DJ Cam
Westside 2004-2007

Véronique Sanson is one of the most famous French pop oriented female singer, songwriter, and composer of the 80s. She began her career in the 70s, and was the girlfriend of genius composer Michel Berger. Her world turnt upside down when she met Stephen Stills of Crossby Stills & Nash. One Day, during a recording session in Paris, she left the studio pretending to go buy cigarettes, but never came back... She flew overnight to the USA, where she married Stephen Stills. In LA, she records new music with superstar composers such as Ray Parker JR and Harvey Mason. "Bernard's Song", produced in 1976, was the first single of the double gold album Hollywood.Funky French League is an intergenerational collective (based in Paris) formed by Young Pulse (Gamm) , Dabeull (Roche Musique), Arthur Chaps, Woody Braun (Malka Family), Mr Willy, DJ Asko et Uncle T (Groove Deluxe). All coming from different universe from hip-hop, to electronic music, but united by their love for the groove and the funk.

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.

On this new opus, the music of Tribeqa is tinted with new Experiments. The balafon and the acoustic guitar are next to the turntables and the electronic loops of the remixers PARRAD (ATOM from C2C), SCRATCH BANDITS CREW (Chinese Man Records), SORG (new selection of Printemps de Bourges), BLANKA (La Fine Equipe), LAWKYZ, DAWATILE, STRAYBIRD and more… offering a new sensory journey, a powerful, modern and innovative groove that does not turn its back on traditions. This album of remixes is a special edition planned for the Disquaire Day, a vibrant homage of the electronic hip-hop scene to this UFO group that bears the colors of the experiment and is already considered cult by some.

An ode to the music of Zimbabwe past and future, representing the country’s two major cities - Bulawayo and Harare. The Bulawayo side sees longtime township legends Bulawayo Kwela meet UK producer Danalogue (The Comet is Coming). Reverb-drenched drums and snatches of Penny whistle back the words of the poet Albert Nyathi for a leagues-deep dub conference. “Nomalenga” stays true to the Township Kwela style that the group has been playing for over 30 years. The Harare side sees David Tapfuma (longtime collaborator with Stella Chiweshe) deliver an ode to the ghettoes of the capital, accompanied by a solo mbira. Cape Town’s ESA delivers a subtle treatment of the original, drifting the mbira hook into 3am dancefloor territory on a cloud of synths…

Transversales Disques is very glad to announce the release of Nuits Blanches au Studio 116, unreleased rarities from Ariel Kalma’s personal archives recorded in the legendary GRM’s Studio 116 during the 70’s. Born and raised in Paris, Ariel Kalma started playing the recorder and saxophone as a youth. After successive studies of Computer Science, Music and Art in Paris he performed in various concerts from middle-age music to free jazz duo. Ariel performed and recorded with several bands (J. Higelin, R. Pinhas, NYL, G. Scornic, Baden Powell…). After learning circular breathing on soprano sax, Ariel could include those endless notes into his own long-delay-effect system, dual Revox set-up and two tape machines “chained” together to form a long delay system.In France during the mid-1970s, Kalma was staffed as a recording assistant at legendary Groupe de Recherches Musicales (INA GRM) studios, where Ariel recorded some of his compositions in the Studio 116; the same music “concrete” laboratory that spawned masterpieces by members Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani…