youth stand up! is a collaborative recording project between glasgows green door studio, lebeha drumming center in hopkins, belize, and the tafi cultural institute based in tafi atome, ghana. the results of the collaboration are this nine track album released on autonomous africa. all proceeds from the youth stand up! album sales will be split between tuteme band, belize and tafi cultural institute’s fund to build their recording studio and cultural centre. there will be two 12inches released in late 2015 / early 2016 featuring remixes of tracks from the album by jd twitch, midland, auntie flo and hodge. the 12inches will eau also include an additional bonus track recorded at the original sessions.

tafi allstars is a collaborative recording project between optimo music artists thomas lea clarke (mr tc) and conal blake (whilst) and members of the tafi cultural institute of tafi atome, ghana. after having previously visited tafi atome to take part in the music of the volta region study tours that are organised by tci in collaboration with green door studio, clarke and blake secured funding from creative scotland to travel back to tafi in november 2016 to record a mini-album of tracks that blend the rhythms and melodies of traditional borborbor and agbadza drumming forms and ewe songwriting with electronic instrumentation and dub recording techniques.

the green door studio opened its (confusingly black) doors to glasgows vibrant music community at the end of 2007. set up by three glasgow-based musicians emily maclaren (michael dracula/the lady vanishes), sam smith (mother & the addicts) and jamie greer (park attack), who, sick of using other peoples clinical digital studios and being told by engineers >you cant do that..<, decided to create a musician-friendly space where >actually you can...<.

the globetrotting album concept has returned as hed kandi world series takes on the usa, and after the recent success of world series miami vol 2, it only makes sense to continue this journey through americas evolving electronic music scene. electronic dance music has made it to the forefront of music across the globe, with it recently exploding in the united states. following the success of this yearÕs ultra music festival in miami and electric daisy carnival in las vegas, djÕs were booked to headline major festivals in america such as coachella, lollapalooza and swsx. with 3cds covering los angeles, las vegas and new york, it was difficult to whittle down the massive floor fillers we collected to only 45 tracks that represent the hedonism and glamour of dance music in the top 3 cities of the us.