With a Yamaha organ and a dream, Pops Mohamed started his musical journey in the mid-1970s as the bandleader and composer of Black Disco, creating a hip melange of chill-out jazz with futuristic drum machine sounds and spiritual overtones. His cosmic organ transmissions were accompanied by two of the most sought-after session players on the South African scene, the sax and flute wizard Basil Coetzee, who had risen to fame in 1974 as one of the soloists on the hit “Mannenberg,” and Sipho Gumede, the young bass prodigy who was already rubbing shoulders with the old guard at the outset of his career. Backed at first with polyphonic beats from Mohamed’s electric organ and later taking on a drummer, Black Disco created a signature sound and a trilogy of innovative albums in a burst of studio creativity between 1975 and 1976.

Distilling the group’s recorded output into a single commemorative document, Discovery 1975-1976 compiles cuts from the lauded Night Express album alongside rare gems from the group’s long-out-of-print first and third albums. The newly remastered selection features previously unissued single versions of the mighty “Night Express” itself, a funk juggernaut with piercing flute whistles and rapturous sax cries as well as “Dawn” from the album Black Disco 3, a trippy, flute-driven awakening of soft light and gentle colours.

Notes on this release.

Tracks A2, B2, B4 from the album BLACK DISCO (1975)
Tracks A3, B3 from the album NIGHT EXPRESS (1976)
Tracks A1, A4, B1 from the album BLACK DISCO 3 (1976)

ORGAN AND DRUM MACHINE – Pops Mohamed
TENOR SAX AND FLUTE – Basil Coetzee
BASS – Sipho Gumede / Peter Odendaal (A1, A4, B1)
DRUMS – Peter Morale (A3, B3) / Monty Weber (A1, A4, B1)

Recorded by Peter Ceronio at Gallo Studios
Produced by Rashid Vally

Audio Mastering by Noah Mintz
Design and Layout by Ash Pederick
Compiled and Produced by Calum MacNaughton

Cat. No. ASA103
℗ 1976 As-Shams/The Sun © 2023 As-Shams Archive