On October 13th,the African music world world lost an absolute demigod in the form of Verckys Kiamuangana Mateta. How important was he? Well, going by Wikipedia, he, “was a Congolese saxophonist, composer, bandleader, producer, record label founder, and music-business executive. He was renowned as a talented and prolific musician, and Continue Reading
Downloads
Augustus Pablo – King Tubby’s Meets the Rockers Uptown
This collaboration between Augustus Pablo and the legendary King Tubby is considered a masterpiece of dub. It’s a purely instrumental affair, and truly mellow listening.
EABS – Slavic Spirits
I am floored at how consistently good Polish jazz is, and though I find the idea of dabbling in demonology somewhere between hokey and morally bankrupt, what matters for people who read this blog is consistency in great music. From EABS’ Bandcamp site: “The idea for “The Darkness”, the composition Continue Reading
Jeff Gburek – Pharoah’s Tarot
Pharoah Sanders left this mortal coil on September 24, 2022, after leaving a stellar body of work and his influence on countless musicians including Jeff Gburek. The influence was profound, and you can hear it on this album, where the guitar glides into something free, not as in noisy free-jazz, Continue Reading
Doc Wör Mirran – Second Try
Doc Wör Mirran got its start as a multi-disciplinary project out of Nürnberg, Germany in around 1985, and for nearly 40 years, the band have continued to produce strange, intriguing avant-garde rock and experimental music. From their Bandcamp site: “Contrary to most compilations which compile the greatest hits of an Continue Reading
Uchylak – Astralia
Uchylak are a Polish group who have a rather retro sound, combining dark electro, techno, and even Electronic Body Music or hard beat into a very punchy, well-produced album.
I Have No Face – Feelings That Won’t Return
It pays to explore the myriad of free albums available on Bandcamp these days. Though there is a lot of garbage one has to sort through, you will always come up with a few gems during the day if you are persistent, and I Have No Face, a project out Continue Reading
Mikael Tariverdiev – Visions in Black & White
Mikael Tariverdiev was a Russian cinema and TV composer of Armenian extraction but raised Tbilisi, Georgia, a true man of the Soviet world. Though he was quoted as not particularly liking jazz, he was as good an improviser that Russia ever produced. From the release’s Bandcamp page: “Visions in Black Continue Reading
Ernesto Djédjé – Roi Du Ziglibithy (Limited Dance Edition Nr. 15)
Analog Africa released a disc of music from Ivory Coast legend Ernesto Djédjé recently, and it was rather eye-opening to see that even in a place as far away as Côte d’Ivoire, they had the same problems of so-called foreign influence getting in the way of local music, with Ernesto Continue Reading
Various Artists – Let’s Stamp: 1950s Folk Dance Recordings from Bulgarian and Yugoslavian 78rpm Discs
The ever-reliable Canary Records out of Baltimore, Maryland, have released a compilation of Balkan 78 rpm shellacs with a lot of the artists being unidentified, but whose music is most assuredly from my home away from home.