© 2013 Secret Stash Records (uploaded with permission)

While Secret Stash has been in the business for several years releasing a number of gems ranging from the soul of America to reggae takes on Miles Davis and acoustic Peruvian folk music, they are now focusing some effort on new music as well. Longtime Secret Stash fans rest easy, though. They are still going to continue to mine the vaults the world over to find long-forgotten but essential music.

One of their first new music releases is coming out this September courtesy of Black Market Brass. The band and label both hail from Minneapolis. Secret Stash, which has a very DIY approach to their label, often hosts record-release assembly parties where the local community is invited to come to their offices and assemble the records and album sleeves in return for pizza and beer. It was through several of these that Eric Foss, VP of Marketing and Sales for Secret Stash, met Mitch Sigurdson, one of the founding members of the band.

Sigurdson assembled some friends and local talent to play a variety of styles, often Ghanian highlife and funk. Per Foss, “I think it took a little while for them to realize that they play Afrobeat as well or better than most of the bands out there doing it today. I watched as they transitioned from playing spot-on covers of Fela and Tony Allen to writing their own material.”

This past April, the band headed to the studio to record some original material. Coincidentally, the band picked up a new baritone sax player, Cole Pulice, who was already working with Sonny Knight & the Lakers and Dérobé Dance Band, bands whose original material also will be seeing releases from the label. In a single afternoon, they cut the two tracks heard on the upcoming 45.

“Snake Oil Man” is heavy Nigerian madness. You can bet that it’s no beginners luck. Check out the flip side, “Big Muffler," on Secret Stash’s SoundCloud page (https://soundcloud.com/secretstashrecords/black-market-brass-big-muffler). If this is their first swing at the genre, you can expect some exciting material in the future from Black Market Brass who has enough original material already for a full LP.

We reached out to Pierre Chrétien from Souljazz Orchestra, who knows his way around an Afrobeat tune, to hear his thoughts on the band’s sound. Says Chrétien, “It sounds amazing. Definitely no lack of sweat and stink here!” No disagreements here.


Black Market Brass "Snake Oil Man"

Brown Supremacy is the second single from Surf Coast multi instrumentalist Immy Owusu and is built on samples of legendary Zamrock band Amanaz’s classic “Easy Street” (1975). Immy and Amanaz exist decades and continents apart but a shared love of Hendrix-esque fuzz guitars and deep connection to West African tradition makes it a natural combination. 

Immanuel Kwabena Dreessens-Owusu grew up in two worlds: the sea bleached lifestyle of Torquay and the Surf Coast with its rock n roll soundtrack, and the musical heritage of his Ghanaian / Dutch family. Immy’s father Kojo is one of Australia’s best regarded West African musicians and his grandfather Koo Nimo is foundational figure of Ghanaian Highlife. On Brown Supremacy, Immy takes Amanzaz loops, and weaves his own songwriting over the top, keeping the iconic riff and the “get together, stay together” hook from the original. He adds chunky kicks and snares, fuzz atmospherics, and ‘Castles Made Of Sand’ reverse delay guitar. 

Zamrock was a 1970s movement of Zambian artists who took psychedelic rock and reframed it in an African context. Too far ahead of their time, artists like Amanaz didn’t achieve global recognition until successful reissues and compilations in the 21st century. Now their music has found kindred spirits all the way to Bells Beach where Immy has flipped it into ‘a song dedicated to every kid that grew up in a rural town that felt like they didn’t belong’.

Immy says, ‘When I first moved to Torquay, for some kids I was the first ‘black’ person they had ever seen before, and their first experience from any other culture that wasn’t their own. In high school I pushed away from people who looked like me in an attempt to fit into the establishment. How ‘black’ I felt was compounded by how ‘white’ I was treated by my Ghanaian family (in Africa). For me this song is my story about finding a place to belong.’

Immy Owusu - Brown Supremacy

Lee fields and the expressions- faithful man you tube rip at Daytona bitch

Suspicion - The Originals (Teza Cappuccino Edit)

Can You Get It

Taken from DJ Food's album 'The Search Engine', released 23 January 2012 on Ninja Tune.

Buy 'The Search Engine' on Ltd Edition Comic-sized Book, CD and Flexi-Disc, Standard CD and download, and 'Expanded & Extended' 24bit WAV - 

Ninjashop: http://bit.ly/tYU47G
iTunes: http://itun.es/iS36L6
Buy on Amazon: http://glnk.it/1g4

http://www.djfood.org/
http://ninjatune.net/

The Illectrik Hoax

DJ Food - 'GIANT' (Album Edit) feat. Matt Johnson

http://funkit.virose.net/

The Meters - Chicken Strut 12/1976 "Live at Rozys"

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=415859

The Meters - Chicken Strut 12/1976 "Live at Rozys"

The Mage

Sample: Cymande - Brothers On The Slide

Link for the Photo: http://the-space-crunk-blog.tumblr.com/post/27693772775/cymande

Respect and Blessings to Cymande

And the Original: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZP2Uk9vlxY



Cymande

From the upcoming album, Fu Chronicles, out February 2020. https://daptone.ffm.to/bwav9ee

Antibalas "Fight Am Finish"

Bacalau 2013

Funk It 
"live audio, live video, always funky"

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The Meters - Chicken Strut 12/1976 "Live at Rozys"

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