“‘Levitation’ will be released on Friday 3rd May via Moshi Moshi Records.
Inspired largely by the disco, funk and psychedelic sounds coming out of the Middle East and South Asia in the 70s, the album channels these influences through a vision soaked in mysticism, positivity and sun-drenched imagery.” Bandcamp
Have Spacesuit will Travel pt1
“It’s been a year since the magnificent ‘Dark Is The Sun’ first enchanted listeners back in 2011, and we’re thrilled to announce the next installment of mesmerizing non-contemporary jazz by The Greg Foat Group with their new album Girl And Robot With Flowers.
Evading the dreaded ‘second album syndrome’ with consummate ease, Girl And Robot With Flowers is a sonic soundscape of epic proportions that leaves Dark is the Sun in the dust while propelling the listener into infinity and beyond!
With a doff of the hat to sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, we’re whisked off on a thematic journey into the emotive and enthralling realms of cinematic jazz, seductive ambience and exciting, majestic drama. Often unpredictable and certainly never dull…”Source
“”Pieces of WOO: The Other Side” isn’t really a funk album, but rather a jazz/classical/ambient album with heavy funk overtones – an interesting departure for Bernie Worrell, though one that makes complete sense in the progression of his solo albums. A number of instruments and musicians not noted for funk are used for the first time, and the results are downright fascinating. Featuring Amina Claudine Myers, Buckethead, Fred Wesley, Vincent Chancey, Marty Ehrlich, Janet Grice, Patience Higgens, and Umar Bin Hassan.” Bandcamp
“I’m writing these introductory words in early August 2018. It is a Sunday and tomorrow The Scorpions will have one of their first rehearsals again. Seif Abu Bakr returned to his home country Sudan from Kuwait few weeks ago and the plan to re-release the music had been an igniting spark as well. Either way, it seems the narration of The Scorpions has not reached its end yet, let us hope this will only be another starting point within the bands long career. A starting point from which onwards they will receive a little more of the attention they have had deserved right from the beginning; both by a new generation of Sudanese as well as by the rest of the world.
Jannis Stuertz (founder of Habibi Funk red.)
Khartoum, 5th of August 2018.” Bandcamp
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“In the early ’70s, Jessie Key and Sylvester Cleary – two passionate idealists living in Buffalo, New York – formed a close friendship based on a mutual mission to better their city. The Attica State Prison Riot of 1971 was a burning memory, and the Arthur vs. Nyquist lawsuit – brought against the City of Buffalo for creating and maintaining a racially segregated school system – was on the docket. Key was once a cotton-laborer in Mississippi, who journeyed north for school where he met his kindred spirit, Cleary. The two struck up an intense friendship, bought a drum machine and recorded their first 45, “A Man,” a paean to self-actualization and Black American empowerment, which they custom pressed and issued privately.” Source
“Baba Commandant And The Mandingo Band return with their second album, Siri Ba Kele. After the Afro-beat fury of their first album Juguya (2015), the band has now distilled a potent mix of traditional and modern Burkinabe funk with a reverent take on the iconic Mandingue guitar music of the 1970’s. Mamadou Sanou (Baba Commandant) leads the band with a confidence earned from years of toiling in the DIY underground of the West African music scene. His riveting growl and main instrument, the doso n’goni, still strike with a profound delivery. The band’s guitarist, Issouf Diabate, is on board again and his breathtaking guitar work is one of the greatest examples of the instrument displayed in modern times. Massibo Taragna (bass) and Mohamed Sana (drums) are simply one of the finest rhythm sections working today, each a master on his instrument and the chops displayed here are truly something to behold. The band has become an interlocking five-headed hydra of complex funk and cosmic guitar explosions. Recorded in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in February 2018 by Camille Louvel and mixed with SF’s Hisham Mayet, the Mandingo Band’s sophomore LP is a modern statement of searing Sahelian compositions. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with such classics as Super Biton De Segou (1977), Kanaga De Mopti (1977), Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux (1981) and the mighty Rail Band” Bandcamp
“Despite a gap of five years between records, it’s possible to detect a direct lineage from Cave’s 2013 record Threace and their 2018 effort. Allways certainly shares that record’s cohesion, but opts out of the more guitar-led, heavier jams of yore in favor of subtle funk. Although Can influences still loom, the band seem to lean toward a less feverish gait.” Allmusic
“On paper, the combination of French house pioneer Étienne de Crécy, caustic monologist Baxter Dury, and new-breed riot grrrl Delilah Holliday of Skinny Girl Diet seems like it wouldn’t work. Or maybe it was just mad enough to work, because their 2018 album, B.E.D, is a delight. The performers work to fit their individual skills into a cohesive unit; de Crécy builds sparse, bubbling musical beds over which Dury intones his tales of woe and disdain, while Holliday brings some velvety drama to the proceedings. Tracks like the electro-lite “Tais Toi” and the rubbery “How Do You Make Me Feel” are a perfect blend of their skills; Dury is hilarious and debauched, de Crécy lays down a funky machine-made groove, and Holliday sings the chorus with style. It’s a pattern repeated with slight variations (like “Fly Away,” where Holliday takes over the lead vocals with winning results, or “White Coats,” which actually touches on some real emotion under the snark) on the rest of the record’s eight short tracks. Indeed, if there is any complaint that can be made about B.E.D, it’s that it’s too short. This magical grouping of talents could have made an album twice as long and it wouldn’t have gotten stale. Hopefully it’s not a one-time situation, and they will clear space on their schedules for a follow-up.” Allmusic
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Produced by Mike Terry, featuring the guitar of Eddie Willis
“Born in Grenada, Mississippi, Willis was known for his signature style of muted guitar riffs which added a distinctive tone or “color” to the beat, often timed with the snare, of the hundreds of hit songs recorded at Hitsville U.S.A. for Motown artists. Among the recordings Willis performed on are “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvelettes, “The Way You Do the Things You Do” by The Temptations, “You Keep Me Hanging On” by The Supremes, and “I Was Made to Love Her” by Stevie Wonder.
Influences for Willis included Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery, and Albert King. He played a Gibson Firebird guitar on most of his early 1960s work, later moving on to use a Gibson ES-335. On recordings such as The Supremes’ “No Matter What Sign You Are”, Willis performed on a Coral sitar…Willis died on August 20, 2018 in Gore Springs, Mississippi from complications of polio at the age of 82″ Wiki
“Across this expansive and cosmic piece, arguably his finest work to date, Perri muses on the possibilities of what can and cannot be: the complete divesting of one’s own ego (“Any answer, a question remains / To flourish and without expansion or gain?) and the bittersweet melancholy of romanticized nostalgia (Black, brown, red, blue, yellow, green, and white / Seen and understood in each its own right / And how freely goes a child at night / In another life?”) These existential meditations are fulfilling in their poetic ambiguity, the inherit sadness of the unknown, and the beauty that is also inherent in that unknowing. Indeed, this is how Perri walks on the moon, each step moving him up to a spiritual lightness that feels like floating. No matter the wait, how generous of him to invite us along. words / c depasquale” Source
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