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RECORD LABEL • Southern African Vintage Sounds & Modern Classics • As-Shams/The Sun Archive as-shams.bandcamp.com • Zambia Music Parlour Legacy zambiamusicparlour.bandcamp.com

ANNOUNCING SF15 // WITCH - Movin’ On (1980) •With crisp beats, funky bass, swirling synths and tight horns, 1980's Movin...
09/03/2024

ANNOUNCING SF15 // WITCH - Movin’ On (1980) •

With crisp beats, funky bass, swirling synths and tight horns, 1980's Movin' On was a sharp departure from the group's Zamrock roots and made no bones about the fact that the WITCH was ready to embrace the sound and spirit of a new decade. Trading lead vocals with founding member Chris Mbewe are newcomers Christine Jackson and Stanford Tembo, making for a well rounded set that combines dance floor burners with mid-tempo boogie grooves. A carefully crafted, great sounding album from a seasoned ensemble, Movin' On is an African pop classic.

ANNOUNCING SF16 // WITCH - Kuomboka (1984) •Sourced from the master tapes, Sharp-Flat presents the WITCH disco albums as...
09/02/2024

ANNOUNCING SF16 // WITCH - Kuomboka (1984) •

Sourced from the master tapes, Sharp-Flat presents the WITCH disco albums as you've never heard them before in sleeves that replicate the original album artwork.

Over the course of the 1970s, WITCH delivered an impressive run of garage, rock and prog releases. By 1980, the band was ready to embrace the exciting modern dance sound of a new era. Shuffling their lineup and relocating to Zimbabwe, they undertook their mythical transformation into an African R&B, soul and funk powerhouse. With access to a state of the art recording studio in Harare, WITCH produced two exquisite recordings during their disco years.

A full-throttle boogie outing, Kuomboka was issued in 1984 and features rising star Patrick Chisembele stepping in on lead vocals. Despite the album's modern vision for African pop, its title refers to a traditional migration ceremony practiced by the Lozi people of the Zambezi floodplains. The album documents a seasoned ensemble with an ambitious vision and is considered the group's sonic masterpiece.

Tonight at the Bell with  🔥
06/01/2024

Tonight at the Bell with 🔥

Rest in Peace Bobby Nkambule (left), the humble reedman and member of the Mamelodi Afrorock outfit Xoliso, photographed ...
29/11/2023

Rest in Peace Bobby Nkambule (left), the humble reedman and member of the Mamelodi Afrorock outfit Xoliso, photographed here in 2017 alongside flautist Alpheus Koloti. The band’s 1974 debut Shingwanyana is a truly unique South African tribal psych nugget. Give it a stream in memory of Bobby, who relished being part of our restoration and reissue project. 500-piece vinyl edition (UK distro) almost out of print at xoliso.bandcamp.com. Alpheus shared the sad sad news earlier this week, saying, “He was my dearest friend - my rock from the early years of our lives.”

#1974

Spinning records in Kalk Bay b/w a set Native Young. No better way for a beautiful day on the peninsula 🌊🐙
19/08/2023

Spinning records in Kalk Bay b/w a set Native Young. No better way for a beautiful day on the peninsula 🌊🐙

Calling Cape Town 🙌 Dropping the needle into some deep South African jazz grooves tonight at OnePark Listening Bar (1 Pa...
22/06/2023

Calling Cape Town 🙌 Dropping the needle into some deep South African jazz grooves tonight at OnePark Listening Bar (1 Park Road, Gardens) 🌊✨ Journey through the As-Shams/The Sun Records extended universe with staple favourites and wild card rarities in equal measure #🔴

ANNOUNCING SF14 // The Broadway Quintet - Amalume (1976) • The long-awaited restoration of a Zamrock cult classic. A hyp...
06/04/2023

ANNOUNCING SF14 // The Broadway Quintet - Amalume (1976) • The long-awaited restoration of a Zamrock cult classic. A hypnotic concoction of traditional Zambian sounds and jazz-rock grooves with a twist of 1970s African psychedelia.

Emerging to serve the entertainment needs of Zambia's United National Independence Party (UNIP) in the early 1960s, The Broadway Quintet gathered seasoned talent from Lusaka's best hotel bands to fashion its esteemed lineup.

The band’s jazz sensibilities set them apart from the rock sound that dominated Zambia’s music landscape of the 1970s. Yet the formula behind Zamrock, fusing indigenous rhythms with Western pop, shaped their one and only 1976 long-player.

Featuring modern arrangements of traditional songs, Amalume blended congas with sax sounds, African folk lyrics with electric keyboard shenanigans and show business tunes with jazz guitar noodling. With its psychedelic illustrated cover, it was an explosive package of "originality and electrifying beauty" as the album's liner notes proclaimed.

Released on the Zambezi label, Amalume joined an exceptional run of mid-1970s offerings alongside WITCH, Ricky Banda, Crossbones and Salty Dog. Officially licensed, carefully restored and beautifully reproduced, Zambia's most requested reissue is finally here for everybody to enjoy.

#1976

ANNOUNCING SF12 // ROCKART - House (2022) • A slice of mystical, minimal Cape electronica hailing from the mid-2000s iss...
19/12/2022

ANNOUNCING SF12 // ROCKART - House (2022) • A slice of mystical, minimal Cape electronica hailing from the mid-2000s issued in partnership with .

A hybrid-electro performance art project that harnessed the combined powers of jazz musicians Hilton Schilder and Alex van Heerden, RockArt cooked up a signature futurist sound laced with musical bows and voice samples that was unmistakably indigenous. Intended as a companion to the group's Future Cape album of 2006, House was conceived as a long-form soundscape of tribal electronica that could stand alone but also provide a backdrop for live instrumental improvisation. The project was shelved following the untimely death of Alex van Heerden in 2009 but emerges from Hilton Schilder's archive as a reminder of the duo's profound collaborative alchemy.

Running at 28 minutes over two sides of a 12-inch maxi cut at 45RPM, House is available as a boutique vinyl offering with a psychedelic art sleeve pressed in an edition of 300 copies. International distro via 🔥

ANNOUNCING SF11 // MOVEMENT IN THE CITY - S-T (1979) • In the wake of a 2020 edition of Movement in the City's second al...
14/10/2022

ANNOUNCING SF11 // MOVEMENT IN THE CITY - S-T (1979) • In the wake of a 2020 edition of Movement in the City's second album Black Teardrops (1981), Sharp-Flat returns with a prequel by way of a reissue of the band's self-titled debut from 1979.

As the 1970s were drawing to a close, the epic Black Disco studio project with its signature pairing of drum machine and organ had run its course. After delivering a killer trilogy of cosmic lounge outings dating back to 1975, the group yearned for funkier grooves and the core trio of composer Pops Mohamed on organ with Basil Coetzee on tenor sax and Sipho Gumede on bass decided to hire a drummer and rebrand as Movement in the City. In contrast with the New Age detachment of Black Disco, Movement in the City was conceptually grounded in the bleak social realism depicted on its photographic album covers and leaned into the vivid sensibilities of library music from the era. Blending Cape jazz with funk and soul, the group's output evokes a soundtrack for South African city life at the outset of the 1980s while nodding allegorically to the subterranean movements that were in the course of shaking the cage for political change.

With its cast of jazz fusion all-stars, Movement in the City is the manifesto of a band in transition - a bold and slick first offering that delivers a modern South African sound capable of both the funky exuberances of "Mister Lucky" as well as the down-home pathos of "Blue Sunday." Restored from its original tape masters and released in partnership with As-Shams/The Sun Records and Pops Mohamed, this rare artefact of South African jazz history is back in print for the very first time since its original 1979 release. Distro details and digital streaming coming soon. Single “Mister Lucky” available for digital download at sharp-flat.bandcamp.com 🙌🔥

ANNOUNCING SF13 // OSCILLATIONS - Away to Long (Bandcamp Exclusive Digital EP) • Imagine yourself in northern Zambia, in...
30/08/2022

ANNOUNCING SF13 // OSCILLATIONS - Away to Long (Bandcamp Exclusive Digital EP) • Imagine yourself in northern Zambia, in the copper mining town of Kitwe, a guest in the home of Zamrock musician Victor K***a Kasoma. The living room is dark and the silhouette of the Oscillations guitarist is etched against drawn curtains. Fingers fumble, cable jacks click and the air fills with static hum. Victor meanders through a handful of new and original compositions, presenting them vulnerable and naked on his electric guitar interspersed with casual commentary and witty asides. Some ideas are fully fledged while others are shapeshifting sketches, some guitar sounds are clean while others are bathed in mind-boggling effects, but the tone and technique is unmistakable. It's around 40 years since Victor recorded I Can See It Come yet his guitar fingerprint is easily detected.

Away Too Long (2022) is a snapshot of a veteran guitarist who overcame polio as a young man to pursue a career in music, a glimpse into the musical heart and soul of a now older and wiser Victor K***a Kasoma in his 60s. The works that make up this EP are solo guitar demos literally recorded in a garage adjacent to Victor's home in Kitwe in 2016. As with all demos, the intention was to seek collaboration and support to flesh out the skeletal ideas in a studio environment. While this remains a hope, we share these humble offerings as ripples in the still ocean of dreams.

Victor is both delighted and amused that his 1978 album I Can See It Come has developed cult status among global psych diggers. While the idea of recording another album is a thrilling prospect, he's also just getting on with living life in the present. Like so many musicians, Victor's world was turned upside down during the pandemic. He emerged in 2022 with a new calling, taking on a volunteer position at a community school in a remote village in Mpongwe in the Copperbelt Province. Just as Victor was guided into music by a beloved teacher as a young boy, he's now helping a new generation of Zambian guitarists find their little wings.

SF10 UPDATE // MASHABE BAND - Mandela (1987) • Coming in February 2022 and now available on pre-order via www.rushhour.n...
06/01/2022

SF10 UPDATE // MASHABE BAND - Mandela (1987) • Coming in February 2022 and now available on pre-order via www.rushhour.nl 🙌 Of the Mashabe Band’s three albums and numerous singles issued by Zambia Music Parlour, Mandela from 1987, named to honour the political prisoner who would go on to lead South Africa’s first democratic administration in 1994, is the group’s best point of entry and an excellent primer for Zambia’s Kalindula style as a whole - a sound ripe for investigation and rediscovery. Be sure to check out the band’s paean to their own record label “Ba Music Parlour” (our lead track already streaming as a single on all platforms) 🔥

ANNOUNCING SF10 // MASHABE BANDA - Mandela (1987) • Welcome to Zambia in the 1980s. Behold the KALINDULA sound from the ...
06/09/2021

ANNOUNCING SF10 // MASHABE BANDA - Mandela (1987) • Welcome to Zambia in the 1980s. Behold the KALINDULA sound from the master tape vault of the Zambia Music Parlour label. Complex African rhythms with crisp electric amplification and tribal roots presentation, the Mashabe Band formula is mesmerising and infectious. Due late 2021 with single “Ba Music Parlour” now streaming and available for download on Bandcamp 🙌

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