Disco get a rebirthing by Scotland’s Prolific DJ and Producer, Al Kent. MundoVibe Interviews Al Kent on his long history in dance music and his groundbreaking disco recordings and his Disco Love series on BBE Disco never died.
Month: April 2011
“The secret” features production by Eric Krasno (of Soulive fame) and features Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks, John Scofield, Ivan Neville and Vieux’s final collaboration with his legendary father, Ali Farka Toure.
Traveling down Linden Blvd towards JFK Airport, Vieux Farka Touré had a realization. Having just left The Bunker recording studio in Brooklyn, he was discussing the sessions with his manager, Eric Herman. A newly constructed song, played in part by his father— the great Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré—came on over the car stereo, and Vieux said, “This is what we call ‘the secret of the blues.” The two friends laughed, though it quickly dawned on him that his off-the-cuff remark was a perfect summation of his third album.
The Secret (Six Degrees Records) was born.
The worthy successor to Ali Farka Touré. — Bassekou Kouyaté
Mali’s Sidi Touré sings the traditions of his Malian culture and beyond on his Thrill Jockey debut “Sahel Folk”
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Sidi Touré made his first guitar as a child, constructing it from his wooden writing slate in the ancient town of Gao, Mali. Once the heart of the Songhaï empire and burial place of its Askia kings, the town rests between the Niger and the encroaching ocean of sand known as the Sahara Desert. The Songhai empire was the last of the great empires of the Sahel, reaching its zenith under Soni Alibert (Sunni Ali) in the mid 400’s. Sidi Touré was born here in 1959, but to be born a Touré, a noble family who trace their lineage directly from the Askia kings, carried a significance and onus of a past that reaches directly into the present. Like another Malian noble turned singer, Salif Keita, Sidi Touré faced a conflict between the inexorable pull of music and the expectations of family and society. Touré’s family had been sung about, and sung to, by traditional griots for centuries, but until a small boy challenged the rules, the Touré’s did not sing!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/16190968]
Frank Yamma – Countryman (Wantok Music) The world has experienced ethnic music from the land down under for […]
Quinn Luke (Bing Ji Ling) releases his third solo album, Shadow to Shine, featuring members of Antibalas, the Dap Kings, Scissor Sisters, and the Phenomenal Handclap Band. Enjoy a free download of “Move On,” the first single from Shadow to Shine at the end of this article.

The nom de plume of one Quinn Luke, Bing Ji Ling is a NYC–based producer/ musician with a rich legacy of work behind and in front of him. Having co-produced, written, recorded and performed two full length records, an EP, and a slew of singles (not to mention numerous collaborations and remixes), Luke thought the time was right to work with outside producers for the first time.
Produced by Embassy Sound Productions (Sean Marquand and Daniel Collas, the men behind Phenomenal Handclap Band), the forthcoming LP, Shadow to Shine, is an infectious concoction of Soul, Pop and Psychedelia full of summer jams destined for heavy rotation. Featuring members of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Scissor Sisters, Antibalas and Phenomenal Handclap Band, Shadow to Shine is a work of stunning, soulful talent, marking the finest chapter in Luke’s already accomplished career.

Karsh Kale (pronounced Kursh Kah-lay) is widely regarded as a pioneer of global fusion and electronica as his music has inspired and defined the worldwide club phenomenon known as “Asian Massive” or “Asian Underground” in the early part of the decade. Today Karsh’s music has travelled far past the underground club scene and has been featured on stages from Lincoln Center to the Burning Man Festival, and from the Barbican Center to the Hollywood Bowl. Karsh’s diverse musical talents – whether as a world-class tabla player/drummer, producer, composer, songwriter, remixer or DJ – have led him to working with some of the world’s leading artists such as Pandit Ravi Shankar, Sting, Zakir Hussain, Herbie Hancock, Lenny Kravitz, Anoushka Shankar, Yoko Ono. Bill Laswell, DJ Spooky, Shujaat Khan, Vijay Iyer, Chaka Khan, Paul Oakenfold and many others. As if his existing list of accomplishments and talents were not enough, Karsh has established himself as a cutting edge film composer in India’s fast paced “Bollywood” film industry while continuing to score independent and crossover films in the West. Kale and his production partners (MPKK) have also recently composed original music for a musical directed by Academy Award nominated director Shekhar Kapur (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”). In the past ten years, Karsh released 4 critically acclaimed solo albums and has toured the world with various ensembles including Cinema Live, Timeline, Realize Live, Tabla Beat Science (w Zakir Hussain), Breathing Under Water (w/ Anoushka Shankar) and live with the Midival Punditz. Describing the effect of having so many platforms at his disposal, Karsh states, “Having many outlets for my sound has opened up the possibilities of what that sound can actually be for me. I often find myself moving quickly between a live set with my band to composing strings for a film to DJing a dirty dance set to writing an acoustic song within a short period of time. My sound comes from finding inspiration from those moments in between all of that madness.”
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With Bomba Éstereo, The Spam All-Stars, Mr. Pauer, Antibalas, CéU and more. At the Beachfront Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, April 2011
The Heineken TransAtlantic Festival (April 14-30, 2011) grabs a fearless hold on the punk travels and dubbed-out grace of a generation of new musicians from Mexico to Brazil, from Brooklyn to Nigeria. Then it transports them to Miami Beach’s best kept secret: A swooping mid-century bandshell right on the beach, in the heart of the city’s North Beach historic district. It’s an oceanfront portal into the funky, club-friendly sound of Miami, the northern capital of Latin America and a burgeoning hotbed of cross-cultural creativity.
Classic Fania salsa tracks are reworked by legendary New York producer and DJ Joe Claussell. The stunning and modern two disc album contains Claussell’s reworkings of songs by Lou Perez, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz and others. Out May 17.

Photographs of Giant Step’s release party for Hammock House in New York City at Le Bain at The Standard:
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New York, NY – Fania Records announced today the release of a deluxe 2-disc set entitled, Hammock House ‘Africa Caribe’ produced and mixed by the legendary Joaquin “Joe” Claussell, with a worldwide release date of May 17, 2011. The project is a perfect marriage between old and new, a fresh take on classic sounds from the Fania archives. Late last year, Fania Records hand
delivered the original multi-tracks (recording tapes) in a battered cardboard box to Joe Claussell’s NYC studio. Inside was a round metal reel wrapped with many feet of rolled magnetic tape, and a crumbling “Track Report” sheet from some matter-of-fact day in the 1970s. As Joe ecstatically explained, “When
the carrier came to my place with all these boxes, I had an Indiana Jones moment, like when he opens the treasure chest and the glow of gold light shines up on his face. It was miraculous that they were still around, and the history of this stuff is just amazing.”
L.I.C. Bikes Long Island City Bikes is based in New York City and serves cycling enthusiasts in Astoria […]
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/11793271″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ] Track Listing 1. Nostalgia 77 “Beautiful Lie” (Tru Thoughts), 2. Peña “El […]
Kode9 Speaks on the release of “Black Sun”
It’s been 5 years since South London based duo Kode9 & the Spaceape’s debut album. On this new disc, named after Kode9’s influential 2009 single Black Sun, the intensity and themes of their debut Memories of the future remain, but the delivery is clearer and more rapid, the beats more jagged and restless. Starting as a dense onslaught, Black Sun proceeds to expand and contract its galaxy, sucking you into its orbit, and daring you to come and bathe in the warmth of its toxic glow.
Kode9 and the Spaceape explore an accelerated sonic fiction with this album. Spaceape verbally conjures up world under a Black Sun; his lyrics intimate an unknown time, that resonates strongly with the present, after an unclassified radioactive event has transformed the planet, much of which is now on fire. Spaceape sends radio transmissions from this irradiated, scorched zone. His demeanor has changed. Kode9 has tuned into him on a different frequency.

BY JOHN C. TRIPP
There’s a gentle, organic and soulful spirit to Nostalgia 77’s fourth studio album “The Sleepwalking Society”. With vocalist Josa Peit giving a wistful and heartfelt voice to the band leader Benedic Lamdin’s organic compositions it’s an album that exhibits tremendous song writing and musicianship.
Nostalgia 77 has masterfully crafted an album of introspective, personal and timeless music on “The Sleepwalking Society.” It’s a sound that delicately fits amongst various genres of jazz, folk, blues and soul, all the while being highly enjoyable and rewarding listening.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn8L-rYw2sQ&feature=player_embedded]
Velanche is the host and producer of Urban Landscapes, the weekly radio broadcast showcasing jazzy and soulful club culture from around the world. The show dives into nu-jazz, broken beat, rare funk, soul, house, downtempo, and related variants thereof.
Launched in January 1998, the show has evolved from its humble beginnings of ambient, downtempo and trip-hop sounds, evolving into its current form.
Velanche has been with KCPR, the college radio station of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, since September 1997. He was also the RPM Director for the station for four years, as well as the alumni director. He has hosted other shows, and is currently co-host of Club 91, a weekly live dance mix show.
Velanche’s work with Urban Landscapes has earned a respectable following. He has profiled and/or interviewed a number of artists and producers, including Jonathan Moore from Coldcut, Jason Swinscoe from the Cinematic Orchestra, Martin Iveson aka Atjazz, Gilb’r of Chateau Flight (and founder of Versatile Records), Chris Vogodo from Zero dB (and co-founder of Fluid Ounce Records), The Angel, members of Bugz in the Attic, members of the Gonkyburg crew (Swell Session, Ernesto, Mimi Terris, and others), and Magnus Zingmark from Koop among others.
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Half-Mauritian singer-percussionist Mo Kolours steps forward with his debut release, EP1: Drum Talking. This beguiling, otherworldly record sees him drawing heavily on the ‘sega’ music of his ancestral island homeland and uniting it with dub, soul and various electronic styles to create intriguing new combinations.
[slideshow] www.stephencardinale.com






