Bill Laswell’s mix of Army Arrangement for the Celluloid label was an act of gross cultural-arrogance. With Fela in jail on trumped up currency-smuggling charges when the time came to make the final mix, the label approached Dennis Bovell . But Bovell was unavailable and so Celluloid house producer Bill Laswell was drafted in. Laswell was contemptuous of the album. In an interview with Musician magazine, he was quoted as saying: “All of Fela’s horn solos were abysmal (and) were erased…We mixed the LP in five minutes, as a favor…You can talk about Africa and fucking politics for days, but the fact is that keyboard player Bernie Worrell and drummer Sly Dunbar, drafted in by Laswell are high-grade musicians and Fela’s in jail.” Friends smuggled a cassette of Laswell’s version inside to Fela. Listening to it, he said later, was “worse than being in prison.”. This is not Bill Laswell’s version
“Here comes the beat of the broken street… ‘Fireraisers’ as in those with flames in veins – had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and [...]
NEW LP Limited Reissue Double LP Singles collection from Joy Division. An Ideal For Living: Warsaw Leaders Of Men Failures A Factory Sample: Digital Glass Earcom 2: Autosuggestion From Safety To [...]
After gate-crashing the Britpop party in 1996 with The First Big Weekend , Arab Strap went on to produce eight albums (six of them on Chemikal Underground) over a period of 10 years. Reflecting [...]
Even in this age of near-total Internet accessibility, Charlie Megira is a modern mystery. A casual search turns up little aside from a few cryptic articles. His brief career unfolded during a [...]
After multiple lauded album-length cassettes, ‘Adaptive Emotional Use’ is the first true album from Toronto-based Death Kneel. Several years in development, ‘Adaptive Emotional Use’ is a [...]
London Records present a reissue of Happy Mondays’… Yes Please!, originally released in 1992. The last Happy Mondays album on Factory Records – reaching no. 14 in the UK chart. [...]
Seoul based DJ Duo Ping and Pong (Dydsu + DJ yesyes), started annual B2B recording from 2016. always very tripping experience through the all the music around the world (from noise to asian [...]
2014 repress. One of King Tubby’s finest works, originally released in 1974. Recorded at Tubby’s famous 18 Drummly Ave. studio in Kingston during dub’s early development period.
Master Musicians Of Jajouka Feat. Bachir Attar – The Apocalypse Across The Sky
2020 restock. Zehra present a reissue of Apocalypse Across The Sky by The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar, originally released in 1992. Available on vinyl for the very first [...]
Experimentation in early electronic music in the Sahara from the singular Mamman Sani. Dreamy organs and droning melodies reinterpret ancient folk tradition into sublime fantastical soundscape. [...]
Finally the re-issue of the classic from 1981 as LP-vinyl, the album which have been out of print for over five years now and got a new lacquer cut by Kevin Metcalfe at Soundmasters. Produced by [...]
Nahawa Doumbia-La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3
“Na Hawa Doumbia’s La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3 is the first release for Awesome Tapes From Africa, a blog and DJ project known worldwide for shedding light on obscure and [...]