Francis Bebey – Bissau
M: So hypnotic and cool. The percussions and the flutes make you feel like you are in the jungle even if you are in the metro of Barcelona. Can’t believe how modern it sounds and how organic at the same time. It’s definitely one of my favourite albums with no doubt.
Luzmila Carpio – Bartolina Sisa
G: I’ve always been fascinated by latin folk gems and this is one of my favs, not just because of the poetry of the song but also the story behind Luzmila Carpio, a tireless fighter for indigenous rights. In this track, sung in Quechua, her voice sounds like an imitation of the songs of birds and talks about the relationship of the Andes man with nature. Love it.
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Creek
M: I press play and just close my eyes. After the six minutes of the main tune everything is better. If I was stressed, now I’m relaxed… if I was feeling ok, now I’m feeling better. The percussive synths change harmonies in such a natural way. I think I listened this album many times a week for the last two years. A kind of therapy, I guess.
Ananda Shankar – Raghupati
G: The last song on Ananda Shankar’s first album (Ananda Shankar, Reprise Records, 1970) is one of the richest productions of this Indian legend. The album is pretty much instrumental, except for the first and the last songs, adding different styles of traditional Indian chanting as well as the most rock sounding composition. Ananda was the first Indian musician to fuse local folk music with Western influences. Maximum respect.
William Onyeabor – Great Lover
M: This is pure Magic. It’s full of love. I’m an Onyeabor addict, his music makes me feel so good and those fuzzy synths & groovy drums make me want to stop everything and just smoke a huge joint. I discovered that tune a couple of years ago and it stayed in my head since then.
Arthur Verocai – Na Boca Do Sol
G: I love Brazilian music and this is definitely my favourite Latin Jazz album. Merging both genres, Jazz and Bossanova, in such a perfect mood by adding this Brazilian Soul mood and a very complete orchestration, the LP include gems like “Sylvia”, “Pelas Sombras” and this one “Na boca do sol”, a subtle, shiny, groovy track with a beautiful vocal harmony that still sounds totally timeless. Sublime song.
Donnie and Joe Emerson – Baby
M: You can have this song in repeat for hours. So smooth, so simple, cool and sexy. I think it’s the perfect pop tune… and that’s all. The whole album has this dreamy atmospheric soul that keeps you dazed from the very first chord. Ariel Pink’s cover is also a great one. Love.
St Germain – Rose Rouge
G: Without any doubt, Tourist is one of my greatest influences of all time and surely one of the albums I’ve heard the most since I was a kid. This song, Rose Rouge, is like the perfect & timeless hybrid of jazz, trip-hop and electronic music of any kind. It embraces you in an infinite trance with this smooth cymbal ride persisting throughout the entire song together with the trumpet and sax solos. Pure elegance.
Haroumi Hosono – Cosmic Surfing
M: This is the last tune of Pacific, one of the masterpieces of this genius. You can’t skip tunes of the album, just have to go for the entire thing. Every single time Cosmic Surfing sounds surprising to me. It’s so different than the rest, so shiny and sharped and those exotic vocoders are pure love to my ears.
Philip Glass – Floe (Glassworks)
G: This album, Glassworks, needs few presentations, it’s a masterpiece of atmospheric minimalism and surely one of the reasons why I am now a music producer. I wanted to highlight ‘Floe’, this hypnotic, dense and intense trip into Philip Glass’ particular world. Essential song.
AKKAN Kai EP (La Belle Records)
La Belle Records welcome back AKKAN for a new EP that will land one year after their last on the label, this time with remixes from the excellent Iñigo Vontier and El Buho
AKKAN is the Barcelona based production partnership between prolific natives BeGun and Ocellot. They came together after a magic mushroom psychotropic journey in the Kalahari Desert and that is reflected in their sounds which build on idiosyncratic and trippy melodies and ethnic rhythms.
Fantastic opener ‘Kai’ is another enthralling trip into occult sounds, organic percussive patterns and colourful synth lines. The rolling drums set the groove with the elastic chords and nagging drones hook you in as bird calls bring an open air feel.
On the flip, the brilliant ‘Yuri’ sinks down into a spell binding deep house groove with rubbery kicks, jumbled percussion and nocturnal pads that are majestic and arresting. It speaks to psychedelic desert trips and will stand out in any set.
El Buho is the Paris based producer from Wonderwheel Recordings who mixes up Latin American rhythms, digital effects and a world of found sounds and instruments into a superbly slow motion beatdown track. Elastic bass is strung between lazy kicks as cosmic keys drift up through the mix, making for a dreamy, organic and soothing cut. Next up scene-defining Mexican artist Iñigo Vontier from labels like Turbo Recordings, Correspondant and My Favorite Robot remixes the same track into something equally magical. It is roomy and organic, with shimmering chords and suggested rhythms sucking you in and carrying you away.
AKKAN Kai EP (La Belle Records) Release: 18th January 2019 Cat No: LAB45
