Category: Album

Ata Kak – Obaa Sima, 1994 (reissued 2015)

Ghanaian musician A Yaw Atta-Owusu, aka Ata Kak, recorded and self-produced Obaa Sima in 1994 in his home studio while living in Toronto. In spite of only 50 cassette copies being produced, the tape has enjoyed cult status over the past decade. Still, scouring the internet turns up virtually no information about him, which will change today. Awesome Tapes From Africa‘s Brian Shimkowitz has finally tracked him down after years of searching, and is restoring and rereleasing Obaa Sima on all formats, 21 years after its original release.

Obaa Sima lies somewhere in between highlife, house, hip hop, new jack swing, and electro, produced rough and dry. Without wanting to suggest that this is a kitschy bedroom-tape artifact (it’s not), what makes this so exciting is its rawness and deliberate playfulness. Ata Kak seems to have exploited his minimalist production methods on purpose and clearly had a lot of fun doing it. The music feels pixelated and hyper-saturated at the same time, like playing Pacman through 3D glasses.

Ata Kak is a wicked rapper, and his hopped-up flow takes center stge, sometimes backed by pitched-up backing choruses of what sound like his own voice. The result is joyous and strange, a window into something that children of the internet will never be able to experience firsthand–this having been made in 1994, right before dial-up became ubiquitous in America and the world began to shrink. Obaa Sima is the end of an era, the end of (global, if not local) anonymity and microcosms, the last of glee and spontaneity. It’s a vibrant moment that presumably happened without documentation, leftfield and DIY to its core. Obaa Sima has a lot more going on than just nostalgia, though–it’s warped and frenetic and a little scary in its relentlessness. We’re looking forward to reading more about Ata Kak Yaw Atta-Owusu. For whom did he make this music? Was he homesick? How much did it circulate in Ghana? We like to imagine that he was dancing as if no one was watching, because no one was watching, and that was totally fine by him.

Preview the anthemic, blazing “Daa Nyinaa” below. It belongs on every summer mixtape. Side note that this amazing video footage is unrelated to the song and there’s a bit of mastering on the audio. If you want to hear the original recordings, they’re all over YouTube.

buy: tape / itunes / vinyl

This one too:

Saâda Bonaire – Saâda Bonaire, 1983

Saâda Bonaire was a shelved EMI project comprised of songwriter-vocalists Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfeld, producer Dennis Bovell (Fela Kuti, Orange Juice, The Slits, whatever), jazz saxophonist Charlie Mariano, and a slew of backing musicians “culled from the local immigration center.” Dub-funk-disco-ish on top of a Turkish-African instrumental conglomerate. Dark and dancy perfection circa 1983-ish. Captured Tracks recently put out an excellent compilation with a whole lot of never-released material, which we’re not posting for download because you should just buy it. A favorite track below.

Brenda Ray – Walatta, 2005

A personal favorite. Brenda Ray rolled around with a handful of musical projects in the UK post punk scene, where she explored African rhythms, dub, hip hop, and electro grooves. After hitting it off with the legendary Roy Cousins in the early 90’s, she helped him remaster and reissue titles from his label, Tamoki Wambesi. Legend has it that it was Cousins’ idea that she make an album using original tapes of Tamoki Wambesi roots reggae tracks. I think this was mostly recorded in the late 90s, released in limited numbers via Tamoki Wambesi, and reissued by Japan’s EM Records (I’m still working our way through their catalog, because holy cow it is good).

Unlike anything else. Responsible for vocals, melodica, keyboards, koto, pixiephone, chimes, claves, bells, cymbal, cowbell, ashtray (?), clavinet, xylophone, cabasa, triangle, idiophone, tambourine, vibraslap, scraper, whistle, recording, and mixing, Ray draped her breathy, 60’s-chanteuse vocals all over her reworkings of some of the best dub and reggae tracks ever made, resulting in what Forced Exposure called “very disturbing slices of psycho-dub/doo-wop/jazz-fusion/exotica music.” Grooving all over Turkey, West Africa, and of course, Jamaica. Alternately shimmery, bossa-nova-flecked, and funky, with appearances by Prince Far I and Knowledge. The sonic equivalent of pink plastic palm trees. A salve for a brutally cold February day. Enjoy!

Tangerine Dream – Zeit, 1972

Guest Post by Joel Ebner

In over twenty years of record collecting, there are only a few albums I’ve bought, sold, then repurchased at a later date. Of those albums, Zeit is the only album I bought twice because I’d had a complete change of heart about the music. As a teenager, the promise of Zeit (translated simply as “Time”) seemed on paper to be a godsend. Its associations with German kosmische favorites Faust and Neu! and its lineage of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II and Oval’s Systemisch sent me on a mission to track down a copy. Only thing was, I found myself completely unsatisfied with the record once I’d heard it.

Saw-toothed synth patches, 8-bit samplers, and reverb-drenched guitars made sense to my 18-year-old brain. But cellos? The opening moments of the album, “Birth of Liquid Plejades”—conjured from dramatic, legato strings—were too classical, too 20th century for me to find a link to the techno-futurist ambient artists of Warp and Thrill Jockey. And I certainly wasn’t given much latitude by the record’s length: well over an hour of long-form, rhythmless space is a lot to ask of even the most patient and adventurous listener, and after about 20 minutes I simply couldn’t make my way through the composition in its entirety. For years, Zeit sat on the shelf until my senior year of college, when I sold it in a big stack of records.

I think I found a used copy of Phaedra 7 or 8 years later, giving me cause to ask whether my initial assessment of Zeit had been hasty. Upon second consideration, I was astounded. Had I changed, or had the record? Had the earth shifted under my feet? Today, in those cellos of “Plejades,” I now hear tragedy, and surprise, and sadness. Subsequent album tracks which I’d once glossed over—perhaps due to their increasing atonality—unfold slowly, a nascent universe, patient yet hostile. I look at that stark record cover—is it an eclipse? a black hole?—and I see the infinite promise of the world swallowed by the inevitability of death. It’s all there: the origin and the collapse, in one amazing record.

I spent this last weekend listening to Zeit after reading about Edgar Froese’s passing, and have found it difficult not to hear a funeral dirge, a tacit acknowledgement by Froese some forty odd years before the fact that he will be gone someday, that we’ll all be gone someday, that all the planets and the stars and space and music and possibility, it’ll all be gone. But I’m still here. And though I’m not sure that it was impossible for me to recognize and relate to the themes contained in Zeit as younger man, I certainly understand them better now. It only took me a little time to figure it out.

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Testpattern – Après-Midi, 1982

Another gem from the Yen Records treasure trove (Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi production, blah blah blah). Cheeky, unhurried, fairly minimal synth pop, with a dusting of tittering bleeps, bloops, and sleigh bells for dimension. Mostly dry and Disneyland plump, but of course nothing Hosono is quite what it seems. Après-Midi is far from simplistic–there are plenty of well-executed jabs at western pop music (and culture), and then there’s the surprise “Catchball,” which is a deep, dark grinding proto-techno drum groove. Enjoy!

Clara Rockmore – Theremin, 1977

Clara Rockmore may have the coolest story of all the early electronic musicians. Born in 1911 in what is now Lithuania, at four years old she was admitted to the St. Petersburg Imperial Conservatory where she studied violin under Leopold Auer. To this day, she’s still the youngest student ever admitted to the conservatory (probably a good thing). A teenage arthritic condition left her unable to continue playing the violin, leading her to study the theremin (the first mass-produced electronic instrument, and arguably the coolest because it’s played by manipulating electrical signals in the air rather than by touching anything solid).

She was an instant theremin prodigy and went on to help Léon Theremin*, who might have been slightly obsessed with her, make a lot of changes to its design in order to realize its full potential. She insisted on a faster left hand to permit staccato, rather than having it be “all molasses, all glissando.” She also wanted a five octave range instead of three (which made it way harder to control the pitch but allowed for greater melodic possibility), increased sensitivity of the pitch antenna, and a lowered profile of the instrument. Despite touring extensively to widespread acclaim, she only finally recorded her performances at the behest of Bob Moog himself (as in “Ugh Bob made me do it lol”) in 1977. Thanks Bob! There’s a very sweet conversation between Clara, her sister, her nephew, Dr. Moog, and Dr. Thomas Ray which takes place over what appears to be a candy-tinted Tim Burton-esque dessert table that you can watch here.

*Read more about another insane thing that Léon Theremin made here.

TLDR: Nobody has ever inhabited the theremin like Rockmore. Maybe the original female electronic music virtuoso, as she was touring with her custom-made theremin in the 30s. Watch some videos of her channeling sounds out of thin air like a ghostly medium, face far away and ecstatic, and try not to cry. Otherworldly, but deeply human.

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Selda Bagcan – Selda, 1976

Selda Bağcan got real big in the 70s as one of Turkey’s most well-known politically-minded musicians, and from what I understand, became somewhat of a household name. Her sound was a progressive wash of psychedelic guitar funk and angular synth heat, applied liberally to Turkish folk songs as scorching backdrops for her emotive, razor-sharp vocals and political critiques. Unsurprisingly, she was thrown in jail three times and was stripped of her passport, but was eventually freed and went on to tour extensively. She resurfaced again in 2006, when Finders Keepers reissued her self-titled LP with some previously unreleased tracks.

That’s when I first heard this record–my sister gave it to me, and it just about blew my 16-year-old brain open, since I didn’t have much of a grasp on the roots of psychedelic music, or what Turkey was. This record is a classic for many, so I hope this serves as a friendly reminder that it’s still bubbling hot (with the exception of string-infused weeper ballad “Dam Üstüne Çulserer,” flecked with fountain sounds and spiny percussives, which is more of a slow-burner). Note: I’m posting the original album, without the rerelease tracks and with the songs in a different order. It sounds better than ever, almost 40 years later. Enjoy!

Uchu – 1st, 1998 & Buddha, 1999

Guest post by Lolo Haha

Ooh boy yes. This record. These records. I’ve been jamming these albums for years, grinning whenever passing it onto folks, knowing I was passing along some transcendent holy grail to bring friends to the next level.

I downloaded this rip off of Mutant Sounds back in 2007 while depressed and studying abroad in Paris smoking entirely too much hash alone in my room and letting my hair grow out to the point where my host mother had our program supervisor sit me down and ask me if I was feeling depressed. I remember that the first night I listened to this was after I had my first experience buying hash from someone on the Seine River. French friends told me to just wait by the Seine and someone would come up and offer, so like a naive boy I waited at the river for 40 minutes until two guys walked up and asked ‘T’veux du shit?’ which basically means ‘u want sum weed?’ After I said yes one of the guys sat down next to me, looked all around, then took his left shoe off and put his hand in, pulling out a long, thin, lump of brown what? and showing it to me, asking for 20 euros. I had no idea what was going on but I handed him the 20 and then his friend came up and said ‘Fait-le payer trente!’ which was saying I should actually pay 30 for it. He backed away with the brown what? and my 20 euros demanding 10 more, which I readily and angrily supplied, sure I was getting duped and that it was bunk stuff I was buying. Turned out hash was good tho mmmmm

Dig in to this dynamic duo for a cosmic journey by Acid Mothers Temple members Higashi Hiroshi, Ayano, and Kawabata Makoto. 100 copies limited edition CDR. They proudly state on their website: “No synthesizer, no sampler, no programming, —– only guitars!!” so know you’re getting into some ‘legit’ vibes here. These Japanese psychedelia masterminds have shown me the way.

Cerrone – Supernature (Cerrone III), 1977

Nothing challenging or high-brow here, just 34 minutes of string-streaked, four-on-the-floor delirious disco perfection. Opens with the epic ten minute classic “Supernature,” and while the album slows down for a few breaths (“In The Smoke” is straight-up new age with a muted heartbeat drum pulse), there isn’t a weak spot to be found. Make sure to take a good, long, hard look at that album art. Happy dancing, and happy new year!

Black Devil – Disco Club, 1978

Black Devil’s Disco Club falls in the heavily mythologized, mysteriously resurrected music-of-nebulous-origin category, in the vein of Lewis or Charanjit Singh. Purportedly released in 1978 by Bernard Fevre under pseudonym “Junior Claristidge” (cool), Disco Club went completely unnoticed–was the world not ready for deep, dark, sublime disco hypnosis?–until Aphex Twin rereleased it on Rephlex Records in a series of 12″s in 2004, to the sound of critics tripping over themselves to make sweeping statements about this being one of the most important electronic records ever released, et cetera. The music was so ahead of its time both in structure and in production that many cried foul, suspecting an Aphex-Twin style hoax. Fairly so: I’m still skeptical of the release date every time I hear it. It’s too tasty, too prescient and too perfect.

All six of these tracks are similar in length and feeling, differing in a few BPM, shifting drum patterns, and vocal lines–but several of them move seamlessly between each other, making this a half hour disco meditation track rather than an album. You can hear “The Chase”-era Moroder all over this thing, but this is (dare I say it) less cheesy, slicker, and with a contagious, restless percussive spinal chord stretching throughout. So much dark Italo-style disco is trampled by heinous vocals, and gleefully so, but Disco Club‘s vocal treatment is restrained, effectively lyricless, and often totally absent, excepting a mantric chorus of skittering “dee-dee-doo-doo”s. Everything is exactly where it should be, fleshed out in high-resolution with heart-racing textures, laser-sharp synth pads, and thrilling percussive ornamentation. There’s a huge, dark, beastly thing throbbing just beneath the surface that never quite rears its head. The tension is there, simmering, and in hopes of exorcising it all you can do is hit repeat again and again.

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