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‘This work has accompanied me like a secret, an almost silent meditation on what the viola means in my life. Through it I have experienced how much this instrument connects me to listening, to patience, to inwardness. Here Morton Feldman is not composing in order to shine, but so as to make us hear the infinitesimal, the unspeakable – that is what has touched me profoundly, and I want to share it with the listeners.’
Antoine Tamestit

The ‘un-muting’ or ‘sonic restitution’ of African instruments held in Western museum collections, this project began with a recording session in October 2023 at the British Museum in London, when Hoyt was granted access to instruments from the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. These recordings were then developed in his studio, blending in African and Western instruments from his own collection.

‘This record is not an album but a diagram, a blackground score for a people who have never stopped dancing. Instruments exiled into the vitrines of empire, their voices stilled by taxonomic theft, now murmur and hum again. This is restitution by vibration, and the sounds you hear refuse to be forgotten, to be fixed, to refuse to die. You won’t find Western time signatures here; you’ll find time folding, spilling, catching fire. His compositions bespeak an afro-sonic-philo-sophy, more drastic than gnostic. These desperate times call for desperate pleasures.’

From 1971, A Guitar in the Foreground is Rosinha’s best record. Classic, chilled Bossa shot through with her scintillating guitar-playing.
Check this version of Summertime for her instrumental virtuosity. (Tyler, the Creator burglarised it for Tomorrow, on Chromakopia.)

Giddying soul music from early-eighties Estonia!
A rework of I See Red by Frida, from Abba, with raw fiddle, and poetic new lyrics by Velly about camels and maidens; plus an unnerving version of Feel Like Makin’ Love.
Check it out!

Scorcher!
Just cop the opener. Such a knockout!
Six Horace Tapscott compositions and arrangements. Swirling, passionate, raging, valedictory, richly allusive music.
Teddy Edwards is here; Tommy Flanagan. Criss is on fire.
Hotly recommended. Something really special.

Tikiman running full range, from the spoken-word dread of What’s This to the Rhythm & Sound-style call-to-action of Send Them On.
Nine dazzling collaborations with Mala, Shinichi Atobe, Batu, Azu Tiwaline, Gavsborg, and full crew.

Thrilling, earthy twists on Ethio Jazz and co — born of authentic engagement and love —  with a knockabout spirituality and body-rocking grooves, by this quintet led by Swedish saxophonist Lina Langendorf.
Gilles has been spinning it.
Check it out!

‘Eight tracks of jagged electronics, heavy basslines, and fractured spoken word collide in a body-jerking soundclash that is both raw and vital.’

Good On Paper enjoyed ‘Baldauf’s crisp, distanced tones accompanied by Roe’s ominous, pulsating programmed bass line and four-to-the-floor whack, coaxing pure pop out of tension and incongruity.’ Electronic Sound Magazine hailed the LP as ‘a blistering, club-forward workout’, with ‘top-drawer, nose-bloodying electronics,’ positioning the Stroud duo as ‘rather like a wonky Tom Tom Club with added grit.’

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