MUSIC
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After the space-time experience and the translation into music of the Bible of Japanese civilization, the Fulukotofumi, the following year, in 1973, Hiromasa Suzuki pushes his research and experimentation beyond the borders of his own country by venturing, with the usual companions of adventure (Kunimitsu Inaba, Hideo Sekine, etc.), along the lights and shadows of the Silk Road. A backward journey in search of the musical and cultural sources of mainland Asia, from the gates of India to the roots of China. If the Biwa lute characterized the previous chapter dedicated to the profound ancestral of Japan, here, the sitar, the Asian instrument par excellence, becomes a new narrator; Suzuki plans and manages the interventions by juxtaposing it with an opera that, like the previous one, always remains strongly jazz and rock, at times very similar to Ian Carr's Nucleus. A precious find in the endless and seminal musical archeology of modern Japanese music. Gatefold cover with insert.
The Fulukotofumi is the most important and ancient historical chronicle of Japan. The content of this work becomes an inspiration for the creation of a sound transposition of the legends and myths that most marked the spirit and inspiration of Hiromasa Suzuki, as a musician and as a high-level composer. The music that is concentrated between these grooves is a representation of the best that moved in the early seventies in the jazz-rock orbit at an international level; in addition, very strong infiltrations of tradition, characterized above all by the extremely calibrated and perfectly ad hoc interventions of the Biwa (lute of the Japanese tradition once used by blind monks to recite poems) and the Wadaiko drum. From its entirety, a highly evocative and magical sketch in nine suites emerges, a viaticum towards the most ancestral past of Japan, but at the same time also immersed in the modernity and expressive relevance of the land of the rising sun. A masterpiece that, buried for too long in the archives, is finally back reissued on vinyl with original graphics on its gatefold cover and enriched by an insert with the translations of the precious introductory essay contained in its original edition. Accompanying Suzuki's acoustic and electric piano is the crème of Japanese jazz that gives free rein to one's primordial instincts. Some passages come close to progressive, especially thanks to Kiyoshi Sugimoto's Allan Holdsworth style guitar.
Habibi Funk’s new sister label Audible Beauty Records second release: A landmark collection retelling the untold story of Malaysian jazz featuring 9 songs from the legendary composer, arranger and trumpet player Johari Salleh. Salleh played a crucial role in shaping the sound of modern Malaysian music across radio, television, film and live performance and has composed dozens of popular songs in his decades long career. His personal musical passion always was jazz, reflected in this deep selection of jazz works that were previously unavailable unless you had one of the few dozen copies pressed locally in the 1970s. The album doesn’t only highlight his musical statue as a composer but also as a outstanding trumpet soloists bringing together jazz, spiritual undertones and Malaysian folkloric themes balancing slower pacing deep, modal grooves with more upbeat jazz funk leanings. For fans of Salah Ragab, Ahmed Malek, Mulatu Astatke, Dollar Brand and co.
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.
Organic Music Society is an album by trumpeter Don Cherry. Many critics consider this album the one which gives a fuller picture of Cherry as ensemble leader, spiritualist and cultural synthesizer. Indeed, Organic Music Society is a bold exploration of global musical traditions, reflecting Cherry's vision of music as a universal. Here, Cherry makes a significant shift from his free jazz roots toward a more expansive, world music fusion. Recorded in Sweden, the album features a diverse ensemble blending Swedish, Turkish, Brazilian, and African musicians. Cherry himself contributes not only trumpet but also vocals, harmonium, flute, conch shell, and piano. The compositions include his own works, as well as interpretations of pieces by Terry Riley, Pharaoh Sanders, and Dollar Brand. The album's sound is eclectic and experimental, with tracks ranging from meditative chants like "North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn" to the dynamic "Relativity Suite."
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.
Korlakang, a fresh four‑piece band emerging from Thonburi on Bangkok’s west side, delivers a debut double‑sider 7" on Guruguru Brain. Blending the melodic beauty of Thai traditional music with the hazy textures of 70s psychedelic rock, the group reshapes these elements into a contemporary ethno‑groove.
"On a gloomy weekend in the Pacific NorthWest Oregon coast in November of 2020, we find the eleven piece cumbia orchestra outfit, Orquestra Pacífico Tropical, writing new material in a cabin for what will become their third full length album, "El Poder." The sonic exploration and the cloudy overcast of the coastal forest really gave an inspiration to the overall musical palette of the demos that weekend that eventually became El Poder. Creating a warm & inviting recording session in the living room of a cabin truly allowed for inventiveness & spontaneity to be key in the development of these melodious rhythms & movements. While continuing on the trajectory of the tradition of cumbia, the band has also delved into salsa, psychedelic NorthWest sounds and whole new audio exploration of music that truly feels unique & never heard before..."
‘Araya Lam’ is the 3rd album by The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band. Following on from ‘21st Century Molam’ and ‘Planet Lam’ the band head deeper into the roots of Isan music, collaborating with others traditional musicians on Vocals, Pong-Lang, Pi and Sor. Each instrument brings something fresh to add to the group’s take on Molam music. In addition, the band nod to New York Post-Punk on ‘Zud Rang Ma’ and sounds from across the Indian ocean region on ‘Psych Lam Kor’. Looking back to their roots to move ever further forward ‘Araya lam’ is the next chapter in the always evolving Paradise Bangkok concept.
As Brian Eno told us last week, “Leenalchi has changed the way I think about music, dancing and Korea. I have never heard anything quite like this.” There’s so much to say to you about this amazing band—but what will get you to listen? Is it that they play addictive psych pop? Or that they sound like animals talking to each other over tripped out bass lines? They have a new single out today called HERE COMES THAT CROW, which, like all of Leenalchi’s songs, is a chopped and screwed version of a pansori tale (a traditional form of storytelling from the 17th century). Based on a story about the warlord Cao Cao, the song is an allegory about life’s precariousness. The band wrote a poem to explain: Doyung doyung goes the small boat floating down the river. Whether the chased or the chaser, no one can stop—just beneath the boards lies the underworld!
As Brian Eno told us last week, “Leenalchi has changed the way I think about music, dancing and Korea. I have never heard anything quite like this.” There’s so much to say to you about this amazing band—but what will get you to listen? Is it that they play addictive psych pop? Or that they sound like animals talking to each other over tripped out bass lines? They have a new single out today called HERE COMES THAT CROW, which, like all of Leenalchi’s songs, is a chopped and screwed version of a pansori tale (a traditional form of storytelling from the 17th century). Based on a story about the warlord Cao Cao, the song is an allegory about life’s precariousness. The band wrote a poem to explain: Doyung doyung goes the small boat floating down the river. Whether the chased or the chaser, no one can stop—just beneath the boards lies the underworld!
Shangaan electro, amapiano & gqom fiends take note: Limpopo’s Serokolo 7 breaks thru with a thrilling introduction to Mapanta; a local, traditional sound he’s revived and modernised, somehow resembling amapiano’s taut log drum rhythms and tense atmospheres, but sped to 180BPM, spliced with toasters and FX bombast glittering with modernist melodic sheen. In other words: 100% zingers! Repped by Björk during her DJ set at this year's Venice Biennale, Serokolo 7's debut is an idiosyncratic, adrenaline-filled reboot of South Africa's lesser-known mapanta sound, stirring its 180BPM rhythms with traces of footwork, gqom and hard techno. South Africa’s scene has perfused every nook of the global club movement for years at this point; whether it's the low 'n slow sound of Durban's gqom, Pretoria's kwaito-rooted Bacardi house or world-dominating log drum-laced amapiano, but head north to the country's border with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and you'll hear something completely different. In Ga Sekhukhune, a village in the Limpopo province, the Bapedi ethnic group have retained their own unique cultural form, mapanta, a "living communal practice" that has been maintained through weddings and youth gatherings over decades. Although its popularity waned after its peak in the 1980s, producer, DJ and sound-system operator Serokolo 7 has been instrumental in modernising the formula, sharing FL Studio tips and tricks and sound packs in the village to keep the music alive. 'Maramfa Musik Pro' is Serokolo 7's first widely-available set and is a great primer to his contemporary strain of mapanta, and although he augments the traditional rhythms with ideas he's skimmed from other interrelated rhythmic forms, the core elements still remain intact. The unique vocals, for example, are considered invocations, delivered in Sepedi, one of South Africa's 12 official languages. And they can't be cleaved from their ceremonial function, speaking directly to mapanta's importance as a community celebration, calling out to family lines and totems. The rhythms themselves, while similar in some ways to the brittle, high-speed work of Nozinja (who hailed from nearby Giyani), sound as if they've been marinated in their own juices, trance-inducing but simultaneously disrupted by Serokolo's unforgettable oddball production choices, whether it's field recordings, screwed voices or delirious sub-heavy basslines. The album opens with 'Naba Ba Papedi', a bleak uptempo ritual that plays like an unwieldy fusion of gqom (that omnipresent synth drone), footwork (those unmissable rushing snares) and Shangaan Electro, with layered vocal chants and callouts filling in the gaps. Serokolo is a restless producer who's out on his own, something that only becomes fully evident as the set develops with the pneumatic 'Roskae', a fusion of vocal micro-edits and pressurised subs, or the electrifying 'Chunku Manabeng', that excites the core pulse with brain twisting polyrhythms and the occasional log drum smack for good measure. On ’Bonkoko Bagana' Serokolo lightens things up with chiming melodic hooks and a feathery manyalo-style beat. Unsurprisingly, it's this track that Björk made the focal point of her recent Venice appearance - a key cut from yet another truly eye-opening treasure from Nyege.
A collection of short-form compositions by shakuhachi player Lenzan Kudo, rooted in Zen spirit. In contrast to his long-form work “Noneness,” each track on this album spans approximately 2 to 5 minutes, distilling intense focus and spiritual depth into concise musical expressions. Utilizing the breath and overtones of the shakuhachi, the pieces incorporate ambient spatial processing, remaining grounded in the instrument’s traditional sonic world while embracing a contemporary resonance.
“Noneness” is a work by shakuhachi player Lenzan Kudo, featuring reinterpretations of traditional honkyoku and long-form improvisations rooted in Zen philosophy. Recorded in Hakone, Kanagawa, the album incorporates natural sounds and reverberations, maximizing the breath and spatial resonance of the shakuhachi. The title “Noneness” signifies ‘emptiness’ or ‘void,’ capturing traces of personal spiritual practice and dialogue with nature. The credits include acknowledgments to Ryuichi Sakamoto and Zen master Nanrei Yokota, with a written comment from Yokota also included. Transcending the boundaries of ethno, jazz, and ambient music, the album carries both spiritual and cultural depth.
Ricky V runs wild on Mohammad Reza Mortazavi’s Persian tombak hand drum actions, expanding a 4 min kernel of inspiration into 24 minutes of mesmerising polyrhythmic traction. From an original 'Swamp' piece that practically recalls Ricardo’s style of slinky minimal techno sorcery to begin with, the Chilean-German maverick derives a more driving tract of rough hewn rhythmic grit bound to hypnotise dancefloors for the duration. Accentuating the undulating bass and dialling up the volume whilst retaining the frictional grind of the original, Villalobos gets right inside the groove with typically obsessive tekkerz, plucking out additional string motifs and tempering the flow with signature, taut but sinuous, loosey goosey flex that cross-pollinates cultures and gets right under the skin of the thing. Mohammad Reza Mortazavi (b. 1979, Iran) is a virtuoso percussionist known for his groundbreaking work with the tombak and daf, traditional Persian drums that he has radically redefined through new playing techniques and extended vocabulary. Mortazavi began playing the tombak at the age of six. By nine, he had already outpaced his teacher and won Iran’s national tombak competition — a distinction he would earn six more times. By his early twenties, he was widely regarded as one of the foremost players of the instruments. Since then, his music has continued to evolve, embracing new forms and vocabularies beyond tradition. Ricardo Villalobos (b. 1970, Chile) is a pioneering figure in minimal techno, celebrated for his hypnotic approach to rhythm. Raised in Germany after his family fled Pinochet’s regime, Villalobos was drawn early to percussion — he began playing congas and bongos at eleven, developing a tactile relationship to rhythm that would later inform his distinctive production style. Immersed in both Latin American folk traditions and the emerging house and techno scenes of late-80s Europe, he began DJing and producing in the early 1990s, quickly achieving cult status within global club culture. Swamp originally appears on the album Nexus, released in 2025 via Latency.
Modern Obscure Music presents The Bubble of Love, a new collaborative album by Pedro Vian together with Ustad Nawab Khan and Naved Nawab Khan — the 9th and 10th generation of a distinguished santoor lineage from Rajasthan, India. Recorded during an intense week of sessions at Pedro Vian’s studio in Barcelona, the album captures a rare and concentrated encounter between traditions, generations, and sonic languages. Ustad Nawab Khan, a 9th-generation master of the santoor and founder of Raaga Science, has devoted his life to exploring the emotional and psychological dimensions of Indian raaga music. His philosophy, “Raag se Ras utpan” — the creation of emotional states through specific raagas — forms a conceptual backbone for the project. Carrying the lineage forward, Naved Nawab Khan represents the 10th generation, bringing a contemporary global awareness while remaining deeply rooted in classical tradition. The Bubble of Love unfolds through four meditations that create a dialogue between ancient tonal systems and modern electronic exploration. In three of the four pieces, the chromatic subtleties and traditional scales of the santoor intertwine with Pedro Vian’s unexpected synthesizers and electronic textures. These compositions form a bridge between Occidental and Oriental musical worlds, where resonance becomes a shared language. In the fourth and final meditation, the collaboration shifts toward a more experimental dimension. While maintaining the same instrumental foundation — santoor and electronics — Pedro Vian explores alternative notes and scale structures, expanding the harmonic field. This movement reflects both understanding and incomprehension, alignment and tension between cultures. Rather than resolving differences, the music inhabits them, transforming contrast into a space of discovery. Released on Modern Obscure Music, The Bubble of Love is not merely a fusion record. It is a concentrated meeting point — lineage and futurism, discipline and experimentation — crystallized in a week of deep listening and creative exchange within an intimate studio environment. At moments, the record subtly echoes earlier attempts to translate ancient traditions through emerging technologies. It recalls the spirit of experimentation found in projects where Moog synthesis sought to interpret the tonal worlds of classical instruments — from the dialogues between Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass, to the exploratory journeys of Ariel Kalma, whose music continues to resonate powerfully in the very walls where this album was recorded. In this broader historical context, The Bubble of Love also resonates with the pioneering electronic explorations documented in The NID Tapes — the collection of early Indian electronic works recorded between 1969 and 1972 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Founded with the support of composer David Tudor, who installed a Moog modular system in 1969, the NID studio became a radical space of post-independence experimentation, where composers such as Gita Sarabhai, I.S. Mathur, Atul Desai, S.C. Sharma and Jinraj Joshipura explored analogue synthesis, tape collage, voice and field recording — forging a meeting point between Western and Indian avant-garde traditions. Uncovered and restored through the long-term research of British artist Paul Purgas, and later presented alongside the publication Subcontinental Synthesis: Electronic Music at the National Institute of Design, India 1969–1972, The NID Tapes revealed a visionary chapter in South Asia’s sonic imagination — one where electronic instruments did not replace tradition, but refracted it into new forms. While separated by decades and geography, The Bubble of Love inhabits a similar philosophical terrain: not the fusion of opposites, but the coexistence of lineages — where electronic sound becomes not an imposition, but a listening device. A way of approaching tradition with curiosity rather than control. In this sense, the album stands both as a continuation and a renewal — a contemporary meditation on the enduring dialogue between heritage and experimentation, between memory and future sound.
Mohammad Reza Mortazavi returns to Latency with Nexus, a full-length album recorded in Berlin that extends his radical reinvention of Persian percussion. Renowned for pushing the tombak and daf into new territory with unprecedented techniques, Mortazavi now incorporates voice, effects, and electronic treatments into his sound for the first time. These additions deepen, rather than depart from, his lifelong exploration of rhythm and resonance. The record opens with ‘Zendegi’ (‘Life’), built from the chant “Woman, Life, Freedom” as a gesture towards his homeland and beyond. Throughout Nexus, Mortazavi explores connection, transformation, and the unseen forces that shape reality, presenting rhythm as both guide and teacher. The album title itself points to a meeting place where energies, ideas, and times converge, capturing its meditative but exploratory spirit. The cover features artwork by American artist and filmmaker Jordan Belson, whose “visual music” aligns with Mortazavi’s trance-inducing percussion language. His hypnotic live shows have reached the Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Pantheon, and Sydney Opera House, while his rhythmic innovations have earned acclaim across experimental and electronic circles, including collaborations with Burnt Friedman and Mark Fell.
Saphileaum has spent the past decade in passage between notable houses of atmospheric sorcery - Mule Musiq, Not Not Fun, Slow Life, Constellation Tatsu - and of course Good Morning Tapes, who now host their 3rd meeting, ‘Heavenly Hills’. A definitive chapter in his ten year saga, it is flush with symphonic strings and sky born keys, breezily urged by percussion that straddles chill out and folk zones. That said there’s also a Balearic - or should that be Black Sea? - appeal to its title tune, that lingers in the glistening wake of ‘Your Grace’, to the shimmering breaks of a parting piece ‘Alarko (Cosmic Eagle)’, falling into the space between Boards of Canada's cult-inspired hauntological nostalgia and Shackleton's hallowed ethno-dub. “The tracks in the album were written with the inspiration of the kingdom of Shambhala in the Himalayas. I'm deeply fascinated and touched by it. Even the album title, holds the idea of its Heavenly nature and the tracks are like individual, elemental parts of it. The album is not a journey into Shambhala, but rather a play and a dance with its energy, image and presence in my world. Alarko (Cosmic Eagle) is dedicated to my grandfather, Temur Tsiklauri, and I dedicate the whole album to my country Georgia, which I deeply love.”
A collection of spellbinding, melismatic vocal improvisations taken from 78s cut between the mid 1920s to mid '30s - a period defined by the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, the Greco-Turkish War and the compulsory population exchange that followed. This same period also represented a time of intense efforts, following the establishment of the Republic, to westernise the new nation's music - coupled with a ban on traditional music education in schools, and later a complete ban on broadcasting Ottoman-Turkish classical music on the radio. As such these performances seem shrouded in an even more distant past, and feel quite intimately connected with forms of Greek amanes and rebetiko - having stemmed from the same Ottoman makam system, both with a subject-matter focussed on heartbreak, yearning, and pain.
A collection of spellbinding, melismatic vocal improvisations taken from 78s cut between the mid 1920s to mid '30s - a period defined by the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, the Greco-Turkish War and the compulsory population exchange that followed. This same period also represented a time of intense efforts, following the establishment of the Republic, to westernise the new nation's music - coupled with a ban on traditional music education in schools, and later a complete ban on broadcasting Ottoman-Turkish classical music on the radio. As such these performances seem shrouded in an even more distant past, and feel quite intimately connected with forms of Greek amanes and rebetiko - having stemmed from the same Ottoman makam system, both with a subject-matter focussed on heartbreak, yearning, and pain.
Concert at Prades-le-Lez marks the origins of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. In 1974, François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre, Jo Maka, Adolf Winkler and Guem), in the spirit of Don Cherry or Chris McGregor, playfully dismantle all borders and all styles of creative music. On this second volume, the Intercommunal builds unprecedented soundscapes around a song of revolt, a dance tune, or a burst of dissonance. The journey is unforgettable, no question about it. On repeat listening, it even becomes… lunar! “The music that we make is primarily meant to be listened to live,” warned a leaflet from the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. This is precisely why the (restored!) reissue of the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez, recorded on January 25 and 26, 1974 by François Tusques and his comrades, is such an important event. In 1971, after recording a series of albums that would leave a lasting mark on French jazz (Free Jazz, of course, with Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais, but also Le Nouveau Jazz with Barney Wilen, or the solo Piano Dazibao), François Tusques founded the Intercommunal—a grouping whose very name called for the fraternization of the various communities making up the country: Our music will help, we hope, to resolve the contradictions that exist between workers belonging to different communities, by breaking down various forms of national chauvinism, and more particularly the chauvinism of certain French people toward the cultures of Third World countries… Long live the friendship between the peoples of the whole world! Among the great records made by the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez come first, before L’Inter Communal, Vol. 4, Le Musichien, and Après la marée noire (four titles already reissued by Souffle Continu). François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre and Jo Maka on saxophones, Adolf Winkler on trombone, and Guem on percussion) performed on January 25 and 26, 1974 at the Moulin de Prades-le-Lez, a few kilometers from Montpellier. It was thus in the southern region of Occitanie that the first echoes of this musical vision of a borderless brotherhood were recorded. “We’re not among the Colonels,” the Intercommunal reassures us right away, performing a stride piano tune carried by African winds that the audience cannot resist for long. The energy is already striking and it never lets up throughout these two recordings, from start to finish: jazz, blues, traditional music, minimalism, even funk… The musicians of the Intercommunal have heard a lot of great music and now delight in reinventing it by mixing it all together. “We want the song form to take its place as a weapon in the struggle against capitalist exploitation and all those who oppress us morally and materially,” declared an Intercommunal leaflet, quoting Jean-Baptiste Clément, author of the lyrics to “Le Temps des cerises.” The struggle was therefore serious—but it did not prevent François Tusques and his group from waging it in a festive spirit: each piece on Concert at Prades-le-Lez sends out a call for love and fraternity. Fifty years later, the message remains as relevant as ever—and once again, it is François Tusques who makes it heard.
A reissue set featuring the early signature works of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, led by François Tusques—a pivotal figure in French free jazz! This release compiles their legendary live album "Vol.1", recorded at a watermill in Prades-Le-Lez in the South of France in 1971, along with its follow-up second album, "Vol.2", together on CD for the very first time.
Concert at Prades-le-Lez marks the origins of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. In 1974, François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre, Jo Maka, Adolf Winkler and Guem), in the spirit of Don Cherry or Chris McGregor, playfully dismantle all borders and all styles of creative music. On this first volume, the Intercommunal takes its audience from New Orleans to Brittany and on to North Africa. The journey was bold, without a doubt—and its memory remains unforgettable. “The music that we make is primarily meant to be listened to live,” warned a leaflet from the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. This is precisely why the (restored!) reissue of the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez, recorded on January 25 and 26, 1974 by François Tusques and his comrades, is such an important event. In 1971, after recording a series of albums that would leave a lasting mark on French jazz (Free Jazz, of course, with Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais, but also Le Nouveau Jazz with Barney Wilen, or the solo Piano Dazibao), François Tusques founded the Intercommunal—a grouping whose very name called for the fraternization of the various communities making up the country: Our music will help, we hope, to resolve the contradictions that exist between workers belonging to different communities, by breaking down various forms of national chauvinism, and more particularly the chauvinism of certain French people toward the cultures of Third World countries… Long live the friendship between the peoples of the whole world! Among the great records made by the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez come first, before L’Inter Communal, Vol. 4, Le Musichien, and Après la marée noire (four titles already reissued by Souffle Continu). François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre and Jo Maka on saxophones, Adolf Winkler on trombone, and Guem on percussion) performed on January 25 and 26, 1974 at the Moulin de Prades-le-Lez, a few kilometers from Montpellier. It was thus in the southern region of Occitanie that the first echoes of this musical vision of a borderless brotherhood were recorded. “We’re not among the Colonels,” the Intercommunal reassures us right away, performing a stride piano tune carried by African winds that the audience cannot resist for long. The energy is already striking and it never lets up throughout these two recordings, from start to finish: jazz, blues, traditional music, minimalism, even funk… The musicians of the Intercommunal have heard a lot of great music and now delight in reinventing it by mixing it all together. “We want the song form to take its place as a weapon in the struggle against capitalist exploitation and all those who oppress us morally and materially,” declared an Intercommunal leaflet, quoting Jean-Baptiste Clément, author of the lyrics to “Le Temps des cerises.” The struggle was therefore serious—but it did not prevent François Tusques and his group from waging it in a festive spirit: each piece on Concert at Prades-le-Lez sends out a call for love and fraternity. Fifty years later, the message remains as relevant as ever—and once again, it is François Tusques who makes it heard.