8 Tracks: Of Global Roots With Jungle By Night

Playing this Brazilian 70’s track will set your feet on fire. Bringing your dance floor to a whole new level of energy and dance moves. The uptempo samba groove is super danceable and at the same time melow because of Joao Bosco’s voice.

The oh so relaxed voice on top of the way too groovy uptempo samba makes this track a real favourite.

The track builds up by adding a piano on top of the guitar lick ending up in a percussive break flipping the song in to a moment of rest while the dance floor gets some time to take breath. After the break the beautiful guitar melody starts again accompanied by a groovy high hat.

Joao Bosco sings in this track about jealousy and death, something that gives track a dark edge. This also explains the way Joao Bosco uses is singing; it almost sounds like preaching in a low voice. The track was recorded in 1975 in Rio and features on the third album Joao Bosco recorded.

(Tienson Smeets)

Imagine yourself at the end of day sitting on the beach of a deserted island. You’re watching the clouds go by and you feel the calm breeze of a hot summer day. Watching the clouds in the already darker blue sky makes you think about the fast life in the city and how you don’t miss this other life of you at all.

Mulatu Astatke is Ethiopia’s father of jazz. He plays his several instruments in his own dreamy virtuose way all around the globe.
This track is one of my favourite jazz tracks. No lyrics, fully instrumental; Astatke brings you deep inside his world of stories .
The Ethiopian tone scale is melancholic, warm and most of al soulful. In this track the tenor saxophone takes the lead playing on the chilled out groove laid down by guitar, keys, bass claps in the back and drums.
At some points in between the themes you think a key solo starts.. Then the saxophone takes the lead and plays a wonderful solo that could go on throughout the whole track. Finally when the track fades out the keys start playing the solo.

This Ethiopian jewel should be added to every record collection.

(Tienson Smeets)

Bebey is most famous because of the coffee cola song he made, in the track i selected you will meet another weirder Bebey.
The Nigerian singer and sanza (African thumb piano) player brings you deep into the jungle with Forest Nativity.
The sanza patterns together with the bass and percussion make you feel like walking trough an unknown jungle forest full of weird sounds, plants and animals.

During the track Francis Bebey’s voice is asking you to come in to his world. The genre Francis Bebey pioneered is a mixture of electronic music and african folk music. The songs could last forever, during the songs the patterns change similar to the way it happens in minimal music.

The song reminds me of old tapes I used to listen to as a child. Tapes full of spoken words accompanied by instrumental grooves and themes. Listing to this record makes me feel a child again taking a trip troughout the magical stories of Mr. Bebey.

(Tienson Smeets)

The Black Brothers is an Indonesian psych funk/rock group from western Papua. I got to know this song through an Indonesian psych groove compilation record called ‘ Those Shocking Shaking Days’ which contains lots of obscure grooving rock tracks. Saman Doye is one of my favourite tracks on it. I love the percussion on the intro and the way the drummer sets off this groove. It is all played with such a great intention and for me has just the right amount of sloppiness. Also check out the sick sounding horn section with some nice slapback delay and be sure you don’t miss the crazy drum/percussion break right around the end of the track. It’s also really worth it checking out some of the other songs on the compilation like : Anti gandja by The Brims, Shake me by AKA or Freedom by Freedom of Rhapsodia.

(Sonny)

This is one of the first tracks we worked on during the rehearsal process. The basic groove was formed during a soundcheck in Artis ( The Amsterdam Zoo ) when we were jamming. This track shows many of our influences. The groove is clearly hiphop inspired by an almost Latin like bass line witch gets accentuated by the horns. The flugelhorn solo takes it all to a more eastern sphere and then the bridge part after the solo for us feels almost like a psychedelic thai groove. At the end it all transforms into this cinematic Phillip Glass style outro. The working title for this tune used to be ‘De Duif’ which means ‘The Dove/Pigeon’. If you go to Dam Square in Amsterdam you will find a lot of those Pigeons. We recommend watching the beautiful videoclip of Kingfisher which was directed by Malou Janssen.

(Sonny)

This song truly is something exceptional. Traditionally a native american lullaby, Madeleine Chartrand in the 70’s transformed it into a psychedelic groove journey which leaves your body pulsing with energy of epic proportions.

The lyrics speak about dying of thirst and hunger, but somehow native american moms used to sing it as a lullaby to make their children sleep. So Madeleine Chartrand didn’t bother changing the meaning of the lyrics aswell. The song starts off with a ‘Ani Kuni’ group chant which basically keeps on repeating while more layers are being added one by one. First drums, then a pulsating bassline and eventually a short mesmerizing sitar solo which kicks off a 70’s psychedelic guitar with a rock attitude. The song keeps on pushing the climax and at the end you feel your feet dancing and your spirit lifted to the mesmerizing vibe of ‘Ani Kuni’.

(Bo Floor)

Brazilian instrumental music at its most beautiful. A song that resonates the warm evenings at a cosy campfire with a beautiful sky in Brazil. The traditional rhythms of the percussion, bass and guitar give the song a relaxed groove which makes you move even sitting in your chair. Then the flute adds gorgeous melodies and patterns which gives the song an even warmer and vibrant atmosphere. With other touches of the vibraphone and baritone saxophone and percussion intermezzo this song really makes you feel relaxed and alive. A song that can be put on repeat the whole day and still connects to the listener.

(Bo Floor)

A brilliant live performance of Kraftwerk’s song Ruckzuck from their eponymous first album, performed on Radio Bremen in 1971.

In contrast to the somewhat more electronic sounding album version, Florian Schneider, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger performed this with just drums, guitar, and flute.

Shortly afterwards, Rother and Dinger left the band to form NEU! and invent the legendary Motorik beat, which you can already hear a little bit in this recording (also check out Hallogallo by NEU!)

Together with the mesmerizing guitar and the percussive flute they form a magnificent blend between dance and rock music, which can go on and on in a forward-flowing drone like vibe.

Of course Kraftwerk were a great influence on modern day electronic music but this beat also definitely influenced a lot of rock and pop bands ranging from Queens Of The Stone age, to Radiohead and Tame Impala.

(Peter Peskens)