Announcing: Savath & Savalas The Predicate Dub Version

We really enjoyed an album we released earlier this year with Stones Throw – Savath and Savalas’s La Llama. It served as an excellent summer soundtrack, with Eva Puyelo Muns’ breathy vocals sliding around casual melodies and caressing rough hewn beats crafted by Prefuse 73 and Roberto Carlos Lange. Well, summer’s gone, fall is upon us and winter will be here soon. So this new entry into the Savath and Savalas book – etched by a new production entity we know only as “The Predicate” (Prefuse knows all types) – fits perfectly.

Who woulda thunk it – “Catalan-folk-psych with minimalist-electronic-sensibilities” re-imagined as an excursion in neo-dub? Not us, but La Llama: The Semi Dub Porn Version eases us into autumn with a just enough bounce to remind us of the warm days past.

It will be up as a digital album this week Stones Throw’s webstore. We’ll be releasing part two of Roberto’s “Oscuro Como Boca De Lobo” podcast at the same time. Stay tuned.

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Mr. Chop feat. CL Smooth and Malcolm Catto: “T.R.O.Y” and “Straighten It Out” 7″ Singles – Coming Soon

The album will hit stores in CD format and see wide digital release on 11.03.09; the album format will be slightly delayed.

Soon, Stones Throw’s webstore will offer an exclusive pre-sale on two 7″ singles related to the album – Mr. Chop, drummer Malcolm Catto and longtime Pete Rock partner CL Smooth’s vocal and instrumental takes on the classics “T.R.O.Y” and “Straighten It Out.” More info coming soon.

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Various – Forge Your Own Chains Fan Club 45 (EP)

Promotional Only. Free with your purchace of the Forge Your Own Chains LP.

Tracklist:

Side A
A1. Guilty Simpson: My Time To Shine
A2. Oh No: Feel Me

Side B
B1. Oh No: Loneliness
B2. Oh No: Sensational Smash

Side A, Track 1 produced by Egon and J.Rocc. Side A, Track 2 and Side B, Tracks 3 and 4 produced by Oh No. Created with samples taken from the Forge Your Own Chains compilation.

7″ Single. 2009. NA 7021.

Not Really A Podcast Pt. 3 – Heliocentrics Live In Paris, December 2008

It was one of those last minute decisions – Madlib couldn’t make the Free Your Funk gig that he – along with myself, Karriem Riggins and J.Rocc – had agreed to. Denis, our loyal promoter, wouldn’t cancel the gig. What to do? Call Malcolm Catto and see if he could take the Eurostar from London to Paris on a moment’s notice. He brought along fellow Heliocentrics Jake Ferguson (bass) and Adey Owasu (guitar) and stole the show in front of 650 rather frenzied Stones Throw fans. This less-than-ten-minute section of their one hour jam session doesn’t come close to capturing the vibe in the cramped quarters of La Bellevilloise that Saturday, 6th of December 2008. But it’s still pretty damn cool.

Check out the Heliocentrics (as a trio) live at Free Your Funk Heliocentrics: “Live In Paris, December 2008.”

Check out photos from the night here.

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Forge Your Own Chains – The Strangers’ Story (w/ MP3)

If you’ve seen the tag line for our Forge Your Own Chains comp and wondered what East Nigerian Fuzz sounded like, you didn’t have to go further than our Records Pick section to check out a shining example of the sub-genre by Nigerian high school phenoms, Ofege.

The Strangers – an older, more experienced organization – offered a more world-weary, dark take on the psychedelic funk sound. Their ballad “Two To Make A Pair” – which you can listen to here – is a winning example of the sound that leapt out of East Nigeria after the January 1970 armistice in the Nigerian Civil War.

Now-Again affiliate Uchenna Ikonne recently completed the license for this track with The Strangers’ guitarist, Ani Hoffnar. In future posts, we’ll tell you about the Nigerian Psych Funk comp that we’re working on with Ikonne and New Zealand psych zealot Heavyfuzz.

Here’s an excerpt from Egon’s Forge Your Own Chains liner notes – The Strangers’ story.

The Strangers, founded and lead by organist Bob Miga, were one of the many funk-rock ensembles to spring out of the Biafran region of Nigeria the January 15, 1970 armistice in the Civil War between the Nigerian Army and Biafran secessionists. As Miles Cleret writes in his liner notes to the Nigeria Special compilations, “When the war had commenced in 1967, the world was witnessing a musical evolution… in January of 1970, with peace finally in the air, Nigeria had its chance to really capitalize on that revolution.”

A musicians living in post-war Biafra could make a decent living playing for the Nigerian Army soldiers who carried with them Nigerian Pounds, the currency that quickly eclipsed the short-lived Biafran Pounds. Bands such as The Funkees, The Apostles, BLO and Ofege were some of many influenced by British bands like The Beatles and Cream and by American acts on Motown and its subsidiary labels, such as the rock imprint named for its principal band, Rare Earth.

The Strangers released at least three singles on HMV. Most, like “Two To Make A Pair,” are sung in English, but some, including the superb “Onye Ije,” are sung in the band’s native Igbo language. All feature insistent, funky drums, fuzz guitar and Miga’s ever present organ. The band, like many of their Biafran compatriots, never released an album and disappeared from the scene in a short time. Guitarist Ani Hoffner hijacked band members to form the One World funk band and Bob Miga went on to lead the psychedelic ensemble The Hykkers.

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