Juno Recommends International: July 2023

Review: More heat here from Original Gravity with 'The Harlem Bugalu' from Luchito and Joaquin Marquez. This is a 7" that soon transports you to boogaloo paradise with its feverish Latin grocers and non-stop drum funk. The A-side is laden with spoken words, zippy percussive sounds and mad bongo bubbles with lashing of horn-led exuberance. Flip it over and you will find the slightly darker and more menacing energy of Joaquin Marque's 'Mala Mania'. Get your shake on and drop this one this summer for swift dancefloor explosions.

Review: When members of mega-bands work with relatively obscurer artists, we're always intrigued. But a potential trapping factor is in thinking Jarak Qaribak, for example, is more of a Jonny Greenwood album than a Dudu Tassa one, when in fact the exact opposite is the case. Tassa, an Israeli singer-guitarist who fuses Middle Eastern stylings with contemporary rock, lends a challenging structural terrain to the Radiohead member's electric guitar licks, with the former's Arabic and Hebrew lyrics moving atmospherically against them. A star cast of fellow Israeli artists accompany the pair, as serene vocal beat-driven movements plod and swell away in an appealingly nu-proggy fashion.

Review: Library musician Giuliano Sorgini originally wrote music for films, TV and documentaries, and between 1974 and 1976 he laid the foundations for this jungly rhythmic opus. Then in 1975, meandering through a series of animal calls and wild forested textures, a series of entrancing rhythmic pieces emerged from the dark. The collectors' favourite Africa Oscura is now reissued via Four Flies, and is the impeccable album from which these two choice, mix-worthy cuts come.

Review: Pigeon only debuted back in 2022 with their well recorded Yagana EP and it soon won the five-piece band plenty of fans. They now serve up something equally as fresh and that develops their sound further. It is still rooted in Afro-disco but with elements of rock, new wave, synth pop, no wave, jazz and electro. Synths and drum machines define the sounds but with plenty of DIY spirit, all of which has won them continued support from tastemakers as diverse and influential as Gilles Peterson, Elton John and Iggy Pop. These are cultured and authentic summer sounds perfect for days dancing in the rays.

Review: Proving that the wonder of African electronic music unfolds and evolves on its own terms, Ostinato present the sound of Jantra to the world. Reportedly performing in the border town of Gedarif and on the 'outskirts of outskirts' of Khartoum in his native Sudan, Jantra uses a Yamaha keyboard to jam out endless street rave sessions to feverish crowds. He doesn't have rehearsed songs, just freestyle playing of sparkling, cosmic melodies elicited from an instrument he had to get customised at a Khartoum market so it would fit the mode of Sudanese melodies. The label followed Jantra to some of the parties he played, and merged earlier cassette recordings with new sessions to create a kind of hybrid release which introduces his music to the world in spectacular fashion.

Review: BCUC aka. Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness are a South African band working in a highly specific niche: political psychedelic music with an African twist. Six long, energetic opuses hear the collective band intone in multiple languages, embracing Babel, while paying due homage to the anti-apartheid movement, as well as indigenous peoples, through many an ecstatic, multifaceted, hedonic trance.

Review: One of two Nana Vasconcelos works to be rereleased on Altercat lately, Africadeus is a landmark album of Brazilian music that reveals the genius of the titular artist - regarded by many as one of the most innovative percussionists of all time. Above all, the album flaunts Nana's mastery of the berimbau, a Pan-African instrument that he essentially claimed as his own over the course of his career, and which he thus transformed into a bursting vessel for expression. A solo classic berimbau performance, 'Africadeus', appears on the A, while the B-siders 'Aboios' and 'Selecao De Folclore' are much more energetic pieces that celebrate the rich folkloric and pastoral culture of Nana's homeland.

Review: Mississippi have unearthed a lost classic from what is widely considered Ethiopia's 'golden age' of music before an authoritarian crackdown on arts and culture in the 70s. Aselefech Ashine and Getenesh Kebret perform a captivating duet over the distinctive sound of Ethic jazz - fans of Mulatu Astatke will instantly find themselves on familiar ground here, but it's the singers' voices which truly shine. While Beauties was a hit upon release, it was soon quashed by the Derg regime, and has since been out of print. It's been carefully remastered and presented with its stunning artwork intact - a true gem for anyone enthralled with the unique sound incubated in Ethiopia in the mid-20th Century.

Review: You could easily think this was a dusty reissue of a long-lost Afro classic. But no, it is not. Instead, it is new music from Loboko, a new group created from the rich musical melting pot that is New York City featuring young Congolese vocalist and guitar talent, Yohni Djungu Sungu, plus Soukouss-Stars associate and top bassist Ngouma Lokito. This is their debut recording and surely the first of many that will be built of jam sessions. It is traditional Congolese music with a modern twist but plenty of guitar-driven sounds from African soukous with Caribbean inspirations, Loboko's unique take on the ethnic Baluba rhythm, and elements drawn from the seben style. Utterly intoxicating.

Review: This reissue of Gentleman is the seventh album in the series of celebratory 50th Anniversary reissues of legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti's work. The 1973 album is noted as the last of Kuti's early 1970s albums recorded with the first iteration of his live-in band, Africa 70, before they were much later replaced by the creatively, nominally-updated band Egypt 80. As ever for Kuti, the album is packed with metaphor and ironic satire as a subtext, glueing the Afrobeats and funk together with a heavy dose of anti-colonialism. Our highlight is the track 'Igbe', on which we hear Kuti at his least abashed, singing the word 'shit' in several Nigerian languages.

Review: Tchiss Lopes - ram name Narciso Lopes - lay down plenty of reggae and funana experiments all in inspired by the local rhythms of the island of Santiago on Stranger Ja Catem Traboi, his seminal debut LP from 1982. It has become a hard to find and expensive cult classic that now gets reissued on vinyl and CD courtesy of Arabusta. It is as energetic, rhythmic and melodic as music gets, with great politically and socially aware conscious male vocals sung in Portuguese. Singer, instrumental performer and composer Lopes release seven albums in all, but this one set the highest standards of his career.

Review: 'Eki Bis' is a quintessential example of fresh modern-day soukous and zouk. Despite being first laid down by Congolese singer Lutchiana Mobulu in 1989, the single sounds just as fresh and relevant for the present day as it did back then, reissed via Hot Casa here for a crisp and infectious new reversion. The title track is emblematic of this enough, with high-pitched guitar noodlings and ecstatic raps delivered over a sizzlingly-hot beat skillet. Julien Lebrun's edit catapults the track into subtle space, adding careful echoes and refractions.

Review: El Palmas Music is a trusted outlet for music from South America, and here they turn their attention to Venezuelan singer and percussionist Tabaco Quintana. As a member of Sexteto Juventud, Quintana found his calling as a musician in Caracas and he went on to become one of the masters of Venezuelan salsa. Embarking on a solo career from 1973 with his own sextet, he achieved international recognition and became a staple of his country's scene until the mid-80s. This compilation casts an authoritative eye over his work, shining a light on a true salsa legend with an unmatched voice and a versatile approach to rhythm.