On The Floor! - Live at Africadelay, Frankfurt

Karl Hector & The Malcouns

Now-Again, Stones Throw

Karl Hector & The Malcouns is the Afrodelic Kraut Funk outfit from the minds behind the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers. The group recently turned heads with their mindblowing debut album on Stones Throw-offshoot Now-Again Records. With the Afro-tinged funk music originating from the southern Sahara (but recorded in southern Germany) they are following up artists like The Heliocentrics' percussive excursions into the astral realms of psychedelia. The Poets of Rhythm have been travelling the world for almost two decades to showcase their unique formula of deep funk, which includes many different influences such as improvisations and exotic rhythms from Ethiopia to Afghanistan. With countless releases on record labels such as Ninja Tune, Mo Wax, Quannum and Daptone they have often proven they're ahead of the game when it comes to futuristic rhythms, keys and horn sections on top of heavy drum beats. Karl Hector himself has, to date, only appeared on one 7-inch, from 1996, as the leader of the Funk Pilots. For the seminal "Sahara Swing" LP, he has teamed up with Jay Whitefield (producer and guitarist for the Poets of Rhythm and the Whitefield Brothers, and founder of the now defunct Hotpie & Candy Records) and Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija, founders of The Malcouns. Alongside Bo Baral, other members of the Poets of Rhythm and crack Munich-based session musicians, Whitefield, Myland and Curlija have crafted nearly twenty tracks that follow the musical roads that Hector has travelled. The underlying groove that ties these ideas together, of course, is as rooted in James Brown as it is Fela Kuti. As informed by Mulatu Astatke of Ethiopia as it is by Jean-Claude Vannier and Can. The result is an album of the world. Not "world music" but that will appeal to any culture ever transfixed by rhythm on "the one". This live session has been recorded exclusively for Red Bull Music Academy Radio at Africadelay in Frankfurt, a quarterly Afro Music jamboree hosted by Samy Ben Redjeb (head of the incredible Analog Africa record label), Marc Petri (Jazzkeller) and Pedo Knopp (das modular), who's best known as one of the DJs behind Frankfurts legendary LAZY parties. Hotter than Sahara!