Don Giovanni Organic Grooves 5 Items

The Cycle is the fifth album by Mourning [A] BLKstar. It's the Cleveland-based collective's masterwork -- a double LP spanning 20 songs and three singers, touching on neo-soul, hip-hop, and the cosmic expanse in between/beyond. It is a humble addition to the long legacy of James Baldwin's adage of the artist as witness. It is their song cycle, written in a time that just may need a song or two in support of and in love and power to the living.

Fetish Bones is the Don Giovanni Records debut of Philadelphia-based musician, artist, and activist, Camae, who performs under the name Moor Mother. The album features 13 songs conceived and recorded in Camae's home studio using a variety of machines, field recordings, and analog noisemakers. The music is often harsh and strange, projecting both the visceral anger of punk and the expansive improvisatory spirit of Sun Ra. It's an album intended as a form of protest and also as form of time travel -- a collection of sounds that are events themselves, telling stories rich in history about the journey that brings us to today and the future we are creating. Fetish Bones is not an album meant to help you forget. It is made so that you will remember the injustices that we bear witness to and participate in.

In 1954, 12 year old Jerry Williams, then performing under the name Little Jerry Williams, made his first recording for Mechanic Records, a blues stomp with a shockingly mature vocal performance. Through the 60"s Williams' career developed with a number of successful singles, including 'I'm the Lover Man' and 'Baby You're My Everything', as well as writing and producing hits for Dee Dee Warwick, Doris Duke, and Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles. It was in 1970, however, that the full extent of Williams' eccentric creative genius was unleashed on the world for the first time, with the birth of his musical alter-ego, Swamp Dogg. Created to 'occupy the body while the search party was out looking for Jerry Williams, who was mentally missing in action due to certain pressures, mal-treatments and failure to get paid royalties on over fifty single records,' the Swamp Dogg alias, still in use today, allowed Williams to create music that was bolder, raunchier, and more honest to his creative instincts. The Dogg's cult classic debut 'Total Destruction to Your Mind' struck a powerful blend of Williams classic soulful sensibilities and the blooming psychedelia of the time. Infused in the swirling brew is Swamp's blink-and-you'll-miss-it humor, a number of acid odes, and a heavy dose of sharp political insight. Though the psychedelic strangeness alienated R&B fans of the time, and the authentic R&B infrastructure prevented it from clicking with hippie audiences, it has retroactively received legendary status in cult music circles.Now, 50 years after Total Destruction introduced Swamp Dogg to an unprepared world, and nearly 70 since Little Jerry Williams went into the studio for Mechanic, Williams brings us I Need A Job' So I Can Buy More Autotune. A spiritual successor to 2018"s hit Love, Loss and Autotune, this album continues to push Swamp's sonic exploration of the effect as one of his many creative weapons. In the extended tradition of Total Destruction, Swamp Dogg's 2021 LP neatly balances sleek modern production techniques with that classic Dogg sound that has anchored William's music since the 70s. Subtle yet soulful drumming, skin-tight horn grooves and meandering funk guitar leads create a sonic landscape fitting Swamp Dogg's iconic croon, occasionally drenched in the titular autotune. At 78, Swamp Dogg is as sharp of a singer and songwriter as ever. His raunchy yet charismatic sense of humor takes a more forward role on I Need a Job' So I Can Buy More Autotune, with earnestly delivered lyrics about all day sex and an entire song dedicated to the perils of 'Cheating in the Daylight.' Many of the record's most charming moments emerge from the juxtaposition of Swamp's left field humor with genuine messages of love, such as 'She Got That Fire', which weaves descriptions of imagined sex acts, including but not limited to an encounter involving edible underwear, in between relatively wholesome proclamations like 'she must be an angel on earth,' and 'when she looks at you, it's like sunshine from her eyes'. I Need a Job does more than prove that Swamp's still got it, it proves he's still getting better.

Formed in Cleveland, OH by producer/activist Ra Washington, Mourning [A] BLKstar is a multi-generational, gender and genre non-conforming amalgam of Black Culture dedicated to servicing the stories and songs of the apocalyptic diaspora. In keeping with the pace that the collective that is M[A]B set since 2016, Washington presented a series of song sketches during the summer of 2018 -- one per week -- while the group practiced and toured their debut records, BLK Musak (Glue Moon Records, 2016) and The Possible (2017). The result, Reckoning, will be released on April 6th, 2019 in collaboration with Don Giovanni Records. Reckoning represents a deep dive into the M[A]B vaults -- a dizzying array of styles, big boy reverb, the heat transversing through love won and love lost, and the tensions that go with living in a world that is increasingly hostile to POC futures and wholly locked in on its disgusting treatment of the poor.