Friday 5 June 2009

The Heliocentrics & Mulatu Astatke - Inspiration Information Vol. 3


Mulatu Astatke is legendary Ethiopian producer, musician and arranger and is known as the father of Ethio-jazz. In recent times he gained a new audience due to his music being used in Jim Jarmusch's 2005 movie `Broken Flowers' and the excellent compilation of his work `Ethiopiques - Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974'.

`Inspiration Information Vol.3' sees Mulatu team up with London-based group The Hellocentrics, with an attempt to re-capture that sound of those classic recordings, whilst adding their own individual stamp. Mulatu acts as arranger and player on this recordings, and it really works well, with prime slices of crunchy guitar, lovely piano work, flute, double bass, superb brass work and some big drum breaks complimenting the Jazz/Funk grooves.

All the tracks are great with `Cha Cha' sounding the closest you could ever get to that vintage sound. Other standouts for me include `Addis Black Widow' and`Chinese New Year' for managing to be both super slick and ultra-raw at the very same time, which is some feat.

Here is a clip on the recording of the album.

1 comment:

  1. nice taste...posted the same thing on my blog a few days ago as well...

    ReplyDelete