Sophie Stanké
L'amour d'une diva / J'adore

After Janko Nilovic and Harlem Pop Trotters, Underdog Records has now reissued Martial Solal - Locomotion in a colored vinyl edition. This grooviest French jazz-funk and avant-garde album features Henri Texier and Bernard Lubat, and was originally released in 1974 on the PSI label. A masterpiece!

Libreville Records presents Totāl Cuevas, a seminal compilation album of legendary DJ Guy Cuevas's own music.Guy Cuevas is a French-Cuban writer, musician, and DJ, a pioneer of the art of modern DJing. A key figure on the Paris night scene, Guy Cuevas gained a cult status as the resident DJ of the mythical nightclub Le Palace, gathering thousands of people every night under his booth, shepherding them with his music towards euphoria. He also collaborated with a great number of Fashion brands, such as Yves Saint Laurent, Kenzo, Dior, Hermès and many more.In the early 80s, Guy Cuevas released a handful of records, channeling his hedonism and natural grandeur into his sound, creating a unique music of his own.Totāl Cuevas brings together music from his three singles Ebony Game (1981), Obsession (1982), and Gallo Negro (1984), and includes previously unreleased alternate mixes. Guy Cuevas’s most iconic output, "Obsession - The Nassau Mix" (mixed by François K) gets a fresh new reboot with "Obsession - The Paris Version".Remastered from the master tapes.

You may know of “Rude Movements”, an early dance music classic produced by SunPalace (Mike Collins and Keith O’Connell) back in 1983 that brought together proto-house, balearic beats and funky vibes. In 1984, the tune quickly became an anthem that could regularly be heard at David Mancuso’s “The Loft” or at Larry Levan’s “Paradise Garage” for example. Thanks to Mike Collins, the studio veteran still in the business after more than 35 years and currently busy perpetuating the legacy of SunPalace, more material from the archives has been ‘surfacing’ over the past few years on UK-based record labels. After a very productive meeting earlier this year, Parisian label Chuwanaga is really proud to present four unreleased songs produced between 1982 and 1984! Co-written by Mike Collins from SunPalace and Breeze McKrieth, a founder member of Britfunk bands Light Of The World and Beggar & Co, these Lost Songs are the almost forgotten result of this seminal collaboration, an exclusive musical rendez-vous between experienced studio music makers and funksters at the top of their game, including some of the finest Britfunk musicians. Bringing together eighties influences and futuristic sounds, the result covers a wide range of genres, from jazz-funk to new wave: it captured a unique moment in British musical history, a smooth transition to a more electronic sound. Definitely not one to be missed!

Two of the world's most seasoned disco editors, Michael The Lion and Jay Airiness have renewed their Franco-American alliance for another split-sided EP.The long-time friends and collaborators were last seen together dropping gems in 2016, and now they've reunited for a double-barreled sure-shot DJ-crate sure - four diverse cuts for all times of night.Philadelphia-based Michael, best known for his work with Soul Clap Records and Razor-NTape, lets loose on the A-side with two secret weapons from his DJ sets - the aggressive, anthemic disco funker "Direction NYC" and the loopy burner "Don't Know”.Jay, one of the hardest working producers in France is fresh from new efforts with his famed Venice Beach and DJ Moar projects. Jay brings a live session of jazz horns and woodwinds to the fore with “Jazzy Mind”. On “Disco Dance”, he rides a tight piano groove right out of the canon of French disco onto the modern dancefloor.

TELE MUSIC is a label of Éditions Musicales Sforzando now owned by BMG Production Music. It is entirely devoted to the music library, that is to say, music for sound illustration used in audiovisual productions. Created in 1966 by Roger Tokarz, just before advertising was allowed on French television, Editions Sforzando specialised from the outset in sound illustration for radio and television.This collection, soberly entitled “Volume 2”, is the sequel to “Volume 1”, produced with equal care, passion and fervour by Lord Funk & DJ L.C. In the mid-90s, Tele Music vinyl was sold at ridiculously low prices. Often disparaged by collectors and record shops, considered by some as lift music or vulgarly called “music by the meter”, the music store was only of interest to fans of instrumental music! But in the 2000's, it had a second life and saw its prices soar on Discogs, thanks to sampling and digging in Hip-Hop mainly. This advent of the library is an era that Lord Funk, curator of this compilation, experienced when he brought several music library collections to New York City (NYC) to his A1 Records stronghold in 1997.A1 was a world-famous downtown record shop where Lord Funk served as a custom sample salesman to hip-hop stars. His reputation as a Frenchman of note quickly grew to the point where all the hip-hop and electro producers in the Big Apple swore by his loops and drum breaks. For them, not a day went by without buying A1 to feed their productions. That's how tracks like Michel Gonet's “Flower Dance” (sampled by Mighty Mi for Promoe's classic “Off The Records”) or Mat Camison & Pierre-Alain DAHAN's “Blue Leopard” (sampled by Jake One for G Unit's “Bette Ask Somebody”) became highly sought-after tracks, first on the East Coast of the United States, then all over the country, and then all over the world, as far as Japan. From then on, music books became a world treasure!In this 2nd volume, Lord Funk & DJ L.C. have chosen a range of music from 1969 to 1983, from psychedelic jazz to electro funk via rnb, soul and jazz-funk. We find Raymond Guiot, flutist, winner of the Geneva International Music Performance Competition in 1954. Raymond is a pianist, composer (notably for Serge Gainsbourg, François deRoubaix, Alain Goraguer) with Guy Pedersen, his lifelong friend, guitarist at the beginning, then bassist of the jazz quintet set up on Raymond's initiative. What a good idea! Raymond and Guy went on to accompany Quincy Jones, Michel Legrand and Lionel Hampton, to name but a few; they are both to be found on albums such as “Indian Pop Bass”, “Contre- basses” and “Musique en Vrac”.Then comes one of the best French drummers Pierre-Alain Dahan of the group Voyage (Sirocco, a label founded by Roger Tokarz), who began his career at the Blue Note in Paris with Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordonand Daniel Humair and who participated in the recording of Serge Gainsbourg's cult album 'La Ballade de Melody Nelson'. Pierre-Alain's playing can be heard improving through the albums “Continental Pop Sound”, “TV Themes”, “Rythmiques”, "Discothèques“ and ”Neo Rythmiques". His guitar colleague Slim Pezin (Manu Dibango, Nino Ferrer, Ray Charles, Tina Turner) is not far behind, as are Michel Gonet, Hervé Roy, Pierre Bachelet, Mat Camison, Pierre Dutour, André Arpino and Sauveur Mallia.Most of the titles in this collection were recorded in the magic place that was the famous CBE recording studio set up by Georges Chatelain, Janine Bisson and Bernard Estardy. Bernard, nicknamed the giant, was a sound genius and a mixing perfectionist. Georges Chatelain was an electronic engineer. Together, they brought a sound, a colour, a trademark.Bernard Estardy was also considered as one of the greatest French sound engineers and an energetic organist for Nino Ferrer or Nancy Holloway. We warmly thank Julie Estardy for her total and unreserved involvement in these reissue and compilation projects.The combination of all these prodigies has given TELE MUSIC a phenomenal and unique sound colour in the service of a sound repertoire that is now part of the French heritage.

Aldorande is back! The French Jazz-Funk quartet returns with a strong new EP “Summer Body / Breakfast in Space” widening its musical universe to join the Favorite Recordings’ 2020 Disco Jazz-Funk series.After their first eponymous LP released in June 2019, our explorers strike again with two club-friendly compositions joining the dots between Jazz-Funk and Disco/Boogie. Recorded with great care, reflecting Favorite Recordings’ journey towards the authentic analogue sound, both tracks coming with a Charles Maurice dub versions. With this new musical space trip, Aldorande confirmed – if needed – their solid position at the heart of the French jazz scene: a great appetizer before their upcoming 2nd album to be released later this year.A-side opens with “Summer Body”, a boogie banger driven by a magnetic bassline, surrounded by lush synthesizers and catchy backing vocals arranged in the tradition of the best Brazilian songs. On the B-side comes “Breakfast in Space”, a sort of cosmic opera. The slap bass and drums set up a P-Funk foundation. On the top, Aldorande put psychedelic vocal lines making the whole journey a definitive trip into funkiness.Behind Aldorande, you will find a team of great musicians including bandleader and founder Virgile Raffaëlli on bass (Setenta, Camarão Orkestra), Florian Pellissier on keys (Iggy Pop, Guts, Setenta, Cotonete,…), Mathieu Edward on drums (Chassol, De La Soul) and Erwan Loeffel on percussion (10LEC6, Camarão Orkestra). For this new EP, always looking for more funk into their groove, they’ve been joined by French guitarist Farid Baha (Cotonete, Camarão Orkestra).