HANY MEHANNA
“MUSIC FOR AIRPLANES / A COLLECTION OF INSTRUMENTAL SHOWPIECES AND SCORES FOR EGYPTIAN FILMS AND TV-SERIES (1973-1980)”


(Double LP pressed on 180g vinyl, housed in custom, handmade gatefold jackets with extensive liner notes and photos) A hearty serving of 19 compositions from the Egyptian King of the Farfisa Organ and pioneer of the Oriental synth, HANY MEHANNA, along with his Celestial Orchestra. Exclusively re-mastered from Hany’s personal archives, Souma Records bring a selection of infectious rarities and previously unreleased gems featuring legendary Egyptian instrumentalists like Omar Khorshid and Khamish Henkish.


TRACKLIST

A1 Hanady
A2 Haya Ha'ira
A3 Al Qina' Al Za'ef
A4 Reem
A5 Ta'er Al Layl
B1 Rehala
B2 Walad Wa Bint
B3 Ayni Betrif
B4 Less Al Thulatha
C1 Rehla
C2 Shahr Al Assal
C3 Sympathique
C4 Baya
D1 Ayam Al Marah
D2 Al Nil
D3 Daa Al Omr Ya Walady
D4 Al Dawama (opening theme)
D5 Damat Alam
D6 Dawama (end theme)


INFO

A hearty serving of 19 compositions from the Egyptian King of the Farfisa Organ and pioneer of the Oriental synth, HANY MEHANNA, along with his Celestial Orchestra.

Exclusively re-mastered from Hany’s personal archives, Souma Records bring a selection of infectious rarities and previously unreleased gems featuring legendary Egyptian instrumentalists like Omar Khorshid and Khamish Henkish.



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Saha Gnawa’s self-titled debut pairs Moroccan Gnawa with NYC jazz and groove, channeling North African futurism through cross-cultural improvisation. Building off centuries-old practices, traditional song forms dissolve into psychedelic outer-space explorations.

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DJ Support: Garnier, Opolopo, Worldwide FM, Marcia Carr, Bill Brewster, Timeout Moscow, Craig Smith, Delfonic, Tony Nwachukwu, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Rocca, Shuya Okino, Borrowed Identity, Titonton Duvante, Alex Attias, Rainer Truby, Sol Power All-Stars, Kyri R2, Robert Luis, Severino Panzetta, Lars Behrenroth, Kassian, Alkalino, Getdown Edits, Moodymanc, Gerd, Lea Lisa, Young Pulse, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mark Grusane, Alex Barck….

International dance music heavyweight, producer and DJ Alexander Lay-Far returns with a powerful new chapter - Lay-Far Dance Orchestra (LFDO) - a fully-fledged live band project that reconnects him with his jazz-funk and fusion DNA while pushing dance music forward with unmistakable groove, musicianship and emotional weight. Formed in early 2024, LFDO is no nostalgia exercise. With Lay-Far at the helm as bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger and sound engineer, the orchestra has already been turning heads with explosive live performances, reinventing classic Lay-Far cuts, and now unveil their first album “Skybreak” with all new and original material written and produced by Lay-Far together with his bandmates and star guests, including Lipelis, Antoha MC and Seven Davis Jr. This work shows the departure from the predominantly electronic sound of Lay-Far's previous solo albums in favour of live instrumentation recorded to analogue tape and effortlessly bridging the gap between Jazz, Library Music, Disco-Funk, House, Broken Beat and Drum’n’Bass. “Skybreak” is dynamic, passionate, spiritual, cinematic, playful, heartfelt, life-affirming, dreamy and deeply romantic. Ultimately, there’s something profoundly romantic in recording and releasing such music in this day and age!


“Take Flight (Part 1)” is opening the album with style. It takes us on a beautifully orchestrated journey, blending the sensuality of Library Music with high-octane Jazz-Funk and raw b-boy breaks, propelled by breathtaking flute and Rhodes solos of Timur Nekrasov and Maxim Glonti. This aural symbiosis of “beauty and the beats” will become more and more prominent as the album unfolds.



It’s time for “Aquarius Love” created with the inimitable artist and vocalist Seven Davis Jr. (Secret Angels, Ninja Tune). In this composition cinematic soul and heavy jazz meet the restless energy of live drum & bass with deep and heartfelt vocals - timeless sound combined with a timeless message about love and life!



Next is “Head In The Clouds” - a theme for an imaginary rom-com, an ode to all the dreamers - sweet, light, naive and heartwarming. Space-Disco-Funk at its best!

“Where You From” is a fiery Soulful House number with heavy Afro-Latin influences recorded in collaboration with Lipelis. It’s full of Sun, joy and passion. Its irresistible rhythm is emphasised by funky octave bass, wah-wah guitar, catchy piano riffs, guitar solo by Lipelis and seemingly light conscious message delivered by Lay-Far and Maryag. Summer is here!

Now the album takes an unexpected twist in the form of “The Harp of Boom” which at first glance appears to be a classic-sounding Boom-Bap banger. Yes, It’s loud, raw, and gritty, yet it gradually evolves into something delicately-touching and deeply-soulful thanks to a memorable flute melody and lush string arrangement. Definitely recorded with tongue in cheek.


Next is “Feel The Moment” a remarkable collaboration with one of the most recognisable and distinctive Russian artists, singer, trumpeter and cultural icon Antoha MC. It’s a feel-good song, hopeful, life-affirming and bittersweet. A stylish excursion into Brit-Funk and Soviet Jazz-Fusion sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of Atmosfear, Light Of The World or Soviet Jazz bands like Allegro and Arsenal, but reimagining the influences through the modern West London broken beat lens.


The spectacular music journey continuous with “Take Flight (Part 2)” - it’s all about the deep infectious jazz-funk groove, heavy beats, rolling percussion and the glory of the soloing instruments - saxophone and flute by Timur Nekrasov, demonstrating the wide range of emotions from thoughtful and lyrical to restless and borderline vicious. One for freestyle dancing!

As the album draws to an end a vibrant musical triptych “Soul Constant” awaits, mixing together the deep and sensual mood of spiritual jazz with heavy syncopated drum’n’bass rhythms by Michail Fotchenkov, lush orchestration, expressive saxophone solos and the ending which can simply be described as “aural bliss”. It’s breath-taking!

A pleasant bonus is the exclusive version of “Where You From” by Lipelis himself, who is taking it into dub territories, further enhancing the rhythm section and enriching the song with his trademark playful synth flourishes and dreamy guitar solos for maximum effect (and appeal).

The album “Skybreak” by Lay-Far Dance Orchestra is the work of real artistry and craftsmanship with timeless sound that’s not only deeply-rooted but also forward-thinking.

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Warm Waves’ first appeared in 2020, ten years after Turn On The Sunlight’s debut self-titled album was first released in Japan. During that decade, Turn On The Sunlight’s Jesse Peterson and Mia Doi Todd welcomed their first child and co-founded a music venue in Los Angeles. When performance spaces were required to close at the start of the pandemic, Jesse’s focus shifted back towards home recording. Since ‘Warm Waves,’ five more Turn On The Sunlight albums have followed (including ‘Drives To The Beach,’ also on Tokonoma Records), all of which can be seen as an expansion of the musical direction set forth on this album.

The group heard on ‘Warm Waves’ consists of musicians who Mia and Jesse were regularly playing with at the time - Sam Gendel, Mitchell Brown, Andres Renteria & Gabe Noel - joined by Laraaji, Arji & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, making their first recordings together.

The group’s blended signal was routed through Mitchell’s tape loops and modular synthesizer, which contributed to the unique communal sound of these recordings. Further extending this approach, Carlos Niño then reprocessed and reimagined ‘Passing Rain’ with Jamael Dean for his Elemental Beat Mix.

Originally released one week into the official lockdown period, some listeners found the warm, collective sound well-suited for the time of introspection and shifting priorities that followed. Now, in 2026, ‘Warm Waves’ returns on vinyl to once again encourage peaceful contemplation and open-hearted togetherness, in echo of the spirit of its creation.

Credits
Sam Gendel: Saxophone & Electronics on A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3
Laraaji: Voice & Zither on A3
Luis Pérez Ixoneztli: Bird Sounds on A1, Aerophones & Water Drums on B2
Mia Doi Todd: Voice on A1, A2, B2, B3; Piano on A3
Jesse Peterson: Guitar, Bass, Organ & Bird Sounds on A1; Organ on A2; Guitar & Bass on A3; Wooden Whistles, Guitar, Ukulele & Piano on B1; Ice Breaking on B3
Andres Renteria: Percussion on A1, A2, B1, B2, B3; Marimba & Percussion on A3
Mitchell Brown: Synthesizers & Magnetic Tape on A1, A2, A3, B2, B4
Gabe Noel: Bass on A2, A3, B1
Arji: Bells & Shells on A3
Carlos Niño: Production / Remix on B4
Jamael Dean: Additional Keyboards on B4

Produced, mixed & recorded by Jesse Peterson
Except B4, produced by Carlos Niño

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12” VINYL Limited Edition 180g - Comes with a Silk-Screen printed cover and a Pink colored vinyl

Born in 1952 in Dabola, Guinea, Ousmane was heir to the tradition of the Griots, the storytellers, poets and musicians who had served for centuries as the guardians of West African cultural heritage. He picked up the guitar and balafon in his early years and formed a youth band in his teens, but it was while studying agriculture at Kankan University that he decided to devote his life to music.



He moved to Bamako where he soon fell in with Mory Kanté and Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako, who were busy forging a modern Mandingue sound. He performed occasionally with the band and, when they finally broke up in 1977, he was asked to join guitarist Kanté Manfila and singer Salif Keita in a new venture. The newly-formed Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux relocated to Abidjan, where they came to the attention of legendary Beninese producer Badmos. Their electrifying first album, released in 1978, made them stars throughout West Africa.



After a few years of touring, Ousmane decided to focus on his own compositions and went to the esteemed JBZ Recording Studio in Abidjan. Accompanied by his fellow musicians from Les Ambassadeurs, Ousmane recorded “Kefimba” – named after the all-black bull from his childhood with whom he had shared his Manioc meals – and “N’Ny”; both were released initially on cassette before making their way to vinyl in 1982 and 1983.



Ousmane left Les Ambassadeurs shortly before their split in the mid-1980s, but he continued to work with Salif Keita, serving as his guitarist for more than three decades. After bringing their music to audiences throughout the world, the two friends eventually settled in France – for Ousmane it was the fulfilment of a lifelong aspiration.

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Brazil is a treasure trove of inspirational music from the past, present, and future. Here we head back to 1976 for a one-of-a-kind kaleidoscopic journey, melding Brazilian regional rhythms with funk, rock, soul, and psychedelia by the married couple Eduardo Araújo and Silvinha. A cult classic and beloved record for some of the scene’s biggest DJs including Floating Points, it was further immortalised when Madlib sampled ‘Opanigê’ for his track ‘São Paulo’.

Singers Eduardo Araújo and Silvinha Araújo had successful careers in Brazil beginning in the 1960s. Eduardo broke through with the rock-infused Jovem Guarda hit ‘O Bom’. Stepping into more soulful territory, Eduardo released ‘A Onda É Boogaloo’ in 1969, produced by a young Tim Maia and followed it up with a number of other notable releases. Also part of the Jovem Guarda movement, Silvinha recorded a string of excellent albums and numerous 7” compactos for Odeon and RCA.

In 1976, the duo set forth the landmark underground album Sou Filho Dêsse Chão, complete with its eye-catching psychedelic cover art by Gustavo Matula and Jan Matula. The album featured a heavyweight line up of musicians, including accordionist supreme Dominguinhos, the drummer Dirceu Medeiros, who played on the first Os Mutantes album, and members of the esteemed bands Banda Black Rio and Som Nosso.

Sou Filho Dêsse Chão was inspired by the pair's travels to Salvador, Bahia. Eduardo was influenced by the Brazilian culture of the region and wanted to incorporate and capture the sounds of capoeira, Forró, and candomblé into the album. Here we have the traditional African-Brazilian culture of Northern Brazil fusing with the contemporary commercial music of Rio and São Paulo’s Tropicalia, MPB, psych-rock, and Black Rio movements. Uniting the cultures, Eduardo and Silvinha managed to combine these genres seamlessly.

It's an album full of highlights, with the Tim Maia-esque funk of ‘O Tempo Que Esse Tempo Tem’ laced with its rock tones, sitting side by side with the accordion-driven ‘Sou Filho Desse Chão’ and rolling groove of ‘Manda Embora A Tristeza’. Elsewhere the elegant trippy psych-funk of ‘Capoeira’ sees Eduardo and Silvinha effortlessly trading vocal duties. The record would also reach a new audience outside of Brazil when one of the standout tracks, the highly original spacey ‘Opanigê’, was sampled by Madlib for his track ‘São Paulo’.

Even though on release it was not a commercial success, Sou Filho Dêsse Chão has since found its place as an iconic and treasured LP.

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Released in 1979, Tete Mbambisa's Did You Tell Your Mother delivers the ultimate blend of African groove with American modal grace, making it one of the all-time classic albums of South African jazz. With Mbambisa presenting original compositions at the piano alongside Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee on tenor sax and flute, the acoustic quartet featured here is rounded out by Zulu Bidi from the band Batsumi on bass locking in with Dollar Brand drummer Monty Weber. This 2026 reissue presents a flat transfer of the master tapes with album artwork restored using illustrator Hargreaves Ntukwana's original ink drawing.

A self-taught musician, it was as leader of the vocal group The Four Yanks in the early 1960s that Tete Mbambisa’s music career took off. With encouragement from Abdullah Ibrahim, he dedicated himself to the piano and went on to record with The Soul Jazzmen in 1969. Mbambisa's solo recordings from the 1970s, produced by Rashid Vally for the independent As-Shams/The Sun record label, document his creative peak as a recording artist and have contributed to earning him an honorary doctorate and a place among the figureheads of South African jazz history.

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Gatefold Sleeve

M’Bamina – African Roll (1975)
The story of an album born between Africa, Italy, and the nightclub culture of the 1970s
In the heart of 1970s Italy — a country undergoing profound social change and a music scene just beginning to open itself to distant sounds and cultures — an extraordinary, almost improbable story took shape. It is the story of a group of young African musicians who found their way to Europe, of a Turin nightclub that became a crossroads for communities and experimenters, and of an album which, released in small numbers and largely unnoticed at the time, is now considered a rare jewel of Afro-fusion.
The band called themselves M’Bamina — an ensemble of musicians from Congo, Cameroon, and Benin, who arrived in Italy in the early Seventies. Settling between northern Italy and the Pavia area, they began performing in small clubs and community events, bringing with them a vibrant rhythmic heritage: African polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, funk-infused bass lines, and Caribbean or Afro-Latin colours absorbed along their musical journeys. Their raw, contagious energy on stage quickly drew attention.
Meanwhile, in Turin, another story was unfolding. There was a venue becoming almost legendary: Voom Voom, one of the city’s liveliest nightclubs, run by Ivo Lunardi. The club attracted an eclectic crowd — students, artists, foreigners, night owls — and Lunardi quickly understood that the dancefloor wasn’t just a place for music, but a melting pot for a new kind of cultural energy. Out of this vibrant atmosphere came his idea: to turn the club’s name into a small independent record label, Voom Voom Music, capable of capturing the spirit of those years and giving voice to unconventional projects.

When Lunardi heard M’Bamina, he immediately sensed that this was the sound he had been searching for: fresh, different from anything circulating in Italy at the time, and capable of blending African tradition with funk and European sensibility. He brought them into the studio.
Production was handled by Lunardi along with Christian Carbaza Michel, while the engineering was entrusted to Danilo Pennone, a young sound technician with a sharp, intuitive ear.
The recording sessions — held in Turin in 1975 — produced a remarkably warm and direct sound. The music feels almost live: grooves rooted in African tradition, but open to funk-rock structures and modern arrangements. It is a natural fusion, never forced. Tracks move between tribal rhythms, funk basslines, light electric guitars, congas and Afro-Latin percussion, with call-and-response vocals and melodies that echo both Congolese tradition and the lineage of Latin jazz. Not by chance, one of the album’s most striking tracks, Watchiwara, reinterprets a Latin standard through M’Bamina’s own rhythmic language.

The album was titled African Roll — a name that was already a statement of intention. It is African music that “rolls,” that moves, adapts, transforms within a new geographic and cultural setting. It is not strictly Afrobeat, nor Congolese rumba, nor Western funk: it is a spontaneous, hybrid blend, shaped more by lived experience than by any calculated aesthetic program.
When African Roll was released, the world around it barely noticed. Distribution was limited, and 1970s Italy had yet to develop a cultural framework for receiving such music. The national music press rarely paid attention to African or “world” productions. The album slipped into silence — though the band’s own story did not.

M’Bamina continued performing across Europe and Africa, even sharing a stage in Cameroon with none other than Manu Dibango. By the late Seventies, they moved to Paris, signed with Fiesta/Decca, and recorded a second LP, Experimental (1978). Meanwhile, the peculiar record they had made in Turin began to resurface quietly among vinyl collectors, Afro-funk enthusiasts, and DJs hunting for forgotten grooves.
That is when the album’s fate began to shift.

Over the decades, African Roll emerged as an almost unique document: a snapshot of an intercultural Italy before the word “intercultural” even existed, a fragment of migrant history, a spontaneous experiment in musical fusion born far from major industry circuits but rich in authenticity. Original copies began commanding high prices on the collector’s market, and the album became recognized as one of the hidden classics of European Afro-fusion from the 1970s.
Today, more than fifty years later, this reissue finally restores visibility and dignity to a project that deserves to be heard, studied, and celebrated. It is not simply an album: it is the testimony of a rare cultural encounter, born in an Italy unaware of how fertile such exchanges would one day become.

It is the story of a visionary producer, an extraordinary band, and a fleeting moment in which music, migration, and nightlife came together to create something genuinely new.
African Roll is — now more than ever — the sound of a bridge: between continents, between eras, between cultures. A record that, after rolling far and wide, has finally come home.

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Upit Sarimanah's self-titled album is here, a captivating collection of songs that reimagined what Sundanese music really means. Originally released by Mesra Records, it finally got repressed by LaMunai Records after out of circulation for decades. Born Suryamah on April 16, 1928, in Sadang, Purwakarta, Upit Sarimanah was a famous Indonesian singer, particularly known for her traditional Sundanese songs in the 1950s. She was a prominent figure at RRI Jakarta from 1950 to 1984 and also led the Gamelan Siliwangi.

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From the crypts of Parisian funk obscurity comes the long-lost Halloween holy grail, Disco Frankenstein from Ice AKA Lafayette Afro Rock Band. A teasing album of horror-disco oddities, pressed on blood-stained black-red vinyl LP. Our special edition release for Halloween 2025

Listen: listen.k7.com/32fce7b1-89fd-4e25-8964-d3f42aea14dc


Tracklist:

A1. City Beast - Ice
A2. Disco Vampire - Ice
A3. Godzilla
A4. Creature From The Freak Lagoon
A5. Disco Frankenstein

B1. Dr Beezar "Soul Frankenstein"
B2. Zeke The Zombie
B3. Vampire Blob
B4. Igor's Reggae
B5. She Devil

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Not all music can cope with physical reality. Instruments can be pushed until they lose grip. Eventually, they will slip so far that their untethered voice is all that remains. Panoram follows up on his Pianosequenza series engaging in seventeen excursions into playing the part of the piano that doesn't exist, coaxing out inarticulate feelings in lieu of familiar characteristics. Sounds and rhythms resulting from thoughts that can't be put into quite the right words.

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