First-time reissue in 40 years of German jazz group Green Cosmos. Night time jazz music from 1983.

LP with printed 4 page insert, 500 copies

"Some melodies are like taking a deep, refreshing breath. They strike us with the compelling force of a heartbeat or the moon reappearing from behind dark clouds. The music of Green Cosmos makes us realize that our never- ending quest for love can find fulfillment. You take a long, slow breath and feel the magic of transcendent wisdom. It’s like looking up from your room to the brightly lit windows of the home of your neighbours. Might someone be standing there, watching us? Let’s listen to Abendmusiken and imagine what life would be like if we were one again with God’s original ideas. Green Cosmos enchant us with their blend of Jazz, the sound of heartbeats, emotional outburst, and Folk-music (From which country? In which language and tradtion? I really don’t know... it seems to be everyone’s language and the universal breath of all places.)

There is not one note too many, and everything gets to the heart of the matter. A saxophone that sails ahead on a world- map of sound, driven by the beat of Kalimba and drums, sometimes fraternizing with a bass that‘s now insistent and then shy, and closely listens to a reassuringly omniscient piano until the music merges into a unit that‘s greater than its parts and sees us through the night

We can feel that the musicians plunge headlong into their tales of grace and high spirits. It’s no exaggeration to say that this band has created something new and unique, and that the excellence of the moment got captured in this recording.

This, quite simply, is beautiful and exciting music thatsteers us through the night. And if you are standing by a window seeing someone looking at you from their window – give them a wave! Wave at them to the beat of the music and feel at home, feel free to pause and wonder, and come up for air."



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Søren Skov Orbit's debut album, "Adrift," is at once subtle and profound. The saxophonist and his collaborators have created something quite special and consistently deep. This record may not easily be classifiable, but the most interesting music creeps between the lines.



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*Remastered from tape - includes booklet with detailed liner notes.**

Released in 1978- now re-issued for the first time, the 2nd album from South African jazz/fusion power house, Spirits Rejoice.

The 1970s is regarded as a period of experimentation, boundary-breaking and hybridization in modern music and this spirit certainly informed the mushrooming of ideas that occurred in South African jazz during this time. In the shadow of more commercial township jive and soul, South African jazz evolved on the fringe, nurtured by passionate and enterprising independent producers who courted the interest of the mainstream with enchanting concoctions of jazz with folk, rock, soul and funk.

With a line-up hailing from far flung regions of South Africa, the mercurial sound of Spirits Rejoice and its willingness to weave a patchwork of different influences into its recordings is not hard to account for. More difficult to reconcile is that the band didn’t manage to level up to the status enjoyed by its peers in larger music markets abroad. Nevertheless, Spirits Rejoice has maintained its revered status in the collective memory of South African jazz for over four decades and their recorded artifacts return in the 2020s with the group’s vitality and energy undiminished.

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Deep swedish modal jazz reissued ! - The first reissue of Bertil Strandberg Kvintett’s “Cirrus” album, following on earlier Scandinavian Jazz reissues by Christian Schwindt Quintet and Carsten Meinert Kvartet.

In 1973, a snowstorm almost prevented the band from making it to the studio to record this album. Cirrus, released in 1974 in tiny numbers, has since become a heralded object among jazz aficionados. Now 45 years later, Cirrus is finally available on vinyl again ! Comes with an insert with unpublished photos and liner notes by Mats Gustafsson

Cirrus is full of melancholy. Yet it is balanced with a curiosity and an awareness of the world. Named after a white, wispy cloudscape made up of ice crystals, one can almost picture the deep woods of Sweden as the backdrop to these six compositions.
The group, lead by trombonist Bertil Strandberg, recorded only this album. Bertil wrote the title track which gives you a hint at how he sees the world. Bertil’s brother, Göran Stranberg is on piano and wrote most of the songs on the album. American ex-pat Ed Epstein is on tenor. Ove Gustavsson and Bjarne Boman on bass and drums respectively

"Terrific reissue" - Gilles Peterson

There's a lot to love in this universe and beautiful free spirit jazz from
Sweden is but one of the great creative manifestations of LIFE and
Strandberg's CIRRUS LP is at the top of the list. A rare-as-hen's-teeth
masterpiece newly unwrapped for your sonic pleasure head!
- Thurston Moore

Cirrus represents stunning musicianship, strong personal
compositions and arrangements, highly individual improvisations
and is truly a collective jazz masterpiece. Every detail interacts
with the overall form in the most creative and beautiful way.
- Mats Gustafsson

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Milt Ward & Virgo Spectrum - a selftitled album of spacey rare groove jazz - reissued !LP plus booklet, 500 copies, pressed at Pallas

It seemed trumpeter/composer Milton Ward had all he needed for a breakthrough in the world of contemporary jazz in the late 1970s. Blessed with a beautiful trumpet tone and an impressive work ethic, Ward found a home in Boston’s exploding soul and jazz scenes of the early 1970s. His star never joined the constellation of jazz luminaries, but Ward did leave one fantastic album of spiritual jazz that has become a collectors’ favorite: Milt Ward and Virgo Spectrum.

Frederiksberg Records is proud to present the first and only authorized reissue of this funky jazz classic. The release includes remastered tracks from the original LP along with in-depth liner notes that provide a detailed account of Ward’s journey from his early years discovering music in the South to his toils finding a hold in the music business in Boston and New York City.

Born in Michigan but raised in New Orleans, Ward came up through the Crescent City’s legendary musical educaCon system. AWer a sCnt in the Air Force, Ward and his friend Stanton Davis (of Ghetto/Mysticism fame) looked to the Berklee College of Music in Boston for the next step in their development. Immediately, the two were immersed in Boston’s busy music scene, finding trumpet chairs in Herschel Dwellingham’s Orchestra at the Sugar Shack, where they backed up many of the day’s soul greats.

Ward worked with many up-and-coming musicians emerging from Berklee’s nurturing arms. He recruited many to his projects, including his Ultra Modern Quintet Plus Two, which played regularly around Boston in the early 1970s. It was in the mid-1970s that Ward took it upon himself and his entrepreneurial spirit to start his own record label, Twin Quest, and record his stand-alone release.

Milt Ward and Virgo Spectrum brought together great young musicians who would quickly make names for themselves within the jazz world, including keyboard wizard Delmar Brown and future Jazz Messenger saxophonist Billy Pierce. Saxophonist/flutist Eddie Alex is a standout, as is baritone saxophonist Glenn Barbour, who soon would head to Atlanta to join The Whole Darn Family. Percussionist Ignacio Mena, bassist Cucho MarCnez, and drummer Hugh Petersen all hailed from farther south: Chile, Venezuela, and St. Croix, respectively. The recording also incorporated two bona fide New York jazz masters and veterans of the spiritual jazz movement, bassist Cecil McBee and saxophonist Carlos Ward.

The recording still stands as a hallmark to the creative music scene of Boston and New York City when soul and funk began to emmesh themselves in jazz. Milton Ward’s Milt Ward and Virgo Spectrum remains a youthfully vibrant recording that is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation of explorative listeners.


About Frederiksberg Records

Frederiksberg Records was founded in New York in 2013 by Danish video journalist and music lover Andreas Vingaard. The name, Frederiksberg, is the part of Copenhagen where Andreas grew up and first discovered his passion for music.The idea for the label emerged when Andreas befriended renowned Jazz saxophonist, Carsten Meinert. Committed to telling the story of Meinert’s music the right way, Andreas resolved to take full ownership of the To You re-release (2015). The result has been a rollercoaster journey of running an independent record label. Frederiksberg Records, with roots in Scandinavian Jazz, includes a wide spectrum of genres -electronic, disco, ambient and more.

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Compilation of the best tracks of Mocko Jumbie's only two albums, infectious blend between funk/soul/soca, has a disco tinged feel on 'Children Children' and a electronic edge on 'We Can Live Together', flipside holds lovely soca tunes.

The second youngest of eight children, Hugo Leanzo Moolenaar was born on September 23rd, 1948, in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. His mother was from Puerto Rico; his Dutch-German father worked as a contractor, but also played the guitar and had a 6-piece band that performed at house parties. The young Hugo was a born entertainer. Watching his elders, particularly an uncle who played the ukulele, he began to teach himself to play guitar, practicing on his own. Eventually he began to perform his own songs as he gradually gained confidence and ability.

As well as being a proficient musician, Hugo would also become a highly skilled Mocko Jumbie — a performer of the carnival stilt dancing tradition which has had a presence in the Virgin Islands for several hundred years, and which historians consider to have been brought to the Caribbean by enslaved West Africans.

Carnival in the Virgin Islands was revived in 1952, and from then on it became an annual event. The two most famous Mocko Jumbies at this time were John Magnus Farrell and William Richardson (to whom Hugo would dedicate his second album). The pair mentored a young talent named Alvin “Allie” Paul who later in turn would go on to teach many others. In 1964, at age 14, Paul entered the St. Thomas carnival as a stilt-dancer, and revolutionized the Mocko Jumbie style. While Farrell and Richardson would perform in a more European influenced outfit — usually a conical shaped hat, a female dress and a wire mask — Allie brought back some of the older African influence, wearing what some say is a Ghanaian-style hat and striped pants to cover the stilts.

Paul founded his own troupe in the late 1960s. He was the first to allow female students, starting by teaching family members and friends. One of his best students was Hugo Moolenaar, who quickly became known as one of the fastest dancers on the 6’ stilts, and was renowned for adding kung-fu-style moves to his performances.

In 1968, Hugo enlisted in the US army. He served in Vietnam, where he was severely injured. In 1970 he was honorably discharged and was awarded the prestigious Purple Heart for his service. Nevertheless, his injuries did not stop him from returning to Mocko Jumbie performance, and his reputation continued to grow. He also began to work for local government in St. Thomas. In the fall of 1982, Hugo was asked to become a resident performer at the Hotel Shibui in Contant Hill, St. Thomas after a convincing audition for the manager. Hugo brought in his girlfriend Juanita, a singer since high school, and a duo was born. Together, they performed Hugo’s compositions. Eventually, Juanita started to learn Mocko Jumbie as well. The couple, who were married in 1983, later founded a Mocko Jumbie school, that at its peak had 75 students.

The steady income from the hotel residency provided financial opportunity that the entrepreneurial Hugo seized. Travelling with their band to Puerto Rico, Hugo and Juanita hired a local horn section and created Hugo’s first album, entitled High, High, High, a reference to the Mocko Jumbie tradition. The cover depicts Hugo dressed in a golden outfit on stilts, on a palm beach, holding a guitar while Juanita looks on from the ground, holding their two children. Hugo’s second release, Mocko Jumbie Jamboree, came out not long after and also featured original compositions. It was recorded at the local Virgin Island studio Turtle Point. Both albums were self-distributed and feature a heady cocktail of island and popular sounds – from jump-up calypsos and kaisos to drummachine modern soul and upful disco.

During his career, Hugo performed the Mocko Jumbie on many neighboring Caribbean islands, as well as in the US, in New York, Portland, Oregon, and at the 1979 Super Bowl show in Miami, alongside the Grammacks band from Dominica. He also performed in Japan, as well as at the Festival de Música del Caribe in Cartagena, Columbia, where he appeared in a bullfighting arena with a group of the finest Mocko Jumbies and a local Virgin Islands band. But in 1989 a hurricane — ironically named Hugo —destroyed many of the Moolenaar’s belongings, including master tapes and photos, leaving them with very little to show for their long careers.

Hugo retired in 2008, after working 32 years for the local government. In 2009, the Virgin Islands Department of Tourism adapted a new logo, a Mocko Jumbie. I’d like to think Hugo Moolenaar was a part of the reason.

Hugo passed away on January 25th, 2012, from cancer. It is thought that the disease may have been a result of exposure to Agent Orange during his military service in Vietnam.

To his very last day, Hugo lived by his motto: “Peace, Love and Happiness Always”.

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Colour LP in in Fission Red* (Only Variant!)
WILLIAM ONYEABOR IN COLOR!! 10TH ANNIVERSARY!! William Onyeabor self-released these records in 1978 and 1980, respectively, before he gave up his life as the greatest Nigerian funk artist to become a devout Christian. Body and Soul is available in Blue Vinyl, Atomic Bomb in Red Vinyl.

Tracklist
1.1Beautiful Baby
1.2Better Change Your Mind
1.3Atomic Bomb
1.4Shame
1.5I Need You All Life

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Colour LP in Cross River Basin Blue* (Only Variant!)
WILLIAM ONYEABOR IN COLOR!! 10TH ANNIVERSARY!! William Onyeabor self-released these records in 1978 and 1980, respectively, before he gave up his life as the greatest Nigerian funk artist to become a devout Christian. Body and Soul is available in Blue Vinyl, Atomic Bomb in Red Vinyl.

Tracklist
1.1The Way To Win Your Love
1.2Poor Boy
1.3Body & Soul
1.4I Believe In God

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Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke joins the Hoodna Orchestra, Tel Aviv’s number one Afro funk collective, melding his enchanting vibraphone playing with their brass heavy force across seven original compositions that play tribute to the classic Mulatu sound while forging fresh paths. Produced by and featuring Dap-King Neal Sugarman, the results are gritty, yet majestic, soulful and uplifting.

Tracklist
1.1Tension
1.2Major
1.3Hatula
1.4Yashan
1.5Delilah
1.6Dung Gate

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Repress!

Harmonies is the new long player from underground super-producer Lord Echo. Hotly anticipated for the last few years by his growing entourage of fans, many were frustrated by his descent into obscurity in the industrial backwaters of New Zealand where he lived alone and went completely insane trying to complete the record. But those frustrations are finally at an end, and the wait was worth it - for fans at least.

The new album solidifies his already distinctive mutations of reggae and rock steady with disco, African soul, techno and spiritual jazz. In other words, the Lord has returned from the wilderness with a bounty for his followers. Eat of the bread of life and enjoy access to his crazy World of Sound.

Quotes:

“Lord Echo thoughtfully incorporates dub reggae rhythms and a production aesthetic redo- lent of the ‘60s into an expansive pool of sounds that draws from 1970s West African clubs, quiet storm-era Motown, Caribbean disco, and more.” Pitchfork

“... a DJ-friendly sound using ’60s production techniques, once again joining up imaginary and unforeseen dots between reggae, disco, soul, African and Latin elements.” Vinyl Factory


FOR FANS OF... THE BLACK SEEDS, FAT FREDDY’S DROP, ELECTRIC WIRE HUSTLE.

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Two days after his 100th birthday, Marshall Allen started recording New Dawn, his debut solo album. A member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since 1958, Allen assumed leadership of the band in 1995. Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, Allen has never released a solo album under his own name, and yet, instead of capping such a legendary output, New Dawn seems to herald a new beginning. A love letter to spacetime, it channels a century of musical intelligence into seven tracks, showing Allen at his most protean—freely moving from relaxed, transdimensional palettes to bluesy big band and beyond.

One of music’s vanguard avant-saxophonists, Allen continues to deliver durational feats during the Arkestra’s gigs. Still, the compositional energy contained on New Dawn is striking. Allen was approached with the idea of a solo record by Week-End Records’ Jan Lankisch. The Arkestra’s Knoel Scott — who has lived with Allen at the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra since the 1980s — worked with Allen to pore over the archive of unrecorded material and develop this debut. Scott assembled some of Philadelphia’s brightest jazz stars as well as some Arkestra veterans for the sessions. New Dawn was then recorded over a couple of days in Philadelphia, with additional recordings to be added in the coming weeks and months. The legendary Neneh Cherry will lend her unmistakable voice to the title track “New Dawn”.

Though greatly informed by the philosophy of Sun Ra and his Saturnian teachings—traverse jazz’s traditions, dig deep into spiritual geographies — New Dawn signals Allen as his own singular voice, one that’s swinging and bopping and reflecting into the future, with no sign of stopping. Week-End Records is proud to release this debut solo album by Marshall Allen.

“New Dawn is clearly an extension of Ra’s legacy and sound, but it’s also a masterful endeavour filtered through Allen’s tastes and approach”. – John Morrison, The Wire, November 2024 (cover story)

Musicians: Marshall Allen – Kora, EWI, Alto Sax Knoel Scott – Baritone Sax, Congas, Drums Cecil Brooks – Trumpet Bruce Edwards – Guitar Jamaaladeen Tacuma – Bass Richard Hill – Bass Timothy Ragsdale – Bass Owen Brown Jr – 1st Violin Akiko Arendt – 1st Violin Cristina Ardelean Montelongo – 1st Violin Derek Washington – 2nd Violin Elias Feldmann – 2nd Violin Dimitra Karageorgopoulou – 2nd Violin Michael Ireland – Viola Vasileios Vasileiadis – Viola Joseph Richard Carvell – Bass Ilektra-Despoina Stevi – Cello Jorik Bergman – Flute George Gray – Drums Jan Lankisch – Percussion

Special Guest: Neneh Cherry - Voice

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New from Strut, a fresh reissue of the classic debut album "Try And Love" (1973) from one of Nigeria"s most celebrated Afro-rock bands, Ofege. The album caught the imagination of a young Nigerian crowd fascinated by the new teen band and Ofege joined a fresh wave of homegrown artists coming through in the wake of Fela"s towering influence and other Afro-rock bands like Monomono, Ofo The Black Company and Blo.

Tracklist
1.1Nobody Fails
1.2Whizzy Ilabo
1.3Gbe Mi Lo
1.4Try And Love
1.5It's Not Easy
1.6Ofege
1.7You Say No
1.8Lead Me On

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Official reissue with four hard to find Italo Disco gems (’83 – ’88) taken from the original master tapes!

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Miriam Makeba’s ‘Keep Me In Mind’ was her last album for Reprise and reflected major changes in both her own personal life and politically within the USA. This new reissue is presented in its original artwork and features rare photos and new extensive liner notes by Francis Gooding of The Wire. Remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery.

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