MUSIC

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

The Dubplate series comes to the label’s spiritual home of Hackney, the stomping ground of the Douglas “Dougie” Waldrop and his Conscious Sounds label with the spin off Dub meets Funk project, the music of the Dub Specialists are presented with extended re-edits by label owners Piers Harrison and Stuart “Chuggy” Leath, alongside rising DJ star Millie McKee and studio boffin Matt Bruce (Vanity Project). Formed in 1989, the Conscious Sounds label and Conscious Music studio have been mainstays on the UK Digital Roots scene to this day, working with the likes Bush Chemists, Johan Dan, Kenny Knots and Pablo Gad. The Dub Specialists was a project created by Dougie to put aside studio sessions and explore a new interest in samplers, working with friend Chris Petter (Love Grocer) and his interest in Jazz and Funk. Using the Atari 1040 running Cubase, with a Soundcraft mixer, drum loops and Reggae basslines were played over Funk samples and layered with Petter’s chords to create a series of short tracks for DJ play. Releasing 3 albums between 1995 and 1999 on the sub label Crispy Music, they have more recently been gaining cult status. The tracks chosen all come from the first and increasingly sought after LP, Dub To Dub Break To Break and have been extended, stretched, looped and dubbed by the label family to form a club friendly EP. From the dance floor jams of Dub De Funk and Funkin’ Dub to the deeper Movin Ya and Murderous Style this is a unique fusion of Funk and Digidub that fits perfectly the ideals of the Dubplate Series.

Money Chicha, the Austin-based collective featuring members of the Grammy-winning Latin orchestras Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, unveils their third full-length album, “Onda Esotérica”.

Psychedelic cumbia amazónica with South Texas swagger. “Like taking a hit of acid, downing a couple shots of tequila, and hopping a plane to 1960s Peru” – KUTX.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Spilla, the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings that will surely count as one of the most electrifying records you hear this year. Founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie in 2019, continuing the explorations begun in solo form on Nist-Nah (Black Truffle, 2020), the ensemble (eight or nine core members with occasional guests) has been consistently active in the half-decade since: composing, rehearsing, recording and touring Europe (with a mass of equipment in tow) to great acclaim. Spilla tracks the continuing evolution of the project since the recording of their first album, Elders (Black Truffle, 2022). The two sides of this record document two different iterations of the group, and the members' compositional input has increased: each side contains one piece by a member other than Guthrie. It has become clearer than ever that Ensemble Nist-Nah is not an attempt at a European Gamelan ensemble but rather a hybrid percussion ensemble that uses instruments from a Javanese Gamelan alongside other percussion to perform original music informed by a variety of South East Asian music but also by everything from free jazz to contemporary hip-hop: while Nist-Nah and Elders both featured traditional Javanese pieces, on Spilla the only tune not generated by a member of the group is by Guthrie’s long-time musical hero and occasional collaborator Roscoe Mitchell.The two short pieces that open the record could almost be the two sides of a wild 7” selected to show off what the Ensemble can do. On opener ‘Gerak Maju’, intricately skittering open-snare patterns bounce over clanging metal, chiming bell-like tones and deep gong hits, adapting the rhythm-register connections heard in traditional Gamelan musics—where the lowest pitched sounds are heard least frequently—to a cut-up breakbeat straight off Feed Me Weird Things. ‘Strollabout’ then moves into an entirely different realm of meditative repeating patterns, performed entirely on Chinese, Javanese and Vietnamese gongs. The remaining seven pieces, ranging from three to twelve minutes, offer up a wealth of different percussive, compositional and arrangement possibilities. On ‘Ghostly Klang’, two drumkits mirror each other’s moves, bouncing hats and snares across the stereo field in a way that recalls On the Corner and the jittering hi hat patterns of trap, while slow moving melodies on the tuned instruments add a sense of majesty contrasted by scurrying details in resonant wood. The epic closing track presents a take on Roscoe Mitchell’s ‘Uncle’, performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago on their classic Urban Bushmen live album. Where the Art Ensemble used Mitchell’s dirge-like melody as a jumping off point for virtuosic improvisational flights, Ensemble Nist-Nah rethink the piece as a near-static dialogue between the monumental, slow-moving sequence of unison tuned percussion notes and a textural cloud that grows in richness and intensity from whispering cymbal rolls into a mass of gong overtones and bowed metal.Beautifully recorded and mixed, Spilla arrives in a sleeve decorated with core member Charles Dubois’ drawings of cymbals and gongs. Against the backdrop of a wider musical landscape dominated by over-produced electronic slop and bland harmonic wallpaper, Ensemble Nist-Nah stands out as a reminder, vital and unpretentious, of the joys and possibilities of human beings playing instruments together.

One of the earliest and rarest compilation of Jamaican ska jazz, released in 1961 on the iconic Blue Beat Record. Featuring Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso, Cecil Lloyd, Alton Ellis, Derrick Harriott, Rico Rodriguez, The Charmers, The Jiving Juniors, Aubrey Adams, Clancey Eccles, Clu J. and His Blues Blasters, E. Parkins, Carol McLaughlin, Chuck Josephs, Dobby Dobson, and Lascelles Perkins.

A sunrise is a return, yet each day dawns but once. Emergent sounds are born from nothingness and everythingness; the hand touches the drum, breath vibrates the reed, fingers caress the ivory. Echoes of Paleolithic music vibrate into each moment, each musical gesture. Each a return, each a new dawn. — AR

Evocative, eclectic, intimate, and rhythmically complex, TRANSA contains everything that has made Caetano Veloso the most distinctive and, arguably, most important voice in modern Brazilian music. The album was recorded during Veloso's political exile in England but released in 1972 upon his return to his homeland. Though the songs are not overtly political, they seem allegorical, celebratory, and plaintive at once, and point to a tension between the artist's expressive impulse and the strictures of his native country. This tension is further heightened by the presence of lyrics in both English and Portuguese. The beautiful, desperate "You Don't Know Me" may be the world's first bilingual bossa nova/folk-punk anthem of identity. The jazzy "Nine Out of Ten" gives way to the gear-shifting "Triste Bahia," which features webs of accelerating Brazilian percussion. A spare treatment of the classic samba "Mora Na Filosofia," the cosmic ditty "Neolithic Man," and the 12-bar "Nostalgia" (ending with the wise line "That's what rock & roll is all about") close out the set. TRANSA is a jewel in Veloso's discography and a must for anyone interested in Brazilian pop--or brilliant, original pop in general.

The strength of the Akira soundtrack lies in its unique blend of traditional Japanese instruments and futuristic electronic sounds. Shoji Yamashiro weaves together an eclectic mix of influences, creating a sonic landscape that mirrors the dystopian and cyberpunk themes of the movie. The use of traditional chants, taiko drums, and Shakuhachi flutes alongside electronic synthesizers and orchestral elements generates a hauntingly mesmerizing atmosphere that perfectly complements the visuals on screen. The composer also drew from the chants of Noh, traditional Japanese theater. Combined with polyrhythmic drum machine beats and synths tuned to gamelan microtonal scales, these styles give a sense of ritualistic tension to the dystopian world of Akira.

Hani Polyphonic Singing In Yunnan China Mystic choral beauty drifting far into the outer cosmos, this other worldly traditional music ensemble creates a contemporary-sounding avant-garde vocal fusion combined with strange instrumental accompaniment. The HANI are linguistically derived from the YI branch of the Tibeto-Burmese and number a million and a half in the southern part of Yunnan province in China above Laos and Vietnam where smaller Hani communities also live. As with many other ethnic groups of the area, an original traditional singing pattern is used with each singer adapting the words to the context. The choir that gathers all singers at the same time is considered to be a very unique style of vocal polyphony or heterophony. The cascading, mournful feel of this music is powerfully transcendent and you’ve never heard anything like it. Many of these songs express intimate strong emotions that bring tears to the performers while they are singing. Instruments used by the ensemble include the BABI (single tree leaf ) and MEPA (rolled up tree leaf in a shape of a horn or mirliton), a CHIWO (3-stringed bowed instrument), a LABI (6-holed bamboo flute), a LAHE (3-stringed small lute) and a MEBA (vertical reed instrument). Recorded by Laurent Jeanneau in 2011

Recalling Ennio Morricone spaghetti westerns, the electrified belly dance music of Omar Khorshid, and ’90s bedroom psychedelia at once, the music of Branko Mataja is from its own epoch. Snatched from the streets of Belgrade as a teenager, Mataja spent World War 2 in a German work camp, escaping the insanity of post-war Europe to settle in North Hollywood to live out the American Dream to its fullest. Crafting handmade music on homemade guitars throughout the 1970s, Mataja taught himself to play in order to pay homage to his ancestral home of Yugoslavia, a place he would never return to except through these guitar meditations.

The legendary Palm Wine guitarist S.E. Rogie’s early work. Truly beautiful songs from the 1960’s ranging from sweet acoustic solo numbers to blazing full band electric music. S.E. Rogie had a very long & pioneering career in Sierra Leone. His songs are some of the most beautiful ever – gentle & lilting timeless melodies. One of the greats.

Aboriginal Australian blues, country, and gospel by the great Kankawa Nagarra, Queen of the Bandaral Ngadu Delta. These intimate recordings introduce the world outside Australia to Kankawa Nagarra, a beloved Walmatjarri Elder, teacher, human rights advocate, and environmental activist. Born in the traditional lands of the Gooniyandi and Walmatjarri peoples of North Western Australia, Kankawa grew up with the tribal songs at cultural ceremonies. When she was taken from her family to the mission, she was taught hymns and Gospel songs with the choir. On the pastoral lease where she was sent to work, Country music was everywhere. She first heard rock and roll on the station gramophone. But it wasn’t until many years later her musical journey truly began, when she stopped to listen to a busker outside a shop in Derby, Western Australia. It was the first time she’d heard the blues, and it awakened something in her. Through it, she found a medium to express all her thoughts and feelings, and it inspired her to turn these into songs. The empathy of her message extends from those she sees struggling around her to the entire planet being ravaged for profit. These twelve tracks, recorded live near her home of Wangkatjungka, WA, offer a cross-section of Kankawa’s entire musical experience - shifting gracefully between musical styles, languages, and moods, backed by the buzz of night bugs and call of daytime birds. In turns humorous, warm, and real about the hardships of life and the pillage of the land she holds dear, the record is the closest thing you can get to spending time with the great Kankawa herself. We are extremely grateful to release this record alongside Flippin Yeah Records and in collaboration with Kankawa Nagarra. High-quality vinyl comes with a four-page booklet featuring translations, stories, and track notes by the artist.

ノスタルジックな深夜の音楽。20世紀前半のギリシャで流行した大衆歌謡であるレベティコの偉人であるGiorgos Katsarosによるスティール弦ギターとヴォーカルによる、時代を超えた魅力を放つ素晴らしい演奏をコンパイルした画期的編集盤が〈Mississippi Records〉と〈Olvido Records〉の共同でリリース。Katsarosの現存する初期の64の録音からリマスタリングされた貴重な10曲をセレクトした一枚。催眠的なメロディーが、親指で弾くベースラインの反復に支えられ、その深く悲しげな声が響き渡っています。

The acclaimed and highly sought-after LP by Hailu Mergia and the Walias, Tche Belew, an album of instrumentals released in 1977, is perhaps the most seminal recording released in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. The story of the Walias band is a critical chapter in Ethiopian popular music, taking place during a period of music industry flux and political complexity in the country. Hailu Mergia, a keyboardist and arranger diligently working the nightclub scene in Addis Ababa, formed the Walias in the early 1970’s with a core group of musicians assembled from prior working bands. They played Mergia’s funk- and soul-informed tunes, while cutting 45rpm singles with various vocalists. While the Walias performed at top hotels and played the presidential palace twice, their relationship with the Derg regime was complex, evidenced by the removal of one song from the record by government censors. Decades later, Hailu Mergia was surprised to see the album fetching more than $4,000 at online auctions (it helped that the most popular of all Ethiopian tunes “Musicawi Silt” appeared on the record). Now everyone has the chance to listen again―or for the first time―to this timeless pillar of Ethiopian popular music.

Glass Beams have announced their highly anticipated EP ‘Mahal’, out on March 22nd on their new label home Ninja Tune. Released alongside the news is the EP’s titular track “Mahal”.

The genesis for the Melbourne-based trio, which formed around founding member Rajan Silva, was through the rekindling of childhood memories relating to his father, who emigrated to Melbourne from India in the late 1970's. Silva recalled watching a DVD on repeat with his father; ‘Concert for George’, a star-studded tribute to late Beatles member George Harrison performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2002, featuring legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar with daughter Anoushka, alongside Western icons Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and ELO’s Jeff Lynne. This intersection of musical styles was reflected in the record collection of Silva's father, where the sounds of iconic Bollywood vocalists Asha Bhosle and the Mangeshkar lineage sat alongside music from blues legends like B.B. King and Muddy Waters. In particular, Silva was drawn to the fusion of Western musical styles and traditional Indian music; a concept pioneered by Indian artists like R.D. Burman, Ananda Shankar, and fraternal duo Kalyanji-Anandji.

This cross-pollination of East and West, of old and new, is a sentiment that the band have sought to capture in their self produced works. Across their output, Glass Beams presents a timeless fusion of cultures and sounds beamed through a prism of live instrumentation and DIY electronica, all wrapped up inside a mesmerizing and mystical visual world of their own making.

Their debut EP ‘Mirage’, released in 2021 catapulted them into the collective consciousness of new followers who came to discover their serpentine, psychedelic-tinged tracks through social media, streaming services and word of mouth, with the vinyl copies selling-out as quickly as it could be pressed via grassroots record store support.

In the wake of the unexpected success of their debut release and an abundance of festival invitations, Glass Beams were amplified around the globe performing hypnotic renditions of the 'Mirage' EP alongside an additional 20 minutes of unreleased music. Early clips of these “unreleased tracks” quickly began circulating online garnering millions of views and a fast-growing and ever-hungry following. As 2023 drew to a close and the dust settled after a whirlwind of touring, Glass Beams retreated to their home studio to record this much anticipated 20 minutes of music. They have named the record 'Mahal'. 

Taking off from Beaugars Seck’s foundational sabar drum rhythms — recorded by Sam in Dakar in February 2020 — Shackleton has constructed a trio of intricately layered, luminous, enchanted, epic excursions. The second is more dazzled and meandering, with jellied bass, insectile detail, and discombobulated jabbering; the third is more liquid, fleet of foot, and psychedelic, with a grooving b-line and funky keyboard stabs, scrambled eastern strings and hypnotic vocalese. The harmonium in The Overwhelming Yes sounds like Nico blowing in chillily from up the desert shore. The overall mood is wondrous, twinkling with light, onwards-and-upwards; an uncanny, dubwise mix of the ancient and the futuristic. Mark Ernestus’ Version is stripped, trepidatious, mystical, and stranger still, with just a snatch of the original melody, extra distortion and delay, and crystal-clear drum sound. Twenty minutes of startlingly original music, with Shackleton the maestro at the top of his game, and a characteristically evilous dub by Mark Ernestus. Mastered by Rashad Becker; handsomely sleeved. Sick to the nth. Love 4 Ever.

Nigerian percussionist Gasper Lawal’s groundbreaking debut Ajomasé, originally self-released in 1980 on his own CAP label, finally sees an official reissue via the esteemed Strut imprint. Having honed his craft through collaborations with giants like Stephen Stills, Funkadelic, and Vangelis, Lawal crystallized his vision using hand-built instruments and meticulous multi-tracking to create a work of singular depth. Merging Afro-rhythmic intensity with experimental sensibilities, the album garnered international recognition after airplay from John Peel and others. A historic masterpiece where West African shamanism collides with Fourth World psychedelia, deep-rooted funk, spiritual resonance, and an avant-garde ethnomusicological spirit. Fully remastered from the original tapes.

Strut present the first international reissues of two classics of South African jazz by Malombo Jazz Makers, ‘Malompo Jazz’ (1966) and ‘Malombo Jazz Makers Vol. 2’ (1967). Formed in Mamelodi township near Pretoria, the group started out as Malombo Jazz Men with Julian Bahula on malombo drums, Abbey Cindi on flute and Philip Tabane on guitar. Fusing traditional and improvised rhythms with jazz, Malombo became renowned as one of the first South African bands to fully connect jazz with the African traditions. Despite his undoubted genius, Tabane became erratic on tour and Bahula brought in another Mamelodi-based talent, guitarist Lucas “Lucky” Ranku, renaming the band Malombo Jazz Makers. The group played stadiums and festivals and were soon signed to Gallo. Recording at a studio in Pretoria, the trio debuted with the album ‘Malompo Jazz’ in 1966, showcasing the simple, spacious beauty of the Malombo sound and Abbey Cindi’s compositions, with Mahotella Queens’ Hilda Tloubatla on guest vocals. The partner follow-up album ‘Malombo Jazz Makers Vol. 2’ was recorded a year later, continuing the earthy flow of Malombo’s music. The two albums have since been recognised as unique landmarks of South African jazz through popular tracks like ‘Sibathathu’, ‘Jikeleza’ and ‘Emakhaya’. Alongside full original artwork, the albums feature a new interview with Julian Bahula.

 

The third in Strut’s Inspiration Information studio collaboration series brings together an intriguing pairing between one of Africa’s great bandleaders, Mulatu Astatke, with the next level musicianship of The Heliocentrics collective from the mighty roster of Stones Throw / Now Again.

Known primarily through the successful ‘Ethiopiques’ album series and the film soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Broken Flowers’, Mulatu Astatke is one of Ethiopia’s foremost musical ambassadors. Informed by spells living and studying in the UK and the USA, his self-styled Ethio-jazz sound flourished during the “Swinging Addis” era of the late ‘60s as he successfully fused Western jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk melodies, five tone scale arrangements and elements from music of the ancient Coptic church.

The Heliocentrics have become known as one of the UK’s foremost free-thinking collectives of musicians, inspired by a wide palette covering Sun Ra, James Brown, David Axelrod and all manner of psych, Afro and Eastern sounds. Now a fixture within the Stones Throw / Now Again roster, they forged their own genre-breaking directions in the astral analogue groove on their 2007 debut album, ‘Out There’.

“ It’s like going back to the feel of the ‘60s, it really feels like that,” explains Mulatu. “There’s a new composition, ‘Cha Cha’, and ‘Dewel’, heavily influenced by an Ethiopian Coptic Church composer called Yard. The band took it and added what they feel. It’s a nice experiment.” 

Saadia Jefferson is a glorious act of vandalism on Yemeni traditions led by inventor, carpenter, musician, and composer Eyal El Wahab. Dismantling lyrics, melodies, and compositions from Yemeni folk songs, El Khat delve into uncharted sonic territory updating Yemen's ancient culture. Using an orchestra of instruments old and new, many repurposed from junk objects and turned into instruments that sound similar to traditional Arabic and North African lutes and percussion, Tel Aviv based El Khat have imagined an indelible stamp of polyphonic, harmony soaked, pan-Arabic braindance. Hover over the tracks and you can pick out certain influences such as Omar Souleyman and dabkefolk characterised by trance-inducing chants (Wahed Mozawej), the searing Ethiopique organ of Mulatu Astatke (Ala Jina Nuhayiykum), and the unashamedly sing-along choruses of Bowie or McCartney (Balagh Al Achbaab), but the over-arching concept within Saadia Jefferson is Eyal's sense of identity, or lack of it, as a Yemeni living in Tel Aviv. The album is the rewards of a self-imposed mission to discover Eyal El Wahab's Yemeni roots.

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.

Carrying on a string of stunning archival releases from major figures of Indian classical tradition (including releases from members of the Dagar family and Amelia Cuni), Black Truffle is pleased to announce an unheard recording from tabla master Kamalesh Maitra (1924-2005). For over fifty years, Maitra devoted himself to the rare tabla tarang, a set of between ten and sixteen hand drums tuned to the notes of the raga to be performed. While the tabla tarang has its origins in the late 19th century, Maitra was the first to recognise its potential as a solo concert instrument, using the set of tuned drums to perform full-length raags. Seated behind a semi-circular array of drums, Maitra produced stunning waves of melodic improvisation enlivened with the rhythmic invention of a master percussionist. Across his career, Maitra performed in ensembles led by Ravi Shankar, collaborated with George Harrison, and led his own East-West fusion group, the Ragatala Ensemble. However, it is in the solo setting that his remarkable artistry and the otherworldly timbral qualities of the tabla tarang are most strikingly on display. Recorded during the same 1985 Berlin sessions that produced Maitra’s self-released solo LP Tabla Tarang: Ragas on Drums, on Raag Kirwani on Tabla Tarang we are treated to Maitra stretching out for over forty minutes on the late night Raag Kirwani, accompanied by Laura Patchen on tabla and Mila Morgenstern and Marina Kitsos on tanpura. The performance begins with the traditional free-floating exposition section, where Maitra’s spacious melodic improvisation at times almost resembles a plucked string instrument (like the sarod, which Maitra also played). For the listener unaccustomed to the tabla tarang, the sound of these microtonally inflected melodic patterns played on drums has a magic quality. As Maitra begins to imply the rhythmic cycles more strongly, Patchen joins on tabla, beginning half an hour of rhythmic-melodic exploration, where virtuosity sits side by side with delicacy and meditative attention. Accompanied by beautiful archival images and extensive liner notes from Laura Patchen, for many listeners Raag Kirwani on Tabla Tarang will be the perfect introduction to the magical world of Kamalesh Maitra, released to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the master musician’s birth.

Before the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, unleashing a horrifying genocide, Cambodia had one of the most vibrant and exciting music scenes in Asia. With a mixture of traditional Khmer music and a myriad of western genres (from French and latin music, to rock-and-roll , rhythm-and-blues, surf, psychedelia, soul and many more) the few pre 75 Cambodian recordings that survived -most of them were destroyed- are enough to make anyone with a taste for good music shocked by the amazing quality of the sounds created during those golden years.
 
Gathered in this amazing album are some of the most talented and unique musicians from that amazing era with an explosive collection of tracks sure to blow the mind of the listener. A celebration of some of the best music ever made.

During the 60's and early 70's, Singapore had one of most vibrant and interesting music scenes in Asia and even the world, and this compilation presents undeniable proof of it. Focusing exclusively on the female presence on the scene (be it as solo singers, backed by other bands or as band leaders) "Singapore Nuggets. The Ladies", presents such and amazing collection of songs many will be shocked by the sheer genius of this ladies.
 
Ranging from Naive Pop to Fuzzed out Garage (and more!) all within the confines of Pop Yeh Yeh, the fresh, colorful, local sound of 60's Singapore in which western influences, Chinese, Arabic and Indian sounds were mixed by the locals to create a wonderfully idiosyncratic style. A must!