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Soundway present a very limited vinyl-only re-issue of an obscure LP by the enigmatic Nigerian artist Easy Kabaka Brown. The LP was originally released and recorded by Philips / Phonogram in 1976 and only sold in very small numbers. Musically it's a intriguing mix of mostly Nigerian highlife with a bit of afro-jazz sung in the language of Kalabari from the Delta region of Southern Nigeria.  From the bouncy good times of Belema to the deeper extended afro workout of Agboho this unique album stands out from thousands of others of it's time with a sound of its own that draws on many influences, with Congolese and latin touches to jazz trumpet and psychedelic organ lines.

Easy Kabaka Brown (Opotopo was his nickname) was a versatile and eccentric musician who recorded two full length albums (this is the first) and only a couple of 45s. We at Soundway have deemed this record way too sweet  to be forgotten, only to gradually ebb away and disappear with time. It's a record that will give you a golden, warm feeling. Your toes will tap, your face should smile and it certainly deserves to be heard by far more than only the few hundred people who bought it nearly 40 years ago. Strictly limited to 1000 x 180g vinyl copies and released in a rigid paste-on sleeve, these will not last long so don't sleep!

Pre-order

Easy Kabaka Brown - Belema

From the liner notes of our 2-disc Ebo Taylor retrospective, Life Stories:

Ebo acknowledges the influence of US jazz rockers Blood Sweat & Tears and
– less obviously, perhaps – Deep Purple on this easy going mid-tempo
piece, written a few years before it was recorded, when Osibisa and
various ‘blaxploitation’ themes were hip. “I was trying to fuse rock and jazz together with highlife,” Ebo recalls. “This kind of music was ahead of its time – not very popular when we recorded it!”

Life Stories

Peace On Earth

Ebo Taylor- Peace On Earth

Lucho Bermudez Y Su Orquesta Sabanera - Arroz Con Coco

'Secret in the Dark' out on October 2, 2015
Buy on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/monitu
Buy on Amazon: http://smarturl.it/monam
Buy on Other Music: http://smarturl.it/monom
Monika Christodoulou has been writing and performing her original songs on the Athens, Greece music scene since she was a teenager. After early breakout success with a string of deeply emotional self-recorded tracks posted online, Monika's 2008 debut LP was a platinum seller in her homeland, and she quickly became a major concert draw across Greece and Cyprus, headlining all the major festivals. Her second LP, released in 2010, continued Monika's success at home, but she was already becoming restless, for a different sound and a new direction. On a trip to New York in 2012, Monika made a pilgrimage to Daptone Records' Brooklyn headquarters, to see where some of her favorite artists recorded -- from Sharon Jones to Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson. Almost on a whim, Monika knocked on the door, and Homer Steinweiss (founding member of the Dap-Kings & Menahan Street Band) answered. Soon she was playing demos she had on her phone for Homer and Thomas Brenneck (MSB, Budos Band, etc). The connection was immediate, and the next stage of Monika's career began. 

The whole of 2014, Homer and Monika worked together on her songs and her sound, and together they shaped what was to become Secret in the Dark (out Oct. 2, 2015 on Other Music Recording Co.). Recorded at Steinweiss and Brenneck's Dunham Sound Studios in Brooklyn, with Homer producing, Brenneck recording, and a band that included most of the Menahan Street Band, and various members of the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, and others from the Daptone family, the album puts Monika's incredible voice and talents as a songwriter and performer into a completely new context, and also pushes Homer and the band in directions they have rarely explored before. A mix of organic '70s-styled leftfield disco, '80s art-pop, and much more, Secret in the Dark is a distinctly New York album with a breezy Mediterranean heart. It's soulful, arty, and a ton of fun -- a dance record that is much more than that, and will serve as the introduction to the world of the amazing artist and personality that is Monika. 

Monika - Secret In The Dark

Orquesta Sonora Curro - Patuleco

Nouvel edit guadeloupéen pour la team Around The World ! Cette fois-ci, il s'agit d'une collaboration avec Théo du collectif La Mamie's !
Enjoy ;)

Galaxy - Gros Chabine La (ATW X Theo Mamie's Edit)

Un silbido amoroso - LOS WEMBLER'S DE IQUITOS

"toute ressemblance avec des situations réelles ou avec des personnes existantes ou ayant existé ne saurait être que fortuite."

VOILAAA et PAT KALLA ont décidé de s'engager dans la pédagogie hygiéniste à l'attention des adolescents à problèmes.

Le respect de soi étant un préalable indispensable à l'acceptabilité de l'individu au sein d'une société, VOILAAA se permet de donner des conseils avisés au petit François (personnage fictif, bien entendu), qui se voit socialement rejeté à cause de son hygiène discutable.

Si ce morceau peut aujourd'hui être utile à la société tout entière, alors, VOILAAA aura rempli sa mission....
Parlez en avec vos enfants et adolescents !

ETRE PROPRE, C'EST ETRE RESPECTABLE !! !

https://www.facebook.com/voilaaamusic/

le visuel ci dessus a été empreinté à l'affichiste du 20eme siècle SAVIGNAC
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Savignac

VOILAAA feat PAT KALLA - François, va te laver (INEDIT CADEAU)

12" Vinyl (4 tracks) released 16 March 2018.

Soundway Records presents the debut EP from The Mauskovic Dance Band – a heady, tropical blend of cumbia, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and space disco, culminating in a vibrant hypnotic groove destined for bustling dancefloors.

With each band member of varying heritage, the group draws inspiration from diverse genres: primarily Afro-Colombian styles such as champeta, palenque, cumbia and the picó soundsystem culture, as well as the Afro-Disco and No-Wave scenes in their current base of Amsterdam. The city’s hotbed of underground producers has also brought an electronic edge to the band, with vintage drum machines and synthesisers effortlessly melding with Afro-Latin rhythms and slick guitar riffs to create a contemporary sound rich with cultural influence.

Down In The Basement EP

The Mauskovic Dance Band - Down In the Basement

“KonKoma is the name of a tribe in Northern Ghana. They are very colorful and the rhythms are wonderful. This band is like a live rebirth of Ghana’s music from the 70s and 80s, it feels like very authentic and rhythmic Ghanaian music.” Alfred ‘Kari’ Bannerman

London based Afro-funk outfit KonKoma will release their self-titled debut on Soundway Records on June 25th.  Rooted in 1970s Ghana the group was produced and formulated by saxophonist Max Grunhard and producer Ben Lamdin (Nostalgia 77). The idea was to create a band around two highly esteemed Ghanaian musicians - Alfred Bannerman and Emmanuel Rentzos. Both are mercurial talents who over the years have graced the stage with the likes of Bobby Womack, Hugh Masakela and Peter Green as well as being long term members of the Afro-rock band Osibisa, but it wasn’t until KonKoma that the two old friends have had a band built around the two of them.  

The English-speaking West African country was the destination of Soundway’s acclaimed compilation series Ghana Soundz Afro-Beat, Funk And Fusion in 70’s Ghana. It has been a long held ambition for the label to work with a contemporary Ghanaian band who can push the country’s unique take on Afro-beat and highlife forward.

KonKoma adds a progressive edge to their rich blend of Afro-funk, jazz, soul and traditional African rhythms as well as acknowledging the 70s recordings that spawned the sound. Produced by Max Grunhard and Ben Lamdin, the album was recorded and mixed by Mike Pelanconi (aka Prince Fatty) in Brighton. 

Guitarist Alfred Bannerman, founding member of teenage Afro-rock band Boombaya (featured on the Soundway compilation Ghana Special) has remained one of the mainstays of the UK’s African music scene for more than 20 years. Keyboardist Emmanuel Rentzos has been playing alongside his fellow Ghanaian since the early 1970s when he was the lead singer of the young Ghanaian outfit Santrofi. Once Max and Ben had won the support of Alfred and Emmanuel, Ghanaian musicians and now key members of KonKoma, Nii Tagoe and Reginald ‘Jojo’ Yates came on board. As Nii explained in a recent interview with Soundway, it didn’t take much to persuade him. 

“If Alfred and Emanuel say, “Jump!” I would say, `’How high?” 

Nii Tagoe, a member of the Pan African Dance Troupe for over 20 years and the most natural frontman on stage, takes lead vocals on ‘Kpanlogo’ a ferocious up-tempo Afro-funk number that took it’s inspiration from a traditional Ghanaian dance where the movement of a dancer mimics the movement of a snake. Likewise Nii Tagoe found his inspiration for ‘Sibashaya Woza’ in a traditional dance from Zululand.  

Celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year, Soundway’s Ghana Soundz compilation featured amongst others, Ebo Taylor, who inspired a young Alfred Bannerman in his formative years growing up in Cape Coast. Alfred fondly remembers breaking out of his house as a child to hear the big highlife bands of the 60s play in his home town in Central coastal Ghana. 10 years on from that inaugural release Soundway have signed a living, breathing live re-birth of the music found on their seminal Ghanaian compilations. 

KonKoma make their live debut at The Rich Mix in London on 1st June.

KonKoma - Kpanlogo

Bogota’s Meridian Brothers release their delightfully surreal and playful album ‘Deseperanza’ on 24th September on Soundway Records. Traditional instruments, electronics and distorted vocals are dragged through an array of influences to create a world that is as original as it is unclassifiable. 

Straddling the line between new and old, Meridian Brothers’ mischievous blend of Latin rhythms and psychedelic grooves is the creation of Eblis Álvarez, one of the key figures of the experimental music scene in Bogota. As with all of the Meridian Brother’s releases, every instrument on ‘Deseperanza’ was played and recorded by Eblis himself.

A true avant-garde guitar player and composer he also plays in Mario Galeano’s band Frente Cumbiero and was one of the 42 musicians involved in the recording of Ondatrópica, released this summer through Soundway Records.

Meridian Brothers started back in 1998 with Eblis experimenting with alternative ways of playing instruments and electronic media. Heavily influenced by Latin rock (Argentinian in particular) these early recordings were distributed by cassette on the underground music market in Bogota. It was in 1999, after joining Mario Galeano’s Ensamble Polifónico Vallenato that Eblis first became interested in the tropical music of Colombia and began working these new influences it in to the Meridian Brothers. 

Another key period is his development was his time spent in Denmark at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and the DIEM (Danish Institute of Electronic Music). It was during this stage Eblis started using more sophisticated and intricate techniques in both electronics and signal processing. 

Eblis returned to Bogota in 2008, joining a burgeoning music scene with cumbia, salsa and currulao all being explored by a new generation of Colombian musicians. 2009’s "Meridian Brothers VI” goes deep into tropical sounds of the 60s and 70s in Colombia and integrates other influences such as highlife, Ethiopian music, surf and Peruvian and Colombian cumbia.

It was around this stage that Meridian Brothers made their first appearances as a live band with Damien Ponce (Percussion), Maria Valencia (clarinet, saxophone and synthesizers), Alejandro Forero (Keyboards), Cesar Quevedo (bass) and Eblis Alvarez (vocals, guitar and electronics). 

In 2011 "Meridian Brothers VII" was released. The sound of this album returns to Latin American rock influences as well as champeta experiments, jazz, cumbia and tropical. Distorted sounds, electronic changes in voice, obscure surf guitar and randomly changed sampled percussion all collide head on. Two tracks from this record were released on 7” by New York label Names You Can Trust in 2012. 

Which bring us to ‘Desesperanza’ (meaning hopelessness in English) Recorded in 2012 the album is dedicated exclusively to salsa and tropical music, twisting it through a dark and theatrical soundscape but never abandoning the traditional aesthetics. 

A real musical maverick, labelled a genius by his contemporaries in Colombia, Eblis Álvarez’s latest Meridian Brothers album finally gets a full, worldwide release. 


Meridian Brothers - Salsa Caliente (Versión Aumentada)

New York City Born and New Jersey City based Chico Mann (aka Marcos Garcia), a multi instrumentalist and guitarist with the afrobeat orchestra Antibalas  is to release his solo ‘Manifest Tone EP’ through Soundway Records on 12th November. 

The EP represents four of the choicest cuts from Chico Mann’s ‘Manifest Tone’ Volumes 2&3 that until now were only available digitally. It signals the end of one phase and the start of a new chapter in Chico Mann’s career with a brand new album signed to Soundway Records for release in early 2013. 

The Manifest Tone journey began in 2004. During breaks from touring with Antibalas Marcos began crafting a more personal sound in his basement studio. A hybrid beast of culture and tone where Fela Kuti and Willie Colon meet Stevie B, Lisa Lisa, Afrika Bambaata and Kraftwerk, it lives in a landscape shaped by Africa, Cuba, New York and Miami.

These unique experimentations led to the release of ‘Manifest Tone Volume 1’ in 2006 and eventually morphed into Volumes 2 & 3 that were finished in 2008 and 2010 respectively. What sounds on paper like a meeting of styles past in reality emerges sounding incredibly fresh and original.

Over the three volumes Chico Mann’s own unique style has emerged and evolved (something he has dubbed 'Afro-Freestyle') and in 2010 he released the critically acclaimed 'Analogue Drift' album for Wax Poetics records. 

All of this paves the way for the arrival of his most accomplished and polished sound yet that will touch down in early 2013.

Chico Mann will also add to his list of remixes for the likes of Little Dragon and Hess is More by remixing Soundway's London based Ghanaian afro band Konkoma in December 2012.

Tracklisting: 

A1. Dilo Como Yo (Te Están Llamando)
A2. Luz

B1. El Paragua (2010 edit)
B2. His Favourite Thing

Chico Mann - Dilo Como Yo (Te Están Llamando)

'Elegancia Tropical' is the third album by BOMBA ESTÉREO, released worldwide Nov. 6, 2012.

Buy on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/elegancia-tropical/id569870709

First single: 'El Alma y El Cuerpo'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBu9O2jqto8

Also visit:
http://www.bombaestereo.com
http://www.facebook.com/bombaestereo
http://www.bombaestereo.tumblr.com
http://www.twitter.com/bombaestereo
http://www.youtube.com/bombaestereo

Booking:
COLOMBIA: info@emetres.co
UNITED STATES: amy@windishagency.com 
MÉXICO: mario@kaiman.com.mx 
ARGENTINA & CONO SUR: marcelo@elegante.com.ar
PERÚ: jvelasquez@veltracmusic.com
REST OF WORLD: info@emetres.co

Global Management: 
M3 Management Music Media
http://www.emetres.co
http://www.facebook.com/emetresmanagement
info@emetres.co

Label:
Colombia: Polen Records / http://www.polenrecords.com
México: Terrícolas Imbéciles / http://www.terricolasimbeciles.com

Press:
US: Paul Dryden <paulfdryden@gmail.com> / Ryan Dawes <ryan@rockpaperscissors.biz>
COL: Lucrecia Rotlewicz <lucrecia@infodebolsillo.com>



El Alma y El Cuerpo

Recorded over 4 years in London and Venezuela, Cuban rumba, Venezuelan tambor and tonada, Ghanaian highlife, Ethiopian blues and calypso have been soaked and infused with psychedelia and spiritual jazz to come up with what Gilles Peterson described as “a really great record”. The DJ and tastemaker included the band in his recent ‘Hot For 2013 Show’ on BBC 6music, premiering the track Cumbacutiri.

A diverse host of heavyweight musicians from both sides of the Atlantic are led by London born Jack Yglesias, producer, multi-instrumentalist and a veteran of The Heliocentrics, and his wife Luzmira Zerpa, traditional Venezuelan musician, poet and singer with a magical voice acclaimed by Manu Chao.

Recorded while living in an abandoned vicarage in East London, the record contains three different generations of Luzmira’s family as well as a cast of musicians from the wider Family Atlantic family.

One of the guests on the album, legendary Ethiopian-jazz maestro Mulatu Astatke, adds a classic touch on piano to ‘Escape To The Palenque’, soloing in his unmistakable flowing Ethiopian 6/8 style. Also featured on the record are Senegalese Nuru Kane and Afro-Cuban group Yoruba Andabo. Much of the record was recorded by the Heliocentrics’ Malcolm Catto at their East London studio.

In 2008, Luzmira traveled to the Sahara Desert in the south of Algeria to participate in the Fi-sahara Festival. While there she performed with Manu Chao who introduced her to the audience as the most beautiful voice to arrive to the desert.

Family Atlantica - Manicero

Available on Analog Africa No.13 - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk
Release date: April 30th

Ecoute ma Melodie - Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou

Soundway set sail for the Colombian coastal town of Cartagena for their first selection of 2011. Sourced from a period when musicians effortlessly combined the swing of cumbia with the driving bass of salsa, Cartagena! un-wraps a period of musical history seldom heard beyond the tropical coast of South America.

Compiled by Roberto Gyemant with the help of Colombian resident Will ‘Quantic’ Holland and Miles Cleret, Cartagena! focuses on the extraordinary life and career of Curro Fuentes, the youngest brother of the family responsible for the Discos Fuentes label.

Cartagena! features 19 tracks and is presented on CD and double gatefold LP, designed by Lewis Heriz. Both CD and LP include detailed liner notes and offer insights from Will Holland’s interview with the late Curro Fuentes.

Tracklist

1 Rosendo y su Banda – Me Voy Pa’La Costa
2 Puerto Rico y Su Combo – La Cumbia Del Pescador
3 Orquesta Sonora Curro – Patuleco
4 Rosendo Martínez y su Orquesta – El Alegron
5 Cantina y su Combo – Santa Marta Cumbia
6 Lucho Bermudez y su Orquesta Sabanera – Arroz Con Coco 7 Orlando Fortich y su Orquesta – Yolanda
8 Homero y su Combo Con Pacho Galan y la Sonora Curro – Oye Negra
9 Clodomiro Montes y el Super Combo Curro – Puerto Rico Zumbando
10 Los Seven Del Swing – Silencio
11 El Gran Romancito y El Super Combo Curro – Honolulu
12 Crecencio Camacho y El Super Combo Curro – Santana En Salsa
13 Clodomiro Montes y El Super Combo Curro – Traigo Salsa
14 Lalo Orozco y su Combo Sabroso – Salsa Sabrosa
15 Lucho Bermudez y su Orquesta – Fiesta De Negritos
16 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – La Gozadera
17 Los Seven Del Swing – Celoso
18 Rufo Garrido y Su Banda – Viejos Tiempos
19 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte

Vinyl Bonus track

20. Pipe Guarin y sus Sabaneros- El Corronchon-Chon 

Los Seven Del Swing - Celoso

MUSIC FROM PLANET EARTH: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

Orquesta Sonora Curro - Patuleco

Soundway Records

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