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Roland Brival
Créole Gypsy
Soundway
‘Musician, poet and painter Roland Brival’s 1980 album is a lost classic of Caribbean spiritual jazz. Recorded with a group of Martinique’s top musicians, and combining the bèlè percussion traditions of the island with free flowing saxophone, rhodes flourishes and languorous bass, the album was rejected by Roland’s label of the time, and was ultimately self released in miniscule quantities to a small local audience. Themes of créole identity and colonial injustice combined with universal ideas of love and longing sung in Créole, English and French sound like an Antillean answer to Gary Bartz and Jon Lucien, underpinned with the insistent rhythms of the ti bois percussion. Long unheralded in the English-speaking world, Créole Gypsy is a key piece of the jigsaw of Caribbean music.’
Moody, experimental, Ghanaian Afro-Rock — recorded by these teenagers in 1973 for EMI Nigeria, after a run at Fela’s Shrine.
Grooving Ghanaian boogie from the wizz keyboardist.
Kikuyu ‘liquid soul’, Luo benga with its rat-tat-tat beat and layered guitars, Swahili afrobeat, Congolese rumba, plus influences from SA and Zambia, disco and funk, coastal rhythms like chakacha. Mostly from 45s.
Engaged and spiritual Yoruban blues-rock from Joni Haastrup’s band in 1974.
Headlong, monster guagancos, descargas and cumbias, with pumping electric bass, Joe Arroyo at the mic, badarse metal percussion, tumbadora and timbales, trumpets, guitar, piano, Michi’s sax and clarinet. Rough!
The second album by the Ghanaian superstars, from 1974, for a change mixing their hit-making high-life with traditional rhythms and folk touches, and a little funk and afrobeat.
Fresh homage to Pharoah, Alice, Ra, and co, from an all-star Kiwi line-up.
‘Each instrument seems to be in orbit around the concept of symbiotic synergy, and everyone is given equal space to shine: from a psychedelic Korg, to a delirious saxophone or the gentle ripples of a harp. There’s a huge array of keyboards, with a standout acoustic piano solo by Guy Harrison on Plume. The wind section delivers ecstatic saxophone riffs, futtering flutes and solid horn choruses throughout. Percussion, vibraphone and acoustic bass lay the foundations. A full choir performs arrangements by Matt Hunter.’
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