Simon Armitage

The Psychedelic Aliens (Ghana -1971)

"Like most stories involving aliens this one seems, well, made up. But it really happened. For a few years in the late 60's to early 70's worlds collided and aliens walked among us. And made music. This magical moment lasted for 3 short years producing only 3 releases: 1 - 4 song EP + 2 - 7"s. Today, these 3 original releases are the most sought after and most elusive African funk records. It took Frank Gossner (Voodoofunk.com, Soulpusher, DJ Franco) 4 years, 9 visits to Ghana, and dozens of newspaper ads and radio announcements to track them down. Psycho African Beat is the complete recorded output of this amazing group and their unprecedented music that combined elements of American soul, funk, garage rock and psych with African rhythms and melodies." - http://www.undergroundhiphop.com

Thanks are due to The Wire Magazine [ http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/5392/ ] for turning me onto this absolutely incredible band. The track in thewire.co.uk podcast is even better than this one, in my opinion. Here's the only song of theirs on youtube. Amazing stuff.

Flo

Florence Poppy Deary is another one of the highly valued Awkward staples. Flo is currently a student of Illustration at the University of Brighton. She has had brilliant work in both of the issues of Awkward magazine that have been published so far. If I have my way there'll be more than one piece of her's in issue 3, which is currently struggling to come together in its own inimitably snail's paced fashion.

Here is the tiny snippet of her stuff that she showed me earlier this afternoon - 

SMELL from Florence Poppy Deary on Vimeo.

Amazing Amiga animation