Bayo Adegboyega The Atayero Voices
Dear Mother

‘Still untouched by human settlement barely 500 years ago, the islands of the Southwest Indian Ocean, Mauritius, Reunion Island, Rodrigues and the Seychelles were colonized by Europeans (French, English and Dutch) from the end of the 16th century on and operated as trading posts on the Indian route. Slaves were deported from Africa and Madagascar to cultivate coffee, spices and sugar cane. On the margins of the plantations, during clandestine gatherings, they exorcised their daily lives through percussion, singing and dancing. It is the tschiéga, chéga or sega, from Mozambique and Malagasy influence.The gradual appropriation by the Creole populations of Western instruments and European melodic traditions (quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, scottish, romances, mazurkas), as well as the cultural contribution of committed workers from India laid the foundations of the modern sega.This crossroads of influences was to continue to grow, especially from the 1950s, when the first phonographs arrived, playing all kinds of varieties but also jazz, soul, rock'n'roll, and even Cuban or Brazilian music.For the Sega, these were the first steps towards a period of intense creativity that would cover the 1960s and 1970s. Amplified instruments arrived, and electric guitars, basses, drums and keyboards quickly replaced violins and accordions. Record production exploded and saw the advent of many micro-labels featuring genius arrangers such as Marclaine Antoine, Gérard Cimiotti, Eric Nelson, Claude Vinh San, or Narmine Ducap who explored the Sega in its many facets. Psychedelic keyboards, fuzz guitars and undulating basses invited themselves on the furious ternary polyrhythms of drums, ravannes, bongos, claves, triangles and maracas, to produce a unique style.Here are some pearls from this golden age of the segas of Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion Island that are compiled in this volume 2 for our greatest pleasure!’

For the first in a new series of albums covering the Sudanese soul and jazz scenes, Habibi Funk serves up an album of previously unreleased material by veteran performer Kamal Keila. The music contained on the album comes from two reel-to-reel tapes of session recordings made by Keila and his band for Sudanese radio in 1992, though many of the songs and arrangements date back to the 1970s. During his '70s peak, Keila was often described locally as "Sudan's answer to James Brown or Fela Kuti". Although the influence of both is present on both tracks, you'll also hear Sudanese blues, fifties-style R&B, hazy funk influenced by the Ethiopian music scene and sweet, horn-heavy, breakbeat-powered sing-alongs. Superb stuff, all told.

Raï is the music of a youth hungover from Algeria's recent independence. It became a space for a liberated, transgressive dialogue that told the social truths of its time -- an up-front yet poetic voice that covers the taboos and frustrations of daily life, expressing emotion without detour. This voice is heard at weddings, cabarets, in the nightclubs of the Oranese coast, and casually on the street... With the boom of the audio cassette, an avalanche of raï tapes were produced in Oran and diffused all over the world. Both women and men sang and listened to the new sound, as raï is intimately tied to parties, alcohol and the night. With the spontaneous improvisation of its singers as the main part of each song, raï keeps reinventing itself. In this style, Cheb Hasni, along with Cheb Nasro, incarnates a second generation of musicians. With the "love raï", or sentimental raï, Hasni sings about love, passion and its setbacks -- moving away from the bittersweet daily chronicles of the first chebs and chebates. Having recorded nearly 150 cassettes, Cheb Hasni remains one of the most prolific and talented raï singers of his generation. Almost thirty years after his death, this three-volume compilation of rare tracks from his cassette releases on the Oriental Music Production label is a tribute to the lasting legacy of Cheb Hasni -- ya raï! The third volume of three is presented here.CHEB HASNIVol 3 Outre National

Les Super Kadumaa ‎– Agbadze Vovo / Tsoe Vi Menye - Intophone 1975 Highlife band from 70's based in Togo. Just a couple of singles have been released, very rare

Transversales Disques presents for the first time on LP, François de Roubaix’s full score for the French TV series Les Secrets de la Mer Rouge, an adaptation of the epic travel, through the Middle East, of the famous writer and explorer Henri de Monfreid. This album is a collection of the original (1967) themes and those recorded later in 1975 when the TV series was continued.In the 1967 soundtrack, de Roubaix uses various flutes, marine conches, and for underwater views, unexpected instruments such as a celesta or a crystal xylophone. By 1975, electronic technology had dramatically developed and this evolution is clearly apparent when one listens to the recordings of the two seasons. For the later 1975 series, de Roubaix composed a new music score, mixing old and new sounds, a great combination of EMS VCS3 synthesizer subtly mixed with acoustic instruments.For François de Roubaix, there was never a border between fiction, life and music, and writing music for Les secrets de la Mer Rouge was an extension of his love of the open sea.