Various artists
Habibi Funk 031: A Selection Of Music From Libyan Tapes 
(Habibifunkrecords) 
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

THESE are great north African/Arab rhythms and Afro reggae, recorded in 1980s to the early 2000s (the “cassette age”) and discovered by Habibi Funk’s owner Jannis Sturtz in a closed-down cassette and 8-track factory situated in Sousse, Tunisia. Also included are tracks from “homemade cassettes” by Libyan artists which Jannis digitised in a hotel room in Cairo.

The Sousse factory stored over 100,000 unsold cassettes by Libyan artists including Afro reggae by Cheb Bakr, Group Heywaya, Khaled Al Melody, Fathi Aldiquiz and The Sons Of Africa — their Palestine Is My Homeland is wonderful.

Arab electronica comes via the Libya Music Band and City Lights Band, while Khlad Al Reigh are featured on Zannick — actually Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall.

With detailed notes and historic photos — it’s a crate-digger’s dream.

Kayatibu
Ni Hui ~ Voices Of The Forest
(Da Lata Music)
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

FORMED in 2013 by a group of young, indigenous musicians, Kayatibu hail from Huni Kuin, Acre, in the Brazilian rain forest close to the Peruvian border.

The group’s first album, Ni Ishamai (Future Forest) was released in 2022. Rita Huni Kuin, one of the group’s founders says “‘Ni Hui’ means the Voice of the Forest — the main source of communication through music between indigenous and non-indigenous people.”

They are teamed up with the Brazilian musician, producer and radical songwriter Luiz Gabriel Lopes, also known as Luizga, who regularly fronts the Txai Band.

Played on acoustic and electric guitars and electric bass, the songs are about the problems the community face — access to essential services including health, education and sanitation and their fight for their rights and land demarcation. Defiantly other worldly.

The Good Ones
Rwanda Sings With Strings
(Glitterbeat)
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

THE fifth album by Adrien Kazigira (vocals, guitar) and Janvier Havugimana (vocals percussion) aka The Good Ones, produced by Ian Brennan who included a cellist and violinist to accompany the duo.

It was recorded in a hotel room in Washington DC, US, with no overdubs and in one take — and it works brilliantly. “The second the strings entered during the intro of ‘Agnes Dreams Of Being an Artist,’ it felt like the room began levitating.”

The songs (sung in Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda) deal with a variety of themes. The song titles gives the theme of the song: I Love You So Much, But You Refused to Marry Me (Your Beauty I Cannot Unsee); One Red Sunday, You Lied & Tried to Steal My Land; The Older Girls Lead The Little Ones Astray.

Astonishingly brilliant!