The debut album from Batida, the brainchild of Angolan / Portuguese Pedro Coquenão.
A distinctly modern and vibrant project with its feet firmly rooted in the past, Batida combine samples from old 1970s Angolan tracks with modern electronic dance music. Music is the starting point but through dance, graphics, photography, radio and video, Batida expands, taking in politics and social commentary but always bringing it back to the party.
Being the first of a string of brand new projects, this eponymous first album sees Soundway taking a slightly different direction in 2012 and beyond. Championed mostly for their work in un-earthing and re-releasing classic, rare and vintage tropical recordings, Soundway have started signing new acts that have drawn on and been inspired by the kind of music found on the label’s groundbreaking compilations and re-issues.
What originally started out as a radio show designed to promote new African music has slowly evolved into a collaborative project crossing continents.
Whereas nearly all of kuduro (Angolan electronic music) has no links with its country’s musical heritage, it is deeply engrained in Batida’s music. Sampling tracks from 1970s Angola, Batida is a reinterpretation of Angola’s musical past, bringing it firmly into the modern day.
Batida’s high energy live show features dancers, percussionists, MCs alongside visuals and images (both archive and new) of Angolan streets, war and fragments of tribal life.
“Slippery guitars of classic African dance-band music and a touch of pumping super-modern bass.”
The Telegraph
“It may well be a game-changing 21st century electronic African dance album”
Soundway Records was conceived in 2002 by label owner Miles Cleret whilst returning from Ghana with a hoard of dusty old 45s and LPs that had mostly not been heard outside the former Gold Coast since their original release. Planned on a whim the trip was not one of the carefully planned research expeditions that Miles would later embark on to any number of far-flung tropical destinations. On the contrary he left England with no idea of what he might find or that it might be the start of a career in the record business.
Although the label has it's roots in West Africa the scope has grown to include many other parts of the tropical belt with the aim of making available recordings that have in most cases never been available outside of their original countries and often not even there for over 30 years. Over the years Soundway's modus operandi has been to approach the music from a different angle from many of the more established \"World Music\" labels. By focusing on more obscure artists as well as big names and often concentrating on progressive recordings more in sync with Cleret's generation and background in DJ culture and dance-music. Styles have included afro-beat, funk, highlife, ethio-jazz, molam, calypso, cumbia, champeta, biguine, latin-jazz and disco as well as many unclassifiable recordings.
Since 2012 Soundway has begun releasing new material from a carefully selected handful of contemporary recording artists including acclaimed acts Ondatropica, Bomba Estereo and Ibibio Sound Machine
