K. Frimpong Super Complex Sounds
Ahyewa Special

Habibi Funk presents a selection of works by Algerian-born, Amazigh artist Majid Soula. Majid’s music blends the best of Arab-disco, highlife and groovy funk into something wholly unique.Born in Kabylie, Algeria - a place that remains fundamental to his career - Majid Soula is a self-made musician, artist and producer. With no formal music education, Majid’s tenacity has led to a career that is still blossoming. His synths, driving drums, guitar & strong lyrics make a unique sound. A strong proponent for the rights of the Amazigh, he has a band that to this day plays shows, most linked to cultural events of the Amazigh diaspora in France, as well as in Belgium, Russia the UK and Sweden. He was part of a new wave of widely popular and successful Kabyle artists in the 1980s, such as Ait Menguellet, Lounès Matoub, Takfarinas, Idir and many more.Habibi Funk as a label is dedicated to re-releasing music from “The Arab World”, but this release shows how reductive this term can be, as the countries from North Africa and West Asia being summarized under this term include a vast number of languages and identities. Obviously, headlines sometimes come with limited space, and one can’t avoid using terms that paint a half-finished picture. That being the case, however, we are even more happy that Majid Soula liked our idea to work on a release of a selection of his music with us. The tracks here are incredible and need to be introduced to a new generation of listeners.For Majid Soula music is more than just entertainment. He considers himself an activist through music, and foremost a “chanteur engagé”, as he says of himself: „I take my inspiration from the daily life of my people and I share all their aspirations, mainly the official recognition of Tamazight as a language, culture and identity.”He still works on new music in his small home studio in Belleville and occasionally plays concerts for the Amazigh community of the city.We sincerely hope that for you reading this and listening to Majid’s album, his music will have the same revelatory feeling it had on us, and that this will be part of a momentum that will allow Majid to keep on working, playing, and sharing his message for many years to come.

A double vinyl ticket to eleven engaging and evocative destinations.A trip into the fantastical. An Oyster from Elsewhere...Compiled by soFa, the second instalment in his recent series ties together eighteen artists, each venturing down their own musical path, to produce an audio atlas that transverses not only styles but also cultures and continents.Disparate musicians come from far and wide have been brought together across two slabs of beautifully mastered vinyl and, somehow, someway, found a jittering, skittering and juddering balance.Tracks from Puma & Dolphin and Khidja conjure up images of thick jungle scenes as tribal rhythm patterns hypnotise and mesmerise alongside shamanic samples. The heady exotic aromas and tactile textures of the East are on display with Zatua traipsing through baked dunes and deserts before arriving to the shamanic organized chaos that is Bear Bones, Lay Low.Darker moods loom and lurk, skulking in the alleys of Konsistent or in t-woc’s lurid tones. These duskier elements are countered by the brightness of Velvet C’s future disco sounds or the laser synthwork of Rony & Suzy. The buzzing Chicago inspired sounds of Weird Dust, the dawning pulses of Twoonky and the triumphal charges of Föhn blur the lines between mystical places and the cruel reality of the modern world.

Hurray for the Riff Raff release Small Town Heroes, its debut for ATO Records. The album features frontwoman Alynda Lee Segarra - who settled in New Orleans after leaving her native Bronx at age 17- with twelve new, original songs all written or co-written by Segarra, with support from a vivid cast of Crescent City musicians. Hurray for the Riff Raff 'sweeps across eras and genres with grace and grit,' never more so than on 'Small Town Heroes.' On the hedonist country lament 'I Know It's Wrong (But That's Alright)' Segarra sings to a forbidden love "I'll feed you watermelon off the vine," while on 'The Body Electric' she exposes the misogyny of the traditional murder ballad, and warns "Delia's gone, but I'm settling the score." Ultimately though, many of the songs embody that most magical and fated of American cities, New Orleans. Segarra bears witness to a wave of violence that struck the St. Roch neighbourhood in 'St. Roch Blues;' yearns for a night at BJ's Bar in the Bywater in 'Crash on the Highway;' and sings of her own Lower Ninth Ward home in 'End of the Line.'