December Podcast - Best of 2017!

CMFCP December Podcast

Best of 2017!

The CMFCP December Podcast is an extended 90 minute episode in which we rattle through our favourite tracks of 2017! 

Tracks: 

The Black Madonna - His is The Voice I Hear (We Still Believe) 

Piero Umiliani - Discomania (Liuto) 

Zru Vogue - Do The Zru (Eskimo) 

Bonobo - Kerala (Ninja Tune) 

Lindstrom - Drift (Feedelity) 

Apostles - Banko Woman (Cultures of Soul) 

Elbertina 'Twinkie' Clark - Awake O Zion (Mr Bongo) 

Sampha - What Shouldn't I Be? (Young Turks) 

Jackson - Keep Swimming (Self-Release) 

Thundercat - Show Me The Way feat Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins (Brainfeeder) 

Addison Groove - Changa (Self-Release) 

Alessandro Alessandroni - Afro Discoteca (Four Flies) 

Edith Peters - This Is The Moment (Rework by Gerard Frisina) (Schema) 

Com Truise - Idle Withdrawal (Ghostly International) 

Bicep - Glue (Ninja Tune) 

Todd Terje - Jungelknugen (Four Tet Remix) (Olsen Norway) 

Jamie 326 feat Masalo - Testify (Local Talk) 

*End of 'Best of 2017'* 

 New Releases spotlight: 

Ewan Hoozazmi feat Audible One - Freedom (Mr Bird Remix) (Particle Zoo) 

Tundra - The River (Particle Zoo) 

Mr Bongo Record Club - Volume 2

Mr Bongo Record Club - Volume 2

Mr Bongo

As far as feverishly anticipated follow ups go, Mr Bongo's sophomore Record Club release is up there with Stranger Things, Blade Runner and the next round of charges to be levelled at the Drumpf administration.

Speaking of feverish, what better word to describe Elbernita 'Zwinkie' Star's Awake O Zion, an Afro-tinged Disco juggernaut that sets the tone for a right old party. That's just what is in store here, 14 tracks (or 18 if you cop the CD version) of infectious African and Latin grooves and rump-rattling rumpus, all influenced by the global Disco phenomenon that swept the globe around the time of these recordings.

Volume One sold out in minutes and was picked by Lauren Laverne as her album of the day on 6 Music. This time round, we've got even more Disco and Soul in favour of a few more traditional sounds, which is marvellous news for anyone throwing a dancing party. 

Highlights are many but Kiru Stars (Julius Kang’ethe) by Family Planning is sublime, while Dee Edwards' Put Your Love On the Line stands out, not only as the only American track featured, but as a bona fide stomper. Elias Rahbani And His Orchestra's Liza… Liza is also particularly curious - is it Bollywood? Genuinely not sure. Anyway, it's all bloody brilliant, go buy.

TRACKLIST (VINYL 2-LP): A1. Elbernita ‘twinkie’ Clark – Awake O Zion (full length, original version) / A2. Dee Edwards – Put Your Love On The Line / A3. Anubis – Ecology / B1. Guy Cuevas – Ebony Game / B2. Kiru Stars (Julius Kang’ethe) – Family Planning / B3. Teaspoon & The Waves – Oh Yeh Soweto / C1. Leny Andrade – Não Adianta / C2. Rosa Maria – Samba Maneiro / C3. Tom & Dito – Obrigado Corcovado / C4. Inezita Barroso – Maracatu Elegante / C5. Joao Diaz – Capoeira / C6. The Equatics – Merry Go Round / D1. Elias Rahbani And His Orchestra – Liza… Liza / D2. The Beaters – Harari

TRACKLIST, (CD): 1. Luiz Henrique – Mas Que Nada / 2. Elbernita ‘twinkie’ Clark – Awake O Zion / 3. Guy Cuevas – Ebony Game / 4. Kiru Stars (Julius Kang’ethe) – Family Planning / 5. Kelenkye Band – Jungle Music / 6. Effi Duke & The Love Family – The Time Is Come / 7. Anubis – Ecology / 8. Dee Edwards – Put Your Love On The Line / 9. Teaspoon & The Waves – Oh Yeh Soweto / 10. Oby Onyioha – Enjoy Your Life / 11. Leny Andrade – Não Adianta / 12. Rosa Maria – Samba Maneiro / 13. Tom & Dito – Obrigado Corcovado / 14. Inezita Barroso – Maracatu Elegante / 15. Joao Diaz – Capoeira / 16. Elias Rahbani And His Orchestra – Liza… Liza / 17. The Beaters – Harari / 18. The Equatics – Merry Go Round

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

Junior Byron - Trying To Hold On (CoS Reissue)

Very excited to present another fine Cultures of Soul release, this time the killer Junior Byron track "Trying To Hold On," written and produced by Wild Fire's Oliver Chapman and originally released on the Wild Fire label back in 1985. The A-side includes the original mix as well as the Version.

On the  B-side we've got the  epic "Megamix." The track was reworked by Gerd Janson, who created the mix old-school style with two copies of the record, a mixer, and an EFX box. Adding the final touches to this track is  mixing and mastering engineer LOPAZZ, who mastered many of the best techno tracks in the Get Physical catalog and released the seminal dance-classic "I Need Ya" on Output.  Pre-order for release on October 6th!

Here's a taste of the original cut

 

Pre-order here: https://culturesofsoul.com/collections/all/products/junior-byron-trying-to-hold-on-12

Plastic Dance 1: Domestic Synth Pop & Plugged In Punk

Andy Votel and Doug Shipton need no introduction to record collectors and oddity-aficionados. They've long been mining the seams of undiscovered, ultra-rare and freakishly different musical plunder from bygone times and distant lands. They have a rare knack of stumbling across music that was out of place, out of fashion or simply too out of its mind for the time it was released in... stuff that died ingloriously but is resurrected to fervent acclaim a few decades later.

Plastic Dance 1 is a collection of such music - a few buck the trend, such as the celebrated space-pop pioneers Cybotron, but the rest are an obscure and unheard of crop of wildly original artists from the late 70s and early 80s. mostly, the music ploughs a very psych-synth-rock furrow... like the B-52s on strong sedatives. We have the plaintive, Germanic barking on Plastiktanz Mir Geht Es Danke Gut - which I believe translates as 'I'm fine, thank you' while sounding like they aren't fine at all. The afore-mentioned Cybotron deliver a robust, pulsing slice of spaced out disco, which Zed's The Premen outdoes for jazzy, synthesized psychedelia. At least 5 of these tracks could be modern day synthwave tracks and I don't think I'd have known - probably only the acoustic drums really set them apart, while there are some flashes of glam-punk with Andrezej Korzynski's Tylko Punk Rock and Don Gere's There's a Star In You.

Buy it here