|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CD
|
|
NA 5184CD
|
"Kraut-jazz-rock produced by JJ Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers). The long-standing band's third album. Featuring Marja Burchard (Embryo). It's been over ten years since Karl Hector and the Malcouns' Sahara Swing saw release on Now-Again in 2008. The album swung with influences from across the African diaspora and set the stage for a cult, but influential following. Hermes designer Christophe Lemaire picked tracks from Karl Hector and The Malcouns as amongst his favorites in the Now-Again catalog, and included them on his Where Are You From anthology. Festival promoters intrigued by the possibility of resurrecting the careers of once forgotten African mavericks -- from Ghana's Ebo Taylor to the progenitors of Zambia's Zamrock scene -- brought Hector and crew across Europe playing festivals for ecstatic fans. Producer JJ Whitefield even founded an Afro-Rock band, Johnny!, with Taylor's son Henry. Unstraight Ahead, their sophomore release from 2014, found the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing: West African sounds of Ghana and Mali met the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke's Ethiopian jazz, tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of The Malcouns' 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow's Gift. 'We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,' Whitefield stated at the time of Unstraight Ahead's release. 'We're trying to combine the global experimentalism of Krautrock with the backbeat of funk.' Non Ex Orbis, the band's third studio album, digs deeper into the Krautrock history embedded deep in the soil of their native Munich - three of the most influential bands of the 1970s experimental German rock scene sprung from there: Amon Düül, Popol Vuh and Embryo. Influenced by these musical heroes, Whitefield shapes a sound that takes the experimental approach of the classic Krautrock era and slides between beat-heavy drone and spacey, prog-rock suites. Marja Burchard, daughter of Embryo mastermind Christian Burchard, fronts the group on keyboard, vibraphone and other-worldly vocals. Al Markovic joins longstanding Malcoun Zdenko Curilija to round out the ensemble. Non Ex Orbis, read by Whitefield and the band as Out Of This World, symbolizes an innocent way of composing and improvising music, free from the influences of our contemporary environment, preserving a childlike way of hearing sounds in their unfiltered purity."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
NA 5184LP
|
2024 repress; LP version; includes download card. "Kraut-jazz-rock produced by JJ Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers). The long-standing band's third album. Featuring Marja Burchard (Embryo). It's been over ten years since Karl Hector and the Malcouns' Sahara Swing saw release on Now-Again in 2008. The album swung with influences from across the African diaspora and set the stage for a cult, but influential following. Hermes designer Christophe Lemaire picked tracks from Karl Hector and The Malcouns as amongst his favorites in the Now-Again catalog, and included them on his Where Are You From anthology. Festival promoters intrigued by the possibility of resurrecting the careers of once forgotten African mavericks -- from Ghana's Ebo Taylor to the progenitors of Zambia's Zamrock scene -- brought Hector and crew across Europe playing festivals for ecstatic fans. Producer JJ Whitefield even founded an Afro-Rock band, Johnny!, with Taylor's son Henry. Unstraight Ahead, their sophomore release from 2014, found the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing: West African sounds of Ghana and Mali met the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke's Ethiopian jazz, tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of The Malcouns' 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow's Gift. 'We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,' Whitefield stated at the time of Unstraight Ahead's release. 'We're trying to combine the global experimentalism of Krautrock with the backbeat of funk.' Non Ex Orbis, the band's third studio album, digs deeper into the Krautrock history embedded deep in the soil of their native Munich - three of the most influential bands of the 1970s experimental German rock scene sprung from there: Amon Düül, Popol Vuh and Embryo. Influenced by these musical heroes, Whitefield shapes a sound that takes the experimental approach of the classic Krautrock era and slides between beat-heavy drone and spacey, prog-rock suites. Marja Burchard, daughter of Embryo mastermind Christian Burchard, fronts the group on keyboard, vibraphone and other-worldly vocals. Al Markovic joins longstanding Malcoun Zdenko Curilija to round out the ensemble. Non Ex Orbis, read by Whitefield and the band as Out Of This World, symbolizes an innocent way of composing and improvising music, free from the influences of our contemporary environment, preserving a childlike way of hearing sounds in their unfiltered purity."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
4LP
|
|
NA 5137LP
|
"Contains all 4 of Karl Hector's limited edition EP's: Tamanrasset, Ngugna Yeti Fofa, Coomassi and Ka Rica-Tar. Following their deft handling of musics from Eastern and Northern Africa alongside Western psychedelia, jazz and funk on Unstraight Ahead, Karl Hector & The Malcouns combine the previously available only on vinyl tracks from four EP's -- Tamanrasset, Ngugna Yeti Fofa, Coomassi and Ka Rica-Tar -- into an album as Krautrock as Afro Beat, as Multi-Culti-Psychedelic as Deep Funk."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
NA 5137CD
|
"Following their deft handling of musics from Eastern and Northern Africa alongside Western psychedelia, jazz and funk on Unstraight Ahead, Karl Hector & The Malcouns combine the previously available only on vinyl tracks from four EP's -- Tamanrasset, Ngugna Yeti Fofa, Coomassi and Ka Rica Tar -- into an album as Krautrock as Afro Beat, as Multi-Culti-Psychedelic as Deep Funk."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
NA 5133LP
|
"Following their deft handling of musics from Eastern and Northern Africa alongside Western psychedelia, jazz and funk on Unstraight Ahead, Karl Hector & The Malcouns are back with an vinyl-only EP -- the fourth in a series that included Tamanrasset, Ngugna Yeti Fofa and Coomassi -- that represents the band's completion of a cycle of musical forms from around the world, and combines European, African, Middle Eastern and American styles into something new, and of course, pretty damn groovy."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
NA 5114LP
|
Double LP version with download card. "Afrodelic Krautrock excursions featuring members of Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers It's been some years since the first Karl Hector release, and it's known now that Mr. Hector is indeed the German producer and guitarist JJ Whitefield, aka Jan Weissenfeldt. Whitefield is the visionary behind the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers, the ensembles whose rough analog sound and return to the funk archetypes of the late '60s to early '70s paved the way for labels like Daptone, Truth & Soul, and Timmion. Unstraight Ahead finds the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing. On this album, the West African sounds of Ghana and Mali meet the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke's Ethiopian jazz and are tied together with the groove heavy experimental-ism of The Malcouns' '70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss, and Tomorrow's Gift. 'We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,' Whitefield says. 'We're trying to combine the global experimental-ism of krautrock with the backbeat of funk.' This explains how songs in uneven meters -- 5/4, 7/8 -- always sound so accessible and natural on Unstraight Ahead. It's mainly an instrumental affair, but guest artists appear throughout, from across the African diaspora to those from the worldly krautrock forebears of their German fatherland: it's Marja, daughter of Embryo founder Christian Burchard, whose vocals open the album. It's an album out of time, one that couldn't have been made in the era its aural aesthetics reference, as its scope is so broad. But it's an album focused by funk -- and an ambition to expand funk's reaches. The Malcouns -- including Poets of Rhythm songwriter and vocalist Bo Baral -- created their own instruments to fashion an album that stands alongside the great albums of its progenitors but charges Unstraight Ahead into a curious musical future."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
NA 5114CD
|
"Afrodelic Krautrock excursions featuring members of Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers It's been some years since the first Karl Hector release, and it's known now that Mr. Hector is indeed the German producer and guitarist JJ Whitefield, aka Jan Weissenfeldt. Whitefield is the visionary behind the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers, the ensembles whose rough analog sound and return to the funk archetypes of the late '60s to early '70s paved the way for labels like Daptone, Truth & Soul, and Timmion. Unstraight Ahead finds the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing. On this album, the West African sounds of Ghana and Mali meet the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke's Ethiopian jazz and are tied together with the groove heavy experimental-ism of The Malcouns' '70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss, and Tomorrow's Gift. 'We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,' Whitefield says. 'We're trying to combine the global experimental-ism of krautrock with the backbeat of funk.' This explains how songs in uneven meters -- 5/4, 7/8 -- always sound so accessible and natural on Unstraight Ahead. It's mainly an instrumental affair, but guest artists appear throughout, from across the African diaspora to those from the worldly krautrock forebears of their German fatherland: it's Marja, daughter of Embryo founder Christian Burchard, whose vocals open the album. It's an album out of time, one that couldn't have been made in the era its aural aesthetics reference, as its scope is so broad. But it's an album focused by funk -- and an ambition to expand funk's reaches. The Malcouns -- including Poets of Rhythm songwriter and vocalist Bo Baral -- created their own instruments to fashion an album that stands alongside the great albums of its progenitors but charges Unstraight Ahead into a curious musical future."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
NA 5101LP
|
"For all intents and purposes, Karl Hector might as well be another nom-de-plume of Jay Whitefield (producer and guitarist for the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers) who, along with Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija, founded Karl Hector and The Malcouns in the early 2000s. Alongside Bo Baral, other members of the Poets of Rhythm and crack Munich-based session musicians, Whitefield, Myland and Curlija crafted nearly twenty tracks for their debut, Sahara Swing, an album that swung with influences from across the African diaspora. The trio are releasing a series of vinyl-only EPs -- of which Ngunga Yeti Fofa is the second -- that will culminate in their second album. Ngunga Yeti Fofa's five songs demonstrate The Malcouns' deft handling of musics from both Eastern and Western Africa alongside Western psychedelia, jazz and funk; the title track - a swinging horn-lead highlife jam that would sound perfect next to the Ghanaian classics by the likes of K.Frimpong and Ebo Taylor-is a great representation."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
NA 5035CD
|
"Now-Again Records follows up The Heliocentrics' percussive excursions into the astral realms of psychedelia with an album of Afro-tinged funk music originating from the Southern Sahara and recorded in Germany. Karl Hector has, to date, only appeared on one 7", from 1996, as the leader of the Funk Pilots. For this album, he has teamed up with Jay Whitefield (producer and guitarist for the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers, and founder of the now-defunct Hotpie & Candy Records) and Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija, founders of The Malcouns. Alongside Bo Baral, other members of the Poets of Rhythm and crack Munich-based session musicians, Whitefield, Myland and Curlija have crafted nearly twenty tracks that follow the musical roads that Hector has traveled. The underlying groove that ties these ideas together, of course, is as rooted in James Brown as it is Fela Kuti. As informed by Mulatu Astatke of Ethiopia as it is by Jean-Claude Vannier and Can. This is an album of the world. Not 'world music' -- but an album that will appeal to any culture ever transfixed by rhythm on 'the one.'"
|
|
|
|