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Strut Records proudly presents a new reissue of the original Afrobeat classic Low Profile (Not For The Blacks), recorded and composed by Afrika 70 saxophonist and bandleader Lekan Animashaun and produced by Fela Kuti. After years touring the world as Fela’s baritone saxophonist, Animashaun stepped forward to lead the legendary Egypt 80 band following Tony Allen’s departure, remaining the group’s musical director until Fela’s death in 1997. He continued on subsequent tours with Seun Kuti until 2016. Lekan began recording his only solo project, Low Profile, in 1977. The album was composed and recorded across sessions at home in Nigeria and on tour with Fela, who both produced the recordings and added keyboards to the album’s title track. ‘Low Profile (Not For The Blacks)’ referenced a government campaign during the country’s 1970s oil boom: “It was inspired by a speech by Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s military Head of State, when he urged black people to keep a low profile about their wealth and not to behave in a vulgar, arrogant way,” explains Lekan. “I argued that low profile is not just for the blacks, as everyone is human, regardless of race.” On the flip side, the simmering Afrobeat anthem ‘Se Rere’ (which translates as ‘Do Right’) delivers Animashaun’s message of living with integrity: do right, and you will reap what you sow. The song later became the band’s opening number during Fela’s live performances both in Nigeria and internationally throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Despite recording beginning almost two decades earlier, Low Profile did not receive an official release until 1995, when it finally surfaced on Fela’s Kalakuta label. One of only a handful of albums led by core members of Kuti’s band, Low Profile captures a pivotal moment in Afrobeat history. Over time, the original has become a rare and highly sought-after record, and this new reissue places the spotlight back on a modest but influential Nigerian legend. Strut’s reissue features the complete original artwork, is fully remastered by The Carvery, and includes brand new liner notes by Lekan Animashaun himself.
アフリカ最高の“ソネーロ”が甦る！
セネガルとキューバを結んだ伝説的歌手の決定版アンソロジー！
西アフリカ音楽史において、キューバ音楽との深い結びつきを象徴する歌手として語り継がれているのがラバ・ソセー（Laba Sosseh）です。1942年にガンビアで生まれた彼は、セネガルとガンビアの両方にルーツを持つ“セネガンビア人”として育ち、英語圏とフランス語圏という二つの文化を自然に身につけました。後に彼は、その豊かな音楽的背景を武器に、西アフリカとラテン音楽の架け橋となる存在へと成長していきます。
彼を見出したのは、“セネガル音楽の父”とも呼ばれるイブラ・カッセ（Ibra Kasse）でした。1960年代初頭、ダカールの名門ナイトクラブ〈マイアミ〉で歌っていたラバの才能に着目したイブラは、彼をスター・バンド・ド・ダカールへ迎え入れます。当時のスター・バンドは、後のセネガル音楽界を担う数多くの名手たちが集まる一大拠点であり、ラバはそこで頭角を現しました。その歌声は早くから高く評価され、「卓越した才能を持つ歌手が現れた」と評されたと伝えられています。
その後、ナイジェリア出身のサックス奏者デクスター・ジョンソン（Dexter Johnson）が率いるスーパースター・ド・ダカールに参加し、さらに大きな人気を獲得。情熱的で伸びやかな歌声と圧倒的な表現力によって、“アフリカ最高のソネーロ（ソン歌手）”と称される存在となりました。彼の代表曲「Seyni」や「Aminata」は、西アフリカ各地で広く親しまれ、後にタブー・レイ・ロシュローやベンベヤ・ジャズをはじめとする数多くの音楽家によって取り上げられるなど、世代や国境を越えて歌い継がれていきました。
その人気は国境を越え、マリではレイル・バンドで活動し、後にはコートジヴォワールへ渡ってSuper International Bandを結成。当時アフリカ音楽の中心地となっていたアビジャンで数多くの録音を残しました。さらにキューバ系音楽家との交流も深く、ロベルト・トーレス（Roberto Torres）やオルケスタ・ブロードウェイとの録音、キューバの名歌手モンギート（Monguito）との共演、さらにはオルケスタ・アラゴーン（Orquesta Aragn）との録音も実現。アフロ・キューバン音楽を体現するアフリカ人歌手として国際的な名声を確立しました。
本作『ラ・ベル・エポック VOL.1』は、そんなラバ・ソセーの全盛期を振り返る２枚組アンソロジーです。代表曲「Seyni」や「Aminata」をはじめ、「Guantanamera」「El Manisero」などキューバ音楽の名曲も収録。彼のレパートリの幅広さと卓越した表現力を改めて堪能することができます。
セネガルでンバラが誕生する以前、西アフリカがソンやルンバ、グァヒーラ、サルサに熱狂していた時代。その中心で歌い続けたラバ・ソセーの歌声は、今なお色褪せることなく輝きを放っています。アフリカ音楽とラテン音楽が幸福な形で結びついていた黄金時代の空気を伝える、まさに決定版と言うべき名編集盤です。
アフロ・ラテン・ファンはもちろん、セネガル音楽の歴史を知りたい方にも強くお勧めしたい作品です。
●日本語による説明をつけた帯を商品に添付して発送いたします。日本語解説は同封しておりません。予めご了承ください
トラックリスト
CD１
1. Unite Africaine
2. Guantanamera
3. Seyni
4. Guateque De Juan
5. Ma Bedou
6. Aminata
7. Fechelen Khaleyi
8. Comolloran
9. Condoleance Au Psdt Houphouet
10. El Manisero
11. Abidjan Me Voy
12. Sindjeli
13. Yo Tango Una Mujer
14. Conel Masayo
CD 2
1. El Guaguanco
2. Ay Que No
3. La Portuguita
4. El Manicero
5. El Divorcio
6. Preparen Candela
7. No Quiero El Son
8. Leyli
9. Sitiera
10. Yamanekh
11. Marie Gomis
12. Boni Boni
A landmark work released in 1995 on the UK label RetroAfric by Sikamo Jazz, a super‑group formed in 1993 when veteran masters reunited to create new music together.
A two‑disc anthology that looks back on the prime years of Laba Sossé, a singer remembered in West African music history as a symbol of the deep connection between local traditions and Cuban music.
A two‑disc compilation that assembles Afro‑Latin music which blossomed in Cotonou, the largest city in the Republic of Benin, during the 1960s and 1970s.
A two‑disc compilation bringing together Afro‑Latin music that developed in Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea, during the 1960s and 1970s.
Volume Two of The Spiritual-Sonic Research series features three live concerts by Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group, recorded between 2023 and 2025 in Portland, Oregon. These performances are connected through themes of reverence, ancestral veneration, and African American spiritual technologies. This compilation is meant to uplift, educate, and deepen engagement with these traditions. Many figures mentioned throughout this series deserve further study. This music is intended to support that study and can be used in educational and spiritual settings, such as presentations, sermons, sacred services, ceremonies, intentional listening sessions, book clubs, lectures, educational videos, and more. The first tape, Live at the Hollywood Theatre, was recorded at the Hollywood Theatre on May 25th, 2023. The concert celebrated the release of the self-titled LP Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group, released through Mississippi Records. The evening opened with performances by Angel Bat Dawid and Oui Ennui as DAOUI, with Angel Bat Dawid later joining Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group for a powerful rendition of her song “Black Family.” Songs like “A New World Awaits,” “Future Ancestors / Awaken (Redux),” and “Black Family” explore ideas of Afrofuturism and Afromultidimensionalism. Here Afrofuturism is understood not only through science fiction, cosmic imagery, and futuristic aesthetics, but also through everyday survival and the work of building a future for Black life. It is about preparing for ancestorhood, communicating with ancestors, self-determination, self-governance, and preserving Black family and community. Afrofuturism explored here is both cosmic and practical; it is also spiritual and grounded at the same time. It reaches toward the metaphysical while remaining deeply connected to everyday life, collective survival, and future-building. It asks how we sustain ourselves not only tomorrow, but generations from now. Afromultidimensionalism, a term coined by Roman Norfleet, is explored here as a spiritual system and ancestral technology that allows one to exist in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Through ancestral memory, sound, ritual, and collective consciousness, it becomes possible to be present across worlds and dimensions while remaining rooted in the physical world. Ultimately, it is a practice of seeking communion with the Divine, which in this work is called The Love Supreme. This idea reaches its culmination in the final piece: a chanting rendition of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, offered here as prayer and spiritual invocation. The second tape, Universal Love Revival Service at the IFCC, was recorded on June 1st, 2024, at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, a longstanding cultural and creative hub for Portland’s Black community. Rooted in the tradition of the Black church, this gathering took the form of a revival-style service, honoring African American spiritual traditions developed by enslaved Black people in the American South. While deeply grounded in these traditions, the service also served as an invitation to commune with the Universal Divine Spirit through collective prayer, sound, movement, and remembrance. The service featured a heartfelt welcome offered by Vaughn Kimmons, and included the construction of an altar and a ring shout held in reverence to ancestors and the enduring spiritual practices of the Afro-diaspora. Songs such as “Wade in the Water,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and other traditional spirituals were sung collectively alongside devotional music and improvisation. Through collective participation, testimony, chant, and sacred sound, the service honored the ways these traditions have carried Black people through generations of survival, resistance, remembrance, and communal healing. The third tape, Recalling the Mystics: Black Mystery Month at The Old Church, was recorded on February 8th, 2025, at The Old Church Concert Hall. “Black Mystery Month” is a term coined by Roman Norfleet that reimagines Black History Month as a space in an alternate dimension devoted to connecting with the Divine Mystery and honoring the spiritual, sacred, and esoteric dimensions of the Black American experience, while maintaining the lineage of Black History Month. This work is dedicated to Black American ancestors who devoted their lives to spiritual, mystical, and esoteric paths. Songs and compositions were created in honor of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Aunt Caroline Dye, Howard Thurman, and Sun Ra, functioning as a form of live ancestral veneration. The evening featured an altar where the ensemble paid homage to ancestors, alongside mystical Southern incantations, storytelling, and poetry from Midnite Abioto. Performing as part of the ensemble, her presence helped weave the spiritual fabric of the night. A slideshow presentation accompanied the service, depicting ancestors such as Nat Turner, Sandy Jenkins (drawing), El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), Bishop C.H. Mason, Zora Neale Hurston, and A. C. Swamini Turiyasangitananda, among others — extending the vision of ancestry across the diaspora and visually deepening their presence throughout the space. The service concluded in sacred prayer led by DJ Ashé.
Each cassette in this trilogy is based off over a decade of audio-spiritual research on three beings who have created highly spiritual musical compositions, and who have transitioned off this planet in the physical: Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane (Swamini Turiyasangitananda), and Sun Ra. You will hear two ensembles - Roman Norfleet & Be Present Art Group as well as The Cosmic Tones Research Trio - play interpretations, responses, and hypotheses pertaining to the research on the music and message of those beings. Each cassette is simultaneously in tribute and is also a sonic dissertation. These cassettes are intended as future research on how the music of these beings affected the playing, the witnesses, and the hearers at the time of performance.
The first cassette "Something’s Happening: The Transitioning of a Pharoah" centers the beingness and music of Pharaoh Sanders. This recording took place on the day of his transition (9-24-22) at The Lumber Room in Portland, Oregon and features the ensemble Roman Norfleet & Be Present Art Group. The news of Pharaoh’s transition stunned the whole planet. The ensemble had different compositions prepared for this day originally, but immediately made new sonic arrangements in response, prayer, grief, and gratitude. Norfleet had a formative encounter with Sanders around 2013 while working as a computer salesman and learned about the music of Sanders directly from him. They spent hours in conversation on technology and music, which included talks about Sun Ra.
The second cassette is titled "Explorations of Turiya Loka" and was recorded at Leach Botanical Garden in Portland, Oregon (9-24-23). "Turiya" is a spiritual, blissful state and "Loka" means planet - according to Vedic spiritual systems. Turiya Loka is a spiritual, blissful planet. This cassette holds a recorded ceremony by Roman Norfleet & Be Present Art Group honoring the music and spiritual teachings of Swamini Turiyasangitananda (also known as Alice Coltrane) and explores what Turiya Loka may sound like. Turiya Loka is a home for Swamini Turiyasangitananda based on her song “Om Supreme” on the album Eternity. Since 2017, Norfleet has been studying and fellowshipping with the students of Swamini Turiyasangitananda who are based in California and still run the Vedantic Center organization. The organization continues to hold classes and ceremony. In this recording, listeners will get a chance to hear spiritual insight from Radha Botofasina, who is a student of Swamini Turiyasangitananda and lived on the ashram the spiritual teacher founded in Agoura Hills, California.
The final cassette consists of music from The Cosmic Tones Research Trio composed of Harlan Silverman, Kennedy Verrett, and Norfleet. It was recorded in community at Mississippi Records in Portland, Oregon (12-3-23). The ensemble's name gives a nod to Sun Ra’s "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" album title and was formed for extensive research purposes pertaining to universal and cosmic tones - how they affect human mental wellness and overall interspecies wellbeing. Sun Ra’s "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" is a great example and research tool for audio wellness. The evening of this concert was the trio’s first mental wellness event which had tremendous positive effects on the beings and buildings present and surrounding.
From Asmara, Eritrea(formerly Ethiopia) Tewolde Redda revolutionized the sounds of traditional Eritrean music by amplifying his kirar, playing his Eko electric guitar, and recording six singles in the first part of the 1970’s. Including the first Eritrean songs to use a horn section, traditional songs reworked into his new sound, and originals influenced by radio broadcasts from the United States military base in Asmara, Kagnew Station, these ten songs originally released on the Philips, Amha, and Yared labels show off his talents with stringed instruments, a talented back up band, and often the hand clapped beat shifting into double time near the song’s end. Tewolde’s thick, deep voice sings songs of love over somber and joyous tunes. Comes in a “tip-on” sleeve with extensive liner notes, lyrical translations, and unpublished photos. A co-release with Mitmitta Musika of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. Second pressing coming around March, 2022.
For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of “Afro Mingei.” The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance — “Black is Beautiful” defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.
Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried “Portrait of Yanagi” drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent “Galaxy” gestures toward Sun Ra’s late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotus’s early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okada’s choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarek’s “Nefertite” shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europe’s own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzuki’s “Love” channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.
Okada’s life has been shaped by such crossings. He grew up in Fussa, where the Yokota U.S. Air Force base loomed large, learning guitar in rowdy clubs for American servicemen while teaching himself recording at home. That hybrid education led to collaborations with Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, James Blackshaw, and Carlos Niño, and to a body of work spanning film soundtracks, collaborative projects, and exploratory solo albums. Earlier this year, Temporal Drift released The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line, which features selections from Okada’s expansive archive of recorded material, cementing his reputation as one of Japan’s most adventurous contemporary musicians. With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.
- Words by Randall Roberts
Orgone, a contemporary funk band based in Los Angeles, has spent years updating the sound of 60s and 70s soul and funk for the modern era. Among their catalog, New You stands out as one of the most beloved releases among fans.
For Takuro Okada, this marks his first physical release since *Konoma*, which received high praise from media outlets and listeners both in Japan and abroad. This work was created for the campaign promoting the new “MT2” footwear line designed by TOKYO DESIGN STUDIO New Balance. The campaign video is available on New Balance T-HOUSE’s owned media platform. Side A, “Still Water,” features Shouei Ikeda (flute) and is composed of a minimalist ensemble that strips the arrangement down to the bare essentials while incorporating elements of folk and Afro-music. Recorded based on improvised performances and captured on analog tape, the track evokes the subtle fluctuations of sound and rich spaces reminiscent of a still water’s surface. Side B, “Dohman Sehman,” takes the mood of vintage funk as its starting point while weaving in a melodic sensibility and folkloric resonance reminiscent of Japanese folk songs and kayōkyoku. Featuring up-and-coming musicians such as Kei Matsumaru (alto sax), Mei Katsumaru (tenor sax), Yuma Koda (Wurlitzer / Farfisa), Yuka Konishi (bass), and Hayate Ebihara (drums), this track is marked by a powerful groove created by a spatial mix reminiscent of dub techniques and a robust rhythm section. With “Still Water,” which is imbued with serene stillness, and “Dohman Sehman,” which contains a powerful groove, these two contrasting tracks showcase the breadth of Takuro Okada’s creative evolution since *Konoma*.
After the acclaimed Bar Mediterraneo, Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina return with a new album that broadens the scope of their sound even further, sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules into a constellation of gravity-defying creative freedom. People Of The Moon is not an imagined cosmic species, but a dimension within us all. Deeply personal yet universally shared. An alternative way of thinking that lays dormant until we find the courage to untether it, helping us experience life more fully. It is that precious sphere of the soul that slips away from everyday life. A form of self-expression free from the social pressures that weigh on each, at every latitude on the planet. Under the moonlight, these songs trace anxieties and aspirations, guided by the international language of groove and rhythmic motion, articulated in Neapolitan, Arabic, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It speaks with equal clarity through the Afro-Cuban influences of Celavì (“That’s Life”), with its circular rhythmic energy, and through the Anatolian zurna of Ma Tu Che Bbuò (“What Do You Want?” in Neapolitan), moving from highlife guitars to the mandolins that have become a Nu Genea signature. New idioms and rhythms, filtered through an Italian perspective. The first single Sciallà (“Go Away” in Neapolitan), released in the summer of 2025, already hinted at what was taking shape in the Nu Genea workshop - a radiant guide to embracing difficulty and finding relief in dance. Not so much an escape, but a form of catharsis. Looking up at the giant mirror ball orbiting above us, we catch a glimpse of our best selves reflected back, and appreciate that the People Of The Moon invoked in the title track are more familiar than we first realised. There’s a kind of resilience in these voices that isn’t loud or triumphant, but persistent and rooted in the simple act of continuing. The imagery of high-speed motion is central to Onenon (“On and On”), where British singer and multi-instrumentalist Tom Misch helps conjure a Mediterranean brit-funk reminiscent of Pino D’Angiò’s basslines. The voice in Acelera (“Speed Up” in Spanish) summons the strength to chase the moon as if it were an unattainable ideal, in this Andalusian-tinged track featuring María José Llergo, who also lends her voice to Celavì. Both tracks are among the more languorous arrangements, with flamenco palmas introducing an original fusion into the Nu Genea groove. With its driving momentum, Puleza (“Clean Up” in Neapolitan) recalls the spirit of Nuova Napoli, albeit with vintage synth textures and wild, unrestrained delays. The track’s protagonist, performed by Fabiana Martone, is another of our lunar dwellers. Yet even when it leans into forward motion, People Of The Moon doesn’t pulse at a frantic pace, moving instead through shifting states of speed, orbit, and suspension. In fact, the Levantine bossa nova Shway Shway (“Slowly, Slowly” in Arabic), sung by Celinatique, captures the orbital motion of the entire record. Not exactly slow, but measured. Rich in color, and marked by a rhythmic complexity that was also heard on the duo’s rare access to foundational afrobeat on The Tony Allen Experiments. All the while, the album remains deeply attuned to melody - a Nu Genea hallmark - as heard in the effervescent hook of Carè (“Falling” in Neapolitan). In the lunar microgravity of these ten tracks, falling and flying become interchangeable with dancing as ways of following the beat, suspended yet compelled to move. That compulsion is also invoked by Brazilian percussionist Gabriel Prado, making his vocal debut on Ondas Do Mar (“Waves Of The Sea” in Portuguese). The pull of the waves, a constant interplay of motion and return, steady as a lunar phase, is impossible to resist. One might as well lean into the blue, not to dissolve but to rebuild. “Você vai ver que dentro de nós / vai rolar”: you’ll see that something will happen within us.
Originally released in June 2009, The Ecstatic stands as a defining artistic statement from Mos Def (now known as yasiin bey) — a richly textured return to form that reaffirmed his status as one of hip-hop’s most adventurous and intellectually engaged voices. Arriving a decade after his celebrated debut Black on Both Sides, the album was widely regarded as his strongest work in years, earning near-universal praise for its lyrical breadth, eclectic production, and thematic ambition. Musically, The Ecstatic weaves a global sonic tapestry shaped by an array of forward-thinking producers including Madlib, J Dilla, Oh No, Preservation, Mr. Flash, Chad Hugo (of The Neptunes), and Georgia Anne Muldrow. The resulting soundscape is both rooted in hip-hop tradition and unbound by genre, integrating elements of jazz, soul, Middle-Eastern inflection, and experimental sample work. Tracks like “Supermagic” and “Twilite Speedball” establish a vibrant, restless energy that mirrors the album’s expansive creative scope. Lyrically, yasiin bey traverses personal, political, and philosophical terrain with characteristic incisiveness, confronting social inequality, Western imperialism, and questions of cultural identity with poetic urgency. Embracing risk and complexity rather than nostalgia, The Ecstatic remains a mature, deeply felt body of work whose ambition, depth, and enduring resonance have solidified its place as a standout entry in Mos Def’s catalog and in modern hip-hop history.
Before Afrobeat, there was Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul. Highlife music, originally from Ghana and widely popular across West Africa, dominated the music scene in Lagos when Fela Kuti returned to the newly independent Nigeria in 1963. Fela had been studying trumpet at Trinity College of Music in London where he met drummer Tony Allen, who also joined him in new group Koola Lobitos as they sought to mix things up by introducing the sounds they had heard in the capital's jazz clubs. The music of Fela Kuti has never been easy for beginners to know where to start and this album of early recordings with Koola Lobitos represents a largely unknown, or at least unheard, period of his career. Released on Parlophone Nigeria in the mid ‘60s remained out of print for a long time. While Fela's Afrobeat compositions took the groove to its limit over side-long tunes, the first disc of early 7" singles here demonstrates the group's desire to take existing sounds and create something new, if not the extended focus and political message that would come later. The group were still developing ahead of the curve though and the abstract sounds were new to listeners in Nigeria, incorporating jazz chords into highlife arrangements. Record starts with ‘Signature Tune’, a short, sharp blast of percussion-led brass that leads into ‘It’s Highlife Time’, which provides a statement of intent as Fela introduces the music that's "got the beat". You get a feel for how the group could ignite a dancefloor, as the group's highlife rhythms fuse with Fela's jazz licks on the trumpet, inspired by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. ‘Olulufe’ shows a steadier side of the group, as snaky saxophone lines weave around Fela's vocals, transporting the influence of American jazz musicians back to Africa. The horn blasts around the extended dance rhythms of ‘Obinrin Le (Women Are Unpredictable)’ is perhaps the closest to the kind of arrangements that would be developed later.
A longtime favorite among Brazilian music collectors! Trio Ternura’s ‘A Gira’, originally released in 1973, blends mid-tempo grooves with percussive funk and soul in a way that feels effortlessly timeless. We're excited to make this incredible single available once again, cut at 45 RPM and remastered from the original tapes. *****AUDIO*****: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UATvde65bzI ¡Uno de los singles favoritos entre los coleccionistas de música brasileña! ‘A Gira’, del Trio Ternura, publicado originalmente en 1973, combina ritmos de tempo medio con funk y soul percusivo de una forma que resulta atemporal. Nos alegra poder ofrecer de nuevo este increíble single, cortado a 45 RPM y remasterizado a partir de las cintas originales.
Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings. This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global.
Back to the golden nights of zouk clubs, where hip-hop, kompa, zouk and Caribbean grooves ruled the dance- floor. This selection documents a pivotal moment : a time when zouk was still not a fixed genre, but more a place, an atmosphere, somewhere people went to dance. It captures the spirit of an era: its creative effervescence, musical freedom, and the diversity of artists who shaped it. The very concept of “Kaz A Zouk” perfectly encapsulates this idea: a space where all styles could meet. Curated by Émile Omar, the driving force behind the Disques Debs and Radio Nova compilations — alongside Tropical Discoteq, Paris’s legendary tropical club night.
SML is a Los Angeles based quintet featuring Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.
'Spontaneous Music Live' contains two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, recorded live at Los Angeles venue Zebulon during SML's December 2025 three-night residency, just weeks after the release of the band's second album HOW YOU BEEN. It was recorded and mixed live to analog tape by Bryce Gonzales (the same engineer/wizard known for his gorgeous live captures/mixes of Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet).
Between HOW YOU BEEN and their 2024 debut SMALL MEDIUM LARGE (both of which were heavily edited, shaped and post-produced) the band has developed a reputation for records that are heavily fused, polished, and punchy. The medium is on full post-modern display on those LPs, and the band’s post-production knife can be responsible for much of the perspective — the tastiest morsels collected, arranged, and rearranged just so.
But the source material from both those albums were live recordings. Long-form, unwieldy, ebbing and flowing. On top of that, every performance the band has ever done has been fully improvised in that spirit. So in the sphere of live performance the band’s esteem has grown down a different path — one of linear, hypnotic, expansion. It’s a perceived split persona shared by some of SML’s most inspiring conceptual bedfellows: compare the extended madness of Can’s 'Live in Paris 1973' to the relative tight form of 'Future Days' from the same year; the speed-funk chaos of Miles Davis’ 'Dark Magus' to the heavily deconstructed 'On The Corner' or 'Big Fun'.
'Spontaneous Music Live' removes the curatorial perspective and pulls the curtain back on that search-pluck-reconstruct editing process. What we’re left with is the psychedelic realism of the band in situ, in their home town, collectively improvising, fully in-the-moment, mining for that moment of discovery. We hear, in macro, each nugget of sound which could be the basis for a future SML album track, spattered amongst the collective chaos-and-control like stars in the night sky.
SML is a Los Angeles based quintet featuring Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.
'Spontaneous Music Live' contains two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, recorded live at Los Angeles venue Zebulon during SML's December 2025 three-night residency, just weeks after the release of the band's second album HOW YOU BEEN. It was recorded and mixed live to analog tape by Bryce Gonzales (the same engineer/wizard known for his gorgeous live captures/mixes of Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet).
Between HOW YOU BEEN and their 2024 debut SMALL MEDIUM LARGE (both of which were heavily edited, shaped and post-produced) the band has developed a reputation for records that are heavily fused, polished, and punchy. The medium is on full post-modern display on those LPs, and the band’s post-production knife can be responsible for much of the perspective — the tastiest morsels collected, arranged, and rearranged just so.
But the source material from both those albums were live recordings. Long-form, unwieldy, ebbing and flowing. On top of that, every performance the band has ever done has been fully improvised in that spirit. So in the sphere of live performance the band’s esteem has grown down a different path — one of linear, hypnotic, expansion. It’s a perceived split persona shared by some of SML’s most inspiring conceptual bedfellows: compare the extended madness of Can’s 'Live in Paris 1973' to the relative tight form of 'Future Days' from the same year; the speed-funk chaos of Miles Davis’ 'Dark Magus' to the heavily deconstructed 'On The Corner' or 'Big Fun'.
'Spontaneous Music Live' removes the curatorial perspective and pulls the curtain back on that search-pluck-reconstruct editing process. What we’re left with is the psychedelic realism of the band in situ, in their home town, collectively improvising, fully in-the-moment, mining for that moment of discovery. We hear, in macro, each nugget of sound which could be the basis for a future SML album track, spattered amongst the collective chaos-and-control like stars in the night sky.
Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu emerge from Nairobi's flourishing underground metal scene as former members of the bands Lust of a Dying Breed and Seeds of Datura. Together in 2019 they formed Duma (Darkness in Kikuyu) with Sam abandoning bass for production and guitars and Lord Spike Heart providing extreme vocals to the project.
Recorded at Nyege Nyege Studios in Kampala over three months in mid 2019 their self-titled debut album fuses the frenetic euphoria, unrelenting physicality and rebellious attitude of hardcore punk and trash metal with bone-crunching breakcore and raw, nihilist industrial noise through a claustrophobic vortex of visceral screams.
The savant mix of brutally adrenalized drums, caustic industrial trap, shredding grindcore inspired guitars and abrupt speed changes create a darkly atmospheric menace and is lethal on tracks like the opener "Angels and Abysses" , "Omni" or "Uganda with Sam".
The gruelling slow techno dirges and monolithic vocals on "Pembe 666" or "Sin Nature" add a pinch of dramatic inevitability bringing a new sense of theatricality and terrifying fate awaiting into the record's progression.
A sinister sonic aggression of feral intensity with disregard for styles, Duma promises to impact the burgeoning African metal scene moving it into totally new, boundary-challenging experimental territories.
Orgone, a contemporary funk band based in Los Angeles, has spent years updating the sound of 60s and 70s soul and funk for the modern era. Among their catalog, New You stands out as one of the most beloved releases among fans.
Orgone, a contemporary funk band based in Los Angeles, has spent years updating the sound of 60s and 70s soul and funk for the modern era. Among their catalog, New You stands out as one of the most beloved releases among fans.