Tasty Grooves is one of the best reggae bands in Spain these days.
Their last single with Ken Boothe is a great seller and is said to be one of the best reggae releases from 2011 as reviewed in many different magazines a radio shows.
Listen: www.myspace.com/thetastygrooves
Booking: tastygrooves@hotmail.com / 657601548 / 620225262
Californian producer Jason Lawless releases 8 new Sonic Sounds of ’69 and Beyond 7″ under his Moondust label.
Limited 7″ editions distributed by Liquidator.
Laurel Aitken – Big Fight In Hell Stadium / Reggae 69
Laurel Aitken – Moon Rock / Apollo 12 (Skinhead Invasion)
The Delirians – Musical Remedy / El Gigante
The Impalers – Mr. Uppercut / Uppercut
Irie Beats – People Need People / No Jodes ver. 2
Ocean 11 – Miss Understanding / Spring In Rome
The Revivers – Reggae Fever / Medical Operation
The Soulsteppers – Bout Time / Victory Dance
Time, space, everything blooms in an intense sonic sphere, Rubén López & The Diatones rocking and steadying, that’s the way it is. Take no prisoners, sweet vocal melodies mingle with an amazing riddim section and mind blowing compositions.
The time is now, the space is here, everything combines perfectly in this recording. Just close your eyes so you can see. The sounds create images in your cortex, images of booze, bar brawls, loose women, empty beer bottles, old suitcases in a long forgotten trip to nowhere. Rubén López and the Diatones are driving the plane from the clouds to the ground, from the wax to your eardrum. And that’s the way it is. Mind storm is slowly clearing up, your eyes slowly open, reality strike’s, it wasn’t a dream. It’s a reality in front of you.
Sweet rocksteady & original reggae. 13 tracks that explore all this art forms. Because reggae got soul, and the young veteran Rubén López sold his one, long ago; in bands such as Malarians or The Peeping Toms, together with him in this trip are the riddim prophets called The Diatones, who continue exploring their skills in one drop European masters such as The Kinky Coo Coo’s, The Oldians, or Flight 404.
You better watch out because this magic is powerful.
The Slackers are doing what they actually use to hate. At their new album ‘The Radio’ they are covering famous pop songs as every third-class Ska band does. Plus, by doing so they are particularly devoted to the 80ies, to their own opinion a completely lost decade for the music. Though the Slackers don’t need to do all that. Already 15 years ago with their first album fully packed with great songs they proven not lacking good ideas on their own. They can rival with the big shots in pop music since many, many years.
It was not their own idea to do a cover album. But the New Yorkers noticed the challenge in that idea from the very beginning. They especially took care of songs they usually didn’t like to bring to light it’s kernel of truth. This was also a kind of playing with and against their own prejudices. And even not beeing a big fan of Madonna Singer Vic Ruggiero really loves ‘Like a Virgin’ and badly wanted to record it for the album. With ‘Ganbare’ a tribut to the people of Japan is included, a kind of greating card – saying that they are with the ones that greating each other with ‘Ganbare’ when starting cleaning up at Fukushima.
Recorded in Berlin ‘The Radio’ is a like of radio show when the station’s mp3 server droppes out and the Slackers are the studio guests to bridge the time gap. By doing so they disburden the song’s souls from the slag of time and the ballast of it’s mighty interpreters.
Daniel Flores is a musician, producer, and journalist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Always engaged in a variety of projects, both musical and literary, he now finally releases the memorable songs that make his first solo album.
This Buenos Aires family guy alternates his life as a writer and a journalist with a thriving musical career. As a wordsman, he’s a travel editor at a major Argentine newspaper, and also an indie publisher with Libros de Una Isla, already a cult series of books on the Argentine underground, from punk to ska.
Meanwhile, as a keyboard player, DF is a founding member of long running and much loved trad ska band Satelite Kingston, as well as an occasional session player for international figures such as Pauline Black, Benjamin Zephaniah, Roy Ellis, Chris Murray, Victor Rice, Tonino Carotone, and more.
“Todo Hombre Es Una Isla” (“Every Man Is An Island”) was recorded during the first half of 2011, mainly in Buenos Aires, but also in Sao Paulo, Santander, New York and San Francisco. It is a dedicated traveler’s album. Regardless of the title and its obvious “solo” connotations, it is far from an individual work: the record actually benefits from the talent of more than 25 musicians of half a dozen different nationalities, all mixed up. No two songs share a same line up. In “Hard Man Fe Dead” (Prince Buster), for instance, Japanese guitarist Atsushi Ukito, American bassist and producer Victor Rice, Spanish singers from Smooth Beans and Argentine drummer Esteban Descalzo somehow work together with surprising success. ”Todo Hombre Es Una Isla”s track list combines brand new songs with versions of the aforementioned Prince Buster, and also Tom Waits and Frank Sinatra, as a hint of DF’s wide array of influences, which go beyond his trademark rocksteady, ska, and reggae.
Released on vinyl with MP3 download card.
With a great sense of humour The Upsessions resurrect the legend Judge Dread and present a video which will be followed by some tribute shows in Europe. Don’t miss it if you have the chance to check it!
Alma De Leon (Lion’s Soul) is the name of the most important Reggae radio show in Spain. It is broadcasted through Radio 3 (National Spanish Radio).
In their last show they featured the best releases from 2011 and The Gramophone Allstars and Ken Booth 7″ featuring Tasty Grooves, was highlited as one of the best records released in 2011.
You can listen the show (in spanish) by clicking here .
Madrid Is Black (Madrid Es Negro) is a bunch of activities in Spain’s capital around black music. This yearly event is promoted by both Enlace Funk magazine and Maderfucker club. They plan a lot of black music gigs and some other activities like a vinyl market and so on…
Roy Ellis opens his treasure chest and release on his Youtube channel some recordings which couldn’t be easily found before.
He has just released a video by Zubaba, one of the names used by the band also worldwide known as Symarip, playing an instrumetal tune on Sidney Poitier’s film ‘A Warm December’.
Some other gems will be released shortly on Roy Ellis youtube channel.
www.youtube.com/user/RoyEllis1969
The Oldians make a step forward with the release of their third full-lenght album entitled Wandering Souls. The band has become a true force within the Spanish state’s Jamaican scene with their unique blend of rocksteady, ska and jazz flavours, as well as the most prolific combo in terms of studio recording stuff.
After the warm reception of their acclaimed second LP ‘Arts of Seduction’ (Liquidator Music – 2010), a conceptual album in which The Oldians revised jazz classics inna Jamaican key, ‘Wandering Souls’ is a new surprise: a perfect bunch of original tracks, most of them leaded by the sweet vocals skills of Leire Etxarri.
Wandering Souls gives up to 11 new and original sounds that show the versatility of a combo, now expanded to septet, with an excellent progress both in its musical proposal and in its line-up and stylistic balance. Including songs such as “The Rich Life of a Poor Man”, “The Fighter”, “Fire”, “Wandering Souls” or “Blue Marbles”, ‘Wandering Souls’ shows the maturing of the project and the style of its compositions, always in line with the unmistakable sound that you can find in their previous two albums.
For this new record the riddim section has been recorded live at Kay Studios (Manresa), while all the overdubs have been made at Kinkylab (Barcelona). The Oldians line-up in Wandering Souls is made by Xavi Angulo (drums), Álvaro Taborda (bass), Eduard Fernàndez (piano), Ricard Vinyets (tenor sax), Pol Omedes (trumpet and flugelhorn) and Leire Etxarri (lead vocals). The LP also features the following guests: Tommy Tornado and David Carrasco (tenor sax), Ramon Fossati (trombone), Àlex Climent (piano) and Alejo Peloche (trombone).
Musical production of the whole album’s been carried out by the guitarist Javier García, who has taken care and supervised every detail from composition, arranging and recording, to mixing and mastering.
This is definitely the best album by The Oldians: if you have not been delighted yet, let them catch you!
