Reviews

This last release for 2018 on producer E.N. Young's Roots Musician Records label is once again a debut EP, this time by MoZaiq, a six-piece formation from La Quinta, a city in the Coachella Valley (see also Burnt), who describe themselves as: "...a group of broken guys joined to create beautiful art through music.".

After exploring Cairo's musical nineteen sixties past on their previous releases, Radio Martiko now took the Congo-Brazzaville of just after its independence for 'Dansons.... avec le Ry-Co Jazz'.

Composer, arranger, producer and keyboard player Eumir Deodato is widely regarded as one of Brazil's most productive musicians. Deodato can be heard on more than 500 albums including, among others, releases by Aretha Franklin, Earth Wind & Fire, Frank Sinatra, Kool & The Gang, George Benson, Tom Jobim and Björk, but before he moved to New York in the late nineteen sixties, Eumir had already built up a great musical reputation in his own country where he collaborated with Roberto Menescal, João Donato and Marcos Valle. In that same period, he also recorded a number of albums with his own lesser known samba jazz and bossa nova ensemble Os Catedráticos, and from those releases it's mainly 'Ataque' which perfectly captures the magical groove of nineteen sixties Rio.

'Rumba Bastarda' is the third long player of La Banda del Panda, a six-piece mestizo band from Barcelona.

German quintet Onom Agemo And The Disco Jumpers continue to evolve, straying ever further from the instrumental band they still were on 'Cranes And Carpets', their 2015 debut album.

On 'Cigaros Explosivos', the 2014 album debut by Jaro Milko & The Cubalkanics, the Swiss band presented a refreshing mix of Balkan influences with Cuban rhythms. In the years that followed, whenever he was not touring, Jaro Milko travelled to countries like Greece, Turkey and Israel, and those musical influences have also made their way into the musical mix of the band.

Just before the end of the year, the Italian La Tempesta Dischi label still spoils us with 'Large Dub', a dub version of the new album by Italian formation Mellow Mood, which was released in April of this year.

Four years after his comeback album 'Journey', Brummie reggae legend Black Symbol returns with 'Behold', an album for which he got assistance from Steel Pulse vocalist/keyboard player Selwyn Brown and sound engineers Angus Jones and Wooligan.

During the recording of their 2015 release 'Wolverhampton' the then recently reunited Capital Letters split again and the vocal contributions of lead vocalist Danny 'Teacher' McKenzie were even removed last minute just before the album hit the shelves. For this successor Sugar Shock Records wanted to avoid all possible confusion and controversy, so the cover neatly states: Capital Letters featuring JB.

For the successor of their 2014 self-titled debut album, London-based Fofoulah, a project around Gambian sabar drummer Kaw Secka and keyboardist/saxophonist Tom Challenger, took a slightly different approach.