Arranged and produced by Leroy Hutson, who co-wrote all the songs, and part engineered at Curtom. The Voices’ best album, brimming with good vibes, bubbling grooves, great singing, political resistance.
‘Early contender for 2009’s album of the year. Yes, already’ (Mojo). ‘The sheer soul in her voice is revolutionary’ (NME).**** The Independent, The Times. ‘**** a masterclass in gritty southern soul’ (Daily Mail).
Drawn from the hundreds of reel-to-reels and cassettes that Jones — aka The Hurricane, The Fireball — has made of his Southern preaching, raving between speech and song, since 1960. From Dust To Digital.
A facsimile reissue of the first half of the Ronnie Scott’s recordings.
The forgotten music of the Austro-Hungarian diaspora in the mid-west of the United States. An Ian Nagoski compilation to inaugurate the label, with a cover by Eric from Mississippi Records.
‘A lost 1975 session by the great pianist Mal Waldron, recorded in Paris with core members of the mighty Lafayette Afro Rock Band.
‘By 1975, Waldron was a decade into his self-imposed exile from the United States, having reassembled his sound after a devastating breakdown in the early ‘60s. His post-1969 output stripped jazz down to its core elements: modal intensity, locked grooves, and hypnotic repetition. Candy Girl doesn’t interrupt this trajectory—it extends it, wrapping Waldron’s minimalist mantras around the funked-up chassis of the Lafayette rhythm section.
‘Originally released in microscopic quantities on the Calumet label and long shrouded in obscurity, Candy Girl was recorded spontaneously in the studio of producer Pierre Jaubert, whose Paris HQ had become the workshop for both avant-garde jazz (Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Steve Lacy) and psychedelic funk (Lafayette Afro Rock Band AKA Ice). This session finds Waldron jamming freely with bassist Lafayette Hudson, drummer Donny Donable, and keyboardist Frank Abel on clavinet, Moog and more—laying down raw, unfiltered instrumental funk with an experimental edge.
‘Highlights include the low-slung vamp of Home Again, the crisp, break-laden groove of Red Match Box, and the mesmeric swirl of the title track Candy Girl — a minor-key electric piano waltz with hints of cosmic soul. The sombre yet meditative Dedication To Brahms deconstructs the composer’s third symphony into a sparse jazz reverie.’
The trio of Roland P. Young, Aisha Khalil and Glenn Howell, recorded in 1975 at 1750 Arch, in Berkeley, California.
“There was a vibe in the air that we connected with,” recalls Young, “along with other kindred spirits world-wide. What appeared to be ‘experimental’ was reaching for sounds and emotions that were unfamiliar. We often performed at rallies in support of various causes: Black Liberation, Women’s Movement, Anti-War Movement, Gay Liberation. While the music came out of the Black Liberation struggle our ultimate goal was a blending of cultures.”
‘A fascinating glimpse of the trio in action. It testifies to the energy that Infinite Sound channelled into their music, but also to their imaginative breadth and expressive versatility… with Howell’s buoyantly springy and resilient bass taking on a strong pivotal role around which Young’s horns and Kahlil’s voice dance and spar and soar and play. Well-defined rhythms dissolve into textures; melodic shapes soften into shadings of timbre or flare into exuberant bursts of tonal colour. The music’s mood swings unpredictably from flamboyance to introspection; pacing shifts spontaneously from languor to urgency. Moments of musical allusiveness, sly quotation or stylistic reference, mutate into passages of wild inventiveness.’
Lovely record. An intimate, unshowy, reaching blend of British folk and minimalism in the tradition of Robert Wyatt solo; quietly co-mingling Henry Flynt and Ivor Cutler, Eastern outernationalism and Radio art. Beautifully presented, too; in a die-cut, inside-out sleeve, with a poster. Check it out!
Funky, psychedelic, spiritual jazz with deep percussion, including marimba, from 1971; tuned into electric Miles but also Kool & the Gang, and keeping an eye on Tony Williams’ Lifetime.
The meditative opener is lovely. Heathens liken Animals to Fela.
Remastered from the original tapes.
Irresistible 1950s mento — singalong tunes, ebulliently performed, over-spilling with scandal, smut and impudence, sex, dancing and booze, word-play, jokes and up-to-the minute social commentary, and general love for life.