Tags: Psychedelic Jazz

Review: Manu Dibango's grooves will never dull with time. The Cameroonian sax man made some of the most infectious, feel-good funk to ever transmit from the African continent, and here's one of his heavy-hitting high-watermarks, reissued by Soul Makossa. African Voodoo originally came out in 1972, a year that saw nearly all Dibango's most revered jams cut loose on an unsuspecting public. These sessions were recorded in France with Yvan Julien on trumpet, Slim Pezin on guitar, Jacques Bolgnesi on trombone and Lucien Dobat on drums to name but a part of the line-up, but of course it's Dibango holding court on the vibes, marimba, sax and organ who brings the unmistakable magic to the music.

Review: Opa's Back Home was first reocrded in 1975 but not released until 1996; it was the fourth and final album by the esteemed Uruguayan fusion band, whose preferred admixture was usually some melted pot of funk and samba, making for an impressive heuristic building on their intuitive recalling of their mutual upbringing in South America. Mysteriously (for reasons unknown to the band), Opa's debut was shelved and remained so until the mid-1990s. But the story goes that it was recorded after renowned label producer and owner Larry Rosen heard the band playing in a Brooklyn nightclub; with this in mind, Back Home makes for an ironic title, since the sonic turn expressed by the band is not one of homesickness, but rather that of an immersion in New York's metamorphous music scene ('Brooklynville' has an instant proto-hip-hop vibe, if not for its original urban field recording, then certainly for its bulbous broken funk twang). Now reissued on vinyl and CD via Far Out, you won't want to miss this round trip.

Review: Spanish funk-rock group Barrabas formed in the 70s and had big success through that decade and the next. Drummer and producer Fernando Arbex lead the band and fomented a fusion of Latin rock and jazz-funk initially, before moving into a more disco orientated sound later on. Power was the band's second album and it came in 1973 with country-tinged tunes such as 'Boogie Rock', high speed funk workouts like 'Keep On Moving' and then more jazzy library sounds such as 'The Horse.' The second half of the album touches on busy dance floor funk like 'Casanova' and more stripped back and deep cuts like 'Children.'