Togo Soul 70

"Who Was Essad Bey?" is the title of a concept album by the Berlin-based three-piece The Disorientalists, aka the Essad Bey City Rollers, released at the tail end of 2016 on Oriente Records. This truly unique work in progress features Yuriy Gurzhy (RotFront, Russendisko, Born in UA), whom you may remember from the "High Words" remix, Daniel Kahn (Daniel Kahn and The Painted Bird, Brothers Nazaroff, Semer Ensemble) and last but not least, Marina Frenk (Marina & [...]

This might very well be the first Venezuelan release featuring on Greedy, but what a beauty it is. Based in Paris, Venezuelan quartet Insólito Universo just released its wondrous 8-track debut album "La Candela del Río" on Colectivo Futuro's Olindo Records that has us all in a frenzy, positively speaking. The project came together back in 2016, when lead singer María Fernanda Ruette and bassist Raúl Monsalve got together in a combined effort to take [...]

We would like to bring this week to a close by sharing some great news:

Earlier this month our very own Israeli phenomenon Victoria Hanna's self-entitled debut album received the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (aka the German Record Critics' Award) for outstanding musical and artistic achievements.

Originally released back in August on yours truly, Victoria Hanna was awarded in the category "Grenzgänge" (transl. Border Crossings), which makes us [...]

Berlin-based experimental afro-psych-kraut-funk collective Onom Agemo And The Disco Jumpers are back with a new body of work, aka the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2017-released sophomore album "Liquid Love" that raised quite a few heads in its wake. This time around Johannes Schleiermacher and his eclectic crew venture even deeper into space, forging an intricately powerful and investigative world of sound that remains unmistakably their own.

"Magic [...]

Hot on the heels of "Overture", Berlin's 'don of tropical bass' Daniel Haaksman has unveiled the fresh new single off his forthcoming new album "With Love, From Berlin", to be released via his Man Recordings imprint early next year. "With Love, From Berlin" was conceived as a collaborative project, which reflects on the city of Berlin that continues to attract countless artists and travellers from around the globe and has in many ways become the place to [...]

This might be a late call to some of you, but we still believe Surly's "Trip to Warsaw" EP deserves a spot in our Journal. Even more so after seeing an official vinyl release on London's Astigmatic Records earlier this year, due to popular demand. Beehype even went on to call it "one of the understated masterworks of 2017."

Surly is the pseudonym of New Zealand producer and Californian Juke Bounce Werk member Scott Ludvigson, who also happens to be the son of [...]

When you visit Istanbul for the first time, it's the unexpectedness of it all that might catch you off guard; the unexpected views, the unexpected tastes and of course the unexpected sounds. Part of this megacity's indubitable marvel lies in its ability to reveal hidden beauty and meaning at any given moment, if only you look. In walking distance to Istanbul's famous Taksim Square and Istiklal Street is the now run-down neighbourhood of Dolapdere, which has [...]

We're off to northern Ghana in the latest music video by Hausa rap heir Kirani AYAT of AYAT Music, who just dropped the wonderful music video to his equally impressive, NOVA-produced current single "Guda", directed by David Nicol-Sey of North Productions. 

"Guda" is the second single off of Kirani AYAT's forthcoming debut album "Aisha's sun" and features his "signature blend of Hausa and English [as he] weaves a tale of struggle, perseverance, determination and [...]

Brian Shimkovitz's Awesome Tapes From Africa (ATFA) imprint is set to release another stunner on November 16th. This time the musical protagonist is the late Ethiopian musician, actress, dancer and cultural icon Asnakech. As stated in the comprehensive liner notes, "there is perhaps no woman more cherished in modern Ethiopian history than Asnakech Worku, [who] inspired and challenged society for decades, until her death in 2011. From her beginnings as [...]

Hot on the heels of an eventful summer, including another memorable show at Sziget, our Jewish Monkeys are well rested and ready to embark on another raucous roadtrip. 

This Sunday (November 11th) they will rev up their musical engines with an exclusive gig at Frankfurt venue Das Bett, before they head off to the Netherlands next Wednesday (November 14th) to support the inimitable Disko Partizani and friend of the Greedy family Shantel and his Bucovina Club [...]

Late last week, Paris-based Hot Casa Records served up another burner as they unveiled the highly anticipated new album by potent French-Togolese afro-funk collective Vaudou Game, the brainchild of bandleader, singer and composer Peter Solo. Solo himself was born in Aného-Glidji, Togo, "the birthplace of the Guin tribe and a major site of the Voodoo culture". Meanwhile based in Lyon and backed by his band, he has channeled these ancient ritualistic sounds onto [...]

“Su Akyol’s voice is light but elegant, and her songs are by turns urgent, sultry and romantic and politically barbed. The new sound of Istanbul.” – The Observer

As trying as times in her native Turkey may be at the moment, Istanbul's Gaye Su Akyol is not one to shy away from the limelight or eschew artistic responsibility. With her first international, 2016-released album "Hologram İmparatorluğu" she quickly established herself as "one of [...]