#luaka bop

[gotankgo]

Manu Doumbia “Ceddo End Title”

• World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love’s A Real Thing: The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa compilation

[guessimdumb]

Kings Go Forth - One Day (2010)

If you like early 70s Curtis Mayfield, you’ll love this song. Kings Go Forth were a ten pierce Milwaukee soul revivalist group.

[burlveneer-music]

Bremer McCoy - Kosmos - new album of dreamy instrumentals from Danish bass/keyboards duo (with plenty of Wurlitzer electric piano)

It is with immense pleasure that we get to tell you—on the solstice of all days—that Bremer/McCoy has a new album coming out. They’re calling it KOSMOS, which we think is a fitting title for a body of work so airy and ethereal and gossamer-lite. Morten McCoy took a break from enjoying the incredible but fleeting summer weather of his Nordic climes to tell us about Kosmos, and its unique conceptual architecture: “We decided to call it Kosmos,” he said, “because for us, it's this feeling of being able to transcend time and space and just be, which is a very important thing for humans. Even though it's quiet music, it's music that you're able to just dream: have your own dreams, your own inner images.” If that doesn’t transport you to the idyllic Danish countryside, then their music will. Sending love from Copenhagen, Denmark, Scandinavia, Europe, The Northern Hemisphere, The World, Planet Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy, The Kosmos.

[cupatty]

[mywifeleftme]

184: Tom Zé // Tom Zé [Grande liquidação]

Tom Zé [Grande liquidação] Tom Zé 1968,

I’m about as unqualified as it gets to chat about Tropicália, being a complete neophyte to the genre and a non-Portuguese speaker to boot, but I’ve been loving Tom Zé’s first self-titled (sometimes marketed as Grande liquidação, or Big Sale) since picking it up at the shop a few months back. As I understand it, Tropicália had a strong surrealist/Dadaist edge early on, and Zé seems the most committed to the shtick. The rear of Grande liquidação includes a manifesto-like statement from Zé that acridly inveighs against the shallow commercialism he sees in Brazilian society, suggesting some familiarity with Guy Debord and the Situationist International: “We are an unhappy people, bombarded by happiness,” it begins. “Smiles sell. They sell toothpaste, tickets, painkillers, diapers, etc. And as reality has always been confused with gestures, television proves every day that no one can be unhappy anymore.”

Despite its satirical intent (signposted by titles like “Catechism, Toothpaste, and Me” and “Intensive Manners Course”), it’s impossible to listen to any of Zé’s music without a genuine smile springing to your face. He has a genius for fusing samba and other Brazilian forms with Anglo-American psychedelia to create lavish pop songs that fizz with possibility. My favourite might be “Sem entrada e sem mais nada” (“No Entry and Nothing Else”), a suite-like composition that packs as many ideas into 2:40 as most Stateside bands of the era managed over an album side, or “Parque industrial,” a delirious fantasia about the doubtful promise of Brazilian industrialization. (“Parque industrial” is probably more familiar in the laidback arrangement released the same year on the collaborative LP Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis, performed by Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, and Os Mutantes.) While not as instrumentally experimental as I’m told his ‘70s work becomes, Zé’s world already has a cartoony palette—brass fanfares collapse into womp-womp squawks; Zé’ narrates the captivity of eight million Paulistanos “loving with all their hate” over a chirping, slightly manic organ and a chorus of church bells.

At 86, Zé remains a puckish prankster and a musical visionary—as a new fan, I can’t wait to see what the 55 years between 2023 and this 1968 debut held for him.

184/365

[dustedmagazine]

Annie & the Caldwells — Can't Lose My (Soul) (Luaka Bop)

Annie & the Caldwells’ new album Can't Lose My (Soul) has been a long time coming. Singer Annie Caldwell (also of the Staples Jr. Singers) put the act together a couple decades ago to keep her family out of trouble and redirect the kids from the blues to gospel. The band, for her, includes two daughters, two sons, one goddaughter and one husband (with whom she's shared a 50th anniversary, so don't expect any Fleetwood Mac antics involving this group). They've put out music before but Can't Lose My (Soul)'s release on Luaka Bop gets it some immediate attention while distilling the core of their sound in just six tracks.

Annie is steeped in classic soul and gospel; think early Aretha Franklin or SAR Records. The Caldwells stick to these roots but aren't stuck in a rut. Opener “Wrong” has more than a touch of disco about it, and everything on the album comes with a deep groove (knowing that the kids were into Chaka Khan makes complete sense). “Can't Lose My Soul” trades the sheen for a slink (surprisingly, it's a blues progression), but all in the interest of an evangelistic warning. The cut stretches out for 10 minutes, the band circling around a praiseful sort of concern. The content matters, but it's the vocals that will make believers, whether from Annie or backing singers Deborah Caldwell Moore, Anjessica Caldwell, and Toni Rivers. They can all belt, but they can all also pull back in service of a song.

“I Made It” heads straight for the funk, again with a bit of the late 1970s spinning. Doing retro soul without sounding redundant remains a challenge, but the Caldwells sound fresh, mainly because they sound so energized at every moment. Even when “Don't You Hear Me Calling” drops the tempo way down, the group maintains its passion while locking into its message. “I'm Going to Rise” hints at late Stax before heading to church, evidence that this group could have fit into just about any widely conceived soul scene over the past 60 years (SAR, Motown, Stax, Casablanca), and they could do so without straying from their gospel center (both musically and spiritually).

The album gets funky again for finisher “Dear Lord.” The track allows the family to share their gratitude with a midtempo bounce, musicians solidly in the pocket. Annie extends the meditation, and it works. Each time the Caldwells get somewhere, it's a place you don't want to leave. The bass (son Willie Jr.) does some extra work here, moving around with style while supporting the vocal exchanges. The track builds without overdoing it. Eventually it turns into an old-time church scene before resuming the groove until its steady conclusion. Annie & the Caldwells have been performing long enough and (presumably) comfortably enough to develop the right kind of tightness to take off as the spirit, or the song, leads them.

Justin Cober-Lake

[eskwander]

Adventures in Afropea by Zap Mama, 1993.

[balleralbumcovers]

EPIC ALBUM COVER #109

David Byrne - Uh-Oh

Released: 1992 (Luaka Bop)

Art pop, pop rock

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Pharoah Sanders & Starship Orchestra - Montreux Jazz Festival, Motreux, Switzerland, July 22, 1978

Plenty of Pharoah Sanders chat recently, mainly thanks to Luaka Bop's much-overdue reissue of the legendary Pharoah. A truly beautiful record, and the extra live material is very nice indeed. There's some cool ephemera and extra stuff via the Harvest Time Project, too.

Lonnie Liston Smith: Miles was encouraging us all to put our instruments through effects pedals; Pharoah didn't need that. He was a one-man effects pedal!

Pharoah isn't a mellow record by any stretch, but it does highlight the saxophonist’s gentler side. A year later at the Montreux Jazz Festival, things were anything but gentle. The video linked above with the expansive Starship Orchestra is a 25+-minute blowout, with Pharoah and the group barely coming up for air as they dive deep into the currents of a churning afro-latin groove. A thrill-ride, to say the least.

More Pharoah? Definitely check out Andy Beta's excellent “Pharoah & Phriends” mix for The Lot Radio, featuring a bunch of sweet Sanders sounds.

[thatrickmcginnis]

GILBERTO GIL, Toronto 1989

If I was doing a portrait session with Gilberto Gil in Rio de Janeiro, I doubt I'd have been doing it in the little cramped office at the nightclub/disco where he was playing. Born in Bahia in 1942, Gil emerged with the post-samba Tropicalia movement, alongside Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania, Gal Costa, Tom Ze and others. His second, eponymous album, recorded with Os Mutantes and released in 1968 (one of several early albums named after himself; it can get confusing) explored the "psychedelic samba" that was the soundtrack of youthful rebellion in Brazil against the country's government, and in 1969 he was arrested and sent to prison for three months by the military regime.

Gilberto Gil was a huge star in Brazil, but we were just rediscovering Brazilian music in North America when I photographed him backstage at the Copa, a disco and nightclub in the fashionable Yorkville area of Toronto. Gil's music had absorbed influences from rock, jazz, reggae, punk and other genres while remaining identifiably Brazilian, though his outward-looking musical style might have been accelerated by being forced to live in exile for several years after his arrest and imprisonment in Brazil. In the late '80s Tropicalia legends like Gil, Caetano Veloso and Tom Ze were brought to a new audience by releases on David Byrne's Luaka Bop record label, which is probably what brought Gil to Toronto.

Experience trying to shoot the Beastie Boys and Karen Finley at the Copa club inspired me to bring lighting for my shoot with Gilberto Gil, but I obviously didn't have much in the way of backgrounds, so I photographed him against a patch of white wall in an office backstage, cropping tight on his face with my Mamiya C330 to try to capture some of the man's charm and charisma. I have no idea who my client might have been - if I had one at all - but I did end up selling one of these shots to Toronto Life Fashion a few months later, the only time they saw publication. I also shot a roll of film on my new Nikon at the show that night - an evening that has been described as sweaty and delirious by others who were there.

Gil had begun his political career when I photographed him, and had been elected to city council in his birthplace of Salvador. He founded an environmental group shortly afterward, and became a UN goodwill ambassador in 2001. In 2003 Brazilian president Luiz Lula da Silva made Gil the country's minister of culture, and held the post until 2008. He's still recording and playing today, and released his most recent record, Em Casa com os Gils, in 2022.

[postambientlux]

BEST AMBIENT OF 2024

BEST AMBIENT ALBUMS of 2024 curated by @holsgr

50 : Phexioenesystems - Tone Colour Garden Salmon Universe

49 : 0N4B - Somewhere, left behind 3XL

48 : Daigo Hanada & Yoko Komatsu - Where Clouds Are Born Moderna Records

47 : Ezra Feinberg - Soft Power Tonal Union

46 : Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn - Quiet in a World Full of Noise Merge Records

45 : Hans Hjelm - Into The Night Self-release

44 : Olli Ahvenlahti - Mirror Mirror We Jazz Records

43 : Sachi Kobayashi - Lamentations Phantom Limb

42 : Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry & Rebecca Foon - First Sounds Envision Records / One Little Independent

41 : nonkeen - All good? LEITER

40 : PJS - Flora Dronarivm

39 : Félicia Atkinson - Space As An Instrument Shelter Press

38 : Anthéne - Cloudburst Home Normal

37 : Bremer/McCoy - Kosmos Luaka Bop Inc

36 : Princ€ss - Princ€ss wherethetimegoes

35 : G.S. Schray - Whispered Something Good Last Resort

34 : Jasmine Myra - Rising Gondwana Records

33 : YAI - Sky Time AKP Recordings

32 : ann annie - The Wind Nettwerk Music Group Inc.

31 : Seaworthy & Matt Rösner - Deep Valley 12k

30 : Marysia Osu - harp, beats & dreams Brownswood Recordings

29 : Fennesz - Mosaic P-VINE, Inc.

28 : Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements - Rain On The Road Thrill Jockey Records

27 : Glåsbird - A Sonic Expedition Whitelabrecs

26 : Iglooghost - Tidal Memory Exo LUCKYME®

25 : Ross Christopher & City Of Dawn - Spatio Temporal Amoveo Creative

24 : Arushi Jain - Delight Leaving Records

23 : Oliver Patrice Weder - The Shoe Factory Moderna Records

22 : Laura Masotto - The Spirit of Things 7K!

21 : Grand River & Abul Mogard - In uno spazio immenso light-years

20 : William Basinski - September 23rd Temporary Residence Ltd.

19 : Pub - Process The Wise ampoule records

18 : Altus - Ultraviolet Altus Music

17 : Seabuckthorn - This Warm, This Late quiet details

16 : Catherine Christer Hennix - Further Selections from The Electric Harpsichord Blank Forms Editions

15 : Antonina Nowacka - Sylphine Soporifera Mondoj

14 : Lori Goldston & Stefan Christoff - A Radical Horizon Beacon Sound

13 : Sam Wilkes - iiyo iiyo iiyo Self-release

12 : Slow Dancing Society - Do We Become Sky? Past Inside the Present

11 : Svaneborg Kardyb - Superkilen Gondwana Records

10 : Fergus McCreadie - Stream Edition Records

9 : Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel - The Room Real World Records

8 : Robert Rich & Luca Formentini - Cloud Ornament Self-release

7 : Ludwig Wandinger - Is Peace Wild? light-years

6 : Aidan Baker & Stefan Christoff - Januar Time Released Sound

5 : Hatti Vatti - Zeit R&S Records

4 : Larum - The Music of Hildegard von Bingen | Live at Public Records Puremagnetik

3 : Florian T M Zeisig - Planet Inc STROOM.tv

2 : Alva Noto - Xerrox, Vol.5 NOTON

1 : Lorenzo Montanà - VION n5MD

• BEST EP's 10 : Logic Moon & Henrik Meierkord - Ewiger Wald Dronarivm 9 : Roman Nagel - Home Bigo & Twigetti 8 : Snorri Hallgrímsson - Longer shadows, softer stones Deutsche Grammophon GmbH 7 : Oliver Patrice Weder - Grand Piano Works - Vol. II Moderna Records 6 : Wil Bolton - Quiet Sunlight Dronarivm 5 : Thaddeus - Orbiting Dreams Shimmering Moods Records 4 : PHI-PSONICS - Morning Sun / Arrival Gondwana Records 3 : Jeroen Dirrix - Feel Moderna Records 2 : Max Ananyev - Wings & Winds Self-release 1 : Arborra - Arborra 7K!

• HONORABLE MENTIONS Nicolas Jaar - Archivos de Radio Piedras Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution Horacio Vaggione - Schall / Rechant Laura Misch - Sample The Earth Oliver Coates - Throb, shiver, arrow of time Nils Frahm - Paris Nala Sinephro - Endlessness Adaa - …img… Lau Andersson - The Weeping Siege MatC - Utoscapes Olivia Belli - Intermundia Alaskan Tapes - Something Ephemeral Mike Nigro - Leaving/Returning Michael Scott Dawson - The Tinnitus Chorus Bill Laurance & The Untold Orchestra - Bloom Bill Laurance & Michael League - Keeping Company Vegyn - The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions Shay Hazan - Wusul وصول Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes - The Doober Blake Lee - No Sound In Space T.R. Jordan - Dwell Time II Perila - Intrinsic Rhythm Tristan Arp - a pool, a portal Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice - Phantasy & Reality Matthew Ottignon - Volant Holy Tongue & Shackleton - The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now

• BEST REISSUES Fennesz - Venice 20 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II [Expanded Edition]

[twobootsgirl]

David Byrne in people&arts' Luaka Bop story. Back when it was called people&arts and was a great channel.

[burlveneer-music]

Domenico Lancellotti - sramba

Tom Zé, Faust and João Gilberto collide in Domenico Lancellotti’s “machine samba” It’s midwinter in Lisbon and Domenico Lancellotti has invited Ricardo Dias Gomes to stay for a while. They waste no time in doing what they always do, heading down to their underground studio, appropriately nicknamed The Cave, to make music. The fact that Ricardo had just been sent a bunch of Russian-designed synths and was eager to try them out, instantly signalled a direction for the album. “Ricardo had his instruments, modular machines” remembers Domenico, “and I had my guitar, some percussion instruments. On the first day we started making sounds and recording them, and songs started to appear, sambas started to appear.” In just a couple of months the duo recorded the majority of what would become SRAMBA, an album that reaches back to the roots of samba, but does so whilst completely revamping its blueprint, indoctrinating guitar and percussion-led rhythms with analogue synthesisers, Ricardo’s beloved machines. Domenico and Ricardo instantly saw how the synthesisers were not at odds with the sambas they were playing, instead they had a similar sound to its typical percussion instruments (ganza, repinique, surdo, tarol). What’s more, they saw a connection with roots samba, the samba that existed before bossa nova and samba jazz came along. This was rhythmic samba, with grooves that could go on ad infinitum. “It’s samba de clave, geometrically structured” says Domenico. “It’s ostinato samba”, adds Ricardo. Both Domenico Lancellotti and Ricardo Dias Gomes are revered names within Brazilian music over the past 20 years. As a member of the +2’s, with Moreno Veloso and Kassin, Domenico released a trio of albums on Luaka Bop in the early 00s that pioneered a new Rio samba sound with elements of funk and psychedelia. With Veloso and Kassin he would later form Orquestra Imperial, a big band intent on reviving ballroom (gafieira) samba, and that has worked with guest vocalists such as Seu Jorge, Elza Soares and Ed Motta. SRAMBA is his fourth solo album. Multi-instrumentalist Ricardo Dias Gomes first came to notice as a member of Caetano Veloso’s band Cê which helped reinvigorate Caetano’s career with a sound influenced by British new wave. As well as collaborations with Lucas Santtana, Negro Leo and Thiago Nassif, and work with his own group Do Amor, he has released a series of acclaimed solo albums that reveal a restless music-maker. Domenico- guitarras, voz, mpc-1000, bateria eletrônica, caxixi Ricardo- baixo, bateria eletrônica, rodhes Aquiles Morais-trompete Everson Morais- trombone Arranjo de metais- Aquiles Morais

[gazelledoe]

Grammy-nominated singer Susana Baca hospitalised in Lima

Award-winning Afro-Peruvian singer and former culture minister Susana Baca has been admitted to intensive care in a hospital in Lima, her family said Friday.

Baca, a three-time Latin Grammy Award winner, is 79 years old.

"Susanita is very delicate, she is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the Edgardo Rebagliati Hospital, where the medical team is doing its best for her recovery," Baca's husband Ricardo Pereira said in a statement, without specifying the nature of her ailment.

Baca, an icon in her country and popular in the United States and Europe, was discovered and signed to the Luaka Bop label three decades ago by David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads.

She won the Latin Grammy for best folk album in 2002 with "Lamento Negro" and again in 2020 with "A Capella." In 2011, she received another Latin Grammy for Record of the Year for "Latinoamerica," her collaboration with Puerto Rican group Calle 13.

In an interview with AFP, Baca once compared her role in bringing Afro-Peruvian music to the international stage to the contributions of icons such as Cape Verdean Cesaria Evora and South African Miriam Makeba.

Her latest album, "Epifanias," was nominated in the best global music album category for the Grammy Awards handed out in Los Angeles this month.

In 2011, she became the first Afro-Peruvian to hold a ministerial post, but left the culture portfolio within months to resume touring.

Source: msn.com/en-in/health/other/grammy-nominated-singer-susana-baca-hospitalised-in-lima/ar-BB1ipGDZ

[mywifeleftme]

134: Panduranga John Henderson // Ocean of Love

Ocean of Love Panduranga John Henderson 1993, DuGa (Bandcamp)

The obscure reissue hustle is probably ripe to be algorithmized by some venture capitalist dipshit who thinks there’s real money to made in it, when at best an AI might be taught to lose a little less money with a lot less style. I got a new copy of Panduranga John Henderson’s Ocean of Love from venerable reissue label Luaka Bop for $10 Canadian, marked down 66%; on the infamously overinflated Discogs marketplace it can be had new for the princely sum of $4; and I seem to be the first person on the internet to whom it’s occurred to write about the thing, if 2023’s bastardized version of Google can be believed.

So, why wasn’t Ocean of Love the next Rodriguez or William Onyeabor? If you squint, you can see why Luaka Bop took a stab at it. It has some intriguing boldfaced names associated with it: Henderson got his start in the ‘70s as a prominent sideman in Ray Charles’ band; he moved into Alice Coltrane’s ashram in the early ‘80s and participated in some of her later recordings (which Luaka Bop has also reissued); the press release makes an optimistic comparison to Stevie Wonder. The recordings have a suitably eccentric story too: Henderson built himself a home studio to create his own electronic worship music, which he believed could induce states of relaxation conducive to meditation. He released three albums on cassette, none of which were heard much outside of his personal circles. (I mean, maybe an AI wouldn’t have helped Luaka Bop avoid a product doomed to warp in the warehouse, this paragraph is China white digger bait.)

I think the short answer is that, despite the present craze for all most things ‘90s, the decade’s New Age synth music remains impressively unfashionable. Enya has gotten her flowers, but the Yannis, John Teshes, and Enigmas of the world are still waiting on their rapture. Henderson’s music has more R&B in it than most—these four ten- to fifteen-minute Hindu-derived chants sound like very diffuse quiet storm. I realize I’m flying in the face of literally millions of people who indeed use this kind of synth music to soundtrack their spiritual practices, but I personally would find it difficult to take my own efforts to touch the divine seriously with this on: the only thing Luther Vandrossy music should be summoning is babies. Henderson is a good singer and a skilled arranger, and the album is not without interesting ideas—but his earnest desire to create spiritually beneficial music doesn’t change the fact that he’s starting from a bad musical premise. (The earnest already have a lot of unfair advantages, like direct access to their own emotions and the ability to ask for what they need—we can’t make things too easy on them.)

I listened to Ocean of Love quite a few times to prepare for this review, and my ultimate takeaway is that it isn’t music one’s meant to pay attention to, which is no sin on its own—but the mood/aesthetic it evokes isn’t one I can ever see myself seeking out. If nothing else, I did dig the generous liner notes, which cover Henderson’s rich artistic and spiritual life, his experience of Coltrane’s ashram, and relationship with his wife Mirabai, with whom he seems to share a remarkably profound love.

134/365

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday the wonderfully quirky talented David Byrne,

David was born in Dumbarton on May 14th 1952, his family moved to Canada when he was two and later moved the US, settling in Maryland.

Byrne is a highly popular musician who has been rocking the music world with his experimental music and rhythms since the 1970s. The versatile musician started performing as a teenager and has worked in a number of media like films, albums, opera and photography. During his early career he was known mainly as one of the co-founders of the new wave band Talking Heads which produced hit singles like ‘And She Was’ and ‘Burning Down the House’. The band was considered one of the most innovative and critically acclaimed bands of the new wave movement.

Propelled by the success of his band Byrne went on to pursue an equally, if not more successful, career as a solo artist. Famous for his experimental ways, he featured a mix of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Hispanic and Brazilian music in his debut solo album. He has provided music for the soundtracks of various films including ‘The Last Emperor’ for which he won an Oscar along with the brilliant Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su.

The talented artist has also written musical scores for operas. Exploring another side of his creativity, he exhibited his photography and designs on international art shows. He founded his own record label Luaka Bop which was originally intended to release Latin American compositions; however the label has grown to represent music from all over the world.\