MUSIC

Recorded live and released in 1987 in Montevideo, Uruguay. this album is the most professional record of the duo that Eduardo Mateo and Fernando Cabrera formed for a period of a few months. These two great composers, performers and arrangers from different generations, premiered with the duo several beautiful new songs, in addition to concocting together renewed versions of some of the classic tunes from each one's repertoire. It is an intimate and acoustic work. Cabrera's guitar appears many times backed by the tasty and peculiar percussion of Mateo, and there are also grooves with precious arrangements of two guitars. The duo of Mateo and Cabrera was a milestone for the careers of both. 500 copies

Uruguayan groove and multicultural sophistication – 40th anniversary special edition, 500 copies, including 20 page booklet. 
With a unique mix of music roots and cosmopolitan sounds Jaime Roos would become one of the most successful and significant artists of Uruguayan music.
Aquello, his third album, recorded in France in 1980 with an impressive cast of international musicians, reflects Europe’s multicultural landscape during the late seventies. Psychedelic folk, afro-candombe, murga, rock, new tango and jazz-fusion are combined in a surprising way in a one-off album that exudes strangeness and sophistication.

Originally released as a double CD in 2010, Wallahi Le Zein! has persisted as a cult classic, a collection of a rarely heard and utterly unique underground music scene, raw and unfiltered.

The LP, cassette & digital version we now present is intended as an immersive entry into this music: gnarled and virtuosic electric guitars weave hypnotically throughout melismatic sung poetry and exclamations, pulsing hand drums, party chatter, buzzing rigged desert sound systems, and all manner of the ambient sounds of Nouakchott wedded to oversaturated cassette in all its swirling, breathing, psychedelic glory. Operating entirely outside of any local recording industry, these songs were collected from bootleg tape stalls, wedding souveniers, and networks of musicians, expertly curated, researched and produced by Matthew Lavoie.

Drawing from the deep well of Mauritanian classical music, the gamut of musical modes and the tidinitt lute repertoire are transposed to the electric guitar - often with frets removed or additional frets installed, “heavy metal” distortion pedals and phasers built into guitar bodies, blurring the lines between Haratine and Beydane musical cultures, the ancient and the futuristic. At times transcendent and transfixing, and conversely a furious and cascading intensity that commands jaw-dropping attention.

Before there was Rimarimba, Suffolk-born, Felixstowe-based musician and home recording enthusiast Robert Cox assembled a cast of friends, some musicians and some not so much, for an experiment in group exploration and ecstatic expression under the name The Same. Sonically and gravitationally defined by Cox’s collaboration with guitarist Andy Thomas (a partnership which formed in 1976 to record as General Motors), Sync or Swim, The Same’s one and only album, also featured keyboards by Florence Atkinson and Paul Ridout, and vocals by Robert’s sister Rebecca.

Originally released in small cassette and vinyl quantities on Unlikely Records, Cox’s imprint and a meeting point for many other musicians found at the fringe, the back cover of the original album jacket is as much a map of the personnel, place, and process fundamental to Sync or Swim as it is a table of contents for DIY music-making at the beginning of the 80s: “Recorded in peaceful Wiltshire between September 18th and October 6th 1981 (using a miscellany of home made devices) onto a Teac A-3300SX via a Teac A-3440. No noise reduction systems were used.”

Cox’s own definition of British psychedelia is “folk music meeting technology and going bonkers.” It’s by this definition that Sync or Swim takes unexpected forms, from tape-speed tomfoolery, concrète sound collage and analog delayed marimbas, to the colorful spectrum of interwoven guitar play between Cox and Thomas reminiscent of Ghanaian Highlife but more accurately indebted to Jerry Garcia.

On the album’s culminating final track, “E Scapes,” all of these elements are brought together in twenty-minute journey through layers of chiming guitar loops and spritely solos, keyed percussion, and tape experiments, all played as though the sun were rising over the standing stones of Salisbury Plain. Cox would later go to similarly greath lengths with certain solo sound endeavors, but the confluence of musicians on “E Scapes” pushes the piece to exceptional, unforgettable heights.

Transferred and remastered from the original tapes, The Same’s Sync or Swim arrives June 4, 2021 on Freedom To Spend, just in time for the album’s 40th anniversary.

The pioneering electro-acoustic band Seefeel, which had a major influence on the birth of "post-rock," has announced a reissue campaign covering their material released on Warp and Rephlex in the mid-90s!

The long-discontinued studio albums "Succour" and "(Ch-Vox)" are now available in an expanded edition with bonus tracks, the EP collection "St / Fr / Sp", and the 4-CD box set "Rupt & Flex", featuring material from 1994-96.

All of these releases include previously unreleased bonus material, all of which has been remastered from the original DAT tapes by acoustic techno genius Stefan Betke, aka Pole. The album also features new artwork by The Designers Republic (Succour is an updated version) and liner notes by Seafeel members Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock.

After gaining attention with their debut album Quique on Too Pure, the band signed with Warp in 1994. Initially, they were associated with the shoegaze sound of My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, but their penchant for electronic sounds and sampler-driven style led them to be associated with the burgeoning IDM sound. This image was further strengthened when Aphex Twin, who had professed to be a big fan of Seafeel, provided a remix of his early track "Time To Find Me" and signed him to his own label, Rephlex.

Steve Beckett, founder of Warp, explains how the success of his first album, Quique, led him to sign with Warp. "Seafeel was the first guitar band Warp signed.... It took a lot of courage for them to sign with us because they were older in the family and had been accused of breaking the unwritten rule that they should be a pure dance label.

After hearing Seafeel's first EP, Robin Guthrie invited Mark Clifford to the Cocteau Twins studio, and soon afterwards Seafeel accompanied the Cocteau Twins on tour. Mark later remixed four songs for the Cocteau Twins (on their EP, Otherness), helping to bring their music to a new audience.

Their second album, Succour, released on Warp in March 1995, was a departure from the melodic, guitar-driven sound of the first album, and explored more rhythmic, quasi-industrial textures. A six-song mini-album, (Ch-Vox), released on Rephlex in 1996, took a more experimental direction, with most of the songs produced by Mark Clifford alone. Most of the songs were produced by Mark Clifford alone. It was also the catalyst for his later releases on Warp under the names Woodenspoon and Disjecta.

The band stopped playing in 1997, but a live performance at Warp20, celebrating Warp's 20th anniversary (with a new lineup that included DJ Scotch Egg and ex-Boredoms drummer Kazuhisa Iida), led to the release of a self-titled album on Warp in 2010. In 2010, he released another self-titled album on Warp.

Spittle Records present a reissue of The Durutti Column's Red Shoes, originally released in 1992 on Materiali Sonori. First ever reissue on vinyl. Red Shoes includes eight new recordings (dated early 1992), five unreleased tracks, a new version of "When The World" and more sophisticated rendition of "For Madeleine" and "For Zinni". Vini develops his musical journey using fascinating licks for guitar, steeped in new age, minimalism, soft electric folk, and ambient music (and it's important to note that Vini's style has been long informed by kosmische heroes such as Manuel Göttsching or Günter Schickert and even John Martyn). The album offers even the reissue of the mini album Greetings Three, a very important goal for the band and the label Materiali Sonori. In fact, the four tracks included on this record -- released in 1985 -- have been explicitly dedicated to Italy, Tuscany and to new Italian friends. Along with Vini Reilly you will find the talent of Bruce Mitchell (drums) and John Metcalfe (violin) on display. Licensed from Materiali Sonori.

New York-based Arlene Farber, who later had a bit part in The French Connection, was renamed Arlene Tiger by future husband, Jerry Gross, for the lurid Female Animal, one of the exploitation films he directed and distributed in the late 60s and early 70s (here under the alias Juan Carlo Grinella). With a debauched plot about the raunchy misfortunes that befell an attractive peasant girl (with Gross appearing as a pimp), the film benefitted from a lush soundtrack by the Clay Pitts Orchestra, written and conducted by the enigmatic Pitts himself (the alias of US composer Derek Ware). This easy listening LP is a true stunner of the genre, a must-have for all fans of lounge music, as well as original exploitation soundtracks.

Includes the classic song "The Thief", which has been covered by Radiohead! The 13th album was recorded in 1968 when Malcolm Mooney, the first vocalist of German Rock Gods Can, was in the band, and was not released until 1981. By 1968, the band had already foreseen the arrival of post-punk, no-wave and even electronica, and their edgy psychedelic sound was already in full swing. This is a masterpiece that fully showcases their edgy psychedelic sound.

In his long career Dick Hyman has covered a great variety of music fields, from Broadway through music for film and television to jazz, classical, pop, and electronic music.

"The Age of Electronicus" originally released in 1969 is one of his Electronic Pop jewels. A breathtaking sequence of reworked hits of the day including outstanding electro-versions of Lennon McCartney's classics such as "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La- Da" and "Blackbird" and Bacharach's "Alfie" A whole feast of analog Moog sounds, primitive drums machines, repetitive bass lines and lots of robotic beats. All packaged in a memorable, colourful album cover.

1985 was one of the most important years in Brazil's recent history, when the country was freed from more than 20 years of military dictatorship. The youth took the lead and finally Brazil entered the world show business circuit with Rock In Rio festival. But the real revolution was happening in the underground and this record is a proof of that.
One of the people in charge was the musician, composer, poet, writer, scriptwriter and speaker from Rio de Janeiro Ronaldo Tapajós, who was always involved with experimental and avant-garde music. His trajectory begins in the mythical 1968, when, as part of the the duo Rô and Carlinhos, he released an emblematic single containing the song “O Gigante” - perhaps the first Brazilian bad trip recorded on vinyl and a shrewd criticism of the society's “square” habits.

Cinema was an experimental and avant-garde piece released in early 1985. In many ways it’s an example of the new Brazil that was reborning after 21 years of darkness under Military Dictatorship. Musically, it was a pioneer album for Brazilian music, mixing acoustic and synthetic sounds.
This rare adventure in Brazilian music was released independently in 1985, financed by the artists themselves. The original small press sold-out, belonging now to record collectors around the planet. For the first time Cinema is re-released on vinyl, with two extra and unreleased tracks found after decades.
Remastered from the original tapes, this reissue includes reproduction of the original graphic art, new testimonials from the four members of the project and a long article signed by Bento Araujo, author of the book series Lindo Sonho Delirante, which investigates audacious and fearless music created in the Brazilian underground.
According to Cinema’s LP press release: “in the era of visual music, Cinema is sound”. In terms of sound, listening to this album feels like diving into an intriguing anguish of trying to understand how the relationship between technology available at that time (1983-1984) and the more organic instruments happened, this duality between synthesizers/effects with percussion, woodwind instruments, piano and clarinet. In other words: how was the coexistence between the synthetic and the acoustic? This paradox seems to seduce collectors, DJs and enthusiasts of Brazilian music from the 80's around the world.
This fictional soundtrack has a dark mood, as if a fog of dark and ambient music insisted on staying on top of cheerful patterns of Afro-Brazilian percussion, or conceptual synth pop.

Music and Poetry of the Kesh is the documentation of an invented Pacific Coast peoples from a far distant time, and the soundtrack of famed science fiction author, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. In the novel, the story of Stone Telling, a young woman of the Kesh, is woven within a larger anthropological folklore and fantasy.

The ways of the Kesh were originally presented in 1985 as a five hundred plus page book accompanied with illustrations of instruments and tools, maps, a glossary of terms, recipes, poems, an alphabet (Le Guin’s conlang, so she could write non-English lyrics), and with early editions, a cassette of “field recordings” and indigenous song. Le Guin wanted to hear the people she’d imagined; she embarked on an elaborate process with her friend Todd Barton to invoke their spirit and tradition.

For Music and Poetry of the Kesh, the words and lyrics are attributed to Le Guin as composed by Barton, an Oregon-based musician, composer and Buchla synthesist (the two worked together previously on public radio projects). But the cassette notes credit the sounds and voices to the world of the Kesh, making origins ambiguous. For instance, “The River Song” description reads, “The prominent rhythm instrument is the doubure binga, a set of nine brass bowls struck with cloth-covered wooden mallets, here played by Ready.”

According to writer and long-time friend of LeGuin, Moe Bowstern (who pens the liners for the Freedom To Spend edition of Kesh), Barton built and then taught himself to play several instruments of Le Guin’s design, among them “the seven-foot horn known to the Kesh as the Houmbúta and the Wéosai Medoud Teyahi bone flute.” Barton’s crafting of original instruments lends an other-worldly texture to the recordings of the Kesh, not unlike fellow builders Bobby Brown and Lonnie Holley. Bowstern notes, “Other musician / makers have crafted their own Kesh instruments after encountering the earlier cassette recordings that accompanied some editions of the book.”

Both Barton and Le Guin are sensitive to the sovereignty of indigenous Californians and were careful not to trample the traditions of the Tolowa people who lived in the valley long before the Kesh. “You research deeply, and then you bring your own voice to the table,” said Barton. Within the Kesh culture, the numbers four and five shape the lives, society and rituals. Barton composed loosely around these numbers, patiently listening to the land of Napa Valley for signs and audio signals from the natural elements. Todd incorporated ambient sounds of the creek by Le Guin’s house and a campfire they built together.

The songs of Kesh are joyful, soothing and meditative, while the instrumental works drift far past the imaginary lands. “Heron Dance” is an uplifting first track, featuring a Wéosai Medoud Teyahi (made from a deer or lamb thigh bone with a cattail reed) and the great Houmbúta (used for theatre and ceremony). “A Music of the Eighth House” sends gossamer waves of the faintest sounds to “float on the wind.” Like the languages invented in the vocal work of Anna Homler, Meredith Monk, and Elizabeth Fraser, the Kesh songs and poems play with the shape of voice.

The Music and Poetry of the Kesh cassette was meant to accompany and enhance the experience of reading Always Coming Home. Presented in this edition as a long-playing album, where only traces of the book linger (the jacket offers some of Le Guin’s illustration, and a letterpressed bookmark featuring the the narrative modes of western civilization and the Kesh valley is included), the music alone breaking the silence of what might be. It can transport—offering a landscape for imagining a future homecoming. One in which we are balanced, peaceful, and tend to the earth and its creatures.

A line from “Sun Dance Poem” reminds us, “We are nothing much without one another.” Freedom To Spend gives new life to the recordings of the Kesh people in the first ever vinyl edition of Music and Poetry of the Kesh also availably on digital formats on March 23, 2018. The LP will include a spot printed jacket with Ursula’s illustrations from Always Coming Home, a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes by Moe Bowstern, a multi-format digital download code and a bookmark letter pressed by Stumptown Printers in Portland, OR.

First edition limited to 1,000 copies.

The saga of composer Tim Story's 1982 debut is a case study in the shifting sands of the early progressive music industry. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in his basement bedroom in Whitehouse, Ohio using a ragtag array of equipment – salvaged vibraphone, pawn shop Les Paul, his mother's spinet piano, a PAiA synth kit assembled by his girlfriend's father, and a Yamaha CS-30 – Story optimistically dubbed six cassettes and sent them around the world. Following a polite rejection from Klaus Schulze, the French avant-garde label Atem (This Heat, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd) reached out with an offer to release Threads via their new instrumental electronic subdivision, Labyrinthes. After several letters confirming terms of the arrangement as well as multiple rounds of test pressings, correspondence suddenly ceased. Some months later the label folded, never having begun. Synchronistically, however, Schulze's copy ended up in the glovebox of an engineer associate, who happened to play it for a couple visiting journalists with contacts at a newish Norwegian imprint, Uniton Records (Popul Vuh, Harold Budd). Impressed, they connected Story to the label head, but by then he'd already recorded a follow-up, the more neoclassical-leaning In Another Country, which became his inaugural release. Finally, 40 years later, Dais Records is rectifying history's error by properly issuing Threads on vinyl for the first time. It's a beautiful, beguiling work, exploratory but emotive documenting, as Story puts it, “the path not taken... like the first chapter of a book that was set aside to begin another.” Despite only being in his early twenties at the time of its creation, Threads feels finessed and considered, weaving through a diverse spectrum of moods and minimalist melodies. From sunburst synthesizer devotionals (“Tethered By A Thread”) to shadowy cosmic drift (“Without Waves,” “Iso”) to fragile piano vignettes (“Burst,” “Scene And Artifact”), Story's compositional instincts skew subtle and sophisticated, carving gemstones of fluctuating radiance. He cites his discovery of tape loops as a central tool in the process, allowing him to generate recurring patterns of echoes and texture, decaying in volume and fidelity as desired: “A whole new and inspiring world opened up.” As both time capsule and discographical fountainhead, Threads vividly captures the threshold sensation of early 1980's electronic music: post-kosmische, pre-new age, before ambient became codified, just as synthesizers began slipstreaming into the underground. It's an album of beginnings and forking paths, inner space voyaging towards limitless horizons, born of “youthful dedication to something one loves, in a world that feels uncertain.”

"Arthur Russell's most extraordinary work, World of Echo is reissued in this remastered vinyl edition by Audika Records. 18 tracks are featured including drumless versions of his disco classics 'Let's Go Swimming,' 'Tree House,' and 'Wax The Van' along with four previously unreleased tracks. Originally released in 1986, World Of Echo is a deeply intimate and meditative work of awe-inspiring grace and remains a timeless work of sublime beauty. Arthur's aim was to achieve what he calls 'the most vivid rhythmic reality,' with just cello, voice, and echoes. Arthur achieved all of this and more on one of the most incredible albums you will ever hear."

One of the most striking documents of Italy’s Minimalist movement, Giusto Pio’s "Motore Immobile" is a masterwork with few equivalents. Produced by Franco Battiato in 1979, at the outset of a long and fruitful period of collaboration between the two composers, and issued by the legendary Cramps Records, its triumphs were met by silence, before falling from view.

Emerging on vinyl for the first time since it’s original pressing, "Motore Immobile" now sits within a reappraisal of a large neglected body of efforts made by the Italian avant-garde during the second half of the 1970’s and early 80’s. It is singular, but not alone. It resonates within a collective world of shimmering sound, one familiar to fans of Battiato, Lino Capra Vaccina, Luciano Cilio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Francesco Messina and Raul Lovisoni.

An exercise in elegant restraint - note and resonance held to the most implicit need. Where everything between root and embellishment has been stripped away. A sublime organ drone, against interventions of deceptively simple structural complexity - executed by Piano, Violin, and Voice. A sonic sculpture reaching heights which few have touched. A thing of beauty and an album as perfect as they come. The reemergence of Motore Immobile heralds what is unquestionably one of the most important reissues of the year.

Side A: Motore immobile 16:59
Organ: Danilo Lorenzini, Michele Fedrigotti
Violin: Giusto Pio
Voice: Martin Kleist

Side B: Ananta 13:58
Organ: Danilo Lorenzini
Piano: Michele Fedrigotti

Recommended for fans of Ellen Arkbro, Maria W Horn and Kali Malone! The long-awaited recurrence of the demon rare work, which seems to be almost impossible to obtain the original cassette. Ellen Fullman is a female composer known for her self-made instrument "Long String Instrument", which is played by rubbing and playing with a bunch of terrifyingly long strings over 15m on both ends. Inspired by composer / creative self-made musical instrument master Harry Partch, he has nurtured an overwhelming drone / minimalistic different world. The first analog reproduction from Superior Viaduct>.

In 2015, a super important release arrived following the masterpiece "The Long String Instrument" that was reissued from the same label. In addition to the sound source of the cassette of the same name recorded at the unfinished office tower in Austin, Texas in 1987, an extended reissue specification that additionally recorded unreleased songs left in the sacred place of Dutch underground music . If you lower the needle, it will fly to the heavens in an instant. Recommended for all minimalism enthusiasts, including Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young and Harry Bertoia.

The original is an EP that was released as a private press in 1953. In the 1950s, he performed avant-garde and more original than anyone else. I have no idea what kind of music was the foundation, but it is a wonderful performance full of vitality and creativity born from the depths of human beings.

180g vinyl. Saturn, released in the latter half of 1960. Sun Ra style modal exo jazz with a mixture of exotic percussion accents and bebop colors.

Sun Ra's important early work and rare edition, "Secrets Of The Sun" in 1965 is reissued. Popular songs such as "Friendly Galaxy" with thick and three-dimensional shaking, "Love In Outer Space", the eternal theme of outer space-love, "Solar Differentials" that controls the voice of the universe, and percussion 2 "Solar Symbols" played using one. In the deep sound, I'm completely on the "ambient" side at this point rather than percussion ... this is what I hear. It is a good LP where the universe hidden in Sun Ra exploded.

Third volume in the BYG Actuel series; gatefold sleeve, 180 gram vinyl. "After three years as a member of Albert Ayler's band (1964-1967), avant-garde jazz drummer Sunny Murray traveled to France where he recorded for Affinity and BYG. The amazing Homage to Africa was recorded on August 15, 1969 for BYG and features Archie Shepp, Alan Silva, Grachan Moncur III, Lester Bowie, Clifford Thornton, Roscoe Mitchell, Kenneth Terroade and Jeanne Lee."

We've stocked up on some of "Actuel" series from BYG, the legendary catalog in the history of free jazz! This is a masterpiece of Archie Shepp's performance recorded live at the Panafrican Festival, a pan-African cultural festival held in Algiers, Algeria in July 1969. The sound is still overwhelming.... This legendary album was recorded over two days from July 29th to 30th with Dave Burrell, Alan Silva, Sunny Murray, and local musicians from North Africa. This is a legendary album recorded over two days from July 29th to 30th. It is an amazing trance music with a spiritual horn section blowing in response to psychedelic Jajuka ritual music.

A masterpiece by Brij Bhushan Kabra, the master of Hindustani classical music on guitar! In India, the guitar was introduced by Hawaiian musicians in the 1920s, and later became widely popular in popular music and film music. He studied under Ali Akbar Khan, who deepened his knowledge of the instrument, and his music has a classical depth as well as a calm, relaxed mood and lightness. This may be due to the fact that the guitar is free from the weight of continuous performance tradition. The method of playing the guitar is also unconventional, as it is played horizontally on the lap, and I think there is a fascination when one follows one's own inner desires and creates something that has never been done before. I recommend this album to anyone who loves Indian music and guitar, or anyone who just wants to relax and unwind. It has been newly remastered and is only available in one pressing, so don't miss it. This is the original 1982 release with the world famous tabla player Zakir Hussain.

A masterpiece by Brij Bhushan Kabra, the master of Hindustani classical music on guitar! In India, the guitar was introduced by Hawaiian musicians in the 1920s, and later became widely popular in popular music and film music. He studied under Ali Akbar Khan, who deepened his knowledge of the instrument, and his music has a classical depth as well as a calm, relaxed mood and lightness. This may be due to the fact that the guitar is free from the weight of continuous performance tradition. The method of playing the guitar is also unconventional, as it is played horizontally on the lap, and I think there is a fascination when one follows one's own inner desires and creates something that has never been done before. I recommend this album to anyone who loves Indian music and guitar, or anyone who just wants to relax and unwind. It has been newly remastered and is only available in one pressing, so don't miss it. This one, Lure of the Desert, is an exploration of the folk music of Rajasthan. The hypnotic rhythms and meandering guitar ragas create a desert-like trance world.

A masterpiece by Brij Bhushan Kabra, the master of Hindustani classical music on guitar! In India, the guitar was introduced by Hawaiian musicians in the 1920s, and later became widely popular in popular music and film music. He studied under Ali Akbar Khan, who deepened his knowledge of the instrument, and his music has a classical depth as well as a calm, relaxed mood and lightness. This may be due to the fact that the guitar is free from the weight of continuous performance tradition. The method of playing the guitar is also unconventional, as it is played horizontally on the lap, and I think there is a fascination when one follows one's own inner desires and creates something that has never been done before. I recommend this album to anyone who loves Indian music and guitar, or anyone who just wants to relax and unwind. It has been newly remastered and is only available in one pressing, so don't miss it. This "Scaling New Horizons With Guitar" was released in 1976 and is considered to be one of Kabra's masterpieces.

The Beaters – Harari was released in 1975. After changing their name, Harari went into the studio late in 1976 to record their follow-up, Rufaro / Happiness. In 1976 they were voted South Africa’s top instrumental group and were in high demand at concert venues across the country. 

Comprising former schoolmates guitarist and singer Selby Ntuli, bassist Alec Khaoli, lead guitarist Monty Ndimande and drummer Sipho Mabuse, the group had come a long way from playing American-styled instrumental soul in the late sixties to delivering two Afro-rock masterpieces. 

Before these two albums the Beaters had been disciples of ‘Soweto Soul’ – an explosion of township bands drawing on American soul and inspired by the assertive image of Stax and Motown’s Black artists. The Beaters supported Percy Sledge on his 1970 South African tour (and later Timmy Thomas, Brook Benton and Wilson Pickett). But their watershed moment was their three month tour of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) where they were inspired by the strengthening independence struggle and musicians such as Thomas Mapfumo who were turning to African influences. On their return, the neat Nehru jackets that had been the band’s earliest stage wear were replaced by dashikis and Afros. 

“In Harari we rediscovered our African-ness, the infectious rhythms and music of the continent. We came back home inspired! We were overhauling ourselves into dashiki-clad musicians who were Black Power saluting and so on.” Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, talking of the band’s time spent on tour in the (then) Rhodesian township from where they took their name. As well as expressing confident African politics, Alec Khaoli recalled, they pioneered by demonstrating that such messages could also be carried by “...happy music. During apartheid times we made people laugh and dance when things weren’t looking good.” 

The two albums capture the band on the cusp of this transition. One the first album Harari, Inhlupeko Iphelile, Push It On and Thiba Kamoo immediately signal the new Afro-centric fusion of rock, funk and indigenous influences. Amercian soul pop is not forgotten with Love, Love, Love and, helped along by Kippie Moeketsi and Pat Matshikiza a bump-jive workout What’s Happening concludes the album. The second album Rufaro pushes the African identity and fusion further, with key tracks Oya Kai (Where are you going?), Musikana and Uzulu whilst the more pop-styled Rufaro and Afro-Gas point to where Harari were headed to in years to come. The popularity and sales generated by these two classic albums saw them signed by Gallo and release just two more albums with the original line-up before the untimely death of Selby Ntuli in 1978. Whilst they went on to greater success, even landing a song in the US Billboard Disco Hot 100 in 1982, it was never the same again. 

“Harari’s music still speaks directly to one of my goals as a younger artist: to express myself as an African without pretending that I don’t have all these other musical elements – classical, jazz, house – inside me.” (Thandi Ntuli, niece of Selby Ntuli).