Following on to my round up of the singles in part I, here are my favourites albums, compilations and reissues from 2024. It has to be said that, as with the singles, I haven’t been following the flow of new releases as actively as I did in previous years. Of course I still spent a […]
Category: News
2024 – A Year in Music (part I: 12″s, 7″s & album cuts)
What happened in 2024? I’ll try to keep it more sober this time. On the party front, the year was arguably not a revolutionary one, at least not in my bubble. We kept doing doing what we’ve been doing for most of our lives, but doing it well. Always looking to perfect the art of […]
Akiyo – Excursions in Gwoka Vol. 2
For the sixth BATB release, we pursued the ‘Excursions in Gwoka’ series with a second volume putting focus on the legendary carnival outfit from Guadeloupe, Akiyo. The EP contains two original tracks which were originally released in 1993 on Akiyo’s seminal second LP, 𝘔𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘮𝘢𝘯: ‘Déboulé’ and ‘Blo’. The aforementioned album has become increasingly hard to […]
Jaminaround vs Beauty & the Beat – 2024 edition
“Something’s about to come your wayExtend your arms embrace the love(…)Breathe the winds of space and timeLet your senses take controlListen to the rhythm of the cosmic danceGlance far away into the futureLet your mind run through the fields that fill your heart with joyMeanwhile, let your soul inside touch the stars” (from Kuniyuki’s sublime […]
London Marathon 2024
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 […]
Tropical Cosmic Dance with Cedric Woo
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 […]
XTERRA Super Besse XL
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 […]
Lèspri ka a la Gwadloup, printemps 2022
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 […]
Excursions in Gwoka Vol. 1 (BATB 005)
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 […]
2021 – A Year In Music, Part 2 (Albums & Reissues)
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 […]