Desert garage dub....

Deep hypnotic guitar grooves from youngsters on the Toureg blues scene - Tamikrest. A killer debut last year and now a new album Toumastin.

Elvin Jones' Midnight Walk featuring Dollar Brand

Elvin Jones - Tintiyana (written by Dollar Brand) from the 1967 LP Midnight Walk on Atlantic Records.

I've been hunting down a copy of this LP for many moons when out of the blue I saw one of my favourite stores (Honest Jon's in London) advertising a new vinyl reissue from Rhino. It's a lesser known sixties recording featuring Dollar Brand that I was first alerted to by Rashid Vally and came just a year before Dollar returned to South Africa to "clean out". The album features a stellar cast including: Elvin Jones (drums), Thad Jones (trumpet), Hank Mobley (tenor), Dollar Brand (piano), Donald Moore (bass), Steve James (electric piano) and George Abend (percussion).

The track I'm sharing today has been recorded many times over the years by Abdullah Ibrahim. If you're interested in Abdullah Ibrahims' collaborations then be sure to look out for his sets with Don Cherry, Carlos Ward, Bea Benjamin, Gato Barbieri, Kippie Moeketsi, Archie Shepp, Buddy Tate, Max Roach and Johnny Dyani. A shortened discography is published at flat international here.

"In Africa" via Nomade Radio

Thierry invited me to share some background on Matsuli and some of the reasons why I love records...check it out here

In Africa by Nomade Radio on Mixcloud

"Big, big show! We spend 2 hours in Africa. First, We're sending much love to the people in Ivory Coast. Hope that Peace and Fraternity will lead everybody there including the new government. We also have a great words and music session (via Internet) with Afro label owner, Matt Temple, Matsuli Records - http://matsuli.blogspot.com/ - we talks about music in his country, his projects, the record market, diggin' and more... In the second hour, we focus on the afro upcoming and news releases. Get ready for some treats from Strut, Analog Africa, Kindred Spirits, Vampisoul, among the others. We're ending up the show with a Spiritual Anniversary tribute to the late Babatunde Olatunji (7 avril 1927 - 6 avril 2003). Enjoy! "

Record Store Day Winners

We have ten winners nicely spread across Africa, South America, Europe and the U.S.A. - please let us have your mailing addresses so that we can post you the promised packages. Thank you to all who took the trouble to write in. The overall message was "more of the same please". So, we will continue as we have been doing. Your comments really do make a difference, so please do keep them coming. Requests are always welcome.

The winners are:
John Warr (Chapita LP); Rob Lischke (Chapita LP); Tim Clifford (Mahotella CD); Olivier Ledure (Mahotella CD); Frank (dr.crackle) (Mahotella CD); Greg Davis (Mahotella CD); Fabian Romero; David Sullivan; James Silberbauer; Pieter Remes (the last four will each receive a 5-pack mbaqanga 45rpms from the 1970s).

Record Store Day Jive Bonanza - A three way giveaway!

Electricjive, flatinternational and Matsuli Music have joined forces for a Record Store Day giveaway.

So we don't have a retail store made from bricks and mortar. But that doesn't stop us from spreading our love of records. And better still no money changes hands. We simply give the records to you. We won't even ask you to pay the postage.

We get lots of pleasure out of sharing great music, honouring the musicians who make it, and we hope to turn on a whole new audience to fantastic out-of-print sounds that might otherwise become lost to global memory. We avoid sharing music that can still be legitimately purchased.

The offer comprises
- two copies of the Dick Khoza Chapita reissue LP from Matsuli Music;
- four 5-packs of seventies mbaqanga/jive singles mostly on the King, Soweto and Groove labels; and
- four copies of the electric-jive assisted Mahotella Queens/Soul Brothers CD compilation on Nascente Records

So ten winners in total and all you need to do is to send an email to recordforthe AT gmail.com telling us why you visit our sites and what music you would like to see more of. We will select the winners at random and close the competition after 5 days.


For more info on World Record Store day visit here