Africa Airways Four (Disco Funk Touchdown - 1976 - 1983)

Africa Airways Four (Disco Funk Touchdown - 1976 - 1983)

Africa 7

The ever-impressive Africa 7 are regulars to this blog for good reason. The very finest sounds from Africa reissued, licensed and collected in exciting, relevant compilations is always likely to score big points over here.

The fourth installment of their Africa Airways series amps up the Disco-Funk at the expense of the Psych nuggest in episode 3, and hosts luminous figures like Tala AM, Manu Dibango and Charly Kingson alongside names less internationally known but no less exceptional if this comp is anything to go by!

Available at all good stockists - Juno here or Bandcamp here

Kafundo Vol 5 - Afro-Brazilian Roots & Wires

Kafundo Vol 5 - Afro-Brazilian Roots & Wires
(Kafundo)

Kafundo's explorations of Brazilian heritage music continue with the fifth installment in their series. Not many western people associate Brazil with African and Caribbean culture but in the North and North-west of the gargantuan country, Brazil boasts huge swathes of folk with such lineage. Spoken like someone who has read this in a textbook rather than see it with their own eyes. Still, musically-speaking if nothing else, some African or Caribbean influence generally means infectious rhythms, bold and sassy tunes and energy for days. None of these are qualities that Brazilian music has any danger of lacking, so when melded together we are treated to seriously high octane carnival sounds!

Kafundo Volume 5 is a crucial exposè of the finest modern Afro-Brazilian music incorporating traditional folk songs, samba and fully modernised bass music from some of the country's leading DJs and producers. Wonderful.

Fatoumata Diawara - Kanou (Fatoumata Revision)

Fatoumata Diawara - Kanou (Fatoumata Revision)

Modern Afro-soul-house vibes from Fatoumata Diawara... sounds like a day relaxing on a deserted Kenyan beach. Or at a faux-swanky pool party in some soulless expat bolt-hole. But that's not Fatoumata's fault - she just made a really delicious tune. Free download too.

Alessandro Alessandroni - Afro Discoteca

Alessandro Alessandroni - Afro Discoteca
Four Flies Italy

The sadly departed Alessandro Alessandroni, he of the 'most famous whistle in the world' and over 50 movie soundtracks, has Four Flies to thank, posthumously, for repressing his excellent Afro Discoteca EP for vinyl lovers everywhere. It's a seriously limited repress with just one per customer at Juno, so be quick!

Them Mushrooms

Them Mushrooms (Afro 7)Reissue

Afro7 continue their inspired limited 12" series with a taste package from Them Mushrooms. A fully licensed EP of four catchy 80's afro-synth tracks out of Kenya. Housed in a beautiful cardboard jacket with silk screened coastal-inspired artwork designed by Steve Roden.

Buy it here from Mr Bongo

Ozo - Anambra (Isle of Jura)

Ozo - Anambra

Isle of Jura

I'm in two minds here. This is very definitely Curious Music. I'm not convinced, however, that it's particularly good. That said, I feel there's a time and a place, possibly a state of inebriation, which would render listening to Ozo Anambra an exceptionally enjoyable experience.

Perhaps it's a victim of the stigma attached to chanting yogis and so on that means I can't help feeling like I'm in a holistic massage salon, rather than a transcendental state of bliss, which is probably not what cult 70s Dub-Folkers Ozo were trying to elicit. There's a point where I genuinely thought they were chanting 'Puff The Magic Dragon'.

At what point does an original concept become degraded by the existence of flattering, and sometimes mocking, imitators? Can we really view the origins of a trope through a lens unclouded by our knowledge of future mimickry? Where do clichés begin? 
As much as the Anambra sounds like the orgy scene soundtrack in Anchorman, it was the 70s when this was recorded, and I bet seeing Ozo perform it would have totally kicked ass. 
Plus you get a free tote bag with every order. So, swings, roundabouts, you know... 'Ommmmmmmmmmm'

Get it from Isle of Jura's Bandcamp here

Average EP (Junior Executive)

Average - S/T EP

Junior Executive

The press release makes no mention of the fact that the lead track on this rather brilliant EP is full on Afrobeat/Disco... something you'd think would seem worth shouting about. Haye Haye is, in fact, a really, really infectious groove that blends triumphal, South African sounding, exultations with classic disco bass twanging and jangly guitars. The result is a cacophonous exhortation to dance, and while the kick and snare combo is perhaps a little over-compressed, there's no doubt it makes us want to freaking boogie.

Another reason to love this record is its bewitching diversity. From the aforementioned uptempo of Haye Haye we dive straight into the atmospheric, melancholic Cold; wherein a brooding, resonant guitar refrain loops over long pads, 80s drum machines and plaintive wailing, before climaxing in a proggy latin guitar section and a reverb-drenched vocal call. It's like Alan Parsons, Manu Dibango, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel all at once.

Finishing off this 3-tracker is Hisingen. With library style grooves aplenty it slowly, ever so slowly, develops its ever so slow loops, gradually introducing flutes and what I assume is a Norwegian vocal which is so short it's hard to imagine how it was conceived.

Eminently listenable stuff.

We couldn't find many stockists of this badboy but they have it at Redeye Records so get in there while you can!

Manu Dibango - Electric Africa

Manu Dibango

Electric Africa

Tidal Waves Music

TWM10

Manu Dibango needs little introduction, born in Cameroon in 1933, Manu developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk, and traditional Cameroonian music. He’s definitely among the best known African artists outside of Africa. Collaborations were numerous and include top acts like Fela Kuti, Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell, Sly & Robbie, Don Cherry and Bernie Worrell. In addition to selling hundreds of thousands of copies of the albums he recorded, he played such huge venues as Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden.

In 1972, at 40 years of age, Manu Dibango did something almost unheard of for an African artist – he had a pop hit. His song “Soul Makossa” became an enormous hit which influenced popular music for decades to follow. First picked up by David Mancuso (The Loft), “Soul Makossa” took New York dance floors by storm & in July 1973 it became the first disco record to enter the Billboard Top 40—an early instance of Western pop experiencing a paradigm shift thanks to Africa. The song’s chant of “ma-mako ma-ma-sa mako-mako sa” echoes through the greatest-selling pop album of all-time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and it’s in the DNA of the music of Kanye West, Rihanna, A Tribe Called Quest, Akon and The Fugees.

By 1985, Dibango was back in Paris, one of the most successful African artists in the world, to start on the recordings for the Electric Africa album. This album hooked Manu and the Soul Makossa Gang up with New York avant garde producer Bill Laswell, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, Parliament-Funkadelic keyboard player Bernie Worrell, Pan African synthesist Wally Badarou, New York guitarist Nicky Scopelitis, African drummer Aiyb Dieng and Malian kora virtuoso Mory Kante. This means of working gave Manu and Laswell license to fuse synthesizers and kora, talking drums and samples, ngoni and electric guitar. What it all boils down to is world beat in its truest sense.

Electric Africa remains one of Manu’s strongest albums. His deep growl of a honey and sandpaper voice and the energetic honk of his saxophone merge with the seamless samples and the myriad hand percussion and overt funkiness of his band. Herbie Hancock plays on three tracks, contributing an amazing electric piano solo on the title track and interacting with Manu’s sax while weaving to the warp of Mory Kante’s kora during “L’arbre a Palabres.” Similarly but more subtly, Laswell, Badarou and Worrell play dueling synthesizers in and around the band throughout ”Pata Piya.” All of this makes the album an hypnotic & upbeat Afro-Funk classic that will rock every part your body (and mind). Now finally back available as a limited vinyl edition for the first time since 1985.

Buy here: https://lightintheattic.net/releases/3536-electric-africa

Tony Allen & Afrobeat 2000 - NEPA (Don Dayglow Remix)

More Afrobeat meets Disco here as the devilishly handsome and charismatic Don Dayglow reimagines Tony Allen's 1984 jam NEPA Dance Dub

Free Download too!

Nik WESTON presents KIKI GYAN/TUNJI OYELANA (Mukatsuku Records)

Mukatsuku Records are one of my personal favourites - I've bought so many releases over the years and almost all of them are still regular selections. A heady blend of really, really good remastering and a great ear for a funky gem make Nik Weston's releases essential purchases for many Funk, Soul, Jazz, Afrobeat and Disco DJs. If, like me, you play a lot of all those genres, you'll be hard pushed to find a more consistently excellent label for your needs. Some tracks are hitherto unknown, but what i like is that the first criteria seems to be 'is it really fucking good?' rather than 'is it really fucking rare?' - so we also get Fela Kuti, Grant Green and other well known artists featuring in the catalogue.
Every purchase comes with some stickers and a genuine-sounding note from Nik that displays a heartfelt gratitude to his customers. It's the little things, and marks Nik out as the sort of chap one would enjoy a good pint with. I've never met him though, He could be a psychopath. Or a Tory voter.

The latest offering is a welcome installment in my Afrobeat/Afro-Funk education, featuring, as it does, a couple of artists whose work is new to me. Kiki Gyan delivers an extremely happy slice of Ghanian Disco with Love To Love You, which is followed on the flip by Tunji Oyelana's wonderfully jaunty It's Not Your Fault. Both are Nik Weston edits and his sure touch make for killer afro-funk cuts. Get in my basket.