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MAIS 050LP
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Pulsing electro-Fra Fra and DIY Afro-gospel combine on God Created Everything, the debut album by Ghanaian singer, Linda Ayupuka. Reminiscent of recent releases by Otim Alpha (Nyege Nyege) and Ata Kak, God Created Everything captures the rawness and immediacy of early-career recordings from the likes of Oumou Sangaré and Rokia Traoré, and heralds anew West African vocal talent: Linda Ayupuka. Produced by Francis Ayamga, (King Ayisoba, This Is FraFra Power), at his locally renowned Top Link Studio in Bongo, Northern Ghana, God Created Everything features eight highly charged exchanges of polyrhythmic dancefloor beats where Linda and Francis channel traditional Gurenɛ-language, Frafra ceremonial music with rapid fire tempos and hypnotic drum loops, referencing an international palette of dance styles from Malian DJ-led Balani Show street sound, electro-acholi to modern dancehall/Rn'B. For fans of: Oumou Sangaré, Rokia Traoré, Nyege Nyege, Otim Alpha, Ata Kak, King Ayisoba. "Fomallebazaa" features Faraday.
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MAIS 050C-LP
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LP version. Orange vinyl. Pulsing electro-Fra Fra and DIY Afro-gospel combine on God Created Everything, the debut album by Ghanaian singer, Linda Ayupuka. Reminiscent of recent releases by Otim Alpha (Nyege Nyege) and Ata Kak, God Created Everything captures the rawness and immediacy of early-career recordings from the likes of Oumou Sangaré and Rokia Traoré, and heralds anew West African vocal talent: Linda Ayupuka. Produced by Francis Ayamga, (King Ayisoba, This Is FraFra Power), at his locally renowned Top Link Studio in Bongo, Northern Ghana, God Created Everything features eight highly charged exchanges of polyrhythmic dancefloor beats where Linda and Francis channel traditional Gurenɛ-language, Frafra ceremonial music with rapid fire tempos and hypnotic drum loops, referencing an international palette of dance styles from Malian DJ-led Balani Show street sound, electro-acholi to modern dancehall/Rn'B. For fans of: Oumou Sangaré, Rokia Traoré, Nyege Nyege, Otim Alpha, Ata Kak, King Ayisoba. "Fomallebazaa" features Faraday.
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MAIS 047LP
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On Delta Estácio Blues, São-Paulo-based singer, composer and actor, Juçara Marçal delivers an electric, unflinching take on contemporary Brazil where samba, tropicalia and maracatu are reimagined via hip-hop production techniques. Created under an oppressive political climate as Brazil suffered from the pandemic, pain, anguish, chaos and anger run through Delta Estácio Blues. Co-produced by Marçal with fellow Metá Metá founder Kiko Dinucci, the album was partly inspired by Danny Brown's 2017 leftfield rap masterwork Atrocity Exhibition. For fans of: Metá Metá, Moor Mother, Kiko Dinucci, Damon Locks, Neneh Cherry. "Melding industrial 808s with melodic softness, Marçal weaves disparate strands into a playful and powerful whole." --The Guardian
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MAIS 039B-LP
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2022 repress on black vinyl. One of the most innovative artists working in contemporary Brazilian music, Kiko Dinucci offers an explosive take on 21st century Brazil, absorbing the lineage of Brazilian guitarists such as Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto, Baden Powell -- yet filters it through his uniquely "punk" musical vision. His style is raw -- technically, he attacks the guitar strings, lyrically he explores Afro-Brazilian culture, slavery, Brazilian revolutionaries and candomblé. For fans of: Metá Metá, Juçara Marçal, Jeff Parker, Itamar Assumpação, M. Takara. Features Ava Rocha, OGI, and Juçara Marçal.
"Folk music textures with a chunky, percussive playing style that recalls Kiko's experience in the city's punk scene... vivid playing, with rhythmic, resonant thrums." --Pitchfork
"My alternative album of the week... outstanding from start to finish." --Gilles Peterson
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MAIS 043YEL-LP
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Yellow vinyl version. Mais Um present a reissue of Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, originally released on CD only in 2006. On the 15th anniversary of its original release, Mais Um revisit a lost classic from the catalog of one of Brazil's most regarded and influential contemporary songwriters. Featuring Tom Zé and mangue beat pioneer, Gilmar Bola 8, Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse fused psyched-out samba and baile funk with original Black Ark-style studio distortion and spiritual dub dread, laying the foundations for his seminal Sem Nostalgia LP five years later (MAIS 002CD/LP), and in the process, establishing Santtana as an elemental force of Brazil's current new wave. "At the beginning of my career, I was experimenting, trying to figure out my sound. On 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, I discovered what I am and what I wanted to do in music. All the pieces connected. Everything just felt like the right place at the right time." Comprising four originals and four Santtana/Seleçao Natural dubs, 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse was and is a sound clash unlike any to have come before. Produced by Santtana and Recife's dubsetter himself, Buguinha Dub, each session was approached as an opportunity not to just record each instrument but to create an environment in which the studio becomes the centerpiece. Recorded and mixed entirely live as a group, with no overdubs, 3 Sessions feels uniquely intimate and relaxed (best typified by the band's "chat" in-between recordings). Tropicalia icon Tom Zé features on Santtana's slightly zippier version of Zé's samba dub "Ogodô Ano 2000" and American journalist Phylis Huber's reading of an extract of Virgina Woolf's The Waves on the expansive nine minute-long Balearic/Afrobeat dub "A Natureza Espera", is poignant and trippy. Santtana's take on Naçao Zumbi's "Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos", featuring original member and percussionist Gilmar Bola 8 on vocals, takes on techier references of the Detroit type, whilst vinyl closer "Into Shade" is a sumptuous psych rock dub ballad, co-written by Arto Lindsay. Remastered by German dub shaman, Stefan Betke/Pole. RIYL: Dennis Bovell, Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil, Beck, Caetano Veloso.
"This is as solid a dub outing as has issued from anywhere beyond Jamaica" --Pitchfork (7.4).
"Futuristic splicing of samba with Black Ark-style dub... A 2006 Brazilian cult item" --MOJO 4/5.
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MAIS 044CD
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Tender tonkori melodies, meditative dub excursions and hallowed folk vocals combine on Tonkori In The Moonlight, an 11-track collection of mostly traditional songs performed by indigenous Ainu musician OKI. Born on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1957, OKI's released his debut album in 1996 and since then he has recorded 11 studio albums both solo and with his Dub Ainu Band and toured internationally -- from WOMAD in the UK to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC via festival appearances in Singapore, Australia and across Europe. OKI is one of only a handful of musicians who play the tonkori, a five-stringed Ainu harp, which is both the pulse of this record and the force that unifies the disparate sounds he introduces such as reggae, dub, Irish folk, throat singing, African drumming and music from Central Asia. Tonkori In The Moonlight features Umeko Ando and Kila. For fans of: Midori Takada, Siti Muharam, Minyo Crusaders, Les Filles De Illighadad, African Head Charge, Mamman Sani.
"Supercool Japanese minimalism" --The Observer.
"Like nothing you've ever heard before" --The Wire.
"The edgy cool of Jamaica meets the kitsch cool of Japan... charming and compelling" --The Independent.
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MAIS 044LP
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2022 repress; LP version. Tender tonkori melodies, meditative dub excursions and hallowed folk vocals combine on Tonkori In The Moonlight, an 11-track collection of mostly traditional songs performed by indigenous Ainu musician OKI. Born on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1957, OKI's released his debut album in 1996 and since then he has recorded 11 studio albums both solo and with his Dub Ainu Band and toured internationally -- from WOMAD in the UK to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC via festival appearances in Singapore, Australia and across Europe. OKI is one of only a handful of musicians who play the tonkori, a five-stringed Ainu harp, which is both the pulse of this record and the force that unifies the disparate sounds he introduces such as reggae, dub, Irish folk, throat singing, African drumming and music from Central Asia. Tonkori In The Moonlight features Umeko Ando and Kila. For fans of: Midori Takada, Siti Muharam, Minyo Crusaders, Les Filles De Illighadad, African Head Charge, Mamman Sani.
"Supercool Japanese minimalism" --The Observer.
"Like nothing you've ever heard before" --The Wire.
"The edgy cool of Jamaica meets the kitsch cool of Japan... charming and compelling" --The Independent.
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MAIS 049CD
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New Orleans-based African-American producer/composer, ÌFÉ feeds Afro-Caribbean hand percussion through digital synthesizers and drum machines as he delivers explosive lyrics tackling life, death and the world we live in today to create a 21st century soundsystem experience on 0000+0000 -- the follow-up to ÌFÉ's acclaimed 2017 debut LP IIII+IIII. Otura Mun -- working under the conceptual alias ÌFÉ -- wrote, performed, and produced the entire album feat special guests: Bill Summers (of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters), Lex (a gifted, vocalist from the New Orleans underground), French MC Robby The Lord, the soulful Yoruban guitarist Saint Ezekiel, the London Lucumi Choir, Polish American singer Lavoski, who as a steady ÌFÉ collaborator, contributes vocals to the majority of the album's eleven songs. 0000+0000 was mixed in Austin, Texas by engineer Stuart Sikes, known for his work with Cat Power, Jack White, and Loretta Lynn, Sikes functions as a crucial collaborator on the album, bringing his own unique analog warmth to the electronic landscape created by ÌFÉ. For fans of: Rosalia, C. Tangana, Popcaan, IBEYI, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Sampa The Great.
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2LP
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MAIS 049LP
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LP version. New Orleans-based African-American producer/composer, ÌFÉ feeds Afro-Caribbean hand percussion through digital synthesizers and drum machines as he delivers explosive lyrics tackling life, death and the world we live in today to create a 21st century soundsystem experience on 0000+0000 -- the follow-up to ÌFÉ's acclaimed 2017 debut LP IIII+IIII. Otura Mun -- working under the conceptual alias ÌFÉ -- wrote, performed, and produced the entire album feat special guests: Bill Summers (of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters), Lex (a gifted, vocalist from the New Orleans underground), French MC Robby The Lord, the soulful Yoruban guitarist Saint Ezekiel, the London Lucumi Choir, Polish American singer Lavoski, who as a steady ÌFÉ collaborator, contributes vocals to the majority of the album's eleven songs. 0000+0000 was mixed in Austin, Texas by engineer Stuart Sikes, known for his work with Cat Power, Jack White, and Loretta Lynn, Sikes functions as a crucial collaborator on the album, bringing his own unique analog warmth to the electronic landscape created by ÌFÉ. For fans of: Rosalia, C. Tangana, Popcaan, IBEYI, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Sampa The Great.
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MAIS 049C-LP
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LP version. Red/black splatter vinyl. New Orleans-based African-American producer/composer, ÌFÉ feeds Afro-Caribbean hand percussion through digital synthesizers and drum machines as he delivers explosive lyrics tackling life, death and the world we live in today to create a 21st century soundsystem experience on 0000+0000 -- the follow-up to ÌFÉ's acclaimed 2017 debut LP IIII+IIII. Otura Mun -- working under the conceptual alias ÌFÉ -- wrote, performed, and produced the entire album feat special guests: Bill Summers (of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters), Lex (a gifted, vocalist from the New Orleans underground), French MC Robby The Lord, the soulful Yoruban guitarist Saint Ezekiel, the London Lucumi Choir, Polish American singer Lavoski, who as a steady ÌFÉ collaborator, contributes vocals to the majority of the album's eleven songs. 0000+0000 was mixed in Austin, Texas by engineer Stuart Sikes, known for his work with Cat Power, Jack White, and Loretta Lynn, Sikes functions as a crucial collaborator on the album, bringing his own unique analog warmth to the electronic landscape created by ÌFÉ. For fans of: Rosalia, C. Tangana, Popcaan, IBEYI, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Sampa The Great.
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MAIS 038C-LP
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Green vinyl. Tokyo-based ten-piece and wild Japanese folk-song fusionists, Minyo Crusaders join forces with Colombian cumbia radicals Frente Cumbiero on the history-making Minyo Cumbiero, the first ever Japanese-Colombian collaborative release, and one that fuses ancient Japanese folk songs with heavyweight Colombian styles. Recorded across two days in Bogota in August 2019 Minyo Cumbiero includes versions of an ancient Japanese rap tune, modern cumbia standard and 1980s Chinese computer game theme-song and captures a thrilling exchange between two radical and triumphant groups. Japan and Colombia may be cultural opposites on different sides of the world, yet the countries are bursting at the seams musically and on this EP both groups stridently drive their respective music cultures and histories in exciting new directions with powerhouse horn sections, rippling dub basslines, and rampant Afro-Latin polyrhythms creating carnival grooves, released here via London-based label, Mais Um. For an uncompromisingly contemporary and inventive take on traditional Colombian cumbia, look no further than Frente Cumbiero. Headed by Colombian songwriter and producer Mario Galeano Toro (also a founding member of Ondatrópica and Los Pirañas), the Bogota-based crew have spearheaded Colombia's thriving new-look cumbia movement for well over a decade, fusing cumbia rhythms and bass weight electronics with releases featuring collaborations with the legendary London-based dub producer, Mad Professor and US-based Kronos Quartet. Following the release of their acclaimed debut album, Echoes of Japan in 2019 (MAIS 036CD/LP), Minyo Crusaders -- or MinCru as their Japanese fans know them as -- have won-over a global audience with their unique take on Japanese folk music. A debut European tour in 2019 saw main-stage performances at Le Guess Who and Transmusicales and was soon followed by shows at WOMADelaide and WOMAD New Zealand in early 2020 that saw audiences intoxicated by their mix of traditional Japanese folk songs (min'yō) and Afro-funk, Thai pop, Ethio-jazz and reggae. Fronted by singers "Freddy" Tsukamoto (his nickname comes from his hero, Freddie Mercury) and Megu, with guitarist and bandleader Katsumi Tanaka, the members of the ten-piece are drawn from Tokyo's vibrant and diverse jazz and Afro-Latin scenes.
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MAIS 018R-LP
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Over a squalling mess of improvised guitar and sax, a twisted, almost broken female vocal cries out to "Exu", the gatekeeper of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. This is the "Afro-punk" sound of Metá Metá -- vocalist Juçara Marçal, saxophonist Thiago França and guitarist Kiko Dinucci -- a trio of Sao Paulo's most sought-after musicians, struggling to survive the 21st century sonic schizophrenia of their home city Sao Paulo. Metá Metá's sophomore album and debut for Mais Um, MetaL MetaL, launches itself from the ancient chants of the orixás into a dirty brew of psychedelic samba, distorted jazz and Afro-punk. The band are all followers of candomblé yet Thiago is eager to point out that they are not using the orixás to preach certain beliefs but to provide a framework within which they tell their stories. On MetaL MetaL they mix these spiritual and rhythmic foundations with influences ranging from Afrobeat to Afrosambas, punk rock to be-bop to create chaotic, life-affirming music that explodes with the rage of The Stooges and Sonic Youth, the spirituality of John Coltrane and Sun Ra and the wild, avant-garde instrumentation of contemporary experimental jazz outfits such as Melt Yourself Down and Polar Bear. The story of Metá Metá begins with Juçara Marçal in 1999. She was traveling Brazil researching indigenous and African-influenced music with her band A Barca. The same year she met Kiko Dinucci, just as he was discovering Candomblé. Juçara subsequently recorded four albums of repertoire influenced by her research but it wasn't until 2006 that she and Kiko went into the studio together to recorded Padê, a gorgeous acoustic album evoking a wide range of African influenced music and religions. In 2007, the duo asked saxophonist Thiago França to guest perform at a show of theirs and from the first rehearsal they knew that a very special union had been born and went on to give a riotous first performance. The trio's eponymous first album was released in 2011, now followed by MetaL MetaL, whose addition of Marcelo Cabral on bass and Sergio Machado on drums gloriously showcases a more driving, electrified sound.
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2LP
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MAIS 036R-LP
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Blue vinyl. Minyo Crusaders rework historic Japanese folk songs (min'yō) with Latin, African, Caribbean, and Asian rhythms for their debut album Echoes of Japan. Releases from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, and Midori Takada have re-ignited global interest in Japanese music and Echoes of Japan marks the arrival of a big band like no other. "For Japanese people, min'yō is both the closest, and most distant, folk music," explains band-leader Katsumi Tanaka: "We may not feel it in our daily, urban lives, yet the melodies, the style of singing and the rhythm of the taiko drums are engrained in our DNA." Initially indifferent to min'yō, a tragic event in recent Japanese history set Tanaka on his current path: "Following the Tohoku earthquake of 2011, I reflected on my life, work and identity. A fan of world music, I began searching for Japanese roots music I could identify with. Discovering mid-late 20th century acts Hibari Misora, Chiemi Eri and the Tokyo Cuban Boys, I was captivated by their eccentric arrangements and how they mixed min'yō with Latin and jazz." Originally sung by fishermen ("Kushimoto Bushi"; "Mamurogawa Ondo"), coal miners ("Tanko Bushi") and sumo wrestlers ("Sumo Jinku"), these songs deal with topics such as the returning spirits of ancestors ("Hohai Bushi"), Japan's smallest bird ("Toichin Bushi"), and a bride's love for her husband's pockmarked face ("Otemoyan"). Minyo Crusaders are one of the most hyped acts on the Tokyo music scene that went national in 2018 through festivals such as Fuji Rock. The band features veterans of the Tokyo roots music scene such as bassist DADDY U (Ska Flames), keyboardist Moe (Kidlat), sax player Koichiro Osawa (Matt Sounds, J.J. Session), Yamauchi Stephan (J.J. Session), percussionist Mutsumi Kobayashi (Banda de la Mumbia), conga player Irochi (Cubatumb), and vocalist Meg (DJ collective Tokyo Sabroso). For fans of: Haruomi Hosono, Soundway Records, Analog Africa, Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band.
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LP
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MAIS 042LP
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LP version. Swirling layers of OST-style sound design, dreamy choir vocals and traditional Chinese folk combine across eight dynamic and transportive tracks on Birdy Island, the latest album by Beijing-based producer/artist, Howie Lee. Fresh off the back of several high impact, club-centering album releases on Maloca, SVBKVLT, and his influential, Do Hits label, on top of remixes for artists including Lawfawndah, Charlie XCX, and Sophie, Lee presents his most organic and expansive project to date. Written, produced, and recorded entirely by Lee at the back end of 2018 (with the exception of the album's resident four-piece choir made up of rising Beijing artist, Fishdoll, Shanghai singer/producer, Yehaiyahan and West by West, with Lee himself also included), Birdy Island's almost exclusively acoustic yet broad sound palette threads continuities between ceremonial Taoist music, early Buchla synth experiments, and FWD nights at London's Plastic People. "This album just came very natural. It was all recorded little by little. Layer upon layer. The approach was to just record. I had all these instruments around me and I just thought, I'm gonna play and keep playing." Howie's latest offering is as enchanting as it is boundlessly imaginative. "I've always had this concept in my mind about making an album based around an island." Loosely based around Lee's own long-formed concept of a floating Sicilian theme park, co-inhabited by both birds and ancestral spirits, Howie remarks: "Birdy Island to me is a palace in the clouds and the birds reworshipped like Gods. Not like a western God though." Reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's "Laputa" (in the 1986 film Castle In The Sky), Lee's BirdyIsland has been built by a Chinese investment company seeking to re-syncour relationship with the spiritual and natural world after years of economic collapse and degradation, and who invite Howie to compose the park's soundtrack. Inside Birdy Island's 30-minute gallery of collaged sound, Lee draws on a wide history of traditional pan-Asian music, filtered through his unique lens of contemporary electronic production.
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CD
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MAIS 043CD
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Mais Um present a reissue of Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, originally released on CD only in 2006. On the 15th anniversary of its original release, Mais Um revisit a lost classic from the catalog of one of Brazil's most regarded and influential contemporary songwriters. Featuring Tom Zé and mangue beat pioneer, Gilmar Bola 8, Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse fused psyched-out samba and baile funk with original Black Ark-style studio distortion and spiritual dub dread, laying the foundations for his seminal Sem Nostalgia LP five years later (MAIS 002CD/LP), and in the process, establishing Santtana as an elemental force of Brazil's current new wave. "At the beginning of my career, I was experimenting, trying to figure out my sound. On 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, I discovered what I am and what I wanted to do in music. All the pieces connected. Everything just felt like the right place at the right time." Comprising four originals and four Santtana/Seleçao Natural dubs (plus a CD bonus track), 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse was and is a sound clash unlike any to have come before. Produced by Santtana and Recife's dubsetter himself, Buguinha Dub, each session was approached as an opportunity not to just record each instrument but to create an environment in which the studio becomes the centerpiece. Recorded and mixed entirely live as a group, with no overdubs, 3 Sessions feels uniquely intimate and relaxed (best typified by the band's "chat" in-between recordings). Tropicalia icon Tom Zé features on Santtana's slightly zippier version of Zé's samba dub "Ogodô Ano 2000" and American journalist Phylis Huber's reading of an extract of Virgina Woolf's The Waves on the expansive nine minute-long Balearic/Afrobeat dub "A Natureza Espera", is poignant and trippy. Santtana's take on Naçao Zumbi's "Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos", featuring original member and percussionist Gilmar Bola 8 on vocals, takes on techier references of the Detroit type, whilst vinyl closer "Into Shade" is a sumptuous psych rock dub ballad, co-written by Arto Lindsay. Remastered by German dub shaman, Stefan Betke/Pole. RIYL: Dennis Bovell, Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil, Beck, Caetano Veloso.
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MAIS 043C-LP
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LP version. Red vinyl. Mais Um present a reissue of Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, originally released on CD only in 2006. On the 15th anniversary of its original release, Mais Um revisit a lost classic from the catalog of one of Brazil's most regarded and influential contemporary songwriters. Featuring Tom Zé and mangue beat pioneer, Gilmar Bola 8, Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse fused psyched-out samba and baile funk with original Black Ark-style studio distortion and spiritual dub dread, laying the foundations for his seminal Sem Nostalgia LP five years later (MAIS 002CD/LP), and in the process, establishing Santtana as an elemental force of Brazil's current new wave. "At the beginning of my career, I was experimenting, trying to figure out my sound. On 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, I discovered what I am and what I wanted to do in music. All the pieces connected. Everything just felt like the right place at the right time." Comprising four originals and four Santtana/Seleçao Natural dubs (plus a CD bonus track), 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse was and is a sound clash unlike any to have come before. Produced by Santtana and Recife's dubsetter himself, Buguinha Dub, each session was approached as an opportunity not to just record each instrument but to create an environment in which the studio becomes the centerpiece. Recorded and mixed entirely live as a group, with no overdubs, 3 Sessions feels uniquely intimate and relaxed (best typified by the band's "chat" in-between recordings). Tropicalia icon Tom Zé features on Santtana's slightly zippier version of Zé's samba dub "Ogodô Ano 2000" and American journalist Phylis Huber's reading of an extract of Virgina Woolf's The Waves on the expansive nine minute-long Balearic/Afrobeat dub "A Natureza Espera", is poignant and trippy. Santtana's take on Naçao Zumbi's "Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos", featuring original member and percussionist Gilmar Bola 8 on vocals, takes on techier references of the Detroit type, whilst vinyl closer "Into Shade" is a sumptuous psych rock dub ballad, co-written by Arto Lindsay. Remastered by German dub shaman, Stefan Betke/Pole. RIYL: Dennis Bovell, Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil, Beck, Caetano Veloso.
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MAIS 042CD
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Swirling layers of OST-style sound design, dreamy choir vocals and traditional Chinese folk combine across eight dynamic and transportive tracks on Birdy Island, the latest album by Beijing-based producer/artist, Howie Lee. Fresh off the back of several high impact, club-centering album releases on Maloca, SVBKVLT, and his influential, Do Hits label, on top of remixes for artists including Lawfawndah, Charlie XCX, and Sophie, Lee presents his most organic and expansive project to date. Written, produced, and recorded entirely by Lee at the back end of 2018 (with the exception of the album's resident four-piece choir made up of rising Beijing artist, Fishdoll, Shanghai singer/producer, Yehaiyahan and West by West, with Lee himself also included), Birdy Island's almost exclusively acoustic yet broad sound palette threads continuities between ceremonial Taoist music, early Buchla synth experiments, and FWD nights at London's Plastic People. "This album just came very natural. It was all recorded little by little. Layer upon layer. The approach was to just record. I had all these instruments around me and I just thought, I'm gonna play and keep playing." Howie's latest offering is as enchanting as it is boundlessly imaginative. "I've always had this concept in my mind about making an album based around an island." Loosely based around Lee's own long-formed concept of a floating Sicilian theme park, co-inhabited by both birds and ancestral spirits, Howie remarks: "Birdy Island to me is a palace in the clouds and the birds reworshipped like Gods. Not like a western God though." Reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's "Laputa" (in the 1986 film Castle In The Sky), Lee's BirdyIsland has been built by a Chinese investment company seeking to re-syncour relationship with the spiritual and natural world after years of economic collapse and degradation, and who invite Howie to compose the park's soundtrack. Inside Birdy Island's 30-minute gallery of collaged sound, Lee draws on a wide history of traditional pan-Asian music, filtered through his unique lens of contemporary electronic production.
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MAIS 043LP
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LP version. Mais Um present a reissue of Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, originally released on CD only in 2006. On the 15th anniversary of its original release, Mais Um revisit a lost classic from the catalog of one of Brazil's most regarded and influential contemporary songwriters. Featuring Tom Zé and mangue beat pioneer, Gilmar Bola 8, Lucas Santtana's 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse fused psyched-out samba and baile funk with original Black Ark-style studio distortion and spiritual dub dread, laying the foundations for his seminal Sem Nostalgia LP five years later (MAIS 002CD/LP), and in the process, establishing Santtana as an elemental force of Brazil's current new wave. "At the beginning of my career, I was experimenting, trying to figure out my sound. On 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse, I discovered what I am and what I wanted to do in music. All the pieces connected. Everything just felt like the right place at the right time." Comprising four originals and four Santtana/Seleçao Natural dubs (plus a CD bonus track), 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse was and is a sound clash unlike any to have come before. Produced by Santtana and Recife's dubsetter himself, Buguinha Dub, each session was approached as an opportunity not to just record each instrument but to create an environment in which the studio becomes the centerpiece. Recorded and mixed entirely live as a group, with no overdubs, 3 Sessions feels uniquely intimate and relaxed (best typified by the band's "chat" in-between recordings). Tropicalia icon Tom Zé features on Santtana's slightly zippier version of Zé's samba dub "Ogodô Ano 2000" and American journalist Phylis Huber's reading of an extract of Virgina Woolf's The Waves on the expansive nine minute-long Balearic/Afrobeat dub "A Natureza Espera", is poignant and trippy. Santtana's take on Naçao Zumbi's "Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos", featuring original member and percussionist Gilmar Bola 8 on vocals, takes on techier references of the Detroit type, whilst vinyl closer "Into Shade" is a sumptuous psych rock dub ballad, co-written by Arto Lindsay. Remastered by German dub shaman, Stefan Betke/Pole. RIYL: Dennis Bovell, Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil, Beck, Caetano Veloso.
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LP
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MAIS 002LP
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First ever vinyl pressing outside of Brazil. Originally released in 2011. A modern electro-acoustic masterpiece of acoustic guitars and voices featuring Arto Lindsay. Equal parts Tom Zé and Thom Yorke, Lucas Santtana is one of Brazil's most interesting, dynamic and experimental singer-songwriter/producers. He is the first artist signing to new UK-based Brazilian record label Mais Um, who's much-acclaimed debut release Oi! A Nova Musica Brasileira charted a sonic snapshot of the most exciting new Brazilian music. With the help of long-term songwriting partner Arto Lindsay, Lucas has breathed new life into the Brazilian music institution that is "voz e violão." To achieve different sonic results, the tracks were co-produced by Lucas and collaborators. Berna Ceppas is responsible for the atmospheric and minimalist mood of "Nature #1 In Mi Maior" and "Hold Me In," where the noise of a missed note echoes through the space, as if on purpose. "Who Can Say Which Way" was produced by Chico Neves, and so was "Ripple Of The Water," recorded late at night, inside the woods of Rio De Janeiro's Botanical Gardens. Gustavo Lenza and Lucas Martins produced the sound collages of "Super Violão Mashup" while "king-of-the-mash-up" DJ João Brasil produced the sounds for the frenetic "Violão De Mario Bros." Buguinha Dub lent his effects to "Amor Em Jacumã" and "Cira, Regina E Nana," as did Rica Amábis in "Recado Pro Pio Lobato." Arto Lindsay, Lucas Santtana's usual partner, co-wrote "Hold Me In," "I Can't Live Far From My Music" and the beautiful, '70s-infused "Night-Time In The Backyard." When the concept overshadows the music, a conceptual record can be in danger of needing an instruction booklet in order to make any sense, yet this is not a threat here. Sem Nostalgia stands on its own, independent from the concept that built it.
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LP
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MAIS 027LP
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First ever vinyl pressing. Originally released in 2014. With her joyous stage persona and intoxicating blend of Amazonian, Afro-Brazilian and Caribbean rhythms, Dona Onete is one of world music's most entertaining recent success stories. Described by her manager as "Grace Jones trapped in the body of Cesaria Evora", Onete's songs talk about the delights of seducing men, herbs that make your body "shake" and her encounters with legends of the Amazon. Onete sings carimbó, an indigenous rhythm and dance from Pará, the state of Belém, influenced by both African and European traditions, and which forms the basis of the more famous lambada and other Caribbean rhythms. She recorded Feitiço Caboclo aged 73, and an international release from Mais Um in 2014 saw critics fall immediately for this sassy, saucy and sexy septuagenarian -- influential French magazine Les Inrocks made the album one of their top 5 "world" releases that year and rapturously received festival performances at Womad UK, Paris's Cabaret Sauvage, Portugal's FMM Sines followed in 2015. Onete was born in Cachoeira do Ararí, nestled in the delta of the Amazon across from Belém. She claims she only started to sing properly at the age of 11. "I used to spend the whole day on the river banks, washing clothes. One day, I saw a dolphin and thought that I should sing for him. The next day I sang again, and another came, and another, and soon a whole family of dolphins came to listen!" By the age of fifteen she was singing samba, quadrilhas, boi bumba, and other Northeastern genres in the bars of her hometown, yet Onete never considered a career in music. She became a Professor of History and Amazonian Studies in Igaparé Miri and ardently researched the rhythms, dances and traditions of the indigenous and black people of the area. This led her to establish several music and dance groups, which regenerated traditional customs, and which eventually saw her elected as the Municipal Secretary of Culture of Igaparé-Miri. Absorbing all these genres and rhythms, Dona Onete also began to compose, creating the hybrid genre for which she would later become famous, the carimbó chamegado.
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LP/7"
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MAIS 018LP
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First ever vinyl pressing outside of Brazil including a 7" with two tracks the band recorded with Tony Allen in Brazil. Originally released in 2013. Metá Metá's sophomore album and debut for Mais Um. MetaL MetaL launches itself from the ancient chants of the orixás into a dirty brew of psychedelic samba, distorted jazz and Afro-punk. The band is formed from a trio of São Paulo's most sought-after musicians -- vocalist Juçara Marçal, saxophonist Thiago França and guitarist Kiko Dinucci -- and features Afrobeat legend Tony Allen. Followers of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, Marçal, França and Dinucci mix these spiritual and rhythmic foundations with influences ranging from Afrobeat to Afrosambas, punk rock to be-bop to create chaotic, effervescent music that explodes with the rage of The Stooges and Sonic Youth, the spirituality of John Coltrane and Sun Ra and the wild, avant-garde instrumentation of contemporary experimental jazz outfits such as Melt Yourself Down and Polar Bear.
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LP + 7"
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MAIS 039LP
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2021 restock. LP version. Includes 7". On Rastilho, Kiko Dinucci absorbs the lineage of Brazilian guitarists such as Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto, Baden Powell, Jorge Ben, and Gilberto Gil -- yet filtered through his uniquely "punk" musical vision. His style is raw -- technically, he seems to attack the guitar strings, lyrically he explores Afro-Brazilian culture, slavery, Brazilian revolutionaries, candomblé, and evangelical Christianity. Dinucci is one the most innovative artists in contemporary Brazilian music -- as well as a member of Metá Metá, who combine elements of Brazilian music, candomblé, punk rock, and free jazz, he has worked with Tom Zé, Criolo, and Elza Soares. Kiko: "I've wanted to make an album dedicated to the guitar for a long time. As a child, I treated it as a toy. In my teens, with my guitar patched with pieces of sellotape, I tried to reproduce heavy rock riffs whilst finding inspiration in the Afro works of Baden Powell and guitars of Dorival Caymmi, João Bosco, Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil. In the '90s my experience in the São Paulo hardcore scene was mirrored by time spent in candomblé activities -- both shaped the way I play guitar today." Features Juçara Marçal. Featured as one of Pitchfork's "Great Records You May Have Missed: Winter 2020". Previously only available in Brazil. Includes 7" with three additional tracks, one of which exclusive to the 7".
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LP + 7"
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MAIS 039C-LP
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LP version. Includes 7". Orange vinyl. On Rastilho, Kiko Dinucci absorbs the lineage of Brazilian guitarists such as Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto, Baden Powell, Jorge Ben, and Gilberto Gil -- yet filtered through his uniquely "punk" musical vision. His style is raw -- technically, he seems to attack the guitar strings, lyrically he explores Afro-Brazilian culture, slavery, Brazilian revolutionaries, candomblé, and evangelical Christianity. Dinucci is one the most innovative artists in contemporary Brazilian music -- as well as a member of Metá Metá, who combine elements of Brazilian music, candomblé, punk rock, and free jazz, he has worked with Tom Zé, Criolo, and Elza Soares. Kiko: "I've wanted to make an album dedicated to the guitar for a long time. As a child, I treated it as a toy. In my teens, with my guitar patched with pieces of sellotape, I tried to reproduce heavy rock riffs whilst finding inspiration in the Afro works of Baden Powell and guitars of Dorival Caymmi, João Bosco, Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil. In the '90s my experience in the São Paulo hardcore scene was mirrored by time spent in candomblé activities -- both shaped the way I play guitar today." Features Juçara Marçal. Featured as one of Pitchfork's "Great Records You May Have Missed: Winter 2020". Previously only available in Brazil. Includes 7" with three additional tracks, one of which exclusive to the 7".
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CD
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MAIS 039CD
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On Rastilho, Kiko Dinucci absorbs the lineage of Brazilian guitarists such as Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto, Baden Powell, Jorge Ben, and Gilberto Gil -- yet filtered through his uniquely "punk" musical vision. His style is raw -- technically, he seems to attack the guitar strings, lyrically he explores Afro-Brazilian culture, slavery, Brazilian revolutionaries, candomblé, and evangelical Christianity. Dinucci is one the most innovative artists in contemporary Brazilian music -- as well as a member of Metá Metá, who combine elements of Brazilian music, candomblé, punk rock, and free jazz, he has worked with Tom Zé, Criolo, and Elza Soares. Kiko: "I've wanted to make an album dedicated to the guitar for a long time. As a child, I treated it as a toy. In my teens, with my guitar patched with pieces of sellotape, I tried to reproduce heavy rock riffs whilst finding inspiration in the Afro works of Baden Powell and guitars of Dorival Caymmi, João Bosco, Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil. In the '90s my experience in the São Paulo hardcore scene was mirrored by time spent in candomblé activities -- both shaped the way I play guitar today." Featured as one of Pitchfork's "Great Records You May Have Missed: Winter 2020". Previously only available in Brazil. CD version includes two additional songs.
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12"
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MAIS 038LP
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Tokyo-based ten-piece and wild Japanese folk-song fusionists, Minyo Crusaders join forces with Colombian cumbia radicals Frente Cumbiero on the history-making Minyo Cumbiero, the first ever Japanese-Colombian collaborative release, and one that fuses ancient Japanese folk songs with heavyweight Colombian styles. Recorded across two days in Bogota in August 2019 Minyo Cumbiero includes versions of an ancient Japanese rap tune, modern cumbia standard and 1980s Chinese computer game theme-song and captures a thrilling exchange between two radical and triumphant groups. Japan and Colombia may be cultural opposites on different sides of the world, yet the countries are bursting at the seams musically and on this EP both groups stridently drive their respective music cultures and histories in exciting new directions with powerhouse horn sections, rippling dub basslines, and rampant Afro-Latin polyrhythms creating carnival grooves, released here via London-based label, Mais Um. For an uncompromisingly contemporary and inventive take on traditional Colombian cumbia, look no further than Frente Cumbiero. Headed by Colombian songwriter and producer Mario Galeano Toro (also a founding member of Ondatrópica and Los Pirañas), the Bogota-based crew have spearheaded Colombia's thriving new-look cumbia movement for well over a decade, fusing cumbia rhythms and bass weight electronics with releases featuring collaborations with the legendary London-based dub producer, Mad Professor and US-based Kronos Quartet. Following the release of their acclaimed debut album, Echoes of Japan in 2019 (MAIS 036CD/LP), Minyo Crusaders -- or MinCru as their Japanese fans know them as -- have won-over a global audience with their unique take on Japanese folk music. A debut European tour in 2019 saw main-stage performances at Le Guess Who and Transmusicales and was soon followed by shows at WOMADelaide and WOMAD New Zealand in early 2020 that saw audiences intoxicated by their mix of traditional Japanese folk songs (min'yō) and Afro-funk, Thai pop, Ethio-jazz and reggae. Fronted by singers "Freddy" Tsukamoto (his nickname comes from his hero, Freddie Mercury) and Megu, with guitarist and bandleader Katsumi Tanaka, the members of the ten-piece are drawn from Tokyo's vibrant and diverse jazz and Afro-Latin scenes.
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