Shanachie Records - C/D/WTF?

While we're talking about really, really weird labels with a focus of sorts on "world music" can we talk about the incredibly disappointing catalog of Shanachie Records? Not including titles on Yazoo (which is owned by Shanache/R. Nevins), it's maybe 90% world fusion/celtic new age or underground pop-county, and 10% amazing reissues of pre-war american & ethnic music.

― ian, Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, that label has really broadly bad taste. Almost deserves it's own thread

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:00 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Although they did put out this:

http://www.shanachie.com/images/cdimages/66034.jpg

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:01 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

And I think also Ebenezer Obey - Juju Jubilee which is good

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:01 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh hey I forgot also Indestructible Beat of Soweto, which is not a personal favorite but nonetheless a commendable release, I think

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:02 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

GLOBAL NOIZE

Global Noize is a ground-breaking jazz/funk/world fusion project that mixes DJ Logic's turntable wizardry with irresistible funk grooves, impressive jazz solos and vocal/sound textures from around the world.

Global Noize is co-produced by DJ Logic and Jason Miles. DJ Logic is one of the world's best known and most sought after DJ/mixers. His collaberations with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, Blues Traveller's John Popper and Living Colour's Vernon Reid, along with his own solo recordings, have given him a large world-wide base in the jam-band, club and alternative music worlds. Jason Miles is noted for his work with Miles Davis, Marcus Miller and Luther Vandross.

― ian, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:03 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

Also their cover art is so mind-bogglingly terrible! (xpost)

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:04 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I've got a few good Shanachie records. Paddy Killoran and Michael Coleman compilations.

― ian, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:04 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Shanachie put out a mind-boggling FIVE Silly Wizard albums.

― ian, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:05 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://www.shanachie.com/images/cdimages/5151.jpg
lol

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:05 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ghost World soundtrack.

― ian, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:06 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

also lolllll @ shanachie records

college music director's nemesis in the 90s, send five copies of everything and fill up a mail crate worth of crap in under a month

and maybe one out of every 50 would be some halfway decent reggae record

― dmr, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:21 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yea I wanna take chances on those Shananchie ones but jeeeez

― psychgawsple, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:23 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I had a few of their albums of super-masterful fingerpicking guitarists playing music you never much cared to here on fingerpicked guitar.

― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:23 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh yeah they did a bunch of stuff like "Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Play Your Favorite Christmas Jams Vol. 7" (xpost)

― dmr, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:28 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think they put out a bunch of Duck Baker records that my guitar teacher had me listen to. There's something so inexplicably boring about that guy's playing.

Classic for records by King Sunny Ade, Lady Blacksmith Mambazo, Culture, Dennis Brown, Augustus Pablo, Yellowman, Eek A Mouse plus some great records by Steeleye Span.

yeah i have a bunch of good stuff from shanachie, but i don't think i really understand them. they seem blurry to me. at least i sort of get what putumayo is, kind of a 10,000-villages vibe. and womad and luaka bop have i think identifiable aesthetics. but shanachie seems kind of betwixt and between.

I'm surprised to encounter the hatred here. Shanachie was at the forefront of bringing remarkable African popular music releases to the States in the 1980s and early 1990s. Just pulled out a sampler from 1999 called African Ambience which serves as a useful tour of their high points esp. Loketo's"Extra Ball," one of my all-time fave soukous tracks.

started as irish music label and then branched out when world music started to be a marketable thing in the 80s, no?
ha xpost

i have a few planxty records, those are good!

oh no KJB, please don't mistake my ambivalence for hatred. some of those records they put out are great! they're just such a WEIRD label, putting out a lot of stuff that is totally off my radar.

http://www.shanachie.com/images/cdimages/5165-big.jpg

http://www.shanachie.com/images/cdimages/5159.jpg

http://www.shanachie.com/images/cdimages/5771-big.jpg

"Minibar"

Ok, I just ate like three bowls of honey nut cheerios and watched a shitload of bizarre King Sunny Ade videos on youtube and I am way too amped up for 1am on a schoolnight. I think I need to close the laptop now.

http://www.afropop.org/img/world_music/african_music/world_music/cameroonles-tetes-brulees-bio.gif

Les Têtes Brulées, a punk-styled bitkutsi band from Camaroon, was a revelation when I first heard their debut in 1990.

I would love to see the documentary of their 1987 tour, Man No Run, filmed by Claire Denis just after her Chocolat. Evidently their performance antics weren't limited to the body paint. They'd play football onstage whilst playing their fast paced afropop.

Also, seconding the love for Loketo's "Extra Ball". You don't really need much modern soukous, because it all DOES begin to sound the same, but the guitarist Diblo Dibala does transcend the genre.

Yes. Its a song about pinball.

Never thought to look on youtube for a video. Thanx, derelict! Dibala looks way too chill to be making such a hyper, startripping sound. At 5:25, he's all like "yeah I play 500 notes in a minute - no big whoop." Fave moment: the bassy synthy thing that comes in at 3:55. Also the fuzz guitar at 4:38. You said it, derelict - transcendent.

putting out a lot of stuff that is totally off my radar

Ah ok gotcha, ian.

I think a guy named Randall Grass who was once a music critic worked for Shanachie for awhile and coordinated all those great African releases. I have fond memories of seeing Les Têtes Brulées (although less than find memories of my cassette recorder not working right when I interviewed them) at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum, and Diblo Dibala (with and with Loketo) numerous times (last time was about 3 years ago at 2 a.m. with 15 other people in a club outside D.C.). Yea, lots of Congolese soukous sounds the same, but the current stuff (they're back to calling it Congolese rumba as it is slightly different) is still worth checking out. JB Mpiana and Wenga BCBG are touring America right now and worth checking out. There's an African music forum that I linked to over at the Rolling Whirled Music 2008 thread that includes more details about them. The Congolese emigrees who post there still love their music. They're down on Diblo now for the same reason I am--he's become too scattershot--jumping from soukous to schlocky rock to whatever from song to song. Still an amazing player and real nice guy--he just needs a new band and someone to help keep him focussed.

Skatalites "Greetings From Skamania" was pretty damn good.

they put out the best (IMO) Linton Kwesi Johnson record, the sadly overlooked Tings and Times.

I guess maybe they're partly just guilty of not building a consistent identity as a label?

The first Yo Miles! record is great, but I don't know if the other ones are good, or even if they're on Shanachie.

Classic for records by King Sunny Ade, Lady Blacksmith Mambazo, Culture, Dennis Brown, Augustus Pablo, Yellowman, Eek A Mouse
OTM. When I saw this thread, I thought "yeah, that always was a weird label but there is at least one great record they put out over here" and then I went to their website and saw
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419ET3P2ZTL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

in the early 90's the only Fela CD I remember seeing in stores was Shanachie's "Original Sufferhead" compilation w/ "Sorrow Tears and Blood" & "ITT"

Another instance of their "let's see if this'll stick" inconsistency: Punk: Lost + Found (tracklisting here). Still, for me, they can see if death metal will stick. Just gimme gimme gimme those African releases. And the Culture one. And a few of those Yazoos.

like i mentioned upthread, the likely reason they are all over the map with shit is because the founders (and maybe the people still running it)were celtic music guys who probably only have a limited background in the other genres but saw that they could make ok money releasing the non-irish "ethnic" stuff. i mean, back in the 70s the market for celtic stuff was not too large so they needed to branch out a bit.

they put out the best (IMO) Linton Kwesi Johnson record, the sadly overlooked Tings and Times.

OK I need this now.

Yeah come to think of it, they were hardly slouches in the reggae department. And come to think of it more, my two fave LKJ releases were the Shanachie ones, the hot 1985 live twofer, and Tings An' Times.

Augustus Pablo / Various - The Mystic World Of... The Rockers Story (Shanachie) 4xCD/1xDVD Box

Firstly, the facts. Overseen by Shanachie’s Randall Grass with input from Pablo associates and aficionados worldwide including Pablo’s business manager Joan Higgins and his widow Karen Scott, this is an ambitious four CD collection, beautifully illustrated and packaged as a fold out presentation pack that includes a twenty page booklet featuring several never seen before photos of Pablo and others augmented by a short DVD feature containing footage of Pablo in concert during the late eighties, and all to brief but priceless footage of Pablo and Hugh Mundell from 1979 shot as part of the Word Sound & Power documentary but never used

shanachie was/is mostly about licensing albums from other labels, be they french or british or african or jamaican. and a lot of the stuff they license is good. think of all the stuff they licensed from topic in the UK.

although shanachie probably had the worst in-house graphic designers ever. they would take perfectly decent album artwork and fuck it all to pieces for their reissues. maybe as bad as arhoolie in the CD era, but arhoolie has this really friendly running-this-label-out-of-my-kitchen vibe that means i can never really hate on them (they have really nice radio reps too, at least they did in the late 90s). shanachie seems weirdly impersonal by comparison.

yazoo, now a part of shanachie (has been part of shanachie since, what, the late 1980s?) put out tons of great shit, although the comps they released in the vinyl era are a little more idiosyncratic and fun. yazoo's releases of e.g. charley patton, blind lemon jefferson, etc. sound better than any others even if they look like your younger brother who just learned photoshop crapped them out on a monday morning. and the ethic-music comps are just O_O.

that said, shanachie has put out all manner of amazingly horrible crap.

arhoolie has amazing quality control, mostly because the folks associated with the label are really experts with finely-tuned B.S. detectors. shanachie is pretty scattershot by comparison.