Buzz Preddy
Hildegard Knef Edit / Chilly Gonzales Buzz Interview Edit

Favorite Recordings proudly presents this new official album reissue of Dreamer of Life by Greg Yoder: A killer AOR private press LP infused with Folk, Jazz and Soul notes and maybe one of the best albums from the Hawaiian Scene in this style.Originally from San Francisco, Greg Yoder moved to Hawai'i in the early seventies and after achieving some local fame in the Waikiki area, recorded this one-off LP in 1976 at Audissey Sound studios, in Honolulu. The music is smooth and soothing, mixing xylophones, percussions, sweet guitars and brilliant orchestrations. In short, Dreamer of Life is full of hidden hits and faultless from the first note to the last.Following his various projects at Favorite Recordings, DJ and producer Charles Maurice recently unveiled this masterpiece by selecting the song “Things Were So Easy” on the AOR Global Sounds Vol.2 compilation. And after the label contacted Greg Yoder about it, the idea of reissuing this amazing album quickly became obvious.After its various compilations reissues over the past 2 years, Favorite Recordings is more than ever keen to enlighten rare-groove forgotten music and will quickly follow-up with great new full albums and compilations reissue projects in 2016.Fully restored and remastered with great attention to sound quality, Dreamer of Life by Greg Yoder is presented in a deluxe vinyl version, housed in a tip-on jacket, as CD and in Digital versions.

Psycho 2000 - A dark but funky theme that begins with an occulting Italian echo-oscillator drone that is soon followed by pulsating bass and breakbeat drums, leads to tremolo guitars, an ostinato on electric mandolas, strings climbing eloquent ladders, otherworldly electronics, and a cinematic finale.An evocation of a parade of wooden nutcracker soldiers elaborately dressed in gold-trimmed black uniforms down a wide avenue decorated with mardi gras beads and animal skulls upon golden cobblestones toward a tornado spiralling out purple-hued glissandos and curlicues of elephant smoke.White Spiritual - Head nod action, the twinkling of a late 60’s Vox Continental II with sickly transistors, the noodling matrix of an intergalactic telephone exchange carried on a bed of bouncy bass with a firm backbeat.The Johnny Guitar Watson-esque bite and sting of a ‘67 Teisco guitar preludes slabs of unison dark brown moog and organ giving way to the dance of fingers over the black naturals and white sharps of the Continental II.

Comet presents the first release from its new Disco Highlife series, featuring remastered originals by Ghanaian legends Ebo Taylor & Pat Thomas and disco reedits by LeonxLeon and Leo Nanjo.Founder of Comet Records, Eric Trosset, started working with those great heroes of West African music, back in 2010. Taking on the role of manager/publisher, Comet teamed up with Strut Records and musician/producer Ben Abarbanel Wolff to revive Ebo Taylor‘s international career with a string of album releases: Love & Death, Appia Kwa Bridge and Life Stories. In 2014, he collaborated with Pat Thomas & The Kwashibu Area Band on a new album, gathering together the old ‘pals’ (Ebo Taylor, Pat Thomas, Tony Allen) in producer Kwame Yeboah’s studio in Accra.It is with great pleasure that Comet launches this new series. Let's make this beautiful and timeless music the soundtrack to an unforgettable summer!On side A, comes “Enye Woa” by Pat Thomas, originally released in 1988 on Nakase Records and taken from the album Me Do Wiase. It’s killer disco cut, and as innovative a piece of highlife as it was 30 years ago. Paris-based producer LeonxLeon has been cooking up songs in his Parisian home-studio since 2013. He did a remarkable remix of Cerrone's "Funk Makossa" and more recently released his new Rokanbo EP on Cracki Records. His remix of “Enye Woa” is a classy modern disco cut with funky bass and spacey synths.On side B is “Atwer Abroba” by Ebo Taylor, a stand out up-tempo track from the album Twer Nyame, originally released in 1978 on Philips West African Records. Tokyo-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/arranger Leo Nanjo formed the first Japanese afrobeat group, Kingdom Afrorocks. Since the band broke up in 2014, Leo has been producing and arranging music with various collaborations, such as DJ Muro, Pushim and Misia. This is a trippy afro-futurist, broken-beat reedit with highlife grooves flying to deep space.

Folowing their 2015 release of That's All Right, an introduction to Arthur-Big Boy-Crudup, EALZ! Records is presenting the female side of the early Rock'n'Roll genesis. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was responsable for a tremondous amount of gospel & blues rockin' tunes beetween the 40's and the 60's.Her soul-infused singing, the fervor she preach & the way she played guitar influenced directly the path of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and many others. She was the favorite singer of Johnny Cash and Aretha Franklin and 15 years before Angus Young and Frank Zappa, she already played the emblematic Gibson model SG. The 12 tracks compiled on this brand new volume, include some never vinyl re-released material.This gatefold 10inch, handprint cover and beautifully remastered is about to give Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the first female rockstar of history, the consideration she deserve... and not only from above. Amen!

** Available exclusively at The Pusher **Born in a Gambian griot family, kora virtuoso and afro-fusion pioneer Jally Kebba Susso has been active in the UK music scene for twenty years. While based in London, he has tirelessly, through both personal and collective endeavours, built a singular musical identity by working hard on making the timeless Mandinka kora, an instrument he's been playing since his youth, sound like never before, combining the ancient West African strings with forward-thinking aesthetics and myriad of musicians and producers from the thriving London music scene such as Onipa, Dark Sky and Kay Suzuki.Jally Kebba Susso has already released two albums as a solo musician ("Malaye Warr", 2012 and "Banjul - London", 2017), as well as a member of the successful afro-fusion band Afriquoi, whose latest EP has garnered a very wide support, culminating in several million streams and performances on some of UK's biggest festival stages (Boomtown, Glastonbury).Freedom! A heartfelt shout expressing the newfound joy of an African musician whose working conditions, despite his long-standing roots in the London music scene, have sometimes been precarious. A newfound freedom to be able to look ahead and fully persue one's need of self-actualisation. Hence this new EP, written with the help of Jally's accomplished band members (Yuval Juba Wetzler, Nim Sadot and Oli Arlotto) and produced by Tom Excell (Onipa, Nubiyan Twist), whose 4 tracks all deal with topics (identity, homesickness, family, social justice) which are dear to Jally's heart as a Gambian native and West African musician settled in Europe.A pleasant atmospheric opener, "Wulu Doula" rides on a classic Afrobeat groove, while Jally reminds us how we are only what we become, no matter where we come from and who we inherit from. "Justice" is a stomping mandinka funk hit, in which "freedom, equal rights and justice" are claimed by Jally for all fellow artists and musicians from the West African diaspora working in Europe.Clearly anchored in Gambian music tropes and reminiscent of the pioneering mandinka fusion of Ifang Bondi, "Fakoly" tells the story of Jally's family lineage, as a member of the 74th Susso generation. As Jally puts it, "being a griot is a way of life". Homesickness can be a bitter feeling. But you can turn it around. That is exactly what Jally achieves with "Banjul", a cheerful, funky tribute to the Gambian capital, in which Jally grew up, learning words of wisdom from his elders.

Born from a French mother and a father with a Burkina bé/Senegalese dual nationality, Jennifer Zonou aKa Hawa has been rocked in music from an early age. As a DJ addicted to all kind of grooves, her father passed on his genuine love and great vinyls collection of Rap, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Afrobeat, or Reggae music. While her mother, keen on American Folk and Pop, gave her awareness and sensibility for the beautiful melodies and songwriting of artists such as Rickie Lee Jones.Yet it was not until 2000 that Jennifer began her singing career. A native of Macon (near Lyon, France), it was after she met with IPM, a Hip-Hop group from Lyon, that she gained confidence in her skills and decided to start within the best schools possible: Gospel. Thus she joined the choir called “Héritage Soul” (Soul Legacy), where she connected with Raphael Chambouvet, keyboard in the choir and in many projects of the Lyon’s music scene such as CHK, or later Mr Day. At that time, her voice could be spoted on many Hip-Hop projects from Lyon, including Dialect Music, Casus Belli and therefore IPM, but it’s only when she entered a new choir, "Precious Voices," that Jen took another turn in her carreer. She then rised in a Nu-Soul duo act called Ebony Source, whose album will certainly never be released, but which will allow her to tour seriously and to open for top French artists such as Diam's or Wallen, but also for international names such as Lizz McComb. Jennifer then begins to work solo with her old mate Raph, who has since continued to play in bands such as Mr Day and who quickly liaised her with Favorite Recordings label (Dynamics Onra, The Funk League Solomko Andre, ...) and his founder Pascal Rioux. A new Hawa was born, raising the challenge of writing in English with surprising ease. Very soon the first demos come alive, including "Sweet Lucky Day", wich will later be found as the B-side of her first single "DANCE ", released in 2009. In the meantime, she also meets with Bruno "Patchworks" Howart (Metropolitan Jazz Affair, Uptown Funk Empire, Mr Day, Mr President, ...) at a concert in Lyon in 2008. International reknown within the indy Soul/Funk music scene, Patchworks is immediately attracted and offers to produce her some songs. Coming next is a first acclaimed 7inch mentioned above and several appearances alongside Mr Day and Mr President, then naturally followed by the common desire to sail further. The result is called ‘My Little Green Box’, first album by Hawa due for release on June 6th 2011 on Favorite Recordings. Mainly produced by Patchworks, MLGB is naturally imbued with the Soul/Funk touch which made his success and fame. But the album is also deeply led by Jennifer’s eclectic influences, and each of its 11 songs is the result of a true joint effort between her, Bruno, and Raph on some tracks like "Full of Love." Above all, this mysterious “green box" contains 11 great groovy nuggets and reveals a fully uninhibited Hawa. She impresses first thanks to a natural musicality gained through her years of Gospel, but also makes her own imprint with an approach to writing and rhythm very inspired by her long passion for Rap. In the wake of the Queen Sharon Jones and all her Soul daughters such as Nicolle Willis or Giselle Smith, Hawa could well find her place in the circle of the international top Soul Sista, thanks to this first attempt without a fault. Now we hope you’ll feel the same!!