What is there left to say about Mr Bongo? As a label, they have been the go to purveyors of rare Brazilian sounds from day dot. Shining a light on artists such as Joyce, Marcus Valle, Dom Um Romau, Tim Maia, Gal Costa and many many more. With their compilations they have consistently provided super accessible entry points to the music of South America and beyond. Check the ever reliable Record Club comps and the incoming latest from Nick the Record and John Gomez for example. Crucially, they have never sacrificed quality for commercial appeal. Oh yeah, and like the best labels, the design and artwork has never been forgotten. Always matching the high standards of the music it represents. From the origin days of the physical shop on Berwick Street to its current incarnation as label/film production and online store, the calibre of output has stayed at the top level.
More recently they have cut yet another path, adding to their reissue game by releasing new music from artists such as the recent psychedelic pastoral opus from Project Gemini and Bala Desejo’s modern take on the classic Brazilian sound and New Regency Orchestra and their big bad Latin. Now they’ve hooked up man with man of the moment, Luke Una. A seriously fertile partnership that began with a couple of edit 12s and two of the comps of recent years, and has now progressed into original music release territory with first drop, ‘Transmission One’ by Liverpool’s own Transmission Towers that launches the E-Soul Cultura sub-label.
It’s a serious melting pot affair. What do you get when you mix two people with roots as diverse as Mark Kyriacou and Eleanor Mante? The result is an album that meshes together their own many threaded musical tastes and experiences (name checking everything from Motor city techno to Ra and his cosmic spiritualism) into something bang up to date. Chuck in the mixing expertise of Sheffield’s Crooked Man to the brew and you get the idea that this project is worth taking notice of.
So what does it sound like? And more importantly how does it make you feel? The record is a kind of outer space musical trip in microcosm. ‘Up’ prepares for launch. A sparse electronic bouncer that in some parallel universe, Kamins or Sarko are dropping. ‘Roller Skater 23’ brings a more melodic chant, smoothing out the edges of a broken beat vibe into something subtly anthemic. There’s plenty more to dig into. ‘Go Slow Heart’ takes the album into a late night soul location with its sweeping harmonies. Meanwhile ‘Mega’ is a wobbly tribal chant with a serious boom.
The vocal range of Mante means the feeling can switch from the tender ("Affirmation of Love") to punchy astro Afro punk (‘Everything’) then back to ethereal, even slightly downbeat, darkness (‘My Shadow’). The trip doesn’t end there. ‘Planetary Alignment’ is pure spaced out cosmic pop and contrasts superbly with ‘Sparse’s’ hooky click. Its rumbling bass and plaintive keys building over a longing lyric of missing love, as the journey plunges darker and deeper in. ‘Affirmation of Love’ spins the other way, from longing and loss, back to spiritual satisfaction from togetherness. Finally ‘Universal Drift’ rounds things off with a moody jazz roll that’s tinged with highlife sprinkles for a suitably spiritual curtain closer.
With Transmission One, TT have put together a spacial trip of an album that gains momentum as it powers to the outer reaches, and leaves the Earth behind.
Transmission One is released on 10 May via Bandcamp and elsewhere you can buy records.
