album

Kologbo – Africa Is The Future [PARISDJS091]

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Guitar legend Oghene Kologbo was born in Warri, Nigeria in 1957. His father was the well known highlife musician Joe King Kologbo. When Kologbo was a teenager, he began performing with the revolutionary Afrobeat master Fela Kuti. He played the hypnotic tenor guitar lines, but often recorded bass and rhythm guitar too. Kologbo was Fela’s personal assistant and “tape recorder”. That is, it was his job to remember the melodies Fela would sing to him late at night, then teach them to the band at rehearsal the next day. In 1978, after a show at the Berlin Jazz Festival, Kologbo left the band (along with Tony Allen and a few others) and stayed in Berlin. “Africa Is The Future” is a true collective effort, with many guests gathering forces on the project: Tony Allen, playing drums on 5 tracks out of 8 (Nigeria/France), singer Pat Thomas (Ghana), deejay Joseph Cotton (Jamaica), singer Ayo (Nigeria/Germany), horn players from the Afrobeat Academy (Germany) or from Les Frères Smith (France), members of Antibalas (USA), Newen Afrobeat (Chile), etc. This is afrobeat from the 21st century at its purest, blending the originators and the descendants together.

vinyl / CD

Kologbo – Africa Is The Future [PARISDJS091]

Okay Temiz / Johnny Dyani- Witchdoctor’s Son [MM110]

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Matsuli Music is releasing another forgotten gem of the South African jazz diaspora – the 1976 Istanbul session featuring Johnny Dyani and Okay Temiz fusing deep roots and new routes, integrating folklore and rhythm within an experimental, avant-garde vision of love and life. Available for the first time since Yonca Records originally released only 1000 copies in Turkey, this album has remained an elusive and sought after landmark in South African exile Johnny Dyani’s discography. The recording captures a complex, funky and musically together exploration of folk themes, jazz messages and popular directions. After many years together discovering both South African and Turkish sources, Temiz and Dyani were intimately versed in each other’s traditions. Side one features material arranged by Temiz, and the second has material arranged and composed by Dyani – including a stunning arrangement of Don Cherry’s Elhamdulilhah Marimba with Dyani on piano and voice.

Continue reading “Okay Temiz / Johnny Dyani- Witchdoctor’s Son [MM110]” →

Okay Temiz / Johnny Dyani- Witchdoctor’s Son [MM110]

Deepchord – Auratones [SOMALP117]

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A foray into deep, organic, cinematic dance music. Subterranean bass, intercepted alien transmissions, and stripped down dance-beats meld with sheets of sounds that roll over the listener like waves lapping up on the shore. Shimmering, watery, brain hemisphere synchronization tones caress and melt stress away. Dance floor friendly tracks that work equally well in one s private listening space. Immersive music with a distinctive aquatic quality. Inspired by Detroit & Berlin s dance genres, but tempered by more ambience / atmosphere than one would expect from those genres. Music without harshness or rough edges. Fuzzy, out-of-focus, soft-sounds that slip in and out of the listener’s consciousness. Uniquely melds current dance rhythms with lushness and spirituality. Synesthetic sounds that trigger sensory experiences in cognitive pathways other than hearing smells of perfumes, thoughts of colours, and altered perception of time and space. Psychoacoustic, cerebral, electronic listening music for those wanting a different experience than the current harsher, darker dance trends are offering. Responsibly made gentle music designed from the ground-up to have a positive effect on the nervous system and leave the listener invigorated and recharged. Chi-building sonic balm. Timeless, exotic dance tracks for a new school of electronic music enthusiasts who are searching for beautiful sounds, crafted with a higher purpose in mind.

vinyl / CD

Deepchord – Auratones [SOMALP117]

László Hortobágyi – Transreplica Meccano [LFI009]

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Hungarian composer and musicologist László Hortobágyi, took his first expedition to North India in the late 1960’s to record music, study philosophy and learn traditional instruments such as the rudra-vina, sitar, surbahar and tabla. These ongoing trips heavily influenced his musical style and much of his recorded work. LFI is happy to announce the reincarnation of one of his most illustrious works, Transreplica Meccano originally released by Hungaropop in 1988.

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László Hortobágyi – Transreplica Meccano [LFI009]

Quadratschulz – WW303 [SHIPLP006]

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Quadratschulz delivers his debut album “WW303”. Ten tracks make up this vision, a vision of lazers, pulsing neon and gleaming chrome. Arcade game memories. Curls of acid. Electrofunk vocals. Synth wave chic. And even some past greats. All are lovingly folded together in this rich and diverse collection. Styles are juxtaposed. 303 bars throb and strings soar in the lilting “Der rasende Roland” whereas “Robotic Dancer” struts to a future-world funk. Quadratschulz sculpts his sound with a wonderfully warm and autumnal quality, as in the cascading synth showers of “Ferrofluid.” Yet there are colder moments, the frigid flows of “Kran” sprouting into the chilly house tones of “Piloten.” a Tribute to the groundbreaking LFO is also included. Bleep festooned chicanery is the offering as “Ring The Bell” takes you back to the infamous warehouse parties of 90s Britain.

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Quadratschulz – WW303 [SHIPLP006]

Phase Fatale – Redeemer [HOS494]

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‘Redeemer’ is the brutally seductive debut album by Phase Fatale, a key player in the recent charge of EBM and post punk-informed industrial techno infecting ‘floors from his home city, NYC to his DJ residency at Berghain. In Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions, Phase Fatale finds a fitting home for his personalised brand of clinical, rictus rhythm programming and searing synth and guitar lines, adding a vital streak of black and blue electric energy to the legendary label in its 20th year of cultish operation. In seven parts, ‘Redeemer’ follows the direct, his deeply personal realisation of weaponised sonics, upholding a strong tradition of techno as a prophetic exercise or ritual to gird dancers and listeners for the onset of future war. It presents Phase Fatale as an ultimate emissary of electronic violence and domination in the process, steeling the limbic system and muscle memory thru a fine-tuned disciplinarian approach to pharmacokinetics and biomechanics.

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Phase Fatale – Redeemer [HOS494]

Group Rhoda – Wilderless [DE186]

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Group Rhoda is the solo electronic music project of Mara Barenbaum, based out of Oakland, California,  one half of Max and Mara. The project started around 2009 with a debut album ‘Out of Time, Out of Touch’ in 2012 on Night School Records. ‘Wilderless’ is Group Rhoda’s third full length and first for Dark Entries Records. Each of the these 7 songs draw forth tones of tropical darkwave and soft industrial, while negating the sound of conformity and control. The album explore themes of societal and spiritual displacement, contemporary serfdom, the depths of empathy, regeneration through destruction, and the tyranny of claiming recognition and power. Lyrics are poetically expressed through allegory and explore archetypes rooted more in abstract observation rather than hard line experience. Through transgression and imagination, Group Rhoda explores the arc of songwriting interwoven into stark electronic environments, and creates a bridge between the corporeal and the dream worlds.

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Group Rhoda – Wilderless [DE186]

Patrick Cowley – Afternooners [DE185]

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Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records have teamed up once more to release the final volume of gay porn soundtracks by San Francisco-based musician and producer, Patrick Cowley. One of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of disco, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music, “The San Francisco Sound.” Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study at the City College of San Francisco. He founded the Electronic Music Lab at the school, where he would make experimental soundtracks by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer. Featuring 70 minutes of music never before released on vinyl.

vinyl / CD

Patrick Cowley – Afternooners [DE185]

Benedikt Frey – Artificial [ESP048]

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There is a sense of urgency increasingly infecting the human condition, fragmenting our attention span, accelerating our needs and often influencing our motives when making creative decisions. The result is a lack of dynamics, there is no ebb or flow, its “go” time, all the time. Electronic music is one of the clearest examples of a widening division between great art created in a deeply imaginative vaccum and the soulessly formulaic and branded product that serves the impatient masses. What draws the ESP Institute to Benedikt Frey is his ability to operate on the fringe, outside the constructs artists constantly channel themselves into—his art speaks a pure language that is realized by any means necessary, a process devised solely to articulate his own message, one delivered with patience, never rushed nor dictated by the outside world. Artificial was written and produced over two years, tirelessly sculpted into a sequence abstract pieces that are fiercely independent but accumulate layers of meaning when collaged. It is electronic and rhythm-based, but never reliant on any prescribed instrumentation, arrangement or expecatation. This is our idea of well conceived and executed album; not simply a collection of tracks but a complex narrative that unfolds over peaks and valleys, pulling the listener into emotional corners before leaving a residual impression. Some may describe music very well in words, but there is always something lost in translation—a story only the music itself can tell.

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Benedikt Frey – Artificial [ESP048]

Juju & Jordash – Sis-Boom-Bah [DKMNTL052]

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Prolific and always inventive live pair and studio wizards Juju & Jordash are back with another fantastic album on their home label, Dekmantel. Called “Sis-boom-bah!” it features nine tracks that once again showcase their musical maturity and free thinking. The pair say it is an album “steeped in traditionalism” and to us it sounds spiritual, musical and beautifully thought provoking.

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Juju & Jordash – Sis-Boom-Bah [DKMNTL052]

Itadi K. Bonney – Inye [HC052]

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Afro funk and Political Soul from Togo. Recorded in the beginning of the 80’s and self-produced by Itadi in 1983 , this obscure album contained deep soul and controversial rare grooves backed by the 5 band members called the “Afro Funk Band de Lomé”. Itadi’s music is unique, in his second album, he kept the same recipe: a mixture of soul, reggae, hi-life and Funk, with heavy lyrics which sounds like slogans and caused him big trouble after its release. He was obliged to escape the country to USA. A real definition of a revolutionary musician.

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Itadi K. Bonney – Inye [HC052]

Jo Tongo – African Funk Experimentals: 1968-1982 & 2017 [ASVN048]

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Africa Seven is on fire recently, and this new compilation of rare and untapped material from Cameroon’s Joseph Ekambi Tongo Mpondo has to be the pick of the lot. The talented multi-instrumentalist was famously studying medicine in Paris throughout he 60s, but it’s clear that down the music path was the only sensible option for this man. African Funk Experimentals brings together some of his most obscure material from the years 1968-1982…and some new gear from 2017! Aside from the absolutely killer artwork featuring on the sleeve, this is a ten-track masterpiece, reaching all corners of the afrobeat heritage, while still retaining something very personal and symbolic of Cameroon’s often underrated influence on African funk and boogie.

vinyl / CD

Jo Tongo – African Funk Experimentals: 1968-1982 & 2017 [ASVN048]

Conforce – Autonomous [124DSR]

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Dutch producer and live act Conforce is back with ‘Autonomous’, a fifth artist album and the latest in his long relationship with Delsin Records. Conforce is Boris Bunnik, a producer who explores the deepest realms of dub, house, techno and electro under many different names. His Conforce alias is where his most club orientated material comes from and this new nine track album finds the Transcendent label boss producing dark syntheses inspired by his hometown and harbour city, Rotterdam, and its automated industries. A masterfully conceptual album that really paints a vivid picture of a harbour as heard from deep down in the depths.

vinyl / CD

Conforce – Autonomous [124DSR]

Rhys Celeste – Microlith [FR016]

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“Rhys Celeste aka Microlith passed away 26th February. 24 years old. The fatal weekend when Rhys lost his life I was mastering the tracks for his release in Fundamental Records. Rhys sent me the tracks only a few days before. He kept about forty untitled tracks for Fundamental Records and together we selected a perfect track list for the album. I was with all these melodies in my head all that weekend, I remember perfectly that feeling. Today I still have that special sensation that you can feel in all tracks composed by Rhys, something nostalgic with a big doses of happiness and hope in every note. When I was mastering his tracks I was like a young kid with a new record in my hands, each track is great, even the interludes are very special compositions.I am sure the people who support the projects we release in Fundamental Records will support this album not only for the circumstances but mainly because the quality of the tracks from someone with only 24 years… this is sad. I feel a deep emptiness inside of me because Rhys never listened the final tracks mastered… we released each track with the original references Rhys used for his tracks, except two tracks included in the very special 7. This feeling is something I can’t explain in words, and it is very difficult to carry within me. The next monday after his death I was like out of my body, we had a mountain of work with the shipping of the 808 Box but I felt totally paralyzed, my wife Anais and I could hardly speak, we were speechless for some minutes, looking to the screen of the computer trying to understand what happened, then I decided I have to do what I said to Rhys only two days before, and I opened the player in my laptop and I started to work in the design for the cover with the music of Rhys in repeat mode. I was in front of the screen all day, printing many sketches and color variations. I called Fundamental Records to our label for a very good reason and this project deserves this adjective in full effect. For the same reason I also decided to release this album under the real name of the artist, Rhys Celeste and use his music name, Microlith, for the title.”

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Rhys Celeste – Microlith [FR016]

Deniro – Mendoza [TRP016]

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Rising Dutch talent Deniro (aka Reynier Hooft van Huijsduijnen) returns to with a  double EP of original works. ‘Mendoza’ is an 8-track quest into the spheres of polarity and tension. Anxious distortions jitter in controlled spaces, angular melodies disfigure warm tones and frenetic cross rhythms flutter through minimalist forms. Contrasting messages are weaved together with precision to facilitate a dialogue where dancefloor function and cerebral stimulation interact. Deniro navigates his way round vintage gear with a meticulous accuracy, held together by an intuitive ear for timbre, an ingrained passion for Detroit soul, and a firm understanding of sonic balance.

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Deniro – Mendoza [TRP016]

Jasss – Weightless [IDEAL160]

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Jasss makes her head and body-turning album debut with Weightless, an absorbingly stark and spiky set of industro-dub concerns riddled with heavy inspiration from African rhythms, jazz and concrète electronics. iDEAL give Jasss room to consolidate and expand her grizzled dancefloor structures to a full length episode that brutally dovetails with Joachim Nordwall and co’s unforgiving but compelling take on contemporary noise and industrial musics.

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Jasss – Weightless [IDEAL160]

Daniel Andréasson – LP 1 [SKUDGE-WLP03]

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This is the debut album of Swedish producer Daniel Andréasson, an artist that has both a sonically and artistic resemblance to the Skudge family of labels and artists. Pushing his eighth year of releasing records, Andréasson has accomplished the task of creating a debut album that seem to tie together the sound of his previous EP’s. Andréasson’s sound is in line with a more outsider approach, but with a dance floor focus. A sound that he has been pushing since the beginning. This approach shines through at the most on the tracks such as ‘Mc35I# Rushup’, ‘Stay’ and ‘Dreams’ as these specific tracks shows Andréassons more accomplished style. In between, the album keeps a perfect concept throughout. Taking breathers with its interludes and in general “shorter” tracks that hints of a ambient leaning urge to express himself, he never loses focus.

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Daniel Andréasson – LP 1 [SKUDGE-WLP03]

Chino – Old Practices [AST079]

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Chino is Krakow, Poland’s Artur Oles. Artur is into Polish Brutalist architecture, poster art, 80’s drum machines, FM synthesis, tape hiss, obscure eastern electronics, Tatra mountains. Following a series of impeccable records, this is Chino’s debut on cassette. Eight tracks of perfectly studied techno with edges of the abstract.

Chino – Old Practices [AST079]

Ross 154 – Fragments [ART-EL1]

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ROSS 154 - Fragments (remastered)

Originally released on Stefan Robbers’ Eevo-Lute label in 1993, Ross 154 aka Jochem Peteri – now best known for his productions as Newworldaquarium – released four tracks of deep, dark, mysterious hybrid techno interspersed with four delicate ambient interludes.

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Ross 154 – Fragments [ART-EL1]