Death Is Not The End Vinyl, CD & Tape 21 Items

Your Kisses Are Like Roses: Fado Recordings, 1914-1936

Tape | 2024 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The definition of the word 'fado' is technically 'fate', though the Portuguese meaning bound up with this term is more complex. The music itself can be fairly closely compared with that of Greek rebetika - also the American blues or the original working-class tango music of Argentina and Uruguay - and similarly takes it's common subject matter from the various cruel realities of the world. Though perhaps what distinguishes fado in character is it's often poised acceptance of the pains of life rather than protestation or resistance - as writer Paul Vernon says "It speaks with a quiet dignity born of the realisation that any mortal desire or plan is at risk of destruction by powers beyond individual control"
Death Is Not The End compile here a spine-tingling collection of fado recordings, taken from records issued in the mid 1910s through to the 1930s. The fado's Lisbon and Coimbra variants are presented here by some of the music's earliest recorded stars - prior to the rise of the music's all-conquering figurehead, Amália Rodrigues - and all of them "fadistas" imbued with a keen dose of saudade.

Maria do Carmo - Beijos São Como as Rosas (1929)
Jose Paradela D'Oliveira - Fado de se Velha (1927)
Edmundo de Bettencourt - Crucificado (1929)
Madalena De Melo - Cantares (1930)
Luiza Baharem - Fado Mondego (1931)
Alberto Xavier Pinto - Fado Do Paraizo (1929)
Maria Victória - Fado Maria Victória Nº 1 (1914)
Maria Silva - Fado Alice (1929)
Adelina Fernandes - Misérias (1928)
Estêvão Amarante - Fado do Cauteleiro (1929)
Alfredo Marceneiro - Olhos Fatais (1936)
Ermelinda Vitória - Fado da Minha Aldeia (1930)
Dr. Lucas Junot - Triste (Fado) (1929)
Maria Alice - Quando o Meu Filho Adormece (1929)
Laura Santos - A Magia do Fado (1929)
Joao Rocha Jor - Fado Rocha (Unknown)

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LP | 2019 | UK | Reissue (Death Is Not The End)

Bristol Pirates

22,99 €*

Tragic Tiger's Sad Meltdown

Release: 2019 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Death Is Not The End's contribution to the Blowing Up The Workshop mix series, subsequently given a cassette release on the label in 2019, finally receives a limited vinyl 70 pressing.
"A trip across the frequencies of Bristol's pirate radio stations via cut-ups of broadcasts, taken from the late 1980s to the early 2000s ~ also a love-letter to my childhood, an audio document of the years I spent growing up in the city."

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Heavenly

Tape | 2022 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Tragic Tiger's Sad Meltdown is Heavenly aka Tiger Hutchence-Geldof's debut album of sorts, cut from cassette tapes of rehearsals mixed with snippets of field recordings. Recorded with contributions from Nicholas Allbrook (Pond), Scarlett Stevens (San Cisco), India Rose & Jacob Diamond.
"I made this cassette in the living room of our house in Fremantle, a seaside town in Western Australia. I had always been shy to sing with others but moving across the world and my ex-boyfriend Nick had given me some bravery. Something about living closer to nature meant I felt creative and open hearted. It was as if the wide open landscape of Australia had finally given my heart enough space to open properly. The recordings are actually just recordings of our rehearsals, I never feel set in how song is meant to be so they usually just come out of me in the moment. My friends playing along with me are luckily all very empathic players and we found a way to play with one another without any structure or plan. It was really moving to create with so much freedom and understanding. Most of the songs are about my sister Peaches who I lost as a teenager so singing them aloud felt very potent but my band always made me feel held"

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Tape | 2019 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Bristol Pirates

8,99 €*

Release: 2019 / EU – Original

Genre: Hip Hop

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Cassette edition of Death Is Not The End's contribution to the Blowing Up The Workshop mix series.
"A trip across the frequencies of Bristol's pirate radio stations via cut-ups of broadcasts, taken from the late 1980s to the early 2000s ~ also a love-letter to my childhood, an audio document of the years I spent growing up in the city."

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Pure Wicked Tune: Rare Groove Blues Dances & House Parties, 1985-1992

LP | 2024 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

28,99 €*

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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***Limited vinyl LP edition in printed sleeves***
Pure Wicked Tune is a mixtape-style collection of extracts & cut-ups, taken from DIY cassette recordings featuring rare groove and "soul blues" soundsystems playing at early morning house parties and blues dances - mostly in South & East London - between the mid 1980s & early 90s.

Sounds like Funkadelic, Touch of Class, Latest Edition, JB Crew, Manhattan, 5th Avenue (and the many more featured on this tape) originally began to form in the mid-1980s. With lovers rock dwindling, and the reggae scene becoming dominated by harder digital-style dancehall, these sounds provided a tight but loyal crowd with a potent alternative - playing a mixture of killer rare soul, funk and boogie records in an inimitably reggae soundsystem style, complete with toasting, sirens and effects aplenty.

They were most well-known for playing at house parties and blues dances, typically in small flats or warehouses, with timing of such events generally running from the early morning hours until late the next afternoon. Though the popularity of the sounds faded following the dance music explosion of the early 1990s, there has been continued demand for revival sessions ever since. Whilst the influence of key British reggae & dancehall soundsystems on subsequent UK sounds like hardcore & jungle is relatively well documented, a similar line can just as easily be drawn from these sounds and the aforementioned styles' tendency toward sampling popular rare groove cuts, particularly well evidenced in the work of Tom & Jerry, 4hero, Reinforced & LTJ Bukem among others.

This represents the first outing in a series of collections exploring the sounds of UK soundsystem culture, via extracts from archival DIY cassette recordings of blues parties, dances & clashes made between the late 70s and early 90s. Often duplicated and shared widely, these ruff and ready "sound tapes" provided keen ears with music that wasn't otherwise readily available on the airwaves or in the record shops, and would go on to leave a deeply-rooted but too often overlooked influence on the UK's musical landscape.

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River Of Revenge: Brazilian Country Music 1929-1961, Volume 2

Tape | 2023 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The second volume in Death Is Not The End's survey of a form of Brazilian country music known as música caipira ("hillbilly music") - a stripped-back forerunner to música sertaneja, the Brazilian equivalent to US country & western which in it's contemporary form has come to dominate the domestic music industry in recent decades. This collection covers some of the earliest recordings made by the pioneering folklorist Cornélio Pires at the end of the 1920s, through to records from the 30s, 40s & 50s and the beginning of the 60s.

Somewhat rooted in Portuguese troubadour folk traditions, música caipira is typically performed by a duo singing in parallel thirds and sixths, drawing upon a Portuguese-Brazilian style known as moda de viola - with the viola being the viola caipira, a Brazilian-style ten-string guitar that is the core instrument of the music. Born out of the "outback"-style region in north-eastern Brazil, these songs tell stories of pain, love, loss & betrayal - often backed by homemade guitars using invented tunings. Away from the polished pop country & western-stylings of the sertaneja, these recordings could be viewed as the Brazilian equivalent to the roots music of the American dustbowl or Appalachia.

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Tape | 2022 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Come, Let Us Sing

14,99 €*

Selected Improvisations From Golha, Pt. II

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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What shall we sing? Folklorist Derek Piotr presents the third and final installation in the Bare family trilogy, this time highlighting lesser-known and garbled versions of local folk tunes, and again braiding the past with the present by incorporating his own contemporary fieldwork of the Bare's living descendants.

Track 1 recorded by Herbert Halpert in Maryville, TN, April 23, 1939.
Tracks 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, and 12 recorded by Herbert Halpert in Elk Park, NC, April 12, 1939.
Tracks 5 and 13 recorded by Herbert Halpert near Morganton, NC, April 19, 1939.
Track 6 recorded by Derek Piotr in Morganton, NC, April 11, 2022.
Tracks 7 and 10 recorded by Derek Piotr in Vilas, NC, April 18, 2022.

Cover image of Mrs. Sabra Bare Hampton courtesy of Della Ruth Harshbarger.

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Morteza Mahjubi

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

27,99 €*

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Digipack CD now in stock.
The second part in a collection of stunning Persian-tuned piano pieces, cut from Iranian national radio broadcasts made for the Golha programmes between 1956 & 1965.

Morteza Mahjubi (1900-1965) was a Iranian pianist & composer who developed a unique tuning system for the piano which enabled the instrument to be played in all the different modes and dastgahs of traditional Persian art music. Known as Piano-ye Sonnati, this technique allowed Mahjubi to express the unique ornamental and monophonic nature of Persian classical music on this western instrument - mimicking the tar, setar & santur and extracting sounds from the piano which are still unprecedented to this day.

An active performer and composer from a young age, Mahjubi made his most notable mark as key contributor and soloist for the Golha (Flowers of Persian Song and Poetry) radio programmes. These seminal broadcasts platformed an encyclopaedic wealth of traditional Persian classical music and poetry on Iranian national radio between 1956 until the revolution in 1979.

Presented here is a collection of Morteza Mahjubi's stunningly virtuosic improvised pieces broadcast on Golha between the programme's inception until Mahjubi's death in 1965 - mostly solo, though at times peppered with tombak, violin & some segments of poetry & song.

The vast collection of Golha radio programmes was put together thanks to the incredible work of Jane Lewisohn & the Golha Project as part of the British Library's Endangered Archives programme, comprising 1,578 radio programs consisting of approximately 847 hours of broadcasts.

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Lamkin: Versions & Variants Across The Northern Hemisphere

Tape | 2022 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

13,99 €*

Brooklyn Pirates: Neighbourhoods In The Sky, 2014-2021

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Folklorist Derek Piotr teams with Death is Not the End for a third outing, this time plumbing the depths of every archive from West Virginia University to the British Library in search of versions of the ballad Lamkin. Following the template set by Charlie Seeger with his seminal Barbara Allen compilation, Piotr's collection outs versions of the bloody ballad from the last ninety years; most of these renditions haven't been heard by anyone but their original recordists for decades.

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David Goren

Tape | 2022 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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David Goren is a radio producer and audio archivist based in Brooklyn, NY. For several years he's researched New York City's pirate radio community, producing "New York City's Pirates of the Air" for the BBC World Service & "Outlaws of the Airwaves: The Rise of Pirate Radio Station Wbad" for KCRW's Lost Notes podcast. More recently, Goren has been cataloguing his meandering across his local pirate radio frequencies via the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map (bprsm) - tracing the lingering connections between unlicensed radio broadcasting and Brooklyn's local neighbourhood culture in the digital age.

Brooklyn Pirates: Neighbourhoods in the Sky, 2014-2021 pulls together a clutch of cut-up recordings captured by David on the Bprsm, traversing the dial across raucous soca jams & kompas, through to Grenadian election news, Haitian funeral announcements and ads for Jamaican patty shops & spiritual healers - plus broadcasts from Turkish, and Orthodox & Sephardic Jewish pirate stations to boot.

Covering a period between the mid-2010s right up to earlier this year, the B side in particular captures the uniquely idiosyncratic and hyper-local reactions of the Brooklyn pirates to the global disintegration of the early 2020s - the coronavirus pandemic, George Floyd, the US election and more - acting as a vital document of social history demonstrating the value of DIY community broadcasts during a period of worldwide lockdowns and the wholesale breakdown of politics.

www.pirateradiomap.com www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p076bp3y www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/lost-notes/outlaws-of-the-airwaves-the-rise-of-pirate-radio-station-wbad

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Ever Since We've Known It: More North Carolina Mountain Singing

Tape | 2022 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Folklorist Derek Piotr continues to excavate North Carolina mountain songs, presenting an assortment of archival recordings taking in Child Ballads, bawdy songs, play-party tunes, and old-time family singing - with a further focus on overlooked star Mrs. Lena Bare Turbyfill, of Elk Park, NC.

Tracks 1 and 9 recorded by Herbert Halpert near Morganton, North Carolina, April 19, 1939. Tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 recorded by Herbert Halpert in Elk Park, North Carolina, April 12, 1939. Track 4 recorded by Marshall Ward in Banner Elk, ca. 1979, transferred from analogue tape by Derek Piotr. Curated by Derek Piotr. Photograph of Mrs. Lena Bare Turbyfill courtesy of Elizabeth Gwyn.

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London Pirate Radio Adverts 1984-1993, Vol. 1

LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

20,99 €*

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Soundtracks

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A limited edition clear vinyl pressing for Vol. 1 of DINTE's critically acclaimed collection of pirate radio adverts & idents, taken from recordings of London stations between 1984 & 1993.
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/16/save-and-rave-how-pirate-radio-adverts-capture-a-lost-britain
Thom Yorke BBC 6 Music mix: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rwsq
New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/night-life/london-pirate-radio-adverts-1984-1993-vol-1
Feature on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: https://ra.co/news/74664

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Last Wisps Of The Old Ways: North Carolina Mountain Singing

Tape | 2021 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Tape | 2021 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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On "Last Wisps of the Old Ways" Derek Piotr pulls together mountain songs from North Carolina recorded across nearly a century. Child ballads, local murder songs, banjo and dulcimer pieces sit alongide tape transfers & close harmony singing. The star of the compilation, Mrs. Lena Bare Turbyfill, could have been another Texas Gladden in her own right, but dozens of recordings of herself and her family made in 1939 remained on a shelf in The Library of Congress, until they were unearthed and curated by Derek Piotr. Mrs. Turbyfill's daughter Nicky also makes a notable appearance here.

Track 1 recorded by Derek Piotr in Elk Park, North Carolina, July 13, 2020.
Tracks 2, 3, 7, 8, 11 and 16 recorded by Herbert Halpert in Elk Park, North Carolina, April 12, 1939.
Tracks 4 and 12 recorded by Herbert Halpert near Morganton, North Carolina, April 19, 1939.
Track 5 recorded by Frank Clyde Brown in Sugar Grove, North Carolina, July 24, 1939.
Tracks 6, 9 and 13 recorded by Derek Piotr in Banner Elk, North Carolina, July 14, 2020.
Track 10 recorded by Derek Piotr in Elk Park, North Carolina, February 8, 2021.
Tracks 14 and 15 recorded by Marshall Ward in Banner Elk, ca. 1979, transferred from analogue tape by Derek Piotr.
Curated by Derek Piotr.
Photograph of Mrs. Nicola "Aunt Nicky" Pritchard (Turbyfill) by Derek Piotr.

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East Of The Valley Blues

Kirkfield Non

Release: 2021 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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East of the Valley Blues is Kevin and Patrick Cahill.

Recorded and mixed by KC in Kirkfield and Toronto, ON, January-February 2020.

Mixed and mastered by James A Toth in Toronto. Artwork by Ryan Waldron.

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London Pirate Radio Adverts 1984-1993, Volume 2

Tape | 2021 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2021 / UK – Original

Genre: Soundtracks

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The second volume in a two-part collection of pirate radio adverts & idents, taken from recordings of London stations between 1984 & 1993.

Coverage for Vol. 1:
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/16/save-and-rave-how-pirate-radio-adverts-capture-a-lost-britain
Thom Yorke BBC 6 Music mix: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rwsq
The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/night-life/london-pirate-radio-adverts-1984-1993-vol-1
Feature on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: https://ra.co/news/74664

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If I Had A Pair Of Wings: Jamaican Doo Wop Volume 3

LP | 2020 | EU | Original (Death Is Not The End)

22,99 €*

Release: 2020 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Reggae & Dancehall

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A third and final volume of Jamaican doo wop & R&B records taken from the late 50s and early 60s.

These records represent a period in which sound-systems were beginning to dominate the island, with Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone Dodd stepping up their rivalry by beginning to make and release their own records rather than rely on US imports for use in their dances. Many of these records are definitely more-or-less imitations of the American records, as the uniquely Jamaican ska sound was yet to take hold - however many of the future stars of ska, rocksteady and reggae were beginning to cut their teeth in the industry on these records, incl. Alton Ellis, Derrick Morgan, Derrick Harriott and more, and provide a unique view into the fledgling independent record industry culture in Jamaica that would prove to be unbelievably prolific and unparalleled for an island of it's size.

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My Greatest Revenge: Flamenco Recordings, 1904-1938

LP | 2023 | UK | Reissue (Death Is Not The End)

30,99 €*

Release: 2023 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Death Is Not The End presents a limited LP pressing of their collection of haunted, brooding flamenco recordings taken from the early 1900s through to the late 1930s. Focussing in on the cante jondo (or "deep song") style, seen as the original manifestation of flamenco singing - from which other elements emerged, such as dancing and playing - this survey captures and documents tracks from the form's earliest recorded stars.

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My Greatest Revenge: Flamenco Recordings, 1904-1938

Tape | 2023 | UK | Reissue (Death Is Not The End)

14,99 €*

Release: 2023 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Preorder shipping from 2024-05-17

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If I Had A Pair Of Wings: Jamaican Doo Wop, Volume 1

LP | 2020 | UK | Reissue (Death Is Not The End)

21,99 €*

Release: 2020 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Repressed by popular demand!
Lauren Laverne's comp of the week on BBC Radio 6 Music w/c 11th Jan.
Guardian feature: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/12/a-thousand-teardrops-how-doo-wop-kickstarted-jamaica-pop-revolution-reggae-rocksteady
This collection of Jamaican doo wop from the late 1950s through to the early 1960s represents a period in which sound systems had begun to dominate the island, and were starting to step up their rivalry by beginning to record and release their own platters rather than rely on imported records to gain the competitive edge.
With the uniquely Jamaican ska explosion yet to completely catch hold, these tracks are largely imitative of the doo wop and R&B sound that had been reaching the island from American shores & radiowaves, albeit peppered with hints of what was to come ~ some of the future stars of ska, rocksteady and reggae are starting to cut their teeth on these tracks, providing a great view into the fledgling record industry on the island.

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If You Want To Make A Lover: Palm Wine, Akan Blues & Early Guitar Highlife, Pt. II

Tape | 2024 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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The second part in a collection encompassing Akan blues, palm wine and early guitar-based highlife music, with recordings dating from the late 1920s through to the end of the 1950s.

The music included here can probably all be said to have all stemmed from a style that initially took root in the Fanti region of coastal southern Ghana. Fusing local percussion instruments with the introduction of western (most notably Portuguese) guitars that had made their way to the Fanti region of southern Ghana via the Kru seamen of Liberia, who are said to have pioneered the distinctive two-fingered style of playing while sailing the high seas.

Mingling amongst the Kru as well as with other sailors and local working-class people during the 1920s & 30s, the guitars infused with the traditional Akan seprewa harp-playing technique, creating a style known as 'odonson' or 'Akan blues' - a rootsy highlife style also commonly referred to as palm wine music, so named after the palm wine bars where the music was commonly performed. Western record companies such as Zonophone, Columbia, Odeon, HMV, and later Decca/EMI's West Africa imprint, released much of the recordings included here - with the earliest inclusions appearing courtesy of George William Aingo, Nicholas De Heer, Edmund Tagoe & Frank Essien, and Jacob Sam's Kumasi Trio (all recorded in London during the late 1920s). The form would become a key element in the popular development of both Ghanaian & Nigerian highlife, as well as the maringa of Sierra Leone, the juju of western Nigeria, and the Congolese "dry" guitar music of central Africa.

With thanks to John Collins and the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation.

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My Greatest Revenge: Flamenco Recordings, 1904-1938

Tape | 2023 | UK | Original (Death Is Not The End)