African Spirits - A Spiritual Jazz Journey Looking Back to Africa [2004]

This album consists of 10 tracks that represent a spiritual jazz journey looking back to Africa: the motherland, the roots of jazz, the birthplace of black music and the ancestral origins of the musicians themselves.
Individually the tracks - some of the best music of its type ever recorded - are in demand in their own right, with most being compiled for the first time. In the 1960's and 1970's many Afro Americans started to look back to their roots and the roots of the music for inspiration, direction and confirmation. Musicians including Yusef Lateef, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and many of the artists on this compilation experimented with African instruments and sounds during this period. It was a time of black celebration, the 'Afro' hairstyle was a prerequisite for hipness. The drum - the most basic rhythm instrument and the foundation that almost all modern music rests on - came from Africa. Indeed, Jazz music itself can also trace its origins back to Africa; in fact scientists, historians and archaeologists have suggested that the entire human race took its first steps in Africa and evolved from there. The music contained on this album, whilst rhythmically strong is also imbued with haunting melodies and spiritually uplifting shades. A major factor behind the making of this music was a reaction against a society based on commercialism and insincerity: this is music with a message, music of substance, music that demands the listener be drawn in. It's music that you can really feel…music that moves and fulfils you, leaving you spiritually uplifted. This album is not just about selecting and bringing together a collection of in demand Jazz cuts…it's about inviting the listener on a musical journey back to Africa, back to ancient civilisation. Enjoy the ride.

Enjoy!

Katerina Gogou & Kyriakos Sfetsas - Sto Dromo [1981]

 This is the soundtrack of the movie Paraggelia of Paulos Tassios that was made in 1980.It is a collaboration between the poet Katerina Gogou and composer Kyriako Sfetsa.
Gogou was one of the most important underground poets of that period.On this album she recites poems from her first two poetic works.
Excellent album!

                                                                                  Enjoy!

Babis Papadopoulos - From The Draco's Cave [2010]

  Guitarist of the legendary rock group Trypes and Thanassis Papakonstantionou long time collaborator presents his solo work.

  For this  project,Babis Papadopoulos recruits another three important musicians that, judging by the final result, appear to share his idiosyncrasies and obsessions, Dimitris Vlahomitros on bouzouki, Dionisis Makris on double-bass and Giorgos Christianakis on piano. The music retains a strong foundation on greek folk tradition, since Papadopoulos adds seven greek songs from the distant past to his repertoire, as a way to pay his dues to the rebetiko, a genre that inspired him massively. His work is, without a doubt, an attempt to revive and relive the emotions evoked by these songs when they were released back in the 30s (plus one of 1948), through a genuine orchestral and acoustic prism. The songs share more than just the time they were written, they share the common ground where they were conceived, the beautiful harbour of Peiraus. There's also four improvisational pieces that feature Papadopoulos and Christianakis here.

                                            

                                                               Enjoy!  

Sarah Webster Fabio - Jujus – Alchemy Of The Blues [1976]

An incredible album, and very unique! Sarah Webster Fabio was a hip 70s poet with a very righteous sound – and she's working here with funky backings by a tight group that includes family members, in a style that's similar to early 70s work by artists like Wanda Robinson and Camille Yarborough – both of whom also mixed together funk and poetry! The album's got a massive funky cut called "Sweet Songs" – the kind of groover we never tire of, with tight drums, great guitar, and wonderful vocals by Sarah herself. There's lots of other great tunes too ! 

                                                                  Enjoy!

Laszlo Hortobagyi - 6th All-India Music Conference [1990]

László Hortobágyi's music is fiction and reality at the same time. He creates musical worlds in which we can rediscover ourselves, just to forget ourselves all over again. The essence of his music is that the 20th century was not culturally influenced by the Occident, but from the Orient instead.

Just imagine that the Western and Asian polyphony had united, such as, for example, baroque organ music with phrases of Indian Ragas. A harpsichord player performing Northern Indian sitar music on his polyphonic instrument supported by a psychedelic reggae bass. Or an orthodox Slavic church choir was to sing in a classic Indian "Dhrupad" style, in the course of which repetitive gamelan music utilized compositions of Indian ragas during an electronic rock concert in Java........

Specific to this album is his unification of the music from this fictitous 20th century with the classic Indian music culture. The meticulously listed information in the booklet concerning the "Indian Music Conferences" - the first was to have taken place in the year 1916 - reads like an encyclopedia about councils that continued for years. The artist allows the "encyclicals" to flow into his music. All of this may well sound "unreal", but does the culture in the West have any other chance than to make use of the sources of this advanced civilization? "Cultures that the West has destroyed over hundreds of years and is still destroying"? (Hortobágyi)

He is pursuing these questions in the institute he founded in 1980 in Budapest, the "Gáyan Uttejak Society", which is equipped with a unique Indian and Asian music archive. Not belonging to any real genre, this music should transport our fantasy to more exciting cultural fusions in virtual realities. This music is an exciting challenge for the musical scientist; and a drug for those that want to relax.

                                

                                                                              Enjoy!

The Dead Brothers - Wunderkammer [2006]

The fourth album by Germany's the Dead Brothers is an eclectic, at times slightly crazed, mash-up of country, psychobilly, blues, fractured art rock, and anything else that seems to come to mind. So in the album's first three songs alone, things veer from the spooky, echoed, funereal slide guitar instrumental "Trust in Me" to an assaultive, bluesy raver that sounds like the Mekons in their country period to a completely unexpected piece of big-band Gypsy jazz that sounds like it came right off the stage of the Hot Club of Paris circa 1930. Then comes the cross-culturally inexplicable "I Can't Get Enough," which sort of sounds like it might be a catchy little country-tinged song, but there's an oompah-band tuba holding down the bass and a jazzy little horn section floating in every so often. "Mustapha" turns vaguely Middle Eastern tropes into a surprisingly Kinks-like piece of character-study pop; "Am I to Be the One" and "Time Has Gone" do the same things with country and Gypsy music, respectively, and "Marlene" is a just plain weird reverie for backwards tapes, accordion, and vocals that comes from the bottom of a well. So Wunderkammer is a sprawling, at times deeply strange record that reaches across several different musical cultures and eras to create an odd but effective crazy quilt of influences. Remarkably, all of this coheres into a solidly enjoyable listen. 

Enjoy!

Philip Cohran & Artistic Heritage Ensemble - On the beach [1968]

Mindblowing – and a landmark recording that crosses all boundaries in the Chicago music scene of the late 60s! Philip Cohran was a visionary musician who'd played with Sun Ra during the 60s, but who left Ra to forge his own musical vision by the middle part of the decade. The Artistic Heritage ensemble was a crucially important group in Chicago – one that drew players from both the soul and jazz scenes, with a wealth of talents that later went onto work with groups like Earth Wind & Fire, The Pharoahs, Ra's Arkestra, and other ensembles. Talents on this set alone include players like Charles Handy, Don Myrick, Aaron Dodd, Henry Gibson, and Louis Satterfield – not to mention Cohran, who plays cornet (as he did with Sun Ra), plus two groovy instruments of his own invention: the violin uke and the great Frankiphone, a sort of electric thumb piano whose use on these recordings pre-dated the very famous Kalimba sound that Earth Wind & Fire would use to great success during the 70s. The album includes the driving conga funk track "Unity", the singing soulful track "The Minstrel", the incredibly haunting "On The Beach", and the track "Motherhood", which has a strong Abbey Lincoln type of feel. The whole thing's a beautiful batch of spiritual jazzy tracks with a good groove – and a perfect blend of soul and spirit, jazz and righteousness!

DG 

Enjoy! 

Cicala Mvta - Ching Dong - Return Of Japanese Street [1997]

Avant - improv - folk - punk - prog - jazz - new orleans - klezmer - gipsy - balkan - east asian.... you need a train of words to describe.... music that starts from japanese street performances (chindon) and goes globally... madly.
The sound of CICALA MVTA is developed around the mainman/composer WATARU OHKUMA`s distinctive clarinet improvisations, by an unsual line up of musicians playing the tuba, percussions, fiddle, cello, electric guitar... The compositions are complexed, rich in multicultural references, with many unexpected turns and changes; the "street" feeling though, (lyrical, dramatic, bufooning ) is always present...
"CHING DONG..." is the german version of the first self-titled CICALA MVTA album.
Moniker CICALA MVTA honours the memory of the great, early 20th century japanese streetmusic singer, Soeda Azembo, the "mute cicada".

Enjoy! 

Moondog: The German Years, 1977-1999

Review

This deluxe double-disc box from Germany's Roof Music contains a collection of Louis Thomas Hardin's music recorded from 1977-1999 entitled The German Years as well as a second disc entitled The Last Concert, Mimi-Festival 1999. There are 44 pages of liner notes that lovingly put the complex music into as much perspective as possible, though it is up to the listener to diligently explore the lifework of this creative and unique individual. "High On a Rocky Ledge" could be John Cale in his sixth decade and is a highlight. This track and "Do Your Thing," "I'm This I'm That," and "Pygmy Pig" are culled from 1979's H'Art Songs album, one of seven different sources for the music on disc one. The performances are as delightfully diverse as the titles and keep one's attention as the parade of ideas unfolds. "Heimdall Fanfare" is a completely different outing from "Fujiyama 2 (Lovesong)," while "Do Your Thing" could certainly have found some kind of commercial success had some publisher gotten it into a film soundtrack -- or had Janis Joplin lived long enough to cover more of Moondog's compositions. The concert on disc two flows seamlessly from disc one and is so perfect that it sounds like a studio recording, except for the applause. Performed on August 1, 1999, five weeks before his passing on September 8 of that year, it is an amazing "bookend" to this compilation.
By AllMusic

Enjoy!