BRIGITTE FONTAINE - Est...Folle / Comme À La Radio

Fontaine's first two albums, now reissued by San Francisco-based Superior Viaduct (a recently-launced, primarily punk/leftfield archival imprint whose catalogue is getting stronger by the year), successfully put the various sides of this strange songstress on display, the beginnings of a career that would flourish well into the '70s and beyond (most notably the ensuing/ongoing collaborations with percussionist/co-vocalist Areski). 

"On Est…Folle, Fontaine takes flight over conductor Jean Claude Vannier's brilliant arrangements. Vannier, best known for his work on Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson, is in fine form, using what would become his trademark stylings: lush strings, taut rhythms culled from across the globe and a healthy dose of whimsy.

While her debut was a unique take on French chanson, [on Comme À La Radio] the Art Ensemble Of Chicago provides the perfect setting for Fontaine's exploration of free-verse poetry. Often arrhythmic and spoken, her vocals command the same spontaneity and grace that her collaborators applied to their instruments. The overall effect is chilling, and it is no surprise that Comme À la Radio is often cited as Fontaine's best known work." - Superior Viaduct

VA - Angola Soundtrack 2: Hypnosis, Distortions & Other Sonic Innovations 1969-1978

Latin America's musical influence on Lusophone Africa is in infectious, dancefloor-bound full bloom on this second set of Angolan rumba funk, focusing on the record industry which flourished in the capital city of Luanda throughout the Seventies.

"An exceptional set of circumstances existed in the history of Angola before Independence that created the giant leap in the style and standard of bands and recordings of the time.

When Portuguese repressive measures prevented the small Turmas, street musician groups, from being able to perform in Carnaval celebrations in 1961, a Portuguese civil servant, entrepreneur and Angolan music fan named Luis Montês was already in a position to capitalise on Luanda's need for a live music scene. His self-designed 'Kutonocas,' Sunday afternoon live music festivals, delighted a Luandan population hungry for a communication between the city and musseques (townships). It also forced groups to adapt to a different style of playing that would accommodate large stages and broader audiences. They equipped themselves with electric guitars, and fed on the musical influences from Cape Verde, Congo and the Dominican Republic, while staying patriotically true to their own musical legacy and unique rhythms." - Analog Africa

WILLIAM ONYEABOR - Who Is William Onyeabor?

While Luaka Bop recently stated that this compilation was five years in the making, it's been more like an eight-and-a-half-year stretch for anyone whose interest was initially piqued by the inclusion of "Better Change Your Mind" on the label's 2005 compilation of West African funk rarities, World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love's A Real Thing. While the label's clearly been biding their time, since Who Is William Onyeabor? is still only Vol. 5 (with the Tim Maia anthology Nobody Can Live Forever the only other addition to the slim but immaculately-selected series in the interim), getting to finally hear such strange, synth-lead-laden Afro-disco dancefloor-filling workout warnings as "Atomic Bomb" and "Why Go To War" properly mastered at last has been well worth the wait. 

If Fela Kuti was a child of James Brown, fellow Nigerian William Onyeabor is something like the next-generation musical offspring of Parliament-Funkadelic. His songs are extended call-and-response disco-funk jams driven by the space-age sound of synthesizers and drum machines—very new tools when Onyeabor was recording in the late '70s and '80s, especially in Africa. After years of existing mainly as secret grails passed between electronic music DJs and other crate diggers, Onyeabor's handful of studio LPs have been licensed and boiled down to a killer compilation.

So, who is William Onyeabor? Part of the album's conceit is that even the compilers don't fully know. The liner notes, by veteran British journalist Vivien Goldman, note that Onyeabor is a crowned chief in his hometown village of Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, where he lives in 'a hidden palace in the woods' and is a booster of the local Christian music scene. But he essentially left his own music career in the '80s, in the wake of the recordings collected here, presumably when he became a born-again Christian—indeed, you can hear a moral, preacherly spirit on a lot of the tracks here." - NPR

TAL NATIONAL - Kaani

Propelled by the remarkable drumming of a man known simply as Omar, Niger's Tal National introduce themselves to the international market with Kaani's trance-inducing, predominantly-12/8 tracks frenetically incorporating both the snaking scales of Tuareg desert blues as well as the griot guitar of the region's Songhai people.

"Tal National is a band from Niamey, the capital city of Niger, West Africa’s largest nation (and one of the world’s poorest)[...], centred around Hamadal Issoufou Moumine (a.k.a. Almeida), a judge in local courts and ambassador for the SOS orphan foundation who had a successful soccer career before becoming Niger’s best-loved guitarist.

Wanting the follow-up to 2006's Apokte to be a better quality recording and realising it was cheaper to fly an engineer with remote-recording capabilities to Niamey than for the band to travel to the nearest studio (in Nigeria or Ghana), Almeida recruited Chicago-based recording engineer Jamie Carter, whom he met during the Chicago Calling arts festival. The result was 2008's A-Na Waya, an album that became hugely successful in Niger. The record stood out in the domestic market, for both the quality of its sound (a big issue in a country where it's impossible to buy instruments, where there is no studio that can handle a live band, nor competent engineers), and also for the integration of traditional instruments like the talking drum. In January 2011, Almeida brought Carter back to Niamey record their third album, Kaani, captured over two weeks at the run-down Studio Maibianigarba." - Fat Cat

GILBERTO GIL - Louvação

Soul Jazz continues its recent run of tip-on, hardshell-case CD reissues of rare mid-to-late '60s Brazilian titles (serving as companion pieces to their 2011 series of compilations Brazil Bossa Beat!, Bossa Jazz, and Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s) with Louvação, an undeniably compelling MPB debut from a man whose music a few of us here were first introduced to via this same label's bestselling 2006 set Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution In Sound.

"This debut 1967 album showed how confident Gil was in his musical inventiveness. As well as the title track, the album includes seminal tracks that have become classics of Brazilian contemporary music. 'Viramundo,' later covered by Sergio Mendes, effortlessly blended the northeastern baiao and xaxado accordion rhythms of Luiz Gonzaga. 'Procissao,' in contrast, took its starting point from the religious processions found in the Afro-Brazilian centre of Salvador. Songs such as 'Roda' instantly became classics of Brazilian popular music. Add to this the lyricism of poets and artists Chico Buarque, Torquato Neto, Capinam, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze and Gil himself and we are presented with one of the most significant debut albums of Brazilian music from one of the most important artists in Brazil to this day." - Soul Jazz Records

HAILU MERGIA - Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye

Gently spaced-out and thoroughly out of time, this CD remaster of a cassette recorded in 1985 and now reissued by Brian Shimkovitz's Awesome Tapes From Africa label (once a blog, ATFA now selectively officially licenses their finds for release) is quite a find indeed, unfurling at a leisurely pace while its pattering drum machine, insistent accordion runs and digital handclaps entrance and invigorate.

"In Ethiopia, Mergia found fame as an organist and keyboardist in the soul and jazz ensemble Walias Band. Four years later, while playing in the ex-Walias Band ensemble Zula Band, he released Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument, an instrumental record dominated by a sound that hadn’t been heard in much popular Ethiopian music for decades: the accordion. Amplified instruments had come along and usurped the squeezebox, which had been de rigueur in the 1950s. But it wasn’t a total throwback: Mergia recorded it with a Moog synthesizer, a Rhodes electric piano, and a drum machine, piecing together a drifting, meditative, and thoroughly psychedelic interpretation of traditional acoustic Ethiopian music." - Washington City Paper

VA - Très Chic: More French Girl Singers Of The 1960s

Just months after the release of a vinyl issue of 2010's C'est Chic! CD compilation (one of Ace's bestselling titles in our shop these past few years) hit our shelves, the follow-up comp is upon us, and as expected, it's a fun, frug-friendly mix of name artists (such as France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot and Anna Karina) and equally strong cuts from a cast of lesser-known yé-yé singers.

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"Pretty much completely free of filler, Très Chic is a thoughtfully researched and curated cache of French pop, digging deeper below the surface than most collections by looking beyond just the biggest names to reveal some deeper cuts."- Allmusic

RODION G.A. - The Lost Tapes

Crackling with distorted organ, synth, guitar, drum machine and live kit, this archival set from Strut reveals a persecution-skirting hybrid made between 1978 and 1984 by Romania's Rodion Rosça, one that in hindsight can be slotted somewhere between Kosmische prog and the punky sci-fi defiance of Heldon's Richard Pinhas, all while maintaining a degree of regional tradition in its scales and melodic lines, aligning Rosça and band with the psych-rock of their Turkish neighbours just across the Black Sea.

"In the late '70s and early '80s in communist Romania, Rodion Ladislau Roșca and his band Rodion G.A. created a hybrid of electronic music, psychedelics, and progressive rock that, decades later, has revealed itself to be remarkably ahead of its time. After years of obscurity, and only a handful of singles ever released officially, Rodion’s music is finally getting the recognition it deserves" - Wax Poetics

"This is some of the raddest music you’re likely to hear this year: rad in its overall excellence, and radical in its forward-thinking nature, sounding so even today, though recorded at the height of Ceausescu’s suppression and censorship." - The Quietus

LOS BRINCOS - Contrabando

It's rather appropriate that Los Brincos, known as the Spanish Beatles, recorded this album at Abbey Road studios. Engineered by Geoff Emerick, who had proved so invaluable on Beatles sessions, Contrabando is sure to delight lovers of Swingin' London-flavoured '60s pop.

"Contrabando proved the band's viability after members Juan Pardo and Junior had left to start their own career as a duo. The other original members, Fernando Arbex and Manolo González, quickly rebuilt the four-piece with Ricky Morales (Junior's younger brother) and Vicente Fernández. Los Brincos remained faithful to their beat group aesthetic, but at this point also opened up to more eclectic and playful musical and conceptual possibilities. The album was recorded at Abbey Road, with engineer Geoff Emerick. It was essential to establish themselves in the international market and several songs were recorded in both English and Spanish. In order to help realise their international ambitions, the group enlisted the services of Larry Page, who had handled both The Kinks and The Troggs with enormous success. But all of Page's contacts weren't enough for the band to break through in the UK, where two singles were released on the producer's own Page One label. Still, 'Lola' and 'El Pasaporte' were big hits in Spain, making it clear that Juan & Junior hadn't taken the four-piece's audience with them." - Cherry Red

FRANCOISE HARDY - Midnight Blues: Paris, London 1968-1972

Nicely complementing El/Cherry Red's earlier reissue of her eponymous first album from 1962, Midnight Blues focuses on the period in her career where Hardy set up her own production company, Asparagus, and moved from the Vogue label to the smaller imprint Sonopresse, where she stayed until 1972.

"From the beginning of her career and into the early '70s, Françoise recorded quite extensively in English, German, Italian and Spanish, but that material is not easy to find these days. This collection, recorded variously in Paris and London between 1968 and 1972, comprises tracks drawn from her albums En Anglais, One-Nine-Seven-Zero and Françoise Hardy (a.k.a. If You Listen), and offers a very welcome opportunity to hear her perform in English." - Ace Records

ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU - Volume 3: The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk 1969-1980 / VA - Kenya Special: Selected East African Recordings from the 1970s & '80s

Two ever-reliable reissue labels continue their respective African funk campaigns—Volume 3 from Analog Africa's Poly-Rythmo archives displays the diversity of the group's output, due to both the length of the band's career as well as the sheer number of singers and musicians who went through its ranks over a decade of activity; Kenya Special, meanwhile, sees Soundway's Special series drift east from Nigeria and Ghana over to Kenya.

"This album smokes, and does so in a way different from most of what’s out there these days, including the current Afro-pop and Afro-funk. With Fela Kuti receiving quite appropriate recognition for his contributions to African music, it’s a shame that pioneering bands like Orchestre Poly-Rythmo have yet to reach an equally wide audience. That should change. With any luck, this will be the record to change it." - Spectrum Culture

"Kenya Special is a collection of 32 recordings (most of which were only ever released on small-run 45rpm 7" singles) that stand out as being different or unique as well as some classic genre standards. From Kikuyu language 'liquid soul,' Luo benga and Swahili afrobeat to genre-bending Congolese and Tanzanian tracks recorded in Nairobi, Kenya Special sees Soundway yet again taking the less trodden path. Many of the tracks featured here are peppered with innovation and experimentation highlighting how diverse the music scene in Kenya was at the time." - Soundway

VA - London Is The Place For Me 5 & 6: Afro-Cubism, Calypso, Highlife, Mento, Jazz

Honest Jon's' longest-standing compilation series delves deeper still into the sounds of London's Afro-Caribbean diaspora during the '50s and '60s.

"At last, a fresh delivery of open-hearted, bitter-sweet, mash-up postcards to the here and now, from young black London. As then, calypso carries the swing. There are four more Lord Kitchener songs—in consideration of his wife leaving him for a GI, cricket umpires, a fling onboard an ocean-liner and West Indian poultry—besides a hot mambo cash-in, cross-bred under his supervision, and an uproarious, teasing Ghanaian tribute to him in Fanti by London visitors The Quavers. Other calypsos range compellingly from the devaluation of the pound through jiujitsu, big rubbery instruments, football fans, heavyweight champ Joe Louis and the sexual allure of English women police.

Expert jazz idioms course sophisticatedly through all the selections, which include a straight-up, South London version of Duke Jordan's 'Jordhu,' something from Dizzy Reece's soundtrack—brokered by Kenneth Tynan—to the British crime film Nowhere To Go, and a trio of magnificently hybrid, hard-swinging instrumentals led in turn by master-guitarist Fitzroy Coleman, Kitch's innovative arranger Rupert Nurse, and trumpeter Shake Keane—named after Shakespeare because of his love of poetry." - Honest Jon's

BOMBINO - Nomad

With the grit of its Tuareg drone-blues and the insistence of his group's handclaps, ululations and choral responses offset by the mellow delivery of titular bandleader Omara "Bombino" Moctar, Nomad is evidence of Bombino's ability to court an even wider North American market already entranced by the likes of Tinariwen, as well as of another production coup for The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, as fitting and tasteful a pairing as his success behind the board last year with Dr. John's Locked Down.

"With its bright, saturated guitar sound, Nomad reproduces a little bit of the intensity of the Guitars From Agadez recordings...There are crowd or street sounds, and some songs stop in a collective slump, with the sound of clapping, as if this were a party or a casual outdoor jam rather than a heavily considered shot at a worldwide audience. But these songs sound less driving, more streamlined, structured and consolidated. [Auerbach] has helped Bombino make a spacious, centered record, one that stretches to appeal to Western listeners without strain, clutter or hipness overload." - The New York Times

VA - Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1980-1987

As recounted in this promotional short video, it could be argued that Celluloid's unique cross-Atlantic aesthetic was born the moment that French impresario/BYG Actuel co-founder Jean Karakos chanced upon NYC bassist/producer/multi-scene Zelig figure Bill Laswell; Change The Beat is a long-overdue look at one of the few early-'80s labels able to successfully unite the then-burgeoning B-boy movement with both the U.S./Euro no/new waves as well as that era's African diaspora. 

"With a selection that jumped from early hip-hop to deconstructed European disco, and from downtown NYC experimental head-trips to early fusions of world music with funk, jazz and art-damaged punk, Celluloid was truly a harbinger of things to come.

Winding your way through so much unbridled creativity is like stumbling into an avant-garde toy box filled with outrageous oddities, many of them sprouting dangerous, sharp edges. Having bought every Celluloid record I found for decades, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the label's catalogue, but there's an impressive amount of stuff here I've never heard or heard of.

Blessed by being in the right place(s) at the right time, and having the smarts to take advantage of the considerable opportunities that came their way, Celluloid Records sits comfortably in the file of independent labels that got it right from start to finish." - Blurt

MARCOS VALLE - Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do Tempo

From 1970 to 1973, Marcos Valle released these four classic but long-unavailable albums—while we were previously most familiar with the last record in the sequence, Previsão Do Tempo (where session participation by Azymuth lends the proceedings a slightly synthed-out feel at times), we're looking forward to better acquainting ourselves with each of these early '70s singer-songwriter snapshots!

"Evolving from samba's percussive pulse in the late 1950s, bossa nova (literal translation: new trend) was Brazil's internationally accepted gift to the global melting pot of music. Initially brought to prominence by the likes of Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and João Donato, by the mid-1960s, there was an emerging pool of youthful talent ready to make their voices heard. Marcos Valle and his lyricist brother Paulo Sergio were no exception. By the dawn of the 1970s, the multi-talented Valle was entering a new era, ready to test the government censors and express a socially aware stance and a playful hodge-podge of musical styles including samba, bossa nova, baião, black American music, and rock." - Light In The Attic

PUCHO & THE LATIN SOUL BROTHERS - Saffron and Soul/Shuckin' and Jivin'

A great jazzy Latin set from BGP comparable in many ways to the label's late 2011 reissue of Cal Tjader's Latin jazz outlier Agua Dulce, another staff favourite which received plenty of plays upon its release; where that record's highlight was a cover of "Gimme Shelter," this two-fer's standout (to these ears so far) is a smoothly discordant revoicing of "Reach Out, I'll Be There" fully deserving of a listen!

"Pucho and the band were not yet reflecting the music that was taking off in the Latin clubs of New York; they were a more staid outfit with one foot in the jazz past. This was emphasised by their second album, Saffron and Soul...[T]he material mixed originals with jazz standards and current pop hits such as the Four Tops' 'Reach Out, I’ll Be There.' The originals varied from the soul jazz grooves of 'What A Piece' to intense Latin numbers showing the power of the multi-layered percussion. For their follow-up Shuckin’ and Jivin', vocalist Jackie Soul joined the line-up, immediately taking the record into Latin soul territory." - BGP/Ace

VA - Diablos Del Ritmo: The Colombian Melting Pot 1960-1985

While it's unlikely that they've exhausted the funk mines of their namesake continent, Analog Africa has certainly hit paydirt in South America, as evidenced by this supremely groovy compilation of Columbian bangers.

"This is a fabulous album, chock-full of melds and clashes, flowerings and fruits, and more rhythmic grooves than a roomful of guacharacas. If you’ve no idea what Colombia can offer the musically jaded, then this is a timely tonic. Waft some of these cuts under the noses of the musically malnourished and this Afro-Colombian dose of smelling salts will have them on their feet and ready to dance till dawn.

But equally, this is one for the serious collector and connoisseur of Colombian music—or indeed any tropical music, whether from Africa or the Caribbean or anywhere between Cancer and Capricorn. Great notes, great music. This is another one that works both on your library shelf and on the dancefloor." - Worldmusic.co.uk

ALFONSO LOVO - La Gigantona

An incredible acetate find from those intrepid archivists at Numero, La Gigantona runs the gamut from frenzied desgargas to Spanish guitar, Afrobeat-ish horn charts, Echoplexed tape-delay dub-outs and stinging Santana-like leads, yet remains a stunningly coherent and cohesive listen.

"The son of a prominent Nicaraguan politician, Lovo was a choice target for the Sandinista rebels who hijacked his homeward flight from Miami in December of 1971, ultimately putting several rounds through the talented musician’s torso and hand. After several years, and as many surgeries, he would break new ground on this psychedelic swirl of Latin jazz and pan-American funk with his musical partner, percussionist Jose 'Chepito' Areas." - Numero Group

WILLIAM SHELLER - Lux Aeterna

This newly-unearthed Omni Recording Corp. reissue has been getting major store play here, and with good reason—imagine a David Axelrod/Serge Gainsbourg/Jean-Claude Vannier dream-team collaboration (one which presciently narrowly predates the latter two Frenchmen's collaborations, even!), replete with lysergic Catholic mass choir.

Including 11 bonus tracks focusing on Sheller's poppier (but still fairly freaky) 45s, this is the very first time this rarity has ever been widely available.

"Originally composed as a wedding gift in 1970, it's an oddly beautiful recording which combines a weirdly sinister melange of ritualistic choral chants, melancholic psychedelic orchestration, whirling electronic oscillations, meditative kosmiche groove and devout spoken word recitations. I can only think of a handful of records to compare it to, the nearest touchstones being the dark instrumental passages of Jean Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches or the mystical psychedelic liturgical paens of Majoie Hajary's La Passion Selon Judas, or maybe a few of the immersive orchestral reverberations found on Jason Havelock's Pop Symphony. As I said, comparisons are not easy. Whatever dark chemicals they were dumping in the Seine in the late 60's and early 70's to create such weirdly uncharted musical waters we can only guess." - A Sound Awareness

FRANCE GALL - Made in France: France Gall's Baby Pop

Cherry Red's RPM International offshoot continues its mission of introducing English-speaking listeners to the many delightful pop/rock confections the French cooked up in the '60s. This time out, France Gall benefits from this excellent collection of her charming and catchy girl group-styled songs, several of which were composed by the legendary Serge Gainsbourg.

"Incredibly, it's been 47 years since France Gall romped to victory at the Eurovision song contest in Naples with "Poupée de cire, poupée de son." Her winning song was, arguably, the first contemporary tune to win the contest and had been penned by no less than Serge Gainsbourg, Gallic pop's enfant terrible...Indeed, Gainsbourg would write many of Gall's hits—and a number of her most controversial tracks, including, most notably, "Les sucettes." This ode to the joys of sucking a lollipop was the very height of double-entendre, but it left the singer publicly humiliated when she discovered the song’s other meaning. It marked the beginning of the end of the relationship between the two of them. That's a shame, as this terrific compilation of their joint oeuvres—brought to us by those lovely people at RPM—amply demonstrates that, together, Gall and Gainsbourg were pop genius." - Ready Steady Girls!