Amar Prem

More of the Bollywood vinyl, and this time a more mellow piece of work. Music is by R.D. Burman but he's staying away from the full-on dance madness and working with a more classical styled sound, helped by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar on vocals, with one track sung by R.D.'s dad- S.D. Burman. It's lovely stuff, perfect for that post night out wind down or lazy morning start up. Get it here.

Godard Soundtracks Pt. 2

As genius as Godard's films are, the soundtracks are every bit as wonderful. Here's the other LP from this set. Tracks from A Bout De Souffle, Une Femme Est Une Femme and Alphaville amongst others, and featuring some brilliant Michel Legrand pieces and the utterly fantastic Anna Karina on a couple of tracks. Get Nouvelle Vague ici.

Fareed Al Atrash

Spelled 'Fareed' this time, but the same fantastic voice. There's a few classics here, obviously culled from other albums as there's no dates, recording info or even accurate transliteration of song titles! Still, Farid is the man, and the album is here. In other news, the second Wednesay is fast approaching so it's Discostan time for those in the LA area. Come along, it'll be another stormer of a night.

Arpadys- Sirocco

I know next to nothing about these guys except it's some pretty good French Space Disco. Google led me into a world of reviews of old school European discos which was culturally fascinating and distracting, so really all I can tell you is this is suitably gallic and odd, and they like their trancey jams as much as any Moroccan really, except Arpadys favour synths and bass as the means of delivery. Descendez ici.

Rabih Beaini

A bit of a digression here- this a new record and usually I avoid posting such things, but the scarcity of this and the quality of it mean I'm putting up here. (I was lucky enough to score this bit of vinyl on a recent trip to London, and yes, I am showing off.) The album is Albidaya, and it's from Rabih Beaini, a Lebanese born/Berlin resident composer. He works in a pretty experimental vein, has quite the array of analog synths and makes an incredibly good record. There's elements of free jazz, folk and psych rock in here, but melded beautifully. Well worth checking out here.

African Guitars Disc 2

I'm managing to drag this one out a bit, but here's disc 2 from the African Guitars set. As previously mentioned, this is definitely collector scum territory- 200 copies, box made from the wood of Mississippi's former location, slightly dubious pressing quality, but there's some good stuff in here. Disc 2 is electric stuff, but not the usual full on African blues/funk- there's material from Uganda, Kenya, Zaire and Sierra Leone (S.E. Rogie at his best) and it's all here.

On a live sort of note, for LA/SoCal residents, it's Discostan Wednesday again on the 9th of October at Footsies in Cypress Park, and this one should be a stormer- there's going to be live Zurla players! I'll post the flyer as soon as I get one, but please come on by if you're in the neighbourhood, it'll be a fun night.

The Pan Islamic Tradition- Music Of Morocco

Again apologies for a gap in posts- it was more travel which of course means more music to digitize. I'll get better about posting regularly, and here's some good stuff to start with. A 1975 Lyrichord release of some music from the Moroccan Islamic brotherhoods. Side 1 is Gnaoua/Gnawa recordings while Side 2 is less commonly heard J'bala tracks. All of it is seriously good, trancey jams. Get it here.