Hallelujah Picassos announce a brand new remix album ‘Rewind Re-versioned’. It’s a version excursion, riddim-wise styles.
We are releasing a special remix album with 15 remixes of the same song, all in wildly different flavours. Why? That sounds insane.
Last year was the 30th anniversary of Hallelujah Picassos’ single ‘Rewind’ being released. The song quickly became hugely popular with fans and student radio, and was a highlight of our live sets, sung by our drummer Bobbylon from behind the kit.
We’re doing it to remind everyone what a magnificent singer Bob was. He passed away in 2018 and we want to do this project to honour him and his legacy.
We’re going to include a handful of remixes from a wide range of folks who have been active since the time we released it, along with the original version.
Remixers who are involved include Christoph El Truento, Amamelia, Stinky Jim (Unitone Hifi), Sola Rosa, Daniel Maneto, Surly, Timmy Schumacher, Evan Short (Kiljoy, ex Concord Dawn), Mike Hodgson (Misled Convoy, Pitch Black) Joost Langeveld (Subware), and Rachel D.
‘Rewind Re-versioned’ is coming out December 5, 2025 on a limited run of CDs and cassettes, and digital. All formats come with a booklet with photos and tales of Bobbylon from some of the remixers and friends of the band.
Out now, some great Melbourne funk bizz from Cookin' On 3 Burners
... "Cookin’ The Books is the long-awaited album from Australia’s undisputed kings of Hammond soul. It’s their first studio LP in six years - and it’s all fire: deep funk grooves, sweet soul, cinematic vibes, and stacked with heavyweight guest features.
From the break-heavy title track to the bounce of “No Bread For You” and the introspective soul of “Phoenix,” this record covers serious ground without losing the groove. Featuring powerhouse vocalist Stella Angelico, alt-soul luminary Natalie Slade, wordsmith Mantra alongside heartfelt singer Jane Tyrrell, rising voice Wilson Blackley, and a lush string arrangement from Tamil Rogeon, the album strikes a perfect balance between grit and grace.
Captured live to tape with vintage gear at Soul Messin’ Studios, Cookin’ The Books oozes warmth and analog soul — the real deal. Whether you’re crate-digging, needle-dropping, or just vibing out, this is modern funk with old-school heat.
"Want Some Records proudly reissues two explosive gems from Nairobi’s golden funk era: Mapendo (1977) and Fisherman (1976) by The Mighty Cavaliers. Long hidden in collectors’ circles, these records are bold reminders of a time when Kenya’s music scene rivaled the world’s best—groove-heavy, politically charged, and dripping with style.
Formed from Joe Omari’s original Cavaliers in the late 1960s, The Mighty Cavaliers became one of Nairobi’s tightest and most forward-thinking bands. With sharp horns, psychedelic keys, and irresistible rhythms, they brought a cosmopolitan sound to Kenya’s hottest venues, including their famous residency at the legendary Starlight Club.
Both albums were engineered by German sound wizard Detlef Degener, whose studio innovation elevated their music to international standards. Degener introduced the band to cutting-edge synthesizers, multi-track layering, and bold sonic textures that set them apart from their peers.
Mapendo, originally released on EMI Kenya, is the crown jewel—a polished, politically aware masterpiece. Tracks like Baruwa ya Soweto denounce apartheid, Mama Come Home captures exile’s heartbreak, and Africa Tuungane calls for continental unity. It’s socially conscious music you can dance to: sharp, funky, and deeply rooted in East African identity.
Their debut, Fisherman, is rawer but equally striking, with the title track offering a poetic critique of Kenya’s political class under Jomo Kenyatta. Together, these two albums show a band unafraid to experiment, to groove, and to speak truth to power.
Yet behind the music lies a cautionary tale. Like many African artists of the 1970s, The Mighty Cavaliers were exploited by record labels. Their names were erased from Mapendo’s cover, and royalties never materialized. Bassist Bonnie Wanda, now one of the three surviving members, reflects:
“We poured everything into this music. To see our credits missing and our work misused was painful. This reissue is about setting the record straight.”
Despite industry setbacks, The Mighty Cavaliers’ legacy has only grown stronger. Their sound—equal parts Nairobi funk, Afrobeat fire, and soul swagger—captured a city and a continent in motion, as bell-bottomed youth danced through political turbulence. These albums are sonic time capsules, but they feel just as fresh on today’s dancefloors.
Want Some Records is thrilled to bring these classics back, fully remastered and packaged with in-depth liner notes documenting this fascinating chapter of African music history.
With Mapendo and Fisherman, The Mighty Cavaliers reclaim their rightful place as pioneers of Kenya’s funk movement. This is more than a reissue—it’s a resurrection of a sound that shook Nairobi and deserves to move the world.
"Local record production began in 1949. Shortly afterwards, the New Zealand Broadcasting Service (these days known as Radio New Zealand), which controlled almost all radio in the country, established its Purchasing Committee. This group of between four and six employees from the music section of the Wellington Head Office would meet regularly to audition records for airplay.
The discs the committee considered acceptable would then be bought from the record companies in multiple units and distributed to the various regional stations; there, they would be played at the discretion of the individual programmers. This process remained in place until 1988 when the fourth Labour government undertook its deregulation of the radio market.
A set of memos from the Purchasing Committee, held in the audiovisual archive Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, provide some insights into the decisions that were made over nearly four decades.....
In 1954 a series of events, reported in lurid headlines, fed into a public impression that juvenile immorality was on the rise. In June there was the brutal killing by Christchurch teens Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme of Parker’s mother, Honora. The following month the Lower Hutt Magistrates Court heard about “a shocking degree of immoral conduct which spread into sexual orgies” between underage youths of 13 upwards. The court was told these teens would meet in milk bars, where they would arrange their sexual liaisons. Some of the teens rode motorcycles.
As a direct response to the Hutt Valley cases, a special government committee was appointed to look into moral delinquency in children and adolescents, and a copy of their findings was delivered to every New Zealand home. This became known as the Mazengarb Report, after the committee’s chairman Oswald Chettle Mazengarb QC.
... 'Sexy Ways’ (Hank Ballard and the Midnighters) seemed to mirror the incidents that had sparked the Mazengarb Report, and the Purchasing Committee promptly banned them.
But it could be the sound as much as the lyrics that kept records off the airwaves. “Noisy, coarse and crude” was the committee’s verdict on Hank Ballard.
There's a biography of Chris Knox out this week - the author Craig Robertson contacted me a few years ago, as back in 1995 when I was at Ak Uni, I made a half hour documentary on Chris and he wanted to see it. Looking forward to seeing the finished book.
Last time it had a public screening was when a guy at AUT tracked me down and played it as part of a Chris Knox film night in 2014 (shot, Dave Yetton).
Anyway, I dug out the digital file and it's now online, enjoy! Featuring Barbara Ward, Alec Bathgate, Simon Grigg, Doug Hood (RIP), Murray Cammick, Lesley Paris among others....
Here is the latest release by Hallelujah Picassos, called All Systems Go. The title has two meanings but is not a double entendre, and sees the band swimming in a cacophony of polyphonic bliss, with a vocal battle chant "All Systems Go".
Slamming and drifting, through a banging riddim, crunchy keyboards that is the latest HP offering to the Euterpe, the muse of music, and for the public on Bandcamp, out Friday 19 Sept 2025.
We’ve made a music video for the song, shot and edited by band member Drew McCormack in glorious black and white, with animations by Roland Rorschach.
Hallelujah Picassos are part of the awesome lineup of bands playing ‘ToneFest’, returning for the third year at Whammy on Nov 1st, 2025. Starts early with an all ages show from 4pm, followed by 8pm show (R18).
Tone Exchange presents Tone Fest 2025, at Whammy Bar
all ages 4 - 7pm 4.14 Text To Speech 4.45 Steel Wool 5.15 Crying Ivy 5.45 Sprawl 6.15 Snuffer
Moscow funk outfit The Diasonics serve up a new single of their upcoming album on Record Kicks, out Oct 3rd 2025.
"After the hypnotic psychedelic disco single “Oriole” and the funk stormer “Chickadee”, The Diasonics, Moscow’s instrumental soul-funk visionaries, unleash “Larks”, their third single and yet another chapter in the bird-themed journey leading up to their new album “Ornithology”, out on October 3 on LP, CD and digital platforms via Record Kicks.
With “Larks”, out now on all digital platforms, the band expands its sonic palette, also thanks to Diana Greb on vocals. The single’s release comes with an official video: an animated surreal vintage clip that develops the visual concept of the new album. The video was directed by Anna Kukleva, designer and illustrator based in France who works under the name Cactus Under Rainbow. Her work draws inspiration from 60s & 70s art, hand drawn vintage posters and natural landscapes in their simplicity and beauty."
Marbecks have announced they are closing their Queens Arcade store on Oct 31st 2025, via Facebook: "After more than nine decades in the iconic Queens Arcade, we are closing the doors of our physical store.
But...we are far from saying goodbye! Marbecks will continue to operate online, offering our exceptional range of new releases and the extensive collections of pop, jazz and classical that music lovers have come to trust.
The move to an online store marks the beginning of a new chapter for us, ensuring that you will continue to access the best in music, delivered straight to your door. We will also be only a call away for those who prefer to order by phone or check in for a chat.
Plans are also underway for special Marbecks pop-up events at festivals and music gatherings around the country, keeping the spirit of the store alive for those who love the in-person experience.
With the move to an online-only store, we simply can’t take all of our stock with us. To celebrate our time in Queens Arcade a huge sale begins today, Monday 1 September, both in store and online, with 25% off all in stock items (excluding gift vouchers, new releases and customer orders)."
Owner Roger Marbeck told RNZ that the store closure was due to high rent, declining foot traffic, and changes in consumer behaviour had made it unfeasible to continue. He said closing the Queen Street store was a tough but necessary decision.
"Marbecks is a great store. It's got great people and great customers, and they are friends for life. The thing is that it's changed, and to keep it going and be able to serve the customers we've got, we have to adapt."
The story was covered by TV One News, NZ Herald,RNZ, and Stuff, none of who asked if there would be any staff losing their jobs in the move. They just quoted the press release. Which I know is a common trend amongst time poor journos. But this is a business story, not just retail.
I have heard that all the existing staff will lose their jobs, none are moving to the new iteration of Marbecks. Some staff have worked there for over 25 years, so there's a huge loss of knowledge.
Marbecks bought an existing record store in Queens Arcade in 1934 from R W Strong as "The Record Shop" at store 15, Queen's Arcade, who in turn bought the same business from Caddell's Ltd who started it at Queen's Arcade in 1930, selling Columbia records. The Marbecks name appeared from the 1940s.
Here's some cool live footage - James White and the Blacks live in 1980, with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (Blondie) guesting. So how did James connect with Chris and Debbie?
James White, or James Chance as he was previously known, dropped out of music school in Wisconsin and moved to New York on the last week of 1975.
James Chance: “I first came to New York on December 27th 1975. I’d been playing sax in Milwaukee, with a band called Death. Walls of feedback. Total incomprehension. I read in The Village Voice there was all this free-type loft jazz happening in Soho, plus little ads for ‘Ramones’ and ‘Television’, and what the hell is a ‘CBGBs’?
"That first night there was a concert with Lester Bowie on Avenue C and Third. I knew nothing about that neighbourhood. I started walking east on Bleecker. There’s CBGBs! Then all of a sudden there’s all these buildings falling down, burned out, vacant lots full of debris, bricks and stones everywhere. Somehow it didn't feel dangerous. In Milwaukee I’d walk around, fantasising about blowing people’s heads off. Here, I’m looking at garbage piled six feet high and I feel at home. I felt like I fit in.” (Mojo interview, 2017)
His first band in New York was helmed by Lydia Lunch, called Teenage Jesus and The Jerks.
Chance: "I met Lydia Lunch at CBGB’s. She was dancing — and no one danced there. In the Midwest everybody danced, and I missed that. I thought it was really stupid that everyone in New York was more concerned with looking cool. She was dancing in the aisles, so I introduced myself. She’d just come down from Rochester and she showed me this long prose poem she’d written. I was really impressed with it.
"By that time I had an apartment on 2nd Street between A and B. It cost about $110 a month. I think it’d been a drug den because it was all boarded up. One day she knocked on my door and said she needed a place to stay. So we lived together for a year or more. It wasn’t like a boyfriend-girlfriend thing. She got some old beat-up guitar and started showing me her songs. I encouraged her.
"So I ended up being in Teenage Jesus for most of ’77. Then she kicked me out because she wanted it to be even more minimal than it already was." (Purple mag interview, 2011)
He went on to form his own band, Contortions, later James Chance and the Contortions, in 1978.
He met Anya Phillips, who he described as a real presence on the scene - they become couple.
Chance: "I watched her from afar and a couple times I tried to talk to her and got slapped down, completely. Lydia hated Anya. She’d plot against her, saying, like, 'Let’s do this and let’s do that to Anya!' And then Anya met a German filmmaker and she went to Germany for a while, and when she came back I was doing the early gigs with The Contortions.
"That X magazine benefit was the first one she came to and the first time I went into the audience attacking people. I sort of worked my way to the back of the audience. She was there sitting in a chair. I saw her and thought, 'Should I attack her? No, better not.' But she came up to me afterward and we started hanging out, and somehow she decided to be Teenage Jesus’s manager. That was a real disaster. I don’t think Lydia ever did one thing that Anya suggested. Lydia did whatever she wanted, so it didn’t last long. Then Anya decided to manage The Contortions, who she didn’t like at all."
The Contortions featured on the seminal no wave compilation 'No New York' produced by Brian Eno, although Chance described it as more of a field document, noting Eno got the bands to set up and play live, which was the extent of his 'producing'.
They recorded their debut album 'Buy' for Ze Records in 1979, featuring their wonderfully angular jagged funk, most notably on the song 'Contort yourself'. That same year, one of the bosses at Ze Records asked James to make a disco album.
Chance: "When we did the Off White album Michael Zilkha, we had a contract with him for the Contortions, we were about to do the Buy album and he said, 'I have another thing in mind. I’m going to give you a budget, and I want you to do a disco album.' Something for $10,000, which wasn’t too bad for an idea as off-the-wall as that. But he didn’t elaborate on it more than that. He just said, 'I want it to be your idea of disco,' and he left it at that.
"He didn’t come to the sessions; he just left it to me to figure out what I was going to do that had some relationship to disco. You couldn’t help to listen to disco then. It was omnipresent. You didn’t have to go to disco clubs, you would hear it in a cab, you would hear it in the stores… you would hear it everywhere.
"So I thought I’d make a disco version of “Contort Yourself.” There was an earlier version that was faster. So what happened was we went to a black disco in St. Paul and somehow convinced the DJ to play it, and people were just completely baffled, and I realized it was too fast for disco. At that time my tempo was influenced by punk rock, so everything was really fast.
"Anyway, Michael decided we needed a new version that was more like disco, so he called August Darnell [aka Kid Creole], who was one of his artists, and he just literally slowed the track down mechanically, and he wrote a new guitar part and put that himself and put background vocals and claps. I wasn’t even there, he just did all that himself, and I just went in and did a new vocal ... I liked it. So it wasn’t really collaboration. He added his own take without consulting me. Which was fine with me! I don’t really collaborate with people too much in terms with sitting down and writing a song." (Vice, Sept 2015 interview)
Ze Records decided to do a festive album in 1981 titled 'A Christmas Record', getting acts on the label to write their own Christmas songs, with NYC via Akron Ohio's The Waitresses delivering an oddball hit 'Christmas Wrapping', alongside Was Not Was, Kid Creole, Suicide, and Material with Nona Hendryx. Chance contributed a tune to the 1982 re-release, the delightfully named 'Christmas with Satan'.
After the Contortions' album came out, the band fell apart and Chance recruited a new lineup including musicians from the downtown jazz scene, including Lester Bowie’s younger brother Joseph, who later started the band Defunkt.
Chance: “Punks hated jazz. The first black faces in No Wave were in my band. We became the top live draw in New York, Anya was going to manage the Mudd Club, but then she had a huge feud with the co-owner.
"Then our Ze Records relationship got destroyed because [label boss] Michael Zilkha hired someone who took a personal grudge against us. We started recording for Chris Stein’s label [Animal Records], then Anya got sick. Then Blondie broke up and Chrysalis dropped Chris’ label. I called my agent one day and there was no agent.” (Mojo interview, 2017) Anya Phillips died of cancer in 1981.
Chance was keen on covering James Brown with his bands, which is probably why they are doing 'I Feel Good' in this live clip from 1980....
In this next clip, Debbie Harry is singing Chic's 'Good Times'. Her and Stein took Chic's Nile Rogers uptown to a rap show in 1979 and Rogers heard the DJs playing 'his' song. Except it had people talking over it. And that's how he discovered that Sugarhill Records had borrowed Chic's tune for 'Rapper's Delight', and not asked him for permission. He later came to an agreement to get a songwriting credit on it for him and his musical partner Bernard Edwards.
A book about record covers with maps on them, what's not to like? Created by Australian cartographer Damien Saunder.
"This truly unique atlas of album covers, each featuring a map, is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
Presenting 415 album covers – beautifully reproduced, expertly laid out and accompanied by deeply researched text – Maps on Vinyl will especially appeal to map enthusiasts, vinyl junkies, music fans, graphic designers and artists.
The book is the brainchild of renowned Australian cartographer Damien Saunder, whose expertise has been utilised by Apple, National Geographic, Earth (the world’s largest atlas) and even Roger Federer. A keen crate-digger, he has amassed possibly the world’s most extensive private collection of records featuring maps on their covers, resulting in this one-of-a-kind book.
Records by artists including Madonna, Oasis, Coldplay, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, XTC, MC5, Queen, New Order, James Brown, Brian Eno and Weezer are featured, with cover art created by many giants of the design world, including Peter Saville, Curtis McNair, Richard Gray, Alton Kelly, Stanley Mouse, Neville Garrick, Roger Dean and Pedro Bell.
The records headlined span music from 1939 to today, and the book is divided into eight chapters highlighting different aspects of the collection – ‘C(art)ography’, ‘We Built This City’, ‘On the Road’, ‘African Beats’, ‘Astroworlds’, ‘Ocean Whispers’, ‘Maps with Attitude’ and ‘Music from Here’.
Maps on Vinyl is a beautiful artefact, but it’s also an important historical and cultural document, revealing how maps have been used in album cover design to reinforce a lyrical story, share a political view, express concern for the state of the world or creatively identify the origins of the music and the people who make it."
