It was in Benin City, in the heart of Nigeria, that a new hybrid of intoxicating highlife music known as Edo Funk was born. It first emerged in the late 1970s when a group of musicians began to experiment with different ways of integrating elements from their native Edo culture and fusing them with new sound effects coming from West Africa´s night-clubs. Unlike the rather polished 1980´s Nigerian disco productions coming out of the international metropolis of Lagos Edo Funk was raw and reduced to its bare minimum. Someone was needed to channel this energy into a distinctive sound and Sir Victor Uwaifo appeared like a mad professor with his Joromi studio. Uwaifo took the skeletal structure of Edo music and relentless began fusing them with synthesizers, electric guitars and 80´s effect racks which resulted in some of the most outstanding Edo recordings ever made. An explosive spiced up brew with an odd psychedelic note known as Edo Funk. That‘s the sound you‘ll be discovering in the first volume of the Edo Funk Explosion series which focusses on the genre’s greatest originators; Osayomore Joseph, Akaba Man, and Sir Victor Uwaifo: Osayomore Joseph was one of the first musicians to bring the sound of the flute into the horn-dominated world of highlife, and his skills as a performer made him a fixture on the Lagos scene. When he returned to settle in Benin City in the mid 1970s – at the invitation of the royal family – he devoted himself to the modernisation and electrification of Edo music, using funk and Afro-beat as the building blocks for songs that weren’t afraid to call out government corruption or confront the dark legacy of Nigeria’s colonial past. Akaba Man was the philosopher king of Edo funk. Less overtly political than Osayomore Joseph and less psychedelic than Victor Uwaifo, he found the perfect medium for his message in the trance-like grooves of Edo funk. With pulsating rhythms awash in cosmic synth-fields and lyrics that express a deep personal vision, he found great success at the dawn of the 1980s as one of Benin City’s most persuasive ambassadors of funky highlife. Victor Uwaifo was already a star in Nigeria when he built the legendary Joromi studios in his hometown of Benin City in 1978. Using his unique guitar style as the mediating force between West-African highlife and the traditional rhythms and melodies of Edo music, he had scored several hits in the early seventies, but once he had his own sixteen-track facility he was able to pursue his obsession with the synesthetic possibilities of pure sound, adding squelchy synths, swirling organs and studio effects to hypnotic basslines and raw grooves. Between his own records and his production for other musicians, he quickly established himself as the godfather of Edo funk. What unites these diverse musicians is their ability to strip funk down to its primal essence and use it as the foundation for their own excursions inward to the heart of Edo culture and outward to the furthest limits of sonic alchemy. The twelve tracks on Edo Funk Explosion Volume 1 pulse with raw inspiration, mixing highlife horns, driving rhythms, day-glo keyboards and tripped-out guitars into a funk experience unlike any other. Double LP pressed on 140g virgin vinyl comes with a full color 20-pages booklet CD comes with a full color 36-pages booklet

‘GNAWA ELECTRIC LAUNE’ is the magical collaboration between Moroccan Gnawa-master (maâlem) Rabii Harnoune and Frankfurt electronic producer V.B.Kühl. Recorded at Achim Sauer’s 7V-Studio, collectively Rabii Harnoune & V.B. Kühl have produced an LP which represents entirely new territory, building a bridge from old to new, from Africa to Europe, and from to person to person. This melange of traditional North African Gnawa music and modern club sounds results in a fascinating debut, cross-cultural friction which is electric and otherworldly. “Traveller” (out 19th March) is the first offering from the album, a tale that belongs to the repertoire of “L’Bouhala”, a story which roughly translates as symbolism for multiculturism in Gnawa culture. “Traveller” is a Gnawa-club fusion track that feels equally at home on the dancefloor as it does in its core spiritual home. “The traveller is a character in the culture of Gnawa” Rabii explains, “who is travelling from tribe to tribe, from village to city, looking for experiences and knowledge, then sharing it by singing about it”. Gnawa music is among Morocco’s richest and oldest continuous traditions, dating back to pre-Islam. Rabii Harnoune joined the Kotab, a place where one can learn the teaching of the Quran, at the age of four. Growing up on a household diet of classical Arabic, Moroccan and Sufi music, Rabii was first introduced to Gnawa through his neighbour’s uncle who was a master in the genre. “Gnawa music was exclusively played by families whose parents came from Sub-Saharan or Central African tribes to Morocco in colonial times” Rabii explains, “it was rare to be able to listen to Gnawa music on radio, so I started to collect rare live recordings”. Rabii’s mastery at the Guembri, a three-string lute and Gnawa singing (a central aspect to the culture), would lead him to play world-class festivals in Essaouira, Fes, Marrakesh, and Casablanca – all spiritual centres for the genre. V.B.Kühl realised his own musical vision and ambition when he inherited his first ghettoblaster (boombox) and bought a four-track recorder: “rhythm is deep in me, and although music is not my profession, the passion never stopped”. V.B.Kühl caught the attention of DJ Shadow with two stellar remixes, which would later lead to commissioned remixes by Tru Thoughts for acts such as Anchorsong and Lakuta. V.B.Kühl and album co-producer Achim Sauer founded t&TT together, a DIY label that was used as a vehicle to release both artist solo projects. V.B.Kuhl and Achim first met Rabii while performing live at a house party of mutual friends. Rabii’s wish to release Gnawa music into the world lead to the trio collaborating and releasing ‘GNAWA ELECTRIC LAUNE’, twelve songs enriched with deep vibes and unstoppable grooves, an astonishing global mix of tradition and innovation. Supported by the likes of Pedo Knopp (Analog Africa), Tom Ravenscroft (BBC 6Music), Dom Servini (Soho Radio) and Moroccan stations such as Medi1 Radio, ChadaFM and Radio Aswat, Rabii Harnoune & V.B.Kühl continue the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant, Randy Weston and more recently Bonobo, Floating Points and James Holden – in bridging together two different worlds, of Gnawa and Western musicians.