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There are often problems with this website, if you are having problems completing your order please email me at littleaxerecords@gmail.com
If you are ordering more than 4 items international shipping, please contact me to get the correct postage amount.
Let us know if you would like to join our mailing list.
NEW ARRIVALS
LA-019 Andaleeb M. Wasif
Andaleeb Wasif was born in a well-known family of Hyderabad, India in 1928. A self-taught singer and harmonium player. He gained recognition early in life, performing for the Nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad when he was only six years old.
On this recording Wasif performs six ghazals, a poetic form of couplets focussing on love and longing with mystical and spiritual elements. The lyrics to the ghazals featured on the recording are written by some of the best known Urdu poets of the 20th century including Faiz Ahmad Faiz.Never commercially released, the songs have been sourced from private concerts, home recorded cassettes and radio shows. Andaleeb’s renditions are enigmatic, filled with pathos, timeless and ethereal
Limited edition of 500.Digital copies can be purchased at https://littleaxerecords.bandcamp.com/
$
12.00
NEw Sahel SoundS
SS-055 El Wali - Tiris
An amazing and rare studio recording of 1990s Polisario music! The album is a standout example of the Sahrawi political folk style that mixes traditional modes with Western scales and instrumentation. response vocals, The repertoire of El Wali is fiery and inspirational, a call to arms - with national anthems, celebrations of political anniversaries, and religious pleas for peace, with call and response duets, backed with a synthesizer, programmed drums, and electric guitar.
Nomadic inhabitants of Western Sahara, the Sahrawi movement for liberation began in the 1970s and has continued until today. Sahrawi political folk music dates back to the origins and has played an integral role in the struggle, with political anthems creating a national identity. One of the first Saharan music to incorporate the electric guitar, the style was hugely influential on the better know Tuareg guitar genre. The later addition of synthesizer and programmed rhythms further transformed the sound, becoming a foundation of Sahrawi music.
Recorded in Belgium in 1994 while on tour, this version of El Wali performed a style reflecting the popular music of the refugee camps. “Tiris” is a refreshing production with none of the typical World Music polish of the 90s. This evidently led to its unsuccessful release in the West. Originally released only in as a small run CD for OXFAM Belgium, the CD quickly disappeared and is impossible to find. In West Africa, however, it became a viral success and the defining representative Sahrawi music. In 2012 a track was released on “Music from Saharan Cellphones Vol 2” and only after an arduous search over 8 years (leading through Spain to the Canary Islands to Tindouf and eventually to Belgium) the artists, the studio, and the original recording were tracked down. A co-release with Badawi Archives, the first Sahrawi run record label led by dj/producer Bedouin Sahrawi.
$
15.00
SS-011 Mammane Sani et Son Orgue – La Musique Électronique du Niger
Mamman Sani Abdullaye is a legendary name in Niger’s avant garde. A pioneer of early West African electronic music, for over 30 years his instrumentals have filled the airwaves. The instrumental background drones of radio broadcasts and instrumental segueways of TV intermissions borrow heavily from his repertoire. The dreamy organ instrumentals drifts by sans comment, yet are known to all. Back in print!
$
15.00
SS-052 Luka Productions - Falaw
Luka Productions presents Falaw, an innovative take on West African Hip Hop and sample-based folktronica. A follow up from the acclaimed Malian “new age” inspired Fasokan (2017), Luka Guindo turns his focus to the rich cultural heritage of Manding music. Eschewing wholly PC-based sequencing, Falaw invites a number of traditional performers to join him in the studio. Griots recount sage stories over Luka’s sweeping synth pads while ngonis shred pentatonic solos to the crash of sequenced drum samples. Paying homage to the storyteller, combined with regional styles of lyrical Hip Hop, Falaw offers advice on modern living, with heartfelt songs about loss, love, and life.
Luka Productions is the creation of Luka Guindo, based in Bamako, Mali. With a musical training in West African gospel music, Luka is one of Bamako’s hardest working producers, churning out tracks for scores of popular artists in the regional scenes of thumping electro Balani Show and lightning hi-energy Hip Hop, and he brings this varied experience to Falaw. Tracks like BBNI offer Luka’s version of the melodic Bamako Hip Hop banger, while Forêt features lush acoustic ngoni with looping call and response. In addition to his work sequencing and producing, Luka plays a variety of instruments across the tracks, performing vocals, djembe, synthesizer, guitar, and bass.
The effect is both otherworldly while seemingly organic. Creating at the confluence of electronic and tradition, Falaw is destined to be a future classic, both at home in Mali and abroad. In a genre where all too often “modern” is used exclusively to indicate Western collaborators, Falaw is a groundbreaking entry into homemade fourth world music and a suggestion of the future Malian sound. Comes with full lyric translations.
$
15.00
LITTLE AXE Still Available
LA-020 PURO TAYTA SHANTI
Andean party music from the central sierra of Peru. Tayta Shanti’s long history of complex syncretism is expressed through its simple song structure. Minimal and raw, or layered with intricate arrangements, its unrelenting rhythm mesmerizes as much as it moves. 16 songs of pure folklore, spanning the late 1960s until the early 1980s. Compilation includes liner notes and photos. Instant mountain rave.
Digital copies are available at our bandcamp page here: https://littleaxerecords.bandcamp.com/
$
13.00
LA-018 Sosena Gebre Eyesus - BACK IN PRINT
Ethiopian artist Sosena Gebre Eyesus sings accompanied by her playing of the Begena, or King David’s Harp, one of the world’s oldest and most beguiling instruments. Since ancient times the Harp of David has been used as an aural balm, a soother of evil and disturbed spirits —it’s low, buzzing tones widely noted for their ability to sweetly refresh one’s soul. Said to have been brought to Ethiopia in biblical times by Menelik I, it has long been the central instrument used to accompany Ethiopian Orthodox hymns, which Eyesus plays here in an absolutely entrancing manner while softly singing songs of devotional reflection. Featuring six beautiful hymns that gently unspool at the measured pace of a lullaby, Sosena Gebre Eyesus magically creates a rarefied atmosphere that feels absolutely necessary and vital for these most turbulent of days.
Originally released on cassette, this is a limited edition lp of 500 copies.
Also available as a digital download: https://littleaxerecords.bandcamp.com/album/sosena-gebre-eyesus
$
12.00
LA-017 Esther Suarez - La Bolognesina - Back in print!
Esther Suarez, also known as La Ocrasina De Oro, is a popular Peruvian Huayno singer. La Bolognesina is one of her earlier albums, featuring reverbed vocals over Andean harps supplemented with light percussion and handclaps. The album was recorded in 1981, with the title referring to her roots near the snow-capped Andean mountains of the Bolognesi province in the Ancash region of Peru. Peru experienced waves of mass rural-to-urban migration in the latter half of the twentieth century due to poverty and political instability, but with it also came an explosion in the popularity of the folkloric Huayno tradition. An urban and modernized studio version of ancient indigenous Quechua folk traditions, Huayno became the soundtrack to the migrant’s experience of both hardship and homesickness. Esther Suarez’s clear and yearning vocals soar over galloping huayno rhythms, evoking the highlands of her youth with heartbreak, regret and melancholy, while simultaneously looking to a place where there is always a will to live and an invitation to dance. Truly some of the most beautiful music ever.
Digital copies can be purchased here:littleaxerecords.bandcamp.com/album/esther-suarez-la-bolognesina
$
10.00
RECENT LITTLE AXE CASSETTES
LAC•051 Advice
Another mix of International favorites including Peruvian street chants, Cayman Island beach bands, Turkish folk etc etc
$
3.00
LAC•050 Sueños Contigo - Discos de los Tianguis
A mix of flea market records from Mexico City, mostly cumbias.
$
3.00
LAC-049 Apola Special
Dadjes Band, L'Orchestre Black Santiago, Features of Life, Heroes International Band, Professional Band of Odi and many more!
$
3.00
NEw MISSISSIPPI
MR-018 Michael Hurley & Pals - Armchair Boogie
Classic album from Michael Hurley. With all the hits and reproduction of comic book.
$
10.00
The Rats - In A Desperate Red (Red Vinyl Version)
At last! Fred and Toody Cole and drummer Louis Samora's ultimate punk masterpiece This is the last record by the Portland punk legends before Fred and Toody moving on to Dead Moon. In fact, two songs from the first Dead Moon LP hail from the same session as this LP. IN A DESPERATE RED combines garage rock, new wave and art punk...just picture a more punk version of Dead Moon if you can. 6 years of work went into remixing and remastering this version - with Fred Cole twisting knobs and obsessing over it's every detail. One of Fred Cole's greatest records and impossible to find for many years - at last this LP is available as it was meant to be heard. Play it loud....
First Pressing includes a 40 page booklet. Filled with fliers, photos and an interview with Fred, Toody and Louis.
$
20.00
The Rats - In A Desperate Red (Black Vinyl Version)
Black Vinyl Version
$
16.00
Jean-Bosco Mwenda
The pioneering Congolese guitarist best known for the song "Masanga," this is the first compilation ever dedicated to Jean-Bosco Mwenda! Jean-Bosco created a totally unique approach to the acoustic guitar in the 1950s, which caught like wildfire across the continent. Featuring 12 rare songs of beautiful, complex fingerstyle guitar & Mwenda's warm voice, and 2 beloved classics - all restored from original 78 RPM discs. Includes an insert with full lyric translations!
$
14.00
Various - Bulawayo Blue Yodel
A collection of beautiful Country-Western inspired music from 1950s Zimbabwe, South Africa and Kenya. Fingerpicking "omasiganda" troubadours, train car yodels, raw slide guitar, and haunting travel-weary ballads, all reissued for the first time from rare 78s. Featuring George Sibanda, Josaya Hadebe, Sabelo Mathe, Petrus Mntambo and more, with a 12" booklet of deep research and full lyrics, packaged in old school tip-on covers. Co-released by our friends Olvido Records (A. Kostis, The White Birds, George Mukabi). Audio restoration and transfers by Michael Kieffer.
$
15.00
NEW DISTRIBUTED TITLE
Arthur Russell - Iowa Dream
Amazing new 2 x lp of Arthur Russell recordings......
After ten years of work inside the Russell library, Lee and Knutson bring us Iowa Dream, yet another bright star in Russell’s dazzling constellation. Blazing with trademark feeling, these nineteen songs are a staggering collection of Russell’s utterly distinct songwriting. And although Russell could be inscrutably single-minded, he was never totally solitary. Collaborating here is a stacked roster of downtown New York musicians, including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Henry Flynt, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Steven Hall, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Saltzman, and David Van Tieghem.
$
25.00
NEW GROUPER REISSUES
Grouper A I A : Alien Observer
A I A is a two-part release comprised of songs written and recorded over four years. Both albums are low, both discuss: being an other to one’s own self, to other humans; ghosts and aliens, both literal and metaphorical; other worlds to escape to. Fourth pressing now on Kranky
$
16.00
Grouper A I A : Dream Loss
A I A is a two-part release comprised of songs written and recorded over four years. Both albums are low, both discuss: being an other to one’s own self, to other humans; ghosts and aliens, both literal and metaphorical; other worlds to escape to. Fourth pressing now on Kranky
$
16.00
ON SALE!! Two great titles now just $5 each!
LA-001 Lewlewal de Podor - Yiilo Jaam
_Hailing from northern Senegal, "Lewlewal de Podor" is a Pulaar guitar
centric band that draws from the folk stylings of Fouta Toro. Featured
on last year's compilation Ishilan n-Tenere, their first ever full
length ranges from mellow acoustic jam sessions to electrified hip
shaking concerts. Recorded by Christopher Kirkley. Comes with booklet
and portrait studio photo. Co-release with
Sahel Sounds
$
5.00
MR - 092 V/A - Fanafody: A Collection of Recordings and Photography from Madagasikara Volume II LP
The second volume of recordings in our series of Madagascar music. From the archives of Montreal recordist, Charlie Brooks. While containing some similar artists as volume one, Fanafody focuses more on his second trip through the island during 2002 featuring violin players and throat breathing singers. Includes extensive photography and liner notes booklet.
$
5.00