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Soundway is proud to present the first of two blistering albums of Afro rock and funk from Nigerian multi-instrumentalist Joni Haastrup and his band MonoMono. Re-issued on vinyl are two of Nigeria's most coveted releases: MonoMono's 1971 debut album 'Give The Beggar A Chance', and the follow up 'The Dawn of Awareness'.

Soundway has championed Joni Haastrup since day one featuring MonoMono tracks on both the 'Nigeria Special!' and 'Nigeria Rock Special!' releases. Growing up in a royal household in Nigeria, Joni Haastrup began his musical journey performing for his brothers band Sneakers and was quickly snapped up as a vocalist for O.J. Ekemode and his Modern Aces' 'Super Afro Soul' LP, one of Afro-beat's formative LPs. Soon after, Ginger Baker of Cream fame replaced Steve Winwood with Joni on keys for Airforce's UK concerts in '71 and the success of the collaboration led to further shows with Baker as part of the Salt project before he returned to Nigeria to set up MonoMono. – Soundway

Welcome to the next chapter in the Too Slow To Disco universe!

YACHT SOUL - The Cover Versions.

(74 to 84, plus one track from 1996)!

Our latest project takes us to an incredible group of Black artists and their soulful, funky takes on the smooth classics of those West Coast AOR/Yacht Laurel Canyon Hippies. Two worlds, paying their debts and respects to each other, in a series of brilliant covers that just jump out of the speakers. Ladies and gentlemen, be very reverent for the sound of Yacht Soul.

THIS IS THE ULTIMATE BOTTLED SUNSHINE! – Too Slow To Disco

Expanding their palette just a little, Children Of Zeus manage the delicate art of the follow up. Placing their artistry in a fresh context, ‘Balance’ feels just right, merging the sound of their debut with fresh elements, without losing the innate character that makes them feel so special. True trailblazers of a very specific strand of UK soul music, Children Of Zeus are way out in front of the pack. – Clash Music

Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Sylvia Robinson's super rare soul LP released in 1975 on her Vibration label, part of her All-Platinum/Stang/Turbo empire. A few years later, she would bring hip hop to the international stage producing "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 and "The Message" in 1982. "Sweet Stuff" features several Sylvia cult classics including "Private Performance," "Soul Je T'aime", a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" and the mellow favourite "Sho Nuff Boogie" recorded with The Moments. As bonus tracks, the release features "Sho Nuff Boogie, Part 2" which only came out as the single's b-side at the time and the long version of "Soul Je T'aime", all packaged in the album's original artwork. - Wewantsounds

We are proud to present the first full international release for another lost classic from the Black Fire Records archives, ‘Southern Energy’, the only album recorded by R’n’B and jazz collective Southern Energy Ensemble in 1977.

“As Southern Energy, we played the chitlin circuit and ended up gigging most weekends at clubs, universities and military bases in Virginia and North and South Carolina,” remembers leader Marvin Daniels. After meeting Plunky Branch and Jimmy Gray, they recorded some high energy sessions during 1977. “Southern Energy was tight,” continues Daniels.

“The album was all about positive messages and celebrating real people." The band would break up soon after the members left college. Canned following the original recording, the album eventually surfaced on a limited CD and LP on Black Fire in 1993. ‘Southern Energy’ has been remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery, and features unseen photos and brand-new sleeve notes by co-bandleader Marvin Daniels. - Strut

Strut presents one of the most in-demand and significant albums from the archives of Jimmy Gray’s Black Fire Records, ‘Bow To The People’ (1976) by theatre collective Theatre West, based out of Dayton, Ohio.

Recorded at Arrest studios in Washington in ’76, ‘Bow To The People’ brought together songs from several of Theatre West’s best known plays including Bow To The People, The System and Black Love and unflinchingly explored serious issues around drug addiction, mental health and cultural awareness. “The whole idea of Bow To The People was to honour our black forefathers,” explains Dillard. “It was important to do that for the kids that didn’t know.”

Shelved following the original recording, the Bow To The People album eventually surfaced on a limited CD on Black Fire in 1993. Now receiving its first full international release, the album features the previously unreleased tracks ‘Man Of Many Means’ and ‘I Don’t Knpw Much About Love’ and has been remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery. - Strut

Everything is mysterious!

Kensuke Ide and his mother ship finally broke the silence, the second album for the first time in 5 years! The long-awaited LP version of You Ishihara's sound-produced problematic work by You Ishihara, who is often called the best of the year! The innovative sound that will surprise all listeners is the madness of Incubus or Taoyuan Township! No, that's exactly the "mystery of 2020" !! That first album was just a notice! The biggest problem in 2020 and a masterpiece! - P-Vine

Antonio L. Newton AKA Tony Newton (born 1948) is a multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, MI who began his professional career at the age of thirteen, playing bass guitar with blues legends like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker. Discovered by Motown executive Hank Cosby while playing the Detroit blues circuit at the age of 18, he became the touring bassist with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the famed 1965 European ‘Motown Review’ tour. Within two years, Newton became the Miracles’ musical director.

On the album, we are presenting you today (Novaphonia from 1987) the listener is treated to something UNIQUE (and this is not an overstatement). Newton really puts the ‘multi’ into multi-instrumentalist, playing the synthesizers, the electric bass and the drum machine. Experimental is the keyword here, sounds vary from psych/trance (almost like a soundtrack from a space movie), to funk, fusion, rock, R&B, soul and jazz. Novaphonia has both elements of Tony Newton’s impressive musical past and his vision for the future.

Spacious synths, unusual instruments and an all-around cosmic approach make this an ‘out of this world’ and VERY intriguing album. Resonant, sonically rich, sonorous, colorful, mind-expanding sounds are what one should expect from the 20th century Novaphonic sound developed to its greatest extent. These harmonies are innately pleasing to the human ear, mind and nervous system.

Explore new musical frontiers intended to catapult the listener towards new dimensions…this is an album that just begs for a special place in your record collection! – Tidal Waves Music

Love Hurts / Beautiful Doll is the 5th and most prominent record by the He6, the frontrunner band of the 1970s golden age of ‘group sound’ bands in Korea. It features the band’s notable funk/psychedelia track ‘Beautiful Doll (Get Ready)’ which was sampled by DJ Shadow in ‘the Number Song’. Also includes ‘You Don’t Know’, the hit number driven by Choi Heon’s soulful vocals, as well as another must-listen He6 original tune, the perky brass rock number ‘I Can’t Tell’. The definitive reissue of the historical 1972 masterpiece of Korean rock!’

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Amid the various modes by which pop cultured developed in the various regions of East Asia as they modernized, the path followed by postwar Korea was a very unique one. Due to the outbreak of the Korean War shortly after the peninsula’s liberation from Japan, American pop culture came to hold major sway on Korean pop culture. The conscious/subconscious aspirations and critiques regarding this fact have continually given rise to various layers of subculture in many fields, thus generating an energy that propelled the possibilities of local culture. In particular, the spectacular growth of pop music, which sprang from the peculiar background that was the ‘US 8th Army scene’, was recorded in the form of numerous records since the mid-60s. These include such unique rarities that stand out not only among the history of rock/pop music in Asia but throughout the world, foremost among them the works by Shin Joong-hyeon and the Add 4, Key Boys, and the He5.

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To better understand this history takes a closer look into the background and influence of the ‘entertainment scene’ that was formed around the US 8th Army bases at the time. The ASCOM (US Army Support Command) located in Bupyeong was a military complex providing combat support for the USFK, and comprised a sprawling array of facilities whose massive scale and varied functions earned it the nickname ‘ASCOM City’. The entertainment scene that encompassed 12 on-post clubs and the more than 20 clubs that were located off-post served as transmission channels for jazz, standard pop, and rock n’ roll. The multitude of musicians – including Bae Ho, Han Myeong-sook, Yoon Hang-gi, Shin Joong-hyeon, and Kim Hong-tak – conveyed the newest western musical styles such as jazz, blues, country, and soul and played a critical role in introducing them into Korean pop music. American authorities applied tighter quality controls during the roughly 10-year heyday of the ‘8th Army show scene’ since the mid-60s, leading musicians to pick up the newest repertoires even more swiftly. Meanwhile, the sheer diversity of styles and genres as required by the various stages, as well as the rapidly shifting trends in repertoire, encouraged musicians to further hone their chops while also broadening their musical spectrum. The unique facets of ‘adaptation’ and ‘transfiguration’ that arose as musicians from a jazz/big band background took in rock/psychedelic influences ended up being key drivers behind establishing locality. – Light In The Attic

Caiphus Semenya, AKA Mr Letta Mbulu, is a South African legend, and Listen To The Wind, his iconic debut album, is simply a superb modern-soul/boogie album. It’s also incredibly rare, especially in good condition, so Be With is delighted to present this reissue.

Listen To The Wind is stylistically diverse but the ingredients are never diluted. There are elements of boogie, soul, funk and jazz, all shot through with pan-African flavour, and moving effortlessly from uptempo floor fillers to more meditative, slower soulful tracks. Produced by Caiphus himself, he makes full use of a stellar line up of session musicians including Nathan East, Michael Stanton, Sonny Burke and Paulinho DaCosta. And of course, there are Letta’s show-stopping vocals. To our ears, Listen To The Wind is just one big party, and lord knows we need that more than ever right now.

All that’s missing is you. – Be With Records

Amid the swirling sounds and scenes intersected by Los Angeles’ sprawling freeways, John Carroll Kirby is somewhere at the centre of it all, shirt open, hair slicked back. He circles the city’s buzzing jazz movement with his soul-dappled instrumentals and is a keysman, composer and producer who’s been enlisted by some of the most exciting names in contemporary pop: Frank Ocean, Mark Ronson, Harry Styles, Blood Orange, and Solange Knowles, whose incendiary past two albums, A Seat at the Table and When I Get Home, were shaped in part by Kirby.

He sees himself as more of a Ry Cooder character, the guitarist who co-directed the Cuban ensemble Buena Vista Social Club. “He’s a kind of genreless musician,” says Kirby. “He’s just centred around guitar and where that fits into different scenarios. I’m trying to do something similar, but with the keyboard.” – The Guardian

Music history is full of miracles and wonders. OFEGE is certainly one of them. It's quite easy to imagine this band's story turning into a movie. In 1973, a bunch of teenagers with an abundance of passion for music got their hands on the official school band's instruments and jammed away.

Inspired by the psychedelic rock sounds and guitar wizardry of Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck or Led Zeppelin they wrote an album worth of songs and decided to have them recorded. The goal was to press them on vinyl - one copy for each band member - as a souvenir of the fun times they had together before their school careers would rip them apart. Shortly after, they found themselves with a major record label contract in their pockets, propelled to stardom in their hometown of Lagos/Nigeria and soon across the whole country. Three studio albums followed in the years to come.

The unavoidable enviousness and bickering over "who's the true band leader, who's gets the most love letters" and such led to alterations of OFEGE's line-up and subsequently to its decay in 1978. With the turn of the century, OFEGE's coming-of-age drama has fortunately found a new generation of fans across the globe and will certainly continue to do so with this dearly needed reissue. OFEGE's debut album "Try And Love" will now be available digitally for the very first time since its inception 47 years ago.

It's true what they say: Life's writing the best stories. – On Bandcamp

By welcoming the beauty of imperfection and simplicity, Sven Wunder applies the timeless wisdom of wabi sabi on this musical journey. What you can hear is filtered through Ukiyo-e (which translates as “pictures of the floating world”), which illustrates everyday life, as well as through Japonism, the study of Japanese art, and more specifically its influence on European works. The result is a surface that creates an illusion by sound. The infusion of Min’yō with jazz rock, this hazy scene evokes the landscape of Monet’s ”The Water Lily Pond”, which depicts the painter’s Giverny garden, with a Japanese bridge, bamboo, ginkgo trees and the reflection of the sky in the pond. This illusion constructs both time and space.

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The surface of the music, like the canvas of the painting, invents a journey between now and then by interpreting the idiom of folkloric and western art instruments. In this composition, the sound of the Western concert flute, which stretches back to the Renaissance and Baroque periods, evokes the sound of the bamboo-flute (”shakuchachi”), which reached its peak during the Edo period. The guzheng, also known as the Chinese zither, with a more than 2,500 year history, joins traditional Japanese folk melodies with modern pop percussion and 20th century electronic instruments such as the Moog synthesizer, Wurlitzer electric piano and electric bass.

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This is the illusion that celebrates the fleeting nature of all things. A journey. A deep inhale and a slow exhale. It has a mix of jazz (both funky and progressive), East Asian and South Asian sounds. The idea of fusing these styles and reframing them with the aesthetic of wabi sabi is to reconnect with nature and concentrate on asymmetries and emphasize ornamentation to generate new ways of looking at the world, here and now. – Bandcamp

Originally released in 1980 on short-lived Oregon label ‘Match Box Recordings’ and recently unearthed for BBE Music by The Mighty Zaf, ‘Burnin’’ is the only album recorded by Portland jazz/funk band Carl Smith And The Natural Gas Company.

The story of this album’s recording has gone down in infamy among the remaining band members and Carl Smith’s daughter Carlee (who performed lead vocals on ‘Love Won’t Let Me Go’), all of whom recall a fraught, rushed recording process, led by a producer who had no musical experience and was nothing more than a puppet for the somewhat shady label owners. This led to the album being cut too fast and accidentally pitched up a key, so if you want to hear it as the band intended, pull the pitch control down a little on your turntable.

Upon its release, the album received airplay on several radio stations across Oregon and Washington, the band were invited to play live on local TV channel KGW, and copies sold out quickly within the local area. Despite the bitter-sweet circumstances around the record, Burnin’ remains a fantastic document of this well-drilled and talented group of players, showcasing original funk, jazz and soul compositions mostly arranged by Larry Dunlap, who went on to become musical director for the Pointer Sisters and write for Cleo Laine during a long and fruitful career in music. – BBE 

1.Killer and cult electro funk hip hop musical U.F.O. from 1987 Japan!

2.Highly sought-after record reissued for the first time since its original release

3.Sound restoration, mastering and lacquer cut by Timmion Cutting Lab

4.180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board print

5.Comes with a 4 pages insert including the original Japanese one, an interview with Hoodoo Fushimi (in English and Japanese), exclusive pictures and the album's lyrics translated in English.

1987, Kanagawa, not so far from Tokyo, Japan. Minoru Fushimi teaches his high-school classes during the day. Back from work, he transforms into "Hoodoo" Fushimi, turns on the drum machines, the synthesizers and the sequencers, blends them with his own shamisen playing and builds a cult album: Kenka Oyaji is born and becomes a milestone in Japan's early hip hop and electro-funk history, now reissued for the first time since its original release, in collaboration with Hoodoo Fushimi himself. Essential!-  Bandcamp

Sault, as ever produced by Inflo with Cleo Sol and Kid Sister the primary co-writers and vocalists, start their fourth album by striding toward the horizon with a glimmering polyrhythmic call to arms. "Strong" contains so much purposeful movement and ornamentation -- wriggling disco-funk with a drumline interjection, impelling voices, and ascending synthesizer and strings -- that the rest of Untitled (Rise) feels destined to be a letdown. The song instead sets the tone for a sequence that's less mournful, much more energized, and angrier than the third LP, Untitled (Black Is). "I Just Want to Dance" is likewise layered, part high-velocity U.K. street soul and part batucada with more marching drums. It's a celebration of life through physical release -- a means of coping with tragic injustice. The same undaunted spirit courses throughout "Son Shine," gospel boogie bearing a devastating group hook, "Free," a cracking statement of defiance, and "Street Fighter" and "The Beginning & the End," a pair of highly percussive combat dances. Working a slinking soul-jazz groove, "Uncomfortable" is among Sault's quietest numbers but is a seething confrontation itself: "Maybe you're uncomfortable/With the fact we're waking up/Why do you keep shooting us?/How do you turn hate to love?" The interludes here are almost as weighty, typified by a rousing cadence call and Kid Sister's caustic upbraiding of performative allyship. From beginning to end, the parenthetical word of the album title is sung, spoken, and chanted, serving a mobilizing and oppositional purpose for the most part. It's also used in an early interlude as a morning greeting for a child, presumably the subject of "Little Boy," a sobering soul lullaby that ends this group's most striking and affecting work yet. 5, 7, Untitled (Black Is), and Untitled (Rise), issued within 16 months, amount to exactly three hours of exceptionally recombinant and enriching pro-black music with minimal excess. The rate and power of the output is stupefying. - All Music

Favorite Recordings and Charles Maurice proudly present the 5th edition of the AOR Global Sounds compilations series: 8 rare and hidden tracks, produced between 1977 and 1984 in various parts of the world. Started in 2015, the AOR Global Sounds series was born from the will of Charles Maurice (aka Pascal Rioux) to share his longtime love for the AOR and WestCoast movement and highlight its influence for many artists in the late 70s and early 80s. In this 5th volume, he selected again highly forgotten productions, deeply infused with Disco and Soul flavors.

Half of the compilation’s tracklist is naturally coming from the US, homeland of this music style, while the other half is made of productions from all over the globe, from France or United Kingdom to Venezuela. And for most of these beautiful songs, it came from artists and bands rather unknown and often released as private press. – Favourite Recordings

One of the best jazz-funk-fusion albums from the '70s Euro scene, featuring such giants as Charly Antolini (famous for his MPS recordings) on drums, Max Greger Jr. on electric piano, Moog, Hammond, and Mellotron, and Milan Pilar on electric bass. Top-notch jamming and soulful funky-jazz sound with some kraut-prog touches, recorded at the legendary Studio 70 in Munich. Includes the rare-groove classic "Onkel Joe" and more. Original artwork and master tape sound. – Forced Exposure

Official replica re-issue of a South African jazz-funk rarity from Teaspoon & The Waves.

Released in 1977 on Soul Jazz Pop, a subsidiary label of Mavuthela Music Company / Gallo, Teaspoon & The Waves’ self-titled album is an absolute masterpiece. Best known for the song 'Oh Yeh Soweto’, which is an astonishing adaptation of Lamont Dozier's anthem 'Going Back to My Roots', this track has become a contemporary underground club classic in recent times and has been featured in sets from a cross-section of DJs. With such a massive calling card song, it could be easy to write off the album as a typical one-tracker (like so many records often are), but that is a long way from the truth. Each of the remaining four tracks are super strong and, for us here at Mr Bongo, this has to be our favourite South African record of this era. 'Saturday Express' is a jazz-funk/disco stomper which will soon be lighting up dancefloors again. 'Wind and Fire' is true afro-jazz-funk excellence, with great spacey synths and reggae-inspired guitar grooves riding throughout. The opener, 'Friday Night’, also has a slightly reggae-tinged tropical groove, whilst 'Got Me Tight' finishes off the session with a feel-good jazz-funk workout that features cool, quirky, Patrick Adams-esque synths.

Saxophonist Teaspoon Ndlela has had an amazing and rich musical career. Releasing albums on records labels Soul Jazz Pop, Hit Special, Gallo GRC, alongside working with and writing for South African artists such as Mpharanyana, Stimela, Sipho Gumede and Sgu. He also features on the Paul Simon track 'Gumboots' taken from the iconic 'Graceland' project. Though best known for 'Oh Yeh Soweto' we hope this re-issue helps demonstrate that there is much more magic in this wonderful musician's repertoire to discover. – Bandcamp

In 1981 Piper grooved onto the City Pop scene with their album debut I’m Not In Love, cementing their smooth blend of soft rock and soulful funk that became a staple of the albums that followed and instantly acquiring a devoted fanbase that still exists today. The blueprint for what was to come is evident here in aural form: cocktails by the pool & cool 80s shades, mixed with a disco dancefloor sensibility that is just so infectious it can only be Piper.

Now in 2021, Ship to Shore is proud to announce that I’m Not In Love will now be available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years in this limited edition pressing! – Ship to Shore Media

The Nineteenth Whole were an Indianapolis-based funky jazz outfit who were part of a very vibrant scene. Jazz guitar legend ‘Grant Green’ had originally hailed from there and he recruited the members of the 19th Whole as his rhythm section for live dates. (Green also discovered the other great Indianapolis jazz outfit Funk Inc. at about this time.) The attention that followed their work with Green allowed the Nineteenth Whole to sign with producer Bob Porter (responsible for many superb jazz productions for Prestige and Atlantic) on Eastbound, a label he had set up with Detroit independent Westbound Records.

Fronted by Billy Wooten’s distinctive vibes, joined by guitar legend Cornell Dupree (you all know his opening riff on the intro of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’) and percussionist Buddy Caldwell (THE session musician for respected labels such as Prestige & Muse) makes Smilin’ an organ funk groove classic at its best!

Recorded in 1972 by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder (known for recording Miles Davis in the early 1950’s and the countless work he did for Blue Note, Prestige, Verve .. and many others) at the Indianapolis club that gave the band their Eastbound name: ‘The Nineteenth Whole’. Production on the album was handled by Bob Porter (responsible for many superb jazz productions for Prestige and Atlantic).

Presented here are five lengthy soul-jazz pieces (including material from ‘Sly Stone’, ‘War’ & ‘The Jackson 5’) with funky grooves and some of the best sparkling organ & guitar licks you’ll ever hear. This album sets the stage for a constant shift in grooves, a collage of earthy Funk, Soul, Rock and Jazz Fusion straight outta 1972… an emotional ride packed with the main ingredients for a ‘get down’.

The Nineteenth Whole’s first (and only) album was originally released in 1972 on Eastbound Records, super rare and fetching large sums on the collectors market, now finally back available as a limited (500 copies) deluxe vinyl edition. – Tidal Waves Music

Altın Gün return with a masterful album that widens their critically acclaimed exploration of Anatolian rock and Turkish psychedelic stylings to include dreamy 80’s synth-pop and dancefloor excursions. Yol (Road) brings together all vectors of the Altın Gün experience and delivers their most compelling and individual album to date.

Amsterdam’s Altın Gün have built a strong reputation for melding past and present to make brilliantly catchy, psychedelic pop music, as seen with their Grammy-nominated second album, Gece. They are also a renowned live band with strings of sold-out shows on three continents, who have consistently brought a muscular groove to their recordings. Yol, their third album in as many years, excitedly continues these trends; while also digging in deep to unveil a new palette of sonic surprises. - On Bandcamp

To catch the attention of our discerning, critical and cynical ears, any demos that people send to us here at Jazzman have to be pretty damn good. Yes they all get listened to, but very few make it this far as an official Jazzman CD and vinyl release. In fact the last time we released some recently-recorded music was a couple of years ago with the Natural Yogurt Band, which we were happy to see become an instant success. You see, we're quite fussy because in this day and age we can't afford to lose money by putting out a so-so record. We also have to like it a LOT, not just because we'll have to listen to it over and over again, but because we want you to too! So here is our next attempt at world domination, the debut album by The Greg Foat Group. DARK IS THE SUN Recorded in Sweden, 'Dark is the Sun' is a concept album based on themes and variations by British pianist/composer/arranger Greg Foat, who has created an intriguing blend of non-contemporary jazz sounds with classic scoring techniques. An exotic array of unorthodox instrumentation was utilized, including harpsichord, tubular bells and a 15 piece choir. With musical reference and influence from such luminaries as Bruno Nicolai, Michel Legrand and Serge Gainsbourg as well as a firm nod towards UK jazzmen Michael Garrick, Keith Mansfield and Alan Hawkshaw, the result is highly-listenable, enduring and fulfilling for those who like real music played with real instruments. - Jazzman

With Vinyl Chapters’ previous love of Arlo Parks’ work on EP Super Sad Generation, we were really looking forward to this record. It doesn’t disappoint. The first track on this record holds the same title as the album itself and although it’s only 55 seconds long, it manages to set the vibe with a calm and relaxing tone. The spoken intro not only captures our attention, but her descriptive language is an ongoing feature and the storytelling lyrics are a way of teaching us life lessons for accepting ourselves.

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Green Eyes is all about the path to self-discovery which eventually leads to self-love, an uplifting song to comfort many of those who feel unable to see the good in themselves. Throughout this record, you grow to feel like Arlo is not only your friend but someone you can learn from as her experiences in adolescence have given her the wisdom she chooses to share with us.

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Black Dog touches on the power of mental health issues and shows that being there for someone when they are at their lowest really can make a difference. Although this song is surprisingly calming, the realities aren’t hidden. Once again, the actual underlying message of this track is comfort, as Arlo hints that she knows what it’s like to feel there is no way out and tries to hold her helping hand as she relates to her listeners with the lyrics “sometimes it feels like you won’t survive this, and it’s terrifying”. This is also prominent in the track Hope where she sings “‘You’re not alone, like you think you are, we all have scars, I know it’s hard” making her a huge role model for her fans.

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Of course, as well as darker tracks there are many jazz-inspired instrumental riffs to keep the album upbeat which are seen in tracks like Hurt and Just Go. In the last song, Portra 400, Arlo really shows off her versatility by including a rap section that not only hypes up the song but takes the listener on an all-time high which is a great addition to the record. Arlo Parks and here album Collapsed In Sunbeams are a breath of fresh air. The record features creative songs that make you feel upbeat and part of a new movement. She’s one to watch out for and it will be exciting to see what she has in store for us next. – Vinyl Chapters

“Garrett III is more of a swan project. A final installment, if you will. Garrett is now retreating more deeply, as evident by the album cover by @GangCulture into obscurity. The time has come for a landing via this 3rd installment of his ‘private life’. After surviving a lockdown x worldwide pandemic in 1 piece, without going insane, he has finally decided 2 conclude this phase of his tightrope walk between lush Ambient touched Modern-Funk & the choice of no vocals / strictly instrumental aural experiences, for listeners of all hues, backgrounds & taste. The hope is that it’s enjoyed in whatever way feasible for all human (& alien) kind.” – Music From Memory

Ancestral Afro-Venezuelan rhythms meet futuristic Latin jazz, raw funk and Afrobeat on Raúl Monsalve y Los Forajidos’ exhilarating new ‘Bichos’ album for Olindo Records. Venezuelan bassist Raúl Monsalve leads an all-star ensemble of musical trailblazers including “the voice of Venezuela” Betsayda Machado, singer Luzmira Zerpa (Family Atlantica) and drummer Dave De Rose (Agile Experiments, Moloko, Mark Ronson).

Raúl Monsalve has dedicated much of his life to understanding and learning traditional Afro-Venezuelan music, and studying under some of its greatest proponents among the percussionists of his home country, whilst at the same time taking as much interest in the sounds emanating from the fearless edges of jazz, rock, African and early electronic music.

With producer/engineer/drummer Malcolm Catto (Heliocentrics, Quantic, Yussef Kamaal) behind the recording and mixing desk, Raul brought together a like-minded cast of friends from Venezuela, Paris and London, to help him create a fresh sound, capturing the essence of both the African and indigenous roots of Venezuelan music, and the forward-looking sounds of afrobeat, gritty Latin jazz and experimental electronic music. ‘Bichos’, Spanish for ‘vermin’, ‘bugs’, ‘beasts’ but also used in Venezuela to refer to someone as a “nasty piece of work”, draws all these strands together. The album uses a variety of animals, such as the mosquito, butterfly, pig, snake, rooster and flea, to represent a wide range of human qualities, like greed, hate, love & compassion, and their impact on Venezuelan and worldwide corruption & division, the strengths of friendship, family, collaboration, rebellion and survival.

“Bichos” is not only a superb introduction to Raúl Monsalve, but also to a swathe of incredible musicians you might still be unfamiliar with. It’s also a brilliant window into the rich musical seam of Venezuelan music, and an excellent look at how it might interconnect with wider musical parallels. - Olindo