How It Should Sound, Vol. 1 & 2

From Live at Blackheath Halls 19/09/13, released 04 Oct 2013

Alto Sax - Nathaniel Facey
Alto Sax/ Clarinet - William Scott 
Tenor Sax/ Clarinet/ Flute - Leo Aarons-Richardson
Tenor Sax - Claire Furlong
Bari Sax/ Bass Clarinet - Greg Sinclair
Trumpet - Tom Dennis, Mike Soper, Lily Carassik, Alaric Taylor
Trombone - Ross Lumbard, Rosie Turton, Hannah Dilkes, George Wrench
Electric Guitar - James Kitchman
Keyboards/ Piano - Elliot Galvin 
Double Bass - Louis Thomas 
Drums - Liz Exell

The full live album can be streamed and downloaded for here: https://emmajeanthackray.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-blackheath-halls-19-09-13

Johari's Window feat. James Kitchman/  Nathaniel Facey [LIVE]

The History of the Loop Digga, 1990-2000

Episode XVIII

Real Days

From the upcoming album "Dark Comedy," available June 10th from Mello Music Group.

ABOUT THE ALBUM:
One famous Oscar Wilde aphorism claimed: “if you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise, they’ll kill you.” Open Mike Eagle lacks the capacity to tell anything but the truth. In a nation that prizes self-aggrandizing buffoons and artful liars, morbid humor might be the sanest response—a tourniquet to stop the toxicity from spreading. 

If this sounds heavy, it’s probably because it is. Dark Comedy, the Mello Music debut from the critically revered Los Angeles rapper, is mostly about the failure of Karl Marx’s Proletariat Revolution. Yet its brilliance stems less from the novelty of its ideas than from the ingenuity of its wordplay, its caustic whimsy, and infectious melodies. 

Opening track “Dark Comedy Morning Show” operates as a shorthand manifesto. For those who haven’t heard, Eagle’s bad at sarcasm, so he works in absurdity (when trying not to wish death on the upper class). The airing of grievances includes racial stereotypes, inner-city warfare and Facebook logging all of his favorite sandwiches. It’s Slug’s “Modern Man’s Hustle” if the Atmosophere frontman had been haunted by James Baldwin’s ghost instead of heavily tattooed exes. 

Lead single “Qualifiers” finds Eagle subverting the notions of traditional rap braggadocio and lyrical terrain. His revolution isn’t just some abstract political ideals, but at the crux of his approach to art. This is intended to dump Coconut Water and whiskey on the unsuspecting heads of those with false ideas of authenticity or what rap should be.  

Lest you mistake him for a meditating yoga-panted rapper, the rapper raised on the Southside of Chicago, wields wordplay as sharp and weird as any of his peers. He proclaims himself “the King of all rappers who don’t condone date rape.” Molotov Cocktails are helpfully tossed from fellow conspirators Kool AD and comedian, Hannibal Burress.

Former hockey star Luc Robataille is rhymed with the Kobra Kai Dojo from Karate Kid. In the same breath, Eagle cracks about being too old to die. It’s absurdity in the sense that Joseph Heller deployed it in Catch 22. He will live forever or die in the attempt. 

If you’re just tuning into Eagle’s stellar career on album number four, the LA Weekly anointed him last year as the hottest thing in indie rap. Pitchfork called him a “whiz with matching easy-going hooks to intimate personal reflection.” But Dark Comedy could be the best thing he’s ever done—a record that captures the perennial struggle between art and commerce, the last half-century of widening class rift, and the need to be funny or die. 


Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy Morning Show (feat. Toy Light)

BX To New Jeru

U.S.A. (Undaground Starvin Artist)

Clap & Form Your Soul

Only One Me

Tea Thyme

Start Here

Another Introduction

Figment

Turns Out I Can Sell A Few of These After All

Final Frontier

EL BOSS - Hip Hop Instrumental Beats (17)

In 1972, Orchestre Abass released two incredible singles on Polydor. These records - featuring Samarin Banza, Haka Dunia and other afrofunk masterpieces - were powerful enough to knock any music head out, but it wasn’t until the discovery of some unreleased material by the band that the seeds for this project were planted. 

It all happened in 2008 in Ghana. I was going through some tapes that had previously been the property of PolyGram one of the major record companies based in west Africa. In the late 80s political instability and curfews had paralysed the music industry forcing Polygram to close their Ghanaian subsidiaries leaving all of their recordings behind. These recordings had been packed in boxes and left vegetating in an Accra warehouse for three decades until I came along. To my surprise all of the tapes looked unharmed and I was particularly relieved to hear that the Orchestre Abass tape was in an excellent state of condition. I began fiddling around with the idea of releasing an album of the band and that plan got an additional boost with le “coup de grace” which had landed in the form of an ultra rare tune called Honam discovered in Sotoboua, a small northern Togolese town in the middle of nowhere. That find completed this selection.

I had previously discovered some similar music in Northern Benin and in Nigeria and I started picturing an area that spread all the way from Northern Ghana to Northern Cameroon, an area I dubbed ‘The Islamic funk belt’ due to the fact that Super Borgou de Parakou, Napo De Mi Amor, Uppers International and Hamad Kalkaba just to name a few - all from that ‘belt’ - were groups made up of musicians with an Islamic background. This can be felt and heard in the music and particularly in the singing since many of the musicians had attended koranic schools and the languages used in the songs often had Arabic elements fused in - Orchestra Abass was one of them. 

With their heavy, organ-led sound combining with the deftest of musical touches, these records were the work of a rhythmic powerhouse and we are honoured to be in a position to present the recordings of Togo´s funkiest Band.

Unfortunately Malam Issa Abass, the founder, guitarist and organ player of the band, was killed in 1993 by a grenade thrown into his bedroom and to help me reconstruct the biography of the band I tracked down Thon Komla, one of the band´s songwriters and Abderaman Issa, the guitar player of the band. 

All the music was licensed directly from the various composers of these songs. The vinyl is pressed on 180 High Quality Virgin Vinyl and the gatefold contains previously unseen pictures and a detailed biography of the might band.

Orchestre Abass Master

Get the Record

Haka Dunia - Orchestre Abass

Only One Me

Damu The Fudgemunk

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