MUSIC

Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. The 2017 reissue of his lauded debut, Music For Nine Post Cards, along with a slow building cult internet following has helped ignite a renaissance in his acclaimed body of work, much of which has never been released outside of Japan. Known for his sound design and environmental music, Yoshimura worked on a number of commissions following the 1982 release of Music For Nine Post Cards, including works for museums, galleries, public spaces, TV shows, video art, fashion shows, and even a cosmetics company. Originally released in 1986, GREEN is one of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s most well-loved recordings and a favorite of the artist himself. Recorded over the winter of 1985-86 at Yoshimura’s home studio, the compositions unfold at an unhurried pace, a stark contrast to the busy city life of Tokyo. As Yoshimura explained in the original liner notes, the album title in the context of this body of work is not meant to be seen as a color, but is rather used to convey “the comfortable scenery of the natural cycle known as GREEN”—which perfectly encapsulates the soothing and warm sounds contained on the album, although it was created utilizing Yamaha FM synthesizers, known for their crisp digital tones. This edition marks the first reissue of the highly sought-after and impossible to find album. It features the original mix preferred by Yoshimura himself, previously available only on the initial Japanese vinyl release (a limited edition remixed version of the album, with added sound effects, was released on CD in the US). Additionally, this release is the first in our ongoing series, WATER COPY, focusing on the works of Hiroshi Yoshimura.

This album is a solo album by SINKICHI, the label owner of MATSUNOMI TO SENSO REC. It is a collection of field recordings made during the lockdown of the COVID19, live to 2 track recordings of improvised performances with hardware equipment, and modular synthesizer performances on the holy mountains and spiritual rivers. Please enjoy. SINKICHI A pioneer ambient DJ in Japan who has been playing at many rave parties since the early 90's. He has participated in many bands such as SOFT, AOA, Based on kyoto, and Churashima Navigator.He has also worked as a mastering engineer on vinyl mastering for 17853 Records and Crosspoint label.

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.

Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytum comosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”

But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.
The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.

“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.

Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.

Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’s new renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

-Andy Beta 

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, MITH, is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with Just Before Music, followed by 2013’s Keeping a Record of It. But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, MITH lives very much in our world — the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope. Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind. MITH was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

By 1978, Addis Ababa’s nightlife was facing challenges. The ruling Derg regime imposed curfews, banning citizens from the streets after midnight until 6am. But that didn’t stop some people from dancing and partying thorough the night. Bands would play from evening until daybreak and people would stay at the clubs until curfew was lifted in the morning.
One key denizen of Addis’ musical golden age, Hailu Mergia, was preparing a follow up to his seminal Tche Belew LP with the famed Walias Band. It was the band’s only full-length record and it had been a success. But his Hilton house band colleagues were a bit tied up recording cassettes with different vocalists. Still Mergia, amidst recording and gigs with the Walias, was also eager to make another recording of his instrumental-focused arrangements. So he went to the nearby Ghion Hotel, another upmarket outpost with a popular nightclub. Dahlak Band was the house band at Ghion at the time. Together they made this tape Wede Harer Guzo right there in the club during the band’s afternoon rehearsal meetings, with sessions lasting three days.
“My instrumental music was very in-demand and I could have waited,” Mergia recalls. “But I wanted to have a different kind of sound. I had done several recordings with Walias so this time I needed a different sound.”
Dahlak Band catered to a slightly more youthful, local audiences, while Mergia’s main gig with the Walias at Addis swankiest hotel had a mixed audience that included foreign diplomats and older folks from abroad. Therefore their sets varied included lighter fare during dinnertime and a less rollicking selection of jazz and r&b. Meanwhile Dahlak was known more for the mainly soul and Amharic jams they served up for hours two nights a week to a younger crowd.
When Mergia entered the Ghion hotel nightclub to record this tape he was teaming up with a seasoned band who were particularly suited to his instrumental sound. Ethiopian popular music at the time combined elements of music from abroad and Dahlak balanced Mergia’s traditional song selection with the modern approach of a seasoned soul band.
Crucial to the resulting collaboration were Mergia’s arrangements which replaced distinctively use vocals for melodies normally played by instruments. His arrangements conjured memorable new flavors out of existing songs already popular with listeners.
Before Walias Band’s successful gig as house band at the Hilton, Mergia was a young musician hustling from one place to another around Addis. After finishing gigs at the Hilton or on nights off, he would go to good bar where azmari—roving musicians who play traditional songs for tips—and he’d pick up ideas and inspiration. Late night azmari performances revealed for Mergia which songs were moving people in the city. He regularly attended clubs, bars and special private after-hours venues called zigubgn where azmari perform. For Mergia, it was crucial to feature songs he knew people would recognize.
Amharic music has a large repertoire of standard songs everyone knows, the original composers and lyricists of which are often unknown or forgotten. Many of the songs Dahlak, Walias and other bands of that era (including Ibex and Shebele) were playing came from the treasury of shared music, which helped ensure a good vibe in the air.
Mergia released Wede Harer Guzo (“Travel to Harer,”with Sheba Music Shop, which was located in the Piazza district but has long since shut down. Recalling the audience’s positive reaction to Wede Harer Guzo’s novel arrangements, he says it sold well and found many fans. However, as no trace of the tape can be found online, there’s no indication as to why the cassette appears largely forgotten until now. 

The improvisational session by trumpet, shamisen, tabla, and electronics creates light and shade. Through J.A.K.A.M.'s reconstruction, it becomes a wellspring of time and space, reflecting soundscapes reminiscent of a Japanese garden. - Chee Shimizu

This is a soundtrack created by haruka nakamura for THE NORTH FACE Sphere in response to a request for "one album for each of spring, summer, fall, and winter. This project, entitled "Light years," is a project to produce four albums over the course of one year.

Free, Dancing . . . is the first release by a new trio with percussionist and producer Carlos Niño, luminary multi-instrumentalist Idris Ackamoor (of The Pyramids) and wizard guitarist, producer Nate Mercereau. They have been playing concerts together in California since June 2022, sharing a unique vibrant sound, findings and energetics...

Chicago OG, Specter unleashes four cuts of deep house psychedelia that have been marinading in the archive, dedicated to his pal Brutus, pictured on the cover. R.I.P. little one. One of Sound Signature’s MVP’s, Andres Ordonez first really broke thru circa 2009 with a killer EP on Downbeat and his debut for Theo Parrish’s label, ‘Pipe Bomb’ in 2010 that really put him on the map. This new/old suite hails the singular producer during that era, and up to a few years ago, across four tunes that play to his wonkiest and jazziest machine tekkerz, comparable to waviest gear by Theo, Jamal Moss, Detroit’s Howard Thomas or even Michael J. Blood in their loose and dare-to-differ steez. Running in ever increasing circles, the vibes get progressively looser from the stop/start sequencer fuckry of ‘The Birth’, with its mazy B-line and intricate arps, thru to fizzing deep techno like MJB meets Legofeet on ‘The Spirit’, to a pair of 10 minute+ jams where he really gets lost in his thing, from the clipped strut and midi jazz spritz of ‘The Death’ to an outstanding finishing move of slow-mo cubist jazz house calculations in ‘The Ascension’.

Culled from half a decade of home four-tracking, Remote Echoes is a hissy, crumbly, and ungrounded expression of Clay Parton and Canaan Amber's ongoing Duster project. A mix of cassette only demos released under the banners Christmas Dust and On The Dodge, this 14 track album also includes a bevy of previously unissued stragglers. Duster's unique blend of fuzzy guitars, bargain synths, muffled percussion, and hushed vocals anticipated chillwave, mumblecore, and corecore, elegantly illustrating the holy trinity of slacker vices: cigarettes, coffee, and the weed supreme.。

Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the U.S. in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast. Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centers, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados. Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard. Lasooing together white-knuckle posthardcore tension, sharply focused slowcore serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggletoothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like canonfire. Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out slowcore’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). Karate formally introduced the trio as a vital part of an independent U.S. punk scene stubbornly flowering in the face of the major labels’ ’90s harvest.

After a 19-year hiatus, Duster came back with their S/T chef-d'oeuvre in 2019. Recorded in band member Clay Parton’s garage (aka Low Earth Orbit), the record bears all the hallmarks of the band’s early work: gaunt basslines, spindly guitars, and melancholy lyrics that lurk in the background.

Queer tweemo from the pop fringe of Little Rock, Arkansas’s thriving ’90s DIY scene. Paper Airplanes, Paper Hearts gathers Everyone Asked About You’s complete recorded works, including the Let's Be Enemies LP and their two and a half 7"s released between 1997-2000. Remastered from the original DATs for maximum nostalgic crunch, this deluxe 2xLP is housed in a gatefold tip on sleeve and includes a 20-page book crammed with flyers, photos, lyrics, and an extensive essay on this crucial missing link between midwest emo and the Moog synthesizer.

A muffled cry into the technological darkness, Contemporary Movement slid into the world right as the MP3 was seeping out of college dorms. A 39-minute drift into the void, drenched in Cold War-era reverb and then submerged in four track hiss for good measure. Duster constructed a Brutalist masterpiece on the outskirts of a suburban mall, as if to say, “We were here.” “Music for dark spaces and closed eyelids, deeply psychedelic but without sprawl, ambient music with a serrated edge of punk.”—The Ringer “Warm, fuzzed-out sounds that hit home like a tight, melancholic embrace from your favorite person.”—Viceiframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1682543875/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless>Contemporary Movement by Duster

オリジナルは$4,000で取引されたエチオピア産ジャズの77年金字塔的傑作『Tche Belew』を残したことでも知られるレジェンド中のレジェンドによる最新作！エチオピークの重鎮Mulatu Astatkeとも仕事を共にした伝説的ジャズ・キーボード奏者のHailu Mergia。2016年に録音していた秘蔵ライブ・レコーディング音源『Pioneer Works Swing (Live)』が〈Awesome Tapes From Africa〉より堂々アナウンス。2016年7月1日、ブルックリンの由緒ある非営利文化センター〈Pioneer Works〉で行われた彼らの激しいライヴを美しく捉えています。エネルギッシュかつ遊び心たっぷりに、エチオピアの様々なレパートリーから、ハーモニーとリズムの面白さを次々と引き出した現代のエチオ・ジャズの新たなる金字塔！

Cameroonian artist, musician, author, composer, performer and guitarist Roger Bekono made a deep mark in the contemporary history of Cameroonian music through the four-on-the-floor, ribald intensity of bikutsi. The Ewondo-language dance-pop style that forms an undulating tapestry of interlocking triplet rhythmic interplay came to international prominence in the European “world music” scene as the 90s began. But the relentless sound of bikutsi developed in Yaoundé at the hands of Bekono and many others, as it developed from a village-based singing style performed mostly by women into a cosmopolitan music force that rivaled the popularity of established musics like Congolese rhumba, merengue and makossa. With his unique—some say suave—voice, Bekono contributed much over a period of more than 10 years as part of the evolution of this traditional rhythm-turned-urban dance movement. Roger Essama Bekono was born June 15, 1954 in Atéga, Central region. His mother Scolastique Essama nicknamed him Beko-bâ-Andela, in homage to his great-grandfather who died a few years before his birth. From an early age, he was soon confronted with the harshness of daily life in the village. Young Bekono walked four kilometers to school from the family home each day followed by extensive domestic chores. So he had little time to devote to football and other types of children's games. Instead, he spent his time singing while working, developing his distinctive vocal timbre and from the age of 7, he joined the choir of the Catholic Church of Atéga where he sang for several years every Sunday. His mother worked hard to put him through school and eventually get him to the city for further education. In 1968, Bekono left his native village to settle in Yaoundé, the capital city, with the ultimate goal of completing his secondary studies. 14 years old and living with his uncle, he went to high school and met some young people who shared the same passion as him, music. After class, they would go in groups near discotheques to listen to the music of their favorite artists of the time. They also discovered the events of the "Youth Mornings" organized at the Mefou cinema in Mvog-Mbi. During these events, the young Roger lets his talent speak through the popular songs of his idol who was none other than Mariam Makeba. She was an undeniable star throughout Africa. He was so into her his first nickname in music was simply “Mariam Makeba,” because of his ease in interpreting her popular songs, and because of her timeless, suave vocal timbre. At the time he was also a fan of Michael Jackson, Edith Piaf, Michel Sardou and Elvis Presley. Sometime in the mid-1970s Bekono made an abrupt stop to his studies. His mother and his adoptive father were angry and demanded answers. He dreamed of going into music full time. However, being a musician at that time in Cameroon was not yet perceived as a worthy profession. Cameroonian musicians did not have a secure income despite their renown, and no copyright society had been set up yet. They had for the most part a bad boy image, thought of as people without a future. Therefore, it was difficult for his parents to accept. His mother was certainly disappointed by the sudden decision but she has always believed in him. So his step-father gave him a classical guitar and a tape recorder so that he could work independently on music full time. Bekono knew you have to think about composing original music and lyrics instead of covering classics like those of Mariam Makeba. your own words and the music of your songs, the field of reflection is vast between your own experience and the evils that undermine society. However, he hadn’t yet settled on a musical style, so he initially composed songs with foreign colors like his song "Bòngo Ya Cameron,” which has a French flavor and of Rumba but sung in his own Ewondo language. His music is appreciated by those close to him and in the cabarets of Mvog Ada where he performs on certain weekends, he learned to play the guitar and perfectly masters the art of singing. At each of his live performances, he makes a good impression in front of a crowd amazed by his talent, and in front of certain actors and pioneers of a rhythm that is gaining ground in Cameroonian music known as bikutsi. Note here that the bikutsi is basically sung in the Beti language and can be defined as a music and a traditional dance from Cameroon, specifically an urbanize form of pop music based on Beti musical forms, originating in the Cental and South provinces where the Beti ethnic group resides. Bekono falls in with some of the main characters in the bikutsi scene and little by little he learns the basics, adapts and a few years later decides to release his very first project. It was in the 1980s that the big names in bikutsi emerged. The style began to have international visibility. A multitude of vibrant, young talent appeared on the Cameroonian music scene. There had already been the crucial groundwork laid by the father of modern bikutsi Messi Martin who discovered how to transpose the sound of the traditional balafon (xylophone) to an electric guitar. Bekono sensed that bikutsi was in its golden age amid fierce competition he took his time to prepare his first solo album by working with the big names of the time, from both the old and new generations. At the end of 1984, Bekono released his first project Oget Mongi on LP and as soon as it was released, the lead single "Ngon Nnam" hit the capital's radio stations. The end of the year in Cameroon is always marked by happy events like weddings, communions, baptisms, etc. and this song was heavily played at these types of events following the album’s release. He quickly became one of the rising stars of bikutsi and was invited to radio shows all over Cameroon and perform in the popular clubs and cabarets around Yaoundé. Oget Mongi was produced by Bekono himself under his Label Beko Production with the unconditional support of his parents (his step-father funded the project). Television arrived in Cameroon in 1985, the year following his debut album, so there is no video clip of any of the songs from Bekono’s Oget Mongi. Indeed, Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Cameroon (over 1/3 of the population is Catholic) is one of the various elements that accelerated the process of the start of television in Cameroon. This papal visit is inextricably linked to Bekono’s story: Bekono was enlisted to write and compose the official welcoming song for His Holiness’s arrival. The song appeared just as attention for his debut album was in full swing. It became like a hymn during the Pope's stay in Cameroon, on television and on the radio, in Christian localities. Even after the Pope's visit, the song could be heard at various events. Things continued to progress for the young artist, as his career climbed his home life developed. His daughter Ebah Marie Christine had been born a few weeks after Oget Mongi was released. His eventual wife Madeleine Bikié and he were so secure and happy that they had the capacity to help his younger cousins from the village who were then able to continue their secondary studies in Yaoundé. In 1987, Bekono released Assiko 100,000 Watts on LP and cassette. Very quickly the album became a hit with "Biza" and "Assiko 100,000 Watts" receiving radio play. He sold plenty of records and cassettes and toured the nation. This album brought him to northern Cameroon, where met Ali Baba (the father of Soul Gandja, a style of his own design), a rising star of modern music in the region. They became close friends during that period. The album title refers to yet another style of dance and music, assiko, It is important to note the assiko is not a traditional Bassa dance, but rather a dance adopted by Bassa-speaking folks. It is a traditional Cameroonian healing dance transformed into a party dance, especially found among the Bassa and the Beti. It is therefore thanks to this song that Bekono gets invited to perform in this coastal part of Cameroon, Bassa country, where he meets assiko legends Jean Bikoko and Samson Chaud Gar. The song “Biza" also made a lot of noise outside the capital, and even in the Beti villages during celebratory events. Bekono set his sights on international superstardom though. So he began work on his third album, to be released at the end of 1989. Let’s rewind a little bit first—the bikutsi rhythm was originally played by a balafon orchestra known as a mendzang (see mvett). Based on a cadence and stomping rhythm, it is also marked by a strong presence of percussion. In the 1970s, bikutsi was modernized with the introduction of electric guitar and bass, keyboards, horns and drum kit. The legitimate originators are Anne-Marie Nzie, Messi Martin and Ange Ebogo, but it was with the emergence of Les Têtes Brûlées that bikutsi will experience a earth shaking revolution with the talent of its master to play Zanzibar (Epeme Théodore), who, according to legend, was born with six fingers, allowing him to play with one string more than the others. In the mid- 1980s, the bikutsi rhythm evolved significantly both lyrically and harmonically. It became very danceable because the newest generation of artists added electric lead and bass guitars, as well as electric drums, to it to give it more percussive oomph. During this same period, Clément Djimogne aka Mystic Jim (or Djim) launched an innovative concept that would solidify his reputation as a legend in Cameroonian popular music, having already performed on or produced boundary pushing recordings in the region. Mystic Jim built a recording studio called Mobile Studio equipped with a 4-track recorder, instruments, sequencers and amplifiers, which he set up in his living room. He surrounded himself with an experienced team of musicians to embark on musical production on an almost industrial level. We can’t talk about bikutsi and not discuss this actor and his role within the framework of the music in general and specific role he played in the realization of Roger Bekono's third album in particular, because according to the words of some elders that we have been able to collect for the background of this project, his studio had become an essential place for most of the bikutsi artists of that time. With modest equipment, his productions and his arrangements were better than those that came from the national radio studio. (As in many other African music capitals of the time, the best-equipped studios often sat on the national television or radio grounds, rather than in the hands of private citizens.) Bekono therefore worked with him and his musicians as part of the production of Jolie Poupée. Technology had certainly evolved at that time in terms of musicality in the formerly traditional rhythms, but the programming of this music was not yet at its peak as it is today. His first two albums were recorded to tape in one or two perfect takes the old-fashioned way, so the musicians had to be extremely tight. There was no overdubbing or recording parts separately. For Jolie Poupée Mystic Jim programmed the kick or bass drum, adding effects to have a heavier bass. Overall the album represented a new level of finesse and professionalism after a two-year musical silence. In the middle of 1989, Jolie Poupée was released by the label Inter Diffusion System and aggressively hit the radio, discos and national television. The music video for the title track was on loop on TV. It felt like everyone was talking about it, even artists in adjacent music scenes like makossa. The album came out on vinyl and cassette and remains Bekono’s best-selling recording to this day. With Jolie Poupée Bekono finally made an impact outside Cameroon as the record captured listeners in some Central African countries like Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Sao Tome & Principe. Why in these countries more precisely and not in other African countries? In these countries, we find the Fang or Mfan people (also known as Ekang), Bantu-speaking ethnic groups that are also found in Cameroon. This umbrella language group includes the language in which bikutsi is mainly sung. Most of Bekono’s songs are in French, Ewondo (of which Beti is a dialect) and Pidgin. After Bekono catapults to international renown with Jolie Poupée, he was constantly invited to “Tele Podium,” the television program reserved for Cameroonian music elite, and guest of honor by the high authorities of certain countries such as Equatorial Guinea. The technical sheet of this successful album contains the names of the brilliant musicians who made it possible: Gibraltar Drakus & Roger Mballa (backing vocals); John Paul Mondo (bass); Noon Pierrot (congas); Jean Anthony Foe Amougou (Engineer); Daniel-Cimba Evoussa (guitar); Mystic Jim (music director and engineer); Jean-Paul Assamba (percussion); Steve Ndzana (percussion, drums, Gong); Francis Z. Saho (producer); Pierrot Ahénot (rhythm guitar). The four songs on Jolie Poupée are all considered bikutsi classics. After this long period crowned with success and above all at the height of his art, Bekono decided to take a break from his musical career to enjoy family life while continuing to perform everywhere in Cameroon and even outside its borders. During this period, he became friends with some of his colleagues including Govinal (Ndi Nga Essomba), Gibraltar Drakus and Saint Desir Atango. They decided to form a quartet called Bikutsi System. In 1991, Bikutsi System released a long-awaited debut tape. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet expectations and wasn’t successful. Many younger artists had emerged in recent years like Fam Ndzengue, Bisso Solo, Opick Zoro, Zélé Le Bombardier, with a new kind of bikutsi in terms of both musicality and dance. Perhaps the album didn’t work because the term “bikusti" referred to a somewhat different sound than it did when these all star veterans first hit the scene. Nevertheless, they recorded a second album together which was much more successful and then moved on separately to solo projects. Bekono began thinking of releasing a double album, as full-force return to a solo career. At the time, most of those he worked with on his previous albums were unavailable. Zanzibar had tragically died on the eve of Les Tetes Brûlées inaugural European tour, for example. However, there was a talented new generation, thus he worked with new key people such as François Engoulou “Docta” and Tsala Martin Roger, produced by well-known figure in the bikutsi world Mr Ebanga. The double album consists of two separate cassettes Ding Ma and Makeu Aluck. In 1994, after much anticipation among audiences awaiting new songs from the now-established bikutsi star, the newly created copyright structure SOCINADA was to handle distribution. However, on the eve of the project's release, Bekono and its producer Ebanga didn’t agree on certain points about marketing the album, so the double cassette’s release was continually delayed with thousands of unsold cassettes—and years of hard work—remaining at the SOCINADA warehouse. The failure annihilated Bekono psychologically, pushing him to put an end to his professional career. In the mid-2000s, he had the ambition to open his own recording studio. Shortly after, though, he fell seriously ill and was diagnosed with severe diabetes. So he followed treatment for several years while continuing to write and compose songs just with his guitar and his sweet voice. He began to buy equipment to open his own recording studio. But the equipment was expensive. So he gradually bought what he needed but he relied on the computer skills of his eldest son Owono Bekono Emmanuel Ferdinand. He spent most of his time in the studio in his final years, with some fans still approaching him, and his friendly attitude hadn’t changed over time. Weakened and slightly emaciated by illness and the advancement of age, he continued to nurture his ambition to open his own recording studio and why not release a final album that would surprise everyone? On September 15, 2016, Bekono died of a long illness at the age of 62. In the wake of his passing the media published a wave of tributes, thanking him for what he did for Cameroonian music. He was an admired musician, songwriter and guitarist, and some of his old colleagues and some of the new generation of performers showered Bekono with vibrant tributes via social media, many of which noting something to the effect of: “The artist dies but his works remain.”

From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, a vibrant music scene in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu was teeming with pop and folk musicians exploring the boundaries of regional sensibilities. With influences spanning several genres of Somali traditional music, often meshed with Western pop, jazz and Middle-Eastern elements, a swirling diversity of sounds were being created, consumed, supported and encouraged. 

Dur-Dur Band emerged during a time when Somalia’s distinctive contribution to the creative culture in the Horn of Africa was visible and abundant. Thousands of recordings made at the Somali National Theatre, Radio Mogadishu and other studios, were complemented by the nightclubs at Hotel Juba, Jazeera Hotel and Hotel al-Curuuba, creating a flourishing music scene.  

Bands like Dur-Dur, Iftin, Shareero, on one hand, were inspired by everyone from Michael Jackson and Phil Collins to Bob Marley and Santana, as well as James Brown and American soul music. Equally active were groups performing regional folk musics and promoting the traditional side of Somali music. These groups helped develop a continuity with historical musical practices and oral literature that persist in popularity to this day. Seminal outfits like Waaberi and Horseed, in addition to a litany of celebrated qaraami musicians, generated a legacy of masterworks. These seasoned musicians’ efforts rippled through the music scene and spread to countries beyond as many artists began to emigrate when the country destabilized. 

This recording, which was remastered from a cassette copy source, is a document of Dur-Dur Band after establishing itself as one of the most popular bands in Mogadishu. The challenge of locating a complete long-player from this era is evidenced by the fidelity of this recording. However, the complex, soulful music penetrates the hiss. 

By 1987 Dur-Dur Band's line-up featured singers Sahra Abukar Dawo, Abdinur Adan Daljir, Mohamed Ahmed Qomal and Abdukadir Mayow Buunis, backed by Abukar Dahir Qasim (guitar), Yusuf Abdi Haji Aleevi (guitar), Ali Dhere (trumpet), Muse Mohamed Araci (saxophone), Abdul Dhegey (saxophone), Eise Dahir Qasim (keyboard), Mohamed Ali Mohamed (bass), Adan Mohamed Ali Handal (drums), Ooyaaye Eise and Ali Bisha (congas) and Mohamed Karma, Dahir Yaree and Murjaan Ramandan (backing vocals). Dur-Dur Band managed to release almost a dozen recordings before emigrating to Ethiopia, Djibouti and America.   

Dur-Dur Band was considered a “private band,” not beholden to government pressure to sing about political topics. They practiced a love- and culture-oriented lyricism. Government-sponsored bands like those of the military and the police forces, as well as many of the well-known folk musicians, made songs that were chiefly political or patriotic in nature.  

In a country that has been disrupted by civil war, heated clan divisions and security concerns, music and the arts has suffered from stagnation in recent years. Many of the best-known musicians left the country. Music became nearly outlawed in Mogadishu in 2010. Incidentally, more than ten years after Volume 5 (1987) was recorded at Radio Mogadishu, the state-run broadcaster was the only station in Somalia to resist the ban on music briefly enacted by Al-Shabab.  

Dur-Dur Band is a powerful and illustrative lens through which to appreciate a facet of the incredible sounds in Somalia before the country's stability took a turn. But Somali music of all kinds continues to thrive thanks in part to the diaspora living in cities worldwide. An extensive network of news, music and video websites, along with dozens of voluminous YouTube channels, makes clear an exciting relentlessness among artists. Reports of musicians returning to Mogadishu from years abroad bodes well for the immediate future of music and expression in Somalia. 

The PPU debut EP from Japan outfit Wool & The Pants. The Tokyo trio includes players; Yu Tokumo (Guitar / Vocals), Kento Enokida (Bass), and Aki Nakagomi (Drums). First discovered in 2017 by Mad Love, Tokumo has been making this music since 2008 drawing inspiration from Jagatara, Kimidori, Daisuke Tobari, Sakana, Think Tank, Les Rallizes Denudes, ECD, Haruomi Hosono, Can, Syd Barrett, Laraaji, and SunRa.

I see lucid blue flames moving before my eyes. I hear voices melting. Voices somewhere from within. Speaking words I do not know but feel connected to, almost as if I have known the meaning once.. Noises that obscures the multiple pictures hidden in these digital compositions. Iku Sakan have created a set of five tracks that takes the listener on a trip deep into the human psyché. Emotional flickering movements that twists and turns. The albums have a darker, much more intense feel than some of Ikus earlier magical and often hypnotic music. A myriad of different voices creates pulsing patterns and constantly morphing pictures for my inner eye. It's an album that might work as a hack to our lingual structures, pushing limits, pushing possibilities of meaning. A pool of over-saturated information boils and out of the vapor new contours take form. The magical and hypnotic is not gone, I still recognise the softer aspects of Ikus highly detailed hybrid sound design. But I no longer see where it takes me. It excites me. It feels like the world is expanding again, breathing. The sounds on the album asks us questions and points in several directions at once. In the shadows, weeds of lucid dreams grow deeper roots, reaching for my inner ear. The faint sounds on the track Nature Morte reminds me of expeditions to the local witch house ruins as a child. Something almost not there, something felt. History, Memories and the connection between the two seems to have played a part in these compositions. Emotional reactions that plant reactions in other people, all around creating soft movements on the face of our planet. Whether our collective psyché is an open field or an impenetrable dark forest, is of less concern with a key like Omnitopoeia, that works like an enhanced mirror, reflecting the dreams of the words we speak everyday, reflecting the emotional charges of significant places. Unrecognisable but still remembered. OMNITOPOEIA [άmnɪṭəpíːə]

Karen Dalton’s 1971 album, In My Own Time, stands as a true masterpiece by one of music’s most mysterious, enigmatic, and enduringly influential artists. Celebrating the album’s 50th anniversary, Light in the Attic is honored to present a newly remastered (2021) edition of the album on LP, CD, cassette, and 8-Track.

The LITA Anniversary LP edition features the original 10-track album, pressed on clear wax at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) and housed in an expanded gatefold LP jacket, while the album makes its long-overdue return on the almighty 8-Track format.

Both the CD and cassette editions feature 9 bonus tracks, including 3 alternate takes from the In My Own Time album sessions, along with 6 previously unreleased tracks captured during Karen’s 1971 European tour, including live at The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival and Germany’s Beat Club.

All audio has been newly remastered by Dave Cooley, while lacquers were cut by Phil Rodriguez at Elysian Masters.

A newly expanded booklet—featuring rarely seen photos, liner notes from musician and writer Lenny Kaye, and contributions from Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart—rounds out the CD (32-pgs) and LP (20-pgs) packages. 

The Oklahoma-raised Karen Dalton (1937-1993) brought a range of influences to her work. As Lenny Kaye writes in the liner notes, one can hear “the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, the immersion of Nina Simone, the Appalachian keen of Jean Ritchie, [and] the R&B and country that had to seep in as she made her way to New York."

Armed with a long-necked banjo and a 12-stringed guitar, Dalton set herself apart from her peers with her distinctive, world-weary vocals. In the early ‘60s, she became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene, interpreting traditional material, blues standards, and the songs of her contemporaries, including Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and Richard Tucker, whom she later married. Bob Dylan, meanwhile, was instantly taken with her artistry. “My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton,” he recalled in Chronicles: Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004). “Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.”

Those who knew Dalton understood that she was not interested in bowing to the whims of the record industry. On stage, she rarely interacted with audience members. In the studio, she was equally as uncomfortable with the recording process. Her 1969 debut, It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best, reissued by Light in the Attic in 2009, was captured on the sly when Dalton assumed that she was rehearsing songs. When Woodstock co-promoter Michael Lang approached Dalton about recording a follow-up for his new imprint, Just Sunshine, she was dubious, to say the least. The album would have to be made on her own terms, in her own time. That turned out to be a six-month period at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY.

Producing the album was bassist Harvey Brooks, who played alongside Dalton on It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best. Brooks, who prided himself on being “simple, solid and supportive,” understood Dalton’s process, but was also willing to offer gentle encouragement, and challenge the artist to push her creative bounds. “I tried to present her with a flexible situation,” he told Kaye. “I left the decisions to her, to determine the tempo, feel. She was very quiet, and I brought all of it to her; if she needed more, I’d present options. Everyone was sensitive to her. She was the leader.”

Dalton, who rarely performed her own compositions, selected a range of material to interpret—from traditionals like “Katie Cruel” and “Same Old Man” to Paul Butterfield’s “In My Own Dream” and Richard Tucker’s “Are You Leaving For The Country.” She also expanded upon her typical repertoire, peppering in such R&B hits as “When a Man Loves a Woman” and “How Sweet It Is.” In a departure from her previous LP, Dalton’s new recording offered fuller, more pop-forward arrangements, featuring a slew of talented studio musicians.

While ‘70s audiences may not have been ready for Dalton’s music, a new generation was about to discover her work. In the decades following her death, a slew of artists would name Karen Dalton as an influence, including Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett, and Adele. In the recent acclaimed film documentary Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, Cave muses on Dalton’s unique appeal: “There’s a sort of demand made upon the listener,” he explains. “Whether you like it or not, you have to enter her world. And it’s a despairing world.” Peter Walker, who also appears in the film, elaborates on this idea: “If she can feel a certain way in her music and play it in such a way that you feel that way, then that’s really the most magical thing [one] can do.” He adds, “She had a deep and profound and loving soul…you can hear it in her music.”
 

Madvillain, a super popular hip-hop duo consisting of MF Doom & Madlib, has stocked a cassette version of the monumental masterpiece released by in 2004! This gritty analog texture, the stagnation beats that Madlib keeps throwing in, and the drunken Doom flow just intoxicate the listener. There is no moment like yawning, and a terrifying finish that does not make you feel any gap from beginning to end. Please enjoy one of the centuries that represents hip-hop in the 2000s with the sound quality of cassettes!

"Drawing" cover, aka "Old Donuts," the unofficial name for the original edition of J Dilla's Donuts 2/LP with an illustrated sleeve, the way the vinyl was originally released in 2006.

Punisher is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, released on June 18, 2020 by Dead Oceans. Bridgers first established herself with her 2017 debut, Stranger in the Alps, a widely acclaimed indie rock effort. In the years preceding her second album, the California native formed the bands boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center. On Punisher, Bridgers' songwriting is somber and sardonic; deeply personal in nature, it explores topics like dissociation and fragmenting relationships.

Boundary caught our ears when he was just a 19-year-old, a true genius, he's been making music since he was 13 with a maturity and depth well beyond his years. We're absolutely gassed to get him onto the label with a transcendent LP that hits you right in the feels. Hailing from the Dominican Republic, Boundary leans heavily on all the good stuff from early Detroit techno, UK & Japanese ambient, and leftfield techno, stitching things together with immaculate drum programming, wandering basslines, and ethereal pads. Sometimes brilliantly raw and gritty, at other times delicate and refined, this is an LP that ranges from deep, glassy ambient through to 140 bpm (and beyond!) pumpers. It's classy techno from start to finish, think Aphex Twin meets PLO Man with an early Detroit twist. Limited cassette run and digi, don't miss out!