Midweek Mixdown: Radio Martiko's Pan African Discotheque

Check out Radio Martiko's ace 85-minute mix of vintage gems from Nigeria, Benin, Martinique, Suriname and Angola below. 

Friends of the monkey:

It's been a while since you heard from us at Radio Martiko. You might think we've been sitting on our behinds doing nothing, but that's not true. We were actually working on new releases. As some of you might know, record plants are quite overbooked these days and lead times for production are currently running up to 10 months or more. After months of waiting, our latest release is almost ready and should be available by the end of May. We'll get back to you with more news about this soon.

In the meantime you can listen to our new mix: Pan African Discotheque available via Mixcloud right here. Hope you enjoy it! 

Midweek Mixdown: Radio Martiko

The deep digging crew at Radio Martiko have a cure for the winter blahs with a fishing-themed mix of vintage gems. Link below.

Here's the scoop...

To comfort our mood during this gloomy period, we decided to repost an old mix with songs from the deep bottom of the infinite pool of sadness : El Blues del Pescador.

Not sure if the musicians in the mix – including Tito Avila, Salim Djilali, Lavidas, Fatima Gassim and Amir Rassaie – descend from a family of fishermen, but all these songs have a kind of nautical touch to our ears. Let's dream and wander off to the ports and shores of Barranquilla, Nador, Varna, Piraeus, Bandar Abbas, Mogadishu & Port Sudan. The image above is fisherman from Port Said, Egypt playing a simsimiyya.

Check out Radio Martiko's delightful El Blues del Pescador mix right here. 

Belgium's Radio Martiko recirculates two Québécois surf gems

A pair of mid-60s surf classics from Les Jaguars & Les Talismans, originally on TourneSol, are out via Radio Martiko May 14th.  

Midweek Mixdown: Radio Martiko's "Oye Que Suave" mix

Check out Radio Martiko's swingin' selection of vintage Colombian large band cumbia & porro jams on Mixcloud right here.

Expect to hear some outstanding work from Pedro Laza y sus Pelayeros. 

Midweek Mixdown: La Voz del Caribe

Check out the Radio Martiko's swingin' Caribbean mix of vintage plena, biguine, compas, guaracha and merengue right here. 

Radio Martiko recirculates rare Roger King Mozian near eastern swingers

Roger King Mozian's fabulous "Oriental Cha-Cha" and "Sirocco" were recently reissued by Radio Martiko. Check 'em out below. 

Here's the scoop...

Roger 'King' Mozian

Latin orchestra meets Greek bouzouki!!! A true hybrid musical dream, emerging and blending the sound from the migrant communities of 60’s New York. Under the direction of NYC bandleader Roger ‘King’ Mozian, the electrifying runs of Greek bouzouki wizard Yannis Tatassopoulos are set to a hard swinging latin beat for some unconventional yet ultra refined crossover madness from the golden era of space-age pop.  Roger ‘King’ Mozian was an American trumpeter, percussionist and band leader, born in New York as the son of Turkish immigrants with Armenian roots. He started his musical career playing in Jazz and Latin bands during the 40’s and at a very young age he composed several American standards, many of which bear the unmistakable sound of the Middle East, songs like “Asia Minor” and “Desert Dance” in particular. His talent and sparkling compositions connected with great jazz men and latin music icons like Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. In the early 50s, Mozian was tapped by Norman Granz for a couple of Clef 78s and EPs before launching an intriguing series of superbly recorded space-age pop albums for MGM aimed at the home Hi-Fi enthusiast market.  His Spectacular Brass and Spectacular Percussion albums released in 1960 were followed by Spectacular Brass Goes Cha-Cha in 1961.    Despite his relatively short life – Mozian died of complications due to pulmonary tuberculosis in 1963 at the age of 35 – he left some impressive musical artifacts. Mozian loved blending modern popular dances like twist, rhumba, mambo and cha cha with Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern music. Some of the highlights of these ventures were incorporated on the posthumously released compilation Lp “A Musical Odyssey” released by the Greek-American Nina label in 1966.  After leaving MGM, Mozian encountered the talented Greek bouzouki player Yannis Tatassopoulos (aka Ιωάννης Τατασόπουλος) at one of the many "Bouzouki Bistros" dotting Manhattan’s night club scene and invited him to the studio to play Greek traditional dance numbers like “Tsamiko” and “Tsifteteli” over latin rhythms with a fabulous session band (unfortunately uncredited). The result of the blending musical traditions is astonishing as you can hear in the songs "Oriental Cha-Cha" and "Sirocco" re-issued by Radio Martiko as a seven-inch single on the Mambo Gitano imprint. Listen below.