
For all us smart dub cats who took Spanish instead of French, Karl Hector stays dificil with his Gallic/German/Ethiopian flair. Thankfully, the title of his Paris DJ's mix is self-explanatory: modal jazz of the world. What happens next is even more crystalline, the enigmatic Teuton behind 092s excellent Sahara Swing drops esoteric old Folkways and Blue Note gems, Sun Ra, Lloyd Miller, Mulatu Astatke, and a litany of stuff that I won't even pretend to have previously heard. Should you dig gorgeous exotic jazz culled from most continents, this is [...]

Pop Quiz : How many doctors do you need to see to find out if you have a broken ankle? Answer : More than 3. How many more? I'm not sure. But the point is that... if it take more than three (including one fucker who's whole job it is to be an expert in reading x-rays), then my faith in their black market of tacos healthcare is as solid as for the debt-ucation system. After all that, I need something rooty to chew on for mental pain relief. And there's nothing [...]

[This week's Sunday Supplement has been very kindly written by perhaps my oldest (and oldest) reader, Campfires & Battlefields. C&B has emailed me more good music suggestions than pretty much anyone, being the first to alert me to Samamidon, O'Death, Fleet Foxes (okay, we'll forgive him that one) The Felice Brothers and quite a few more, so hopefully we can persuade him to do a monthly column - sort of a Letter From America sort of thing. Thanks C&B.] A few weeks back these hallowed pages were given over to iniquity in [...]
We've always been late late in dealing with the passing year; but this time we're way into a new year. God only knows what next year will bring but knowing that lots of readers are still hunting good albums from 2008 here's one final post about 2008 with a cream of the crop selection and we go straight to 2009! Promise! Rest of the mentions for 2008 : Ursula Bogner - Recordings 1969 - 1988 : Jan Jelinek's new record label Faitiche 's impressive debut release was the pioneering work of [...]

For the last six weeks, I've spent my drive time cloistered within the soothing cocoon of Fela Kuti's Expensive Shit/He Miss Road. Accordingly, few contemporary albums have battered through that hermetically sealed, parallel universe where I smoke acres of trees at the Kalakata Republic circa 1975 while inventing a plethora of dance moves, including the Roger Rabbit, the Cabbage Patch and the Wop. One of the rare exceptions has been Karl Hector and the Malcouns' Sahara Swing, released earlier this month on Stones Throw subsidiary, Now-Again Records. Information about Hector is scarce, with [...]

Roskilde á næsta leiti og biðin verður erfiðari og erfiðari með hverjum deginum. Maður er náttúrulega þegar búinn að gera gróft plan yfir hvað á að sjá og heyra og má sjá það í sérstakri umfjöllun á Rjómanum . Vonandi sér maður ykkur sem flest þar og ef ykkur langar að hitta kallinn þá er um að gera að senda mér línu eða skilja eftir komment við þessa færslu (munið bara að skilja eftir netfang). Hér er svo eitthvað af nýrri tónlist til að tyggja á: [MP3] Afternoons - Say Yes [...]

Grupo Fantasma : Se Te Mira taken from the album Sonidos Gold on Aire Sol (2008) Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 : [...]
Jun 21, 2008, 4:09am
3hive

Stones Throw's funk imprint, Now-Again, follows up the mind-blowing Heliocentrics album with this desert continent disc from neo-afro funk collective Karl Hector & The Malcouns. First, a quick who's who of the principals: Karl Hector (vocals & percussion) has, up to this point, only recorded his skills on one 7-inch back in '96 with the Funk Pilots; Between Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm), Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija (The Malcouns) a wide swath of instrumental ground gets covered. Six more musicians round out the collective. "Nyx" stands out as a faithful sampling of Sahara Swing [...]

It's good to know that obscure unearthed funkyness is still in a usual days work from our friends at STR / Now Again. See the official word here and hat tip on the nice write up and track below via Some Velvet Blog . Grab The Malcouns and KH in stores July 8th or cop the pre-sale here . [...]

Karl Hector & the Malcouns are a ten piece group of musicians including Funk Pilots leader Karl Hector and Jay Whitefield (guitarist for the Whitefield Brothers and the Poets of Rhythm), and Malcouns founders Zdenko Curlija (drums, percussion, bass and vocals) and Thomas Myland (organ & bass). The band also includes Bo Baral on percussion, Wolfi Schick, ( sax, flute and bass clarinet), Ben Abarbanel-Wolff (tenor, baritone sax) and Stu Krause (trumpet, valve trombone). Recorded in Germany, there is a world of music to be discovered on their album Sahara Swing , [...]