarist Monty Ndimande and drummer Sipho Mabuse, the group had come a long way from playing American-styled instrumental soul in the late sixties to delivering two Afro-rock masterpieces. 

Before these two albums the Beaters had been disciples of ‘Soweto Soul’ – an explosion of township bands drawing on American soul and inspired by the assertive image of Stax and Motown’s Black artists. The Beaters supported Percy Sledge on his 1970 South African tour (and later Timmy Thomas, Brook Benton and Wilson Pickett). But their watershed moment was their three month tour of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) where they were inspired by the strengthening independence struggle and musicians such as Thomas Mapfumo who were turning to African influences. On their return, the neat Nehru jackets that had been the band’s earliest stage wear were replaced by dashikis and Afros. 

“In Harari we rediscovered our African-ness, the infectious rhythms and music of the continent. We came back home inspired! We were overhauling ourselves into dashiki-clad musicians who were Black Power saluting and so on.” Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, talking of the band’s time spent on tour in the (then) Rhodesian township from where they took their name. As well as expressing confident African politics, Alec Khaoli recalled, they pioneered by demonstrating that such messages could also be carried by “...happy music. During apartheid times we made people laugh and dance when things weren’t looking good.” 

The two albums capture the band on the cusp of this transition. One the first album Harari, Inhlupeko Iphelile, Push It On and Thiba Kamoo immediately signal the new Afro-centric fusion of rock, funk and indigenous influences. Amercian soul pop is not forgotten with Love, Love, Love and, helped along by Kippie Moeketsi and Pat Matshikiza a bump-jive workout What’s Happening concludes the album. The second album Rufaro pushes the African identity and fusion further, with key tracks Oya Kai (Where are you going?), Musikana and Uzulu whilst the more pop-styled Rufaro and Afro-Gas point to where Harari were headed to in years to come. The popularity and sales generated by these two classic albums saw them signed by Gallo and release just two more albums with the original line-up before the untimely death of Selby Ntuli in 1978. Whilst they went on to greater success, even landing a song in the US Billboard Disco Hot 100 in 1982, it was never the same again. 

“Harari’s music still speaks directly to one of my goals as a younger artist: to express myself as an African without pretending that I don’t have all these other musical elements – classical, jazz, house – inside me.” (Thandi Ntuli, niece of Selby Ntuli).

Unearthed by The Mighty Zaf for BBE Music, Into A New Journey by Ambiance is an impossibly rare and sought-after private label spiritual jazz masterpiece from 1982 with Latin, Brazilian and Afro overtones. Ambiance was the ‘nom de guerre’ of an ever-shifting jazz collective headed up by Nigeria-born, LA-tutored multi- instrumentalist, arranger, producer and photographer Daoud Abubakar Balewa.

Balewa studied composition and jazz improvisation at the feet of innovators such as Frank Mitchell (Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers), Jackie McLean (Blue Note) and other masters from the golden Blue Note era. Although he favoured alto, soprano and tenor, he was equally happy on flute, keyboards, and Latin and Brazilian percussion. What’s more, he had the knack of using musicians who were bold enough to welcome being part of such multi- faceted sessions: guitarist Jim Lum’s flexibility suits the theme of this album perfectly, as does prolific Japanese soul-jazz drummer Danny Yamamoto; the stunning Hawaiian pianist Kino Cornwell (Yamamoto’s colleague from funk-fusion supergroup Hiroshima); and the wonderful Jean Carn-like tones of Daoud’s wife, jazz vocalist Monife Balewa.

From the band’s reading of Joe Henderson’s modal masterpiece Black Narcissus, through the deep multicultural percussive jazz-dance workout that is the title track, and on to the three-octave vocal embellishments of Monife, on her own composition Something Better as well as on the Chick Correa fusion classic 500 Miles High, nothing here is generic, nothing taken for granted, nothing comfortable or predictable.

All of the half-dozen or so albums recorded and released by Daoud and Ambiance during just six years of frantic creativity between 1979 and 1986 are well worth seeking out, but in BBE Music’s opinion Into A New Journey is the pinnacle: spiritual jazz worthy of the very best practitioners of the genre, by an obscure group of ludicrously talented artists on a tiny, self- financed indie label with an equally tiny promo budget: that’s what great jazz is all about.

The gold standard for Hawaiian lounge miracles! This is the first analog reissue of Martin Denny's 1959 album "Hypnotique", the undisputed king of exotic fantasy music! Once you drop the needle, you'll be transported to another world... this record fully showcases space age music overflowing with imaginary appeal, armed with dripping melancholy and an exotic and fantastic mood. Limited edition of 1000 copies.

Seminal Japanese jazz album from 1971. Journeys through jazz fusion, soul and big band moods. Impossible to obtain in its original format, these days. Hozan Yamamoto was recognised as a "living national treasure" by the Japanese government in 2002. This highly sought-after album from the Japanese wood flute player is more upbeat and swinging than some of his other records. The big band he recorded this album with (Sharps & Flats) played a big part in the genesis of the album’s groove. Forming in 1951, they helped to make jazz popular in Japan after World War II. Yamamoto's flute lines weave over the heavy brass sound and groove, creating an MPS label blending of funky jazz and Japanese vibes. The closest comparison would be Dorothy Ashby's grooviest albums for Chess / Cadet – substituting Yamamoto’s flute for the harp. Licensed courtesy of Universal Music Group Limited.