Photo: Bandcamp
Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted by Dam Native
This record is one of our best hip-hop releases, fusing te reo and a te ao Māori perspective with rap techniques, but has been out of print for many years. There was much rejoicing in 2024 when it was reissued on vinyl.
Danny Haimona, Zane Lowe, and other talent like Teremoana Rapley, Che Fu and Manuel Bundy made an album that still sounds amazing, a fusion of Pacific attitude with the warm sound of '90s hip-hop. Each track hits, and some of them are cultural classics.
Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds in the Diaspora, 1980-93
In 2009 Soundway Records released Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Ghanian Blues 1968-81, and recently this follow up, which hones in on music made by West Africans who had emigrated abroad, fusing then-contemporary sounds with Ghanaian tradition.
It's useful to know a few key terms, like Highlife, the genre of music that originated in Ghana while it was a British colony, fusing rhythms from traditional African music, with elements of jazz, and Western instrumentation. Derivations include Afrobeat, and Makossa.
The music on this album is specified as Burger-highlife, created by Ghanaian emigrants who had settled in Germany and elsewhere. Burger in German means 'citizen'.
Kampire Presents: A Dancefloor in Ndola
Kampire Bahana was born in Kenya, grew up in Zambia, and is now based in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. She's better known as DJ Kampire, gaining an international reputation for sets of forward-thinking club music from East Africa.
But her release on the British record label Strut finds her avoiding the present entirely, in favour of music from her childhood. Specifically music from the '80s and '90s that her parents used to play at family get-togethers.
She's said at the time, as a child forced to dance, she disliked these tunes, but has since grown to love them.
Soul Makossa by Lafayette Afro-Rock Band
In 2024 two albums were remastered and reissued on vinyl by the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Soul Makossa from 1973, and Malik from 1975.
They were a New York funk outfit active from 1970 to 1978, little known at the time but celebrated in hindsight, and heavily sampled, particularly the famous breakbeat that starts 'Hihache'.
Soul Makossa got its name from a track by Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, released in 1972. One year later Lafayette Afro-Rock band issued their own version, fairly faithful with slightly more punch.
Way Out Where by The Verlaines
In 1993, NZ band The Verlaines, led by Graeme Downes, were on deadline to deliver their second album for American label Slash, after working with Flying Nun in the past. They knew it could be their last if things went badly. Downes was also working on his masters degree while writing.
The album was recorded in Hollywood, delivering a bigger sound than previous efforts. It would end up being their last for Slash, but has been warmly reassessed over the years, and in 2024 received new cover art, and a remaster at Abbey Road Studios.
Full of potent powerpop gems, Way Out Where is unmistakably the sound of some guys from Dunedin, run through the American studio system. But it's still skewiff where it needs to be, and Downes' complex chord structures and whole-hearted singing shine through. For the uninitiated, the album is a key piece of local mythology waiting to be discovered.
Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes by TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio were never a normal band - each member is credited with playing 'loops', as part of a long list of duties - and consequently were much more exciting than most.
They drew on an equally long list of influences, including unexpected ones like barbershop. 2024 held a few surprises from the group: singer Tunde Adebimpe released solo music, the band reformed and performed on late night TV, and their 2004 debut received a reissue.
MM..FOOD by MF DOOM
When Daniel Dumile - the British-American rapper better known as MF Doom - died in 2020, it marked the end of one of rap's most technically precise and outlandishly imaginative runs.
Only ever seen in his trademark helmet, modelled after the Marvel villain Dr Doom, Dumile's alter-ego MF Doom had his own elaborate mythos and backstory that the rapper was able to incorporate into his raps.
In 2024, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, Rhymesayers reissued his fifth album.
Sufferer Sounds by Dennis Bovell
Barbados-born, London raised musician Dennis Bovell MBE is a living legend, championing sound system culture and dub in South London in its heyday, helping create the reggae subgenre lover's rock, and writing and producing a large number of hits, including the iconic 'Silly Games', which was given a new lease on life in Steve McQueen's appropriately named film Lover's Rock.
The new compilation Sufferer Sounds focuses on the years from 1976 through 1980, when Bovell was involved with the Jah Sufferer sound system, revealing the staggeringly high quality of these dub cuts, all written by the man himself.
Virtual Dreams II, Ambient Explorations in the House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999
An independent label in Amsterdam called Music From Memory has released some fascinating archival collections, including Japanese Leftfield pop from the CD age, and Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations in the House and Techno age.
Its sequel looks back to Japan, as forms of IDM (intelligent dance music) appeared alongside the more traditional techno the country was producing.
Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996
Another label with a fine legacy of unearthing forgotten sonic treats, Light in the Attic Records once again delivered a compelling collection, this time from Ukraine. The label says it's "the first comprehensive collection of Ukrainian music recorded prior to, and immediately following, the USSR's collapse".
This music was nearly impossible to hear outside the country until recently. There's disco, folk, jazz, improvisation, psychedelic piano explorations, and on one 1982 cut, 'Dance', warm nostalgic techno.