Hive Mind Vinyl, CD & Tape 10 Items

Hive Mind Records are excited to bring you Muito Sol, the third solo album from Brazilian auteur Ricardo Dias Gomes. The album is a deep, widescreen exploration in classic Brazilian song that brings all the subtlety and delicacy you'd expect from the pioneers of Musica Popular Brasileira coupled with a thoroughly 21st century sensibility and taste for sonic innovation.

A respected innovator on the Rio de Janeiro music scene since the mid 90s, Gomes is perhaps best known for his work on the trio of critically-acclaimed albums Caetano Veloso released in the late 00s: Cê (2006), Zii and Zie (2009) and Abraçaço (2012). Playing bass on these modern milestones in post-Tropicalia, and subsequently touring the world with Veloso, inspired Gomes to record his debut album -11 (2015), followed by the mini-album Aa, which featured Arto Lindsay (2018).

Muito Sol was recorded between New York, Lisbon & Rio de Janeiro and features a stellar cast of global players such as Jeremy Gustin (drums), Will Graefe (guitars), Ryan Dugre(guitars), Gil Oliveira (percussion), Alex Toth (trumpet), Tiago Queiroz (sax, flute), Jonas Sá (synths), Julian Desprez (guitars), Pedro Sá (guitars) & Shahzad Ismaily (synths); the album is often deceptive in its simplicity and repeated listens reveal layers of intricate instrumentation and arrangement, making listening something like an exciting exercise in excavation.

The album was recorded following Gomes' move from Rio to Lisbon and was inspired by the sense of unease that followed the move from a culture of vibrant spontaneity to a more genteel and 'civilised' country. Unlike Gomes' previous solo outings, Muito Sol includes a number of songs that explicitly celebrate Brazil's musical heritage and culture that are based on the Samba Ostinato.

The songs, led by Gomes' gentle and dreamy voice, are often reminiscent of classic innovators such as Caetano Veloso, João Bosco or Edu Lobo, though they take unexpected lines of flight into more experimental territory. There is also an element of drone underpinning the whole album which surfaces and takes full charge on Fllux and Transição, before the album is closed by what turns into the molten, distorted piece of raging hardcore, Coração Sulamericano, Ricardo's expression of pride in his Latin American heritage.

Muito Sol is a sun drenched dream from start to finish and album to be bathed in.'

Produced by Bill Bowen & Ricardo Dias Gomes. Additional edits by Jonas Sá. Mixed by Martin Scian. Mastered by Michał Kupicz. Design by Tonho Quinta-Feira.

“The unique and magical sound of Los Siquicos Litoraleños (The Psychics of El Litoral), fermented in the rural north of Argentina, land of gauchos (Argentine cowboys), mate tea, chamamé folk music and Psilocybe Cubensis. In this remote region, cut off from the fashions of the city, Los Siquicos were able to nurture their obsessions, hone their craft, and develop a singular style that takes the traditional chamamé folk music of rural Argentina, then throws it in a blender with Latin-American cumbia and chicha, the tropicalia of Os Mutantes and Tom Ze, the free music of Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, The Residents, UFO conspiracies, radical philosophy, and a strong dose of the absurd. Out in the hinterlands, they fully embraced the spirit and ethic of DIY punk, gaining a reputation for wild, open air shows on the backs of flatbed trucks, or from makeshift set-ups in village squares and at local fêtes and fairs, where confused locals half recognise the twisted sound of a chamamé beamed in from another planet.

Hive Mind Records are delighted to help bring Medianos Éxitos Subtropicales Vol. 2: El Relincho Del Tiempo (Medium Subtropical Hits Vol. 2: The Neigh of Time) out into the world. The album features a number of brand new songs alongside tracks chosen from Los Siquicos' extensive archive of home recordings. El Relincho Del Tiempo contains the soupy dub-cumbia of Para Ser Un Gran Hombre, the fantasy radio-hit La Danza Del Brontosaurio, and the shamanic ecstasy of Los Ninos Del Brasil or Dostoyevski En El Minimercado.
Los Siquicos Litoraleños invite you to take a leap into their world in which the sounds of the future and the past blur into one, where the music of the whole planet is digested and spat out in new shapes, where the noise is joyful.“

Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paolo,Brazil.

Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths. In discussing the duo's relationship with water, Mauricio said:

“...on the first record it kinda came a little by coincidence (or not), Carla had the name "Linha D´água" in mind and when we were listening to the opening track one day while I was filling up a bottle with water we thought the sounds combined well. so that kinda became a little bit of a remarkable sound of the record. Funny enough in the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn and move to a small beach close to São Paulo, and that´s right in the middle of the rain forest, so by then water definitely took a major role in our lives. We were living right in between the ocean and a water fall, it´d rain for days on a roll sometimes and it was an open house where we had the sound of rain 360 degrees around us... I kinda think our music has a little of those different dynamics of water in its different states. also, it might seem strange but São Paulo is a city in the water too, and it has a very chaotic relationship with it.”

The music itself is difficult to pin down, always kinetic and driven by Takara's fluid, nimble percussion; there's a freeness to the sound as a whole, but also an atmosphere of tight discipline as the pair harness and channel the elemental force from which they've drawn the inspiration for their works. At times the lines between Takara's skittish percussion and Boregas' idiosyncratic synth work and sound manipulation blur into flowing rivers or torrents of sound - here, both water and sound have the ability to awaken in us different memories, and emotional or physical states.

Carla Boregas' other projects include Rakta and Fronte Violeta as well as being a prolific solo artist and founder of Auta, a venue dedicated to experimental music in São Paulo, and the record label Dama Da Noite.

Mauricio Takara also plays with the bands Hurtmold and São Paulo Underground (with trumpeter Rob Mazurek from Chicago) and Mnth, as well as sitting in on live sessions with an array of improv / experimental / jazz figures such as Pharoah Sanders, Damo Suzuki, Yusef Lateef, Joe Lally (Fugazi), Naná Vasconcelos, Prefuse 73, Makoto Kawabata.

M.Takara: drums, percussion, electronics, vibraphone, harpsichord Carla Boregas: synth, elecronics, gong, field recording, harpsichord

Recorded & mixed at Estúdio El Rocha by Fernando Sanches in 2022. Mastered by Julian Tardo at Church Road Studios, Hove. Cover painting by Rob Mazurek. Design by Theo Payne.

As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies.

Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theatre practitioners & performance artists in India making music for theatre as well as curating shows & workshops with actors and performers from around India.

The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travellers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focussed on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concepts.

We at Hive Mind feel privileged to have worked with Seljuk to bring you these deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works which really do defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. Everything appears touched with a mischievous sense of playfulness that's maybe reflected in the face of the grinning camel that adorns the sleeve. We're sure you'll agree there's plenty to delight the listener on this strange dream of an album, Seljuk's first to receive a physical release.'

The CD version comes in a gatefold card digisleeve in an edition of 250 copies

Seljuk Rustum: Piano, Synthesizer, Sequencer, Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Saxophone, Voice, Percussion Sekhar Sudhir: Violin on Tracks 5, 7&8, Acoustic Guitar on Track 4, Mandolin & Melodica on Track 3 Akshay Ashokan: Electric Guitar on Track 4 Joffy Chirayath: Drums on Tracks 3 & 10 Cochin String Orchestra: Strings on Track 1 (Thanks to Duncan Roy Bruce)

Produced, Engineered & Mixed by Seljuk Rustum Tracks 9,4 & 8 Edited by Sekhar Sudhir Track 3 voice from the Alan Lomax Archive from recordings made in Kerala in the 1970s to document the Malayam language Track 2 was composed for BUS (a theatre performance Written & Directed by Firoz Khan

Album Art: Unknown Artist (found on the walls near Palayam Market, Kozhikode).

'We are extremely happy to present to you the second volume of the explosive collaboration between two legendary collectives of the ecstatic music underground.

In 2017 Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple embarked on an extensive tour of South America. During the tour they carved out time to record and play shows with Argentine 'disembodied' music provocateurs Reynols and the results of these improvised sessions are a unique and exhilarating leap into the infinite...ecstatic, shamanic, truly free psychedelic music, beyond language and beyond all rational thought.'

"Viva Acid Mothers Reynols!" The Wire

"These are the tunes to get your soul flowing!" Anti: Music Review

"where rock’n’roll meets the outer space" aLive Reports

‘Hive Mind Records are here to help you through the winter months with this generous helping of Wet Tuna with their signature deeply fried rural psychedelia.

Matt Valentine (mv) and Pat Gubler (PG Six) have been jamming together since the mid '90s, floating around in the US psych-folk scene, playing together in Tower Recordings and separately with influential underground crews Woods, The Golden Road, Garcia Peoples and The Weeping Bong Band. Both MV and PG Six have been prolific with their solo work and over the years they've recorded for labels such as Ecstatic Peace, Drag City, Woodsist, 3 Lobed, and Crash Symbols and we are very happy to be joining such esteemed company.

On these recordings, made during the first months of the Covid lockdowns in the forests of the Vermont wilderness, MV and PG Six handle the guitars and synths but they're joined by fellow forest freaks S. Freyer Esq, Jim Bliss, Coot Moon and Carson 'Smokehound' Arnold on bass and drums. Brought to you in their patented mind-expanding Spectrasound, Eau'd To A Fake Bookie Volumes 1 & 2 delivers an irresistible gumbo of deep, cosmic psychedelia, primitive drum-machine grooves and woozy country-funk jams. These 6 songs are cover versions of artists as diverse as The Blackbyrds, Michael Hurley and Jimmy Cliff, but stretched out over 4 sides, the album is entirely Wet Tuna - loose, free-flowing and lots of fun!’

‘Hive Mind Records are excited to announce a new album from King Champion Sounds, the shifting Holland based collective centred around Ajay Saggar and Oli Heffernan (University Challenged), GW Sok (The Ex), Mees Siderius, Holly Habstritt Gaal & Elsa van der Linden.

On “Between Two Worlds”, the band bring the same insatiable appetite for experimentation and exploration that made their previous four albums so special. This is music as an open conversation. An opportunity to exchange ideas. To be open-minded. To push boundaries and explore new worlds. Whereas elements of krautrock, electronica, free jazz and dub have always been part of the KCS armoury, they have never stuck to a formula in the music making process, occupying instead the open space that lies between musical worlds. The core members have brought their different experiences into this rich new album that draws influence and inspiration from a dizzying range of sources - from ambient guitar experiments, noisy avant-rock workouts, spidery gothic pop, otherworldly folk inflections - and pulls them all together into a unique and coherent whole.

Guest appearances on the album come from Gerry Love (formerly of Teenage Fanclub) adding beautiful vocals and instrumentation to "I'm In Between Two Worlds", Mia Doi Todd bringing her incredible voice to "Easby Abbey Remembered", Sally Timms of The Mekons takes lead vocals on "Thou Hurricane" with Jon Langford (The Mekons) and Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day) on backing vocals. Finally, the Glasgow poet Marieke McKenna brings words from her diary to “Seasick” on which she recalls a surreal escape to a millionaires yacht and the stark contrast it provided to the"real" world outside.

We're very excited to help bring this urgent, transcendent and wonderfully varied music out into the world in a beautifully designed gatefold package.’

Hassan Wargui is a self taught musician, composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and an expert in the songcraft and poetry of the Tachelhit speaking Amazigh tribes of the Anti-Atlas mountains in the south of Morocco.

He was born in 1985 in the rural community of Issafen, which lies between Taroudant and Tafraoute in the Anti-Atlas mountains of Southern Morocco. His music draws from the deep well of Amazigh, or Berber, cultures that have long been suppressed across North Africa after the region underwent a process of Arabization following the Arab invasions of the 7th Century.

Hassan grew up in an isolated mountain community in which art and music is embedded into daily life. This allowed him to develop an excellent musical sense, a deep understanding of the complex poly-rhythms that underpin Amazigh music, and time to become proficient on the banjo which, since the ascendency of the popular modern folk movement involving groups such as Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala in the late '60s and early '70s, has been the preferred instrument of the region. Like many musicians from the region, Hassan built his first instruments himself, and it wasn't until he moved to Casablanca in his teens to find work which was scarce in his local community, that he was able to save for his first real banjo.

Since then Hassan has been active in the Amazigh musical community and has worked with a number of groups, notably Groupe Lbouchart, Imanaren and Etran Tiznit, as well as recording prolifically as a solo artist using Fruity Loops as a home studio. In 2009, Jace Clayton (DJ/Rupture) stumbled across a CD by Imanaren on a stall in Casablanca medina and this led to a fruitful series of collaborations in 2009 and 2011 (you can learn more about their work together here.)

Tiddukla (which translates to Friendship) is one of Hassan's numerous group projects and he recorded the album with friends in 2015 and self released it through YouTube due to the lack of music infrastructure in Morocco. The Tiddukla album is raw and hypnotic and sees Hassan and his group channeling the deep and contemplative sounds of classic Amazigh groups such as Izenzaren, Archach, Izmaz, all of whom risked their freedom by daring to sing in Tachelhit at a time when the language was still forbidden, and when Amazigh people were fighting for their rights to be recognised.

Hive Mind are thrilled to be able to release Hassan's beautiful music, and to introduce the fascinating rhythms of the Anti-Atlas Mountains into the wider world. We're incredibly proud to be able to support this fiercely independent and hugely resourceful and tenacious artist who has been able to continue creating music for over a decade without any real support from Morocco's music industry and while holding down a variety of day jobs. We really hope you enjoy his music as much as we do.

“Osondi owendi. What is cherished by some is despised by others. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Different strokes for different folks. To each their own. Osondi owendi.

It’s a conventional aphorism in the Igbo language but if you utter the word “osondi owendi” in Nigeria today, the first thing that comes to anybody’s mind is the cucumber-cool highlife music maestro Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and his legendary album that takes its name from the adage. Released in 1984, Osondi Owendi was instantly received as Osadebe’s magnum opus, the crowning event of an exalted career stretching back to the early years of highlife’s emergence as Nigeria’s predominant popular music.

Stephen Osadebe first appeared on the music scene in 1958 as a spry, twenty-two year-old vocalist in the Empire Rhythm Skies Orchestra, directed by bandleader Steven Amechi. With his dapper suits, urbane Nat King Cole-influenced vocal stylings and jaunty, uptempo, calypso-scented dance tunes, he personified the frisky spirit and anxious aspirations of a young, educated generation that had come of age in the wake of the Second World War, in a Nigeria that was rapidly shaking off British colonization and marching towards an independent future. 1959 would be the year that he truly made his mark in the business with his debut solo single “Lagos Life Na So So Enjoyment.” A giddy exhortation of the music, sex, fun and freedom availed by life in the big city, the song became a sensation and an anthem, and Stephen Osadebe became the leader of his own popular dance band, the Nigerian Sound Makers.

Osadebe would ride this wave of acclaim through most of the nineteen sixties, but a change in direction would be called for at the dawn of the seventies. As Nigeria emerged from a devastating civil war, so did a new generation of youth inspired by rock and funk, confrontational sounds reflective of a more violent, less idealistic era. All of the sudden, the idioms of the post-WWII dance orchestras that nurtured Osadebe’s cohort seemed quaint, the stuff of nostalgia. Osadebe needed to evolve to respond to the new tumultuous, turned-up times.

His response? He cooled it down.

Abetted by a new crop of fire-blooded young players, Osadebe slowed his music to a mellow, meditative tempo, brought forward the lumbering, Afro Cuban-accented bass and percussion, from the rockers he borrowed searing lead lines on the electric guitar. Over this musical bedrock, doesn’t so much as sing as he dreamily muses, coos, sighs aphorisms, words of wisdom and inspiration. “When one listens to my music, all I say appears meaningful,” Osadebe explained his lyrical approach, “at times they are in the form of proverbs which provoke much thought afterwards.” The result is a blend that is both rollicking and soothingly languid. Osadebe christened the style Oyolima—a tranquil, otherworldly state of total relaxation and pleasure. Osondi Owendi represents oyolima at its finest, and possibly Nigerian highlife in epitome.

Osondi owendi. What is cherished by some is despised by others. In some way, the album’s title constitutes a paradox. Because Osondi Owendi is a record that it’s almost impossible to imagine being despised by anybody.”

Uchenna Ikonne
June 2019