Nicole Willis Umo
Still Got A Way To Fall

boomkat: ...Peter Mekwunye aka Pedro’s self-released side of homebrew boogie pop is a total one-of-a-kind find dating to 1993 Portland, OR, and has been newly discovered by Musique Plastique, who issued Visible Cloaks eponymous debut LP in 2015. Trust that you’ve hardly ever heard such a raw, lo-fi slab so full of soul and vibes as One Kind of Love!As a new arrival from Nigeria to Portland, OR in North West America, Peter Mekwunye assembled a small home studio consisting of casio keyboard, microphone and a multitrack recorder to realise his dream of making and releasing his own music a reality with One Kind of Love. As these things go, Peter self-distributed the album on tape to local shops and it pretty much disappeared without a trace of acclaim In the history books.Fast fwd to the modern day and its rediscovery tees up a total melter of an album for a whole new generation, offering the kind of obscurity that you’d well expect to hear on Awesome Tapes From Africa, especially with its distinctly Nigerian-sounding melodies and loping grooves influenced by Fela Kuti and the piquant dance-pop of William Onyeabor. But this this one ended up coming out in America and therefore kinda by-passed ATFA to end up in its own geo-temporal time-warp.Now remastered from tape by Brandon Hocura at Invisible City, One Kind Of Love’s blend of impassioned pop songs and hushed, spoken word poetry set to wobbling grooves and rhythmelodies possesses a deeply special charm, remaining as testament to the idea of going it alone and finding your place in the world, which, although it only took him 24 years, Pedro has clearly come back into circulation at a time when bedroom boogienauts and dreamers are especially hungry for this stuff - a deeply familiar yet at once alien and enigmatic sort of electronic soul.Highly recommended!

Africa Seven: ...Cameroonian Jo Bisso's earliest musical influences didn't come primarily from his homeland, but more from the neighbouring Congo, where the kind of early 60's Congolese Rumba played by the likes of Franco / TP Ok Jazz, and Tabu Ley Rochereau was establishing itself as a musical force in the region.Alongside this exuberant, swinging, jazz influenced sound, the growing impact of the all conquering US soul titans became inescapable, and sprinkled with a bit of Johnny Halliday & Co's smooth chanson over the top, we get a snapshot of where Jo Bisso and friends post school musical experimentation was headed in the late 60's.