New WOO - Wave from the WOOniverse

Records/Books
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Org Music / Loantaka Records will release this 2LP album with new Bernie material on RSD 2024 (April 20).

wave_from_the_wooniverse

The tracks on this album are originally unfinished Bernie-tracks, that different artists played on and completed. It will apparently also include an unreleased Funkadelic track called Contusion. Really interesting! I wonder what year it’s from.

Here’s the tracklist.

A1 Intro (Reflections on a Bird)
A2 Distant Star - feat Jerry Harrison
A3 What Have they Done to My Funk - feat Bootsy, Michael Moon Reuben, Ouiwey and Buckethead
A4 Heapin’ Bowl of Gumbo - feat Leo Nocentelli, Fred Wesley and Stanton Moore

B1 Re-Enter Black Light (Phase II) - feat Sean Ono Lennon
B2 The Big WOO - feat Fred Schneider, Marco Benevento and Steve Scales
B3 Greenpoint - feat Steven Bernstein

C1 Soldiers of the Stars - feat Daru Jones and Eric McFadden
C2 When The Rain Subsides - feat Will Calhoun
C3 Pedro WOO - feat Mike Watt
C4 Contusion (Funkadelic)

D1 Transcendence - feat Marc Ribot and Norwood Fisher
D2 Wave From the WOOniverse - feat Miho Hatori

It will cost $45. It’s a ‘RSD First’-release with a quantity of 2000. RSD First means that it may be released to other retailers in the future.

I could only find it on the US record store day site, so don’t know if it’s an only-US-RSD-release or if it will drop later in Europe…

Here’s links to orgmusic and recordstoreday.

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Wowzers! Amazing. How much more unreleased Bernie music could there be. The guy was so prolific and featured on so many recordings while he was alive, I’m still shocked that it’s 8 years after he died and we’re seeing completely new recordings seeing the light of day. We are blessed. What a time to be alive.

I won’t be buying this, and probably won’t even have an opportunity to buy it. But I’m certainly excited to see it come out on CD or at least in digital form. My most anticipated release of the year, I’m sure.

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He recorded so much it’s crazy :slightly_smiling_face:. On Bernie’s fb page it says “more ways to listen will be coming around after”. So yeah, CD or digital.

I really like the cover. It’s by Raeghan Buchanan that also made the awesome book The Secret History of Black Punk.

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Just got halfway through this album…wow! I had high hopes & they have been exceeded. This might be my favorite Bernie release.

The only disappointing thing is its not on purple vinyl.

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I also really like it! Was worried it would be too eclectic, a mashup of too many styles, but that’s not the case. It flows really nicely. Was also positively surprised that it had Mobile Fidelity type of inner sleeves. Feels like they’ve thought about the details.

The ones I like the most (at the moment :slightly_smiling_face:) is Intro (Reflections on a Bird), Re-Enter Black Light and the title track. The title track makes me think of early hiphop beats.

For y’all that haven’t got it yet, it doesn’t say on the record from what year the Funkadelic track is from. But it sounds like an early Funkadelic jam. 3 minutes with Eddie, Billy, Tiki and Bernie. Nice stuff!

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I went out a bought this early Saturday morning and listened to it the rest of the day. It’s just one hard funk bomb after another. Man there are some serious grooves on here.

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(My first post on the forum!)

I got this on Record Store Day but didn’t have access to my turntable until this week. Finally got to hear it and Wow! I think this might be my favorite release from Bernie since… EVER!

This is a GREAT record. Judie and/or whomever she got to help her with the compilation did a fantastic job.

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Welcome to the forum @djThunderfunk!

I believe Evan Taylor (the drummer of Bernie Worrell Orchestra) was the driving force behind this project.

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Thanks for the welcome and the info! He did an amazing job compiling because it all fits so well together.

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Oh! @djThunderfunk, you’re here, too? :grin: (Databank from the purple board here :blush:)

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I’m a noob! :laughing:

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@djThunderfunk testin’ positive 4 the funk…

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I’ll gladly p in anybody’s cup. :sunglasses:

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If anybody found this topic from an external link, here’s another topic about the CD.

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Judie wrote on fb that it was recorded when Bernie first joined. So I guess it’s from 1970 (or maybe late 1969?).

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Not too long ago this album got a Japan CD release. It got an extra disc with 3 bonus tracks. You can listen to snippets of them over at Juno.

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Nice! I came in here to say this, since this showed up on Discogs lately.

Not only that, but it has the nicer artwork from the LP, instead of from the 1CD version.

Also, for anyone wondering, “Lucy” is not the same recording from the “Bernie Worrell and the Woo Warriors Live” EP that can be found on Bandcamp (and that EP is definitely not Live but was for some reason given that title when it was added to Bandcamp a few years ago).

EDIT: I wasn’t 100% certain that I was going to buy it, but as of now that’s a moot point because it’s marked as sold out. Kinda strange for something with such niche appeal, that was released in the past month.

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Seems like Juno only had one or two copies. But if you really want it, you can get it from Amazon Japan or HMV Japan.

The liner notes in the Japanese release had almost nothing about who’s playing on the bonus tracks. So I talked to Evan Taylor and he gave me all the info. Big shout out to Evan! :fire:

Everybody Needs A Wizard
Original recording unknown.

Bernie Worrell - keys
Nick Jackson - vocals
Evan Taylor - backing vocals
Michael “Moon” Rueben - guitars
Michael Moore Jerome - drums
Justin Mullens - trumpet
Shlomi Cohen - saxes

Horns arranged by Justin Mullens
Mixed by Spencer Guerra (at Loantaka Sound, Los Angeles, CA)
Produced by Evan Taylor

Lucy
Original sessions from sometime in the 1990s. Location unknown. Track sheets lost. As @Seventieslord already pointed out, this is a new version of the track Lucy that’s on that “live” EP on bandcamp.

Bernie Worrell - keys, vocals
Catherine Russell - vocals
Evan Taylor - drums, backing vocals, claps
Tim Young - guitar
Ana Becker - chant vocals
Justin Mullens - trumpet
Peter Hess - saxes
John Nyboer - claps
DJ Ethos - scratching

Horns arranged by Justin Mullens
Mixed by Spencer Guerra
Produced by Evan Taylor

Additional engineering by Spencer Guerra, Ana Becker, Tim Young and DJ Ethos

La Vignette De La Maestro
This is a really beautiful track. It’s a re-imagination of the track Judicious that’s on Bernie’s album I Don’t Even Know. The multi track was lost, so Spencer Guerra (their engineer) had to isolate the frequencies from that master to mix it.

Lili was supposed to be on the initial release of “Wave from the WOOniverse”, but they weren’t able to coordinate the schedules. They wanted to work with a track that was really emotional and true to Bernie’s heart. He adored Lili so it seemed fitting that they would be joined again.

Bernie Worrell - keys
Lili Haydn - violin

Mixed by Spencer Guerra
Produced by Bernie Worrell, Lili Haydn, Spencer Guerra and Evan Taylor

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