Lucas Arruda
SOLAR

Not many cities in the world are gifted with a timeless anthem of their own. We all know “New York, New York”, a song widely known across its city borders. For many Vietnamese, the beautiful Cha Cha Cha tune “Sài Gòn” has a similar reputation. The tune was written by Hanoi-born composer Y-Van. Like many of his generation, he moved to the South in 1954 after The Geneva Accords partitioned Vietnam temporarily into two states. There he became one of the most famous and prolifc songwriters in South Vietnamese pop music. His revered songs are still sung and covered to this day. “Sài Gòn”, which he wrote in 1965, was recorded for the frst time by Saigonese-born singer Trúc Mai for the Sóng Nhạc label. It is one of his most iconic compositions and has been recorded countless times since. Trúc Mai rose to prominence during the late 1950s as a popular headliner in the cabaret circuit of Saigon, earning her the title, "Nữ Hoàng Mambo" (the Queen of the Mambo). Her reputation helped make the 1965 recording of “Sai Gon” an instant hit. It was so successful that it was one of only a few songs to appear on multiple 7” vinyl releases.However, that same year, Trúc Mai took a seven-year hiatus from the music industry to take care of her family. But she returned in 1972 to record “Sai Gon” again, this time with another producer, Duy Khánh – also a successful singer and musician. They released this track on his “reel 2 reel” tape series, “Cỏ May”. After the war ended in 1975, Trúc Mai and her family left Vietnam to begin their new lives in the United States, where she continued her successful music career with the overseas community.The Sài Gòn sung about in the song refers geographically to today's Districts 1 & 3 in Ho Chi Minh City, the name given in 1975, after reunifcation. But colloquially, the city is still afectionately called Sài Gòn by many of its residents, and even the airport retains the ‘SGN’ designation as its abbreviation. Despite being recorded over 55 years ago, the unbroken popularity of this life-afrming ode to the city is proven when, whether in Sài Gòn or Hanoi; the south or north; whether young or old, when the song plays, everyone immediately joins in to sing along to the chorus…Saigon đẹp lắm Saigon ơi! Saigon ơi! (Saigon is so beautiful! Saigon oi! Saigon oi!)The two extensively restored mixes are supplemented with a 2021 edit by Saigon Supersound producer and DJ Jan Hagenkötter, who tries to preserve the vibes of the original and at the same time to wrap it in a contemporary garment.

Ready for an adventure running parallel to their lives in common units, the quartet boarded a starship to set off on an astral expedition. The mission began perfectly, according to plan. From the very first measures, the travellers were released from the Earth's gravity. Very quickly, their home planet appeared tiny and distant, before disappearing completely. Comets and novae lit the way through the fathomless depths of interstellar space. Their preliminary, in-depth studies of seventies jazz-funk were a great source of inspiration. Very early on, they knew that this sonic esthetic would allow them to travel even farther, navigating only with organic instruments and no digital backing or enhancements.Commander Virgile Raffaëlli's bass lines guided their journey, offering a calm, yet vibrant foundation for the smoother phases and turning up the power to bring them through turbulence and meteor showers safe and sound. Like a compass, the bass indicated the direction and traced a groove that the loyal, valued crew could follow as their travels continued. Mathieu Edouard's drums solidly locked down the rhythm to avoid any sudden jolts, working in tandem with Erwan Loeffel's jet-propelled percussion. On the keyboards, Florian Pellissier drew harmonies and riffs from the synthesizers and electric pianos to oil the machinery and lighten the load when the ensemble needed to rise a few feet. The crew's almost telepathic cohesion was key to their success, allowing them to express interior emotions with just a few notes.Here is the last transmission we received:"We have landed on an unknown planet and are depressurizing the airlock with help from subtle horns and ethereal choruses so we can discover the new horizon. It definitely meets our expectations! The desert before us holds the promise of new life. The warm yet fresh air is easy to breathe. A vague psychedelic scent floats through the atmosphere, as if ready to spring from the first flower to bloom. Dreamlike, mysterious, enigmatic yet familiar, we will call it Aldorande."

La Maison Venturi & Bazaar Records proudly present the first 12inch EP of the French duo Cee-O-Funk.Expect deviant house with boogie/funk touch and bizarre/weird sexy things. "T'as le cul qui dit oui" ("You got the ass that says yes"), is a sexy groove carried by a heady and sharp bassline to pay homage to the moving bodies on the dancefloor and the little music of their buttocks when the whole stuff moves to the sound of the beat. "Sex with the beat" is a joyful ode to love in all its forms, whether it is libertine or tidy or whatever. We all love without limit with or without music, but with music it's still better. "Naked on the dancefloor" looks like a huge electronic blues, a postpartum blues, with the memory of someone on their lips, inseparable from this feeling that one can have in a trance on the dancefloor. "Rock with U" is a repetitive, unifying, loving hymn ... let's do things together, forever.

Favorite Recordings proudly presents an exclusive eponymous LP by Brazilian singer and composer George Sauma Jr., originally produced in 1985. Imagine a never-marketed release on which you’d hear not only the beautiful and genuine George’s songs but also the work from two figures of the Brazilian Music Golden Age: Arthur Verocai and Junior Mendes! A much-needed album for all Brazilian connoisseurs. Back in the days, George Sauma Jr. was a young artist from Rio de Janeiro, learning on his side how to play chords and compose songs since he was 10. Still at the university, he’s influenced by Brazilian artists like Cassiano or Tim Maia, deeply fascinated by the arrangements and the “levada” (the groove) of all these new Brazilian songs. Simple and romantic music that resonated to his soul and creativity.Around 1985, the story took an unexpected turn. George tells: “Dna Deyse Lucidy, the mother of Junior Mendes was a candidate for deputy and went to my father’s company to advertise. When I saw her, I shouted, “I’m a big fan of your son!” ” Of course, she could not praise more the work of her son. On her advises, George went to his studio on Rua Siqueria Campos at Copacabana. Junior loved the project and sent him to Arthur Verocai to improve the arrangements. Without money, the decision was taken to record everything at Junior Mendes’ studio on an 8-channel mixer. It was a small set-up but the emotions were there! George surely had other plans for some of his songs but without the budget, they ended up doing everything the best they could. And they did very fine with a top-notch team of musicians: Paulo Black on Drums, Arthur Verocai on Guitar, Ricardo Do Canto on Bass and Helvius Vilela on Keyboards.Leaving the studio with the tapes, George tried to knock doors of international labels, but none did even dare to give him an answer. With less than 1000 copies pressed back in the days and without any distributor or label behind him, he went with proud to record stores, but received nothing than a strong reality check regarding the difficulties for a young Brazilian artist to achieve something on the saturated market of the 80s. Even for free, record stores didn’t want it. In the end, he ended up giving copies to friends and families, knowing deep inside that the songs were good! George tells: “I decided to leave, calm and conscious. I’ve still made three more albums, however on tapes, as it was more affordable. This time, just for my pleasure…”. Thirty-five years after, it’s with great emotion that this first album by George Sauma Jr. is now made available as Vinyl LP with its original offset printed innersleeve & CD.

Our Swimmer is pleased to present the first official vinyl reissue of The Hilversum Session in over thirty years.Jazz iconoclast Albert Ayler took the experimental leanings of contemporaries like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman as a starting point and then blasted them to stratospheric extremes, creating some of the most polarizing and brilliant music of the 20th Century. In particular, 1964 was a pivotal – and well documented – year in the free jazz artist’s career. After returning to New York, Ayler assembled a brilliant group with Sunny Murray on drums and Gary Peacock on bass, recording Spiritual Unity, Ayler’s first record for the legendary ESP-Disk’ label, that summer.Soon after that session, Ayler took his trio to Europe where they were joined by cornetist Don Cherry for a tour of The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. The Hilversum Session is a live radio session recorded on November 9th, 1964. At that point the quartet was months into its European tour and the interplay is extraordinary. On classic Ayler compositions like “Spirits” and “Ghosts” the band absolutely rip, with a kind of intuition and connectivity rarely heard, creating some of the most untethered and undeniably powerful music in the history of free jazz.

Mr Day is also known as the singer of French combo Metropolitan Jazz Affair, the main singer in The Dynamics, for his House-Soul records released on indie label Rotax, as well as his superb guest vocals on productions by Boozoo Bajou, Patchworks and Mr President! "Small Fry" evokes classic soul music, from Curtis Mayfield to Motown, and from northern soul to west coast, without being a specific genre album. The musical style is vast and replete, but the composition and production manage to never fall prey to shortcuts or repetitiveness.