Michael Scott Dawson - Music For Listening (April 8, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

Music For Listening, the sophomore album by Michael Scott Dawson, arrives April 8 via We Are Busy Bodies

The album is comprised of twelve ambient works for guitar. It follows his 2020 debut Nowhere, Middle Of which was built around generative synths. Not wanting to repeat himself, Dawson entirely abandoned the synthesizer, his primary instrument, on Music For Listening. The resulting guitar pieces lean heavily on tape loops and manipulations, and are accompanied by field recordings and spare piano elements. This music rests at the intersection of composition, improvisation, and chance, with patient and simple melodies emerging and recurring across the album like mantras.

Dawson’s inspiration grew from a phone call to his 95-year-old grandmother. As they talked, she shared observations about the birds outside her window, just as she’d done since he was a child. Upon hanging up the phone, he felt compelled to dig out recordings he’d made some summers before, while visiting family. These fragments were initially intended to be part of an album of prairie birdsong: he’d trekked through pastures and farmland on the outskirts of his childhood hometown to capture the audio. Field recordings in the truest sense.

Dawson abandoned this project because the raw audio was densely populated with the hiss and crackle of mosquitoes and insects swarming the microphones: but listening back, after that phone call and after many years, he was struck by the similarities between these recordings and the music he would come to compose. While the audio played, he found himself compelled to pick up a guitar and tinker along. Dawson’s commitment to the follow-up album he’d been deep into creating evaporated in that moment, and he switched course to begin crafting Music For Listening. 

1. No Rave

2. Campestral

3. Witness Marks

4. Summerfallow

5. Places I've Loved, People I've Been

6. This Young Century

7. Two Solitudes

8. Everything In Modulation

9. Praise and Other

10. Mineral Rights

11. North Dakota Stars

12. The Sentimentalist

Music For Listening was mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12K Mastering.

PRE-ORDER

Lionel Pillay (feat. Basil Mannenberg Coetzee) - Shrimp Boats (April 8, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

Assembling unreleased recordings from 1979 and 1980, Shrimp Boats is a South African jazz archival compilation from 1987 built around its epic side-long title track featuring saxophonist Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee. The recording was made during pianist Lionel Pillay's November 1979 session with Coetzee for the As-Shams/The Sun album Plum and Cherry. Side Two is composed of material recorded in September 1980 from the session for Lionel Pillay's Deeper in Black album. The 1951 pop standard "Shrimp Boats" was first given its unlikely jazz arrangement by Abdullah Ibrahim (recording as Dollar Brand) in 1971.

Pillay and Coetzee take this seed of an arrangement to its furthest reaches with their mesmerising performance. Although the title track casts a big shadow, Pillay's "Slow Blues for Orial" is a welcome original composition on the flip side that stands proudly next to a rare 1970s cover of Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi's "Yakhal 'Inkomo" (Pillay was the pianist on Mankunku's original 1968 recording) featuring saxophonists Barney Rachabane and Duke Makasi. The set closes with a nod to the contemporaneous jazz fusion scene with a take on Weather Report's "Birdland" from 1977.

1. Shrimp Boats 25:07

2. Slow Blues For Orial 07:31

3. Yakhal'Inkomo 09:06

4. Birdland 05:50

Personnel on Track 1:

Lionel Pillay - Piano

Basil Coetzee - Tenor Sax

Stompie Manana - Trumpet

Charles Johnstone - Bass

Rod Clark - Drums

- Recorded 12 November 1979

Personnel on Tracks 2, 3, 4:

Lionel Pillay - Piano

Barney Rachabane - Alto Sax

Duku Makasi - Tenor Sax

Sipho Gumede - Bass

Gilbert Mathews - Drums

- Recorded 29 September 1980

Produced by Rashid Vally

Cat. No. MANDLA 001

Original Release 1987

We Are Busy Bodies Reissue 2022

PRE-ORDER

Etubom Rex Williams - Ubok Aka Inua (March 4, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

Originally released in 1976, Ubok Aka Inua is the fifth album by legendary Nigerian saxophonist and band leader, Etubom Rex Williams.

The album features Psychedelic Shoes and One Woman Is Enough Trouble, both heard on countless funk and soul compilations.

The album was restored from the original tapes by Noah Mintz and artwork restored and recreated by Steve Lewin.

"Etubom Rex Williams occupies the genuine space of legend of Nigerian Highlife. His incredible professionalism, vast body of work and huge personality, established him as a veritable force of the genre quite early in his career. A case quite similar to another teenage prodigy of Highlife Music, Sir Victor Uwaifo. However any accolades he earned were well deserved and based on a platform of hard graft and genuine love for his art. He like Uwaifo, straddles the Inter-generational gap between the old masters of Highlife such as Bobby Benson, E.C.Arinze, Inyang Henshaw, Dr Victor Olaiya etc and the latter generation of Eddy Okweddy, Orlando Owoh, Tunji Oyelana, Eric Akaeze, Osayomore Joseph et al." - Ed Keazor, Music in Africa

PRE-ORDER

Peace Flag Ensemble - This City Is A Queen (March 29, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

Peace Flag Ensemble return with standalone single This City Is A Queen, their contribution to Piano Day, which takes place on March 29.

Having recently moved, Jon Neher was able to relocate his childhood piano to his new home. What it lacked in tuning it more than made up for in nostalgia. Neher states “There’s a lot of complicated emotions wrapped up on the improvisation and I think the recording is a great representation of how I’m feeling, gingerly entering a new stage in my life.” Neher is joined by the piece by Dalton Lam on flugelhorn and Michael Scott Dawson contributing “other sounds”. It also marks the first time the free jazz collective has used percussion, with the succinct introduction of their newest member Mike Thievin on the trap set.

1. This City Is A Queen 04:33

Daltan Lam - Flugelhorn

Jonathon Neher - Piano

Michael Scott Dawson - Synths

Mastering - Noah Mintz

PRE-ORDER

Roots - Deeper Roots (May 13, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

1. Don't Cry 05:03

2. Deeper Roots 05:56

3. To All My Friends 04:46

4. Steel Man 03:54

5. Song For My Baby 03:44

6. Ubabam Zakes 04:13

Produced By: Almon Memela

Remastered By: Noah Mintz

Art Restoration: Steve Lewin

PRE-ORDER

Almon Memela - Funky Africa (May 6, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

We Are Busy Bodies is proud to present a reissue of composer, guitarist, and later producer, Almon Memela’s ultra rare 1975 album, Funky Africa.

From the original liner notes:

Africa has always been many things to many people.

To some, Africa is the Dark Continent, a mysterious, romantic and vast expanse of unexplored territory. To others, again, Africa is the ultimate symbol of man's triumph over his environment: a wakening giant destined to play a significant role in world affairs.

But to Almon Memela, Africa is Home . . . and his music tells it like it really is. "Funky Africa" is the sound of Africa today. And as you listen, you will find that Africa is indeed many things. For in the music of Almon Memela lies everything that is Africa: the call of the wild and the scream of the Jumbo; the throb of the bush and the roar of Commissioner Street.

So here it is . . . "Funky Africa". The sound of Africa, by an African, for the world.

1. Funky Africa (The Ghetto) 03:37

2. That Sweet Feeling 03:18

3. Telephone 03:40

4. Hi-Jack (Your Love) 04:30

5. Bumping The Wall 03:14

6. Hambe Kahle 03:13

7. Some Funky Things 03:31

8. Big Mama 04:27

9. Ntshonalanga 04:02

10. The Things We Do In Soweto 04:47

Produced By: Almon Memela

Recorded At: Superdisc Studios Johannesburg

Sleeve Design: Audio Visual Communications

Photo: Ronnie Kweyi

Remastered By: Noah Mintz

Art Restoration: Steve Lewin

PRE-ORDER

Pat Matshikiza & Kippie Moketsi (feat. Basil Mannenberg Coetzee) - Tshona! (April 15, 2022 We Are Busy Bodies)

As a member of the all-star Jazz Epistles in the late 1950s, saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi (also spelled Moketsi during his tenure with the As-Shams record label in the 1970s) was one of the pioneering forces of modern South African jazz. While Jazz Epistles bandmates Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim would go on to build their careers in the United States in the 1970s, it was at home in South Africa that Moeketsi would leave his mark on the domestic jazz discography. From the outset of record store owner Rashid Vally's forays into the production of independent jazz in the early 1970s, Kippie Moeketsi played a key role, notably as a featured sideman on Abdullah Ibrahim's Dollar Brand Plus 3 in 1973.

While Moeketsi had a reputation as a great interpreter of standards with a firm grasp of jazz as an American idiom, he notably steps into deep South African jazz territory with a pair of his own compositions on the album Tshona! (released on Vally's nascent As-Shams/The Sun label in 1975). With equal participation from pianist Pat Matshikiza (also a well established South African jazz figure at the time), Tshona! emerges as one of the great South African jazz collaborations of the 1970s and is revered as a canonical recording from this era. Moeketsi and Matshikiza were flanked by the Soweto's hottest rhythm section by way of drummer Sipho Mabuse and bassist Alec Khaoli of Harari and featured on tenor sax was none other than Basil Coetzee, who's contribution to Abdullah Ibrahim's breakout hit record Mannenbeg - 'Is Where It's Happening' the year prior had earned him the esteemed appellation Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee.

With the album cover bearing a playful illustration of a pair of township thugs by artist Mafa Ngwenya, Tshona! is the ultimate jazz document of its time and place - modern, urban, original, authentic and unmistakably South Africa. Moeketsi and Matshikiza would continue to record together for As-Shams/The Sun with Moeketsi featured on Pat Mathsikiza's Sikiza Matshikiza album in 1976. Matshikiza returned the favour in 1977, appearing on Moeketsi's Blue Stompin' album, which featured the Hal Singer Quartet on the title track. 

1. Tshona 11:40

2. Stop and Start 05:09

3. Umgababa 11:11

4. Kippie's Prayer 03:35

Pat Matshikiza - Piano

Kippie Moeketsi - Alto Saxophone

Basil Coetzee - Tenor Saxophone

Alec Khaoli - Bass

Sipho Mabuse - Drums

Dennis Phillips - Alto Saxophone on "Tshona"

"Tshona" and "Stop and Start" composed by Pat Matshikiza

"Umgababa" and "Kippie's Prayer" composed by Kippie Moeketsi

Recorded at Gallo Studios

Recording Engineer: Peter Ceronio

Produced by Rashid Vally

Cat. No. GL 1796

Original Release 1975

We Are Busy Bodies Reissue 2022

PRE-ORDER

Kippie Moketsi & Hal Singer - Blue Stompin' (July 2021 We Are Busy Bodies)

Reissue of Kippie Moketsi and Hal Singer’s collaborative album, Blue Stompin’. This release is in partnership with the legendary As-Shams/The Sun Records. Remastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel Mastering. Artwork and text restoration by Steve Lewin.

1. Blue Stompin' 11:19

2. Hang On There 06:39

3. Scrap Iron 10:53

4. Yes Baby 12:38

Pre-order