MUSIC

Malian guitar sorcery of the highest order.

You shall not pass. Connecting Wasulu hunter music, griot praises, Senufo pastoral dances, Fula and Mandingo repertoire alongside Western psychedelia, blues and afro-beat, Zani Diabaté’s Super Djata Band was among Mali’s top orchestras of the 1980s. For their 1981 album, the Bamako-based orchestra discovers the wah-wah pedal, delivering six mind-ravishing guitar workouts for the proletariat.

For their third album on Bongo Joe, Madalitso Band takes a new direction.

After two records capturing the raw intensity of their live performances, the Malawian duo ventures for the first time into the possibilities of the studio — without ever compromising their signature style or energy.

Armed with their handmade babatone, a guitar, and their interwoven voices, Yobu and Yosefe craft a sound at the crossroads of banjo music, kwela, gospel, and African folk. An acoustic trance that’s both minimal and vibrant, deeply rooted in tradition yet undeniably fresh and contemporary. On Ma Gitala, they add new textures: layered vocals, playful percussion, melodic surprises, and guests from their close and family circles.

Always guided by instinct, the band reveals a more intimate and narrative side of their universe — full of memories, spontaneity, and close-knit complicity. An album that captures the joy and creativity of two artists who turned the street into a stage, and the stage into a playground.

For their third album on Bongo Joe, Madalitso Band takes a new direction.

After two records capturing the raw intensity of their live performances, the Malawian duo ventures for the first time into the possibilities of the studio — without ever compromising their signature style or energy.

Armed with their handmade babatone, a guitar, and their interwoven voices, Yobu and Yosefe craft a sound at the crossroads of banjo music, kwela, gospel, and African folk. An acoustic trance that’s both minimal and vibrant, deeply rooted in tradition yet undeniably fresh and contemporary. On Ma Gitala, they add new textures: layered vocals, playful percussion, melodic surprises, and guests from their close and family circles.

Always guided by instinct, the band reveals a more intimate and narrative side of their universe — full of memories, spontaneity, and close-knit complicity. An album that captures the joy and creativity of two artists who turned the street into a stage, and the stage into a playground.

“This is the time that we, who have benefited from the Last Poets should be able to say, ‘it’s the Last Poets. It’s them we should be honouring, because we did not honour them for so many years…”

KRS One wasn’t just addressing the hip hop fraternity when he uttered those words by way of introducing the video for Invocation – a poem written thirty years ago, around the time of the Last Poets’ last significant comeback. He was speaking to everyone who’s been affected by the word, sound and power issuing from the most revolutionary poetry ever witnessed, and that the Last Poets had introduced to the world outside of Harlem at the dawn of the seventies.

In 2018 the two remaining Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan, embarked on another memorable return with an album – Understand What Black Is – that earned favourable comparison with their seminal works of the past, whilst showcasing their undimmed passion and lyrical brilliance in an entirely new setting – that of reggae music. Tracks like Rain Of Terror (“America is a terrorist”) and How Many Bullets demonstrated that they’d lost none of their fire or anger, and their essential raison d’etre remained the same.

“The Last Poets’ mission was to pull the people out of the rubble o f their lives,” wrote their biographer Kim Green. “They knew, deep down that poetry could save the people – that if black people could see and hear themselves and their struggles through the spoken word, they would be moved to change.”

Several years later and the follow-up is now with us. The project started when Tony Allen, the Nigerian master drummer whose unique polyrhythms had driven much of Fela Kuti’s best work, dropped by Prince Fatty’s Brighton studio and laid down a selection of drum patterns to die for. That was back in 2019, but then the pandemic struck. Once it had passed, the label booked a studio in Brooklyn, where the two Poets voiced four tracks apiece and breathed fresh energy, fire and outrage into some of the most enduring landmarks of their career. Abiodun, who was one of the original Last Poets who’d gathered in East Harlem’s Mount Morris Park to celebrate Malcolm X’s birthday in May 1968, chose four poems that first appeared on the group’s 1970 debut album, called simply The Last Poets. He’d written When The Revolution Comes aged twenty, whilst living in Jamaica, Queens. “We were getting ready for a revolution,” he told Green. “There wasn’t any question about whether there was going to be one or not. The truth was many of us still saw ourselves as “niggers” and slaves. This was a mindset that had to change if there was ever to be Black Power.”

He and writer Amiri Baraka were deep in conversation one day when Baraka became distracted by a pretty girl walking by. “You’re a gash man,” Abiodun told him. The poem inspired by that incident, Gash Man, is revisited on the new album, and exposes the heartless nature of sexual acts shorn of intimacy or affection. “Instead of the vagina being the entrance to heaven,” he says, “it too often becomes a gash, an injury, a wound…”

Two Little Boys meanwhile, was inspired after seeing two young boys aged around 11 or 12 “stuffing chicken and cornbread down their tasteless mouths, trying to revive shrinking lungs and a wasted mind.” They’d walked into Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem, ordered big meals, then bolted them down and run out the door. No one chased after them, knowing that they probably hadn’t eaten in days. Fifty years later and children are still going hungry in major cities across America and elsewhere. Abiodun’s poem hasn’t lost any relevance at all, and neither has New York, New York, The Big Apple. “Although this was written in 1968, New York hasn’t changed a bit,” he admits, except “today, people just mistake her sickness for fashion.”

Umar is originally from Akron, Ohio, but had arrived in Harlem in early 1969 after seeing Abiodun and the other Last Poets at a Black Arts Festival in Cleveland. That’s where he first witnessed what Amiri Baraka once called “the rhythmic animation of word, poem, image as word-music” – a creative force that redefined the concept of performance poetry and stripped it bare until it became a howl of rage, hurt and anger, saved from destruction by mockery and love for humanity. When Umar’s father, who was a musician, was jailed for armed robbery he took to the streets from an early age where he shined shoes and raised whatever money he could to help feed his eight brothers and sisters. By the time he saw the Last Poets he’d joined the Black United Front and was ready to join the struggle.

Once in Harlem, Abiodun asked him what he’d learnt in the few weeks since he’d got there. “Niggers are scared of revolution,” Umar replied. “Write it down” urged Abiodun. That poem still gives off searing heat more than fifty years later. In Umar’s own words, “it became a prayer, a call to arms, a spiritual pond to bathe and cleanse in because niggers are not just vile and disgusting and shiftless. Niggers are human beings lost in someone else’s system of values and morals.”

And there you have it. It's not just race or religion that hold us back, but an economic system that keeps millions in poverty and living in fear – a system born from political choice and that’s now become so entrenched, so bloated on its own success that it’s put mankind in mortal danger. It was many black people’s acceptance of the status quo that inspired Just Because, which like Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution, was included on that seminal first album. Along with their revolutionary rhetoric, it was the Last Poets’ use of the “n word” that proved so shocking, but it would be wrong to suggest that they reclaimed it, since it never belonged to black people in the first place. There’s never any hiding place when it comes to the Last Poets. They use words like weapons, and that force all who listen to decide who they are and where they stand.

Umar’s two remaining tracks find him revisiting poems first unleashed on the Poets’ second album This Is Madness! Abiodun had left for North Carolina by then where he became more deeply enmeshed in revolutionary activities and spent almost four years in jail for armed robbery after attempting to seize funds related to the Klu Klux Klan. Meanwhile, the 21 year old Umar was squatting in Brooklyn and had developed close ties with the Dar-ul Islam Movement. A longing for purity and time-honoured spiritual values underpins Related to What, whilst This Is Madness is a call for freedom “by any means necessary,” and that paints a feverish landscape peopled by prominent black leaders but that quickly descends into chaos. “All my dreams have been turned into psychedelic nightmares,” he wails, over a groove now powered by Tony Allen’s ferocious drumming.

Those sessions lasted just two days, and we can only imagine the atmosphere in that room as the hip hop godfathers exchanged the conga drums of Harlem for the explosive sounds of authentic Afrobeat. Once they’d finished, the recordings and momentum returned to Prince Fatty’s studio, since relocated from Brighton to SE London. This was stage three of the project, and who better to fill out the rhythm tracks than two key musicians from Seun Anikulapo Kuti’s band Egypt 80? Enter guitarist Akinola Adio Oyebola and bassist Kunle Justice, who upon hearing Allen’s trademark grooves exclaimed, “oh, the Father… we are home!”

Such joy and enthusiasm resulted in the perfect fusion of Nigerian Afrobeat and revolutionary poetry, but the vision for the album wasn’t yet complete. He wanted to create a new kind of soundscape – one that reunited the Poets with the progressive jazz movement they’d once shared with musicians like Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders. It was at that point they recruited exciting jazz talents based in the UK like Joe Armon Jones from Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective, also widely acclaimed producer/remixer and keyboard player Kaidi Tatham, who’s been likened to Herbie Hancock, and British jazz legend Courtney Pine, whose genius on the saxophone and influence on the UK’s now vibrant jazz scene is beyond question.

The instrumental tracks on Africanism are in many ways as revelatory and exciting as the Last Poets’ own. It’s important to remember that the kaleidoscope of styles and influences we’re presented with here aren’t the result of sampling but were played “live” by musicians responding to sounds made by other musicians. That’s where the magic comes from, aided by Prince Fatty’s peerless mixing which allows us to hear everything with such clarity. Music fans today have grown accustomed to listening to all kinds of different genres. Their tastes have never been so broad or all-encompassing, and so the music on this new Last Poets’ album is as groundbreaking as their lyrics, and perfectly suited to the era that we’re now living in.

In dark and difficult times, the music of Barney Lister and Kojo Degraft-Johnson lifts us up. As MRCY, across the eight tracks of VOLUME 2, they deliver on their premise of emotive music that surprises as much as it comforts, referencing timeless sounds as much as a sense of the cutting edge. If their debut release, 2024’s VOLUME 1, which blended Kojo’s ecstatic vocals and Barney’s masterful analogue production, showcased MRCY’s lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry, VOLUME 2 builds from there to a collection that is more sophisticated, thematic, and definitely more modern, exploring love, self-discovery, and healing. “We’re trying to extinguish fear with optimism and worry with love,” Barney says, on confronting the many crises of modern life in their new release. “VOLUME 2 breaks the mould to present a bigger picture of who we are – something with angst, surprises and more guts.” Opening numbers “Angels” and “Wanna Know (Ontario)” draw on a classic MRCY feel with their infectious grooves, soaring group harmonies and warm uplifting horns, harnessing Kojo’s flawless falsetto in an emotive introspection that yearns for a better future or for the affection of another. Yet, as the record progresses, MRCY launches into unexpected sounds and new themes. On “Man”, Kojo sings about the challenges of modern masculinity and questions the ways that men can change for the better over an energetic afrobeat polyrhythms and a jazz-inflected flute solo. “Being a man in this world is complicated and it can feel like a battle to stay open and kind," Kojo explains. “That’s why the track has that driving battle groove and the lines ‘Move out the dark and lead with light/Fight for the love a thousand times’ because we need to come together to make ourselves change for the better." Standout number “Flicker” sees Kojo sing about the temptation to give yourself emotionally to people who don’t deserve it over a Ghanaian highlife riff and a dancefloor-filling bassline. First meeting in 2021 after Barney discovered a clip of Kojo singing on Instagram and was taken by his soaring, Stevie Wonder-referencing vocals, the pair linked up at Barney’s Brixton studio and discovered an immediate connection. “It’s the most natural music I’ve ever made,” Kojo says. “Being with Barney in the studio, the ideas just come pouring out and we always lead with our initial feelings, since that produces the most authentic and heartfelt music.” The duo’s innate confidence in each other stems from their impressive musical pedigree. Barney grew up in Huddersfield and was introduced to the Yorkshire town’s soundsystem culture from an early age before going on to produce and collaborate with everyone from vocalist Obongjayar to popstar Rina Sawayama, Mercury Prize-nominees Joy Crookes, Olivia Dean and Celeste and Glaswegian soul singer Joesef. Kojo, meanwhile, draws on his South London Church-going background to deliver a mighty vocal power that references gospel emotion, choral harmony and the catalogue of soul greats like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. Earning his stripes on London’s jam circuit, he has since provided vocals for Cleo Sol, Little Simz, Jungle and Liam Gallagher. Following the release of VOLUME 1 on tastemaking label Dead Oceans, MRCY earned a nomination for Rising Star at the Rolling Stone Awards and were named one of DIY’s Class of 2025 and Rolling Stone’s Ones to Watch. The duo also embarked on a UK and EU tour with US soul group Black Pumas and sold out their headline show at London’s Jazz Café, honing an assertive stage presence that channels tight-knit classic soul ensembles in the process. “The whole of 2024 felt like a dream, from getting signed to touring and playing our first shows to thousands of people,” says Barney. “It was a process that brought the two of us closer together, since we’ve been through so much now. Seeing the music take on a life of its own has also driven us to make even more of a statement with VOLUME 2.” The duo have certainly made huge strides since their debut release last year, and with live dates planned for later in 2025, as well as writing set to commence on their debut album, it seems there is no slowing down MRCY – a group making vital music that speaks to the complexities of being alive today. “The main feeling of the project is that the world is fucked but let’s dance through it,” Barney says. “We can’t wait for people to hear it and to feel energised by the message.” It’s a sound and a signal that has never felt more necessary.

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

オランダ・ロッテルダムのDJ Shaun-Dによる、バブリングからダッチ・ハウスへの進化を辿るコンピレーション・アルバム『From Bubbling to Dutch House』が、〈Nyege Nyege Tapes〉よりリリース。本作には、1990年代のスピードアップされたダンスホールを基盤に、エレクトロ・ハウス、トラップ、B-More、レイヴなどを融合させた、シュリルなシンセとシンクロペーションが特徴の全10曲を収録。初期の代表曲"Pull Up"や"XXXmachine"から、未発表の新曲
Outta Control"、"Ultra Instinct"まで、DJ Shaun-Dのキャリアを網羅した内容となっています。

南アフリカ出身のDJ DadamanとMoscow Dollarによる最新作『Kagaza』が、ウガンダ版〈PAN〉な大名門〈Nyege Nyege Tapes〉から登場。本作では、バカルディ、クワイト、アマピアノ、ハウス、シンセ・ポップといった様々なジャンルやスタイルを横断した全6曲を収録。ミリタリスティックなスネア、プロト・アマピアノ／ポスト・クワイトのベースライン、ハウス風のM1ピアノ・フレーズ、曲がりくねったシンセ・シークエンスが特徴的。バントゥー語のXitsongaで歌うMoscow Dollarのヴォーカルが、タウンシップの生活を生き生きと描写していきます。南アフリカの豊かな音楽の歴史を伝えると同時に、未来を予言するようなサウンドが詰まった一枚！

Albert Ayler's 1970 album “Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe” is now available on Endless Happiness! Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe" is a unique work that marks the end of Ayler's career, and as the title suggests, it is a spiritual jazz masterpiece with the grand theme that music is a cosmic healing force. While free jazz is the core of the album, Ayler's experimental spirit is on full display as he boldly introduces elements as diverse as electric guitar, blues, gospel, and poetry reading. Particularly impressive are the vocals and poetry readings of his partner, Mary Maria Parks, which give the whole piece a sense of mystical religiosity and prayer, resonating with the cosmic spiritual jazz of Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders, among others. This album was released just before Ayler's death, so it can be heard as his last will and testament.

Narciso has been running parallel to most of his contemporaries, staying close to the main lane but researching in his own distinctive way. He takes pride in "being free from limitations and conventions. To me, music doesn't follow fixed rules; it is a field for experimentation, where any sound can be transformed into something pleasing to the ear". Depending on what one considers "pleasing", this is a pretty challenging set of tracks. The artist never loses the balance, though, mindful of a certain "dance" context in which this music thrives, but it is also that same context that is being constantly twisted and reshaped into other forms. Some of those provide fresh ground for others to follow; some are of such individuality that no one else dares disturbance; some quickly return to a safer way of communication.

"Diferenciado" does communicate, but like words can be changed to sound different and still mean the same, such are music and sound with Narciso. It's not about alienation of the listener nor alienation of the self from the surrounding areas. "I believe music is present in everything around us." And if anyone can say her/his/their music "reflects vision, experience and perception", you know the end result is not often surprising or even that different from previous examples. Well, we stand by "Diferenciado" in its obvious distinctiveness, and if all the blurb so far may read like a nervous justification it's just because of the excitement in helping put this out into the world.

As a founding element of RS Produções, where Nuno Beats, DJ Lima, DJ Nulo and Farucox are also found, Narciso has been contributing to a spiritual and creative atmosphere that permeates the environs of Lisbon where that golden, inspired air has to fight for space with many kinds of instability. The beauty and drama of opening tracks "Ziu Ziu" and "Cabelinho" (this one with mate Farucox) should be able to touch any sensitive soul that appreciates the quirkiness often attached to pure expression. As in "Pipipi" too, for example, where melody and rhythm gently and moodily lead you into a brief but sudden interruption feeling like a change into another state of being. Do not shy away. Narciso steps up as himself, not as representative of whatever or whoever.

Hailing from Tanzania's bustling cultural hub Dar Es Salaam - the biggest city in East Africa - young beatmaker DJ Travella is setting the breakneck pace for its musical evolution. He's been producing since he was just 10 years old and has already bent singeli into surprising new shapes, welding euphoric EDM breakdowns and earworm-y R&B riffs to the Tanzanian genre's frenetic rhythms. 'Twende' is a straight-to-the-point set of the producer's most requested secret weapons - four hyper-melodic floor fillers that were developed shortly after releasing his acclaimed debut album 'Mr Mixondo'. Featured on his popular Boiler Room performance, these tracks will be familiar to anyone who's managed to catch one of his sets.

Starting things out right with 'Trust', a wonky, festival-ready 170BPM ass shaker that shuffles a familiar singeli beat around wormy synths, Travella keeps things moving with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it 'Believe', a minute and a half of brassy pop fanfares and buzzing rhythms. On 'Mchakamchaka' he introduces quivering soukous guitar phrases into the mix, keeping up the momentum with crowd noise and pneumatic sound design vamps, and 'Vumbi Vumbi' slows things down, just a bit, splaying plasticky, acidic leads over blown-out syncopated beats. It's one for the feet, no doubt.

Recorded in Kampala, 'Mapambazuko' pairs Peruvian artist and researcher Alejandra Cárdenas (aka Ale Hop) with Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta, who locate a balmy junction between their respective approaches. Bakorta's debut album 'Molende', released on Nyege Nyege Tapes in 2023, was an eccentric rumination on his years performing a unique fusion of Congolese soukous and folk sounds, and 'Mapambazuko' picks up where it left off, looping Bakorta's wiry guitar solos around Cárdenas' psychedelic Afro-Latin rhythms and fractured synths. Cárdenas' last run of albums have bounced her around the stylistic map: on the acclaimed 'Agua Dulce', she deconstructed traditional Peruvian rhythms with Laura Robles, while she traversed radically different territory on 2021's 'The life of Insects', imagining an abstract universe from the inside of a terrarium. All this experience - in pop music, electroacoustic experimentation and avant-garde minimalism - is applied to 'Mapambazuko' as she skews Bakorta's exuberant themes with subtle sound design elements and powerful, uncompromising drumwork.

Opener 'Bonne année' is a twitchy, effervescent party starter, with a frenetic rhythm from Cárdenas that gradually picks up grit, only enhancing the vivid soukous-inspired phrases from Bakorta. And on the title track, Bakorta's rubbery improvisations sound as if they're bouncing off Cárdenas' dissociated whirrs and squeals, while the duo's furious pulse holds their raw experimentation in check. Their worlds collide even more conspicuously on 'Una cumbia en Kinshasa', that identifies the similarities between psychedelic Peruvian cumbia and Congolese pop, and on 'Así baila el sintetizador' they ratchet up the tempo, smudging Bakorta's fictile riffs into Cárdenas' zesty oscillations. The acceleration only lets up on the album's gauzy finale 'Nitaangaza', where Bakorta plays dizzy psych-rock wails over Cárdenas' syrup-laced thuds and lopsided drones. And the album is filled out with three exclusive remixes. Kenyan sound artist KMRU strips the beat from 'Nitaangaza' and brings out its latent sensuality, adding light-headed pads and soft-hearted tones to re-contextualize the original track.

On her rework, Cárdenas augments 'Una cumbia en Kinshasa' with an even more belligerent rhythm, cutting further into Bakorta's glistening riffs and eventually guiding the track into chattering chaos. While Flora Yin-Wong marches towards the end credits with a sultry, percussive version of 'Así baila el sintetizador'. Slowing it down to a crawl and emphasizing the eerie, artificial landscape, Yin-Wong shines moonlight on Bakorta and Cárdenas' sun-baked grooves, providing the necessary wind-down as the party comes to an end.

The second volume of Nyege Nyege's career-spanning DJ Znobia retrospective, 'Inventor Vol. 2' continues the vital story of one of Africa's most influential artists - a producer, singer and DJ who's spent three decades inking his signature onto kuduro and tarraxinha. The label combed through Znobia's vast archives to assemble the four-volume set, picking out the most essential moments from over 700 tracks written between the late 1990s and the mid 2000s; these aren't just the expected dancefloor heaters either, but a sprawling anthology that shines a spotlight on Znobia's innovation and unhinged mastery.

On 'Inventor Vol. 2', Angola-born Sebastião Lopes' light-hearted sense of humor floats visibly to the surface. He samples the viral "Baby T-Pain" YouTube clip and flips it into a hypnotic wail on 'Choro do Corno', offsetting the melodic Auto-Tune layers with his idiosyncratic slowed-down kuduro thuds. Meanwhile, on the chaotic 'Beat Cursor', Znobia raids the Windows sound library, turning eerily familiar error chimes and message alert sirens into percussion that jerks and sways around urgent hand drum rolls and neck-snapping snares. But elsewhere, the magic that led vocal breakouts like 'Marimba' to cult status is thrust into the foreground.

Lopes' slippery, robotic voice curls through syrupy beats and FL Studio-powered electronic harp plucks on 'Sofre', mimics an early Talkbox on the electro-powered 'Dance Da Ma Ju' and shimmers into a soft, romantic coo on 'Monandengue'. Each track highlights the Angolan original's voracious appetite for experimentation, and expresses the parallels between Znobia's kuduro and tarraxinha innovations, and similar future-facing Afro-diasporic moves made in grime, early techno or Brazilian funk. Just check the wheezing synths, haunted flutes and hollow, driving percussion on 'Kuduro ou Hunderground', or the pizzicato blasts and garbled oscillations that shadow Os Bonitos' elastic rhymes on stand-out 'Wo Adji Wo'.

From humble beginnings, learning to mix with just a couple of semba LPs, DJ Znobia took his cues from local traditional sounds and used their groove to power a new musical movement. And with 'Inventor Vol. 2' we're provided with another piece of the puzzle, a sequence of visions that have provided the wider world with modernism, eccentricity and vision. We're still feeling the shockwaves, decades later.

Based in Kampala, Arsenal Mikebe are a groundbreaking Ugandan ensemble who playfully dance around the fringes of of acoustic and electronic music, infusing tempo-fluxed polyrhythms with dizzying chants and ghostly synthetic drones. The band is made up of percussionists Ssentongo Moses, Dratele Epiphany, Luyambi Vincent de Paul and was co-founded by Portugese sonic alchemist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, together they straddle a unique custom instrument dreamt up by Ugandan master sculptor Henry Segamwenge, better known simply as Sega. By reverse engineering Roland's iconic TR-808 beatbox, they devised a steel-cast "percussion machine" that allows Arsenal Mikebe to seamlessly integrate bass-heavy electronic sounds into their frenetic performances, and it's this device that lies at the core of their debut album.

'DRUM MACHINE' is a rhythmic masterclass that's impossible to slot into any particular niche or other. Moses, Vincent and Dratele's kinetic beats appear to bisect each other, slipping between time signatures as fluidly as they pierce the membrane between the organic and the digital. On opening track 'Okuleekaana', brushy high-end hits coalesce into quivering patterns that bounce off the trio's guttural chants before the track's shuttled into peak-time by an ear-splitting distorted kick. Harsh death metal-style growls echo and spiral into the distance, and Sega's percussion machine is nudged into overdrive, its smorgasbord of distinctive pulses lifted skyward by glassy, evocative synths and resonant twangs.

It's extreme music, in a sense, but Arsenal Mikebe command startling dynamics, veering off course whenever possible. 'Omuzimu' is the perfect example, a labyrinth of itchy rhythms and anxious pauses that only slowly converges into a discernible beat, with its jerky bumps and muted crashes underpinned by eerie, almost inaudible B-movie whines and stifled shouts. And on the lengthy 'Boiller Omukka', the trio sing soulfully and wordlessly over feverish hollow thuds and cowbell knocks, referencing traditional Ugandan song forms while simultaneously excavating the bones of techno. It all builds up to the rubbery, intense 'Bell Ghost', that carves energetic vocal snippets into an undulating rhythmic concertina and fractalizes the atmosphere with swirling, psychedelic flutes and haunted intonations.

Since the release of 2021's 'Bubbling Inside' - a collection of Dutch wunderkind Guillermo Schuurman's most vital early productions, plus a few recent additions - the DJ and producer has been touring incessantly, introducing the wider world to his feet-forward, hybrid style. Rooted in the Netherlands' Afro-diasporic bubbling sound, it's an effervescent cocktail of dancehall, electro, EDM and R&B that fizzed to the surface back in the late 1980s, dominating Den Haag's vibrant club scene in the '90s and '00s. Spurred on by his uncle DJ Chippie, who helped co-found the genre, De Schuurman revitalized the movement in the late '00s, and has been instrumental in bringing bubbling back to the main stage, puzzling out its intersections with trap, techno and beyond.

'Bubbling Forever' is another unforgettable arsenal of acidic laser synths, Antillean tambu percussion and swirling vocal snippets, all anchored to an all-important dancehall swing - the backbone of the sound since its earliest days in Den Haag. Like its predecessor, the collection is a wide-reaching set of vintage cuts and twitchy new productions, kicking off with the curled 'Raw', an immaculate introduction to De Schuurman's world: cybernetic electronic swooshes, backed by rattling percussion and the kind of kicks that don't cut, they bounce. And although it's relatively hotfooted, De Schuurman's music is blessed with unexpected lightness, coaxing movement sensually rather than demanding it. On 'Stylez Two' for example, fiery screams and breakneck beats are disencumbered by steel drum chimes and cheery whistles, splitting the mood between the sweatbox and the carnival.

But De Schuurman's greatest talent is his ability to absorb ideas from all across the musical map. 'Scratchin' fuses urgent turntablist scrapes with nostalgic 8-bit bleeps, and on 'Bubbling Meets Kaseko', he teams up with DJ Electro to blend big-room air horns and wobbly synths with traditional Surinamese melodies and percussion. He even brings bubbling OG DJ Chuckie along on 'Gangster Sht 2', flipping rap samples and stuttering ATL trap percussion into a whirlwind peak-time banger. And there even a few moments when De Schuurman takes a breather and turns down the tempo a little: he pulls back on 'Fucked Up Industrie', layering tangy lead zaps over a hiccuping Caribbean step, and leads the album out horizontally with 'Fashion Week', curving plasticky flutes around piercing woodblock cracks.

Bubbling might be approaching its fourth decade, but with producers like De Schuurman constantly breathing new life into the formula, it's not about to disappear any time soon. 'Bubbling Forever' is some of the most viscous, energetic and original dancefloor material you're likely to hear this year. Play loud!

Limited, fully licensed 180g vinyl-only reissue for a hidden gem of South African jazz. Featuring tracks: Side A: Oh Happy Day; You And Me Together; Nqomfi Side B: Philia; Rabothata; Micky One of the rarest and most sought after South African recordings of the early 1970s, available again for the first time since its original South African release – the swinging township groove of The Jazz Clan’s 1973 debut LP, Dedication Die-hard fans of South African jazz speak about The Jazz Clan in hushed tones. One of the dozens of South African groups who styled themselves as ‘jazz dignitaries’ – like the Jazz Giants, the Jazz Ambassadors, or the Jazz Ministers, for instance – their two widely separated studio albums for Gallo (Dedications and Makwenkwe, released in 1973 and 1976 respectively) are extremely hard to find, and were never repressed after their initial runs. Until now their work has graced neither re-release nor compilation. But they were no also-rans. They may have left a small recorded footprint, but it was an impressive one, epitomised by their hard-swinging 1973 debut, Dedication – a tough, swinging soul-jazz set with distinct African touches which is counted by those in the know as among the best South African jazz recordings of the era. Once you dig down into the history of the group, this is no surprise: the players that comprised the Jazz Clan were veterans. And they thought big – their first incarnation during the 1960s had been as a 16-piece, and they had held down a residency at one of Nelson Mandela’s regular haunts, the Planet Hotel in Fordsburg. The original leader, drummer Gordon ‘Micky’ Mfandu, had been a regular on the Johannesburg jazz scene since the early 1960s and had recorded with figures including Gideon Nxumalo, and the famous Blue Notes; along with bassist Mongezi Velelo he had also been a member of the revered Soul Giants unit. Baritone player Cornelius Khumalo had also played with Chris McGregor and the Blue Notes in the pit band of the musical play Mr Paljas, and had also recorded with township legend Zakes Nkosi. Also in the line-up, and handling most writing duties on this disc, was the great trumpeter Peter Segona – a quicksilver hornsman, Segona later sought exile in Europe, where he played with musical luminaries across the continent including Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, Cymande, and Manu Dibango. By the 1970s Mfandu was dead, murdered in Soweto, and the group had consolidated as a septet – the late drummer is memorialised here on closer ‘Micky’. South African jazz was moving toward electrified funk and bump, and the new township style of Dollar Brand was just around the corner. But Dedication captures the acoustic jazz sound of the early 1970s in its pomp – a handful of tightly wound songs jostling for space, blending uptempo soul-jazz sensibilities with Latin influences and pronounced township jazz accents, the latter especially audible in Dimpie Tshabalala’s piano vamps, Jeff Mpete’s pattering hi-hat emphases, and the unmistakably South African swagger and dip of the horns on cuts like ‘Rabothata’. It is music on the brink of a transition, looking ahead but still dedicated to the sound of the golden years, and it could have been made nowhere else on earth but in Soweto. Transferred from the master tapes by Gallo in South Africa, mastered for release by D&M and pressed at Pallas. Fully licensed from Gallo South Africa. Distributed by Honest Jons. Outernational Sounds: Bringing you Spiritual, Eastern, Afro Eurasian, Middle Eastern, and Outer Galactic Deep Jazz Vibes from around the globe and beyond...

Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force lick another deadly shot of tumbling, tucked-up senegalese mbalax, making their 1st outing of ’16 and a 3rd 12” together in this line-up since 2015.

We’re all over the sloshing Walo Walo Version something rotten. It’s an utter joy to reprogramme yourself to its tangled syncopation, picking out and anticipating particular patterns with uncertain limbs, revelling in its wickedly stumbling, uniquely resolved meter. If, like us you’re nuts for drums, that lone, hingeing clap will leave you equally rapt, and then there’s a locked groove…

Flip side is also amazing: Ndiguel Groove resets the rhythm to a loping, shoe-laces-tied sort of house bustle sprinkled with lissom guitar and suspended in Mark’s mixing trickery, before turning up a denser original mix of Walo Walo Rhythm riding that Prophet 5 bassline and talking drums ‘aaaard.

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, the mysterious steel pan outfit hailing from Hamburg, Germany have amassed a cult following around the globe. With a slew of classic 7”s and three critically acclaimed full length albums, they set a high bar for themselves, one they clearly intend on pushing even higher with this new offering. On their fourth album BRSB, Bacao are back with more of the same, but more of the same with them is inherently different. Covering songs that span genres and range from mega hits to underground album cuts, they make them their own with their unique approach to the traditional steel pans of Trinidad and Tobago. While part of the allure of a new Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band album is finding out what covers they do it is equally intriguing to see what original tunes they cooked upland this record is foul of stand out originals. The album opener, “In The Crosshairs” is a rough and tough mid tempo head nodder while both “Grilled” & “Treasure Quest” pick up the tempo with heavy African Funk influences on both. Bacao goes deep with “Hazy Memories”, a bass heavy slow burner that walks a line between hypnotic and hype. All these originals stand as testament that the term “cover band” is a shoe that could never fit Bacao. However, in the tradition of steel pan music, they do a heavy amount of covers. This time around there is a big West Coast Hip Hop influence with covers of Game & 50 Cent’s “How We Do”, Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin But A G Thang”, and Tupac’s “Got My Mind Made Up” all of which take on new energy and lend themselves to the BRSB steel treatment. Bacao puts another certified dancefloor filler on their resume with their cover of Claudja Barry’s uber Disco classic “Love For The Sake Of Love” which they flip into a dubbed out affair aptly changing even the title to “Love For The Sake Of Dub”. Pulling from the contemporary smash hit section of Hop Hop they cover Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and “Love$ick” by Mura Masa & A$AP Rocky. Then they go very unexpected with “Stranger Things Theme” where they take the synth heavy theme song to the hit show and give it a more hypnotizing tone than the original.By the time BRSB is through, Bacao has taken the listener on a journey spanning a myriad of energies, tempos, and moods while keeping it all under one umbrella. For all that, these songs are alive, and they will be taken out of the context of this album and sewn into the fabric of DJ sets around the globe for many years to come. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band continues building their legacy and pushing the boundaries of steel pan music forward with another rock solid musical offering. Enjoy.

All copies are HAND-MADE, silk-screened by C. Julien (Marga studio). Produced by Mambo Chick for Symbole Records. Symbole presents the first ever release of Patrick Jean-Marie's  'Atika – LIVE !' Made from the original master tape, recorded in mono during a TV Live Show on RFO in GUADELOUPE, 1982. A real miracle these moment were captured and this fragile magnetic tape have survived ! The no ‘music studio’ conditions and spontaneous mood with lots of improvised sequences gives a unique feeling of the vibrant & silent dialogues between musicians, crossing dimensions. The Jean-Marie’s brothers as their top! All tracks composed & arranged by Patrick Jean-Marie (Except ’De Bougies’ composed by Daniel Jean-Marie

A disciple of mambo innovator Perez Prado, the Cuban-born Modesto Duran was a pivotal figure in Latin dance music’s transitionary mid-century period. His gentle slaps can be heard across dozens of 1950s mega-sellers, from Esquivel to Belafonte, Eartha Kitt to Lena Horne. On his 1960 solo debut, Duran gathers a who’s who of conga-men, including Mongo Santamaría, Willie Bobo, and Juan Cheda, delivering a cinematic and percussive melange of afro-cuban, cha cha, and exotic jazz styles for the discerning listener.

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

Strut introduces the highly anticipated third volume in the Disques Debs International series, diving deeper into the archives of one of the greatest French Caribbean labels, Disques Debs, based in Guadeloupe. Founded by the visionary Henri Debs in the late ‘50s, the label and studio operated for over 50 years, releasing more than 300 7” singles and 200 LPs, making it a cornerstone of Caribbean music history. By the dawn of the 1980s, Henri Debs had already established himself as a prolific producer, with a record of releases unmatched in Guadeloupe and Martinique. From its humble beginnings with a 2-track tape machine in the back of a clothes shop, Disques Debs evolved into a powerhouse, boasting a state- of-the-art studio in downtown Pointe-à-Pitre, retail shops for records and musical instruments in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Paris, a nightclub in Gosier, and international distribution deals reaching Europe, the U.S., and South America. Disques Debs played a pivotal role in shaping modern Caribbean music. The label bridged traditional genres like biguine and gwoka with contemporary styles like cadence, compas, and zouk, the latter becoming a global phenomenon in the 1980s with contributions from iconic acts like Kassav’ and Zouk Machine. The period also saw Disques Debs champion a new generation of artists while maintaining ties with legendary figures from earlier decades. Volume 3 in this series spotlights one of the label’s most dynamic and influential periods as it expanded its global reach during the 1980s. Across 2 LPs, the release features a curated selection of tracks from the Disques Debs circle, highlighting both emerging talents and established artists who defined the era. This collection not only celebrates Henri Debs’ unmatched legacy but also offers a snapshot of Caribbean music’s golden age, cementing Disques Debs as a cultural institution.

Compiled by Hugo Mendez and Emile Omar 

Strut present the second volume in a series of compilations taken from the archives of Disques Debs International, the longest-running and most prolific label of the French Caribbean.

Set up by the late Henri Debs in the late ‘50s, the label has continued for over 50 years, releasing hundreds of records and playing a pivotal role in bringing the creole music of Guadeloupe and Martinique to a wider international audience.

Volume 2 of the series focuses on the label’s ‘70s output and the development of the unique Cadence sound, pulling disparate influences into a Pan-Caribbean blend of rhythms, styles and languages that dominated the dancehalls, clubs and concerts of the decade.
Based in a small but state-of-the-art studio on the first floor of Henri Debs’ Club 97-1, just outside Pointe-à-Pitre in the town of Gosier, the label hosted sessions from the cream of local and regional talent, hothousing ideas into over 100 LP and 45 releases over the decade that reflected an increasingly confident creole identity.

Groups like Les Vikings, Super Combo and Typical Combo along with a host of lesser-known bands were in fierce but friendly competition in the bals, dances and concerts in Guadeloupe, across the region and into Metropolitan France. Haitian Compas, Congolese influences from le Ry-Co Jazz, cadence-lypso and reggae from Dominica and a heavy dose of jazz and Puerto Rican salsa were thrown into the mix alongside local biguine, quadrille and gwo ka to power an unrivalled recorded output.

Compiled by Hugo Mendez (Sofrito) and Emile Omar (Roseaux), ‘Cadence Revolution’ is released in conjunction with Henri Debs et Fils and Air Caraibes. The package features previously unseen photos from the Debs archive  featuring extensive liner notes and an interview with singer and trombonist Christian Zora (Les Maxel’s, Energy). 

Known for his viral video series “Sexta dos Crias”, Ramon Sucesso is a virtuosic DJ who crushes, reimagines and rearranges songs to such a degree that the original tracks become virtually unrecognizable. He has turned his controller into a particle accelerator, creating firework-like bursts of classic funk carioca samples, his own productions, mainstream tracks, nonsense TikTok sound bites, and tons of his trademark beat bolha. All contained within an unparalleled, mischievously non-linear rhythmic flow. Ramon’s social network profiles are as outrageously unpredictable as his mixes. He posts interactive emoji games, bountiful fast-food feasts with his family, comments about the Flamengo football team and videos of him playing FIFA. He has a prolifically restless mind, constantly riffing and improvising; he does whatever it takes to get by, to navigate the reality of life in Brazil and overcome the daunting challenges of the music industry. His new album “Sexta dos Crias” is the culmination of Ramon's DJ work. A LP that embodies the newest in funk carioca, a faithful transposition of the bailes to vinyl. And forget copyrights; forget the notion of ownership – you’ll find none of that here. Ramon has unpretentiously ushered in a new age of experimentation for the genre – making a daring and unprecedented foray into a territory where extreme and radical sounds abound.