BATSUMI Reissue Now Available Worldwide!

For the first time in over 35 years Batsumi's glorious 1974 debut album is finally available once more. The remastered reissue is the second in Matsuli's ongoing programme to restore important but neglected South African afro jazz recordings back into print.

Francis Gooding, who wrote the detailed sleeve notes, had this to say:
"Almost as if it was unexplored territory, the extraordinary landscape of South African jazz is frequently mapped out by reference to a few well known landmarks: the glorious township swing and hot jive of the 1950s; the fame and misfortune of the modern jazz exiles of the 1960s, and their energising presence in Europe; the towering trans-national figures of Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim. For the jazz music and musicians of South Africa that did not by chance or choice fall into one of these categories, the long silence of history has only intermittently been broken, and the legacy of past iniquities has served to consign many names on South Africa’s long roster of jazz giants to an undeserved obscurity. A wealth of music does not yet appear on the map, but when the contours of the jazz scene under apartheid begin to be surveyed in more detail, it is clear that a space must be marked out for the Soweto-based group Batsumi."

Honest Jons says:
"Landmark Afro Jazz from South Africa, 1974 — urgent, spiritual, political; shimmering, propulsive, surging. Reverbed traditional and trap drums, mesmeric bass, soaring flute and tenor sax. Warmly recommended."

Dan Magaziner says:
"The music is stunning...As it builds, it swings, coalescing into a uniquely compelling statement of intent. By the time and sax and flute solo over organ, bass and drums, Batsumi has got you."

Take a quick listen here and make your own mind.


The reissue is available on vinyl in a limited edition of 500 copies, each hand-numbered and provided on heavyweight 180g vinyl with detailed sleeve notes. It is also available as a digital download from online music retailers such as iTunes, Amazon and eMusic. It can even be streamed via Spotify.

To get a copy of this landmark album you can purchase using the following options:

MATSULI DIRECT

DIRECT for buyers in SA

CD on Demand via Amazon

MP3 via Amazon UK

MP3 via iTunes USA

For wholesale orders of more than 10 copies please
contact me

BATSUMI Pre-order Offer Details

Matsuli Music continues its reissue program of rare indigenous afro-jazz sounds from South Africa with the release of Sowetan group Batsumi's self-titled debut from 1974. The reissue has been lovingly re-mastered from the original tapes and features material compiled on the recent Next Stop Soweto series from Strut.

The album arrived amidst a period of intense political, intellectual and artistic ferment stimulated in large part by the teachings of Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement. ‘“Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud”. This is fast becoming our modern culture,’ wrote Biko in 1971, ‘a culture of defiance, self assertion and group pride and solidarity.’ Drawing partly on the insights of Frantz Fanon and the poets of Négritude, and partly on the contemporary US Black Power politics of figures such as Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael, Biko forged a visionary and potent message of South African redemption, pride and defiance. It took culture to its heart, and in the wake of Biko’s message a burgeoning arts scene rooted in the black and African experience began to flourish.

Batsumi is a masterpiece of spiritualised afro-jazz, and a prodigious singularity in the South African jazz canon. There is nothing else on record from the period that has the deep, resonant urgency of the Batsumi sound, a reverb-drenched, formidably focused pulse, underpinned by the tight-locked interplay of traditional and trap drums, and pushed on by the throb of Zulu Bidi’s mesmeric bass figures. The warm notes of Johnny Mothopeng’s guitar complete a soundscape that is at once closely packed with sonic texture and simultaneously vibrating with open space, and in whose shimmer and haze Themba Koyana and Tom Masemola soar. A sonorous echo emanating from an ancient well, reverberant with jazz ghosts and warmed by the heat of soul and pop, Batsumi is nothing short of revelatory.

Many groups from this period did not issue recordings at all, and Batsumi are unusual in even having left an official recorded legacy. Out of print since the 1970s, and never issued outside of South African in its entirety, Batsumi is a landmark South African jazz recording, and a key musical document of its time. Out of sight for far too long, Matsuli Music is proud to be able to bring this back into view, and award it the prominence it so richly deserves. Available from 28 November as a digital download and in a limited edition hand numbered vinyl print run of 500.

PRE-ORDER OFFER: Orders are expected to ship from 28 November and all orders received before the 28th will receive an MP3 download of the album as well as a CD copy of Dick Khoza's Chapita album released by Matsuli Music in 2010. For multiple or wholesale orders please contact me.

BATSUMI LTD. EDITION 180G VINYL

Inc. P&P to UK £28.98 GBP Inc. P&P to Europe £30.98 GBP Inc. P&P to Rest of World £33.98 GBP

NB: ORDERS WILL ONLY SHIP FROM 28 NOVEMBER!
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