Tag: Karl Hector & The Malcouns

Long out of print, Karl Hector’s Afrodelic debut LP out again on vinyl, with a bonus 7″ containing two new songs. Available at Rappcats now!

Karl Hector & The Malcouns’ debut album Sahara Swing was out of print on vinyl for about a year and a half leading up to our issue of their sophomore album, Unstraight Ahead. We couldn’t stand to part with the dog-eared copies we still had at the office, and felt bad every time we saw a dealer get $40 for a copy on Discogs. So we decided to repress – and the band added two new tracks, both vocal and instrumental versions of “Roads of Otumpa,” as a bonus 7″.

They will only be available as part of this LP reissue, which comes with a download card, and as a digital exclusive to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm. Stream the vocal version at our Soundcloud, now.

A note to those who purchased the first version of this album: if you send us proof of your purchase to thefunk@nowagainrecords.com we will email you a download link to the entire album and the bonus 7″.

Buy: Karl Hector & The Malcouns Sahara Swing at Rappcats.

Out now – the long awaited second album by the originators of Afrodelic Kraut Funk – brand new excursions into another world of sound feat. members of Poets of Rhythm and Whitefield Brothers. Eco-wallet CD and digital album available immediately; LP preorder at our Rappcats store!

As we told you when we announced Unstraight Ahead, this album finds Karl Hector and his cohorts exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of their debut album Sahara Swing. On this album, the West African sounds of Ghana and Mali meet the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz and are tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of The Malcouns’ 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow’s Gift.

It’s out now on CD and digitally – via our store at Rappcats, on iTunes and via our Now-Again Deluxe subscription service at Drip.fm. Preorders for the LP – with an anticipated ship date of 07.07.

Download: “Push Na Ya”
Buy: Karl Hector & The Malcouns Unstraight Ahead at Rappcats
Buy: Karl Hector & The Malcouns Unstraight Ahead at iTunes

Out now – Third and final limited edition vinyl EP by the world-psych-funk ensemble; original artwork by Kevin Lyons, screenprinted by Anti Designs. Download a free MP3 now and buy the vinyl or digital at our new store at Rappcats!

For all intents and purposes, Karl Hector might as well be another nom-de-plume of Jay Whitefield (producer and guitarist for the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers) who, along with Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija, founded Karl Hector and The Malcouns in the early 2000s. Alongside Bo Baral, other members of the Poets of Rhythm and crack Munich-based session musicians, Whitefield, Myland and Curlija crafted nearly twenty tracks for their debut, Sahara Swing, an album that swung with influences from across the African diaspora.

The trio has since released two vinyl-only EPs – Tamanrasset was the first; Ngunga Yeti Fofa was the second. Coomassi will be the last, and is the opening volley of their Unstraight Ahead album, which will see release in Summer 2014. These seven songs demonstrate The Malcouns’ deft handling of musics from Eastern and Northern Africa alongside Western psychedelia, jazz and funk, as evidenced by “Irtijal,” which you can download below – something that wouldn’t sound out of place in Morocco or Turkey, Ethiopia or Azerbaijan.

Coomassi is available to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe, can be purchased directly at our webstore at Rappcats and is on iTunes.

Download: “Irtijal”
Buy: Coomassi at Rappcats