SEALED

Favorite Recordings presents this new official album reissue of The Parker Brothers: Maybe one of the best Blue-Eyed-Soul/Modern-Soul private press albums you can imagine, surprisingly highly unknown and underrated.Produced in 1981 by George P Grexa and released in a private-press version on his label Crown Vetch Enterprises, this album is filled with memorable material from the first note to the last, mixing Modern-Soul, Boogie, cross-over Jazz and Rock elements, for a result reminiscent of the WestCoast music’ golden years, however being recorded in Pittsburgh.As one of the longtime favorite collectable piece for Charles Maurice, it’s a real honor and proud for Favorite Recordings, to finally officially reissue it from the original master tapes and for the first time on vinyl.

BACK IN STOCK !!!Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds is a compilation that brings together nine of the most important and obscure hits of the Brazilian Funk-Boogie-Disco scene during the years of 1978 to 1982. Following its acclaimed release in late 2014, Favorite Recordings now present a great additional 12inch single package, including exclusive extended versions by Nick The Record, Waxist and Charles Maurice. The 3 DJs provide new exclusive extended versions of Painel De Controle, Rabo De Saia, and Famks’ killing originals tracks. ESSENTIAL!!

Jake Sollo was one of the most prolific innovative musicians from Nigeria in the 70s and 80s. His talents as a rhythm guitar player saw him through much of his career where he played with several Nigerian bands of varying styles. After a stint in the beat group the Hykkers (which he formed whilst studying at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka) then went on to wider recognition as a member of the Funkees. Sollo then went on to play with famed Afro-rock group Osibisa. His stint working alongside group leader Teddy Osei. The Funkees had become very popular, not just in Nigeria where a rough demo of the track "Akula Owu Onyeara" was on constant rotation at the East-Central State Broadcasting Service, but the track was went on to be picked up by the BBC DJ John Peel.After successes in bands, Sollo went solo and found a steady stream of work in London as a session musician and a producer. He returned to Nigeria in 1981 where he produced "bouncy, high gloss boogie" which was incredibly in demand. He had a distinctive playing and producing style and was incredibly popular. He utilized synthesizers which were uncommon in Nigeria at the time.The 1979 "Jake Sollo" self titled album was produced for Pye / Disques Esperance in London. Touches of pop, plenty of African groove, moments of psychedelica... all bound together with Jakes distinctive guitar playing and sleek production. These are sounds that are reminiscent of African music lovers contemporary of Sollo such as David Byrne and Talking Heads, and Paul Simon in Graceland, but with a glittering grooviness that is all Jake Sollo.Sadly Jakes career was cut short when he tragically died in a car accident in 1985. Depriving the world of no doubt what would have been decades of more innovative and creative music.

ts early 2015. Welcome to Africa Seven. We are a new record label. We may be based in Paris and London but our hearts firmly rooted in the universal motherland. We love African music, we want everyone to hear it and we want to spread the love. We are a collective of crate diggers, afro music-heads, label spotters and vinyl buying obsessives. We don't have any particular musical release agenda apart from, "is it of African origin, does it have a beat?, do we like it?". For the first few releases on Africa Seven we are exploring a rich seam of creativity and groove from the 70's. Stand by for re-issues from Manu Dibango, Jake Sollo, Jo Tongo, Pasteur Lappe and Tala AM to name but a few.Trying to decide our first release was a long drawn out affair. Everyone had their favorites...,. Would it Manu, Tala, Ray, Jake or Jo? In the end we just couldn't decide. To keep the peace we settled on a taster compilation called "African Airways Vol 01". Think of it as a statement of intent. A sample of aural treats in store. As for the cheesy name, well...,.. we like African Music, who doesn't like air hostesses? and we are aeroplane geeks. It was a no-brainer really.Volume 1 of Africa Airways focuses on the funkier side of 70s African music. We can't think of any better way to start an African compilation than some pounding, powerful, masterful African drumming. Thank you Ekambi Brilliant, you sure know how to set up an opening track. Next up we jump to the Cameronian king of the Tchamassi dance, Tala Andre Marie (Tala AM is his snazzier moniker). "Black Gold" is a track that really says it all. Cant-sit-still grooves, masterfully jangly guitars and a really cool nascent use of synthesizers. Is it possible to play a song over and over again 300 times? - we think so. Elvis Kemayo is next up with the funky assault. Big brass, big basslines and happy times. Cameroonian native Jo Tongo, now lives in New York but back in the 70s he was part of the Fiesta label massive who were cranking out great records in Paris. "Jangolo" is quite possibly his finest moment. Keeping things Cameroon to finish up side one is the Saxophone master Manu Dibango. "Mimbo" is jazzy, darty gem. Manu recently turned 80 and celebrated with a series of gigs. A true afro legend with over 30 albums to his name. Quite a few have never been re-issued since the 70s and they are now patiently queued up on our release schedule.Opening side two of our vinyl is Jo Bisso. Give It Up is a funky, brass however from 1977 on the Disques Esperance label. Next up is "Mbongui". Did you think a flute in African music could sound this funky? Nigerian Jake Sollo met with an untimely death but his music lives on. Jake was a leader of one of the first wave of funky afro bands to come out of Nigeria in the early 70s, "The Funkees". "Father Time and Mother Nature" retains all those key elements of what made his band so successful. Sookie are next up with their US style funk..., but with an African twist. To finish up the LP Paris based "African Soul Band" bring out the dark strings, chanted Senegalese vocals and mirroring marimbas for their epic closer "Nande" from 1978.Stay tuned for more Africa Seven releases on CD, Vinyl and Digital. Our next release is from the Cameroonian Saxophone master Manu Dibango with a rare 1977 Film Soundtrack "Ceddo". Think thoughtful, brooding afrobeat meets Shaft.

We are more than ten releases in here at Africa Seven. It has been a wild ride... It was eight months ago that we launched our label and released our debut release the Compilation "Africa Airways 01: Funk Connection". It did better than we ever imagined and we had to repress the darned thing twice... So predictably for a follow up we humbly present you with "Africa Airways 02: Funk Departures 1973-1982". We have unashamedly stuck to the formula of our debut, keeping the funk deep and the groove pan-African. Heading straight for the afrobeat, dance-funk jugular.We open up Volume Two with an absolute corker... "Na Real Sekele Fo Ya" from Cameroonian-in-Paris Pasteur Lappe. Produced by Jacob Desvarieux of Kassav fame, this track is an instant grabber, Think of the Blockheads "Rhythm Stick" goes Afro chant with deep, soulful moog grooves and on-point brass stabs. Next up is M'Bamina an Italian / Ivory Coast band who swing things heavy with "Kilowi Kilowi". Sweeting strings, funky bass lines wrapped around a late 70s style disco groove.Ekambi Briallant is next up with his floor tappingly catchy afro soul "Aboki (Mon Copain)", produced by one of our favorite producers Slim Pezin. To round off the A-side of the vinyl we present the first outing from the Makeba family. Here the (sadly prematurely departed) Bongi Makeba, daughter of "Mama Africa" Myriam Makeba, shows the world just what an amazing artist she would have developed into. Bongi wrote a fair number of her mother's tracks in her later years and "Don't Do It" shows us what true talent for the song she was blessed with. The track her powers along with wah-wah guitar and masterful alto sax. A real treat.Friend of Africa Seven and Cameroonian native Jo Tongo opens thing up on Side B. Jo now lives in New York but back in the 70s he was part of the Fiesta label collective who were cranking out great records in Paris. "Piani" is his purest dancefloor moment, here again in full glory.Next up we bend our African remit ever-so slightly and head off to Holland for a James Brown style fuelled funk stomper "Relax.. Before Doing Sex" from Oscar Harris and his crew. Its big, its bold, its brassy...,.. It's fun.The power trio of Bozambo are next up. Between them they have released over 12 solo LPs and here together with "Get it On The Music" they power through with a keyboard/synyh driven afro-funk groove years ahead of its time..., made in 1978 but sounding like 1984. Misse Ngoh is one great guitarist and a masterful adaptor of the Makossa rhythms of his native Cameroun. The title track from his Esperance 1979 LP "Tata Ngoh" mixes in his trademark rhythms and grooves with slap bass and striking brass lines. One heck of a catchy song too.We round off the compilation with the Queen of Queens, Myriam Makeba. Possibly / probably the most influential female musician to come out of Africa..., ever. "Mama Africa's" biography is awe-inspiring and vast, but very hard to summarize in a few sentences... so please check it out for yourself. From breaking the African sound in the West, to the obsessively catchy "Pata Pata" to the influential, focal role she played in helping bring an end to Apartheid in her native South Africa. There are many tracks to feature from Myriam but we aren't about hits here at Africa Seven. Being the crate diggers we are, we thought the best way we could honour the lady was to dig the crate even deeper and go with the most obscure Myriam track we could find. "Toyota Fantasy" was recorded during her exile years spent in Guinea with the Esperance team as a one off promotional 7" single giveaway release. Be aspirational, as the lady says.We hope you enjoy your flight with African Airways 02. We hope to be fuelling up an aircraft with some psychedelic propellant for volume 3 sometime in 2016... at a vinyl store near you.

The mysterious Evans Pyramid has garnered acclaim from record collectors and DJs alike all over the world including Floating Points, Gilles Peterson, DJ Kon, Soul Clap, Dimitri from Paris, and many others. Deano Sounds tracked down the man behind Evans Pyramid, Andre Evans back in 2012."Never Gonna Leave You" is a sublime disco masterpiece inspired by an emotional break up, wine, and Marvin Gaye. "Andre was able to achieve an undeniably unique sound by overdubbing rhythmic guitar parts while using the technique of muting guitar strings." The B side "Dip Drop" is a left field party jam for the dancefloor with all the bells and whistles. Cultures of Soul Records is proud to officially reissue the Evans Pyramid 12" housed in a custom full color disco sleeve.

Space Echo - The mystery behind the "Cosmic Sound" of Cabo Verde finally revealed! In the spring of 1968 a cargo ship was preparing to leave the port of Baltimore with an important shipment of musical instruments. Its final destination was Rio De Janeiro, where the EMSE Exhibition (Exposição Mundial Do Son Eletrônico) was going to be held.It was the first expo of its kind to take place in the Southern Hemisphere and many of the leading companies in the field of electronic music were involved. Rhodes, Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg, just to name a few, were all eager to present their newest synthesisers and other gadgets to a growing and promising South American market, spearheaded by Brazil and Colombia.The ship with the goods set sail on the 20th of March on a calm morning and mysteriously disappeared from the radar on the very same day. One can only imagine the surprise of the villagers of Cachaço, on the Sao Nicolau island of Cabo Verde, when a few months later they woke up and found a ship stranded in their fields, in the middle of nowhere, 8 km from any coastline.After consulting with the village elders, the locals had decided to open the containers to see what was inside - however gossip as scintillating as this travels fast and colonial police had already arrived and secured the area. Portuguese scientists and physicians were ordered to the scene and after weeks of thorough studies and research, it was concluded that the ship had fallen from the sky. One of the less plausible theories was that it might have fallen from a Russian military air carrier. The locals joked that again the government had wasted their tax money on a useless exercise, as a simple look at the crater generated by the impact could explain the phenomena. "No need for Portuguese rocket scientists to explain this!" they laughed.What the villagers didn't know, was that traces of cosmic particles were discovered on the boat. The bow of the ship showed traces of extreme heat, very similar to traces found on meteors, suggesting that the ship had penetrated the hemisphere at high speed. That theory also didn't make sense as such an impact would have reduced the ship to dust. Mystery permeated the event.Finally, a team of welders arrived to open the containers and the whole village waited impatiently. The atmosphere, which had been filled with joy and excitement, quickly gave way to astonishment. Hundreds of boxes conjured, all containing keyboards and other instruments which they had never seen before: and all useless in an area devoid of electricity. Disappointment was palpable. The goods were temporarily stored in the local church and the women of the village had insisted a solution be found before Sunday mass. It is said that charismatic anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral had ordered for the instruments to be distributed equally in places that had access to electricity, which placed them mainly in schools.This distribution was best thing that could have happened - keyboards found fertile grounds in the hands of curious children, born with an innate sense of rhythm who picked up the ready-to-use instruments. This in turn facilitated the modernisation of local rhythms such as Mornas, Coladeras and the highly danceable music style called Funaná, which had been banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers until 1975 due to its sensuality!The observation was made that the children who came into contact with the instruments found on the ship inherited prodigious capabilities to understand music and learn instruments. One of them was the musical genius Paulino Vieira, who by the end of the 70s would become the country´s most important music arranger.8 out of the 15 songs presented in this compilation had been recorded with the backing of the band Voz de Cabo Verde, lead by Paulino Vieira, the mastermind behind the creation and promulgation of what is known today as "The Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde".