Paul Dupont And His Orchestra
Tapestry

Ra To The Rescue by Sun Ra

Perhaps the best Soul / Funk LP Athens of the North has ever released and you know we have high standards, not one filler and mostly unreleased tracks – Essential LP.

Now Here by FRED SIMON

Fågelbörs - Marjassa by Ultraääni RecordsIn February 2020, just in time before the outbreak of the ongoing pandemic, four avant-garde jazz/free improvisation enthusiasts got together to play and hang out. The place for their meeting, a cosy studio (Odd Funk Records) in a small town in Southern Finland, has during the past ten years received a certain reputation - that of analogically recorded and mixed raw funk, afrobeat and a bit more twisted jazz.These four pals, now known as Fågelbörs - drummer Jaakko Tolvi, the bassist Tero Kemppainen, saxophonist Matti Luokkanen and trumpeter Tuure Tammi – represent what could be called third wave of improvisatory music in Finland, Tolvi and Kemppainen being among the starting members of this wave in early 2000s.Part 1 of the Marjassa LP is reminiscent to 60s avant-garde movements both soundwise and musically. It builds on the bubbling of the drums and bass and the solo exchanges between sax and trumpet, reminding of some of Ornette Coleman/Don Cherry stuff (or perhaps Noah Howard/Ric Colbeck). On the flip side we find a slowly moving atmosphere that builds towards a surprise in the end, a combination that might have structural reminiscence with Art Ensemble of Chicago live concerts. May the cheerful whistle stay with you dear friend...

Eros’ Go For It is a fearlessly original take on Paradise Garage disco, mixed in a way that feels equally Mad Professor and Walter Gibbons. The story of Eros begins in a high school in Vauxhall, New Jersey in the mid 70s when four kids began a friendship based around their mutual love of soul, funk, rock, disco, and bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and Funkadelic. Assanouan G’Bado, Fletcher Gaines, Bobby Jones and Mike Freeman started off jamming after school, playing occasional gigs in New York and honing in on an original sound. When the group graduated, Assanouan and Bobby went off to the service and Fletcher went to university. Eros reunited in the late 70’s and began taking things more seriously, producing a set of songs with the intention of getting a deal with Motown. The morning after recording a full album’s worth of material, the group flew to Detroit hoping to sign a record deal. The legendary label was interested in the songs, but made them an offer that didn’t feel right for the group. The songs were shelved and Fletcher and Bobby moved on to new ventures. Mike and Assanouan pursued a self-released single on their own DAP records, reinterpreting two of their Motown demos with drum machines and overdubs to fill in for their two missing bandmates. Go For It was their individual take on disco, and the new 1985 remake took the AOR-oriented demo version, and transformed it into a transcendent dance floor illusion, that, in an alternate universe, would have turned dancers at the Paradise Garage upside down. Similar to Stephen Encinas’ un-classic, the song mutates deftly at the half-way point, opening up into a stripped-down and dubbed-out denouement, adorned in cascading electronics and the soaring vocals of Barbara Green. Go For It is the first of two releases from Eros on Mixed Signals, and pairs the group’s expanded electronic remake with the original Motown version, rescued from the last surviving demo cassette. Stay tuned for the unreleased demo album Motown missed out on, slated to come out later this year.