World / Traditional / India

“Without doubt one of the most beautiful and soulful recordings I have ever heard” Brian Eno

“It sounds for all intents like music from another world” Los Angeles Times

A widely acknowledged classic by the undisputed master of the duduk, a traditional woodwind instrument from Armenia. A double-reed instrument of ancient origin and noted for its unique, mournful sound. Originally released in the Soviet Union in 1983, Eno came across the musician during a visit to Moscow in the late 1980s and subsequently introduced the record to Western audiences via a reissue on his Opal label.

Available on vinyl for the first time in 33 years, restoring the original 1983 artwork to its former glory, this is a unique and powerful musical statement that has had a lasting cultural impact.

Les Filles de Illighadad present their first ever studio album “Eghass Malan.” The female led avant rock group hailing from the village of the same name bring their new genre of Tuareg guitar mixed with traditional rural folk. Versed in tradition, Fatou Seidi Ghali and her band have created contemporary studio versions that are unlike anything ever before recorded, transporting rural nomadic song into the 21st century. Les Filles are all from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside support hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries. The sound that defines rural Niger is a music known as “tende.” It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements, vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It is a music form dominated by women. Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps, played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season. In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar have become synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response. The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that has always been sung by woman, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart, and Tuareg guitar music is a male dominated scene. Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother's guitar, she taught herself to play.While Fatou's role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, so popular in contemporary Tuareg rock bands, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende. Recorded on their debut tour in Europe after just a handful of concerts, “Eghass Malan” maintains a feeling that is spontaneous and inspired. With a minimal effects in an artist led production, Les Filles stay true to their form and origin. Hypnotic guitar riffs, driving rhythm, and polyphonic resonant vocals combine to create an organic sound that is timeless and ancient, bridging ancient tradition and modern worlds. With songs of love, celebrating the village, and praise for the desert and its people, Les Filles create a repertoire of ancient songs, village tende favorites, and new classics. Les Filles de Illighadad breath new life into the genre, and "Eghass Malan” promises to shake up Tuareg guitar both at home and abroad.

This sampler compiles 14 killer tropical tracks for the dance floor, all taken from the vaults of Peru’s MAG records, including cumbias to descargas, boogaloo to salsa. Classic songs such as ‘Arroz Con Coco’ or ‘Aprieta (Oye Como Va),’ and also obscure recordings like the stunning ‘Ritmo Veregua’ by Tito Chicoma or the totally under-the-radar —recorded in Lima— ‘Mi Son Combinado’ by Cuba’s legendary Orquesta Revé. MAG will turn 70 in 2023 and is a pivotal label in Peruvian music, mainly focused on tropical rhythms although its extensive catalogue also includes rock, pop and jazz recordings. This compilation celebrates the recent addition of Discos MAG to the Vampisoul family, where the best and most elusive titles from the MAG archive will become available again.

Peruvian trumpet player Tito Chicoma dedicated his 1968 LP on MAG to recording two fashionable rhythms at the time: "Cumbias Y Boogaloos”. Although Colombian cumbia had gained popularity much earlier, Boogaloo in Peru was championed primarily by the MAG record label, which kept its listeners abreast of tropical music developments in New York, releasing and distributing records by Alegre Records and recording versions of hit songs. An extremely rare and obscure tropical gem loaded with dance floor tunes, reissued now for the first time.

Last album recorded by Colombian rock pioneers Los Speakers in 1968 after leaving behind its affinity with yéyé and go-go music. One of the most brilliantly whacked-out psych LPs to emerge from South America. Originally self-released on their own Producciones Kris label, this is an almost impossible to find cult record. First time reissue.

Coinciding with the release of the compilation "1972-1985 KATEBEGIAK Prog-Rock, Psych-Folk & Jazz-Rock Music from the Basque Country [Compiled by DJ Makala]", in which has been included Amaia Zubiria & Pascal Gaigne's "Itsasoa Laino Dago" song, we've just reissue for the very first time this rare & hard to find cult record of Basque music, released on 1985 by Elkar label. AMAIA ZUBIRIA & PASCAL GAIGNE "EGUN ARGI HARTAN" (ELKAR 1985) After the well-earned "Adarra" prize awarded by San Sebastián city council in 2021, the name of Amaia Zubiria is back on people’s lips, one of the most outstandingly beautiful voices in the history of folk and Basque music in general. In fact, thanks to the albums recorded with Haizea and with Txomin Artola and many other collaborations, she has been a constant presence in a long, fruitful career spanning over 40 years. However, despite this popularity, much of her extensive body of work is unknown or remains almost forgotten, apart from four or ve records and her most popular songs. This is a shame, because her forgotten back catalogue contains many of Amaia’s most moving songs. Among them, as a taster and an invitation to get into her music, we encourage you to listen to the enchanting “Itxasoan Laino Dago”, recorded together with Pascal Gaigne in 1985. A track featuring the electronic sounds created with great care by Pascal and adorned by Michel Doneda’s saxophone, and guided with a magical sophistication by the talented sound engineer from Hendaye, Jean Phocas. It is an impossibly beautiful melt of avant garde and traditional music (Text: Antton Iturbe)

Caracol is one of the first examples of fusion between Brazilian percussive music and electronics. Synthesizers, samplers and sequencers were still a novelty in Brazil in the 1980s, but João de Bruçó and R.H. Jackson created an avant-garde masterpiece.

Using popular references and an eagerness to escape any retro / stylistic cliché that came to haunt Brazilian youth music at that time, they plunged into an audacious, intuitive and improbable sound journey in Caracol.
This rare adventure of Brazilian music was released independently in 1989, financed by the artists themselves. The original small pressing sold-out, belonging now to record collectors around the planet. For the first time Caracol is re-released on vinyl, with two extra tracks found after decades!

Remastered from the original tapes, this reissue includes a reproduction of the original graphic art, new testimonies from João de Bruçó and RH Jackson 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.

ケニアのグラインドコア・バンドDumaを世界へと紹介し、今年も大きな話題を呼んだ東アフリカ・ウガンダ拠点の先鋭的音楽フェスティバル／レーベル〈Nyege Nyege Tapes〉からは、ポルトガル北部の港湾都市ポルトの実験的なエレクトロニック・ミュージック界隈を代表する要注目なブラス・ユニット、HHY & The Macumbasを率いるJonathan Uliel Saldanhaが結成した”HHY & THE KAMPALA UNIT”による最新作が登場！アフロ・アフリカンな感性のもとで、原始的な躍動感を湛えたパーカッションやダブ、トランス、先鋭的なダンス／エレクトロニック・ミュージックまで溶け合わせたミュータントなアルバム！限定400枚。

0on Zero-on, a label run by the percussion group "Kodo 鼓童" which has its roots on Sado Island, has released a cassette recording of a solo performance by percussionist Yuta Sumiyoshi, a member of the "Kodo" group. 

“Mogari” is Yuta Sumiyoshi’s debut solo album. Features six tracks of 100% shinobue (bamboo flutes) music, recorded entirely at his home studio. This uncharted exploration of shinobue sound drifts and shapeshifts through drone, noise, minimalism and more, leading to untold possibilities. Limited release of 100 cassettes + download code.

Pecker, a percussionist who created Japan's first salsa band, Orquesta del Sol, created "Pecker Power," Japan's first dub album in 1980, and originally released on a 10-inch disc, "Instant Rasta," and Ryojiro Furusawa's "Moonlight Slumber," also featuring Minako Yoshida, were added to the original "Instant Rasta" and released in 12-inch format!

Side A
A1 BEGGAR SUITE（Part1）
A2 BEGGAR SUITE（Part2）
A3 BEGGAR SUITE（Part3）
A4 DUB JAM ROCK

Side B
B1 KYLYN
B2 MOONLIGHT SLUMBER

Following releases for The Tapeworm and 12th Isle, Christos Chondropoulos lands on The Death Of Rave with this incredible album of "Athenian Primitive” riffs on ancient Greek music and proto-techno prisms, highly recommended if yr into Paul DeMarinis, Rashad Becker, Jonathan Bepler’s soundtracks for Matthew Barney, Black Sabbath or Aphex Twin. Continuing Christos’ singular fascination with, and reappraisal of, Ancient Greek modes, ’Relics’ further excavates the deeptime topography of Greek music prior to the ban of “oriental” or 1/4 tone microtonal modes nearly 100 years ago. Clandestine, euphoric, hyperreal and otherworldly; it takes shape as faintly familiar forms of new age folk, avant-techno and metal musicks, but with an alien appeal that treats the past almost like another planet, never mind a foreign land. Christos studiously raids the past for lost treasure, navigating his tuned instincts as an improvising percussionist, and lover of non-Western composition, to create a uniquely absorbing soundworld that resembles an AI’s dreams after ingesting encyclopaedia entries on thousands of years of Greece prior to 1936. In the process, the album acutely questions his and our relationship to the past, and what has become lost in translation with reliance on prelaid templates and the “wisdom” of elders. Bursting to life with the iridescent arps and new age AI chorale of ‘First Love Fereter’, and concluding with bone-clacking raverie of ‘Jungle X’, the album offers a stunning advance of the themes and aesthetics in Christos previous records, from the self-released free jazz of ‘Fingerpainting’ (2013) to 2021’s 12th Isle released ‘Athenian Primitivism.’ Thanks to meticulous detailing, ‘Relics’ allows a finer play of textured light and almost tangible - yet entirely generated - voices into his music: most strikingly on the sublime songcraft of ‘Regret’ and ‘I Dream Of You’, while the likes of ‘Asham’ are bathed in deeply uncanny atmosphere, and his percussive proprioceptions are most heightened in the delirious battery of ‘War Horns’ and ‘Sacrifice’, with ‘Cyber Crust’ calling up demonic, cthonic pagan spirits resembling Black Sabbath undergoing regression therapy.

Les Filles de Illighadad present their first ever studio album “Eghass Malan.” The female led avant rock group hailing from the village of the same name bring their new genre of Tuareg guitar mixed with traditional rural folk. Versed in tradition, Fatou Seidi Ghali and her band have created contemporary studio versions that are unlike anything ever before recorded, transporting rural nomadic song into the 21st century. Les Filles are all from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside support hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries. The sound that defines rural Niger is a music known as “tende.” It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements, vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It is a music form dominated by women. Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps, played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season. In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar have become synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response. The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that has always been sung by woman, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart, and Tuareg guitar music is a male dominated scene. Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother's guitar, she taught herself to play.While Fatou's role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, so popular in contemporary Tuareg rock bands, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende. Recorded on their debut tour in Europe after just a handful of concerts, “Eghass Malan” maintains a feeling that is spontaneous and inspired. With a minimal effects in an artist led production, Les Filles stay true to their form and origin. Hypnotic guitar riffs, driving rhythm, and polyphonic resonant vocals combine to create an organic sound that is timeless and ancient, bridging ancient tradition and modern worlds. With songs of love, celebrating the village, and praise for the desert and its people, Les Filles create a repertoire of ancient songs, village tende favorites, and new classics. Les Filles de Illighadad breath new life into the genre, and "Eghass Malan” promises to shake up Tuareg guitar both at home and abroad.

The roots of Angolan popular music explored in the meticulous guitar studies of Mário Rui Silva 1980s albums. 

Whether on mesmerising acoustic ballads or hypnotic groove-led tracks, the music of Angolan guitarist, researcher and intellectual Mário Rui Silva has a beguiling, melancholy quality, woven into the dynamics of his deft guitar playing. 

Rhythmically complex yet supremely effortless, the music collected here stems from three albums Mário released in Luanda in the 1980s that reflect his diverse range of influences, from traditional Angolan and West African rhythms to European jazz and classical instrumentation. 

It is united by a sense of low-key beauty, whether on the chugging opener ‘Kazum-zum-zum’, the jazz-funk keys of ‘Lembrança Dum Velho’, or the twinkling, late-night poly-rhythms of ‘Kizomba Kya Kisanji’. 

🇦🇴 

Born in Luanda, Angola in 1953, Mário dedicated his life to Angolan popular music. His fifty-year career has seen him live between Angola and Europe, rub shoulders with Cameroonian musicians Francis Bebey and Ewanjé, record the seminal album Angola ’72 with fellow Angolan musician Bonga, and draw influence from Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell. 

It was the teaching of Angolan legend and Ngola Ritmos co-founder Liceu Vieira Dias that Mário gained a technical, political and spiritual understanding of Angolan musical culture. In the hands of Liceu, the traditional Angolan semba and kazukuta rhythms of the 1940s and ‘50s helped create an emancipatory sense of national pride and collective agency that awakened its listeners to the racism and tyranny of colonial rule, underpinning the country’s push for independence in the process. 

What might sound like the intonations of Brazilian influence are what Mário attributes to the “African rhythms taken by the slaves [which] gave rise to other musical cultures” around the globe. Instead, this music emerged from a collective instinct to assert a cosmopolitan Angolan identity free from the patronising falsehoods of Lusotropicalism. 

“There was a need within me to contribute in doing new things,” Mário describes. “In the sense of solidifying the music of Angola that was the result of the meeting of two cultures, and wanting to value the Angolan part whenever possible.” 

A selection from Mário’s three 1980s albums, Sung’Ali (1982), Tunapenda Afrika (1985) and Koizas dum Outru Tempu (1988) have been compiled here as a 2xLP release by Time Capsule’s Sam Jacob and Kay Suzuki. Together, they provide a snapshot of one man’s journey to the core of his nation’s music, charged with the search for a culture uprooted by colonialism. 

Tercer volumen de nuestra serie de sonidos afrolatinos de la época dorada del sello seminal Discos Fuentes en Colombia. Una excelente selección de 26 cortes difíciles de encontrar, muchos reeditados por primera vez, cubriendo una amplia gama de géneros de raíz afro, con un mayor enfoque en los orígenes folclóricos de la música que en volúmenes previos, incluyendo grabaciones de artistas como Michi Sarmiento, Wganda Kenya, The Latin Brothers, Los Corraleros De Majagual, Peregoyo… Incluye un extenso libreto con notas a cargo del compilador del proyecto, Pablo Yglesias aka DJ Bongohead.

This album from 1976 unites a dream team of musicians from Os Mutantes, Black Rio, Som Nosso and special guest Dominguinhos, into an amazing fusion of Brazilian regional rhythms of capoeira, forró and candomblé, with the heaviest funk, soul, rock, progressive and psychedelic music ever released in Brazil. In his own words, Eduardo Araújo stated in 1976: "Our musical philosophy remains the same: mixing rock and northeastern music to make a universal sound." It is curious to observe the aesthetic changes that Eduardo Araújo underwent until he reached the cult sound of this 1976 album: echoes of Santana, Tim Maia, Luiz Gonzaga and Emerson, Lake & Palmer in an album that was released independently at the time and, until today, never re-released. The original release of 'Sou Filho Desse Chao' in 1976 was made totally independent by Eduardo Araújo himself, with total lack of commercial distribution, remaining obscure from music charts and later rediscovered acquiring a well-deserved status of rare gem for music collectors.

Tender tonkori melodies, meditative dub excursions and hallowed folk vocals combine on Tonkori In The Moonlight, an 11-track collection of mostly traditional songs performed by indigenous Ainu musician OKI. Born on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1957, OKI's released his debut album in 1996 and since then he has recorded 11 studio albums both solo and with his Dub Ainu Band and toured internationally -- from WOMAD in the UK to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC via festival appearances in Singapore, Australia and across Europe. OKI is one of only a handful of musicians who play the tonkori, a five-stringed Ainu harp, which is both the pulse of this record and the force that unifies the disparate sounds he introduces such as reggae, dub, Irish folk, throat singing, African drumming and music from Central Asia. Tonkori In The Moonlight features Umeko Ando and Kila. For fans of: Midori Takada, Siti Muharam, Minyo Crusaders, Les Filles De Illighadad, African Head Charge, Mamman Sani. "Supercool Japanese minimalism" --The Observer. "Like nothing you've ever heard before" --The Wire. "The edgy cool of Jamaica meets the kitsch cool of Japan... charming and compelling" --The Independent.

For the first time ever, Vampisoul, the sister label of Munster Records, is reissuing this Argentinean Balearic Jazz/Fusion masterpiece. The album was released on Vampisoul, a sister label of Munster Records. This is a fantastic album by one of the top Argentinean musicians who left his work for "Melopea Discos" under the direction of Litto Nebbia. This is an ethno-fusion/jungle ambience masterpiece with rich sonic nourishment and Brazilian flavors. Includes an insert with unpublished photos and notes. Highly recommended for fans of obscure South American music such as "Outro Tempo" (Music From Memory) and "América Invertida" (Vampisoul) as well as Azymuth, Mono Fontana and Motohiko Hamase!

For the first time ever, Vampisoul, the sister label of Munster Records, is reissuing this Argentinean Balearic Jazz/Fusion masterpiece. The album was released on Vampisoul, a sister label of Munster Records. This is a fantastic album by one of the top Argentinean musicians who left his work for "Melopea Discos" under the direction of Litto Nebbia. This is an ethno-fusion/jungle ambience masterpiece with rich sonic nourishment and Brazilian flavors. Includes an insert with unpublished photos and notes. Highly recommended for fans of obscure South American music such as "Outro Tempo" (Music From Memory) and "América Invertida" (Vampisoul) as well as Azymuth, Mono Fontana and Motohiko Hamase!

„Gnawa, bottom heavy trance music of North Africa. Repetitive bass lines, generated by the gimbri or sintir with metal clappers, hand drums and voice. Seven trances, seven colors, seven scents, Gnawa not only moves, it can remove.“ Bill Laswell, Hell's Kitchen, NYC, May 2022 Remastered vinyl reissue of this 1990 BILL LASWELL / RICHARD HOROWITZ production of local Gnawa musicians, recorded in the Medina of Marrakesh. According to Allmusic.com „a must for fans of both African and Middle Eastern music” and voted one of the „10 essential Gnawa albums” by Songlines. The Gnawa are an ethnic minorityin today’s Morocco, descendents of slaves from West Africa who were brought to Morocco in the 16th century and who (although they quickly converted to Islam) nevertheless brought with them remnants of their animistic practices. The Gnawa perform a complex ceremony (called lila or derdeba) that over the duration of several hours recreates the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine, represented by seven colours. Those ceremonies, led by a master or „maleem“, are still taking place today privately while Gnawa music in general has clearly been modernizing and thus become more profane, but witnessing a performance is still an astonishing experience. With the exception of a handful of recordings by PAUL BOWLES and PHILIP SCHUYLER (more ethnographic documents in a field recordings style), Gnawa music was barely heard outside of Morocco before 1990 – one of the first westerners to come and record the music was BILL LASWELL, back then running his AXIOM label that portrayed a wide range of ethnic music and musicians like THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA or MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA, to name just two. „Night Spirit Masters“, recorded in the Medina of Marrakech, delivers soulful tracks of lead and group singers in call/ response mode, fired by sentirs, drums, hand clapping, and qrakechs, while others are drum features or sentir/ vocal pieces. Over 30 years after its initial release, this essential Gnawa album is finally available again – remastered and on 180gr audiophile vinyl!

More than 30 years after the first release, the first ever LP reissue with 180g heavyweight / audiophile / remastering specifications.

Gustavo Yashimura-Arce comes from humble origins in the Ayacucho region of the Peruvian Andes. He started playing guitar in 1987 and 2 years later he travelled to Montevideo in Uruguay to study music at La Casa de la Guitarra. After spending some years playing classical guitar in Japan, Gustavo returned to Peru in 2004 and began his intense studies of the Andean guitar styles of the Ayacucho region. Later, in 2008 he found the perfect teacher – 80 year old veteran guitarist Don Alberto Juscamaita Gastelú, known locally as Rahtako. Through Don Alberto, Gustavo was able to learn songs and styles from across the Andes, though the main focus remained on the traditional styles of the Ayacucho region. The Ayacucho Province of Peru is mountainous and remote and mainly populated by indigenous people of Quechuan descent, with the main language remaining Quechua, or Runasimi ('the People's Language'). The Quechuan people of the Andes remained resistant to Spanish colonisation and fierce in their preservation of their culture but on this album you will hear one of those strange, hybrid artefacts that can arise when cultures meet. The Spanish guitar was taken by the Quechuan people of the Ayacucho region and employed as a new means to convey their traditional music. The melodies you hear are versions of the traditional Huayno melodies usually played on harps, Andean pipes, charango and mandolin. Gustavo is joined by Luis Sulca Galindo on second guitar and Greys Berrocal Huaya on vocals on 4 tracks on the album. We've been extremely happy to work with Henkel Bellido (Sounds of the Andes) to bring this beautiful music to light.

The Afro Modern Sounds of Soweto’s First Nightclub • Ten seminal tracks journeying through jazz, funk, fusion and disco, detailing the incredible story and sounds behind the Soweto nightclub during the height of apartheid • A uniquely South African take on the trans-Atlantic sounds of Philadelphia, Detroit and New York City • Presented in a gatefold double vinyl edition with printed inner sleeves, cover artwork by Zulu Bidi (of Batsumi fame), unseen photographs, and liner notes by Kwanele Sosibo featuring interviews with key musicians, players and a former president of South Africa • Audio mastered and cut for vinyl by Frank Merritt at The Carvery with heavyweight 180g vinyl pressed at Pallas in Germany A night-time haunt in the backstreets of Soweto run by a well-known bootlegger should have been a prime zone for nefarious underworld activities. Instead, it nurtured an underground of a different kind. Soon after its opening in 1973, Club Pelican became a spot where musicians steeped in the tradition of South African jazz began to cook up experimental sounds inspired by communion, competition and the movements in funk and soul blowing in from the West. Located in an industrial park on the western edge of Orlando East, Soweto, Club Pelican was off the beaten track, among a matrix of railway and industrial infrastructure. In a different time and place, this would have been a prototypical nightclub location, except there was no local precedent to follow. This was Soweto’s first night club. In the intervening years, this location has served to heighten the now-defunct spot’s legendary status as a singular venue, one that ruled the night in the Seventies. Initially called Lucky’s and established in 1973, the Pelican’s impact on the Soweto cultural landscape was immediate. Lorded over by a charismatic figure known as Lucky Michaels, the club became the jewel in a nondescript collection of family businesses. It boasted a diverse pool of talent in its succession of house bands and an A-list of ghetto-fabulous singers as its cabaret stars. Its VIP section was a veritable who’s who of Soweto society and its stage, hosting a mix of the day’s pop culture infused with the creativity and individual histories of the musicians, the Pelican filled a live music vacuum. One Night in Pelican captures the halcyon seventies period with a single nightclub embodying an indomitable spirit of its troubadour players. While schooled and rooted in “standards” and local forms, the music could take any direction, at a moment’s notice. This compilation features all the key groups and players of the time: Abacothozi, Almon Memela’s Soweto, The Black Pages, Dick Khoza and the Afro Pedlars, The Drive, Ensemble of Rhythm and Art , The Headquarters, Makhona Zonke Band, the Shyannes and Spirits Rejoice. Over ten years in the making, this is the first compilation from South African vinyl re-issue specialists Matsuli Music

A supreme soundscape! World premiere recording of a 1997 work by a composer/guitarist who has left his mark on the contemporary Mexican music scene! Eblen Macari has been ambitiously developing his unique musical style for 40 years, from the 1980s to the present. Production began. The work was inspired by the sound of the guitar and the ecology of the trees that make up the wood used for the guitar. The influence of Ralph Towner and Egberto Gismonti, whom Eblen admires greatly, and ECM Records, represented by Egberto Gismonti, is reflected especially strongly in Eblen's works.
・Remastered by Kuniyuki Takahashi
・First ever vinyl release (originally released in 1997 on CD)
・Limited to 500 copies
・For fans of Ambient, World music& ECM Records

Connecting Wasulu hunter music, griot praises, Senufo pastoral dances, Fula and Mandingo repertoire alongside Western psychedelia, blues and afro-beat, Zani Diabaté’s Super Djata Band de Bamako was among Mali’s top orchestras by the late 1970’s well into the mid-1980’s. Tracked live inside Radio Mali’s raw but inspiring studio in January 1982, En Super Forme was briefly available via Côte d'Ivoire’s Musique Mondiale imprint. The album centers around Diabaté and his electric guitar’s pyrotechnics, a relentless shredder that stands shoulder to shoulder with Mali’s fingerstyle gods Ali Farka Touré and Rail Band's legendary Djelimady Tounkara.

Vampisoul present a first time reissue of Los Kintos' self-titled album, originally released in 1970. In the late sixties, a generation of young Peruvian musicians, who were fans of tropical sounds, chose Cuban rhythms over the onslaught of boogaloo and Colombian cumbia. This musical movement attracted a legion of young followers, mostly from popular districts of Lima. In 1969, percussionist Domingo Guzmán Villanueva was commissioned by the MAG record label to get together a group to revive Cuban musical tradition. To lead the project he recruited, Francisco "Pancho" Acosta, founder and guitarist of the Compay Quinto. The new group was baptized Los Kintos, in a nod to their desire to carry on playing in the Compay Quinto style. The link between the two groups appears on this first album, as the group's name is written in two different ways: Los Kintos, on the front cover; and Los Quintos, on the back. Recordings began in 1969 and included the stunning "Descarga Kinto", Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz's original "Pancho Cristal" -- renamed here "Pancho Guzmán" -- and Cuban classics from the repertoire of the historic Trio Matamoros like "Lágrimas Negras" or "Mentiras", all with lead vocals by Kiko Fuentes. The success of their concerts would take them on tours across the country, always recognized as outstanding figures of Cuban music in Peru. This reissue brings back an album that marked a milestone in the history of Peruvian tropical music and revives the fame of the group's legendary live performances.

Selva Discos fulfills its duty of giving a new life to Fernando Falcão's long lost LPs with the reissue of his album Barracas Barrocas, originally released through Egberto Gismonti's cult record label Carmo in 1987. Somehow, an original copy of this album is even more elusive than its predecessor Memória das Águas and it is a pity that such a stunning piece of music was kept apart from listeners worldwide for so long.

The follow-up to Memória das Águas was recorded in São Paulo after Fernando Falcão returned from his exile in France in 1984. In order to conceive Barracas Barrocas, the musician had the help of illustrious friends, such as singer-songwriter Alceu Valença and singer Tetê Espíndola, alongside brothers Myriam and Daniel Taubkin. At the time, Falcão was still using the sound sculptures he created for Memória das Águas, as he is credited in the liner notes for playing a "water orchestra" and his berimbau variant called balauê.

Barracas Barrocas is an album that works as a more condensed and coherent artistic statement of Falcão's œuvre. Lush strings, swelling brass, glowing production, and humming atmospheres fill the record, adding a beautiful yet subtly linked counterpoint to his previously explosive debut. It is very cinematic, sounding like the soundtrack of a play that only existed in the musician's mind.

For this release, not only the sound was remastered but the artwork of Barracas Barrocas was completely and faithfully restored. Also, the reissue comes with unprecedented liner notes featuring rare photos of the musician and his sound sculptures plus an article that tells the story of Fernando Falcão after returning to Brazil fol