Pair of Fela Highlife Rakers tracks gain first release

Issuing label Cadillac describes key background to their recent Fela Kuti archival release. Interest in Fela has never been greater and two tracks on this release add to the early history of Fela's recording career. It is 1959. London. ''The tape …

Published: 26 Oct 2020. Updated: 3 years.

Issuing label Cadillac describes key background to their recent Fela Kuti archival release. Interest in Fela has never been greater and two tracks on this release add to the early history of Fela's recording career. It is 1959. London.

''The tape of the very first Fela Ransome Kuti recording session has languished in a series of dusty cupboards and damp basements for 60 years. It’s a miracle that it has survived in such fine condition. The original Melodisc single, comprising side A of this release, was for long thought lost until a copy of the session acetate turned up and was reissued as part of the superb Soundway compilation Highlife on the Move (2014). However the two tracks on side B of this album have never been issued in any form and are reproduced here in all their glory for the very first time!''

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2020 EFG London Jazz Festival preview: The Comet is Coming

Nominated for the Mercury in 2016 for Channel the Spirits The Comet Is Coming, reedist Shabaka Hutchings joined in the Afrofuturist trio by Danalogue (Dan Leavers) and Betamax (Max Hallett), when Hutchings got to know his future bandmates they were …

Published: 26 Oct 2020. Updated: 3 years.

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Nominated for the Mercury in 2016 for Channel the Spirits The Comet Is Coming, reedist Shabaka Hutchings joined in the Afrofuturist trio by Danalogue (Dan Leavers) and Betamax (Max Hallett), when Hutchings got to know his future bandmates they were in a little heard-of duo called Soccer 96.

Hutchings, into Count Ossie and Yusef Lateef, tuned in, he explained to marlbank at the beginning of the project, “through being a fan of their band and checking their music out. They bring so much energy live that the first time I heard them play I was pretty much blown away, and said to myself: I’ve got to work with these guys.”

He sat in with the group terming what his new bandmates do as “experimental popular music… though a lot of what emerges musically can be linked to directions pointed towards by modern players of ‘jazz’ music also.”

The band name ''The Comet is Coming'' derives from a BBC Radiophonic Workshop piece, the trio in their early days rehearsing in a warehouse space in Dalston called the Total Refreshment Centre. Hutchings says the Comet sound is distinct from that of the Son of Kemets: “The ensemble is very different from say Sons of Kemet in that it is less rootsy, has less of an earthy sound. We’re trying to take the listener into a futuristic world as opposed to reaching towards the earth in our sonic journeys.” Appearing in Alexandra Palace West Hall on Sunday 22 November