Lonnie Smith
Afro-Desia

Vecchio's Afro-Rock is one big horn-heavy, bass-blasting, Latin groove funk-rock party. Only now, you're all invited because this, ladies and gentleman, is officially...a grail no more. With copies currently starting at 400 Euros for an original, this beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with Music De Wolfe, is well overdue. A magnificent and somewhat obscure library set that's just a total, cohesive joy from start to finish, this here is the soundtrack to all your smokin' summer BBQs and communal cookouts.Afro-Rock is the debut album by Argentine keyboardist Luis Vecchio. Recorded for the sound library label De Wolfe, the album is frequently mentioned in hushed reverence among the beat digger DJ collecting crowd. It features fiery brass charts, funky bass lines, fluttering flute, choppy organ and additional hand tribal percussion. The band let loose too and jam hard; yet there's a certain thread of solidity that runs throughout, the tracks just belong together, not disparate sound and rhythm experiments like some library records; this is just straight up, no messin', consistent funk-rock FIRE! Hips will sway, heads will nod to the steady vibes. It's insanely good.

A deluxe, embossed 2 LP box set. Alongside a remastered version of PHAROAH, his seminal record from 1977, are two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece, “Harvest Time." Includes a 24-page booklet with rarely seen photographs and ephemera, as well as interviews with many of the participants and a conversation with Pharoah himself.

The word Asapani is part of the artistic vocabulary of Paolo "Batà" Bianconcini, percussionist of the La Scimmia Records collective, founding member of the Circolo Psiconautico and part of the Neapolitan bands Parbleu, Funkin' Machine and Nu Genea. This ancient-sounding term is a creation of the artist, who defines it as a word of nature, but also the (italian) acronym of Listen to the Silence, Listen to the Peace, Listen to the Inner Nothingness. More than a simple term, an exhortation.The music contained in Asapani was written and produced between 2022 and part of 2023 by Paolo “Batà” Bianconcini who together with the Circolo Psiconautico (Paolo Petrella on bass and synth, Pietro Santangelo on wind instruments and Roberto Porzio on synths) and takes shape from observation of time and the infinite possibility we have of blocking its fragments and making them our own and then sharing them in another form. The intent is to transport the listener outside of himself, through sound vibrations, during the span of four long tracks that melt into each other feeling like one singular body of work.This album spans several genres, but at the same time is unique in its style. Spiritual jazz blended with primitive settings, achieving a sensation of sonic primitivism. The listener is projected into a circle of musicians who, sitting around a fireplace, are transported towards infinity by their internal vibrations.The research starts from the four elements of nature (water, fire, earth and air) and thus uniting and fusing with each other they make us question our existence, our depths.As Batà himself explains, starting from the four fundamental elements in order to keep the search for the fifth element constant.A location, Melizzano, on the western slopes of Monte Taburno, where the Batahaus stands, the physical and spiritual home of Batà, a magical place in which the Circolo Psiconautico meets, with the aim of navigating the waves of the unconscious and composing music which, through contamination and experimentation, captures the moods of the moment and projects images and colours from the inside out that speak to everyone. Like a real club, the Psiconauti come together to give each other the chance to explore together, create suggestions and get excited among friends.

Contemporary Sudanese music draws a lot of influences both from Arabic musical as well as subsaharan traditions. “[...]It is rooted in the madeeh (praising the Prophet Mohamed in song). The genre filled out into something quite irreverent in the 1930s and 1940s when haqiba music, the madeeh 's secular successor, caught on. Haqiba, a predominantly vocal art in which the musicians accompanying the lead singer use few instruments, spread like wildfire in the urban centres of Sudan. It was the music of weddings, family gatherings and wild impromptu parties.Haqiba drew inspiration from indigenous Sudanese and other African musical traditions in which backing singers clapped along rhythmically and the audience joined in both song and dance. The lead singer's incantations induced a trance-like experience in which spectators swayed along to the rhythm of the beat“ as Gamal Nkrumah wrote in a 2004 article Al Ahram Weekly newspaper. One of the first singers we at Habibi Funk came across some years ago and who struck a chord with us was Sharhabil Ahmed. Sharhabil was born in 1935 and he is the founding father of the Sudanese Jazz scene.

The music of Soul Supreme moves, grooves, throbs, and hits more than ever before. But the colorful sonic palette of Poetic Justice actually sprouted from a dark place: an ongoing battle with an independent label to reclaim his master rights—even today, "Industry Rule #4080" is still in full effect.So copping this record doesn't only support his cause—it's also well worth it for the listener. Poetic Justice features Soul Supreme's biggest line-up of guest musicians to date: including drummer J-Zone, bass player Glenn Gaddum Jr., Gallowstreet's Jeroen Verberne, and Radiohop's Johnny Biner and Euan Jenkins. With Soul Supreme himself on his trusted set-up and a newly added Clavinet, his melting pot of jazz-funk, hip-hop grooves, soulful cuts, and library funk sounds richer than ever before."I have decided to create a positive outlet for what is a very negative event in my life," he writes in the announcement of Poetic Justice. "I wrote music that reflected how I feel going through this process. No matter what the legal battle results in—I know I have made something beautiful and honest from this terrible experience. At least for myself but hopefully for others to enjoy it as well."Rest assured, Poetic Justice is a record to fully enjoy; from the first heartfelt notes on "Intro (Pullin' Back The Curtain)" to the last thumping drum hits of "I Rest My Case."

NUOVA NAPOLI is the result of a long musical research that has become a historical investigation on the sound that shaped Napoli during the ‘70s and ‘80s, starting from the contamination of genres (disco, jazz-funk, African rhythms) which ended up in Nu Genea’s DNA.In this album the synthesizers fill the spaces between the past and the future, tightening in a single body acoustic instruments, electronics and voices in Neapolitan dialect. It is the first time that the duo has worked with such a large group of musicians, some of whom are exponents of the contemporary Neapolitan scene.