A steady track in my DJ selection since ca. 15 years, Guem E Zaka´s “Le Serpent” is a classic percussion track from the 1970s. The Nigerian bred, Algerian raised Guem released his first record in 1973. Later, he found a school for African percussions in Paris which led to the album “Guem Et Zaka” on which his young elevens would contribute to the beats of the master. Though heavyily sampled for years “Guem Et Zaka” is still fresh today and a great source of inspiration. There´s strangely no video footage from Guem Et Zaka available except for the great fan video displayed above.

We usually dont feature much what is happening on other record labels, but in case of Las Vegas based Gonjasufi, who released his debut album on Warp Records last week – we have to make an exception. Titled “A Sufi And A Killer” (as it was co-produced by The Gaslamp Killer), with production credits by J-Dilla mate Mainframe AND Flying Lotus (!) this album could quite possibly be the album of the year. Shadowlike noises, ritual chants, and the burning voice of Gonja Sufi make this album a dreamlike, psychedelic meditation on the seemingly lost tradition of African American soul music. Hip hop continues to innovate – outside of hip hop. Thank you Warp records for releasing this album!

Get a teaser of Gonjasufi here:

My remix for Disco Soulsters The Phenomenal Handclap Band was just released on Gomma Records. Listen to it here, buy it at Beatport, Itunes, Junodownload, etc.

Phenomenal Handclap Band – Baby (Daniel Haaksman Remix) by Daniel Haaksman / Man Rec

The original video is here:

Yes, we went corporate – Edu K recently cameo´d at the Bacardi B-Live series with his track “Flutesnoot” and soon we got wasted with too many Cuba Libres. Brodinski and Mixhell already put their retouches on this track, today I´ll give you my remix for Edu´s tropical whistler “Flutesnoot”. Download it from here:

Edu K – Flutesnoot (Daniel Haaksman B-Live Mix) by Daniel Haaksman / Man Rec

As you may know, Man Recordings music is a lot about drums. We love em big, we love em thundering, and we love em played versatile. If a track´s beat ain´t dope enough, it´ll not be released on Man Rec. Period. On top of that, we love great percussions. Coz mostly it´s not the big bassdrum or the hard hitting snare, it´s the percussions that make a good track groove better – err just think about “Kid Conga”, ever noticed it has no snare drum but some tablas that make no snare necessary??

As we thought that there´s been tons of coverages about great drummers, drumbreaks etc., little has been made about percussions. So we now proudly present a new Man Rec blog series : The Man Rec Percussion Masters.

First off we´d like to present Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, an Iranian born percussionist, who brings the most amazing sounds out of traditional Persian percussion pieces such as the Tombak or the Daf. When I first heard his stuff, I thought he must add a lot of efxing on top of his spiel – until I saw the man performane live.

See Mohammad Reza Mortazavi perform here at Berlin´s Passionskirche in December 2008:

If you´re in Berlin this Thursday (11th of March), check Mortazavi out at the Berliner Philarmonie – this should be an orgasmic sound and groove experience!!