KILOMBO – August 2007

Notting Hill carnival’s approaching. I’m looking forward to Notting Hill Arts Club on Saturday 25th August, right slap-bang in the middle of the area at the right time: it’s the last FUTURO FLAMENCO at the Arts Club on that night – the place will be rammed and I’m promising to pull out all the favourite tunes that you’ve asked for again and again over the six years we’ve been running. There are advanced plans to re-start the night in Autumn at a superb West London venue – you won’t believe the new place when you see it,  the door admission will be slightly less, the dance floor and seating are perfect, the room has that nice cosy- but- cool feel, and the sound system, stage and bar are to die for. I’ll have more exact  details for you within the next couple of weeks so watch this space.

Another change will be Afriklub – John Armstrong’s bi-monthly urban Afro night at the Big Chill House. We just did the last of the run there – and now we’ve found a great place in South London with excellent transport links, a brilliant bar and sound system,and the potential to do lots of live stuff too, which is what we’ve wanted to do for ages.

Otherwise, DJ John Armstrong’s Partido Del Mundo  is still thriving at Brick Lane’s Big Chill Bar on Dray Walk – next one is Friday 31 August. If you’ve yet to come, do make it, it’s free all night, the bar staff and bar are great, and the crowd and music are genuinely eclectic – hip hop, funk, jazz, twisted latin and Brazilian beats, Afro, zouk, soca, bashment and dancehall, reggaeton, Desi, Gypsy beats, etc..in other words, London in all its ragged, bastard glory.

Guanabara goes from strength to strength. Promoter Isabel (from Rio, natch) has quickly made her mark on the events calendar there, bringing in a lot of unusual one-off things direct from Brazil and the Euro-Brazilian diaspora. John’s NuBrazil and Kilombo nights continue to be full, fun and fab.

Another recommendation is Nomad Disko – DJs John Armstrong and Nova (from Rome) take to the decks at Shoreditch’s fun and funky Favela Chic  on monthly Thursdays (next date, 20th September) –where the vibe is mestizo/gypsy/Turkish/Greek/Italian/Spanish – Mediterranean madness: free all night, 8-1am.

Here are a few of the tunes we’re loving at present:

KILOMBO BANGERS – AUGUST 2007-08-21

BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILER – ROOTS, ROCK, REMIXED (QUANGO –IMPORT)



L.A.-based Quango label finally release a set that’s been rumoured for months, and it’s no disappointment. Bob’s finest moments (well, some of them) have been remixed by the current studio Names  in a downtempo/roots style (thank God – not  tasteless bang-bang-bang House/D&B versions like some we’ve heard over the years). Highs for me are Afrodisiac Sound System’s enhanced version of ‘Soul Shakedown Party (always a biggie with old-school Nesta fans, and beautifully done here); Fort Knox Five’s ‘Duppy Conqueror’, Bombay Dub Orchestra’s horn-heavy ‘Lively Up Yourself’ and Spooky’s Subliminal Funk re-rerub of ‘Rainbow Country’. A must-have, and the only one of countless previous remix projects of Bob’s work that is officially approved by the Marley family.

Three noteworthy African reissue comps:

V/A : THE VERY BEST OF ETHIOPIQUES(MANTECA)

For many years, knowledgeable Afrobeat heads have been crate-digging for the notoriously rare few 60s and 70s 45s and LPs that  have survived in Addis record shops and warehouses since the miseries endured by that unfortunate country over recent decades, from military regime to famine. That’s because its range is phenomenally rich, from cool instrumental jazz, through tribal funk and latin work-outs to Otis Redding and James Brown soundalikes (but all in eery, pentatonic scale versions!). Until recently, you could either go find the music yourself; pay literally hundreds per disc on eBay auctions; or invest in the 20-volume French import CD series ‘Ethiopiques’, the   lovechild of one Francis Falceto . But now our friends Steve Bunyan and Iain Scott at Manteca, having been given access to the entire Falceto collection, have narrowed the riches down to just two CD volumes of the weirdest, most wonderful and most inspiring African music you’ll ever hear. Why Ethiopia? My guess is that it’s the only African country that was never colonised, and so has no problem about using Western music alongside its own sounds without making some big socio-political deal about it. But also the many American airbases in the 60s Horn of Africa meant that radio stations were playing Stax, Motown, Brown, etc, long before the rest of Africa were getting regular access. Another must- have.

TABU LEY ROCHEREAU-THE VOICE OF LIGHTNESS (STERNS)

Another double-CD compilation, and this one brings together some of the finest sides from the late sixties -through –seventies of one of the true pioneers of Africa’s most popular music by a country mile: Congolese rumba. This collection covers vocalist Rochereau’s periods with African Jazz, African Fiesta and African Fiesta National and includes material from one of his most collectible albums, 1973’s ‘Le Seigneur Rochereau’ on the French Isa label. The forty-page booklet by rumba aficionado Ken Braun is a delight for the curious, and the whole package displays the care and love for African music that we’ve come to expect from Robert Urbanus and colleagues at Sterns. With the 80s and 90s Afrisa /Mbilia Bel Rochereau sides now also reissued and readily available, the next task is to dig up the man’s fertile years in late70s -early 80s in Abidjan – at least four LPs from that era are classics, too.

LUISITO QUINTERO-PERCUSSION MADNESS REVISITED (BBE)

Barely Breaking Even have built up a healthy catalogue of eclectic dancefloor music over the years, from Keb Darge deep funk comps through DJ showcases from the likes of Bobbito. A well-known session conguero with the Caribbean Jazz Project, Claudia Acuna and (more recently) on a Louie Vega project with rapper Tony Touch entitled ‘Welcome Home Mr V’, Quintero’s album’s a remix of last year’s album of a similar name. Sales were disappointing then, which is a great pity, because the set had a couple of the most convincing Afro-latino-housey mash-ups for some time. The new issue has a tighter feel to the production, and should not be overlooked simply because you have the first LP. In a musk-biz world of almost-fraudulent ‘remixes’, these are genuinely new revisitations.

FEDERICO AUBELE-PANAMERICANA (EIGHTEENTH STREET LOUNGE)

You read it here first: Argentinian music will be next year’s Big Thing. We only see the tip of the iceberg  in the UK- semi-ok outfits like Gotan Project  and insensitive remixes of Carlos Gardel  and Piazzolla. But Argentina is home to far more than tango (be it traditional or electro). There’s Menino Garay Y Los Tambores Del Sur, with his punk-version of Murga and Candombe, the drumming and carnival music of the 19th century Argentine and Uruguayan slaves; La Chicana, who mix Tango and Milonga with up-country hillybilly, accordion bailanta and cumbia vallera (cheesy electro-cumbia –massive with young Argentinians at present, a kind of Spanish version of Brazilian baile funk); and then there’s fine singer-songwriter Milonga from people like Daniel Melingo and Juan Carlos Caceres. Add to this the best punk-ska and reggae-en-espagnol bands in the entire Latin American world, and you have a country with a hell of a lot going for it. Like many Argentine artists, Federico Aubele’s debut album  was pushed into the tango genre by retailers who didn’t know where else to stick it. Credit is due to him, then, for forging ahead with this totally non-tango project: just great singer-songwriter material with (obviously) a strong Hispanic feel , without getting too hokey about it.

V/A -LATINO NUEVO (ROUGH GUIDE)

A great compilation of non-salsa latino material put together by Pablo Yglesias, a lover and aficionado of every shade of la musica norte-americana, from salsa to tejano beats. There have been a few like this, admittedly, but Pablo’s is a bit different because he resists the temptation to anthologise all the great current European mestizo music, instead plumping for a predominantly North and South American independent Hispanic set, from bi-lingual L.A. hip hop through the great Mexican rockers Los De Abajo, and onto seriously obscure but wonderful indie bands such as Baku. (If you like this, you may also care to pick up my own Rough Guide comps of Africa & Middle Eastern Music, North African Café beats and NuBrazilian beats, too J -check for a full catalogue).

V/A-ACHILIFUNK(LOVEMONK)

Another Hispanic comp, but completely different. This is retro flamenco and rumba rareties  (except for two contemporary cuts with a retro feel) whose common link is a funky take on traditional Catalan gypsy music. Many of these have only been available before as collectible 7” 45s from the 60s and 70s. I’m a little pissed off that the wonderful Lovemonk label have brought this out – I ‘d be working on a similar idea myself, but there’s no room for two 60s flamenco funk comps on the market and credit to the boys from Madrid for sorting it first!! This will get played back-to-back at the last Futuro Flamenco this Saturday 25th at Notting Hill Arts, I promise you!

V/A-BLACK FEELING (FREESTYLE)



Regular readers of this column will know that Adrian Gibson’s label can do no wrong for these ears. So, sod me if the bugger hasn’t gone and done it again! This is an affectionate parody of those super-collectible ‘library records’ – non-commercial studio albums put together by session players hopeful of getting TV thriller syndications and such like. Here’s the attraction of this genre: if it says ‘Funky Car Chase – 2 min 34 sec’, for instance, then that’s exactly what you get: no fiddly-widdly sax solos or poncy jazz-fusion 10-minute ballbreakers.

And it’s not really ‘various artists’. It’s the same band – the excellent  Bamboos from Down Under, give or take a few extra sidemen -  but each track is attributed to a non-existent ‘band’ with one of those freaky psych-rock-funk names that were everywhere in the early seventies, when soul and jazz and rock were just getting acquainted and the boundaries had yet to be defined (having already been blurred by large amounts of  chemical excess at Woodstock). Try ‘Prince Nafa and his Polynesians’; or how about ‘The Alvaro Rodriguez Trio +4’? The cover art bristles with record-collectors’ in-jokes, too, such as  that sticker on 70s cut-outs: ’Factory Sealed For Your Protection’ (as if the vinyl’s gonna leap out and bite off your hand!!)

Another great record from the Jazz Café’s a&r chef. Long may he (and his label) prosper.

SLOVO-TODO CAMBIA(SLOVO.CO.UK)



And here’s an intriguing left-fielder: an agit-prop project written largely by Dave Randall. At first, I thought I was listening to a bitter-sweet, Streets-influenced set (‘Calm & Silent’), but then it comes clear: activist Arundhati Roy rages against the evils of nationalism (‘Flag’); Boikutt (listed as ‘Ramallah Underground’) delivers an angry-but-sane rant on the Palestine-Israel situation (in Arabic), whilst even Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gets to sing a bit on the title track. A politically-engaged,   minimalist work that delivers far more-  in terms of content, if not volume – than appears at first encounter.

SHANTEL-DISKO PARTIZANI (CRAMMED DISCS)

And finally, the originator of the current gypsy-beat craze returns with his long –awaited follow-up, after several years of tempting little remix projects. I’m pleased to report that he’s shifted the goalposts once more, moving on from that seriously-overdone gypsy brassband thing to a more inclusive and diverse Mitteleuropa set that doesn’t feel compelled to wear its influences on its sleeve. Both the title track and ‘Disko Boy’ bring to mind that brilliant Euro-cheese hit ‘ King Of The Bongo’ (Robbie Williams plus about 200 other versions), whilst Ceremoney and Susuleker expand the repertoire to include Greek, Macedonian and Turkish flavours, just for starters. A big LP currently at our Nomad Disko sessions (Favela Chic, third Thursday each month).

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