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AFRODELIC

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Black Disco

Black Disco 3 - 2024 Reissue

Afrodelic

With a Yamaha organ and a dream, South African artist Pops Mohamed started his musical journey in the mid-1970s as the bandleader and composer of Black Disco, creating a hip melange of chill-out jazz with futuristic drum machine sounds and spiritual overtones. His cosmic organ transmissions were accompanied by two of the most sought-after session players on the South African scene, the sax and flute wizard Basil Coetzee, who had risen to fame in 1974 as one of the soloists on the hit "Mannenberg," and Sipho Gumede, the young bass prodigy who was already rubbing shoulders with the old guard at the outset of his career. Backed at first with polyphonic beats from Mohamed's electric organ and later taking on a drummer, Black Disco created a signature sound and a trilogy of innovative albums in a burst of studio creativity between 1975 and 1976.

This is the first full reissue of their 3rd album, from the original masters. Limited Edition

TRACK LISTING

1. Dawn
2. Deep Blue
3. Spiritual Feeling Riding The Blue (feat. Mohamed)
4. Whiter Shade Of Pale
5. No More Tears
6. Slow Mood
7. Kids In The Dark

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Honey Machine

Honey Machine - 2024 Reissue

Afrodelic

One of the best 80's Funk-Disco-Boogie repressed for the 1st time.

Recorded in Lagos, Nigeria in 1982. Features the great Nkono Teles on clavinet and electric piano and Jojo Kuo, drummer who played with Manu Dibango and Fela Kuti among others.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pleasure
2. Dooby Dooby
3. Free Like The Wind
4. Give Your Love To Me (feat. Festus F. Nwabuaku & Candido Obajimi)
5. Shake Your Body
6. We Can Make It
7. Come Back To Me

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Hal Singer Jazz Quartet

Soweto To Harlem

Afrodelic

When the U.S. State Department announced in the mid-1970s that they were sponsoring a South African tour for the Oklahoma-born, Paris-based saxophonist Hal Singer, producer Rashid Vally took note. Even though his nascent record label As-Shams/The Sun (established in 1974) was making waves on the local scene, the idea of commissioning a recording from an international artist was a ballsy idea. With a discography that stretched back to the 1950s, Hal Singer was already somewhat of a legacy artist by 1976. Vally was well-versed on Singer’s accomplishments and specifically enamoured by his composition “Blue Stompin’”, which appeared on a Prestige album from 1959 that had struck a chord in South Africa.

With his irresistible charm, Vally managed to coax Singer into a studio in Johannesburg, South Africa, to record a new version of "Blue Stompin'" with South African sax star Kippie Moeketsi, which became the title track of a 1977 album by Moeketsi. The recording session also yielded an album’s worth of new material by Hal Singer and his quartet that took its name from a track inspired by Singer’s trip to South Africa entitled “Soweto to Harlem”. Released in 1976 and only available in South Africa, "Soweto to Harlem" captures a laid-back, cheeky and nostalgic rhythm and blues set from the Hal Singer Quartet that is unlikely to have emerged for a different target market.

Afrodelic’s 2024 edition of this rare album is sourced from the original tape masters and presented on vinyl internationally for the very first time.

Hal Singer - Tenor Sax
Alain Jean-Marie - Piano
August “Gus” Nemeth - Bass
Oliver Johnson - Drums

TRACK LISTING

A1. Soweto To Harlem
A2. Blues After Six
B1. The Gospel
B2. Always Blues
B3. Deacon Johnson

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Galaxy

Galaxy - 2024 Reissue

Afrodelic

One of the best boogie disco records from Nigeria repressed for the first time. Produced in 1981 by Jake Sollo and performed by himself flanked by the outstanding funky bass by Randy Taylor and the great vocal performances from the Galaxy girls. Recorded and produced in England but originally released only in Nigeria.

TRACK LISTING

1. Next To You
2. Let Love Begin
3. The Bed's Too Big Without You
4. The Groove Machine
5. Galaxy
6. Heart To Heart

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Black Children

Black Children Sledge Funk Band - 2024 Reissue

Afrodelic

A little masterpiece of soul afrofunk with carpets of dreamy keyboards on their swirlingly seductive sound and their really cool voices. The second album of BLACK CHILDREN SLEDGE FUNK BAND released in 1978 is a delight. Repressed for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Be What You Are
2. I'm A Living Man
3. Smiling Girl
4. I Know You Know What I Know
5. Imagination
6. Doing It If You Can

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Bra Sello

Butterfly

Afrodelic

With one foot planted in jazz and the other in the township groove of Mbaqanga, saxophonist Sello Mmutung was a powerful crossover figure in the history of popular music in South Africa. Using the stage name Bra Sello, meaning “brother” and used as a term of affection and respect in the jazz community, he came up in the era of shellac 78s as an exponent of the 1960s sax jive sound that brought the swinging rhythm of kwela into the domain of South African jazz. Despite the injection of American rhythm and blues into South African pop in the late-1960s, Bra Sello’s first releases on vinyl on the CBS label saw him backed by the group Abafana Bentuthuko and holding down an unapologetic township sound.

Joining the independent Soweto label under producer Cambridge Matiwane in the mid-1970s, Bra Sello recorded two records in the hit-making bump jive style popularised by serious jazz musician Dollar Brand on the one hand and prolific studio group The Movers, operating in funk and soul territory, on the other. Blending modern American and traditional African elements into joyful hip-swinging rhythms, Butterfly (1975) and The Battle of Disco (1977) reflect the vivacity of urban life in South Africa and document an era when dance music was performed by bands as extended jams laced with jaw-dropping solos. With music trends shifting dramatically in the late-1970s, the title of The Battle of Disco was an ironic call to arms in response to the territory that group musicians were beginning to cede to synthesisers and DJs.

For enthusiasts of African music from the 1970s, a full appreciation of the continent’s output is incomplete without South Africa’s pop-jazz sound providing a regional counterpoint to the funk experimentation of West Africa. Reissued for the very first time, Bra Sello returns in 2023 with limited replica editions from Afrodelic using master tape sources from the As-Shams/The Sun collection. Afrodelic’s unique edition of Butterfly features a previously unreleased track on Side B.