Princes_part2

Abalegele Gale

Abalegele Gale (feat. Preservation Hall Jazz Band)

Love and Hate in a Different Time

The Blind (Original)

If vaporwave, synthpop, and daytime disco birthed a pandemic love child, they would call it spacewave, and Do It Again would be their ultimate escapist daydream – complete with sci-fi soundbytes, steady grooves, and filtered synth tapestries.

Do It Again - Single

Do It Again

Celebrating 10 years of Fold

It’s been a decade since we first got the band together and released Mr President, We’re In Trouble. It’s been one hell of a journey. We looked back at all of the voices on our records and realised that two people have left us in that time: bell hooks (she insisted on lowercase) and Michael Ruppert.

Although they may seem an unlikely pairing, their solution for our troubled world was the same: communities sustain life. This was also our most important learning in all that time.

And so with joy and hope for the future we celebrate the lives and learnings of bell hooks and Mike Ruppert along with our own 10 year voyage. With elements of funk, dancehall and hip hop Sustain also sneakily incorporates bits from previous Fold tracks (for super fans only).

Lyrics

This is my answer to the question
Of why choose love?
Communities sustain life
Communities sustain life

Within a loving community
We sustain ties
By being compassionate
And forgiving
There is no better place
To learn the art of loving
Than in community

Marvellous, marvellous
Community
Marvellous, marvellous
Communities sustain life
Communities sustain life
Not nuclear families
Not the couple
And certainly not
The rugged individualist

Community
Is what will save us
You’re gonna have to do it
In conjunction with your neighbours
And your family
And the people around you
You will fail as a rugged individual
You will survive
As a member of a tribe
Or a family

When we do not choose love
It does not change the fact
That our existence on this planet
Is one of interdependency

What we spend
So much of our time doing
Is violating that interdependency

Communities sustain life
Community
Communities sustain life
Is what will save us
There is no better place
To learn the art of loving
Than in community

Sustain

Whaya

Connection

The Truth (feat. Kelly Finnigan)

https://mocamborecords.bandcamp.com/album/casino-church-b-w-vendetta-james

Led by French B3 Hammond maestro Guillaume Metenier and featuring an all-star lineup of musicians from the extended Mocambo fam, Pigalle Connection connect the dots between instrumental funk, b-boy breaks and cinematic soundscapes. After their celebrated and battle proven 45 "Paris Breakdown", this fantasy funk supergroup is finally back with a new double delight on 7 inch wax.

"Casino & Church" is a blistering blend of afro-boogie, breakbeat funk, blaxploitation and eurocinema, led by hypnotic percussion and an infectious guitar. 
Recorded live to 8-track tape with vintage equipment and instruments, both sides of Pigalle Connection's new 45 showcase the band's unique sound and deep appreciation for great film scores and heavy funk.

Pigalle Connection - Casino & Church

Zion

Adonai

Hawk

Jupiter Bokondji was born in Kinshasa 48 years ago, into a family of griots from the Mongo region. His grandmother, a reknowned healer, introduced him to traditional rhythm and music including the famous Zebola from Ekonda (Mongo région of the equator), rythms that are said to cure the sick. From a young age, Jupiter played percussion instruments and acommpanied his grandmother to funerals and weddings. However, it was in Germany East-Berlin, where he spent his adolescence, and where his father was appointed executive assistant for the Congos embassy in 1974, that he discovered Europe and it’s vibrant music scene – the Stones, Deep Purple, James Brown etc. Here, he set up his own rock band called ‘’Der Neger’’ with fellow young Berliners; their sound was a strange cocktail of Mongo percussions and guitar Zeppelin-esque guitar. The band was successful in all the shady clubs in town. But, his father’s mandate ended. 

When he was 20, Jupiter went back in the eighties bubbling Kinshasa head full of dreams, glory and sounds unimaginable to most of his friends. He left the family home, earning a living singing at funerals and playing percussion in several local orchestras.

With his earnings he travelled the Congo, searching for new sounds. These travels reinforced his feeling that all the music he heard in Europe originated from the 450 ethnic groups that made up his country, and that the tribalism that tore his country apart politically, could in fact become a unifying force.

He continued to develop his own unique style, surrounding himself with trendy musicians connected to from Europe. His idea was to reactivate the forgotten rhythms and melodies of Congo, by injecting the urban groove of Kinhasa. He called this explosive mix ‘’ Bofenia Rock’ and in 1983, succeeded in forming his first orchestra, Bongofolk, who became his musical experiment.

In 1990, he created Okwess International, a group which contained within it avant-garde artists such as Jean Goubald. This group travelled Africa, and was selected to represent Zaire in 1999 at MASA (Market of African Performing Arts). Just at the point where their luck seemed to be finally turning, the country fell into chaos due to civil war.

In early 2004, Jupiter met Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye. The connection was immediate, so much so that the two French returned to record the songs of Okwess International, and other groups surrounding Jupiter, such as Staff Benda Billili.

Of this time, Jupiter says ‘ I knew something like this would happen. I was convinced of it.’’

‘The Dance of Jupiter,’ a film documenting his musical exploration was released in 2007. On screen, we see his slender silhoutte exploring the various districts of Kinhasa, discovering talent artists undiscovered and unkown by the rest of the world. Little Jupiters, he calls them.

“Today, we find many young groups conitnuing in my footsteps, dipping into our archives for inspiration; my mission is complete. If I disappeared today, I will have achieved my goal’’

Of course, Jupiter wasn’t about to disappear; he is poised for a fantastic career. In October 2011, he played Kinhasa to an audience of five thousand; five thousand people hypnotised by the powerful rhythm and energy of Okwess International. In July of the same year, he was part of the the album created by Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz fame, ‘Kinhasa One Two,’ released in November 2011 through WARP.

His album ‘Hotel Universe’ will be released in 2012, and will undoubtedly give him the recognition that he deserves.


Abalegele Gale (feat. Preservation Hall Jazz Band)

Jupiter & Okwess

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