African Guitar

Afrobeat’s rise to common musical currency has been mercurial during the last 5 years as dance music producers embrace more complex Afro rhythms and original West African pioneers like Fela Kuti and Tony Allen receive their dues. Featuring new hip hop from Ty alongside seminal house beats from Masters At Work and ultra-funky original music from Nigeria and Ghana courtesy of Fela Kuti, highlife God E.T. Mensah and more. 2 CD collection of 29 tracks then hits the groove straight away with Aslhley Beadle’s ‘Afrikans On Marz’ mix of Femi Kuti’s ‘Beng Beng Beng’, next up the classic Dennis Ferrer track ‘Funu’ which then leads us to a nicely different track with Tony Allen’sAfrobeat mix of Gigi’s ‘Gudfella’. So many more I could pick out too including DJ Food ‘Dub Lion’ and Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo De Cotonou Benin’s ‘Houe Towe Houn’. Suffice to say this does the job big time.

For many centuries the sea-bound Portuguese have been looking across the ocean. In the wake of their role in history, a wide and exciting multicultural network arose that is very much alive until today, first of all in music. The vivid rhythmical and melodious universe between Lisbon, the lusophone African countries and Brazil has always fascinated the guitarist Joel Xavier. Having just successfully anchored his latest opus in New York - in collaboration with his prominent duo-partner Ron Carter -, he now shifts focus to the pulsating dynamics of south-atlantic regions with his new album „Saravá“. Xavier´s live-record debut also marks his return to the electric jazz guitar.

Chris Hinze’s unceasing interest in the integration of ethnic music in western music cultures brought him all over the world and led him to the by now very successful ‘African-Indian and World Music Fusion’.

Percussionist Olatunji was championing African music long before anyone devised the worldbeat marketing strategy. His 1989 recording Drums of Passion: The Beat updated his classic Drums of Passion concept, adding rock and pop energy and instrumentalists to the wall of multiple rhythms. The idea clicks, and Olatunji's African beats are contrasted by Airto Moreira's Latin percussion, Mickey Hart's bombastic presence, and such special guests as Carlos Santana and Bobby Vega.

King Sunny Adé - Synchro System & Aura (1983-84) {T-Bird TBIRD 0034 CD rel 2010}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 494 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 180 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1983-84, 2010 Island Records / T-Bird Records | TBIRD 0034 CD
International / Afro-Beat / West African / Afro-Pop / Juju / Worldbeat

King Sunny Adé had been making his own music since 1974 with his group the Green Spots before creating his large African Beats group. This band, despite making literally over 100 records in Nigeria, failed to stir much Western interest until Mango Records, a subsidiary of Island, took a chance and issued the breakthrough album Juju Music in 1982. With its seven extended cuts, it introduced King Sunny Adé & His African Beats to the U.S. as well as England and most of the rest of Europe – save for France, where the band had previously been able to tour. This U.K. two-fer reissue of 1983's Synchro System and Aura (on Cherry Red's T-Bird imprint) is comprised of the other two recordings in the band's Mango catalog (the band was dropped after sales of these two recordings proved disappointing to label bosses who tried to market Adé as "the new Bob Marley").