The world of lounge, exotica and easy listening is a bottomless pit, with an unfathomable amount of golden material buried under crap music every day. Who would have thought the talented Mexican pianist Pepe Jaramillo will one day be forgotten? These three songs are from his 1960 album South of the Border released only on vinyl. An absolute beauty with nary a bad song, including covers of Ernesto Lecuona‘s Siboney and the mambo classic Sway among others.

For all y’all who can’t get into literature and especially poetry, British spoken word artist Mr. Anthony Joseph is once again wrapping words with infectious grooves to make it digestable for you, because who can resist the Carribean beat, right?. Continuing the tradition of his previous album on Kindred Spirits, Bird Head Son has everything from spiritual afrobeat to calypso, deep funk, and free jazz on top of his surreal poetry. Check out the videos and bow down to the Black Dada.

Strut Records the !K7 sublabel who gave us the Nigeria 70 compilation a few months ago is back with a new compilation from the same time period in a new setting : Calypsoul 70: Caribbean Soul 1969-1979.

Not much to dissect about the compilation, as we’re basically worthless with our elementary calypso knowledge, however as we love most of the stuff that comes from the Caribbean except cheap dancehall and knowing a few of the tracks on it; one from Lancelot Layne that has already been on undomondo before and another from the the steel drums orchestra Amral’s Trinidad Cavaliers, it’s safe to say that Calypsoul 70 is a hot fuzz of tasty calypso, latin and soul. Out on September 2 but till then can stream the rest from the minisite!

Just heard the news that Skatalites original Johnny “Dizzy” Moore has passed away at the age of 70. So this post is a small tribute to what he’s given to us together with the inspirational Skatalites. 4 more calypso and ska pieces one from Dizzy himself.

Sambo – Woman
Lancelot Layne – Yo tink it sorf
Lord Beginner – Fed-a-ray
Harold Richardson – Healing in the Balmyard
Count Owen – Take her to Jamaica
Johnny ”Dizzy” Moore – Sudden Destruction

Here’s an astonishing reissue of exotic jazz from 1984. Still Around by the Rudy Smith Quartet is the first record Rudy Smith made under his own name after the Modern Sound Quartet. Now, if you’re wondering what steel pan music is, you should stop what you’re doing and watch the video mindboggling live video below. Rudy Smith apparently recorded this album while living in Denmark with Ole Mathiessen on piano, Niels Prøstholm on bass and the South African Gilbert Matthews on drums. Steel drums are generally used for traditional Afro-Caribbean pan music, but Rudy makes use of them in a bebop & jazz context. The 6:49 “Ursia” whose exotic melody is carved into my brain as of now, is a redoing of the original piece from The Modern Sound Quartet’s only record from 1971, Otinku, and “Be Bach” should be a Bach rendition whose name escapes me now. Comment if you know the original please!

Rudy Smith Quartet – Ursia
Rudy Smith Quartet – Be Bach

Icy Demons from Chicago has their 3rd album out on the Japanese Easel label. Man Man‘s Christopher Powell & Bablicon‘s Griffin Rodriguez seem to be the main men of this band, assisted by other Chicago musicians with such silly names as Ali Hawkbar and Ta-Freek-Ya!.

Just check out the video to hear those influences on “Miami Ice” : dreamy childlike Canterbury pop, lovely percussive rhythms, 70′s electronic weirdness, Caribbean sounds, brasses. The warm exotica of “Summer Samba” and the wacky Herbert-like “Crittin’ Down To Baba’s” show the range that these guys go through. Only downside of this one is that it’s a Japan only import release, so you either have to shell 35 grand, or scourge the net.

Kokolo at the Hot House by Paula Pix

Hey folks, time for a new post today. If you remember the Fanga post, I was talking about a second afrobeat album. Well the time has come to that.

Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra is an 8 piece orchestra from New York. Their debut from 2004 had the fabulous opener “Donkey” which had made me hunt the album back then and I’ve been waiting for another album to appear since. Here’s two great tracks from the album Love International which was released on Freestyle Records. Love International is a storming piece of Afro-Caribbean beat. My first selection “Congo Bongo” is a percussive Spanish shaker which forces me to sing along in faux Spanish and the second one is inspired by Barack Obama, I presume. I would vote for a black president had there been one a candidate in Turkey as well, so don’t you lose your chance to do so fellow Americans. ;)