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The “Polyphonic singing of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa” was officially added to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008, but four decades earlier the musicologist Simha Arom had already discovered the music of the Mbenga (Aka/Benzele), Baka and Mbuti (Efé) populations. He described their collective contrapuntal improvisations as being characterised by a level of polyphonic complexity that European music would only reach in the 14th century.
Starting from the 60s, when the records of the UNESCO Collection curated by Arom were released, Central African music has been internationally discovered, studied and used as a source of inspiration by composers such as Christian Wolff, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Jon Hassell, and Herbie Hancock (with the famous opening track of the album Head Hunters), amongst others.
During its 2014 edition AngelicA hosted a concert by Ndima (a word meaning forest in the Aka language) a group of artists (singers, dancers and musicians) part of the Aka Pygmies tribe.
The concert was a huge success (it had to be replicated on the same night, due to high demand from the public) and like all concerts that are part of the festival it was recorded.
However, for this double album of i dischi di angelica, we decided to use the field recordings that Roberto Monari, sound technician and long-time collaborator of the festival, had carried out a few months earlier while being hosted for several days by two Pygmy tribes Mbenzelé and Aka, and living with them, in the far North of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the North-eastern (Mbenzelé) and North-western rainforests (Aka) of Ouésso in the Shanga region respectively, near the border with the Central African Republic and Cameroon.
The complex musical technique of these populations is learnt orally since early childhood, and it is completely different from that of the surrounding populations: voices (including a peculiar use of yodelling, with an alternation of head and chest voice that creates an individual identity) and hand clapping are enough to create sophisticated polyphonies and counterpoints; occasionally simple string, wind or percussive instruments are used, or quite simply the water in the ponds which is skilfully played with the hands, traditionally by women and children.
The music of the Pygmies permeates every aspect of everyday life: music dedicated to forest spirits, rituals for hunting or to facilitate a rich harvest, nursery rhymes or lullabies for children, songs of grief or entertainment, or relating to divination or sexuality… singing takes place all day, and the rhythm of the stories and the voices is forged and developed – as proved by the original and continuous sequences on these records, which are the fruit of spontaneous events that took place during Monari’s stay with the tribes – in a sound context as rich and diversified as that of the sounds of the equatorial forest in which they live – an environment, and a culture, whose survival is nowadays increasingly endangered.




Dry was conceived as a new journey among Vini inventions, through rarefied moods and subterranean streams of sound. The fifteen songs (lasting fifty-five minutes) were recorded in Manchester in 1990, Vini sits in on guitar and piano, while Mitchell is on electronic and acoustic percussion, other instruments such as the clarinet (played by Zinnia Mitchell-Williams, Bruce's daughter), harmonica, viola and keyboards are also featured on the session. Here, once again, Durutti Column 's music could be defined as half-way between melancholy rock and 'progressive' New Age.












"There was a time when the strength of a musician's vision transcended all labels; here is a chance to dip into that pool again, and emerge not just refreshed, but alive again with the sense that we all can live in that world again, but most importantly raise the flag for excellence. Fantastic." --Jim O'Rourke
An unholy grail of near-mythical status is finally now available in the form of this first-ever reissue. Masahiko Sato composed this elusive, sensual, psychedelic free jazz score for the stunning 1973 Japanese witchcraft animation Belladonna of Sadness (Kanashimi no Belladonna) directed by Eiichi Yamamoto. Since the mid-2000s, Belladonna of Sadness has risen from the ashes and now shines brighter than ever. Now, on the eve of its third or fourth global DVD release in 2015, fans no longer have to settle for third-generation VHS telecine dubs or stuff their wish-lists into the hands of lucky friends visiting Tokyo. Belladonna has been used as nightclub projections by clued-up VJs and been restored by discerning feminist folk singers and improv bands while influencing illustrators, fashion designers, and other creative types along the way. Original copies of the soundtrack, however, are much less likely to rear their heads, with prices literally doubling each time the original stock copies swap hands among the same Italian dealers at central European record fairs. Italian soundtracks are expensive anyway, but this one, originally released by the Italian Cinevox label in 1975, has extra credentials. Finders Keepers Records and Sato himself agreed that this record should finally be liberated among those who know the magic words. With the decision to keep this album "strictly Sato," a track from the original release has been removed -- the main orchestral love theme by Asei Kobayashi and Mayumi Tachibana -- which in all honesty is very much detached from Sato's psychedelic soundtrack. Kept intact, however, are the songs sung and penned by Sato's wife at the time, Chinatsu Nakayama, including the track titled "TBFS," which only appears on the master tapes and never actually made it onto the theatrical cut of the film (though the theme is briefly alluded to, with different instrumentation, in a cut-scene available on the German DVD release). This reissue project also marks the beginning of a longer intended relationship between Finders Keepers and Masahiko Sato, exploring his recorded work in film music, jazz, and avant-garde composition.








