Global Grooves — Recently Added

A really raw set from 70s Africa – one that's more rock than Afro Funk, but which has a pretty hypnotic groove overall! The group's heavy on guitars, which are often played in a fuzzy, jamming sort of way – but with different tones and phrasing than American or Anglo psyche groups ... LP, Vinyl record album

A massive collection of music from the Barotseland province of Zambia – all recorded recently, but with a clarity and classic style of presentation that rivals some of the classic releases on Ocora from the 60s! The 4CD set features four different slices of music from the area, all presented ... CD

A wealth of recent recordings from the SWP label – an ethnographic powerhouse who are really furthering the sorts of material initially captured by earlier labels like Folkways or Ocora! The style here is very much like the latter – very faithful to the presentation, and very well-recor ... CD

One of the coolest records in years from the legendary Tony Allen – and that's saying a lot, given that his legacy includes famous work as a drummer with Fela Kuti, and a much more recent run of very experimental recordings! This set has Tony soaring out on Blue Note – and working with ... LP, Vinyl record album

Sweet boogie groovers from the early 80s Nigerian scene – heavy on warm vocals from Victor Essody and riffing guitar from Claude Dibson – but also warmed up with plenty of basslines and keyboards too! The sound is pretty spare and tight – electro soul, maybe filtered through a ... LP, Vinyl record album

Fantastic guitar work from K Frimpong – and plenty of other fantastic sounds too – all rolled up in his unique blend of Afro funk and high-life – served up here on four nice long tracks! There's vocals on the record, but the guitar and rhythms are what really drive the train ... LP, Vinyl record album

The sublime first album from K Frimpong – a really unique blend of hi-life and Afro Funk, but served up with all these unusual touches that make the album stand out from even most of the rest of the revolutionary sounds that were coming from Ghana at the time! There's this sense of flow that ... LP, Vinyl record album

One of those records that grabs you right away, even if you can't understand the language – a classic 80s set by Lebanese singer Fairuz, set to superb arrangements that resonate with some of the best European work of the time! Fairuz herself has a voice that's amazing – full of life ... LP, Vinyl record album

A nice hybrid of Mediterranean grooves from Koko – an artist born in Morocco, working in Jerusalem during the 70s, and open to a fair bit of elements from Greece as well! The record's got some elements of some of the funkier Mid-East work of the time, including tight rhythms and nicely ... LP, Vinyl record album

An amazing, career-spanning compilation of pioneering psych and earlier material, mixed with more traditional elements of Korean music by Shin Joong Hyun – including his own numbers, great songs with his combos over the years and tunes he wrote for others to sing – from the late 50s to ... LP, Vinyl record album

A really great combo from the small nation of Djibouti – stepping out here in one of the first international record releases from that company in decades – a shuttered legacy to the rest of the world, given the tight control of music by the state! Yet despite that situation, the Groupe ... LP, Vinyl record album

A nice mix of older highlife modes with some of the more electric touches of the 80s – still produced with a nice lean vibe overall, and plenty of live energy that leaps between the riffing guitar, percussion, and horns – all augmented by these nicely quirky lines on keyboards! The ... LP, Vinyl record album

A sweet Soweto group from the start of the 80s – one who have a nice current of funk in their mix, but who also serve up some well-crafted solos on both guitar and flute! The vocals are often warmly in that more familiar South African style of the period – but the record's nicely ... LP, Vinyl record album

A classic album from this great group from Ghana – one that probably got more exposure than usual, thanks to the fact that they were taken under the wing of Brian Eno, who produced the album, in a tradition that would stretch back to Ginger Baker's work with Fela! The group have a great ... LP, Vinyl record album

The fantastic first album from Exile One – a group who recorded more mainstream work in Paris later in their career – but who really sound fierce and funky here right at the start! The sound is lean, stripped-down, and a lot more aimed towards American soul than you'd guess from their ... LP, Vinyl record album

A surprisingly strong set from Osibisa – one that's got a full, rich, soulful feel – much better than we might have expected for an album recorded at the Royal Festival Hall! The venue's no surprise, though, given that Osibisa were clearly on top of their game at the time – and ... LP, Vinyl record album

They sure got the title right on this one – as the album's a mad mix of sitar music and electronics! The set was recorded in Germany in the 70s, and it features Okko Bekker on both the moog and sitar – playing in a small group with Herb Geller on flute, and some extra guitar work on a ... LP, Vinyl record album

An album that's every bit as cool as you might expect – a set that's very much in the same Indo-jazz experiments as saxophonist Joe Harriott, but with a slightly different approach overall! Although sitar is part of the instrumentation, there's also a fair bit of conventional jazz phrasing ... LP, Vinyl record album

Blo have gone through a few different phases before this fantastic fourth album – but none of them as funky as the work on this set – which may well set a whole new standard for the Nigerian music legends! The groove here is super-tight, with lots of excellent bass and drums snapping ... LP, Vinyl record album

The first-ever full length global collection of material by one of the funkiest cats working the Ethiopian scene in the early 70s – an artist who works here in a mode that's even more hard-hitting and funk based than contemporaries like Mulatu or Mahmoud Ahmed! The band on most tracks is the ... LP, Vinyl record album

Fantastic sounds for fans of funk and rock alike – music from the freaky, fuzzy 70s scene in Zambia – a place where styles effortlessly criss-crossed to really produce something new and unique! The work here is often heavy on fuzz guitars, but also has some wickedly soulful basslines ... LP, Vinyl record album

An album of heavy righteous power from Alhaji Kollington Ayinla and his Fuji 78 ensemble – a group who bring a very different sound to this record than some of the more mainstream Afro Funk work of the Nigerian scene at the time! The group are heavily percussive, and also use their drums in ... LP, Vinyl record album

The debut album from the Ogyatanaa Show Band – a group who'd been working heavily on the Ghana scene in the early 70s, and who begin this set with a side-long track that pays tribute to all the giants in the world of highlife! That track's quite unusual – a highlife number, but one ... LP, Vinyl record album

The best album in years from Seun Kuti – recorded live in the studio, with no overdubs at all – in a way that really lives up to the best sound of his legacy in music! Tracks are all nice and long, and as spontaneous as they are hard-grooving – a perfect update of older Afro Funk ... LP, Vinyl record album

The "nuggets" in the title is very well placed here – as all the cuts here have every bit as much freak and fuzz as the American garage and pre-punk work chronicled famously on the lengendary Nuggets series! Yet these tracks are all even more obscure, and all come from African ... LP, Vinyl record album

A really cool idea for a record – one that first features unreleased tracks recorded in Kinshasa in 1978, on a special bonus CD – then adds in vinyl versions of reworks of the original recordings done for the project! The originals are fantastic – very percussive and melodic at ... LP, Vinyl record album

A nice range of different sounds from contemporary Zambia – a set that's got a partly ethnographic vibe, but which also features some electric instrumentation and more song-based work by a few different groups! The set begins with a mix of spare percussion and silimba xylophone from the duo ... LP, Vinyl record album

Amazing sounds from a scene we're just beginning to know – the sega music of the islands Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion Island – all located in a very unique cultural cross-current in the Indian Ocean! The music here is often relatively spare and rootsy – guitars that are ... LP, Vinyl record album

A blistering batch of live tracks from the amazing Geraldo Pino – super-tight Afro Funk with a groove to rival some of James Brown's funkiest work! Pino clearly takes a lot of cues from The Godfather in the way he leads the band – working with an MC who starts the set and calls him to ... LP, Vinyl record album

One of the funkiest combos we've heard from the African scene of the 70s – and that's saying a lot, given how much great music was going on at the time! These guys really know how to lean into a long song, and open it up with incredible instrumental sharpness – a way of coming together ... LP, Vinyl record album