Shoukichi Kina
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Afro-Finnish band Maajo return with their third album, "Water of Life," a fluid celebration of various influences. Supported by two preceding singles, "Better Days" and "Unelmissani," the album is the group's first release with the Brooklyn, NY-based tastemaker label Wonderwheel Recordings. Maajo's signature Afro-Balearic sound meets late eighties new age and fusion, with touches of modern soul. The addition of two band members, Waina and Gilbert K, as well as featuring artists Issiaka Dembele and Ismaila Sané, has rooted the album's stories in a diverse range of backgrounds, featuring vocals in no less than six different languages."Water of Life" is out on Wonderwheel Recordings October 14th, 2022, both digitally and as an exclusive, limited-run 2xLP.

In 1985 a wondrous album titled Hemp Is Here was created by the obscure English duo Leven Signs, composed of Pete Karkut and Maggie Turner. Since then, Hemp Is Here has proven to be a visionary recording that holds a special place in the ongoing expansion of experimental music. Through the method of tape collage, an unclassifiable recording was created that consisted of post-punk and avant-pop sounds, tribal rhythms and dub and folklore elements. The result was an unpretentious yet sonically sophisticated endeavour that subconsciously evoked the twentieth-century avant-gardist and minimalist music traditions. While maintaining a distinctly original sound, their output still contributed to local explorations and remained somewhat in line with other genre-dissolving bands from eighties England like Rimarimba, This Heat, Woo, 23 Skidoo or Eric Random and The Bedlamites.

Old friends John Cravache and I:Cube teamed up to release Chimère Fm’s debut album on Versatile records.Endless improvised studio sessions seamlessly blending electronic synthesis and post dada cinematics.Dreamy synth funk rubs against pagan rhythms and minimalist electronic drones.This album will take you to soundwave paradise. Chimère Fm is an imaginary radio station broadcasting its stellar weirdness live from Paris !

Black So Man. For Black Is Also Man. Tout Le Monde Et Personne. He blames ‘Everybody and No one’.Clealry, Bingotoma Traore was not trying to get rich, or entertain: he wanted to change the world. And all it took to get there was four cassettes, all recorded between 1994 et 1998. In that time he went from extreme poverty, sellings eggs in the streets and killing pigs at the factory, to being the biggest pop star in his native country, Burkina Faso, and a legend all over Western Africa.Corruption, ill governance, education, colonisation… All his songs were history and philosophical lessons for the ghetto youths, the unemployed, and the many people who could identify themselves with him.He died 20 years ago, mortally wounded after going through a car crash. Today, his videos still ranks millions of views on social network. No one has forgotten him. And his fight is more relevant than ever.Rest In Power Black So Man (1967-2002). Thank you to his son Ange Fela Traore and his ex-wife Adji Sanon (to whom he dedicated the song ‘Adji’ included here) for their trust in us leading this reissue project. Half of the profits from the record goes to them.

Freestyle Records reissue a DIY 7" from 1980 by short-lived all-female group Spoilsports. Existing at the intersection of post-punk, jazz-rock and modern soul - these two political yet playful numbers were laid down by a band formed from a range of players active in London's feminist and improvised music scenes at the time, and represent the groups only recordings.