MUSIC

Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke joins the Hoodna Orchestra, Tel Aviv’s number one Afro funk collective, melding his enchanting vibraphone playing with their brass heavy force across seven original compositions that play tribute to the classic Mulatu sound while forging fresh paths. Produced by and featuring Dap-King Neal Sugarman, the results are gritty, yet majestic, soulful and uplifting.

Mulatu Astatke requires little introduction at this point. Born in Jimma, Ethiopia, Mulatu went on to live and study in London, Boston and New York. Initially drawn to and trained in jazz and Latin music, he developed the sound he called “Ethio-jazz” over a series of seminal albums combining jazz, Latin, funk and soul, with traditional Ethiopian scales and rhythms.

Long a cornerstone of the Ethiopian recording industry, his albums and even guest appearances were long sought after by record collectors and music enthusiasts around the globe. However the release of an acclaimed ‘Éthiopiques’ compilation dedicated to his instrumental recordings in 1998, followed by the 2005 release of Jim Jarmush’s acclaimed ‘Broken Flowers’ film, which heavily featured Astatke’s irresistible music, introduced him to a much wider international audience. Mulatu would go on to be sampled by the likes of Nas, Kanye West, Cut Chemist and Madlib, whilst touring to large audiences across the globe, and collaborating with London-based psych jazz collective, the Heliocentrics.

Formed in 2012 on the south side of Tel Aviv, the 12 member Hoodna Orchestra is a collective of musicians and composers who initially bonded over a shared love of Afrobeat. They have gone on to incorporate psychedelic rock, hard funk and soul, jazz, and East African music into their sought after releases, winning praise and airplay from the likes of Iggy Pop and Huey Morgan on BBC Radio 6 Music. The collective draws together a huge array of musical talents such as guitarist Ilan Smilan and organist Eitan Drabkin of Sababa 5 fame, Shalosh trio drummer Matan Assayag, and percussionist Rani Birenbaum of The Faithful Brothers, many of whom also contribute compositions to the orchestra, ensuring its collaborative environment.

Over time, members of the orchestra came to find they shared a growing interest in Ethiopian music, particularly the Ethio-jazz of Mulatu Astatke. Since releasing a recording with Ethiopian singer Tesfaye Negatu, Hoodna Orchestra had been looking to find ways to collaborate with Astatke himself and in early 2023 the opportunity arose to invite Astatke to Tel Aviv, record an album and perform it live for their home audience. Stars aligned as Neal Sugarman, multi-instrumentalist member of the Dap-Kings and co-founder of Daptone Records, joined and produced the session with Smilan.

The album commences with title track “Tension”, leading Mulatu’s signature sound in a new, rhythmically intense direction, hence the name, providing fresh creative ground for the collaborators. Astatke’s vibraphone sets the scene, before drummer Matan Assayag attacks the beat and Nadav Bracha’s marching bassline and Rani’s percussion propel the track forward, and Hoodna’s brass section delivers a classic Ethio motif. Mulatu’s enchanting vibraphone solo is followed by a blistering tenor sax solo by Eylon Tushiner. This is Ethio-jazz on turbochargers.

Recorded towards the end of their session, “Major” provides a whole new dimension, joyously and effortlessly swinging out of the speakers after “Tension”. You can sense how comfortable the band feels together at this point. The track features a superb organ solo by Drabkin. The Smilan composed “Hatula” embodies the sound of a cat prowling outside on a hot summer’s night with poise and finesse, before building into a great crescendo that belies the feline creature’s unpredictable behavior and wilder instincts. “Yashan” on the other hand is classic smoke-filled- lounge Ethio-jazz with an undercurrent of tension you can cut with a knife, with the Elad Gellert baritone sax solo lulling you into a false sense of security.

The Latin-jazz tinged grooves of “Delilah” play homage to the early roots of Mulatu’s sound. Leading the song’s key motif, Tushiner’s seductive flute is well balanced by Smilan’s guitar, proceeding beautifully into an enchanting solo by Astatke himself. Tushiner takes an extended turn himself, soloing like Hungarian guitar legend Gábor Szabó, if only he’d moved to Cairo instead of San Francisco. Joined by Sugarman on saxophones, the brass section plays a subtle but important role on his occasion, gently accompanying in the background.

The album closes fittingly with “Dung Gate”. A Birenbaum composition, the track features slow, heavy, melodic motif led by the brass section, counterbalanced by a tidal wave of percussion and hand-clapping. One can imagine the band slowly marching out of the venue through the crowd at the end of their show, the audience clapping in time with the orchestra’s brass and percussion, recalling another legend, the late great Sun Ra.

On one hand, ‘Tension’ is clearly a deeply personal tribute by the Hoodna Orchestra to iconic Mulatu Astatke, but at the same time the recordings emit a remarkable amount of chemistry, and together they have created an essential addition to Mulatu’s rich discography that charts new directions in his Ethio-jazz trajectory and provides the Hoodna Orchestra with their strongest album to date. 

Released by VDE/Gallo, a long-established label based near Lausanne, Switzerland, this field recording captures the traditional flute music of the Fulani pastoralists in Mali. Recorded on location in 1993, the album features improvised flute performances accompanying herders’ dances and rituals, offering a vivid glimpse into the musical expressions of Fulani cultural life.

Released by VDE/Gallo, a long-established label based near Lausanne, Switzerland, this field recording from 1986 captures the traditional music of the Nande people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Rooted in rituals surrounding weddings, births, and other communal events, the songs and performances vividly convey the spiritual and social life of the community. A wide variety of indigenous instruments are featured, including mouth bows, flutes, fiddles, harps, and lamellophones.

A landmark self-titled album from Ghanaian legend Ebo Taylor, originally released in 1977, now reissued on vinyl by the esteemed Strut label. Rooted in the spirit of Afrobeat and the traditions of highlife, while weaving in jazz-inflected arrangements and the deep pulse of funk, this record stands as a defining statement of his career and a perfect entry point into the genre. The interplay of sophisticated horn sections and propulsive rhythm, together with Taylor’s spiritual vocal presence, creates a sound world at once grounded in local tradition and reaching toward the universal. A historic masterpiece that helped shape the future of African music, vividly reborn.

First issue since 1969 of the Malombo Jazz Maker’s unknown third album, fully licensed from Julian Bahula, with liner notes featuring interviews with Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku. 'Malombo music is an indigenous kind of music. If you listen to it, you can feel that it can heal you, if you’ve got something wrong. It’s healing music.' Lucky Ranku Lucas ‘Lucky’ Madumetja Ranku (1941-2016) was one of the greatest African guitarists of his generation. He first made his name with the Malombo Jazz Makers – the successor group to the legendary Malombo Jazzmen, formed in Mamelodi township by guitarist Philip Tabane, drummer Julian Bahula and flautist Abbey Cindi. When Tabane left the Jazzmen in 1965, Bahula and Cindi called on Lucky to replace him, and the Malombo Jazz Makers were born. Building on the popularity and success of the original Malombo Jazzmen, the Malombo Jazz Makers become immensely popular, touring widely, winning numerous jazz competitions, and recording two successful albums for the Gallo label. The deep and hypnotic 'Down Lucky’s Way' was their third album. Recorded in 1969, it was the first Malombo Jazz Makers album to feature additional instruments, and the first to feature Abbey Cindi on soprano saxophone as well as flute. But more than anything else, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a transfixing showcase for Lucky Ranku’s sui generis guitar virtuosity. Quite different from their previous recordings, the album shifted the Jazz Makers’ sound toward hypnotic, extended compositions, layered by organ bass and guitar overdubs. Of all the Malombo Jazz Makers recordings, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is the deepest of mood, and the richest of vision. However, through one of the erasures that are ubiquitous in South African musical history under apartheid, it seems that the record may not ever have been properly issued. Original copies are outrageously rare – only a few are known among collectors. When we asked Lucky about the album, he was unaware it had ever been released, and had never seen a copy. Perhaps it was pulled; perhaps it was pulped; perhaps Gallo simply took their eye off the ball. Nobody knows, but it is not impossible that the apartheid authorities were involved, for by 1969, the Malombo Jazz Makers were well known to them. Julian Bahula’s introduction of malopo drums to the music of the original Malombo Jazzmen was a moment of crucial political and cultural radicalism for South African jazz. Traditionally used by BaPedi people for healing, the malopo drums of Malombo music re-centered jazz around indigenous sounds and culture, and over the next decade, the Malombo Jazz Makers became deeply involved in political opposition to apartheid. Their recovery of indigenous sounds made them the musical standard bearer for the Black Consciousness movement, and they toured South Africa clandestinely with the writer and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. They also broke apartheid laws by playing with the white rock group Freedom’s Children, sometimes appearing on stage in masks or made up with UV paint to avoid detection by the authorities; they appeared regularly at the rule-bending Free People’s Concerts organized by David Marks, where Marks’ clever exploitation of a loophole – mixed audiences were prohibited from attending ticketed concerts where anyone was being paid, but the law said nothing about private functions played by artists for free – meant people could come together in defiance of apartheid laws. The notorious Special Branch would raid their concerts; Lucky remembered police storming an auditorium, throwing smoke bombs. Eventually the political situation became too dangerous, and the band were being actively sought by the police. Though Abbey Cindi remained in South Africa, both Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku went into political exile in the UK, where Bahula founded the group Jabula with Lucky and former members of Cymande, Steve Scipio and Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. With Jabula, Julian and Lucky worked tirelessly for the anti-apartheid movement, raising funds and awareness all over Europe and in the US. They played with Dudu Pukwana’s Spear in the joint formation Jabula-Spear, and worked together in Bahula’s Jazz Afrika formation; in 1984 Bahula organized the first Concert for Mandela, and it was Jabula that supplied the chorus for The Special A.K.A.’s hit single ‘Nelson Mandela’. Lucky also played and recorded with Chris McGregor’s South African Exiles Thunderbolt group. After the fall of apartheid, they both remained living and working in the UK. In 2012 the South African government awarded Julian Bahula the Gold Order of Ikhamanga for his cultural work during the struggle against apartheid. Until his death in 2016, Lucky continued to play with countless groups and musicians, putting together the band Township Express with Pinise Saul, and leading his own African Jazz Allstars. The influence of his playing on the international perception of South African township music was immense, and he was held in the highest regard by his peers – ‘Lucky was a guitarist who could bring any house down’, said Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. But despite his continuous presence on the UK live circuit over four decades, Lucky Ranku never recorded an album as leader. And so as well as restoring an important lost piece of South African musical heritage, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a precious opportunity to hear one of Africa’s foremost guitarists stretching out, in focus and in his element.

Strut presents Mulatu Plays Mulatu, the first major studio album in over 10 years from the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.

Featuring masterful new arrangements of some of his classic compositions, Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds Mulatu revisiting the sounds that helped to change the face of Ethiopian music during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The album was recorded between London and Addis Ababa, working with his long-standing UK band, a tight, intuitive ensemble honed through years of live performance, alongside cultural musicians resident at his Jazz Village club in Addis.

Mulatu Plays Mulatu realises Mulatu’s long-term vision of Ethio-jazz, intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments including the krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena. Throughout the album, he reshapes familiar material with rich textures, expanded improvisations and a deepened rhythmic complexity, creating a body of work that feels as vital and contemporary as it does steeped in tradition. Familiar compositions like ‘Yekermo Sew’, ‘Netsanet’ and the celebratory ‘Kulun’ are reinvented here as elegant big band performances.

“Ethio-jazz brings us together and makes us one,” explains Mulatu. “This album is the culmination of my work bringing this music to the world and pays respect to our unsung heroes, the original musical scientists in Ethiopia who gave us our cultural music.”

Bridging continents and generations throughout his 50-year career, Astatke now offers us an invitation to hear his music again, with a completely fresh perspective. Ethio-jazz, like its creator, is always in motion.

Mulatu Plays Mulatu was produced by Dexter Story and features contemporary artists LA-based artists Carlos Niño and Kibrom Birhane. The album was recorded and mixed by Isabel Gracefield at RAK Studios in London and by Dexter Story in Addis. The inspired album artwork was created by acclaimed Oslo-based Ethiopian artist, Wendimagegn Belete with photography by Alexis Maryon.

“It’s time. Africa, it’s time. It’s time that Africa changes. It’s time our leaders change. Everything that happens in Africa is extraordinary. We have everything: water, earth, sun, fields of oil, gas. We have all this in Africa, but Africa is still poor. It’s time we change our way of thinking. It’s time for Africans to take their destiny into their own hands. If not, others will take it.” This is the message instrumental guitarist Tidiane Thiam hopes to convey with his new solo album, Africa Yontii, a Pulaar title that translates to “Africa, It's Time.” To a casual listener, Thiam’s bold statement starkly contrasts with his melodic playing. But a closer listen to Thiam’s expressive playing reveals a thoughtful voice that stands out from the crop of contemporary guitarists. “What I should be singing (with words) I’m instead saying with my guitar,” he says. Hailing from the sleepy fishing Senegalese fishing town of Podor, home of the great Baaba Maal, Thiam taught himself guitar by playing along to late-night radio broadcasts of Manding music. He soon developed his style, often reworking Pulaar folk themes into his compositions. On Africa Yontii, Thiam’s third album for Sahel Sounds, he teamed up with hip-hop beat maker Ndiaye Moctar from studio M.N. Records to provide accompaniment, integrating unexpected elements such as field recordings and electronic sounds. In the liner notes for Africa Yontii, Thiam voices his concerns about the lack of opportunities for Africa’s youth and the lonely road that can come with leaving behind loved ones in the hope of a better life. He also sprinkles in a philosophical query about the eroding state of the world alongside two more hopeful, traditional offerings in the form of wedding and river songs. Despite the sometimes heavy subject matter, Thiam’s love for his homeland and heritage shines through. Tidiane Thiam's Africa Yontii reclaims the maligned “world music” genre within a sonic space that has long been dominated by others telling the story. As the title suggests - It’s time!

Available on vinyl for the very first time: “The Trance Of Seven Colors” by master Gnawa musician MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA and free jazz legend PHAROAH SANDERS. Produced by BILL LASWELL and according to The Attic “one of the most important albums of Gnawa trance music released in the ‘90s”. 

Originally released in 1994 on BILL LASWELL’s AXIOM imprint, “The Trance Of Seven Colors” is the meeting of two true musical masters: MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA (1951 – 2015), son of the master of Gnawa music MALEEM BOUBKER GHANIA and the famous clairvoyant and "moqaddema" A'ISHA QABRAL, and a master of the traditional Gnawa style in his own right. MAHMOUD learned this craft as a youth along with his brothers, walking from village to village, performing ceremonies with his father BOUBKER and was one of the few masters (Maleem) who continued to practice the Gnawa tradition strictly for healing (the central ritual of the Gnawa is the trance music ceremony – with the purpose of healing or purification of the participants). With 30 cassette releases of music from the Gnawa repertoire with his own ensemble and performances at every major festival in Morocco, including performing for the King in various contexts, MAHMOUD GHANIA was also one of Morocco's most prominent professional musicians. 
In 1994, BILL LASWELL and PHAROAH SANDERS went to Mocrocco, equipped with just some mobile recording devices, to record GHANIA and a large ensemble of musicians (to a good part family members) in a very intimate set up at a private house with the legendary free jazz musician contributing his distinctive tenor saxophone sounds that gained him highest praise as a truely spiritual soul right from the days of playing with JOHN COLTRANE and his wife ALICE and on seminal solo albums like „Karma“. 
The aptly titled „The Trance of Seven Colors“ ranks among the best Gnawa recordings ever released , made it onto the list of “10 incredible percussive albums from around the world” by Thevinylfactory.com and is 25 years after its original CD release on finally available on vinyl! 

Pick a small spot (a point) in front of you (a small knot of wood, a dog down the way). And tightly focus on this spot. And now slowly unfocus your gaze. Widen your gaze. Pan out without moving your eyes. Take it all in.

A smeared and pixelated surface, swelling of contour and light. (Monet’s seepages of light, Altman’s overlapping nomadic dialogue.) Once you have unfocused with little to no center of attention, slowly close your eyes. And please feel very free to notice the light. All of the light that your eyes knocked back as you dilated your focal point. This exercise can be repeated a few times. Unfocusing does not always come easily. And it is probably best to not put too much effort into it. Best to not employ too much pressure.

And we will not put too much pressure on this exercise to help us explain away the humidly, saturatedly psychedelic canopy of moan-‘n-twang and slackelastic-groove of The Dwarfs Of East Agouza’s Sasquatch Landslide.

Mitch Hedberg has a great joke about the Sasquatch: “I think Bigfoot is blurry. That’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault. Bigfoot is blurry! And that’s extra scary to me, because there’s a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.”

Sasquatch Landslide. A landslide of hazy configurations. Blurriness, far from a lack of detail, is an embroidering of detail, a horizontal expansion of surface and swarms of light. The name “Sasquatch” derives from the Salish word se'sxac, which means “wild men.” And Sasquatch Landslide is wild. Everything is unravelling. Offset. Décalage. A whole host of slippery tempos and pulses as the organs, guitars and saxophones loiter and lope over a skipping hop of beats, and everything emerges always mid-stream. It is all middle with no halfway point, no dead center, no bullseye. Everything twangs, moans, sweeps, slips, swings, skitters, slides, and grooves out of nowhere. And the almost-human voice with no mother-tongue.

There is something ecstatic (an elatedly miniscule frenzy) going on here but it is pushed beyond the ecstatic: a joyous-grotesque rolling right past trance to dance. Psychedelias appear out of the infra-spaces in between the apparitions and overlapping ‘regimes’ and registers—pushed and squeezed far beyond the recognizable. And these spaces groove joyously hard like some kind of illusive House music, houses completely submerged in molasses. BigFoot-work? (Oh my!) There is not a place to throw your anchor here in the furrowing humidity. That does, and it does, sound like some kind of landslide.

A psychedelic encounter is a brush with the marvel of otherness. The point from which we speak of other, becomes other itself, in an ever-storm of other-production that shreds ideas of knowing and understanding what we think is going on. Time unhinged from the clock. Space unhinged from the frame. An unpinpointing hallucination, a hot get-down, an untethered throw-down of oscillations, fiercely, joyously, exuberantly incomprehensible. Listening to Sasquatch Landslide, a wildly unhinged reverie.

Eric Chenaux and Mariette Cousty

Condat-sur-Ganaveix, February 2025

Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation.

Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation.

Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums – the first time that his music has been presented in this form.

These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7” single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Each individual album contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it. An OBI wrapped “box set” of all five albums is available at a discounted price. The box set only contains one booklet.

Good Aderegechegn (Blindsided By Love) gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7” single releases. Contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it.

Ten years. Ten years of listening, searching, digging, sharing. Ten years of putting out records we felt mattered—because they told a story. Of a place, a moment, an impulse. Ten years of believing that music, especially the kind that doesn’t fit into any box, deserves more than just attention: it deserves care, time, and deep listening.

Bongo Joe started in Geneva, in a shop that became a label, in a city far more complex than it first appears. Beneath its polished banking façade, Geneva is layered and unpredictable. Beneath the luxury storefronts, the UN buildings, and the watch boutiques, thrives a unique scene shaped by migration, cultural collisions, political struggle, and dissonant sound. It’s here that we learned to improvise, adapt, and stay independent.

This is where the label was born—above all, to put music back at the center, in a time when everything moves too fast, gets monetized, sliced up, and repackaged. In that landscape, we believe a label should remain a space for curation, for storytelling, for quiet resistance — a place where we suggest rather than impose.

Over the past ten years, we’ve built a singular catalogue — a mosaic of archival revivals, contemporary projects, and unexpected encounters. Three main threads have shaped it.

First, the compilation of music from the past. Not to claim it, but to keep it moving. To shed light on forgotten repertoires, marginal histories, musical legacies too rich to be overlooked. To help them exist again, with dignity, and reconnect with new listeners who might never have had access otherwise.

Second, international collaborations. From Geneva, we’ve woven bonds with artists from all over the world — groups from Istanbul, Buenos Aires, London, Baku, Bogotá, Lilongwe, Les Gonaïves, or Amsterdam. Records crafted with love and boldness, in collaboration with like-minded labels, passionate curators, and artists who share our spirit. That international dimension makes us proud — it proves that you can create, exchange, and share sound sincerely, even from a city not exactly known as a musical capital.

And then there’s our local scene. Geneva, always. Because it’s where we live, where we grew up, and where we still believe in a city with a unique voice — full of friction, contradictions, and underground energy. We’ve supported projects from experimental circuits, squats, and clubs. Through our sub-label Les Disques Magnétiques, we’ve expanded the spectrum without losing the thread: defending the margins, giving space to those who don’t fit anywhere else.

Bongo Joe is also a musician. The label takes its name from George “Bongo Joe” Coleman (1923–1999), a street percussionist from Texas who stayed true to his independence for over thirty years. Turning down the offers of formal venues, he chose instead to play in the streets — banging out rhythms on an oil drum with raw charisma. His only album, recorded in 1968 in San Antonio, remains one of our most cherished records. Reissued by our friends at Mississippi Records, it carries a DIY spirit, radical freedom, and lyrical boldness far ahead of its time — a guiding light that continues to inspire us.

Bongo Joe is also a collective story. It’s about people. A team that grew over the years: from Cyril and Vincent at the helm to a tight-knit crew — Juliette, Quentin, Margot, Laurent, Baptiste. Together, we’ve kept this strange, handmade machine running. We’ve hand-stamped sleeves, lost test pressings, pressed the wrong masters on CD, found test pressings again, chased down funding, hauled stacks of records to the post office by bike, crossed our fingers for pressings to arrive on time, cursed at customs delays, botched digital releases, and felt a thrill watching “our” bands play on the stages of major festivals and the most forward-thinking clubs. We’ve been through chaos and joy. Together, we’ve made it this far. And with nearly 150 records in the catalogue, we look back on the road travelled with a mix of pride and disbelief.

This compilation isn’t a summary. It’s not a best of. It’s a trace. A selection among many possible ones. A snapshot of what we’ve tried to do since 2015: believe in music as connection, as memory, as compass. Thank you to everyone who’s supported, followed, or inspired us. Thanks to the institutions who’ve backed us. Thanks to our longtime partners: bookers, fellow labels, record stores, publicists, distributors, printers, engravers, pressing plants, sound engineers, photographers, designers. And most of all, thank you to the artists — without whom none of this would mean anything.

Ten years is a little, and a lot. We’re not done yet.

A multidisciplinary artist and curator, Violaine Morgan Le Fur (aka Violence Gratuite) has spent the last few years sharpening her creative perspective, developing documentaries, producing exhibitions, and directing music videos and short films. 'Baleine à Boss' isn't just her debut album, but her first venture into music production; Le Fur had only begun to experiment with music software a few weeks before dubbing the record, a fact that makes this unique set only more bewildering. Singing and vocalizing candidly and producing each track alone, she sounds profoundly polished, invoking a beguiling haze of chanson, rap, no wave and experimental electronics that hovers around the margins of pop and the avant-garde.

Le Fur grew up in Paris's sprawling suburbs, and was provided with a diverse coterie of influences by her Breton mother and Cameroonian father. She's channeled her ancestry into her work before, splicing material from her mother's film archives with her own footage recorded in Bamiléké land to develop the autobiographical documentary 'À L'ouest' back in 2017. As Violence Gratuite, Le Fur thinks more cryptically, considering the vast forests of western Cameroon, lands ravaged by generations of bloodthirsty men and looping pulsing techno rhythms with fractured trap and the ghosts of French pop.

Her voice stands out proudly on opener 'Iséo', layered into a charming mantra over a brittle, grime-y beat assembled from stuttering samples and 8-bit blips. Acrobatic yet somehow casual, Le Fur splits her delivery, singing in French over undulating chants and spectral coos. And she switches up the flow on 'Olive', rapping in an icy cool deadpan while spiky synths bubble around jerky, Neptunes-like stabs. Then, on the nocturnal 'Smooth Operation', Le Fur guides us towards a moonlit ritual, crying sweetly into the darkness as hand drums and dreamy plucks chatter in the background.

On the title track, Le Fur strips the rhythm down to a moody, skeletal rumble, using rubbery drums and trapped chorals to mire herself in negative space. Speaking in a low rasp, she brings to mind Tricky's eeriest early material, or the wonkiest output of French no wave hybridist Lizzy Mercier Descloux. But the record switches gears relentlessly, lurching towards the Caribbean on 'Ragga Nieztches' and into spannered dembow on the hypnotic closing track 'Bad à Bras le Corps'. 'Baleine à Boss' is an unpredictable, labyrinthine suite that refuses to stay static, a variety show that's as comfortable in the club as it is at a fest noz.

World music pioneer Adam Rudolph and his groundbreaking Go: Organic Orchestra join forces with Brooklyn Raga Massive to create monumental new album

3LP 130 gram Classic Black vinyl LP (cut and pressed by Leandro Gonzalez at Stereodisk) packaged in a full color swinging gatefold jacket with artwork by Nancy Jackson

The members of the adventurous BRM collective are deeply steeped in the traditions of Indian classical music. They refuse, however, to be restricted by it; the idea behind the collective, birthed in 2012 in a Prospect Heights bar, is to open the often rigid and hierarchical culture of the music to experimentation and cross-cultural collaboration. This collaboration marks the collective’s most ambitious effort to date in the musical movement that the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and New Yorker have recognized as a “Raga Renaissance.”

“This album feels like the culmination of everything I’ve been reaching for throughout my career,” says Rudolph, no small claim from someone who’s been a pioneering voice in jazz and world music for more than 40 years. “Through my music I want to hear the humanity of all these different musicians shine through, and with their voices bring forth something that’s never existed before.”

According to BRM guitarist David Ellenbogen, who co-produced Ragmala, the possibilities offered by Rudolph’s music scratched the very itch that led many of them into BRM’s more exploratory fold to begin with. “I always had a theory that Indian Classical, jazz, West African music and so on could have a synergistic relationship,” Ellenbogen says. “But after spending decades looking through record libraries, I found very few recordings lived up to the potential of these great traditions. I've spoken to other musicians on this album and they said the same thing when they heard these tracks: This is the music we've been searching for."

Country, township jazz, and pop hits from the height of Zambia’s freedom movement.Vocalist, guitarist, and bandleader Alick Nkhata moved effortlessly between lonesome country slide, big band pop, and air-tight vocal harmonies, all with roots in Bemba and other African traditional songs and rhythms. It’s a dizzying, inclusive, expansive blend from an artist and music archivist who became the voice of his nation’s fight for freedom. The lyrics and music represent the times - lonesome country laments like “Nafwaya Fwaya” and “Fosta Kayi” drift along the railways to urban centers and copper mines. “Nalikwebele Sonka (I Told You Sonka)”, sung in “deep-Bemba” pairs honey-soaked yodels with a warning about the downward spiral of unemployment in townships, while Mayo Na Bwalya’ (Mother of Bwalya) is a mother’s plea to a traditional songbird for guidance of her wayward son. Songs like “Shalapo,” “Kalindawalo Na Mfumwa,” and his biggest hit, “Imbote,” infuse piano, big band horns, and even early electronic instruments into stunning syncretic pop masterpieces. Despite Nkhata’s role in Zambian independence and his influence on future generations of African artists, this LP is the first time his music is being reissued on vinyl. We’re honored to work closely with Alick Nkhata’s family, as well as with collectors around the world who provided some of the rare recordings. Music archivist, researcher, and NTS host Jamal Khadar wrote in-depth liner notes spanning the history of Zambian independence, and noted Zambian author and translator Ellen Banda-Aaku provides careful and deeply researched lyric translations. On high-quality black vinyl with deluxe 12-page booklet with unpublished photos, lyrics, translations, and liner notes written by NTS radio host Jamal Khadar.

Strut present the definitive vinyl edition of 'Nigeria 70'. First released in 2001, the collection inspired a new generation of labels and releases into Afro funk and Afro jazz fusions and helped to introduce the 1970s Lagos scene beyond Fela Kuti's catalogue for a legion of soul, funk and dance music enthusiasts.

First LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever. It comes with a replica of the original cover. Label design has been recreated based on the original release. Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts.

Fourth LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever.

Third LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever. It comes with a replica of the original cover. Label design has been recreated based on the original release. Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts.

Second LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever. Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts.

In the vibrant streets of Tembisa, South Africa, amidst the sprawling urbanity connecting Johannesburg and Pretoria, the story of Moskito began. Formed in 2001 by Mahlubi “Shadow” Radebe and the late Zwelakhe “Malemon” Mtshali, the group first emerged as a powerhouse of pantsula dancers. However, their undeniable passion for music soon led them down a new path—one that would cement their place in kwaito history. Spending countless hours on the street corners of their township, where they were born and raised, Shadow and Malemon danced and sang with an infectious energy that attracted crowds. It wasn’t long before the duo decided to channel their talents into a kwaito group, and after adding friends Patrick Lwane and Menzi Dlodlo, Moskito was born.

(Pantsula dancing emerged in the 1950s among Black South Africans in townships and continually evolved until it became intertwined with kwaito music culture. The stylized, rapid foot movements and characteristic low-dancing became associated with kwaito as it took over South African urban culture into the early 2000s.)

With limited resources, the group displayed immense creativity, recording demos using two cassette decks and instrumental tracks from other artists. They would rap and sing over an instrumental playing on one deck while the second deck records their performance. Their determination paid off when they submitted their demo to Tammy Music Publishers, who were captivated by Moskito’s style.

“Kwaito was the thing ‘in’ at the time. If you did music you did kwaito. We wanted to fit in and actually it was easy,” says Radebe. “We didn’t have engineers in the group, so the first time in a real studio was with Percy and Thami to record Idolar.”

That same year, the group released their debut album, Idolar, under Tammy Music. The album was an undeniable success reaching gold status selling over 25,000 units and earning them a devoted fan base across South Africa and neighboring countries like Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Moskito collaborated with industry legends such as Chilly Mthiya Tshabalala, who was known for his work with Thiza and Spoke ”H.” They drew inspiration from Thami Mdluli a.k.a Professor Rhythm, who had dominated the disco scene back in the 80s and 90s. Mdluli helped with musical arrangements and executive produced the album and signed on producer-engineer Percy Mudau, while Shadow and Malemon took pride in composing most of their songs. Like many of the rising kwaito artists of the time, they didn’t have music production or engineering backgrounds so they required support from engineers together their ideas down on tape.

They were inspired by South African kwaito icons like Trompies, Mdu, Mandoza, and Arthur Mafokate, alongside international heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, 2Pac, and R. Kelly, Moskito created a sound that was uniquely theirs—a perfect blend of local flavor and global influence.

Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts. Fifth LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever.

When Jako Maron reimagined Réunion island's politically-charged maloya sound on 'The electro Maloya experiments of Jako Maron', he focused on the genre's distinctive, revolutionary rhythms. Electro-plating the call-and-response thuds, he used the language of techno to upset the expected template, disrupting maloya's 6/8 pulse with modular bleeps and Roland kicks. He takes a different approach on 'Mahavélouz', focusing on the bobre, traditional maloya's only melodic instrument, a long bow amplified by a calabash that's known as the berimbau in Brazil. Maron was fascinated by the bobre's unique sonic signature, and noted that when it's usually played, it's drowned out by the louder percussive instruments. So he enlisted a number of traditional bobre performers to play a series of solos, using them to guide the album's four lead tracks and distorting and compressing the serrated hits until they stood confidently in front of his undulating roulér (bass drum) and sati (hi-hat) patterns.

"These four pieces are the culmination of my research into electronic maloya," explains Maron. "There's no need for words on this music; the bobre is the voice, and it is an ancestral voice. It's a reimagining of maloya kabaré in an electro form." This is the music that Maron has used to drive his recent live performances, so it prioritizes maloya's dancefloor potential. Swapping the traditional roulér and sati sounds for TR-606, TR-909 and TR-707 hits, he generates a hypnotic roll on opening track 'Paré po saviré' (rise up), forming a rubbery backdrop for Amemoutoulaop's acidic bobre twangs. Maron describes the track as a "call to bring spirits and people together", and using piercing feedback squeals to harmonize with the bobre, he introduces us to the voice that anchors the entire album. On 'Bék dann dir (try harder), he augments the bobre with glassy Korg Polysix chimes and Machinedrum sounds, and 'Zésprimaron'(the Maron spirit), ushers us towards a ceremony, shuffling his rhythm into a ritualistic throb, and using squelchy synth sounds to flutter into a trance.

Maron concludes his live bobre experiments with '1 piton 3 filaos' (one hill and three trees), and it's his most ambitious fusion, with hallucinatory flutes and technoid stabs rising weightlessly in-between Amemoutoulaop's frenetic performance. But this isn't the end of his investigation: Maron fleshes out 'Mahavélouz' with tonal studies that replicate the bobre synthetically. On 'Mdé prototrash', the characteristic ping is re-created by his modular system, and it's almost indistinguishable from the original instrument, buzzing and popping alongside Maron's surging percussion. The sound is more uncanny on 'dann kér Mahaveli' (in the heart of marvelous land) but no less affecting, knotted around synthetic bird calls and entrancing warbles. Even more idiosyncratic than its predecessors, 'Mahavélouz' is a bold step forward for Maron that builds on ancient foundations to construct a staggeringly new kind of dance music.

Nigeria 70: No Wahala returns to a fertile heyday in Nigerian music when established styles like highlife and juju became infused with elements of Western jazz, soul and funk in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

"The Nigeria 70 series is the gift that keeps on giving [...] a reliable source for some of the finest music to come out of 1970s and 80s Nigeria" (Pop Matters)

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp’s latest album, “Ventre Unique”, is a dynamic exploration that seamlessly blends folk, krautrock, post-punk, and African rhythms, delivering an emotionally charged yet exuberant listening experience. Helmed by Geneva-based Vincent Bertholet, the orchestra’s ever-evolving lineup and distinctive sound pay homage to both African music traditions and avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp, while pushing the boundaries of contemporary music.

Recorded over ten days in the outskirts of Paris at Studio Midilive, the album features an eclectic international cast of 12 musicians. The result is a beautifully organic sound that balances Bertholet’s simple, loop-based compositions with intricate arrangements of marimba, horns, strings, and angular guitars.

Ventre Unique is the group’s sixth album and follows their acclaimed 2021 release, “We’re Ok But We’re Lost Anyway”. While their previous work captured the disarray of the world during the pandemic, “Ventre Unique” reflects on shared human experiences, inviting listeners to find common ground through music.