Vaudou Game
Otodi

Magic Source is a project led by producer Björn Wagner (The Mighty Mocambos, Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, Mocambo Records), who is renowned for creating an authentic and hard-hitting raw funk sound. Following a few acclaimed single releases on Favorite Recordings over the past few years, the French label deeply wanted to collaborate further with the German combo, for a special and exclusive project bringing their music on new paths. This new project is a step towards a new style: Analog-Electronica, or so called Cosmic-Disco sound.Recorded on a 16-track reel-to-reel tape, EARTHRISING combines raw unedited live band recording, with the refined production aesthetics of the Disco era, including the use of vintage synthesizers, group chants and processed acoustic percussions, for an organic club feeling. While maintaining an un-edited, but highly hypnotic four-on-the-floor groove, Magic Source leaves the old beaten track of cheesy Disco-Pop and overheard Dance classics.The music is an unusual and surprisingly coherent mixture: Earthrising unites rootsy Afro elements (such as almost tribal chants, percussions and a funky rhythm section), with sci-fi score soundscapes (such as ethereal synthesizers, Theremin and space echo and miniature instruments) to an irresistibly grooving beat extravaganza."Cosmic music" was known exclusively in the region of north Italy, Austria, and southern Bavaria until recent. Originally an eclectic DJ mixing style that evolved in the late 70s, it combined Disco, Ethno groove fragments, Electro, Afrobeat, Dub, Italo, Funk and Exotica weirdness to a trancy and danceable turntable symphony.Magic Source creates its very own all-live version of Cosmic. Though you will rarely hear anything similar from any other band, there's hardly an eclectic style that sounds more natural than the wonderful that is Earthrising.

Dance The Devil Away, the new album from The Natural Yogurt Band is a collection of 10 psychedelic, esoteric and cartoony library tracks, carried by Tom Dempsey’s heavy drum play. We find again that raw yet distinguished sound, proper to the Nottingham-based composer, with screeching organs, threatening grooves enlightened by the transverse flute, and loud drum breaks that navigate inside the stereo like a ghost haunting this record.

Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, proudly presents Disco Reggae Vol. 4, following three precedent acclaimed editions. Imagine the biggest classics from Roy Ayers, Chemise, Lyn Christopher, Gerswhin, A Taste Of Honey, Keni Burke, Patrice Rushen or Kraftwerk reworked and re-arranged as Reggae & Dub killer tunes. Dream no more, the best producers from the Stix roster cooked some magic over these essential tunes: Soul Sugar aka Booker Gee, Taggy Matcher, Blundetto, Mato, Rosemary Martins and Wolfgang signed here the perfect soundtrack to extend the summer and rock the dancefloors! Massive!

After NEF's album in 2019, Ici Bientôt is happy to present today the reissue of "Comme Au Moulin" by Nyssa Musique. Paris 1985... ‘Extra-European’ Traditions meet Jazz and Minimal Music. An unusual array of instruments turn music into a dialogue. For a unique record ... vivid, full of texture, somewhere between Midori Takada, Don Cherry and Jon Hassell.Beginning of the eighties, 5 musicians rehearse in a contemporary dance class hall, upstairs from the ‘’New Morning", renowned Music venue in Paris. Nyssa Musique is born. Passionate for a long time about traditional music, like those of the Middle East, India and East Asia, but also about African traditions, they throw a bridge between Jazz and ‘Extra-European’ traditions, resulting in what would be called "Spiritual Jazz" today, a little bit in the style of Don Cherry's Organic Music or Pharoah Sanders. With the notable difference, however, that their creations are strongly infused by contemporary classical and repetitive music, notably Steve Reich's work with whom they share a great interest for the traditional cultures of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and its gamelans.In the original group we have Armand Amar, Ballet Music composer and John Boswell. Both specialists of traditional hand percussion which they had been studying for a long time in India and the Middle East, they are also very fond of synthesizers. Three other talented musicians quickly join them: Jean-François Roger, percussionist, marimba and vibraphone specialist, Henri Tournier, multi-flutist and Renaud Garcia-Fons, double bass player, who has a passion for the Middle East and has developed a virtuosic play of the bow, reminding that of Cecil Mc Bee.Each of them enriches the ensemble with their personality, originality and musical generosity. The rehearsal hall is rapidly invaded by the phenomenal instrumentarium put together by Armand Amar. A great opportunity for the musicians, for the dancers, to have access to an endless choice of instruments, offering infinite possibilities for mixing different colors and timbres. Their sense for being a group and their great capacity for improvising culminates, in 1986, in the composition of their first and only album Comme au Moulin (« As by the windmill"), testimony of years of creating without hidden agenda.Authentic, free and vibrant, still today, this album has no real equivalent. Even though it recalls the Fourth World current by its combination of traditional instruments with a subtle use of synthesizers, Comme au moulin gives more space to improvisation. It may also recall those of Midori Takada, less the New Age esthetics. An album that should delight as well lovers of "Love Supreme" by John Coltrane, of "Vernal Equinox" by Jon Hassell, as those of Moondog, an artist who, like them, invented a music based on the use of untypical percussions, at the confluence of 'Extra-European' traditions, Jazz and Classical, all together complex and hypnotic.

Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds, is a compilation that brings together nine of the most important and obscure hits of the Brazilian Funk-Boogie-Disco scene during the years of 1978 to 1982. Jùnior Santos is a Carioca drummer since his 15 years old, and is today a respected vinyl collector and music researcher. More than anything, he is carried on by the love of Brazilian music, which has never been forgotten.Favorite Recordings initiative of seeking a unique project with Brazilian music carried Jùnior on to dig into old record companies’ files and bring out pearls from what he sees as the end of the Samba-Rock period. At that time musicians and arrangers such as Lincoln Olivetti, Robson Jorge, and Oberdan Magalhães along with Banda Black Rio, were responsible for the new music scene. They had dominated the studios with sophisticated and original arrangements that have forever transformed Brazilian musical perspective. This music, at that point, had gained a new style and great world respect that has remained till the contemporary times. Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds pays tribute to this great era, coming out in a deluxe vinyl edition with old-school tip-on jacket and innersleeve including notes and original artworks.

Hot Casa Records present Togo Soul 70 (Selected Rare Togolese Recordings from 1971 to 1981). A treasure-trove of rare and unusual recordings mostly recorded in Lomé during the 70’s, a fusion of traditional voodoo chants, raw soul and Afro jazz. Finding these tracks and their rights holders hasn’t become any easier even after few trips all over this west African country bordered by Ghana, Benin & Burkina Faso.We, at Hot Casa Records, decided to select 13 tracks, a snapshot of some hundreds of rare and often forgotten tapes from the most prolific, professional and exciting phase of the country’s recording history, including international stars like Bella Bellow (who even performed to Maracana stadium in Brazil), or Roger Damawuzan, compared as the James Brown from Lomé, and forgotten tapes and brilliant songs in Mina, Kabyié and Fon languages. Many of the tracks featured here are peppered with innovation and experimentation highlighting how diverse the music scene in Togo was at the time, even if the political context influenced their creation.A must have for all music lovers, also used as the soundtrack of the documentary Togo Soul 70, directed by Liz Gomis & DJ Julien Lebrun!