Ubiquity

"Mèdaho" is the debut album from Brooklyn based afro-funksters Kaleta & Super Yamba Band. Fronted by Afrobeat and Juju veteran Leon Ligan-Majek a.k.a. Kaleta—a native of Benin Republic—Mèdaho draws on the group’s shared reverence for the raw, psychedelic afro-funk sound that captivated Kaleta as a music loving kid in 1970s Benin. Mèdaho means "big brother," "elder" or "teacher" and is dedicated to Kaleta's late brother Ligan-Ozavino Pascal who introduced him to funk and soul music at a very early age. Kaleta's guitar chops would later earn him decades of recording and international touring with Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, and more recently Lauryn Hill. Now based in New York City, Kaleta has taken the reins and become the frontman for Super Yamba Band, a group known for their sweaty Brooklyn dance parties and original Afro-Funk influenced compositions. Mèdaho explores some of the rarest grooves and psychedelic sounds from classic era Benin and Nigeria and brings the highly danceable music back to life!

More hot stuff from The Soul Surfers who continue their recent run of covers with their homage to The J.B.'s on their single "Tribute To J.B.s". Kool and the Gang's classic "Summer Madness", now gets the heavy funk treatment from the coldest crew in the North. The signature and instantly recognizable synth line lays down the foundation of Pt.1 while Pt.2 starts off proper with a tasty drumbreak.

Scorpio and His People remains a mystery with the only possible clue that the band hailed from Los Angeles or Long Beach California. Originally released in 1972 on a private label, this double A side is a heavy slab of psychedelic and gritty funk complete with female vocals in a similar style and vein as Dee Edwards or Little Ann. One of the heaviest and rarest funk 45's in existence with original copies going for thousands of dollars.

Nearly two years after his debut album, Bosq Y Orquestra De Madera, burst onto the scene with its varied rhythms and moods, Bosq is unleashing another batch of music for the dancefloor. His new album Celestial Strut is extending summer well past the autumnal equinox.Not content to produce one style of music, Bosq takes you throughdisco ("Bad For Me". "Celestial Strut"), Latin rhythms ("Ella","Cumbia En Bahia"), and Afrobeat ("Bounce And Pull Up", "Take Over", "Pay The Price") with ease. Thinking of each album like a DJ set, he's always determined to inject many flavors but still keep a cohesive sound.Helping to craft the album, collaborators such as Nicole Willis,Jesus Pagan Y Conjunto Barrio, and Kaleta chipped in with lyric writing, vocal duties, and riveting soundscapes. Recalls Bosq,"Jesus and the Conjunto Barrio helped me to re-record all my parts into live ones which gives it a greater authenticity and better musicianship. I then took those parts to rework and modernize them." Bosq even co-wrote lyrics, a first for him, with his girlfriend on "Found Your Love." To add even more flair to the album,Caserta, someone Bosq greatly admires for being able to bring so much sonic depth, mixed several tracks on Celestial Strut.Having already received extensive coverage through outlets like WaxPoetics, OkayAfrica, Remezcla, and Sound Color Vibration as well as DJing around the country at nightclubs and even Boston's Museum Of Fine Arts, he's traveled extensively to locales such as South America and Puerto Rico since his last album to find new inspiration and perspective."Everything influences you consciously or subconsciously. So this album definitely has a sense of my travels and spending time in other cultures, whether on the road or with my girl and her family. All that Latin culture immersion has opened up my cold Northeast heart a lot!" he openly expresses. Celestial Strut is a confident record based on musical and lifeexperience that finds Bosq less constrained and focusing more on musical textures than genre conformity. Although he contends that there is so much more musically that he wants to learn, his love for creation and the learning process continues to push him to produce some of the most exciting dance and internationally-flavored wax dishes this decade.

"Full Moon Wizard” by Massive Suits Quartet (MSQ) is a personal journey by it’s creator Grégoire Marty (aka Dandy Teru) delving into his love of original movie soundtracks and various composers. Crafting a sonic and aural odyssey for a movie that exists only in his mind and imagination. Similar to his other projects such as his debut album Adventures as Dandy Teru or the Wonderland EP as MSQ, this new opus was roughly composed in a very short time, in about a week or so while also working on collaborations and releases with other artists. The busy schedule and loads of studio time provided the necessary inspiration and state of mind to construct the LP properly. The end goal was to pay tribute to the compositions of various soundtracks of both old and more recent movies, and to show the producer's love for composers such as Umiliani, Piccioni, Goraguer, Legrand, Cliff Martinez, H.Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and Alexandre Desplats to name a few. With sci-fi cinema as the main foundation, and using his fascination for astronomy along with personal existential queries about life's origins, one's purpose and our place and scale in the universe as building blocks, a story emerges sketched out of rough compositions and surreal mindscapes. In his own words: "Technically, I wanted it to sound dusty and ethereal. I like to say that I try to make MSQ's sound something in between Madlib and Portishead signatures... Full Moon Wizard is the story of the creation of a world from the largest scale of its complexity to its smallest. It's a route from the beginning of something we don't have the knowledge and skills to understand (yet) to things we are more familiar with today, trying to make the connections between the dots along the whole journey. Definitely an album for nightowls, for mood music and soundtrack lovers.” I like it, reminds me of other projects like 40winks in this vibe, but more jazzy. But it's more like vibes, rather than real tracks from start to end... Perfect midnight soundtrack. and the artwork is nice too. -Lefto