LP

Amazing private spiritual jazz-funk/fusion LP, now hard to find. Finally available again, fully licensed and remastered, with original artwork. This album is magnificent in its entirety, no fillers. Very strong record in the genre.

“John Yancey” is the second album Illa J will release on Jakarta Records, following the successful release of HOME last year. The project is the second collaboration with Los Angeles based producer Calvin Valentine, who once again contributed all of the production for the long player. While “Home” was largely inspired by Illa’s native city of Detroit, “John Yancey” now focuses on his time in California.“(This album is) Definitely more personal than all of my projects, nothing specific, but I basically talk about about the ups and downs of all my relationships over the past 10 years, still grieving about my bro, etc. This one is trippy because the first single comes out a day before my 32nd birthday and the original title was 32 because this is a special year to me because my brother died at that age so it had a lot of meaning. But it makes sense that it ended up being called John Yancey because for so long in my career I felt like I was tryna be me and my brother, and I'm finally at peace, like I'm not J Dilla's younger brother Illa J, I'm James younger brother John.” While the story of the album might have changed, there are certain continuities as well, built around the strong foundation of the combination of Illa’s voice and Calvin Valentine’s soulful sample based production. The previous album already saw Illa J incorporate more singing into his raps and he goes down this path even further: “I wanted to emphasize the singing but use more of my natural singing voice, as well as rap more than on HOME.” In regards to the music, Calvin wanted to make the project sound “a bit more polished where HOME was purposely rough around the edges.” Still, the production remains soulful and rich with layers to leave things interesting for the listener, the more spins you give the record.The cover was created by Robert Winter, a Cologne based photographer who was also behind the visual appearance of HOME.

Wan Chai Records is a Hong Kong based label, specialized in rare Asian records and quality reissues.For their third release, after a few years of hard diggin and historical researches, they went deeper with HONG KONG SCORE, introspection into the music of the Chinese’s Cinema industry. A selection of tracks from Hong-Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, specially produced for movies and illustrations.The result is a compilation of 12 totally unknown gems sung mostly in Mandarin and Cantonese, from real deep instrumentals, Hip-Hop breaks, Ethio style crazy drums, to heavy Bass in the Alain Goraguer’ style. This is an amazing introduction to 60’s and 70’s Chinese music, an inspiration for beatmakers, a must have for novices or Asian vintage music lovers.

The album ‘Som, sangue e raça’ paves the way for future generations of musicians and producers of the carioca scene at the beginning of the 1970s. The lyrics that dealt with the question of race and the explosive fusion of samba, soul, jazz and funk, elaborated by Dom Salvador and his troupe, Abolição, established the bases for the development of new sounds and tendencies in Brazilian music.This isn’t just a seminal album. It is an estuary. All the black rivers that would form Brazilian funk/hip-hop flow through it. Led by Paulista pianist Salvador Silva Filho – Dom Salvador – “Som, Sangue, e Raça” from 1971, one year after the explosion of Tim Maia on the scene, catalyzed the bossa nova and jazz background of its leader with the rhythm and blues of its members like saxophonist Oberdã Magalhães, newphew of samba-enredo master Silas de Olvieira and future leader of Banda Black Rio, who since the group Impacto 8 (which had, among others, Robertinho Silva on drums and Raul de Souza on trombone) had already been trying to reconcile MPB with Stevie Wonder and James Brown. Add to all this a mixture of samba, Nordestino accent, and even the black side of the Jovem Guarda represented by the authorial presence of of Getúlio Cortes (older brother of Gerson King Combo, our James Brown “cover”) in ‘Hei! Você’. Alongside these elements and the preseence of Rubão Sabino (bass), who still called himself ‘Rubens’, drummer Luis Carlos (another member of Black Rio), the disc enlists the trumpet and flugelhorn of symphonic musician Darcy in place of the original Barrosinho (yet one more founder of Black Rio), who was traveling during the recording but would end up being a leading force of the band.

Deep late 80's percussion LP created to accompany contemporary jazz-dance classes. African instrumentation meets Western Jazz arrangements and computer technology.Percussions Pour La Danse was a collaboration between North American born jazz & contemporary-dance instructor Tony Kennybrew and French musician Jean-Pierre Boistel. Tony, a Washington native who had studied, taught and danced professionally since the age of 12, found himself in France in the late 80’s. It’s here that he linked up with like-minded musician Jean-Pierre; who had recently returned from a 6-month trip to West Africa. A trip that helped refine his craft that begun in the early 70’s.The music was created for Tony to use when teaching contemporary jazz-dance classes and to accompany live performance, allowing students to “dance slowly, rapidly and change speeds without changing the tempo!”. This work of rhythmic research was based on the “Balance of The Walk”; in 4 times, in 6 times, in 7 times & in 3 times. In order to reach the spatial possibilities he was striving for, Jean-Pierre would also use computer assisted programming to sample and re-play his own instrumentation. This allowed him to lay down the tempo of the track and then play live over the top, which in turn gave him the freedom to add the desired instruments and effects to each song.Jean-Pierre’s use of instruments such as the Kalimba, Talking Drum & Sanza gives the album a distinctly African feel, while contemporary Jazz-dance time signatures adds a unique perspective to these traditional instrumentations creating an ethereal balance between the old and new.

First release of promising new label - heavy Nigerian boogie LP with that raw characteristic lo-fi feel - Nkono Teles on keys and Odion Iruoje on the production. Dope!! .Some words from the label:Dig this way records is proud to present its first official reissue: a marvelous Nigerian disco boogie album by Peter Abdul - Get Down With Me. Impossible to find on the original EMI press is now finally back into the market for everybody to enjoy it and make the hips move!Originally released in 1984 it’s an outstanding experimentation of Nigerian disco boogie - heavily influenced by western artists - played by talented musician that follows with their monster cosmic sounds the tiny and strong voice of Peter Abdul in his only officially released LP.The luck of this work came from the collaboration with Nkono Teles at keyboards ; Sole at bass guitar; Ganiyu Bello , Emmanuel Akoko Jr. and Tolu Gayas as backup vocalists - arranged and produced by Odion Iruoje and assisted by some good engineers like Bayo Aro, Monday Oki and Edward Jatto. All together they created this insane disco- boogie LP.For the 2018 reissue, the audio was carefully restored by Colin Young - Liner notes that come with a interview and some unseen and raw original pictures of Peter Abdul back in the days- these photos are printed separately on tick quality paper insert (from a small studio of Milano called Legno).