No. 16 x 2012

Long-time friend of the Academy, the Amen Brother Disco Band, has finally entered the realm of black plastic paradise with a 12" of some heavy edits on AMBRO 001.
And thus, a new label is born at the hands of Dubliner-in-exile Niall Kirk. The palette here is full of dusty, greasy stompers rolling along the desert plains with a mean & funky attitude. "Underground psychedelic soul" as Piccadilly Records puts it. I would say that this is a big step to re-organize (or wreak havoc if you will) on any record collection that separates disco from afro & psychedelic rock. They just wouldn't know where to put this one.

No.19 x 2011

This saturday here in Malmö we're throwing a big party with some special guests from the United Kingdom (of Disco?), Mr Frankie Francis and Mr Miles Cleret to be exact. Two gentlemen who has certainly put a new spin to to that tired old "world music"-scene as well as ushering in a new era of vinyl re-issueing by uncovering numerous treasures of afro-related music.

The hidden agenda behind the party is to help finance the first release in a series of 12" singles under the name of Fasaan Disco Specials. The local label Fasaan Recordings has previously released two 7" records of newly produced original material in genres which can easily be described as afrobeat and rocksteady. The new 12" series will be based mainly around a classic disco sound with railings towards everything else on the table from boogie to dub. The first release will feature one side of remixed versions by yours truly, taking the original cuts into the dubby tribal territory of Walter Gibbons and Arthur Russell. Needless to say, I'm very excited about this project. I will keep you updated on the 12"-release, in the meantime check out their Soundcloud-page.

No.2 x 2011

A mere glance at this amazingly awful sleeve of this record, you'd think that nothing good could come out of this fat Tom Selleck-lookalike. And it gets even wierder when you contemplate the fact that most of the career of this brittish artist, including of course his classic hit In Zaire, revolve around the theme of Africa. An obsession turned gimmick due to the fact that his breakthrough single was a tribute song to Mohammed Ali, which topped the charts when Ali won against Foreman in 1974 (The Rumble In The Jungle).

So despite the fact that this dude has more in common with James Last than say James Brown, with a theme like that it's likely that at least one of his songs hits the spot with some crazy afro action. And yes, there is such a song...


JOHNNY WAKELIN - AFRO AFRIQUE

No.13 x 2010

This guy, besides being the voice of Uriah Heep for a while, is also one of the men behind the cosmic masterpiece The Ultimate Warlord of 1978, as one half of the brief group The Warlords with Peter Green (not that Peter Green though).
And later during the following year of 1979, also together with Peter Green, they released the album Super Nova as Intergalactic Orchestra, which is even harder to get your hands on than the Warlord-single.
With a resume like that in your bag you can't really go wrong, right? And so in the same year as The Warlords hit the discoteques, Byrons solo debut hit the racks with a curious blend of blues rock trivialities and a black sheep in the form of proto-italo afro rocker African Breeze. Being a perfect blend of of the seemingly unlikely career personas Byron was juggling at the time, this track hits hard with all the right moves, and I'm amazed I didn't hear of this sooner.
It's much likely that this is the ace of secret weapons up many discjockeys sleeves.


DAVID BYRON - AFRICAN BREEZE

TWENTY FOUR AND COUNTING

Since today is my birthday I thought it would be nice to have my own orchestra compose a theme song of all my favourite things:
heavy basslines & classic disco guitars, some whacked out strings, a heavy rock section,
the latino-style percussion break (with a deep toned male voice saying random words of approval)and some sprinkles of synthesizer magic to top it off.
All way below the 100bpm mark and dragged out for about 6 minutes, and there you have it.

RIZZOLO DISKO ORCHESTRA - MY OWN COSMIC WAY

The polaroid of me was taken by Kristoffer Matti, RevK of Stephen Hawkings, for the new project Prejka, a combined blog for all the local creators in the field of cosmic & psychadelic music, including Vidderna, Lugnet, Kristallen, Psychic Malmö and myself.

ANOTHER CASE OF AFRO GOES UNKNOWN

Deep in the jungles of Germany, this tune was conceived in a haze of "world music" and the electronic cool of the 1980s club scene. Hence the abundance of loose drum work over a heavy arpeggio bassline and some well calculated guitar riffs.
This bastard child has been called Afro, Cosmic & Balearic by compilations claiming it as their own all through the 90s, for instance the Electric Funky Afro Sound bootleg series which featured the nice dub mix on their Volume 2 12", now as hard to find as the original pressings of this tune.

UNKNOWN CASES - MASIMBABELE

DOUBLE KALIMBA

The African percussion instrument Kalimba is the theme of the day here. It seems somehow appropriate within the recent vein of balearica that this blog has steered towards to focuse on the most balearic of instruments. 

But aside from the obvious anthem by Toni Esposito (Kalimba De Luna), I dug up some other classic/unclassic cuts for your sunbathing pleasure. 

Dig the robotic bass echoes over Earth, Wind & Fires smooth afro epic Kalimba Tree, not surprisingly picked by Norwegian afroholic Todd Terje for his latest re-editing. 

EARTH, WIND & FIRE - KALIMBA TREE (TODD TERJE RE EDIT) 

Next is a cut by a producer legendary in house circuits but in general fairly overlooked for his eclectic style and ventures into analogue and live instrumentation, 

What's surprising is that he's not a household name by now, since Frankie Valentine has been around since the early 80s and sounds better and better for every year. I was first blown away by his 12" Moog Rock from 2001, which back then served as a preview of the recent direction of heavy disco that dance music has since taken. 

But here he chills out with the Kalimba on this version of his single Zumbi from 2006. 

FRANKIE VALENTINE - ZUMBI (KALIMBA VERSION)