Joe Mensah - Cry Laughter (2016)

Soundway come through with the goodness once more, offering up a fresh heavyweight reissue of Joe Mensah's Cry Laughter, an extremely rare document of Nigerian funk from the '70s. A rich mixture of poly-rhythmic afro-soul, jazz, highlife and afrobeat it has an undeniable Ghanaian flavour with Joe's arrangements, keyboard-playing and vocal style adding an extra sophistication to proceedings. This album, one of West Africa's very rarest, was recorded for the Decca label in Lagos and only ever released in tiny numbers in Nigeria in 1975. Two of the tracks previously featured on the Ghana Soundz compilation from Soundway but this is the first time it's been officially reissued in its entirety.