Stunningly modernised Tsogho ritual music from the interior forest of Gabon.
Beaten rattles, synths, Bwiti harp, male-female dialogical singing.
Released in 1989, to the intense consternation of purists; never before available outside Gabon.
Game-changing, and as authentic as it gets; warmly recommended.

No-shame housey Tsonga-disco and hands-in-the-air rave banged out on Korgs and Ataris in 1994 South Africa. It sold tons, rocking stadiums from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Namibia and Mozambique.

Lovely, hypnotic, rocking peulh music from Dilly commune, Mali, near the border with Mauritania (and the same family grouping as the celebrated singer Inna Baba Coulibaly). Duelling ngonis, calabash, flute, dashes of electric guitar; newly recorded.

Mid-nineties kwaito by Thami Mdluli (veteran of chart-toppers Taboo and CJB, and in-demand producer of the likes of Sox and Sensations).
Tasty, infectious rhythms and synth-work — if the singing is a bit Black Box — with an up-for-it, DIY energy and self-identity encouraged by the momentum of the liberation struggle in this period. “Once Mandela was released from prison and people felt more free to express themselves and move around town, kwaito was becoming the thing,” says Thami.

‘SK Kakraba is a master of the gyil xylophone — fourteen wooden slats strung across calabash resonators. The silk walls of spiders’ egg sacs — ‘paapieye’ in the Lobi language — are stretched across holes in the gourds, giving each note a buzzy rattle. SK learned as a child from elders in his Lobi community in the far northwest reaches of Ghana.’
Beautiful, spare, mesmeric recordings — song cycles, dirges, improvisations based on traditional songs, original compositions — newly made.

The best Awesome Tapes for ages!
The mighty, game-changing, iconic Asnakech in narcotic, bare-bones performances from 1975. Her singing and virtuosic krar-playing are intensely gripping throughout, accompanied by Hailu Mergia’s cosmic, zonked organ, and Temare Harege’s ultra-minimal brush-work and foot-pedal, like a barely audible drum-machine.
Haunting, intoxicating, wonderful stuff.