Tonino Balsamo
Sta Guagliona Mo Ddà

In the 1960s and ‘70s, unbeknownst to most, Saigon (today named “Ho Chi Minh City”) had become a fertile environment for a flourishing music industry which produced countless recordings of beautifully crafted songs.Ho Chi Minh City based band, Saigon Soul Revival has been bringing alternative pre 1975 music from Saigon back to the stage since 2016 with their live performances. Honoring the original composers, singers and the golden era from which this music (Nhạc Vàng) came, while applying new arrangements and interpretations of old Vietnamese songs. With tight grooves, psychedelic textures and a powerful unique sound, SSR has performed countless shows at a variety of venues across Vietnam, and accompanied live the two release tours to the Saigon Supersound Compilation releases.While spending the last three years studying and playing this music, Saigon Soul Revival teamed up with producer Jan Hagenkötter (Saigon Supersound / INFRACom!) and finally in January 2019, they started to create own compositions in the same vein for their debut album Họa Âm Xưa. The album was recorded in Vietnam with additional guests during one week in May this year.The album focuses on compositions that fuse Vietnamese lyrics and sounds with influences of western rock, soul, bolero, tango and other popular genres of this time period, most of which was banned after the war. This project strives to revive this beautiful musical heritage of Vietnam which represents an important cultural bridge between east and west.

Vaudou Game is a contemporary live band of 6 members playing an authentic Togolese funk based on voodoo chants scales, and led by Peter Solo, a singer and composer born in Aného-Glidji (Togo), birthplace of the Guin tribe and place of the voodoo culture. He was raised with those traditional values of human and environment respect.Apiafo is a 12 tracks album, entirely recorded, mixed and mastered with old analog tapes, and played with vintage instruments, recalling the sound of bands like Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou or El Rego! Peter Solo invited his uncle, Roger Damawuzan, famous pioneer of the 70’s soul scene in Togo, to sing on “Pas Contente” & “Wrong Road“. The result of their collaboration is without a doubt two amazing future dancefloor classics! The idea of integrating these haunting lines, sung in honor of the Divinities, to an energetic 70's Afro-funk style, was, in Peter Solo's mind, an obvious extension of the analogy he found between the voodoo tradition and trance inducers such as Soul, Funk, as well as the Rhythm ‘N Blues of James Brown or Otis Redding.Vaudou Game will be touring all over the world next year promoting this new Afro-Soul classic album!

In the 1990s, Malka Family landed from the planet Kif to convert France to their vibrant and crazy madness made of euphoric riffs and glittering suits. Direct heirs of George Clinton and his cosmic P-Funk, they quickly burned stages around the world with this communicative energy which only large ensembles have the secret to. France, Europe, Japan, Africa, Canada… They will be forced to stop in the early 2000s replaced by DJs and computers.2021. June 5th. Three years after the reformation of the band, Ground Control received a message from "Major Thom" - the astronaut Thomas Pesquet himself. The post is clear! Le Retour du Kif produced in 2018 is played in space… @Thom_astro and all the crew members of the ISS are totally fans of the Malka Family’s Music!A new era begins, the Jedi of Funk have swept away the machines and their logarithmic music, groove and heavyweight Funk reign in the galaxy once again. The Malka Family is releasing a new 14 track album, SuperLune, a crazy and heavenly funk combo!This time, back to Malka Family’s old recipes. They spend hours, nights in the studio, writing songs, arranging horns, recording vocals, slapping the bass guitar… "SuperLune is a more introspective album, we did everything without any restrictions, and our funk is more accomplished than ever…" says Jo Mannix fresh out from mixing the album. French Radio Nova tells: "In their spaceship, the bass is definitely queen. From your head to your feet and (especially) through your buttocks, “Blue Funk” will awaken your senses. Without even realizing it, you've already been swept up in the crazy storm of the Malka Family. All the ingredients are there: the dance, the music and an atmosphere that only they have the secret to…" Last but not least, to accompany the interplanetary release of SuperLune, Malka re-embark in their spaceship for the next cosmic tour. Let’s go to the Moon! The SuperLune!

Following 2 acclaimed first editions, Stix Records presents the 3rd volume of its Disco Reggae compilation series.Like previous one, the 9 tracks comp is made both from productions of the home labels now sold-out as vinyl, and from brand new exclusive music by the like of Taggy Matcher, Mato or newcomer Rosemary Martins, taking over classics titles from Donna Summer, Stephen Encinas, Roberta Flack, Herbie Hancock, Steve Parks, or Inner City.The perfect soundtrack to extend the summer!!

DOWDELIN explores as a tireless ever moving trailblazer a path where Creole jazz, electronic dancefloor sounds and Caribbean percussions come together to create a unique Future Kréol feeling. Dowdelin’s a Lyon-based trio exploring Afro-futurism in its Creolized form, plunging the traditions of the French West Indies into a great fountain of electronic youth glazed in jazz, in a way that few have so far. It all began, or not quite actually, when the singer Olivya contacted David Kiledjian (Fowatile). It is not yet the moment and Dawatile then doubts the relevance of a group with soul influences in English, with a non English-speaking singer... But they stay in touch, and a year later, an idea sprung: what if Olivya sang in Creole, her mother tongue. This is Dowdelin’s genesis: two individuals, constantly exchanging, in a quest for a Creole feeling chiseled by electronics.Dowdelin illustrates this art of blending: the search for the recognizable ancestral flavor in the moment, pairing it with an unusual influence, shaking everything to create the texture that will make the difference. Being embroidered in the bubbling afro-futuristic scene and confirming the return of Caribbean influences in French pop, Dowdelin becomes a trio when David thinks of an old fellow musician whom he has not met in ages: Raphael Philibert, Guadeloupian poly-instrumentalist omnipresent on the jazz scene, saxophonist for Sonny Troupé, but also a goldsmith in Afro-Cuban percussions and a tried Gwoka player. He is added to the sketched repertoire: it’s a match! Dowdelin transcends the exercise of style and complicity with two multi-instrumentalists, who by their experience, versatility and vision, open the field of possibilities to a singer speaking in her native language. The group brings to the forefront the notions of expression and freedom in music while steering clear of the fixed roles and the clichés.

The Balek Band and Abstrack Records's first album, Médecines, is the product of a magma of influences, the emanation of large decade of music infused lives. The emotional tessitura is wide: the dark meadows of “The Balek Bad” reach us through like a mantra from the end of a dark tunnel, while just three track earlier it was a caribbean Zouk euphoria which ruled the world. Inbetween, it’s a wide spectrum of hybrid epiphanies : "Hagen & Again" is a progressive Dub jewel, even Krauty to an extent, where the instruments play the lead role. "Cosmic Barry" is across the Channel : thick and broken club music, sweating with subs, yet always disputing it to the Funk accent of the the keys and the slap bass. This list of geographical and stylistic hybridations simplys goes on, and it’s the 54 minutes of the album that put an end to it. But beyond the never-ending list, this first album is alive: its gets us breathing the therapeutical air which fills the world of its creators.