Antonio Marino
Los Hermanos Malaguenos

Nine-piece West Africa-via-Melbourne ensemble Ausecuma Beats and improvised collective Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange, also known as Z*F*E*X, reveal a new collaborative EP out August 19 via Music in Exile.Call it a match made somewhere in musical heaven, the minds behind Ausecuma Beats, comprised of members from Senegal, Mali, Cuba and Guinea, found they melded easily with Z*F*E*X following weeks of recording and sharing material remotely together.Z*F*E*X themselves, an ensemble comprised of drummer Zeke ‘Ziggy’ Zeitgeist, keyboardist and producer Lewis Moody, bassist Matthew Hayes, and a rotating cast of guests, are prolific musicians themselves with weighty credentials spread across their base locations of Australia, the United Kingdom, and Europe.Thus, from a backyard shed in Dandenong North, Australia, some of West Africa’s finest would record simple percussive tracks, which then surfed the airwaves via studios in Melbourne, Berlin and London, to finally land back on listeners doorsteps as a forthcoming collaborative EP, Deep Heat/Tropical Storm.Starring two guest vocalists who are some of the most invigorating in their respective scenes - Latin America via Berlin star Gotopo, and Melbourne’s own Rara Zulu - the EP’s beginnings in percussive exploration are transformed into a must-have record of all bangers.Expect the duelling minds of two highly respected acts to reveal a combined EP of complex compositions that remain wholly accessible thanks to addictive harmonies and melodies. Emotionally thrilling, and easy to love, listen and dance to.

The late Christian Burchard, who founded the Embryo ensemble in 1969, loved the slogan “Auf Auf,” German for “Up, Up,” or “Keep On Going.” Anyone with anything more than a passing interest in the German Krautock scene of the 1970s and 1980s knows that Burchard followed that intent all around the world, tirelessly seeking out new sounds and inspirations and creating a catalog of music unlike most anything else the world has ever heard.Madlib has often said Embryo is his favorite rock band. Of course the hip-hop producer with the deepest musical knowledge knows Embryo is more than just a rock band.When Marja Burchard, Christan’s daughter, who grew up with Embryo and toured with them for years, took the reins of the ensemble after Christian’s death in 2018, she started recording what would become the album Auf Auf. It was recorded over the course of two years, finishing it in the throes of the Covid pandemic in 2020. She approached Madlib and Egon – who had visited and jammed with Christian Burchard and Embryo musicians years ago in a Bavarian wine cellar – with the idea to issue Auf Auf on Madlib Invazion. The reply was a resounding, definitive yes.So here is Marja’s take on the Embryo ethos, continuing with her father’s intrepid style, and leading the band in her own style. Auf Auf ranges from the deep, free-form jazz of “Alphorn Prayer” to modal music from Afghanistan on “Baran” to psychedelic-tinged jazz-rock of the title track.Joining Marja are those like Embryo veterans Bunka, on oud and guitar, and Karl Hector and the Malcouns/Whitefield Brothers/Poets of Rhythm producer and guitarist Jan Weissenfeldt and others, including important players on the global scene from Afghanistan and Morocco.

Recorded in Berlin and Rio de Janeiro, “Nascentes” is the first solo project by flutist, composer and arranger Mariana Zwarg. After 18 years of career, the album is the result of the work she has been developing for almost 4 years with her group “Mariana Zwarg Sexteto Universal”. There are 10 tracks in total: 8 songs composed by her + a theme by Hermeto Pascoal and a theme by Itiberê Zwarg, who are also the album's special guests. The songs were mostly composed and arranged inspired by this group. The project started in 2016, when Mariana was invited by a Spanish music festival to direct and organize an entire concert dedicated to Hermeto Pascoal. The band was formed by musicians from different parts of the world! Mariana Zwarg represents the third generation of musicians playing and spreading the tradition of "universal music", created by her godfather, the musical genius Hermeto Pascoal from Brazil. Mariana is a flutist, saxophonist, composer and arranger and has been performing at leading festivals and concert halls all over Latin America and Europe with "Itibere Zwarg & Grupo" during the last 15 years. In 2016 she formed her "Sexteto Universal", uniting musicians from 5 different countries and touring regularly in Europe and Brazil.

For almost thirty years the conductor Abigail Cecílio de Moura led the Orquestra Afro-Brasileira, donating their effort as if it were a religious devotion. Before each presentation, he acted like a priest giving thanks, raising the stage for sacred space. The Orchestra was founded in April 10, 1942, with the purpose of studying and disseminating folk music and Brazilian customs, using sociology and anthropology to disseminate it. Mainly based on percussion instruments, at the time called barbaric, plus the civilized instruments: piano, sax, trombone. This album was originally released in 1968.

Hailed by none other than Seun Kuti as “one of the best things to come out of Lagos”, Nigerian trumpeter, composer and bandleader Etuk Ubong has developed an original style he calls “Earth Music”.Weaving together a unique combination of not only afrobeat, highlife and jazz, but also the ritualistic drumming of Ekombi, the result is urgent and highly energetic, yet spiritual; his compositions reflecting his heritage and life philosophy of goodwill, peace and love for humanity. Ubong’s music is so vibrant and propulsive that one can easily make comparisons with leading lights of the UK scene, such as the Shabaka Hutchings-led Sons of Kemet, but at the same time it is distinctly Nigerian.Ubong was invited by Night Dreamer to record at Haarlem’s Artone Studio, home to an enviable collection of vintage mastering and recording equipment and situated right above a pressing plant. He assembled an international ensemble of the highest calibre to record his compositions direct-to-disc, avoiding the interference created by widely adopted recording techniques and capturing his enigmatic live performance in its most natural and explosive form. Ubong is joined by another Lagos-based musician, Michael Awosogo, also on trumpet, and a hand-picked group of UK and Netherlands-based musicians who finally after an impromptu show the night before, recorded the whole album in just one sitting on the last day of the five-day session.Much of the music is incredibly fast-paced, and politically charged, particularly on titles such as “African Struggle” and “Mass Corruption'', with Ubong featuring on both trumpet and lead vocal, leading a five-piece brass section over the percussion-heavy rhythm section and soulful keys supplied by Vels Trio’s Jack Stephenson-Oliver. Etuk uses music to address not only injustice but also humanity and spirituality, most notably on “Spiritual Change”, a deep cut on which Etuk reflects on Africans need for internal change before they can address the problems around them, stands-out among the rest of the album.