Yours truly knows the Soundway Records label mostly from their excellent compilations filled with vintage African highlife, afrobeat and funk, but with the reissue of 'Hedzoleh' and 'The Kusum Beat' this time they are focusing on two great Ghanaian albums.
Hedzoleh Soundz was one of the first Afro-ensembles in the Ghana of the 1970s and the house band of the famous Napoleon night club. It was there that they met the South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela who would later use the sound of this album, a mix of traditional Ghanaian music styles and rock elements, as the basis for his afro-jazz classic 'Masekela - Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz'. A forgotten gem that had been gathering dust for forty years previous to this rerelease.
Sweet Talks was another popular Ghanaian band from that period having their home base in the Talk Of The Town club in Tema. With their successful mix of highlife, funk and afrobeat, the band eventually even ended up in Los Angeles, where they recorded their most successful album 'The Hollywood Highlife Party'. 'The Kusum Beat' is actually not entirely representative of the band's sound, but illustrates how varied 1970s Ghanaian music was.