Gerardo Frisina & Toco
Deixa Passar / Ilê

The third release in the series of 12” EPs featuring reinterpretations of tracks from the album “People Need People” - the brilliant album by Nicola Conte and Gianluca Petrella released in 2021 - features the excellent collaboration of two American artists from the Detroit scene Tall Black Guy and Andrès.Terrel Wallace AKA Tall Black Guy, raised on bread, Motown, jazz and early hip hop... he has become a standard bearer of the current hip hop beat scene. With a steady stream of sample-filled productions and clever flips, he has won fans all over the world. His production skills are showcased in his own rendition of “Nigeria”, where he calls on BrokenKeys AKA Tommy Sheridan DJ, producer, vocalist and multi-Instrumentalist from Cleveland, Ohio.On side AA instead, DJ Andrés, now a revered figure of the Detroit scene praised by the eclectic Moodyman and Carl Graig among others, delivers a house version of “African Tribes” worthy of the most important dancefloors, in which he mixes soul-jazz parts with fragments of vocal samples and spoken words, all sublimated into a musical mixture with a strong deep house impact, with rhythm and mood typical of the black culture.Originally conceived as a trilogy, this successful reworking series will eventually embrace a further fourth chapter including two new Fred P. interpretations of the tracks “African Spirits” and “Tribes”!

After the very well received, both by the audience and critics, debut album Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda), focusing on the lesser-known works of the legendary Polish composer, the Wrocław-based EABS decided to further expand this lead and released two more vinyl records, "live" and "on tape", which crowned the "Komeda triptych". The astounding reception of the band's debut whet listeners' appetite for completely new recordings. It took 2 years for the new album to materialise, this time, however, it is filled with 100% original material.This time the EABS band did not directly address the legacy of the Polish school of broadly understood popular music masters. At the same time, the musicians kept in mind that such legacy is, in a sense, the capital of the past which adds up to identity and builds the future. Therefore, in their further musical quest, the band stayed observant of the signs and inspirations from their predecessors from the jazz and big beat era, who paved the way through their willingness to experiment and pursue a unique sound. Thanks to these concepts, the ensemble decided to listen even more intently to their inner voices. This has enabled EABS to avoid the obsession of imitating the Western sound, which conquers the increasingly generic domestic music industry.The conceptual direction and the first sketches of compositions were already prepared shortly after the summer of 2017. However, the fast-paced life on tour and the desire to expand the line-up with a soprano saxophone and flute eventually played by Tenderlonious did not allow for quick studio manoeuvres. Especially that the London guest artist needed to arrive for the sessions in Wrocław. Thankfully, time has only worked in favour of this material. The band was already incredibly harmonious while implementing all the assumptions during the recordings. The compositions have matured and evolved even more.The idea for “The Darkness”, the composition opening the Slavic Spirits LP, was born out of collective improvisation performed before a Komeda-inspired medley of “Free Witch and No Bra Queen / Sult” played in concert. It came as a surprise to us that this new album, devoted to broadly understood Slavism, turned out to have its roots in the combination of compositions about a witch and hunger. Both were present in Central Europe, not only in the Early Middle Ages. During the tour, while travelling together, we talked a lot about Poland’s difficult history. We noticed a number of dreadful episodes and unresolved traumas that have been haunting us until this very day – Marek Pędziwiatr recollects.Inspired by deliberations of many musicians, but also historians, journalists, writers, and even psychotherapists, new compositions began to appear rapidly, pouring out of the band’s spirit and imagination. The material is also an attempt to radically break out of the status quo of national mythology which currently steers the collective imagination of the Polish society. The musicians turned to Slavic mythology and Polish demonology, while pondering upon the contemporary spiritual condition of Poles. The enigmatic “Slavic melancholy” remains the main inspiration for the following album, as the band tried to extract it from their own DNA. Slavic Spirits is an an endeavour to get in touch with the world of a long- and brutally lost culture which, due to lack of sources, will never be thoroughly explored. A piece called “The Darkness” is a metaphor of this obscurity and the blank page in the history of our ancestors. What follows is a trip to the woods and fields where we face two demons ruling those realms, namely “Woodland Spirit” and “The Noon Witch”. In the end, we climb a marshy and foggy holy mountain (“Ślęża”) to eventually practice ritual “Sun Worship”.

A new album by four-piece band District Five from Zurich is always a good moment to reassess one’s own expectations. After Burnt Sugar [2022] and Pause [2023], Come Closer is the third album by Vojko Huter, Paul Amereller, Tapiwa Svosve and Xaver Rüegg, which mixes a wide range of references without ever being bothered by the commitment to one genre only. Imagine the band as something like a catalyst, through which its members constantly process what they are influenced by. And these influences are in constant motion: derived from the old-fashioned and amicable interest of collaboratively making music, the band comes together in their weekly ritual, dedicated to this synthesis of interests. At one point, this unrestricted game was called jazz, but even a generous concept can become too narrow. Which is why the genre remains an important influence, but not the only point of reference. Rather, its qualities are the root system from which everything else grows.Case in point for this expansion of possibilities is the first track on Come Closer, which, and here comes a genre attribution after all, moves the album into the vicinity of dream pop. “Another One” centers the voice, evoking old and new memories alike. Accompanied by an adequately slowed-down guitar riff and rhythm, the musical framework remains stable before collapsing in a nervous, shimmering manner. Ready to be assembled anew. On the following seven tracks, District Five takes on this task, referencing post-punk motifs as well as progressive, meandering song structures. Condensed and expansive at the same time, driven by a desire for collective play.This trusting cooperation between District Five’s members is ultimately the constant of Come Closer. Although the four musicians seem determined to find a different way to organize themselves as a band on almost every song, this conversational approach holds the album together on an intuitive level. And in the end, the only question that remains is: is it the members that influence the band, or is it the other way around?

Sometimes there’s a huge talent out there and you desperately want the whole universe to discover it. That’s pretty much the story of Parisian label Chuwanaga with young French artist Koji Ono, composer and producer of these four precisely crafted gems, recording everything by himself. Brilliantly mixed by Greita from Disques Flegon, his first EP Incognito is the product of a lot of influences, from Metro Area vibes to the original Britfunk sound. With an inner sense of elegance in the arrangements - something we may link to his Japanese heritage? - The whole EP brings musicality back on the dancefloor. We believe this could be the beginning of a great story for this talented musician, Koji Ono emerging from the incognito shadow to the whole light of the world. Don’t miss out!

Nkumba System, new project led by guitarist Guillo Cros (Romperayo) provides a vibrant fusion of catchy percussions, Afro-Colombian songs and Cameroonian guitar picking style linking Central Africa to the Caribbean! Nkumba System is about to fill the dancefloors with debut album ¡Bailalo Duro!, recorded between Bogotá and Paris.On the imaginary highway of Guillo Cros, makossa crosses paths with cumbia, Zairean rumba combines with that of Cuba and last but not least, currulao melts into Malian desert blues. Cros' journeys led him to meet the Cameroonian singer Mama Ohandja, alongside whom he trained for several years. Thereafter, he resided in Bogotá from 2014 to 2019, collaborated with Pedro Ojeda in the band Romperayo and “Los Propios Bateros” (7” NYCT). His current project Nkumba System was born in 2018, inside Colombia's effervescent tropical music scene. The original line-up includes bassist Jhon Socha (Romperayo, la Makina del Karibe), singer-percussionist Leonel Merchan (La Phónoclórica) and Kike Narvaez on drums. Several singles were released on local labels Tambora Records and Palenque Records, preceeding the arrival of Cameroonian guitarist Simba Daniel Evousa in the band. The drummer Pedro Ojeda, travelling companion in Romperayo, is invited on the track “Mujer hermana”, as well as the Malian singer Mamani Keita on “Paisano”. The album is mixed in Amsterdam by sprawling musician Alex Figueira (Fumaça Preta, Conjunto Papa Upa, Music With Soul), in his studio Barracão Sound, and comes as a Limited Pressing.