Highlife on the move : selected Nigerian & Ghanaian recordings from London & Lagos - 1954-66

"This two-CD compilation covers a period of musical history that remains under-documented but has been hugely influential on the ensuing half century ... Many of the tracks were originally issued on ten-inch 78 rpm shellac discs or seven-inch 45's; however, there can be no quibbles about the sound quality of the compilation. Those thirty-eight tracks feature some twenty-five ensembles, ranging from those including well-recognised names through to quite a few that have long been forgotten. Irrespective of that, the quality of the music is uniformly high; the compiler seems to have selected on that basis more than of celebrity ... Never before re-released, both sides of [Fela Kuti's first] ten-inch 78 rpm single are included here ... This was decades before the "world music" label existed, but the influence of one continent's music on another's was already happening".

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"This two-CD compilation returns us to a fertile epoch when Ghanaian and Nigerian musicians were semi-resident in London, playing in mainstream and jazz bands while nurturing a brand of west African highlife that owed much to the Caribbean. It was sophisticated stuff, with bandleaders like Ginger Johnson and Steve Rhodes making Afro-Calypso tunes such as Brown Skin Girl and Drink a Tea, while a young Fela Kuti, his effervescence already apparent, cut his first sides".

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"Unlike [E.T.] Mensah's highlife, the 38-track Soundway anthology offers a picture that's hardly elegant or graceful at all. It's rougher, ruder and generally more fun ... Some tracks here are well worked-out and quite intricate, others are little more than one brilliant riff repeated. The choice is varied, and the roots of the music are much more apparent than with Mensah. Moody and dense, light and jaunty - this is a great project realised".