During their first meeting, Max and Alogte decided to go to Alogte's church together the next day to record something on an instrumental by Max. The next morning, Max packed his mobile studio - laptop and USB microphone - in a backpack and after a one-hour drive through the savannah, they reached the church of Namo'o together on Alogte's motorbike. Two singers were already waiting. Max set up the equipment and played the instrumental, a reggae stepper. Alogte immediately offered something that convinced Max. The main subject sat. Max suggested adding a B-part - a first in Frafra Gospel - which was quickly found and in less than an hour “Zota Yinne” was in the can.
Back in Germany, Max immediately set about weaving horns around the vocal phrases. He was very happy that they had created a Frafra gospel song with a full live band - another first. For him, gospel and programmed music represented a contradiction: only the heart of a musician can praise creation, a machine fails here in every respect. So through this studio production Max had given Alogte a live band, which he simply called The Sounds of Joy, in reference to Sun Ra's piece "El is a Sound of Joy".
Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy's 7” single “Zota Yinne”, catalog number PH45002, was the second release on Philophon, the label Max founded in 2014 as a platform for his own productions. The edition was small, but the piece gained cult status in the reggae sound system scene and quickly achieved high prices on the second-hand market as a sought-after collector's item.
In the same year, thanks to a grant, Max came to Ghana with his entire big band and toured the whole country together with Alogte and his singers. For this purpose Max had transcribed some of the old Alogte pieces, including “Mam Yinne Wa”. He had recorded drums for "Mam Yinne Wa" in Berlin with a flutist who played the choir's recurring theme, over which he recorded the vocals during the tour.
While the original version of the song was accompanied by a monotonous midi beat, Max gave free rein to his imagination and created a musical story around the repetitive theme of the choir. The result just sparkled with enthusiasm. The piece takes the listener on a journey through a dream world. It was released as a 7” single in 2016 and became a minor hit over the next two years. That motivated Max to take the next step: a complete album by Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy.
At the end of 2019 the album “Mam Yinne Wa” (PH33005) was released. At the same time, Max packed up his studio and moved to Kumasi in Ghana to bring the album, which was created in a ping-pong process between Berlin and Bolgatanga, live on stages around the world with a newly assembled band from Kumasi. Unfortunately, this project was initially slowed down by the restrictions of the Covid episode, but at the end of 2021 the time had come and Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy came to Europe for the first time and caused a sensation. It then continued in the summer of 2023 & 2024 with festivals such as Roskilde , Glastonbury, Lowlands and Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival in France.