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Favorite Recordings proudly presents Natureza, first album of Joao Selva. The story of Natureza is made of the meeting between two passionate artists who are Jonathan "Matuto" Da Silva and Bruno "Patchworks" Hovart.Born and raised in Ipanema and son of a pastor, Jonathan Da Silva grew up in a community of ex-prisoners and converted artists. He made his first guitar notes before his 10th birthday, under the watchful eye of Wanda Sa (muse of the bossa nova), and influenced by a father who in addition to his work, was also a true music lover with a collection, where black music, rock and classical meet. From the age of 18, Jonathan began a life of entertainer, traveling the world to offer shows for disadvantaged children and intensively practicing the Brazilian traditional music arts (Capoeira Angola, Maracatu, Samba de Roda, Coco de Roda...). It was later in France and in Lyon that he put down his instruments. There he formed the trio Forro de Rebeca in 2008, touring the all country and winning many praise in media. The trio recently joined forces with American producer Maga Bo on the project Sociedade Recreativa, whose album was released in 2016 on The Jarring Effects label.Bruno Hovart is a recognized producer, multi-instrumentalist, and remixer. After passing through Angers, Birmingham and London, he’s based in Lyon since 2001. Bassist and guitarist for various bands, he switched to production in the mid-90s. Passionate about music and tireless creator, Bruno has practiced in almost every imaginable style, when it comes to groove music, collecting many aliases and projects for more than 10 years: Patchworks, Voilaaa, Uptown Funk Empire, Mr President, Taggy Matcher, Mr. Day, Hawa, John Milk, Lightnin 3, The Dynamics or Metropolitan Jazz Affair ... Nothing resists and escapes his talent and production skills. Thus, when he discovered and met Jonathan and his music, Bruno saw an immediate opportunity to broaden the spectrum of his discography a little more, by looking at Brazil.Beyond its traditional heritage, Brazil has always been a land of extremely varied music, influenced by the international scene. Soul, Jazz and American Pop did inspire many local stars such as Chico Buarque, Carlos Jobim, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, or Erasmo Carlos. Both fervent lovers of this movement and these names, it’s with the idea to pay them a faithful tribute, that Jonathan and Bruno began the Joao Selva adventure. Together they gave birth to Natureza and embark us for a trip into the heart of the Tropicalist Pop influences of Jorge Ben and Caetano Veloso, the intoxicating Funk of Tim Maia, and the social poetry of Vinicius de Moraes.

The music on this compilation was, for the most part, originally released privately in Geneva in 1988; the Mega Wave Orchestra, the brain-child of musician, mathematician and composer Christian Oestreicher, was conceived as an multi-media electronic music orchestra. The Orchestra created a new hybrid music. It was a music with roots in the jazz and classical traditions, but one which also drew on the sonic freedom of musique concrete and the kind of total experience offered by psychedelia. The diverse backgrounds and specialisms of each of the band members/writers resulted in a wide variety of music: from austere drones and granular aural detail to warm oddball fusion and gorgeous but cracked vocal jazz. But it was Oestreicher’s presence, at both the start and end of the process, that provided a sure conceptual framework and a comprehensive sound world. There are useful contemporary comparisons to be made: zoned synth jazz like the Azimuth LP on ECM or Karin Krog’s Freestyle; Larry Heard’s sequencer dreamtime; the Valium minimalism of Pep Llopis or Jun Fukamaki; Dexter Wansel’s shimmering arrangements for Loose Ends, or even the FM sheen meets cold war threat of Donald Fagen’s Night Fly. Here, too, is the sound of music technology about to snowball and define its own aesthetic, unknowingly prefiguring auteurish bedroom producers like Black Dog or The Detroit Escalator Company.The heart of this music’s appeal lies in Oestreicher’s complex intentions and methodologies. He revels in occupying the unsteady ground between analogue and digital, pushing his players to robotic precision while opportunistically grabbing on to the unpredictable results of computer error. He harks back to communal rigour of big band or orchestra structures, while understanding beautifully that the sounds of the future will not be synthesised imitations of existing instruments but something entirely other. He seizes on the value of resituating or recombining the sounds given to him by his bandmates, twisting them out of shape to create vivid new worlds for the listener to occupy. As a mathematician, he approaches the problem of group music making with a seriousness that results in beauty as a matter of course.

After an album made out of hip-hop extrapolations of their atypical music (Got To Get Down released in September 2016, featuring the creme of NYC MC’s Emskee (The Good People), Audessey & Oxygen (Soundsci)), the Afro Latin Vintage Orchestra returns with another hip-hop colored LP, IMPACT, featuring Paris based Chicago MC Racecar. These two parties have had the opportunity for a clever joint venture, wisely stirred during both live and studio sessions. A furiously efficient mashup of their respective talents, combining the characteristic crazed orchestration and composition skills of the ALVO, to the survitaminated flow and writing of one of the most prolific MCs on the French territory.After the success of this oldschool oriented hip-hop album, the ALVO locked up itself during months in the studio with Racecar to compose a successor to the thunderous Got To Get Down, but also to the hovering Pulsion (compared to Miles Davis’ On The Corner by Wax Poetics) released in 2015 on Ubiquity.A more orchestral approach, on which the MC takes the same furious train as the ALVO musicians, all led by the Masta Conga locomotive, once again with strength and determination but also and still with this obsession for details that characterizes the Parisian band since its beginnings in 2007. More modern tunes, but more obscure as well, such as “Schizo” opening the album on a sharp flow and a dark, stellar, music that sets the tone: the combination in between ALVO and Racecar is naturally attacking, contagious and uninhibited.Tunes “Impact” and “The Jam” further rely on the fundamentals of funk music, which are not more an issue to the shrill flow of the Chicago MC, much at ease on jazz or fusion beats. Then everything erupts with “Let’s Move” and “One To One”, on which ALVO’s craziness contaminates Racecar’s flow and reciprocally, in a furious osmosis, which results in an atypical and spontaneous jazz and hip-hop fusion.

Rare and in High demand Afro digital Soul EP, recorded in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in 1981.Originally from Martinique, Clem Marise Voltine aka Mac Gregor moved to Abidjan in 1979 searching for, what she called, her “negritude quest”. She sang about her love for her adoptive city until her death in April 2004 at CHU of Abidjan, Trechville Hospital.A visionary composer, poet and singer, mixing Creole, French and Nouchi, she made a brilliant musical bridge between the West-Indies and Ivory Coast, backed by a soulful group of top Ivorian musicians such as the great Houon Pierre.This unique and must have record is a pure dancefloor killer and will definitely be the next Afro Tropical Hit of the next decade!Fully Licensed in Abidjan, remastered at Carvery Studio on a 12inch vinyl (45 RPM).