Modern British culture was shaped by three things – DJs, radio (especially pirate radio), and clubs. And record shops are the thread between all three. Sanjiv takes a break from his global tour of record shops for his upcoming book to sing their praises on their special day. Continue reading We Love Record Shop Day
From Nigeria, there’s the heavy, heavy sound of Afrobeat, delivered here by Seun Kuti, son of the incomparable Fela whose band Egypt 80 are now under the commanding leadership of Kuti Jr. If Afrobeat is a timeless music, so too is the soulful reggae of Toots & The Maytals. We’re delighted that the still-effusive ‘Toots’ Hibbert will be leading his charges through all those hits – Monkey Man, Funky Kingston, Pressure Drop, Do The Reggay… Continue reading WOMAD 2013 announces Seun Kuti and Toots & The Maytals to join the line-up
With remixes of ‘She Fish’ and ‘Right On Up (For Love)’, the Main Stem are big at Lip Service so it’s no surprise that after the Contortion Danse 12″ of a couple of months ago we get an album that finds thier Electric Church is having a post disco nu-house soft rock revival! Continue reading The Main Stem – Electric Church
For those of you in the Bay Area, you’ll know that the will know all about the Yerba Buena Discos team, if only from their huge 20th release by Homero Espinosa featuring Allegra Bandy – and now they are back with some equally fine soulful deep house to enjoy! Continue reading Homero Espinosa ft. Allegra Bandy – Then You Smiled
Following their highly acclaimed national tour and appearances at Glastonbury and on Later with Jools Holland, Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra return to play a London date at the Barbican. Continue reading Jerry Dammers’ Spatial A.K.A Orchestra – Barbican, 18 November 2011
Round up: despite a wobbly moment with the weather on Friday morning, the festival was flawless in every other way. Some great bands, clearly enjoying playing to audiences free to dance and enjoy the non-auditorium experience, strutted the various stages. My favourites were probably Alpha Blondy (I didn’t even know I liked his music that much before), Baaba Maal of course and Faiz Ali Faiz among the bigger names. The dynamo Nomfusi was a refreshing blast of energy and the reflexive Samuel Yirga caught my attention among the newer names.
It was great to see the festival so well organised. Almost no litter at all thanks to enterprising children getting money back on empty plastic glasses, the beautiful arboretum to wander through, great indian food and some damn fine coffee made it a real pleasure to be there.
Continue reading WOMAD 2011
Baaba Maal by Damian Rafferty
WOMAD this year features: Afrocubism , Alpha Blondy, Baaba Maal, Bellowhead, Dub Colossu, Ebo Taylor, Gogol Bordell0, Penguin Café, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Susheela Raman and Taraf de Haidouks Continue reading WOMAD – Charlton Park 28-31 July 2011
Pants is back! Our favourite former resident of Spokane has fled the nest and finds Clouds Over The Pacific in superb 4-track EP form.
Shawn Lee is a regular on FLY and his latest album opens the doors on his multi-national genre fusing World Of Funk – a “Music Master” indeed!
Continue reading Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra – World Of Funk
If you’re looking forward to seeing Marc Rapson at Scope this Friday, don’t forget to take a few bob with you just in case there’s a few copies left of his fantastic debut EP for sale: Dark Vs. Light.
Wow! Yes it really is veteran Jamaican dub expert at the controls of Tectonic’s dubstep compilation with cover by Tony McDermott and you can’t get much better than that.
Continue reading V/A – Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space
As you might guess from the recent Bilal appearance on the Gilles Peterson show, he’s a bit of a wildchild and people can call him “anything” not that his lastest album is finally out; revenge is sweet?
DJHistory.com’s Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster (co-authors of esteemed dance bible ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ and the soon to be released ‘The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries’), the duo have gathered together some of their favourite DJs and asked/persuaded/threatened them to divulge their own secret DJ weapons – bomb away!
So like the proverbial London Bus scenario, here comes No. 3 in the Bustin’ Out series of compilations dedicated to the post-punk, new wave and new beat scenes.
Continue reading V/A – Bustin’ Out 1983: New Wave To New Beat Vol. 3
