STORIES

"Some of his sets were just unbelievable, I remember dancing to Liz Torres 'Can't Get Enough' for 35 minutes, it was beyond hypnotic and the end people just stood there and screamed for more. Unfortunately he pushed himself to the limits too and it became self destructive" David Piccioni for Larry Levan.

                

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NOW-AGAIN RECORDS

Loving On The Flip Side - Sweet Funk and Beat-Heavy Ballads, 1969-1977. 21 rare and unreleased tracks

 

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IT'S IN YOUR BLOOD

Linda Hopkins originally from New Orleans, Louisiana was discovered by Mahalia Jackson when she was 11 and became her protege. "It's In Your Blood" was written by disco legend Billy Nichols as well as being produced by Bert DeCoteaux who also worked on Lonnie Liston Smith track in the 1978 “Space Princess”.

MY AUTUMN'S DONE COME

''If you ask me "My Autumn's Done Come" by Lee Hazelwood is quite possibly the best retirement song ever written. The maverick singer-songwriter was only 37 when he wrote and recorded the song in 1966, yet it's one of the most evocative autumnal songs ever attempted, an unflinching look at the bath-chair period. "Let those 'I-don't-care-days' begin," he sings, "I'm tired of holdin' my stomach in/ Bring me water short and scotch tall / A big long black cigar that ain't all / Hang me a hammock between two big trees / Leave me alone, damned! Let me do as I please ..."

Dylan Jones-Independent/Dylan Jones is the editor of 'GQ'.

HIDDEN ORCHESTRA

Archipelago το καινούργιο άλμπουμ των Hidden Orchestra, κυκλοφορεί την πρώτη του Οκτώβρη.

RED MATCH BOX

A stone killer from the 70s European scene – even though the record was never issued at the time! The album features a rare combination of grooves from the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, and vocals from Mikki White – an American singer who really adds a whole new dimension to their music – taking it into even tighter, funkier areas than before – and giving it a focus that's mighty mighty nice!

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SOMETHING ABOUT APRIL

This is the soundtrack for a fictional film that hasn't been directed yet, in the fashion of the late 60s scores. Adrian Younge playing most of the instruments as he's done on his previous album (plus a very special keyboard of his own called the Selene), Younge is helped this time by Motown legend Dennis Coffey on guitar, funkateer Shawn Lee, italian OST specialists Calibro 35 and young soul singer Rebecca Jordan. Imagine Ennio Morricone meets Al Green meets Portishead and you will get a pretty precise idea of the highly romantic, heavy-soul and psychedelic flavours of the Venice Dawn project.(Paris Djs)

STEVE COLSON & THE UNITY TROUPE

In the early 1970s pianist and composer Adegoke Steve Colson and vocalist Iqua Colson were both members of The Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the radical home of jazz music in Chicago, and spiritual home of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
In 1980, Colson released ‘Triumph!’, recorded in Chicago with a stellar line-up of Art Ensemble and AACM members in the group including Joseph Jarman and Doug Ewart. This album was released on the private-press Silver Sphinx label, and distributed mainly in the local Chicago area. Universal Sound/Soul Jazz Records are releasing this extremely rare deep spiritual jazz album for the first time ever as a hardback edition CD and a very limited edition of 1000 –copy exact reproduction vinyl.

EXCLUSIVE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD only available here

JONI HAASTRUP

Wake Up Your Mind was released in 1978, the year after FESTAC, so it's unsurprising that it finds in a pan-Africanist mood. In the music,one can hear echoes of Stevie Wonder, Kool & the Gang, Mighty Sparrow and even KC & the Sunshine Band's Bahamian junkanoo-inspired disco, as the lyrics exhort the unity of the African disapora. The album is definitely designed for maximum crossover effect, but Haastrup has never been
shy about his ambitions to transcend theconventional ideas of what an African musician should sound like

"[We need to] show the African musician as an artist first, then as an African... We can be pop, we can be rock, we can be jazz, we can be
soul, we can be everything because in actual fact we have [made] an incredible contribution
to all of that already. So why deny ourselves, or why deny us, the opportunity to cross over into the commercial industry."

TASSILI

Tinariwen is a Tuareg group that performs in a Middle Eastern/African. All of the musicians originate from the southern Sahara, the group's name, meaning "empty places," is a reflection of their land of origin. The band formed in the rebel camps of Colonel Ghadaffi, as each of the musicians had been forced from their nomadic lifestyle into involuntary military service. Surrounded by a displaced nation of their peers, Tinariwen forged a new style of music, trading their traditional lutes and shepherd's flutes for electric guitars and drums. The style that resulted was dubbed "Tishoumaren," or "the music of the unemployed." Tinariwen signed to America's Anti imprint in 2010. The label encouraged them to experiment. The end result is Tassili, issued in 2011, in which the band recorded completely acoustically in a protected region of the Southeastern Algerian Desert. The tapes were flown to America where guitarist Nels Cline overdubbed electric guitars and New Orleans' famed Dirty Dozen Brass Band added horns, making Tassili a truly international collaboration.









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GUELEWAR/TERANGA BEAT

Serious new Teranga Beat release! Featuring Gambian experimental/psych band, Guelewar.

Teranga Beat proudly presents legendary group Guelewar of Banjul, The Gambia. Amongst the most experimental, psychedelic, bands out of Africa, Guelewar offer a unique sound and intstrumentation, mixing traditional compositions with modern instruments such as Mini Moog. Here in their last recording, live in the "Canari Club de Kaolack". Senegal, 1982 the 12 members guide you to another level, The liner notes include more information outlining the beautiful story of this exceptional band from this distinctive West African country, The Gambia. We hope you will enjoy.

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THE BLACK CARIBS OF BELIZE

In 2010, Soul Jazz Records embarked on their latest unique recording project, travelling to the Caribbean as they continue to document musical hot spots around the world. Their latest venture is to record the unique Afro-percussive music of the Black Caribs of Belize.

Belize (or British Honduras as it was formerly known) was the last British colony in Central America and is currently celebrating its 30th year of independence from Britain.

Soul Jazz Records travelled to Dangriga, epicentre of Garifuna culture, on the Caribbean coast of Belize, to produce this new album with Black Carib singers, drummers and musicians.

The West African ancestry of the Black Caribs is a link to the other Afro-musics of the Caribbean and Latin America - the massive drum groups of the Samba Schools of Brazil, the Voodoo poly-rhythmical drums of Haiti, Afro-Cuban Salsa and the sacred Bata drums of Santeria, as well as the hypnotic rhythm of Nigeria’s Afro-Beat and other African musical forms.

The album features the many different styles of Black Carib (or Garifuna) music. The most famous and popular form is the punta, a dance style that was updated in the 1970s when local artists electrified the sound to create punta rock. The most successful groups - Pen Cayetano with the Original Turtle Shell Band, and more recently Andy Palacio – were the first artists to bring Garifuna music to a wider audience. Another artist, Aurelio Martinez, is currently doing the same thing for the Garifuna community in Honduras.

UNESCO has also recently proclaimed the music of the Black Caribs/Garifuna as one of the masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.

The super-deluxe hard-cased CD pack comes complete with extensive text about the culture and history of the Black Caribs of Belize, as well as exclusive photographs of the sessions alongside song annotation and translations. There is also a very limited (1000 copies worldwide) double-gatefold vinyl edition (heavyweight vinyl and sleeve with full sleevenotes).

"Recorded on the country’s coast, these evocative recordings give us Garifuna music at its purest, the stirring sacred chants and percussion testifying to the resilience of African traditions in the New World." The

Telegraph

"Finely packaged, veers away from commercial songs to concentrate on traditional styles, from lengthy, hypnotic passages of drumming and chanting to the call-and-response styles of dugu religious ceremonies." The Guardian

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ELDER'S CORNER DOCUMENTARY

"Elder’s Corner is musical journey through pivotal moments in the colorful history of Nigeria as told through the lives and careers of the nations foremost music legends. It is a story about the eroding effects of colonialism, bitter ethnic clashes, politics, oil, power, money and their combined effects on a nation that recently celebrated its 50th year of self rule.

THE FILM

Shot against the colorful and gritty backdrop of some of Nigeria’s urban cities particularly Lagos and through the clever use of extensive in depth interviews, archival footage and still photographs, Elder's Corner will take viewers on a musical journey through the country's turbulent and colorful history. It will chronicle and showcase the lives and work of some of the leading exponents of the various musical movements that spawned Afrobeat, Juju, Apala, Highlife and Fuji music."

COSMIC BOOGIE

Liverpool based disco label Cosmic Boogie have built a strong reputation for themselves for the past few years for their brilliant 12" releases, including edits from legends such as Greg Wilson and Ashley Beedle, relative newcomers such as Leftside Wobble and productions from Mr Boogie himself. This digital release is the first label compilation, collecting all its releases thus far, previously only available on wax. Of the multitude of great tweaks on offer here, highlights include Ashley Beedle's edit of Bill Withers' "Railroad Man" replete with a weirdo 60s organ solo, Greg Wilson's edit of Strutt's euphoric "Time Moves On", and Cosmic Boogie's peak time version of War's "Youngblood", which takes the marimba and piano driven funk of the original and recuts it to powerful effect. Also be sure to check Leftside Wobble's edit of Patti Jo's "Ain't No Love Lost", with its strange hybrid of 60s Spector produced girl-group pop and Paradise Garage disco.

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DISCO DEMANDS

"The Disco Demands series started sometime in the early 2000s - I couldn't give you an exact year because it didn't feel like a big deal, so I never noted it. I simply wanted to put out a compilation of some records I really liked and maybe make a little of the money back I was spending on them. Buy some food and stuff.

There's always been Disco comps around of course but there was rarely anything that strayed too far from the standards.. the same songs kept appearing over and over again, or the comps would feature records you could pick up anywhere for little money. I've never seen the point in that. I gave up judging a record on its value or rarity a long time ago but surely there's more to disco than Exodus, Martin Circus, Mass Production and all those Salsoul, West End and bloody Prelude records. So it was a nice surprise to find that there were other people out there who thought the same way.

Volume 1 was pretty straightforward - just some nice records, with the only edit being an instrumental of Disco Socks; a strange, thinly veiled reference to the disco sucks movement. Then on Volume 2 I included a few of my edits and introduced the cover up concept to the disco world. That caused a bit of controversy, which of course I loved. And so it continued for five volumes.

What we have here then is the full series, give or take one or two cuts, all remastered, many re-re-edited, with lots of nice naked pictures to boot. For those who've asked since day one "will there be vinyl" I can finally say yes, you're holding it! " Al Kent