World / Traditional / India

Kaloli is the debut full-length LP from Kampala’s darkest electro-percussion group Nihiloxica. The album marries the propulsive Ugandan percussion of the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble with technoid analog synth lines and hybrid kit playing from the UK’s pq and Spooky-J. The result is something otherworldly. Kaloli journeys through the uncharted space between two cultures of dance music, where the expression of traditional elements mutates into something more sinister and nihilistic.

The album takes its name from the Luganda word for the Marabou stork. Kaloli are carrion birds that can be seen amassing in areas of festering waste around the country, particularly in Kampala, with its heightened levels of urban pollution. Freakishly large in size and riddled with amorphous boils, growths and tufts, these toxic creatures thrive on detritus. Rising skyward on huge air currents, however, their wretchedness is softened as they effortlessly glide above the city. Nihiloxica tread a similar path to the kaloli: a dissonant, polyrhythmic assault on the senses holds a transcendental beauty.

Since 2017 the band have honed their sound in residence at Nyege Nyege’s Boutiq Studio in Kampala, one of the most vital cultural melting pots on the continent. Their debut self-titled EP for the acclaimed Ugandan label was an immediate success. An auspicious project between two UK musicians and a Kampala-based percussion troupe, Nilotika Cultural Ensemble, sparked a musical dialogue across continents with the aim to fuse two distanced cultures of dance music into one aural entity. The synergy between the group was instantaneous. The EP was composed, rehearsed and recorded with a minimal studio setup in the space of a month, giving Nihiloxica a rawness and brutality that pushed it into best-of-year lists across the world. However, this proved to be only a snapshot of what Nihiloxica were capable of. After a year of jamming together and road-testing material live on stage across the world, the second EP, Biiri, showed the band communicating with each other more freely. Their musical vocabulary was becoming ever more intricate. Now, after three successful European tours, this cross-continental conversation has brought us Kaloli.

Recorded with Ross Halden at Hohm Studios directly after a concert supporting Aphex Twin, Kaloli captures the vitality of Nihiloxica’s show-stopping live performances and magnifies it with pq’s honest, powerful production. For five days in September 2019 in Bradford, Nihiloxica laid down the bulk of the album: eight synthetic abstractions of the traditional folk-rhythms of Uganda. At the heart of every song is a groove, a drum pattern to be explored and developed. Each takes us through a different rhythmic territory: Busoga from the east of Uganda, Bwola from the north, Gunjula from the central region, Buganda.

The soundscape is dominated by the ancestral Bugandan drum set, consisting of Alimansi Wanzu Aineomugisha and Jamiru Mwanje on the engalabi (long drums - a tall Ugandan sister to the djembe), Henry Kasoma on the namunjoloba (a set of four small, high pitched drums) and Henry Isabirye on the empuunyi (a set of three low pitched bass drums). Wanzu also plays the ensaasi (shakers). One of the major additions to the sonic palette of Kaloli are the electronic drum sounds used more increasingly by Jacob Maskell-Key (Spooky J), providing an additional link between worlds, evident as electro-percussive punctuation on Salongo and Gunjula. The patterns beaten out by the ensemble are then explored harmonically and spectrally by the synths of Peter Jones (pq), stretching and searching for hooks and sounds among the rhythmic mayhem like kaloli picking and poking through decaying matter.

For their forthcoming release on Crammed Discs, Nihiloxica’s dialogue reaches ever further into new areas. Busoga is dreamy and melodious, while Bwola plunges straight into armageddon. Tewali Sukali embraces the band’s furtive heavy metal influences much more closely. With more running time, the band have been able to sculpt their most personal, revealing work to date: one that stands up as a true home listening experience. Giving listeners a further glimpse into Nihiloxica’s musical process are snippets from rehearsal sessions that took place ahead of the recording in Jinja, near to where Nyege Nyege festival takes place. In the third and final of these interlude we witness Jally drop his engalabi in favour of a hand-made flute to lend the album a tranquil ad-libbed outro, accompanied by an evening chorus of Jinja’s plentiful crickets.


Once described by Gareth Main in the Quietus as ‘the best band on Earth right now’, it’s no surprise that Nihiloxica have plaudits from an esteemed list of sources. Notably by publications such as Pitchfork, the Guardian and Les Inrockuptibles, the group’s sound has been widely described as eerie, hypnotic, floor shaking and body moving. With an extensive touring schedule ahead of them, including dates confirmed at Sonar and Dekmantel, Nihiloxica’s Kaloli looks set to spread its wings in 2020.

Source of Denial is the second LP from Nihiloxica, the Bugandan techno outfit hailing from Kampala, Uganda. It comes after more than three long years since Kaloli, their acclaimed debut on Crammed Discs.

The album points a (middle) finger at the hostile immigration and freedom of movement policies implemented in the UK, as well as across the world. Fueled by their frustrations with this intentionally convoluted system, the group have produced their most cataclysmic effort to date.

Returning to the Nyege Nyege studio in Kampala where the band recorded their early EPs, the band tracked Source of Denial over an intense month of sessions in early 2022. The cover art is emblazoned with an ultra-metallic new logo, echoing the growing presence of metal influences across the tracklisting, while the hi-vis, official-document styling wryly evokes the bureaucratic nightmare at the heart of the project. Tracks like Asidi and Baganga flirt with the dystopian, mechanical patterns and tonalities of djent godfathers Meshuggah, while the gargantuan synth line of the title track summons the spirit of an 8-string guitar, synthesised palm-mutes and all. This is all effortlessly compounded with the molotov cocktail of Bugandan ngoma (drums) and club sounds the group have become revered for. On tracks like Olutobazzi, Postloya and Trip Chug, the drums themselves are reanimated and manipulated more than ever before, further blurring the line between tradition and techno.

The only spoken words we hear throughout the album, outside of studio outtake Preloya, are computer generated. They speak of application processes, character backgrounds, and accountability, blasted through crackled phone speakers. The effect is a Kafkaesque feedback loop: an avalanche of constant call tones, uncanny British accents and rigorous interrogative questioning. The frustrations are a problem the band, a defiantly global outfit, has faced continuously. A whole UK tour was cancelled in 2022, and recently, a UK show had to be performed with only three members due to problems with a certain conglomerate visa agency who “provide services” for the UK, as well as a growing number of countries.

“We wanted to create the sense of being in the endless, bureaucratic hell-hole of attempting to travel to a foreign country that deems itself superior to where you’re from. We’re focussing on the UK as that’s where we’ve had the most trouble, but the problem goes much, much further. In this system if you have a certain passport or have even visited a certain country then you’re an appropriate subject to be interrogated and insulted time and time again just to prove that you’re worthy to enter, and normally this involves proving you have a good enough reason to want to leave again! The arrogance of it is unbearable. This album was a way to express our disdain towards it... What exactly is the source of your denial? Your passport? Your bank balance? Your skin colour? You’ve paid huge sums of money to be thrown from one profit-driven “service centre” to another, each denying responsibility, each limiting your right to freedom of movement as a human being. Despite some other serious humanitarian shortcomings, Uganda accepts some of the highest numbers of refugees in the world. Meanwhile the UK is trying to send them away to Rwanda. That says it all.” - Nihiloxica

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of Juana Molina’s breakthrough album Segundo (2000), here’s a very special reissue, remastered from the original tapes, and augmented by a rich booklet recounting the eventful start of Juana’s musical career, and containing numerous notes, anecdotes, original drawings and previously unreleased pictures.
Segundo is the album which started Juana Molina’s international trajectory as a musician, and its making was a wild story: after dropping her highly-successful career as a TV comedian, and signing with a major company who got her to record her debut album, Juana set out to find her own direction in music and started working on a new record (aptly titled Segundo). This journey took four years, and included sessions in Argentina and in several houses where she lived on the US West Coast, the involvement of several possible producers and of four successive record labels, who each had their own idea of what Juana should be doing... Juana remained untamed, forged ahead and, during the course of this sometimes complicated process, developed her own method and her own characteristic sound. She writes:
From the moment “Segundo” took shape, I began to walk a path that I have not yet abandoned. That is why it’s so important to me. I feel that this was the seed of everything I have done ever since. I discovered the flair of composing in real time, the charm of discarding the very idea of demos, the grace of documenting these moments of searching and finding. Everything else became dispensable.

In 2000, Juana finally self-released Segundo in Argentina. The album semi-accidentally made its way to Japan where it very spectacularly took off, and was eventually picked up by the Domino label in 2003. The reception of Segundo set Juana Molina on course for starting to perform around the globe, garnering a large, devoted fan base, and going on to record five more extraordinary studio albums (including the widely-acclaimed Halo in 2017) and a live record (ANRMAL, 2020).
All this and much more is narrated in the lovely booklet, which includes notes by several people who were involved in these events (including Bruce Springsteen producer Ron Aniello) and by early adopters such as KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, Domino Recording’s Laurence Bell (who discovered Segundo by chance, in Will Oldham’s car), and David Byrne who, as soon as he heard the album for the first time, invited Juana to open for him on his 2003 US tour. 
 

From beloved composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a revelatory new album of piano pieces, unreleased or virtually inaccessible until now!

Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – an Ethiopian nun whose recordings have funded orphanages back home since the early ’60s. Her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear.

This is the first archival release of the great composer’s recordings since the Éthiopiques series reintroduced her music to the world in 2006. Drawn from original master tapes and a nearly impossible-to-find vinyl release, Jerusalem unveils profound new facets of Emahoy Gebru’s performance and compositions.

The record picks up where the last two Mississippi releases left off, with tracks from her 1972 album Hymn of Jerusalem, of which only a handful of copies are known to exist. These include “Home of Beethoven,” “Aurora,” and a true masterpiece that stands amongst her greatest compositions, the moving “Jerusalem.” “Quand La Mer Furieuse” is the first release featuring Emahoy’s singing voice, forshadowing a vocal album planned for fall 2023. The B-Side brings us the artist’s home recordings - tracks like “Farewell Eve,” “Woigaye Don’t Cry Anymore,” and “Famine Disaster 1974” mark a bridge from liturgical work to dark and intense classical material, a new mode.

This album is released in celebration of Emahoy Gebru’s 99th birthday on December 12, 2022. Mississippi is honored to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher to continue to introduce this visionary composer to the world.

Newly remastered recordings pressed on 160gm black vinyl, heavy jacket with reproduction of 1972 artwork, song notes by the artist. 

Rio Arriba is the sophomore album from Chancha Via Circuito, who molds local South American rhythms into global artistry. Rio Arriba bubbles up from the Andes like percussive lava, seething as it is soothing. Layers of drums play out like water and earth battling heat - heat brought by Chancha Via Circuito. Chancha has forged a path from his town outside the urban sprawl of Buenos Aires in the east of Argentina up across the border with Bolivia and into the Northern hemisphere where he's bringing new fans to native drum traditions. In his first release, Rodante, Chancha took cumbia into uncharted territory retrofitting the Latin rhythm for a worldly audience. With Rio Arriba, South American folklore takes the reins and, under Chancha’s steady hand, obscure backwoods rhythms take on a top shelf lifestyle as folklore hits the club. Cumbia made Chancha’s first album Rodante a stand out, Rio Arriba takes his sound primal, rooted in rhythm, but worldwide in scope. With recent remixes of The Ruby Suns (Sub Pop) and Gotan Project (Ya Basta/XL Recordings), Chancha proves his production can cross continents and pollinate. Rio Arriba annihilates the obvious - it's a fresh breeze from the city of good air flooding the urban habitat, sending you dancing upstream.

Another side of modern Malian praise songs: an intimate, stripped down, acoustic session from Namian Sidibé. From a rising generation of young Malian divas leveraging social media, Namian has built a following, publishing videos and dedications in song, accompanied by her cousin Jules Diabaté on acoustic guitar. Recorded at her home, with powerful yet restrained vocals that drift over melancholy acoustic guitar, Namian explores epic generational songs and poetry, brought into the Tik Tok age.

Wau Wau Collectif’s second album, Mariage, is instilled with a newfound sense of purpose. Expanding upon the inspirational themes of their acclaimed 2021 debut, Yaral Sa Doom (Educate The Young), this long distance collaboration from musicians in Senegal and Sweden’s Karl Jonas Winqvist is an even more stylistically expansive affair. Joyful children’s songs collide with fuzzy guitar solos and thumping hip-hop beats. Shimmering synths lift off from the plunky percussion of the balafon and versatile sounds of the 22-string kora. Familiar voices from the first album return with more explicitly political lyrics, while the music feels both rhythmically dense and sonically weightless, flowing from one spellbinding moment to the 6 next. For Mariage, band members from each country were inspired to include a wider array of instrumental flourishes unique to their cross-continental collaboration. “Yay Balma” revolves around the cycling riffs of Jango Diabaté’s xalam guitar, as this song’s fuzzy tones and soaring sax solos open side two with a bang. “Pitchi Goubidi” provides a stark contrast, with the kora played like a harp and Gilbert Badji’s gravelly lyrics about “the bird of the night” disappearing into dubbed-out chamber pop. Winqvist’s Omnichord hovers back into focus on “Yonou Natangue,” a free-floating jam that maintains the messages of Wau Wau Collectif’s debut, promoting youth education to address the social issues facing contemporary Senegal: “Peace is the better wealth / The way to wander.”

Mamman Sani Abdoulaye, a legendary name amongst Niger’s avant garde, presents a singularly unique recording of minimalist organ music from the Sahara. Dreamy and hypnotic, the sound is unlike anything coming out of West Africa before or since, closer in effect to early electronic experiments of Kraftwerk.Mamman composes in technique that can only be called minimal, relying on the simplicity and space. It is a remarkable manipulation of sound that uses the silence to invoke the emptiness, a metaphoric desert soundscape. Unsurprisingly, his source material is folkloric Nigerien music, and many of the compositions on this record are reproductions of ancient songs brought into the modern age. Interpreting this rich and varied history of Niger’s dance and song for the first time in contemporary music, Mamman electrifies the nomadic drum of the Tuaerg, the polyphonic ballads of the Woddaabe, and the pastoral hymns of the Sahelian herders. Accompanying this repertoire are a few compositions, such as Salamatu, the deeply personal love letter to an unrequited romance.Recorded in 1981 at the National Radio in Niger, shortly after Mamman discovered an old Italian organ, the album was a spontaneous production, recorded in two takes. It was released on cassette but was a commercial failure, and only a handful were sold. The recordings, however, were a success, and became the themes to the National radio for the subsequent 30 years, securing Mamman’s place in the foundation of Nigerien music.Rediscovered in a cassette archive in Niger and digitized on a portable recorder, La Musique Électronique du Niger was reissued in 2013 on limited vinyl. Now restored and remastered from the original tape material by Jessica Thompson, this new edition is available on vinyl, cd, and a color Newbury Comics edition.

Chìsake [Algonquin]: to chant; to conjure; to cast a spell; this generally involves a shake-house, or shaking tent, in which the conjurer goes into a trance; the conjurer then has an out-of-body experience, going into the future to predict coming events, or into the past; as well as going into any locality in the universe to seek out someone or something generally practiced for ancestral divination. The unaccompanied flute pieces within this album are adaptations of Anishinaabeg shaking tent chants. The Anishinaabeg also known as Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples that reside in areas now called Canada and the United States. They include the Odawa, Saulteaux, Ojibwe (including Mississaugas), Potawatomi, Oji-Cree and Algonquin peoples. The word Anishinaabeg translates to “people from whence lowered”. The Anishinaabeg origin myths describe their people originating by divine breath. The shaking tent or conjuring lodge was the setting for a divinatory rite performed by specially trained shamans otherwise known as Chìsakewininì. During the shaking tent ceremony the Chìsakewininì would construct a special cylindrical framework typically of birch or spruce uprights planted in the ground with respective wood hoops to bind it together. This created a tensile structure of which birch bark, deer skin, or cloth was used as a covering. Rattles of caribou and deer hooves, or cups of lead shot, were tied to the frame. The floor was usually softened with freshly cut spruce boughs. The vertical axis of the shaking tent represents the realm of mediating beings, while the horizontal axis the earth or world of humans. The Chìsakewininì would enter the shaking tent at night and once inside would not be visible from onlookers. The singing of chants and drumming would summon the Chìsakewininì’s spirit helpers, whose arrival was signified by animal cries and erratic tent shaking. During this transcendent state, the Chìsakewininì could dispatch these spirit helpers or Manidò to distant regions to answer questions from the onlookers about the most auspicious places to hunt, the well-being of a distant relative, and what would happen in the future. The chants were usually sung using vocables before, during, and after the Chìsakewininì entered the shaking tent. Like many other similar divination ceremonies, singular or collective, the opening chants begin lyrically. They gradually turn to more reductive abstract structures midway and then end in lyrical chants. This symbolizes the performer and listener leaving the external literal world, entering a more abstract state of mind, and then returning. Traditionally all songs were carved on birch bark for record-keeping with mnemonic pictographs or other marks for future use. Tally mark clustering, sometimes used for song-keeping throughout the Anishinaabeg, is used for this album’s track titles and numerical sequence. The album intro begins with the shaking of a necklace of otter penis bone, fish spine, bear teeth, elk teeth and deer hide, gifted from Algonquin Elder Ajawajawesi. It is meant to focus the listener’s attention before the flute pieces begin. The warble or multi-phonic oscillation prevalent in the middle tracks traditionally represented the “throat rattling” vocalization of the tonic note or sometimes known as the horizon of which the melody floats off of. Due to the repetition of multi-phonic oscillation the performer will breathe erratically creating an altered state correlating with the Chìsakewininì ceremonial actions. All songs are repeated seven times to signify the seven sacred directions: east, south, west, north, above/sky, below/earth, and center. -Timothy Archambault

The first-ever compilation of χαβάγιες ("havagies"), the nearly forgotten Hawaiian-influenced music of 1930s Greece, focused on the compositions of Kostas Bezos and his ensemble White Birds. A world-class slide guitarist, political cartoonist and sleepless Bohemian, Kostas Bezos created some of the most unique music of any era: surrealist guitar portraits blending Athens and Honolulu, haunting tropical serenades, wild acoustic orchestras, and heartbreaking steel guitar duets. Incredibly, this is the same musician responsible for the legendary "Kostis" rebetika recordings (see A. Kostis "The Jail's a Fine School" [OLV-002 / MRP-098]).

LP version includes a 32-page booklet with extensive notes by Tony Klein and Dimitris Kourtis, many rare photographs, lyrics, obituaries.

1980年代から90年代初頭にかけて、カメルーンのビクツィ・シーンから現れた最もミステリアスなアーティストにして重要人物の一人、Gibraltar Drakusが1989年に残したアルバム『Hommage A Zanzibar』が、アフリカのオブスキュアなカセットテープを掘り起こす大名門〈Awesome Tapes From Africa〉より史上初アナログ・リイシュー。悲劇的かつ謎の死を遂げたギタリストのThéodore Zanzibarに捧げられたアルバム。ベティの伝統音楽とエレクトロニックで非常にリズミカルなギターベースのビクティを完璧に融合させたファースト・アルバムにして、10万枚以上を売り上げた代表的作品！

Cameroonian artist, musician, author, composer, performer and guitarist Roger Bekono made a deep mark in the contemporary history of Cameroonian music through the four-on-the-floor, ribald intensity of bikutsi. The Ewondo-language dance-pop style that forms an undulating tapestry of interlocking triplet rhythmic interplay came to international prominence in the European “world music” scene as the 90s began. But the relentless sound of bikutsi developed in Yaoundé at the hands of Bekono and many others, as it developed from a village-based singing style performed mostly by women into a cosmopolitan music force that rivaled the popularity of established musics like Congolese rhumba, merengue and makossa. With his unique—some say suave—voice, Bekono contributed much over a period of more than 10 years as part of the evolution of this traditional rhythm-turned-urban dance movement. Roger Essama Bekono was born June 15, 1954 in Atéga, Central region. His mother Scolastique Essama nicknamed him Beko-bâ-Andela, in homage to his great-grandfather who died a few years before his birth. From an early age, he was soon confronted with the harshness of daily life in the village. Young Bekono walked four kilometers to school from the family home each day followed by extensive domestic chores. So he had little time to devote to football and other types of children's games. Instead, he spent his time singing while working, developing his distinctive vocal timbre and from the age of 7, he joined the choir of the Catholic Church of Atéga where he sang for several years every Sunday. His mother worked hard to put him through school and eventually get him to the city for further education. In 1968, Bekono left his native village to settle in Yaoundé, the capital city, with the ultimate goal of completing his secondary studies. 14 years old and living with his uncle, he went to high school and met some young people who shared the same passion as him, music. After class, they would go in groups near discotheques to listen to the music of their favorite artists of the time. They also discovered the events of the "Youth Mornings" organized at the Mefou cinema in Mvog-Mbi. During these events, the young Roger lets his talent speak through the popular songs of his idol who was none other than Mariam Makeba. She was an undeniable star throughout Africa. He was so into her his first nickname in music was simply “Mariam Makeba,” because of his ease in interpreting her popular songs, and because of her timeless, suave vocal timbre. At the time he was also a fan of Michael Jackson, Edith Piaf, Michel Sardou and Elvis Presley. Sometime in the mid-1970s Bekono made an abrupt stop to his studies. His mother and his adoptive father were angry and demanded answers. He dreamed of going into music full time. However, being a musician at that time in Cameroon was not yet perceived as a worthy profession. Cameroonian musicians did not have a secure income despite their renown, and no copyright society had been set up yet. They had for the most part a bad boy image, thought of as people without a future. Therefore, it was difficult for his parents to accept. His mother was certainly disappointed by the sudden decision but she has always believed in him. So his step-father gave him a classical guitar and a tape recorder so that he could work independently on music full time. Bekono knew you have to think about composing original music and lyrics instead of covering classics like those of Mariam Makeba. your own words and the music of your songs, the field of reflection is vast between your own experience and the evils that undermine society. However, he hadn’t yet settled on a musical style, so he initially composed songs with foreign colors like his song "Bòngo Ya Cameron,” which has a French flavor and of Rumba but sung in his own Ewondo language. His music is appreciated by those close to him and in the cabarets of Mvog Ada where he performs on certain weekends, he learned to play the guitar and perfectly masters the art of singing. At each of his live performances, he makes a good impression in front of a crowd amazed by his talent, and in front of certain actors and pioneers of a rhythm that is gaining ground in Cameroonian music known as bikutsi. Note here that the bikutsi is basically sung in the Beti language and can be defined as a music and a traditional dance from Cameroon, specifically an urbanize form of pop music based on Beti musical forms, originating in the Cental and South provinces where the Beti ethnic group resides. Bekono falls in with some of the main characters in the bikutsi scene and little by little he learns the basics, adapts and a few years later decides to release his very first project. It was in the 1980s that the big names in bikutsi emerged. The style began to have international visibility. A multitude of vibrant, young talent appeared on the Cameroonian music scene. There had already been the crucial groundwork laid by the father of modern bikutsi Messi Martin who discovered how to transpose the sound of the traditional balafon (xylophone) to an electric guitar. Bekono sensed that bikutsi was in its golden age amid fierce competition he took his time to prepare his first solo album by working with the big names of the time, from both the old and new generations. At the end of 1984, Bekono released his first project Oget Mongi on LP and as soon as it was released, the lead single "Ngon Nnam" hit the capital's radio stations. The end of the year in Cameroon is always marked by happy events like weddings, communions, baptisms, etc. and this song was heavily played at these types of events following the album’s release. He quickly became one of the rising stars of bikutsi and was invited to radio shows all over Cameroon and perform in the popular clubs and cabarets around Yaoundé. Oget Mongi was produced by Bekono himself under his Label Beko Production with the unconditional support of his parents (his step-father funded the project). Television arrived in Cameroon in 1985, the year following his debut album, so there is no video clip of any of the songs from Bekono’s Oget Mongi. Indeed, Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Cameroon (over 1/3 of the population is Catholic) is one of the various elements that accelerated the process of the start of television in Cameroon. This papal visit is inextricably linked to Bekono’s story: Bekono was enlisted to write and compose the official welcoming song for His Holiness’s arrival. The song appeared just as attention for his debut album was in full swing. It became like a hymn during the Pope's stay in Cameroon, on television and on the radio, in Christian localities. Even after the Pope's visit, the song could be heard at various events. Things continued to progress for the young artist, as his career climbed his home life developed. His daughter Ebah Marie Christine had been born a few weeks after Oget Mongi was released. His eventual wife Madeleine Bikié and he were so secure and happy that they had the capacity to help his younger cousins from the village who were then able to continue their secondary studies in Yaoundé. In 1987, Bekono released Assiko 100,000 Watts on LP and cassette. Very quickly the album became a hit with "Biza" and "Assiko 100,000 Watts" receiving radio play. He sold plenty of records and cassettes and toured the nation. This album brought him to northern Cameroon, where met Ali Baba (the father of Soul Gandja, a style of his own design), a rising star of modern music in the region. They became close friends during that period. The album title refers to yet another style of dance and music, assiko, It is important to note the assiko is not a traditional Bassa dance, but rather a dance adopted by Bassa-speaking folks. It is a traditional Cameroonian healing dance transformed into a party dance, especially found among the Bassa and the Beti. It is therefore thanks to this song that Bekono gets invited to perform in this coastal part of Cameroon, Bassa country, where he meets assiko legends Jean Bikoko and Samson Chaud Gar. The song “Biza" also made a lot of noise outside the capital, and even in the Beti villages during celebratory events. Bekono set his sights on international superstardom though. So he began work on his third album, to be released at the end of 1989. Let’s rewind a little bit first—the bikutsi rhythm was originally played by a balafon orchestra known as a mendzang (see mvett). Based on a cadence and stomping rhythm, it is also marked by a strong presence of percussion. In the 1970s, bikutsi was modernized with the introduction of electric guitar and bass, keyboards, horns and drum kit. The legitimate originators are Anne-Marie Nzie, Messi Martin and Ange Ebogo, but it was with the emergence of Les Têtes Brûlées that bikutsi will experience a earth shaking revolution with the talent of its master to play Zanzibar (Epeme Théodore), who, according to legend, was born with six fingers, allowing him to play with one string more than the others. In the mid- 1980s, the bikutsi rhythm evolved significantly both lyrically and harmonically. It became very danceable because the newest generation of artists added electric lead and bass guitars, as well as electric drums, to it to give it more percussive oomph. During this same period, Clément Djimogne aka Mystic Jim (or Djim) launched an innovative concept that would solidify his reputation as a legend in Cameroonian popular music, having already performed on or produced boundary pushing recordings in the region. Mystic Jim built a recording studio called Mobile Studio equipped with a 4-track recorder, instruments, sequencers and amplifiers, which he set up in his living room. He surrounded himself with an experienced team of musicians to embark on musical production on an almost industrial level. We can’t talk about bikutsi and not discuss this actor and his role within the framework of the music in general and specific role he played in the realization of Roger Bekono's third album in particular, because according to the words of some elders that we have been able to collect for the background of this project, his studio had become an essential place for most of the bikutsi artists of that time. With modest equipment, his productions and his arrangements were better than those that came from the national radio studio. (As in many other African music capitals of the time, the best-equipped studios often sat on the national television or radio grounds, rather than in the hands of private citizens.) Bekono therefore worked with him and his musicians as part of the production of Jolie Poupée. Technology had certainly evolved at that time in terms of musicality in the formerly traditional rhythms, but the programming of this music was not yet at its peak as it is today. His first two albums were recorded to tape in one or two perfect takes the old-fashioned way, so the musicians had to be extremely tight. There was no overdubbing or recording parts separately. For Jolie Poupée Mystic Jim programmed the kick or bass drum, adding effects to have a heavier bass. Overall the album represented a new level of finesse and professionalism after a two-year musical silence. In the middle of 1989, Jolie Poupée was released by the label Inter Diffusion System and aggressively hit the radio, discos and national television. The music video for the title track was on loop on TV. It felt like everyone was talking about it, even artists in adjacent music scenes like makossa. The album came out on vinyl and cassette and remains Bekono’s best-selling recording to this day. With Jolie Poupée Bekono finally made an impact outside Cameroon as the record captured listeners in some Central African countries like Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Sao Tome & Principe. Why in these countries more precisely and not in other African countries? In these countries, we find the Fang or Mfan people (also known as Ekang), Bantu-speaking ethnic groups that are also found in Cameroon. This umbrella language group includes the language in which bikutsi is mainly sung. Most of Bekono’s songs are in French, Ewondo (of which Beti is a dialect) and Pidgin. After Bekono catapults to international renown with Jolie Poupée, he was constantly invited to “Tele Podium,” the television program reserved for Cameroonian music elite, and guest of honor by the high authorities of certain countries such as Equatorial Guinea. The technical sheet of this successful album contains the names of the brilliant musicians who made it possible: Gibraltar Drakus & Roger Mballa (backing vocals); John Paul Mondo (bass); Noon Pierrot (congas); Jean Anthony Foe Amougou (Engineer); Daniel-Cimba Evoussa (guitar); Mystic Jim (music director and engineer); Jean-Paul Assamba (percussion); Steve Ndzana (percussion, drums, Gong); Francis Z. Saho (producer); Pierrot Ahénot (rhythm guitar). The four songs on Jolie Poupée are all considered bikutsi classics. After this long period crowned with success and above all at the height of his art, Bekono decided to take a break from his musical career to enjoy family life while continuing to perform everywhere in Cameroon and even outside its borders. During this period, he became friends with some of his colleagues including Govinal (Ndi Nga Essomba), Gibraltar Drakus and Saint Desir Atango. They decided to form a quartet called Bikutsi System. In 1991, Bikutsi System released a long-awaited debut tape. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet expectations and wasn’t successful. Many younger artists had emerged in recent years like Fam Ndzengue, Bisso Solo, Opick Zoro, Zélé Le Bombardier, with a new kind of bikutsi in terms of both musicality and dance. Perhaps the album didn’t work because the term “bikusti" referred to a somewhat different sound than it did when these all star veterans first hit the scene. Nevertheless, they recorded a second album together which was much more successful and then moved on separately to solo projects. Bekono began thinking of releasing a double album, as full-force return to a solo career. At the time, most of those he worked with on his previous albums were unavailable. Zanzibar had tragically died on the eve of Les Tetes Brûlées inaugural European tour, for example. However, there was a talented new generation, thus he worked with new key people such as François Engoulou “Docta” and Tsala Martin Roger, produced by well-known figure in the bikutsi world Mr Ebanga. The double album consists of two separate cassettes Ding Ma and Makeu Aluck. In 1994, after much anticipation among audiences awaiting new songs from the now-established bikutsi star, the newly created copyright structure SOCINADA was to handle distribution. However, on the eve of the project's release, Bekono and its producer Ebanga didn’t agree on certain points about marketing the album, so the double cassette’s release was continually delayed with thousands of unsold cassettes—and years of hard work—remaining at the SOCINADA warehouse. The failure annihilated Bekono psychologically, pushing him to put an end to his professional career. In the mid-2000s, he had the ambition to open his own recording studio. Shortly after, though, he fell seriously ill and was diagnosed with severe diabetes. So he followed treatment for several years while continuing to write and compose songs just with his guitar and his sweet voice. He began to buy equipment to open his own recording studio. But the equipment was expensive. So he gradually bought what he needed but he relied on the computer skills of his eldest son Owono Bekono Emmanuel Ferdinand. He spent most of his time in the studio in his final years, with some fans still approaching him, and his friendly attitude hadn’t changed over time. Weakened and slightly emaciated by illness and the advancement of age, he continued to nurture his ambition to open his own recording studio and why not release a final album that would surprise everyone? On September 15, 2016, Bekono died of a long illness at the age of 62. In the wake of his passing the media published a wave of tributes, thanking him for what he did for Cameroonian music. He was an admired musician, songwriter and guitarist, and some of his old colleagues and some of the new generation of performers showered Bekono with vibrant tributes via social media, many of which noting something to the effect of: “The artist dies but his works remain.”

Hive Mind and Sing-A-Song Fighter are delighted to present to you their first collaborative release, the amazing solo guitar album from legendary Congolese guitarist Kahanga Dekula aka ”Vumbi”. At last, Mr Dekula is finally releasing an instrumental solo guitar album after more than 40 years of playing lead guitar in numerous great bands and orchestras. Vumbi, who now lives in Sweden, is one of Europe's greatest ambassadors for Congolese music, has got a special story to tell and he uses his magnificent, infectious guitar playing to do so... Vumbi and the guitar go back a long time. Born with polio in the Kivu province of North Eastern Congo, Vumbi grew up in a Swedish missionary home and picked up the guitar at an early age. Listening intently to the radio, he learned the style and rhythms of Rumba and Soukous from the giants of the Congolese guitar sound, Dr Nico and Franco. "Listening and playing Soukous music makes you feel happy to be alive and you just have to dance to it no matter what". In the early 80’s Vumbi emigrated to Tanzania where he successfully auditioned to play lead guitar for the legendary group Orchestra Maquis. He toured extensively with the band, and from them he earned the nickname Vumbi, his solos being one of the main attractions of Orchestra Maquis' live shows. He moved to Sweden in the early '90s and played in numerous bands including the Makonde Band with Ugandan artist Sammy Kasule and Ahmadu Jarr's Highlife Orchestra. In 2008 Vumbi put together his own group, The Dekula Band, playing his beloved rumba and Soukous every saturday night to an eager crowd of dancers in a worn and faded restaurant in Stockholm called Lilla Wien. Vumbi has since taken the group's infectious and hypnotoic sound to Stockholm Jazz Festival, Face Z in Geneva and festivals and shows around Europe. Swedish producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist (founder of Sing-A-Song Fighter and member of Senegalese/Swedish act Wau Wau Collectif) has been a longtime fan of Vumbi Dekula’s artistry which led to him releasing The Dekula Band's debut album ”Opika” in 2019 with the Dekula Band. While watching the band perform was always a blast, says Karl Jonas, his desire to hear Vumbi play on his own, without the thunderous drums, wailing saxophones and chanting vocals grew in his mind, “Because, in a way, Vumbi’s guitar playing is like an orchestra on its own. And the idea of just concentrating on all the amazing riffs and beautiful, uplifting melodies was just so appealing”. Karl-Jonas proposed the idea of producing a solo album to Vumbi, and within a week the production process began Recorded in two days during lockdown at the Helter Skelter Studios in Stockholm, Karl and Vumbi allowed the music to guide them. Vumbi was inspired to play 2nd guitar adding some harmonies and melodies here and there, and on the final track (”UN Forces Get Out of the DR of Congo”) he introduced a banjo into the world of ”Congo guitar”. Karl Jonas started up his old rhythm box machine to some of the songs to see how Vumbi and his playing would react to it. Elsewhere, wordless backing vocals from Karl-Jonas and Emma Nordenstam were added to Maamajacy, bass melodica by Karl-Jonas appears on Weekend, and a little piano tinkering from Emma adds some sparkle to Zuku. But clearly, Vumbi's virtuoso playing remains the star of Congo Guitar.

While African masks are readily identified, their voices –although essential– are much less well-known: they speak and sing. The most modest masks, intended for entertainment, as well as the most powerful ones with strong supernatural power, use music just as expressively.  
Technically speaking, a person wearing a mask acquires beneath this disguise another personality. According to Black African religious belief, the wearer of a mask abandons his human personality to incarnate a supernatural being, most often an ancestral spirit, a mythical figure or a bush spirit.  

Since the Dan consider their masks as supernatural beings, neither the spoken nor sung voices of their incarnation can be human. Their wearers must transform their voices into the voices of supernatural beings. The Dan have perfected three techniques to achieve this –they either distort their own voice, alter their vocal timbre by speaking into an instrument, or replace the voice with instruments hidden from the uninitiated. 

The first LP reissue of "Indigo Dreams", a masterpiece album released in 1995 by Steve Shehan, a percussionist based in France since the 1970's.
"This album was inspired by a night when I fell asleep and dreamed of The Indigo Night, a novel by Satyajit Ray," -Steve Shehan 

The album was inspired by a dream I had one night when I fell asleep and dreamt of The Indigo Night, a novel by Satyajit Ray. In the dream I was in the world of the novel, living and tending an indigo plantation. The dream was so intense that I decided then and there to make an album dedicated to Satyajit Ray. I was also strongly influenced by Satyajit Ray's 1958 film The Music Room.

The album was also created in collaboration with a number of guest musicians, who traveled around the world for sessions and were sometimes invited to the studio in Paris, where the band is based. Compared to "Arrows," the songs are shorter, and it was a challenge for me to achieve the same depth of expression in that length of time," says Steve. The environmental sounds recorded in the Amazon, the U.S., Canada, and France are another element of the album. I hope that you will lose yourself in these tones and travel with me through the world of dreams.

Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica. Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum seeker in Rimini's Associazione Ardea, where Andrea is involved with 'Ardea Recordings' - a project aiming to create an archive of songs, stories and sounds by some of the people who spent some time with Ardea's refugee programme. Md After was invited to sing and play the folk and village songs he knew on the harmonium and pakhawaj (two headed drum) while Andrea immersed himself in the songs providing a bed of warm Crumar synth and Veena drones to create a finished album of totally unique renditions of the mystic Baul folk songs known so well by people across the Bangla speaking regions of India. The Bauls are a famous group of wandering minstrels from the region of Bengal whose culture is derived from the teachings of the early Sufi mystics and Hindu Fakhirs. The Baul devotees are considered to be mad, or possessed, with the love of God. While transcending religion the Baul compositions celebrate celestial and earthly love and expound the key philosophy of “Deha tatta” or truth in the body, epitomised by the aphorism “whatever is in the universe is in the body”. They reach for divinity here in this world and they seek to access it through music and dance. They seek spirituality in the music, they live for the music, wandering from village to village offering ecstatic sound waves in exchange for sustenance. Their presence remains an important part of village life in Bangladesh, and this is why Md After knows the songs despite the fact he would not consider himself part of the Baul ascetic tradition. We hope you'll enjoy this wonderfully psychedelic album with its unique interpretations of these ancient mystic songs from the earth. credits

Following his collaboration with Nicolas Jaar's Clown & Sunset label, Cruz has self-produced and self-recorded this landmark album. ‘Prender el Alma’ is a new strain of Latin American music Cruz calls ‘Andes Step’. Influenced by new digital technology, blended with local influence, Cruz builds his tracks layer by layer, instrument by instrument, drum by drum, exploring local indigenous and Afro-cosmologies in a modern setting. From atmospheric opener ‘Sanacion’, the 10-track album journeys through short, sharp acoustic guitar riffs on ‘Puente Roto’ and the percussive ‘La Mirada’, to the electronic ‘Prender el Alma’. Down-beat ‘Equinoccio’ gets a vocal kick from Ecuadorian singer Huaira, ending with the blissful, lo-fi ‘Cocha Runa’ featuring Tanya Sanchez. ‘Prender el Alma’ ebbs and flows through a range of production of local sounds, feeling like a digital awakening. This digital revolution is spreading through Latin America like wildfire, and nowhere is this more exciting than in the heart of the continent's bustling music scene, where Nicola Cruz is leading the way. Led by forward-thinking young producers and musicians, Ecuador is beginning to experience its own digital folklore revolution. A new crop of producers and musicians are using homeland traditions and rhythms to build on a vibrant history of visual and sonic art, catapulting them into the 21st century. ZZK are at the forefront of this burgeoning music scene. With artists such as Frikstailers, La Yegros, El Remolon and Chancha Via Circuito, they are defining a new and exciting Latin American music culture.

It was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir. Serve garnished with an alluring female on the album jacket for best results. Exotica! The soundtrack for a mythical air conditioned Eden, packaged for mid-century, tiki torch-wielding armchair safariers. Be it mosquito-bitten torch singers, landlocked surf quartets, fad-chasing jazz combos, mad genius band leaders, D-list actors, or a middle aged loner programming bird calls into a Hammond, Exotica was always more concerned with what geography might sound like over who was conducting. Captured across three albums (or three compact discs) are 48 (or 54) curious examples of the short-lived genre’s reach, each summoning their own sonic visions of Shangri La, bringing their versions of the Pacific, Africa, and the Orient to the hinterlands of America. Technicolor Paradise is where one makes it, after all.

Canto A Lo Divino is the unique musical expression of the Chilean peasant world - a conversation with the divine nourished by Biblical and other sacred texts. It is communal music, played in packed rooms throughout the night on the 25-string guitarron, its ancient melodies transmitted through the 10-line decima form originating in Spain and found across the Caribbean, South America, and even into the Mississippi Delta. Rooted in the remote Central Valley of Chile at the skirt of the mountains and following the slopes of the major rivers, the Canto tradition has persisted for centuries in the voices of hundreds of men and women who sing of saints, divine images, and angelitos (very young children who have died). The verses are also centered around daily life in the valley - labor and drought, family, animals, and plants. There are countless entonaciones (melodies) that define this region, its communities, and its unique worldview. Mississippi Records is privileged to work with the Museo Campesino En Movimiento and their archive of hundreds of hours of intimate field recordings of the Canto - music rarely, if ever, heard outside of the region.Artwork is provided by another inhabitant of Chile's Central Valley, a baker called Frederico Lohse, who brought divine visions from the Cantos to life, painted on reused flour bags.Canto A Lo Divino celebrates the complexity and solemn, stunning beauty of this nocturnal, communal form of musical devotion.Double vinyl LP comes housed in deluxe gatefold jacket with 8 pages of lyric translations and liner notes about the Canto tradition by researcher Danilo Petrovich.

EM Records again shines the spotlight on legendary Thai producer Surin Phaksiri in this second edition of his classic productions from the 1960s-80s. The first edition, released in 2019, focused on his innovative productions in the luk thung (*1) style. This 2022 release features his stellar, glowing molam (*2) gems from the 60s-80s, drawn mainly from his golden era in the late 70s and early 80s. Surin Phaksiri is a highly esteemed figure in Thai music, rooted deeply in his native region of Isan in northeast Thailand, a producer with a deep respect for the traditional artistry of his culture, yet always moving forward, looking outward, listening ahead. The molam style of Thai music showcases the voice; indeed, the genre’s name means “expert singer”, and Thailand is blessed with an abundance of experts, singers with amazing control, grace, vitality and finesse. This collection of 22 songs (18 only for digital download) features 15 singers, ranging from venerated legends to unjustly unheralded masters of the art. These songs were recorded and released after the era of the 7-inch single; with the advent of the cassette boom in Thai music, most producers adopted a quantity-over-quality conveyer belt production style, churning out soundalike material to fill the expanded length of cassette tape. Phaksiri resisted these tides and continued to work with a single-song mindset, tailoring each production’s instrumentation and arrangement to precisely fit each singer and song. This care and integrity can be clearly heard in this sweetly groovy collection. These gems, originally released on 7-inch vinyl, are all first-time official reissues, a project years in the making. Compiled by Soi48, who also provide liner notes. Cover art by Shinsuke Takagi (Soi48). 

Footnotes: 
1) Luk thung: A musical genre whose name means ʻcountry personʼs songʼ or ʻchildren of the fieldʼ . The name became established in the latter half of the 1960s and now has the status of a national genre of popular song unique to Thailand. The lyrics of luk thung songs deal mainly with the rural idyll, comparisons between the city and the countryside, life in the big city and current affairs. There are certain typical traits to the music, but no official musical form. 

2) Molam: "mo" is an expert and "lam" is a kind of performance art where the artist tells a story using tonal inflexions. In other words, the term molam refers to both the singer and art form. Molam pieces are not strictly speaking "songs". 

A hotline to the gods! Kagura is a thousand-year-old form of Japanese Shinto sacred music and dance, accompanying the chanting of myths; the word "kagura" can be translated as "god-entertainment". Passed down over countless generations, the music is rare and recordings even rarer. Shigeo Tanaka was a master of the yumi (bow), an uncommon single-string percussion instrument, which is a true bow: arrows are fired off at the end of each ceremony to fend off evil sprits. The instrument is difficult to play; it's hard to draw out the proper sound and maintain the rhythm.
Yumi kagura is the oldest of all the various forms of kagura. The Tanaka family, based in rural Jōge-cho, Hiroshima prefecture, has passed down this yumi kagura tradition for hundreds of years; this lineage continues to this day in the person of his daughter Ritsuko Tanaka. The Jōge-cho yumi kagura, which prays for family well-being, bountiful crops and good fortune, was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1971. The piece featured here, "Takusa saimon", based on the myth "Ama no iwato" (The Rocky Celestial Cave), is mesmeric, reaching back across ages to the time before time, with Tanaka's voice and yumi, accompanied by flute and metal percussion, drawing us closer to the primal activities of the gods. Listeners may find affinities with aspects of musics as diverse as German electronic minimalism like E2-E4, certain Ethiopian music, "spiritual jazz" and more, all tapping into the deep root of forever. Previously available only on a ridiculously obscure 1990 cassette release, Yumi kagura is the first collaborative release by EM Records and Riyo Mountains, a Japanese folk song research team. Available on LP and CD, with the CD featuring a bonus track: "Inagahachiman jinja yumi kagura hōnō" recorded in 2016 by Tanaka's daughter and successor Ritsuko Tanaka.

+ Direction/liner notes by Riyo Mountains
+ English liner notes & lyrics

LP version: insert

A communication with the spirits. A sacred performance on a Papua New Guinean bamboo flute. Under the umbrella of Editions Mego, Ideologic Organ, one of the leading experimental labels run and curated by Stephen O'Malley (of Sunn O)))) fame, has released a new album on the same label. It was sampled on Bjork's latest and greatest album "Utopia", which makes it all the more controversial. This is a previously unreleased field recording of New Guinea made by Ragnar Johnson in 1979. This is a music heritage level recording!

This is a recording of musical heritage level! This is a rare field recording of a bamboo flute played by adult males in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea for ceremonial purposes, using long female and male bamboos. This is a solo performance of the bamboo flute with an all-too-rare sound, woven with mysterious breaths and occasional birdsong. The mysterious performance, like a dialogue with nature and spirits, seems to come from another world or dimension. These performers seem to be the last generation to have been taught this performance technique, and there is no doubt that this is a recording of great documentary value. The sound quality is perfect, no matter where or when it is played, and the production is flawless, with digitizing and mastering by Dave Hunt at Dave Hunt studio and cutting by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering. Notes by Ragnar Johnson and Jessica Mayer. Cover photo by Ragnar Johnson.

Born and raised in the deep outskirts of Mexico City, the Gama brothers are keeping alive the rich legacy of marimba music running through their family with their latest project, Son Rompe Pera. While firmly rooted in the tradition of this historic instrument, their fresh take on the folk icon challenges its limits as never before, moving it into the garage/punk world of urban misfits and firmly planting it in the 21st century. Originally performing alongside their father at local events as kids, they now find themselves at the forefront of the contemporary international cumbia scene with their sonic explorations of the classic marimba. Their absolutely unique blend comes from a typical youthful rebellion, when as teenagers they left behind their upbringing and began to play in various punk, rockabilly and ska bands. Now they’ve gone full circle with the return of the marimba on lead, and mixing all of their influences together with an energetic take on the popular instrument, giving it a new twist never before seen in Mexican folk music. Formed in 2017, Son Rompe Pera broke onto the potent cumbia scene of today as the marimba duo of brothers Jesús Ángel and Allan Gama (Kacho and Mongo), who inherited this tradition from their father, Batuco. A marimba player by trade, he taught them to play and understand the marimba, which they first used to revive old folk songs for their friends, family, and passers-by on the street. They then incorporated it into the performance of popular Mexican cumbia songs, while spicing things up with an animated identity of their own, creating rhythms of an imaginary repertoire that grows, spreads, and connects the Americas with every passing year. In their own words: “The basics of Son Rompe Pera have been developing since we were kids, and the music and streets are in our blood. We found the markets flooded with old, forgotten folk music, and so as kids we decided to carry the marimba with us and create this musical project from our own roots, mixing in rhythms which we thought would never be musical brothers, like cumbia, punk, and the sounds of our barrios and our everyday lives.”

For their first multi-artist compilation, Music From Memory take us on a trip to the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Outro Tempo: Electronic and Contemporary Music From Brazil, 1978-1992 is a double LP that explores the outer reaches of Brazilian music, where indigenous rhythms mix with synthesizers and where MPB mingles with drum computers. As Brazil faced the last years of its military dictatorship and transition to democracy, a generation of forward-thinking musicians developed an alternative vision of Brazilian music and culture. They embraced traditionally shunned electronic production methods and infused their music with elements of ambient, jazz-fusion, and minimalism. At the same time they referenced the musical forms and spirituality of indigenous tribes from the Amazon. The music they produced was a complex and mesmerising tapestry that vividly evoked Brazilian landscapes and simultaneously reached out to the world beyond its borders.
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The product of extensive research, this compilation is a unique introduction to this visionary music and features many fresh discoveries in a country well trodden by record diggers. It gathers tracks from obscure albums that have for too long been neglected by even the most avid collectors of Brazilian music. It includes now highly sought after music by Andréa Daltro, Maria Rita, and Fernando Falcão, as well as unknown gems like those of Cinema, Carlinhos Santos, and Anno Luz. This is an essential release that reveals a broader spectrum of Brazilian music, striking a unique sonic signature that is full of innovation, experimentation, and beauty.

Compiled by John Gómez and featuring extensive liner notes, Outro Tempo showcases this overlooked corner in Brazil’s rich music history for the first time.