Marathon time again, six months exactly after a first taste in Venezia, for my second official attempt at the distance outside of an ironman. As much as I enjoyed many aspects of the race towards la Serenissima, it had left me somewhat frustrated by the result (read race report here) and so really wanting for…
At the start of the summer I had the pleasure to be invited for a guest mix on the ever excellent My Analog Journal YT channel. This first time around Zag came to my flat to film and record a strictly gwoka mix, but now was my turn to blend in with the plants and…
The last race report I wrote dates back to nearly four years, November 2018 to be precise, for a rather simple reason: I haven’t pinned a race number since. What with being well settled in the (wrong) side of my forties, I admittedly didn’t expect to ever do this again, but yet here I come…
In late March ’22, following two cancelled trips in the past two years due to the pandemic, we were finally back in Guadeloupe. Once we’d navigated all the bureaucratic nonsense involved in being able to travel (mainland France’s frontiers were fully opened but not Guadeloupe’s), it was as always a special feeling to set foot…
Two years in the making, the fifth release on our Beauty & the Beat label has finally landed. This project turned out to be quite a labour of love, requiring no less than two sets of test pressings (!), and it is such a great feeling to finally see this out in the flesh (on…
Despite the ongoing pressing plant chaos and ever increasing costs of making records, 2021 saw more than a healthy amount (!) of exceptional releases, on every genre and format imaginable. My previous blog post focused on the singles and here I will put my attention to my favourite albums and reissues. Early in the year…
After a bleak and blank 2020, ’21 was the year we returned to party and started dancing (collectively) again. It took what seemed like forever to get there, but when we did, what a spectacular release that was! A truly “special” moment which seemed to make the traversée du désert that preceded it almost worthwhile.…
Sometime in 2017, when my friend Kay Suzuki first came up with the idea of starting a high quality reissue label, asking a bunch of us to act as curators, the first idea that came to my mind was a project dedicated to gwoka in general, and gwoka moderne in particular. As a frequent visitor…
Towards the end of November 2000 I landed in London with a backpack, one cassette tape and dreams aplenty. Years have mysteriously passed (who knows where the time goes?!) and here I found myself, as Londoner as can be, celebrating twenty years of trials and tribulations in the city. For 20 days (+ 1) in…
