Brian Shimkovitz, the soul behind the Awesome Tapes from Africa record label, is a true pioneer when it comes to African music: he was the first new generation digger to target lost tapes as his main excavation goal when hitting the motherland. His curiosity led to classic vinyl reissues such as Hailu Mergia, Ata Kak or Penny Penny. Read the full story here.

When did you start digging records?
I have been collecting LPS since I was maybe 12 years old. I was obsessed with garage sales as a kid growing up in suburban Chicago. But my main collection is cassettes from various parts of Africa. I first visited West Africa in 2002.

What cassettes did you buy at first ? Do you still listen to them?
I was interested in Ghanaian hiplife, the rap style they have been doing there since around 1994. I still listen to some of the very first tapes I found, including music by Reggie Rockstone and VIP.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
When I started looking for records I was in a heavy Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin phase, a rite of passage for suburban white American males. I haven’t played these records in a while but that’s only because I am distracted by hundreds of disco 12”s.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
I think my digging for LPS these days focuses on late 70s jazz, early disco, and contemporary classical music, especially works that use computers or synths. I also like dollar-bin new age records and ethnographic field recordings from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands/Australia.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, cassettes, visiting record shops?
I travel a lot and don’t have money or space in my bags for vinyl but when I visit African countries, which is about once a year, I always bring back and ship home by mail as many tapes as humanly possible. But I never buy out entire stores or purchase like thousands from distributors. I hand select what I get even if it is in the hundreds.

When did you decide to focus mainly on cassettes reissues? What was your first release on Awesome Tapes From Africa?
I started ATFA the blog in 2006 as a way to spread information about music that isn’t easy to find or well-distributed outside of Africa. After a few years Secretly Distribution approached me and asked if I would like to do a label with the help of their business expertise and network. The first release was actually an LP by Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia. But the focus on tapes was because when I became interested in African music and started doing research in Ghana, tapes were the main thing you could find. I had always listened to tapes anyway, having grown up a serious Deadhead.

Why did you choose this name : Awesome Tapes From Africa? A kind of other sounds library?
I try to avoid using the term “other” or anything like that. Awesome Tapes From Africa the name came to me suddenly while talking about the hundreds of tapes in boxes under my bed in Brooklyn with my roommate one. I thought it sounded good. I realize it is kind of a cheesy name but it works for me. I feel more creative and I can focus better when I have some limitations. If the project were to include MP3’s or Guatemalan music it would be too overwhelming for me. Plus I am truly in love with the music from many parts of Africa and I have never even remotely gotten bored of any of it.

Because they show another part of african music, from another point of view, could we give a kind of ethnologist stamp on your records?
I studied ethnomusicology, african studies and anthropology at university and spent a year doing fieldwork about rap in Ghana. But ATFA was very much a reaction to what I feel is a self-serving approach in much research – the work spent in the field typically does very little for the people who gave their time to the research. So the project is meant to be for everyone and it is purposely not jargon-heavy or exclusive in terms of background knowledge. I am not interested in measuring how much people know or flexing my knowledge. It is all about NOT being an expert and just opening oneself up to music and people. The liner notes and marketing materials are more focused on telling the artists’ stories as humans who make music in a specific context, to help them reach fans and make a living beyond their borders. As opposed to looking at their music as an example of a larger movement and framing it in a more sociological or ethnographic sense.

Do you feel sometimes not so far from a firm like Folkways because you put on regular market some recording sessions done only for a their countries?
Comparing oneself to Folkways is impossible since that is such a monumental outfit that also is a product of a certain time in history. Before the Internet the ability to travel and explore musics in other countries was not available to many people. Folkways collection is the result of decades of work by dozens of researchers, communities and collectors. And it is unabashedly uncommercial – they lose lots of money and are quasi-governmental these days. Some of the texts feel dated now but still contain vital info that we can no longer collect. ATFA is a bit more focused on popular musics and things that everyone in urban parts of Africa can have access to, rather than disappearing folk forms and the like. I am very interested in the cassette and popular music as a mass produced artifact you can buy on the street or download on your smartphone.

Ata Kak
Daa Nyinaa

How do you find tapes? Is it something harder or easier than digging Lps?
Finding tapes is more aimless than digging for LPs sometimes because I often have limited options. Most shops across Africa have stopped selling tapes so whatever music I find I sift through, rather than searching for specific artists. I am most interest in the stuff I haven’t heard of or didn’t know exists.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
Reissues on ATFA are always complete albums. I am not into compilations because I am trying to expand artists’ careers. Therefore the recording must be all good, not just one or two songs. I want to release a variety of stuff, from a variety of regions and sensibilities. ATFA is meant to surprise people with music they didn’t know about and/or artists that are legends in their homeland but less well-known outside. I am into music that is super modern and also music that is relatively old or features traditional instruments. I am keenly aware of trends among labels reissuing African music and I avoid doing whatever they are doing.

One of our favorite (and one of the Superfly shop best seller) is Hailu Mergia. What an incredible story! How did you get in touch with him?
Funny thing about Hailu Mergia and I is that we met very easily. Searching for him was the easiest of all the artists I’ve worked with because when I Google’d him I found his phone number, called him and we decide to work together. It has been one of the most rewarding and positive experiences in my whole life. I found his tape a a shop in Northern Ethiopia and came back to my home at the time in Berlin and got very intensely into this recording of his “Hailu Mergia and His Classic Instrument”, where he plays the accordion and keyboards in a very compelling and beautiful way.

Hailu and Brian… and Hailu on “Shilela”

And what about the new one, “Wede Harer Guzo” from 1978?
Hailu and I have a wonderful working relationship and we are now great friends and trust each other completely. Putting together this release was relatively straightforward since he knows what to expect already.

On your website, you insist about the fact you share all benefits 50/50 with the artists. Could you tell us more about this topic?
I spend a significant amount of time and money on reissuing these records and if they make money the artists get 50% of it, which they receive every 6 months. There are people who say this isn’t enough but they typically don’t know much about the music industry or music distribution in African countries, let alone the “western” world.

During the eighties and nineties, a lot of african music productions were only available on cassettes, especially for the local market. Do you believe those productions were pretty different than african CDs for the European market? And what differences did you notice? Sound? Repertory?
The main thing I am into with ATFA is countering the idea that African music is “world music”, in the sense that it is made for hippies and pseudo-intellectuals in the West. The purpose of the project is show what music is popular in these various countries and regions. The production approaches differ when the recordings are made locally as opposed to studios in Europe or North America. That said, I am not against reissuing recordings made outside Africa. Many recordings made in Africa don’t get concerned with song length or elaborate album art. They often just contain the music and the track list and maybe the personnel. Definitely only certain types of African pop that was deemed marketable was produced in Western studios for “world music” labels. I am more into music made for people who live in these places and presenting it without changing the track sequence, album art of production/sound beyond restoring it, if necessary.

Another huge cassette market is Pakistan/India… Could you imagine creating a kind of subdivision dedicated to this geographical area, highly populated in terms of sounds, in all styles ?
Nope, never!

Dur Dur Band
Tajir Waa Ilaah

Have you received many negative answers on some of the artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Most of the artists I manage to track down and contact end up doing a project with ATFA. There have been a few who for some reason don’t work out. I don’t really know why, to be honest. Sometimes after a few years of calling every couple months I give up and move on. I get strung along sometimes and never get sent masters or recordings I am hoping to release, even after sending a draft contract so they can see what the deal is. 9 times out of 10 the project happens though.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Yes, because many labels keep putting out the same types of stuff which is causing fatigue among some music fans. There are tons of people out there who think African music pretty much means West African guys with wah-wah guitar and funky beats. I am constantly trying to cut through idea and make available music that is distinctive and not defined by a Western analog.

What are your next releases?
I don’t have any releases until January because I have been busy working on visas for artists on the label to tour Europe and elsewhere. It’s a bit too soon to discuss the January release, I’m afraid but I will definitely keep you posted.

Ok, but what is the awesome tape you dream of reissuing?
That’s a fun question. I dream of reissuing more tapes from Somalia in general, but I can’t name a specific one because I don’t know much about them, I have so much more to learn!

The Awesome Tapes From Africa website

Matt Temple is a living encyclopedia when it comes to South African Grooves. From Jive, Disco or the incredible local Jazz scene, the Matsuli Blog (with Matt Temple in London, and Chris Albertyn in South Africa) has been over the years a priceless source of information for anybody interested in the subject. The quality of its releases has been one of the most consistent of recent years from the Jazzy Disco sound of Dick Khoza to the incredible Spiritual Jazz sound of Batsumi or Sathima Bea Benjamin. Here’s the story behind this phenomenal record archiving experience.

When did you start digging records?
I started buying records in the mid-seventies when I was a teenager but this wasn’t really digging. I would be saving up money and buying albums I read about or friends recommended.

What LPs did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
The first LPs I got were albums by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. Pretty soon I moved to punk, post-punk, ska and reggae LPs by the Clash, Specials, Joy Division, Bob Marley and others. I’ve probably heard these LPs too much but I do still listen to them from time to time.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
I listen to a lot of music from many different periods and genres. But when it comes to collecting I particularly like Congolese rumba from the 1960s, East African musiki wa dans from the seventies, West African latin and manding sounds as well as lots of tropical styles from cumbia, salsa through to reggae and funk. The period 1960-1980 is key.

Are you still digging’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
I visit second hand stores in London regularly but the internet has normalized pricing so chance findings are rare. I love visiting new record stores, especially when travelling, mostly believing that I might find something of interest. I was recently in Cartagena and picked up a great stack of cumbia and salsa originals.

What was your first release on Matsuli?
This was Dick Kloza’s Chapita LP in June 2010.

 
Why did you choose this name: Matsuli?
It was based on the South African Motella label design and is a combination of people’s names.

What could be your editorial/aesthetic line?
Music archaeologists bringing lost musical recordings back to life. And we focus on bringing back original albums, rather than compilations.

How to describe your work? Memory? historian? journalist? witness?
We are on the one hand archivists bringing back to the public important musical works that have been lost, and on the other hand curators as we selecting specific recordings that will be commercially viable.

Do you think Batsumi, the mythical combo of Soweto (you released their two recordings of the mid-1970s), is one of the best musical synthesis between local rhythmic and harmonic jazz? How this soundtrack combines spirituality, with the writings of Frantz Fanon and the impulses of Steve Biko, the soul-funk grooves and the more traditional melodic lines?
As archivists we are left with physical artefacts in the form of vinyl LPs, or master tapes. There are many groups missing from recognition, groups that for whatever reason were unable to record their material. But Batsumi are an incredible group and their albums – together with those from Malombo, Xoliso, Malopoets and others – mark a high-point for indigenous afro jazz in South Africa.

Batsumi Group Shot
 

“African Songbird”, Sathima Bea Benjamin’s LP, is one of the biggest holy grail that you have reissued. All the spirit of this session of homecoming is reflected in ‘Africa’, a love song and a political declaration. The same year she gave birth to Tsidi, now female rapper Jean Grae. How did you work with this singer? Do you see a sign of fate that she died just after this reissue?
We signed a contract with her and Rashid Vally who sponsored the original sessions. Matsuli launched the reissue over three days in Cape Town where I had a chance to spend time with her, talking about the past and the future. It was very sad to learn of her death just a few months after we had re-issued the LP. At the time I wrote this reflection: “Hi Rashid, is it true?”, “Yes Matt she is on the other side.” With what feels like a physical blow to the body I try to make sense of it all. Barely a month earlier I was in Cape Town for what was to be Sathima’s swan song: Observatory celebrating the reissue of her 1976 masterpiece African Songbird that I’d just reissued on my label. Although suffering from flu Sathima commanded the room with the voice of an angel. The electric atmosphere and crowded space only enhanced the palpable sense of being in the presence of greatness. As we mark Sathima’s birthday today I’m still trying to make sense of it all. Her long struggle to be heard, never playing on her African roots and resolutely uncommercial with a complete commitment to classic jazz idioms. And a big shadow cast by her partner Abdullah Ibrahim, the challenges of motherhood exacerbated by exile and an uneasy homecoming from the Chelsea Hotel in New York where she said she felt most at home. Sathima had the unique ability to strike first at your heart, not unlike the experience of hearing Billie Holiday for the first time. She cites hearing Billie’s performance in Lady Sings the Blues as being pivotal to her development as a singer. And Sathima’s original compositions like Africa and Nations in Me eschew the commonly prescribed categories of race and nationhood propagated by Apartheid. It’s a powerful combination. Her final performance at Tagore’s was highly anticipated and packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Some initial microphone issues before Sathima took to the stage, backed by the Hilton Schilder Trio, to perform one more time her classic songbook tunes, laments and the anthem Africa. “I’ve been gone much too long/and I’m glad to say that I’m home, I’m home to stay…” I was so happy for her despite the knowledge that perhaps this might all be too late. We spoke late into the evening at the Labia Cinema on Sunday and at the Mahogany Room on Tuesday about taking this forward. Too late, and now she’s on the other side. And that’s our lament: that home is still the other side.

In the liner notes of Inhlupeko Soul Jazzmen, it says: «South African jazz players felt a strong affinity with John Coltrane, who had died only a couple of years earlier.» Indeed, this record could have been also recorded on Blue Note or Prestige. How do you explain this relationship, this influence with American jazz? How South African could buy this kind of records?
South Africa was not cut off – local companies reissued jazz and Blue Note, Prestige and Riverside LPs were also imported. As the notes suggest American jazz represented an urban modern and proudly black articulation of identity. It is not at all surprising that under the social constraints of Apartheid that jazz represented the idea of an identity free of those mental and physical chains.

At the same time, other musicians were forced into exile, such as Blue Notes or Chris McGregor. Is this a scene you want to document too, as does the Ogun label?
Ogun has done an outstanding job of documenting this particular area. One artist whose recordings are sadly out of print is Johnny Dyani – it would be great to produce a box set of his material that came out on various European labels.

In the future is “Tshona” by Pat Matshikiza & Kippie Moketsie, a possible reissue? What about Dollar Brand’s “Mannenberg” or “Underground in Africa”?
Tshona and Mannenberg are very well know and have been reissued a number of times. They are not that difficult to find. Tshona was in fact Kippie’s answer to Mannenberg’s success. Underground in Africa and Shikiza Matshikiza (Pat and Kippie’s second album together) are definitely on the radar though.

Pops Mohamed in seventies…

Black Disco
Echo On The Delay

In another vein, just as spiritual, you publish nowadays a LP with Pops Mohammed: “Black Disco”. Could you tell us more about the story of this record? The history of this band? What about their 2 other LP’s?
The sleeve notes written by Gwen Ansell, author of Soweto Blues, tells it much better than me: Just before the first Black Disco album was made, Rashid Vally’s As-Shams label (which also handled The Dynamics) had released Abdullah Ibrahim’s Mannenberg. Mohamed already knew bassist Sipho Gumede from Dorkay House. At Vally’s Kohinoor record store, he was introduced to Capetonian Coetzee, still in town after the Mannenberg recording session. “Rashid said: ‘This is Pops—he’s a new guy and he’s got compositions. Why don’t you guys talk…?’” Mohamed remembers. A vehicle was hired to bring his Yamaha from his home, and the first Black Disco album was cut: a trio with no drummer. He describes his earlier formations as “experiments”—Black Disco gave Mohamed his direction. After Night Express, he went on to become a co-founder of Movement in the City, with Cape Town drummer Monty Webber. “The name was code for let’s fight the system. It was a very dark time for us, personally and politically, and their two albums including Black Teardrops (another title the censor didn’t like) came from that emotional place.”

How could such a group like that exist , survive, play during Apartheid ?
There was a strong music scene under Apartheid. Record companies were keen to exploit the newly urbanised black population in the late 1960s and seventies. The real problem for groups was venues in which to play and record companies who would release their material. Things became a lot more difficult after the Soweto uprising in 1976 and the military-dominated government of PW Botha through the eighties

Ndikho Xaba and the Natives is part of an aesthetic commitment. More broadly, the system of segregation still very important, (present ?), between the lines, in your LPs . Can we read a political process? Point of view?
Our release programme can be read as a political statement, but I think reducing music to such interpretations reduces the transcendental power of music and assumed identity. It’s the transcendence that holds the power.

Do you think jazz is a soundtrack of emancipation?
Music has the power to transcend but emancipation from economic and cultural barriers requires a lot more work.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
We try to identify lost South African recordings that are in demand in second-hand circles.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
The track ‘Africa’ by Sathima Bea Benjamin.

Chris Albertyn, Sathima Bea Benjamin and Matt Temple
 

What is the Matsuli LP you are prouder? why?
“African Songbird” – its beauty and the personal connection made with Sathima…

The memory of this scene, you revive, it is still present in the South African youth?
There is a strong renaissance of jazz and many younger players are taking the journey forward.

Are you listening to the new South African scene, jazz and soul? And is it connected with the new wave of jazz in London and UK, including children and heirs of the first generation African immigrant?
I listen to a lot of the younger South African jazz players but not that much soul. I am always on the lookout for unique music. Many of the new jazz generation have started touring to Japan, the USA and Europe. We also have British musicians like Shabaka Hutchings who has recently recording a new album in South Africa. So there is a lot of cross-fertilisation. I’m sure that the South African musicians would like more exposure but increasingly as a result of the gentrification of cities like London it is difficult to sustain a strong jazz circuit.

“Night on Earth” is a record session of kora. Could you tell us more about Derek Gripper, who has produced some of South Africa’s most extraordinary musical works, fusing the country’s disparate creative traditions with styles from around the world?
I first heard Derek Gripper’s album of kora compositions played on the guitar a few years ago and I was astounded by his playing and approach. We spoke at length about an album of him playing compositions by Philip Tabane of Malombo, or including other up and coming South African musicians re-interpreting South African standards. Who knows we may still explore this further. But we took a risk to release something different from our usual agenda in order for people to appreciate his work. And slowly he is now getting further recognition, having played recently with some of his musical heroes in Mali. It’s something very unusual and therein was the appeal.

Ndikho
Xaba Shwabada

This record is a bit out of general aesthetics of Matsuli catalogue: it is a current production in which we play themes Toumani Diabate on kora … Is it a way that you keep pursuing?
We are willing to take chances and we loved Derek Gripper’s LP so much we wanted to release it. For a long time, we have also sought to find ways we can bring some of the newer jazz onto our label. This is ongoing.

Nowadays, there are many LP labels who follow as you the model, « Less Is more », I mean more quality even if it’s more expensive… but in the same time, there are also another « new » LP market, with major companies come-back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP?
We try to keep our costs as low as possible but with very specific production standards. I’m starting to see quite a few re-issue companies taking the low cost route with certain production values being compromised. I suppose we try to strike a balance between affordability and quality. We are seeing major labels starting to lean heavily on production plants with smaller labels such as ourselves being delayed in our release schedule. Whilst there are many people who are choosing vinyl because it is in vogue I am confident that our niche audience will always stick in vinyl as opposed to paying subscriptions to technology companies for the right to listen to streams.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
I think that good music will always prevail amongst our customers, so it’s really important to keep our standards high. The saturation will come with sub-standard material…

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Not yet, although licensing and claims of ownership have stopped us from considering some specific albums.

What are your next releases?
We want to issue one of the early Harari LPs and then we are also looking at an exciting project of 78s where we hope to compile a number of albums around certain themes. Most of this material has never been released outside of its original appearance on 78 shellac.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
The first South African jazz LP by Sathima Bea Benjamin – this was cut to acetate but is now long lost.

CHECK THE BLOG

Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Miles Cleret from Soundway Records, one of our favorite labels around! From their amazing compilation series to beautiful reissues and great new tropical acts (think the mighty Meridian Brothers!), Miles Cleret’s choices and opinions are clearly worth checking!
 
 
 

When did you start digging records?
Properly when I was a teenager I guess – my dad was a digger (Jazz & Soul and 50s RnB and Rock & Roll mostly) so there were plenty in his house when I was growing up. It was hard though as money wasn’t an easy thing to get at the age of 14 but back then (the 80s) you could get good stuff in little record fairs and market stalls and there were just tons of record shops everywhere – even outside of London. The age of expensive rare records hadn’t really begun apart from the mega-fans who collected the big names in Rock and Pop (of which the UK had a lot). I wasn’t looking for rare stuff then though – just music that seemed exciting and new.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
Well not the very first records I bought – they were mostly really terrible pop records from when I was about 10. There was a store in the UK called Woolworths and you could buy discounted ex-chart 45s for about 20 pence so I’d spend all my pocket money on them for a few years until I was about 13. I remember buying most of the Beatles albums really cheaply on Spanish editions on a holiday in Barcelona when I was about 13 at a record store that was closing down. That changed my musical life a lot (my dad hated the Beatles so never had those records in the house) and then David Bowie, The Clash, the Cure and and then when I was about 14 or 15 I got into bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Gong, The Grateful Dead, Caravan, Traffic etc – and yes I still listen to those LPs but I didn’t for a long time until recently – they have a way of transporting me back to my youth. Then I got into funk, jazz, hip hop and reggae and electronic music a few years later and dropped the guitar sound for quite a few years.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
No, not really now. I have pretty wide ranging tastes from the 1950s right up until yesterday. I know I don’t like much really heavy Thrash Metal, Goa Trance & also commercial pop etc to name a few styles. For quite a few years just before Soundway started in the late 90s I was pretty entrenched in records (mostly jazz, funk, soul, afro & latin) made between 65-76, but at some point or other over the last 20 years I’ve been into Detroit style techno, underground House, Psych-Rock, Prog-Rock, Synth-pop, Electronica, Boogie, Disco, Soca, Reggae, Dub and more. I just love hearing new kinds of music and I would get really bored if I stuck to one area exclusively. That kind of happened with West African music for about 8 years – I still love it and collect it but had to get out of solely listening to that stuff after soaking myself in it for all the comps we did back then.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes but nothing like as much as I used to – I have kids now so I’d be neglecting them if I was digging as much as I used to (I am in Indonesia as I type though about to go digging in Java for three days starting tomorrow). I try to be less obsessive than I used to be and let stuff go occasionally if I don’t DJ with it (Can’t afford not to really) – Personally I believe it can be un-healthy to obsess too much on the collection – you can never have them all so best just to enjoy the music and get your fix from the musicians and people involved in the music scene (easier said than done with some records though!). I also move around a lot and we have been out of the UK a bit recently so I don’t currently have a record “cave” – most of my records are in storage.

What was your first release?
“Ghana Soundz”: Afro-Beat, Funk & Fusion in 70s Ghana…
 

 
Gyedu Blay Ambolley
Simigwad
 

Why did you choose this name, Soundway? what does that represent?
It’s the title of a track by a band called Wrinkar Experience from Nigeria and was quite a big hit in West Africa in the 70s on EMI. The name just stuck as I was listening to it a lot in Ghana when I was starting the label and it kind of sounded right.

Among your first releases were the Ghana Soundz series which gained cult status. How did you work on it? how did you prepare that? Was it a longtime project?
It took about 2 years to do the first Volume. I went travelling in Ghana with my wife in 2001 and at the end of the trip had a couple of days digging records in Kumasi & Accra. The stuff I found was mind-blowing to me at the time. I’d spent a few years previously getting into afro stuff after all the American jazz, soul & funk etc and would try and find records in the UK at record fairs etc but it was hard to find and this was before the days when you could really get much real African stuff on ebay or the internet (with some notable exceptions). There’s an English collector named Duncan Brooker who works with Strut and he had been in Nairobi working when we were about 18 – he came back with some incredible 45s and some Kenyan presses of Nigerian recordings that he traded and sold at the time, but Ghana stuff was invisible – especially the ‘afro’ stuff. So I went back to Ghana on-and-off for a year just really going deep into looking for records, artists, producers and decided to do a compilation of non-highlife music. It was a great time and I was lucky enough not to have any competition from other labels for the styles i wanted to license at the time so I could take my time and really concentrate on it without there being any other people there from outside Ghana doing what I was doing or looking for records. Records would sit on the street with second-hand dealers and in stores for months without being bought and were cheap so there was no pressure to buy quickly – nobody really wanted them apart from a few Ghanaian collectors who helped school me. Hard to imagine now. There were also still some ‘recording studios’- relics of the 80s, where a shop would have a big collection of vinyl but would use it to record custom-made cassettes for customers – the internet killed most of them off a few years back. It was all just trial and error and great times getting to know people like Ebo Taylor, K. Frimpong, K. Gyasi’s son, Dick Essiebons and Kwadwo Donkor and hanging out with them at their homes and prising the stories and the pieces of the jigsaw from them over time.

After those you released a whole bunch of other records in the same mould such as the Kenya Special record. Has this become your trademark? Which one was the most fulfilling?
Ghana Soundz and the Nigeria Special series were the most fulfilling because the music was all so new to me at the time. I had no kids then so time wasn’t an issue and when you start a label and you’re young you have to keep pinching yourself that this is what you’re actually doing as a job. Its just so exhilarating and fresh and records you had no idea existed were popping up on an almost daily basis. That is still the case on certain projects but as the label gets bigger and bigger you can get bogged down in the administration side of things which is not something you need to worry about so much when you only have a handful of releases in your catalogue. and you’re starting out.

One of the lesser known parts of your activity is record-digging. When did you go to Africa first for that purpose?
In 2001. I was in Ghana, Benin, Togo, Ethiopia & Nigeria a lot between the years 2001-2005.
 

Fubura Sekibo
Psychedelic Bab
 

How was Nigeria when you first got there? What’s your best record digging story in Lagos?
Nigeria is huge and so full of incredible music it still astounds and surprises me now. I first went there in 2002 – Strut had just put out their Nigeria 70 comp and I’d been in touch with Quinton Scott so had a few contacts from him. There were amazing records there then but much harder to find than in Accra – Lagos is a big big place with terrible traffic so getting around the city is a problem. Its just a vast metropolis but those places always have great records if you look hard. I travelled out of Lagos a few times as well but again you really need to live there to get consistent record hauls – it’s not the sort of place you find stuff immediately in so all the Nigerian dealers and collectors are the ones who usually get the best stuff. For this reason (and because they are very good) Nigerian records have gone bananas price-wise recently though so you need to mortgage your house or be very rich these days to be able to buy from the dealers. I was lucky to get a lot of great records before it all went sky-high. I once found a box of mint Afrodisia 45s (50 different titles) whilst visiting the house of a retired producer who had subsequently become pretty wealthy in the pharmaceutical business. Its very hard to find 45s in that kind of condition over there and some of those titles I’ve never seen anywhere since. When I asked him how much he wanted for them he said I could just have them all and that he no longer wanted them. Finds don’t come much better than that.

You are responsible for remarkable selections, reissues, as music from Siam, or Nigerian disco… How do you decide on the choice of reissues/issues?
Just what we have time and money to do and feels right really – music that I like – it’s no more exact a science than that. But I do like to try not to rush things.

You released a great selection of highlife, but there wasn’t a big echo in the press (in France anyway). How could you explain this?
I guess you mean the “Highlife On the Move” compilation? It got some good attention but I think 1950s highlife is not particularly hip for journalists right now – maybe will never be. I think that was a very important compilation to make though. Its the genesis of the afrobeat story so it will be a solid catalogue title for a few years to come – not one that blows up at the beginning but chugs along nicely. I think it looks and sounds beautiful as well.

Family Atlantica, musicians from both sides of the Atlantic

 

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
One or two – mostly by people who believe they can out-perform the market and sell hundreds of thousands of copies more than all the other releases in the same genre! There are some big egos out there and the music industry has more than it’s fair share- always has and always will. Most people (95%) are cool though – but occasionally some do take a bit of convincing. Some are also worried that they don’t technically have the rights sign a master contract as they signed the rights away when they were young. Others have no such worries at all!

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
I think it’s possible yes. There are certainly a lot of people who buy vinyl because either they think it’s cool (often these people are just rich and don’t actually ever listen to music properly) and or because they see it as a good investment, which it often is these days. I think it’s inevitable that many of those people will offload it all in spades in a few years and the market could see a glut of cut-price titles. The whole vinyl speculator thing is a pain in the arse to be honest. Its just people with money buying up stock and then letting it back out at way over the odds – and these are people who can afford to sit on it. It’s not necessarily a bad things for labels as they sell out quickly on limited runs but it just means the vinyl market is controlled by investors and real music fans with not enough money to keep up can’t get the releases they want for the right price. Simple economics I guess but I never really thought it would hit the new vinyl world in quite the way it has.

You are not only focused on « old » Lp, compilations. What is the best deal/business: to make reissues or to produce/coproduce new records?
New records are a better thing to do for me personally right now but not necessarily always the best business in the short term – it’s a commitment and emotional investment in the music scene right now. Re-issues and compilations may sell quicker in the short run but over time for a label I think new releases and building catalogue in that area is the best way to go. Also we run a publishing company that publishes much of our new output – This is potentially a far better way to pay the bills in the long term but it takes time and is far from always predictable. People’s attitude to old music is that it’s somehow validated by time – they have a solid idea about the 60s or the 70s or the 80s (or now the 90s) in their heads that’s been confirmed by hundreds of books, documentaries, social commentaries and articles in a way that whats happening now isn’t. Some people play safe and wait or tell themselves they only like music of a certain era – it’s very much like vintage fashion. The idea of music existing in a far-off pre-internet time (and somewhere more exotic) makes many people trust it more somehow especially if it’s a bit wonky, loveable or low-fi. Of course music can be very evocative of a certain time and eras go in and out of fashion with different generations. Occasionally records turn up that are meant to look old and people aren’t sure. There was a Caribbean calypso-funk 45 a few years ago that was made in 1999 but sold as a 70s record – I remember a few people going nuts over it but then were upset when they found out it wasn’t old – the music remained exactly the same but the provenance had changed so it became less ‘real’ somehow in their eyes.

Batida feat Sacerdote
Bantu
 

Are they two different jobs?
New bands are obviously more demanding and the process of promoting new records is much more involved – compilations and re-issues often sell themselves – so yes a little bit.

Dexter Story looks like a vintage record, just like Ghana Soundz. What is this project about, and how does it fit into your catalogue ?
Dex is a very experienced musician who has played on a lot of amazing musicians’ records from Kamasi Washington to Gaslamp Killer and way beyond. He is from Los Angeles but like many people over the past ten years became obsessed with classic Ethiopian and East African music. The Wondem project has it’s feet rooted in the 1960s, 70s & 80s music of that region but is also extremely modern in many ways and not just a straight retro duplicate – that was what attracted me to it.

Could you tell us more about Fumaça Preta and Batida. Is there a « luso » connection ? How did you discover them ?
Fumaça Preta are a band that again struck me because of the way they took wigged out Brazilian psychedelic rock from the 70s but melded it with bits of acid house, punk and metal in a way I hadn’t really heard anyone else do. They reference a ‘smorgasbord’ of musical styles from Funaná to Funk but wrap it up in their own unique, lysergic way. Alex the drummer is a big time record collector who co-runs a store in Amsterdam called Vintage Voodou – he sent me the demos and I was hooked immediately.
Batida is an electronic dance act from Lisbon run by DJ Pedro Coquenão. He grew up in Angola and so was immersed in the sounds of classic 70s Angolan music all around him which he sampled and incorporated into his sets. These morphed into the Batida live show that features dancers, live musicians and slide shows – he entertains and educates people in equal measure at his gigs. I heard Batida on a compilation that came out a few years ago on Crammed by the Radioclit/Secousse crew and got in touch with Pedro tyo see if we could work on an album.

Meridian Brothers, Bomba Estereo, Los Miticos Del Ritmo, Family Atlantica, again another branch of Soundway, more South American. What could be the meeting point of all these releases?
I guess they are all in some way referencing the music we re-issued on compilations and re-issues and so it was an obvious progression – I think we’ll get further and further away from that in time though and already this year we are signing some acts that have nothing at all to do with South America or Africa.

 
Meridian Brothers
Doctor Trompeta
 

Can we mention a certain eclecticism in terms of catalogue? Is it more difficult to be well received, well identified, by the media and record shops or is it in fact a force?
Again I think it’s harder in the short term – Many journalists and distributors/stores just want to put you in a one genre box and keep you there but I couldn’t think of doing that – As I said before I have very wide tastes musically so want to keep moving and surprising rather than getting stuck in one place. Its tough sometimes but as the catalogue grows people start to get it. Major labels can do it so why not independents?

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Music from Planet Earth : Past, Present, Future.

What are your next releases?
New Albums by Fumaca Preta (Darker and more introspective than the first maybe) & Family Atlantica (featuring Marshall Allen and Orlando Julius). Psychedelic pop from Flamingods with “Majesty” – I saw these guys in a tent I was DJing in at Glastonbury last year and was blown away – a whole band of multi-instrumentalists who met in London and the Middle East. This is their third album and has shades of early Pink Floyd, Os Mutantes, the Beatles & Sun City Girls, crashing into Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Then we have a new 45 by Chico Mann, Kenya Special Volume 2 , re-issues of People Rock Outfit and Jay-U experience from Nigeria and some edit 12s. Later on in the year I hope the new Ondatropica album will drop alongside some more new signings and re-issues etc and a comp of Nigerian Disco and Boogie.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
If I tell you that 100’s of other people will try and do it first!
 
 

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