Ray Charles
Modern Sounds In Country & Western Music

2021 re-issue, 180g vinyl, remastered audio from the original tapes.They Say: “Exploring the wide range of moods and sounds produced by percussion”. We say: MPCs at the ready because this does exactly what it says on the tin, to devastating effect. Oh, and the sleeve is stunning. Originally released in 1979, Percussion Spectrum was produced by the legendary percussionists Barry Morgan and Ray Cooper. With dope beats taking in diverse styles, from funk and soul and jazz through to Latin, Brazilian, samba and Afro-Cuban, this is an amazing sample source filled with killer drum-breaks and percussion flares. Unsurprisingly it’s one of the most sought-after records from the Themes catalogue. This library LP is a library in itself, with its mix of short themes of single beats & short breaks.

Kologo by AlostmenFormed by Stevo Atambire and produced by Wanlov (Fok’n Bois) and Percy Yip Tong, Alostmen’s music is based around the Frafra traditions of the kologo, a stringed lute, using traditional instrumentation in entirely new ways. “I like to force my instrument to work,” explains Stevo. “I’m a yout’man and into rap, reggae, Malian music. I add these to the band’s sound.”“I had toured with Stevo in my band Afro Gypsy in 2017,” Wanlov continues, “and we recorded the tracks for this album on the road in Uganda and North West Ghana in hotel rooms” The band comprises Stevo (kologo, vocals), Jo Ajusiwine (goje fiddle, vocals), Aminu Amadu (talking drum) and Sowah (gome box, djembe and conga) while featured guests include highlife legend Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Ghanaian stars Yaa Pono and Medikal.“We are Alostmen because we were lost in the street, the forgotten people,” explains Stevo. “People at home see music as a teaching so I always try give my community hope to achieve.”

Vuelo por las Alturas de Alhambra was originally published in 1988 on Discos Esplendor Geométrico and it is a hidden gem in the catalogue of this influential Spanish label. The album unfolds a series of subtle and mesmerizing compositions inspired by the legacy of Al-Andalus, the muslim Spanish civilisation. Both a polymath and erudite musician, Jabir decided to pay homage to the marriage of spirituality and science present in that bygone era. For that aim, he relied on a vast array of acoustic instruments (ney, violin, ud, bendir and daf), as well as on digital synthesizers and a complex system of computers able to generate aleatory melodies in Middle Eastern scales. Discos Transgénero is proud of making available again this extraordinary and highly sought masterpiece for the first time in more than three decades. The reissue has been carefully remastered from the original master tapes with the approval and supervision of his author and includes new liner notes and unreleased pictures. Vuelo por las Alturas de Alhambra is a recommended listening for those into the most narcotic side of Muslimgauze, the Dariush Dolat-Shahi's lps on Folkways, Jon Hassell's Fourth World explorations or even the recent work of contemporary Iranian experimentalists like Sote and Saba Alizadeh. Edition of 400 copies. Vinyl only. Pressed in Optimal Media (Berlin).

After NEF's album in 2019, Ici Bientôt is happy to present today the reissue of "Comme Au Moulin" by Nyssa Musique. Paris 1985... ‘Extra-European’ Traditions meet Jazz and Minimal Music. An unusual array of instruments turn music into a dialogue. For a unique record ... vivid, full of texture, somewhere between Midori Takada, Don Cherry and Jon Hassell.Beginning of the eighties, 5 musicians rehearse in a contemporary dance class hall, upstairs from the ‘’New Morning", renowned Music venue in Paris. Nyssa Musique is born. Passionate for a long time about traditional music, like those of the Middle East, India and East Asia, but also about African traditions, they throw a bridge between Jazz and ‘Extra-European’ traditions, resulting in what would be called "Spiritual Jazz" today, a little bit in the style of Don Cherry's Organic Music or Pharoah Sanders. With the notable difference, however, that their creations are strongly infused by contemporary classical and repetitive music, notably Steve Reich's work with whom they share a great interest for the traditional cultures of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and its gamelans.In the original group we have Armand Amar, Ballet Music composer and John Boswell. Both specialists of traditional hand percussion which they had been studying for a long time in India and the Middle East, they are also very fond of synthesizers. Three other talented musicians quickly join them: Jean-François Roger, percussionist, marimba and vibraphone specialist, Henri Tournier, multi-flutist and Renaud Garcia-Fons, double bass player, who has a passion for the Middle East and has developed a virtuosic play of the bow, reminding that of Cecil Mc Bee.Each of them enriches the ensemble with their personality, originality and musical generosity. The rehearsal hall is rapidly invaded by the phenomenal instrumentarium put together by Armand Amar. A great opportunity for the musicians, for the dancers, to have access to an endless choice of instruments, offering infinite possibilities for mixing different colors and timbres. Their sense for being a group and their great capacity for improvising culminates, in 1986, in the composition of their first and only album Comme au Moulin (« As by the windmill"), testimony of years of creating without hidden agenda.Authentic, free and vibrant, still today, this album has no real equivalent. Even though it recalls the Fourth World current by its combination of traditional instruments with a subtle use of synthesizers, Comme au moulin gives more space to improvisation. It may also recall those of Midori Takada, less the New Age esthetics. An album that should delight as well lovers of "Love Supreme" by John Coltrane, of "Vernal Equinox" by Jon Hassell, as those of Moondog, an artist who, like them, invented a music based on the use of untypical percussions, at the confluence of 'Extra-European' traditions, Jazz and Classical, all together complex and hypnotic.

CLP1214 - DE - 2019RP