Honest Jon’s Records

[Honest Jon’s Records Amazon MP3 store]

The July 2009 issue of Uncut has a small feature on Honest Jon’s Records, and one of their famous patrons, Damon Albarn1. There is also a 16 track sampler of songs put out on the Honest Jon label, some incredible stuff.


“Palace of the Winds” (Hisham Mayet)

Browsing Honest Jon’s Outernational page, discovered at least a dozen albums I want, and a film called Palace of the Winds:

‘Intimate and dreamlike… exploring the music of Saharawi culture from Guelmim in Southern Morocco to the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott.’

Desert blues, right up my alley.

Also have already downloaded


“Sprigs of Time: 78s from the EMI Archive” (Various Artists)

Honest Jon’s has spent the last eighteen months delving through more than 150,000 78 rpm records in the extensive EMI Archives at Hayes, Middlesex. The results of this trawl can be heard on the Hayes Archive series, an epic 12 albums covering early recordings of music from Iraq, Turkey, Caucasia, the Lebanon, Greece, Iran (including sides made in Old Street, London, in 1909), Egypt and the Belgian Congo. The 12 volumes will be released according to the standards of HJ’s esteemed London Is The Place For Me series – with full notes, translations where possible, and wonderful artwork. A giddy summer sampler will run organ rolls from Georgia alongside Tamils impersonating motorised transport in 1906, Kabyle music from Algeria into the songs of Bengali beggars, mambos from 1950s Beirut against the Imperial Palace Band of Japan in 1903


“Open Strings: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings – New Responses” (Various Artists)

Forgotten masterpieces, out-of-this-world improvisations from the 1920s; and dazzling commissions by Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance and co. ‘Dextrous, frenzied, fearless… awesome’ (Plan B).

and have ordered several others. What a great find!


“Guitar Music from the Western Sahara” (Group Doueh)

Sahara desert rock is one of my favorite genres, check out all these great titles from the Sublime Frequency label (a division of Honest Jon’s).

Footnotes:
  1. famously the frontman for Blur []

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