Search:migrant

Blocaus series comes with its 7th release, "Migrant Experience" EP by Parisian artist Von Grall, where he takes his signature deep techno sound to a new level. We're extremely happy to welcome him for his debut EP on the label. Von Grall has built a solid reputation on the scene; releasing on esteemed techno labels like Midgar, Semantica, Modularz amongst many others. This is Von Grall at his best, featuring 3 deep and dark techno cuts and a killer remix by Shifted. Don't miss it!

Anthony Hüseyin presents their new album O Geliyor (Making O), in which they return to the rediscovery of their gender, their childhood, and their attachment to Zeki Müren.

Müren is widely regarded as the most important queer exponent in the history of Turkish Art Music (Türk Sanat Müzigi). This genre of music was open to musical hybridism, and Müren himself also included elements of jazz and pop music.
Stylistically, O Geliyor (Making O) is a combination of contemporary discoid electro-pop music, based on Turkish Art Music by Zeki Müren. After successful current re-interpretations of Turkish music styles like neo-Anatolian pop and neo-Arabesk, this album provides a first take on neo-Turkish Art Music.

The album title is referring to the third genderless person pronoun in Turkish called "O", which encompasses all gender possibilities in one word. The album reflects on the memories that haunt us and the indescribable wounds of displacement. Set against the backdrop of Berlin, home to many immigrants and political and queer refugees, it exposes the profound emptiness in a metropolis wishing to imagine itself as a safe haven for the free-spirited, yet always reminding the Other that they don't belong. At the same time, it delivers anthems for the displaced, for the queer migrants who traverse internal and external landscapes in search of a place called home.

Anthony Hüseyin is a non-binary musician and performance artist of Kurdish-Turkish and Arabic descent who works with voice, text, film, dance, and installation. Raised in Urfa in Southeastern Turkey, where they learned traditional local music, they went on to study both classical and jazz singing in Istanbul and Rotterdam. Their works combine the personal and political to explore memory, identity, community, collective consciousness, and the body.

"After being praised as one of the best releases of 2025 by multiple platforms, the highly praised debut album from Obeka lands on vinyl via YUKU.

The rhythmic dynamics and emotive attitudes of A World No More captures the density of soundsystem culture in Obeka's ancestral roots. YUKU presents the Bermudians debut album capturing a Neo-Colonial dystopia, protest and Afro-Futurism hyperextended through decaying sonic structures of a dark past and its grievances which very much exist today.

Growing into adulthood within the walls of British and European Colonial systems meant the disconnection and lostness in a new country hid me from the world at a young age. Unlike London's vast and culturally engaging migrant communities, the industrial milling town of Stockport introduced a coldness towards people from other countries I experienced in my first year after relocating from Bermuda. I couldn't understand why. Whether cold words thrown towards me or actions upon other people who look like me, it has shown to be a dooming societal virus with no cure. The most comfort was found through what was familiar - drums and rhythmic spirituality of my homeland. It was a safe-haven, a place to empty the anger and confusion. It's been 15 years since relocating and as my sound evolved, it seems classism, racism, oppression and civil control of ethnic peoples has become worse - even now more legalised and normalised. Ogun (a powerful Yoruba deity associated with anger, justice and war) acts as the opening sequence of the record and its symbolism. Using distorted bass frequencies and dissected Regga-Dub immersed in live-sampled ghostly voices of the lost ones. This sonic exercising is also applied in Drillaman - a stampede of industrial framework and metallic instruments wielded over moody Dancehall MC'ing, magnifying two parallel worlds in cocooned evolution. The resurrection of Transatlantic African cultures and identity have never been silenced, rather carried elsewhere through trade routes of enslavement, which was pivotal when composing and completing the album upon returning home to the Caribbean for the first time ever. After reconnecting with my heritage my blurred vision of what's wrong in the world became so clear. Guidance in empty plains seek truth throughout the pain - A statement of finding oneself expressed on the poetic closing track A World No More.

On Fawohodie (A West African Adinkra symbol that represents independence, freedom, and emancipation stamped on the album cover) the motive and atmosphere begins to change. Afro-Caribbean idealism which refers to the philosophical concept that emphasizes the interconnectedness of individuals and the importance of community, often contrasting with Western individualism, begins to take shape in a new universe. We can co-exist. The track framework uses machine-led software forming frequencies we have no control over, then manipulated through decomposing soundscapes, scattered hand-drums and human-made weapons of control - exposing the hidden disparity that's been carried over generations whilst balancing hopeful and musical foundations towards equality and peace. On Pressure and Kuduro! the writing direction attempts to wake people up. Not settling for a composed approach like in past projects, quite the opposite. A call for native sonic awareness, dismantled vocals of protests, eroded percussion using chains, gears and motorised harmonies sculpted in challenging abstract behaviors far outside my comfort zone. A direct abrasiveness and weight I want people to feel, whilst finding hope and solace through enchanting choirs and hypnotic basslines in complete synchrony.

"Purity in sound manifests when you least expect it. The smallest memory or feeling grows from a seed into a sonic language that you, and only you can interpret and release back into the world." "

Founded in Puebla City in 1998 by Alberto Tlahuetl, Grupo Soñador played a key role in shaping a distinct regional take on cumbia at a time when the genre was largely dominated by Mexico City and the coastal scenes. Working with minimal resources, home recordings, cassettes, and affordable keyboards, the group developed a clean, melodic, and dance-driven sound that resonated deeply within the sonidero circuit. Their breakthrough track El Paso del Gigante (2001), spread organically through DJs and street dances, establishing Grupo Soñador as a cornerstone of Puebla’s emerging musical identity. Without a formal label structure, their music travelled hand to hand, from local fairs to migrant communities in the United States, becoming part of a wider underground network of circulation. Blending electronic instrumentation with sonidero rhythms, Grupo Soñador helped place Puebla on Mexico’s cumbia map, not through industry infrastructure, but through the dance floor.

Gatefold Sleeve

M’Bamina – African Roll (1975)
The story of an album born between Africa, Italy, and the nightclub culture of the 1970s
In the heart of 1970s Italy — a country undergoing profound social change and a music scene just beginning to open itself to distant sounds and cultures — an extraordinary, almost improbable story took shape. It is the story of a group of young African musicians who found their way to Europe, of a Turin nightclub that became a crossroads for communities and experimenters, and of an album which, released in small numbers and largely unnoticed at the time, is now considered a rare jewel of Afro-fusion.
The band called themselves M’Bamina — an ensemble of musicians from Congo, Cameroon, and Benin, who arrived in Italy in the early Seventies. Settling between northern Italy and the Pavia area, they began performing in small clubs and community events, bringing with them a vibrant rhythmic heritage: African polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, funk-infused bass lines, and Caribbean or Afro-Latin colours absorbed along their musical journeys. Their raw, contagious energy on stage quickly drew attention.
Meanwhile, in Turin, another story was unfolding. There was a venue becoming almost legendary: Voom Voom, one of the city’s liveliest nightclubs, run by Ivo Lunardi. The club attracted an eclectic crowd — students, artists, foreigners, night owls — and Lunardi quickly understood that the dancefloor wasn’t just a place for music, but a melting pot for a new kind of cultural energy. Out of this vibrant atmosphere came his idea: to turn the club’s name into a small independent record label, Voom Voom Music, capable of capturing the spirit of those years and giving voice to unconventional projects.

When Lunardi heard M’Bamina, he immediately sensed that this was the sound he had been searching for: fresh, different from anything circulating in Italy at the time, and capable of blending African tradition with funk and European sensibility. He brought them into the studio.
Production was handled by Lunardi along with Christian Carbaza Michel, while the engineering was entrusted to Danilo Pennone, a young sound technician with a sharp, intuitive ear.
The recording sessions — held in Turin in 1975 — produced a remarkably warm and direct sound. The music feels almost live: grooves rooted in African tradition, but open to funk-rock structures and modern arrangements. It is a natural fusion, never forced. Tracks move between tribal rhythms, funk basslines, light electric guitars, congas and Afro-Latin percussion, with call-and-response vocals and melodies that echo both Congolese tradition and the lineage of Latin jazz. Not by chance, one of the album’s most striking tracks, Watchiwara, reinterprets a Latin standard through M’Bamina’s own rhythmic language.

The album was titled African Roll — a name that was already a statement of intention. It is African music that “rolls,” that moves, adapts, transforms within a new geographic and cultural setting. It is not strictly Afrobeat, nor Congolese rumba, nor Western funk: it is a spontaneous, hybrid blend, shaped more by lived experience than by any calculated aesthetic program.
When African Roll was released, the world around it barely noticed. Distribution was limited, and 1970s Italy had yet to develop a cultural framework for receiving such music. The national music press rarely paid attention to African or “world” productions. The album slipped into silence — though the band’s own story did not.

M’Bamina continued performing across Europe and Africa, even sharing a stage in Cameroon with none other than Manu Dibango. By the late Seventies, they moved to Paris, signed with Fiesta/Decca, and recorded a second LP, Experimental (1978). Meanwhile, the peculiar record they had made in Turin began to resurface quietly among vinyl collectors, Afro-funk enthusiasts, and DJs hunting for forgotten grooves.
That is when the album’s fate began to shift.

Over the decades, African Roll emerged as an almost unique document: a snapshot of an intercultural Italy before the word “intercultural” even existed, a fragment of migrant history, a spontaneous experiment in musical fusion born far from major industry circuits but rich in authenticity. Original copies began commanding high prices on the collector’s market, and the album became recognized as one of the hidden classics of European Afro-fusion from the 1970s.
Today, more than fifty years later, this reissue finally restores visibility and dignity to a project that deserves to be heard, studied, and celebrated. It is not simply an album: it is the testimony of a rare cultural encounter, born in an Italy unaware of how fertile such exchanges would one day become.

It is the story of a visionary producer, an extraordinary band, and a fleeting moment in which music, migration, and nightlife came together to create something genuinely new.
African Roll is — now more than ever — the sound of a bridge: between continents, between eras, between cultures. A record that, after rolling far and wide, has finally come home.

"tilt your back
pay respect
hand on heart

we were raised without table,
without manners,

where is it we gather this time?


In ‘Of No Fixed Abode,’ Saint Abdullah and Eomac extend their experimentation with genre dissolution to press upon the tensions that exist between culture, place, and migration. This fourth collaborative LP addresses the inherent fluidity of cultural memory, accepting our inability to remain fixed in the past, and explores how best to carry its spirit forward into an ambiguous future.

Through extensive research into 50 years of Persian pop, they meticulously reinterpret the legacies of artists like Andy, Hayedeh, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, refracting samples by way of gritty beat work-outs akin to more contemporary musicians like Rezzett and Madlib. Through extensive archival research and sampling, they recontextualise these iconic melodies, placing reverie and frenetic drum programming in conversation with one another in a fashion that seeks to express a sense of two disparate tendencies cohabiting together, all while refusing homogenization. This reimagining extends beyond mere homage, serving as a conduit for exploring the narratives of migrant experiences, both in the UK and globally.

Sonically ‘Of No Fixed Abode’ plays with new sampling techniques, utilising the quick-fire intensity of the Roland SP404 with the cool precision of digital DAWs, and features collaborations with drummer Jason Nazary, sound artist Aria Rostami (both New York based), New Zealand-based mHz, and a vocal collaboration with London-based artist and musician Raheel Khan."

La BOA presents their fourth album titled “La Bestia”, conceived during the pandemic era. The title references the freight train that travels from Central America to the United States, carrying thousands of migrants in search of the American dream.
This album features six tracks dedicated to exploring and drawing influence from the music of the greater Caribbean region, with the aim of recapturing a sound from before the digital age. Its lyrics address current themes and issues in Latin America, intentionally excluding the digital world and virtual presence.

Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica.

Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum seeker in Rimini's Associazione Ardea, where Andrea is involved with 'Ardea Recordings' - a project aiming to create an archive of songs, stories and sounds by some of the people who spent some time with Ardea's refugee programme.

Md After was invited to sing and play the folk and village songs he knew on the harmonium and pakhawaj (two headed drum) while Andrea immersed himself in the songs providing a bed of warm Crumar synth and Veena drones to create a finished album of totally uniquela renditions of the mystic Baul folk songs known so well by people across the Bangla speaking regions of India.

The Bauls are a famous group of wandering minstrels from the region of Bengal whose culture is derived from the teachings of the early Sufi mystics and Hindu Fakhirs. The Baul devotees are considered to be mad, or possessed, with the love of God. While transcending religion the Baul compositions celebrate celestial and earthly love and expound the key philosophy of “Deha tatta” or truth in the body, epitomised by the aphorism “whatever is in the universe is in the body”. They reach for divinity here in this world and they seek to access it through music and dance. They seek spirituality in the music, they live fo r the music, wandering from village to village offering ecstatic sound waves in exchange for sustenance. Their presence remains an important part of village life in Bangladesh, and this is why Md After knows the songs despite the fact he would not consider himself part of the Baul ascetic tradition.

We hope you'll enjoy this wonderfully psychedelic album, with its unique interpretations of these ancient mystic songs from the earth.

Comes with a printed inner sleeve featuring sleeve notes and lyric translations by Brian P. Heilman

RÏO is a sonic journey that begins in the waters of the Santa Rosa River (Argentina) and flows into Barcelona, uniting my roots with the pulse of the migrant experience.
This album is not just a collection of songs, but a tribute to the foundational memories of my childhood and an organic path where the past, present, and future flow within the same riverbed. It is an album that speaks of movement, of temperance, and of the need to affirm one’s own identity through change.

Bonbon Vodou’s third album (Épopée métèque), created by Oriane Lacaille and JereM Boucris, follows the paths of exile with lush orchestration and lyrics in French, Creole, and Gascon.

The bonbon piment (a spicy Réunionese fritter) is deceptive. Beneath its harmless appearance lies a fiery kick that can jolt you into clarity. Bonbon Vodou operates the same way. While the duo's musical influences sway between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, a sharp edge cuts through the tenderness of their graceful songs, often carried by the rhythms of maloya. This contrast gives depth to their third album, Épopée métèque, which takes us on journeys of exile—both across land and sea.
Oriane Lacaille is the daughter of accordionist René Lacaille, a key figure in the revival of Réunionese music in the 1970s, who has lived in mainland France for five decades. JereM Boucris’s father, from a Tunisian Jewish family, was 14 when he arrived in France at the end of the colonial protectorate. Their lives are interwoven with these paternal exiles, which they continue to explore and unravel, alongside the broader, universal stories of migrants fleeing poverty, persecution, and war.
The duo is now joined by a vibrant trio—Piment Piment (Juliette Minvielle, Roland Seilhes, and Yann-Lou Bertrand)—bringing a rich orchestration featuring guitars, flutes, brass, roulèr, kayamb, jaw harp… all set to lyrics in French, Creole, and Gascon. Their voices are joined by numerous guests, including Mouss and Hakim, Rosemary Standley, and Bernard Lavilliers. This playful yet poignant album explores themes of life and death—radiant but aware—seemingly echoing Camus: “There is no sun without shadow, and one must know the night.”

Bilders new album, Neverlasting is a mix of psychic adventures, hard psychedelia and commentary with a bite. Bilders have always sung outliers with a heap of empathy—exploitation of migrants, unmitigated killing and the state of our depleted planet. This album maintains an analog feel with technical finesse as it casts a cold eye on uses and abuses of power in the higher echelons. It is pure Bilders. Surprise collaborations bring in fresh tangents of colour and emotional edge. “We are the Neverlasting renter-squatters of Earth exhausted”. The band is once again the voice/guitar of Bill Direen, bass of Matt Swanson and near everything else by Alex McManus, with guesting by former Bilders. It’s the same lineup as last year’s acclaimed Dustbin of Empathy, released by Grapefruit and Sophomore Lounge, and the first ‘core’ Bilders lineup to remain constant for more than one album. The new compatibility shows. It’s an album that builds on current strengths. Notable guestings include Athens Georgia lights Claire Horne of 1980s BBQ Killers, and Curtiss Pernice, guitarist of heavy vanguard Porn Orchard, with a snook-in from experimental and electronic prince Todd Gerber. Two never-released tunes by vintage Bilders (Stu Page and Greig Bainbridge) sit perfectly with the new material. This is quite simply the strongest Bilders album ever.

Wortgewaltig, rockig, wütend, melancholisch. Eigentlich, wie man ihn kennt – und doch ist einiges anders. Oder besser: direkter.

Heinz Rudolf Kunzes 47. Album ist ein gereiftes, meisterliches Spätwerk über die großen Themen des Lebens: Liebe, Alter, Herkunft, Vergänglichkeit, Krieg, Identität. Aber auch der Zustand unserer Gesellschaft, der politische Diskurs, das Auseinanderdriften – Kunze bleibt nicht an der Oberfläche, sondern taucht tief. Dabei gelingt ihm der seltene Spagat: Nachdenklichkeit ohne Pathos, Kritik ohne Bitterkeit, Emotionalität ohne Kitsch.
Musikalisch trägt ihn ein homogener, gewachsener Bandsound – mal kraftvoll, mal filigran, stets songdienlich. Produziert wurde das Album erneut von Udo Rinklin, mit dem Kunze in den letzten Jahren eine kreative Hochphase erreicht hat.
Angebot und Nachfrage“ ist Reise, Rückschau, Kommentar und ein mutiges Bekenntnis zu Sprache, Haltung und Musik. Ein Werk mit Persönlichkeit und Relevanz – nicht nur für Fans, sondern für alle, die in Musik mehr suchen als nur Unterhaltung.

Limitiert auf 1000 Stück – ein echtes Sammlerstück!

Die exklusive Fanbox zu Heinz Rudolf Kunzes 47. Studioalbum „Angebot und Nachfrage“ ist so besonders wie das Werk selbst: Wortgewaltig, rockig, wütend, melancholisch – Kunze zieht alle Register seines Könnens.

Diese einmalige Edition enthält:
• das neue Album auf Doppelvinyl und CD,
• ein handsigniertes Hardcoverbuch mit 40 Seiten Fotos & bisher unveröffentlichten Texten,
• eine exklusive Single-Vinyl zum 40-jährigen Jubiläum von „Dein ist mein ganzes Herz“.


Heinz Rudolf Kunzes 47. Album ist ein gereiftes, meisterliches Spätwerk über die großen Themen des Lebens: Liebe, Alter, Herkunft, Vergänglichkeit, Krieg, Identität. Aber auch der Zustand unserer Gesellschaft, der politische Diskurs, das Auseinanderdriften – Kunze bleibt nicht an der Oberfläche, sondern taucht tief. Dabei gelingt ihm der seltene Spagat: Nachdenklichkeit ohne Pathos, Kritik ohne Bitterkeit, Emotionalität ohne Kitsch.

Musikalisch trägt ihn ein homogener, gewachsener Bandsound – mal kraftvoll, mal filigran, stets songdienlich. Produziert wurde das Album erneut von Udo Rinklin, mit dem Kunze in den letzten Jahren eine kreative Hochphase erreicht hat.

Angebot und Nachfrage“ ist Reise, Rückschau, Kommentar und ein mutiges Bekenntnis zu Sprache, Haltung und Musik. Ein Werk mit Persönlichkeit und Relevanz – nicht nur für Fans, sondern für alle, die in Musik mehr suchen als nur Unterhaltung.

Whitney K returns with 'Bubble', his first album for Fire Records and follow-up to 2022's acclaimed 'Hard To Be A God'. Whitney K continue his migrant mind games, summoning up a series of intriguing characters, littered with everyday foibles and fantasies. Along the way, he pens a journal of possibilities as he travels further into transient America, touching on everything from bar room chatter, rumour and distortion to misinformation, daydreams, misunderstanding and self-realisation; with anecdotes lifted from the paperback in his back pocket and his half-forgotten past. 'Bubble' is a 13-part cerebral mystery that unravels on songs that bring to mind the gruff sentimentality of the late Kris Kristoferson, Lennon's 'Jealous Guy', Eels at their most troubled and the American Gothic sketches of David Ackles; the perfect soundtrack for a Raymond Carver book club. Recorded in Montreal, it's self-produced by band members Josh Boguski and Michael Halls at their home studio. This stripped back release is Whitney K's most raw yet refined work to date-an honest, sonically paradoxical collection that finds fresh possibilities in the familiar shapes of rock, pop, and folk with the same unfiltered energy and poetic gravity we have come to expect from this modern-day troubadour whose descriptive storytelling is filled with sketchy characters and rudimentary comment. RIYL Bill Callahan, Silver Jews, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Cate LeBon, Kurt Vile, Wilco, MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Cass McCombs, Giant Sand...

"Amazing! Like stumbling on a treasure-trove of unheard Charlie Patton and Blind Willie McTell 78s, but imbued with the spirit of Mahlathini and Ladysmith." Joe Boyd

'But for this compilation of rescued songs masterfully restored from rare 78 rpm shellacs, few could imagine the diversely beautiful roots of Zulu Guitar Music emerging during the period 1950 – 1965. Story-tellers and master musicians appropriate outlaw personae, re-purpose country and western, Hawaiian and other styles, to stretch and challenge our notion of “the Zulu guitar”.

Twenty-five songs (18 on vinyl) plunge us into the depths of the migrant experience. Translations in the liner notes offer us glimpses of pugnacity, melancholy and heartache, all coloured by the paternalism that circumscribed the singers’ apartheid-dominated lives.

The early *mbaqanga* undertow in many of the songs subverts the wanderlust of Country and Western music into a fugitivity burdened by nostalgia. Something irretrievable has been lost, prompting a blending of ideas and cultures to make sense through thankless acts of musical divination. Inadvertently they have been thrust into the role of the antihero, where outwitting competition for lovers is as important as evading the Black Jacks (apartheid’s municipal cops) and their informants.

Considering the politically repressive period that this music emerges from, we can surmise that the specificity in the storytelling went a long way towards evading censure. But even when words are absent, there is a narrative arc suggested by the musical expression.

With most of the master tapes wilfully destroyed or lost, modern transcription and restoration techniques from the original shellac discs present the original sound most likely more clearly than ever heard before.'

Produced for reissue by Chris Albertyn and Matt Temple at Matsuli Music and Siemon Allen at Flatinternational.
Artwork design by Siemon Allen.
Liner note and translations by Kwanele Sosibo.
Audio restoration and lacquers by Frank Merritt at The Carvery and pressed at Pallas, Germany.
Original 78rpm recordings sourced from the collections of Chris Albertyn at Matsuli Music, and Siemon Allen at the Flatinternational Archive.

’之 / OF is a word that can be used as a preposition to express the relationship between a part and a whole. It is an unfinished tone, a broken sentence, a start and a whole. It is sustainable, full of potentials and longings.’’

London based performance and sound artist Li Yilei shared an experience familiar to many migrants during the past year of COVID-19 chaos. With their UK visa set to expire, and family back in China, Li made a last-minute dash to return to their nation of birth. Able to board one of the last few flights to China during the initial turmoil of the coronavirus outbreak, Li made it back to Shanghai for a two-week stint in a quarantine hotel.

Though Li had already begun creating OF, the reality of the pandemic began to seep into the recordings. Each of the 12 tracks is a study in horology, using metaphorical sound transcriptions and atmospheric extractions to focus on the temporal relationship between experience and surroundings. Li’s awareness of their own understanding of time became increasingly heightened during quarantine and the emotional involvement found within these new realities informed many of the sounds created.

‘’I tried to portray each song as a short, scattered poem - a moment that I captured to represent each hour.’’

Composed using analogue synthesisers, vocal samples, field recordings and string instruments such as the violin and guqin, Li indulges in moments of grief, panic, healing, cessation, melancholy, vastness, hope, joy and emptiness as they explore the acoustic relations between humans and the many forces of nature.

The art of the Song Dynasty, with its ancient traditions of poetry and timekeeping, were also great sources of inspiration for the album - whilst paintings from the period, specifically those of flowers and birds, are common themes throughout the tracks. Indeed, it is within the vastness of time that the album artwork comes to relevance. The eighth emperor of the Song Dynasty, Huizong, was a revered artist and a scene from his work ‘Finches and Bamboo’ adorns the album cover.

The Sound System has become part of today’s musical/cultural heritage, playing the people’s favourite hits or just as important, breaking some new tunes.
But perhaps less known are the roots of the Sound System, which began way back when…in Kingston….

Around the late 1940’s the Sound System began to overtake the big bands that usually played at the dances in Kingston.

The American Rhythm and Blues records that were so popular at the time would find their way to Jamaica via the merchant sailors and migrant workers returning from their stints in America. For economical reasons alone it would pay to have a DJ on hand to play these hits rather than a 10 piece band that could eat and drink the promotor out of the house and on curried goat!!

The early Sound Systems were basic affairs built around a single record deck, a valve amp and a speaker.

But by the 1950’s they had grown to purpose built speakers the size of wardrobes that could be heard blocks away.

Record producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee would remember the time ‘Sound Systems was like our radio station…not many people on the island would own a wireless, so it was the way for the people to hear their music.

So this selection of Lovers, Ballads, Root’s classic’s made the Sound Sytems of Jamaica the place to be.

So sit back and enjoy the ride….SOUND SYSTEM ROCKERS …one and all

In the story of Los Sanders, many sources can be found to understand the emergence of “chicha”, a style associated with the life of migrants in the city that saw its heyday in the 1980s, but also to understand the connections between youth music, “new ola”, and rock with tropical rhythms.

Los Sanders serve as a bridge between periods and styles, and their ability to adapt to musical genres and reinvent them has given them a unique style. Los Sanders de Ñaña reflect a Lima that was transforming, giving way to a new face and a new urban soundtrack.

In the universe of Peruvian tropical music, one can distinguish a wide variety of styles. One of the most unique is known as the “carretero” style, also referred to as the “Carretera Central” sound, which alludes to the sound developed by a series of musical groups that became known during the 1970s in the areas surrounding this major highway. At that time, this area received a large influx of migrants from the provinces who came to the capital in search of a better future. The initiators of this carretero style were Los Sanders de Ñaña, and following them, other groups emerged, not only creating a unique style but also establishing a circuit.

When the body starts screaming...SOFT VIOLET harnesses the pain with beats and rhythms, bass, synth and vocals, to manifest a rejuvenated writhing musical being that thumps and bumps. Downtrodden...upbeat! Upbeat!

Following multiple band projects, including the parallel powerhouse acts Spinnen and the ecstatic Turkish-Armenian-Friendship TAF, multi-instrumentalist SOFT VIOLET, now releases her solo debut album: Sterner Stuff. And that it is: Guttural with a pounding heart laid out on sexy stainless-steel surface, defiantly glinting.

Playful experimentation reigns free, fusing drum-machine and analogue synths with bass and vocals, to create a hybrid glittering creature that shines sublime.

SOFT VIOLET has a special power to tap in, making clearly conscious decisions to break and irritate, strutting through techno beats, poetically proclaiming personal and political urgency with a confidence, sincerity and sense of humour echoing the likes of Zheani and Sneaks or (thrillingly also) the 1990's heroes Cibo Matto.

SOFT VIOLET urges the listener to unite, to love and be loved and find ways, through music, of transforming pain into something joyous and uplifting, porous and free, as well as incessantly danceable.

SOFT VIOLET dares to go places that others do not, tapping into an honesty that others shy away from, welcoming everyone in to come play.

SOFT VIOLET is a fighter rising in solidarity. The beginning of the matriarchy is already in full effect. See You In The International Court Of Justice Bitch. Let's bounce!

Never before had the lyrics of Peruvian cumbia been able to touch the reality of migrants from the countryside living in the capital. In 1974, Grupo Celeste, under the direction of Víctor Casahuamán Bendezú, recorded 'En el campo', a first single that not only broke sales records, but also brought thousands of people into contact with their homeland. The band not only wove the nets of that urgent, necessary reconnection, but also gave birth to one of the most relevant popular singers in the history of Peru: Lorenzo Palacios Quispe 'Chacalón'. The year was 1974. Until then, only Los Destellos had recorded a non-instrumental cumbia song, 'Elsa', in 1970. Víctor Casahuamán Bendezú, a musician, creator and the composer behind Grupo Celeste understood that in order to continue the legacy of Peruvian bands from the sixties like Los Demonios de Corocuchay, Los Yungas and Los Demonios del Mantaro, it was necessary to address in his lyrics a special and urgent topic: the feeling of displacement from the homeland and the vicissitudes of the migrant sector. The experiences of those who traveled from the provinces to the capital in search of opportunities they could not find in their towns of origin; the process of settling and adapting in a foreign city; the challenges derived from this change of environment; the recognition of a different culture and the creation of a space they understood as their own were the stories that had to be told in the songs. This is why Grupo Celeste was the backbone of cumbia in Peru: it established a common story that thousands of migrants would identify with. From this idea and impetus was born 'En el campo', the band's first single.

2024 Reissue

redux packaging. aja monet's poems are a work of gravity. They are a fundamental for which all things are attracted, considered upon and enacted towards. Her work moves, constantly, between origin and outcome, allowing them to exist in converse. In her debut album when the poems do what they do, we glimpse her indefatigable commitment to speak. Those thematic origins of this album at times center around Black resistance, love and the inexhaustible quest for joy.In when the poems do what they do aja monet appears as a woman of letters and storm, her poems do not roar in pentameter - but rather in storm surge because, "Who's got time for poems when the world is on fire?!." And this work isn't one to pull apart into one liners, these are poems of things felt. There is a fullness here that can't be encapsulated in even the boundaries that language offers. aja monet is a griot, a storyteller, a chronicler, and your grandmother telling you about her first love all at once. These are baby making poems - literally the spring enacting upon the cherry trees. These are poems of urgency and want and the rallying cry to demolish the insidious systems from which our futures seem to be wrought, in other words, "If we had a sense of humor we'd be more radical. More migrant than citizen we'd breathe the air clean and ration our resources...we would melt ALL the guns." You will find yourself readying arms because of these poems, and simultaneously mourning the unstoppable loss of names already destined to be immortalized. aja monet crafts a work as she always does, that can be entered from many doors. These aren't poems for poets, but poems for everyone.She is joined in effort on this album by musicians Christian Scott (trumpet), Samora Pinderhughes (piano), Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Luques Curtis (bass), Weedie Braimah (djembe) and Marcus Gilmore (drums). Together creating music that is insistent and unrelenting. There are songs reminiscent of jazz club virtuosity and melee, others of a healing balm in gilead, and the chords of Castaway move like that of the call to intercessory prayer.

Joe Armon-Jones veröffentlicht zusammen mit Reggaesänger Hak Baker und Jazzmusikerin Nubya Garcia die neue EP "Wrong Side Of Town", die das Thema der Vertreibung von Migranten behandelt, etwas, das Hak Baker aus erster Hand im Osten Londons erleben musste. Weitere beteiligte Musiker sind Morgan Simpson (Black Midi), Luke Wynter (Nubiyan Twist), James Mollison (Ezra Collective) sowie Horseman, Prince Fatty hat abgemischt, Noah Priddle gemastert. Mit der EP beginnt eine neue Dubs-Serie von JAJ auf seinem Aquarii-Label, in der jede Ausgabe einen exklusiven Vinyltrack enthält.

After several EP’s and collaborations with artists - such as Elderbrook, Hayden James and Novaa – the producer and singer releases his solo debut album "Aniimals" on April 5th.
With great attention to detail, Moglii creates his very own genre „organic electronic“, defined by a modern mix of warm beats, analogue synthesizers and soulful vocals. Each track explores the relationship between intelligent life forms and humans, such as "Fungii," "iinsects," or "Roots“, aiming to draw attention to the incredible organic diversity on this planet.

„Aniimals“ represents biodiversity in each track named after a wonderful and inspiring creature, that Moglii relates to. This DIY-release campaign includes a limited bio-vinyl pressing and a sustainable merch edition.
Why biodiversity? The extinction of many species (often undiscovered) is perhaps the most underestimated problem of our time. There is a lot of public debate about CO2 budgets, but according to experts, the basis of our survival as humanity could also depend significantly on the preservation of genetic diversity in our limited planetary garden. Due to destruction of nature, the loss of species will continue to worsen unless there is a cultural rethink.
Moglii proves his appreciation for animals of any kind and fascination for other intelligent life forms in a very impressive musical way with his debut album, aiming to create an emotional bridge between our urban lifestyle and the animals that inhabit this planet with us.

"The Train I’m On was the fifth album by Tony Joe White. It was produced by Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd and recorded in 1972 at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Acoustic textured for much of its length and built on a close, intimate sound overall, The Train I'm On is permeated with the dark side of White's usual swamp rock sound, filled with songs about unsettled loves and lives, and men caught amid insoluble situations. Betraying surprising vulnerability for much of its length, he shows off an emotional complexity that wasn't always obvious on his earlier work. Dark, pensive, soulful bluesy rock, highlighted by some bristling acoustic guitar work. The Train I’m On spawned three singles, including “I’ve Got a Thing About You Baby”, which was notably covered by Elvis Presley. The Train I’m on is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on yellow coloured vinyl.

Producer, DJ, Facilitator & Publisher (Balraj) Samrai (of Swing Ting/SEEN Magazine) steps out for their first full length release "Work & Roti" along with a host of talented collaborators on new label Sangha Industries.

The album title came from a phone conversation with Samrai's mum who features on the opener reflecting on first generation Punjabis heading to the UK only going to work and eating roti, not getting a chance to travel until their senior years. In addition the project explores the complexity of migrant experiences - healing, self-love/care, reciprocity and connections to the earth. A theme throughout is the inclusion of South Asian percussion and rhythms such as Tabla, Dholak, Kanjira, Dhol and Mridangam overtly at times as well as covertly which grounds the record.

Samrai is joined by host of talented collaborators across the 8 tracks - SCAPA, Vindya, Vikaash Sankadecha, Pops Roberts, Shanique Marie, LINTD, Gavsborg, Joey B, Fox, Raheel Khan, Thai Chi Rosè, Chesqua and Deepikaa Sreenivasan who all enrich the project with vocals, additional production and instrumentation. Although at times dealing with difficult subjects (Help Me, Oil Money, Dirty Dirty) there's a sense of joy, playfulness (Fresh) and release across the set (Yellow Crocus, Create Your Own Bless) culminating in closer (Breathe) when you feel the sunlight pushing through despite the clouds above…

Producer, DJ, Facilitator & Publisher (Balraj) Samrai (of Swing Ting/SEEN Magazine) steps out for their first full length release "Work & Roti" along with a host of talented collaborators on new label Sangha Industries.

The album title came from a phone conversation with Samrai's mum who features on the opener reflecting on first generation Punjabis heading to the UK only going to work and eating roti, not getting a chance to travel until their senior years. In addition the project explores the complexity of migrant experiences - healing, self-love/care, reciprocity and connections to the earth. A theme throughout is the inclusion of South Asian percussion and rhythms such as Tabla, Dholak, Kanjira, Dhol and Mridangam overtly at times as well as covertly which grounds the record.

Samrai is joined by host of talented collaborators across the 8 tracks - SCAPA, Vindya, Vikaash Sankadecha, Pops Roberts, Shanique Marie, LINTD, Gavsborg, Joey B, Fox, Raheel Khan, Thai Chi Rosè, Chesqua and Deepikaa Sreenivasan who all enrich the project with vocals, additional production and instrumentation. Although at times dealing with difficult subjects (Help Me, Oil Money, Dirty Dirty) there's a sense of joy, playfulness (Fresh) and release across the set (Yellow Crocus, Create Your Own Bless) culminating in closer (Breathe) when you feel the sunlight pushing through despite the clouds above…

There’s a connection between the musical history of the Mediterranean that can’t be explained through academia alone. It’s an expression of simultaneous grief and celebration that trespasses cultures and generations; and demands to be felt, or even better, danced, to be understood. The same spirit weaves Rebetiko from the ashes of the Ottoman empire to the heavy Hafla soundtracks on the Koliphone label in ‘70s Jaffa, or rebellious Turkish psychedelic music to the first generation of surf guitarist migrants in America. It's an infectious feeling that travelled and evolved wherever it was called, and that passion is embodied in “Back to the Taverna”, the new album by Berlin based bouzouki quintet, Cherry Bandora.

On the milestone of their third release, original members Liad Vanounou (Bouzouki) and Lorena Atrakci (Vocals) have bolstered their sound with longtime friends and collaborators Moshe ‘Moosh’ Lahav on Keyboards and flute, Tamir ‘Hassan’ Chen on Bass and Nimrod Lieberman on Drums to create an album celebrating the ecstasy of being able to drink and perform together again, freed from the anathema of the last years. The band has evolved considerably since their beginnings ten years ago as an Agean-influenced part of the local Balkan Swing scene; the most significant addition being the deployment of “The Hardest Working Man in Tropical Music” Alex Figueira as musical director for this album. His scorched fingerprints are unmissable throughout the extended psychedelic breakdowns and percussive overdubs that make “Back to the Taverna” such a dynamic offering.

Cherry Bandora have always been a very personal band; collecting songs from nearby cultures and history and blending them into their own experience by developing new arrangements or lyrics, just as musicians from those times would have. Lorena delights in expressing herself away from her mother tongue or providing modern lyrics for an updated feeling, as she does to the beloved Turkish standard, “Rampi Rampi”. In this interpretation she uses her native Hebrew in a saucy lockdown-delivery-guy romance... This track also features Baris Öner from local Turkish rock band Kara Delik on his signature flanging Saz.

Singing in Greek, English, Turkish and Hebrew was also a natural choice on the album, representing the “multikulti” area of Berlin that the band lives and records in. These languages would all be heard on the street as they walked to record in the analog Studio Wong in Kreuzberg.

“As descendants of Mizrahi Jews (Jewish migrants from non-European countries), growing up listening both to Beatles and Umm Kulthum, playing in jazz music departments in high school, and now living in Kruezkölln, we basically pay tribute and revive this shared heritage in the context of the global music scene of today” says Lorena.

The opening track, The Sound Of Baglama, is an interpretation of the anthemic Tsitsanis homage to the tavernas and sweethearts of Thessaloniki. It lays the ground for what to expect from Cherry Bandora’s exceptional live performances, featuring effortless switch-ups between surf rock choruses and laid-back verses dipping into Persian disco funk. This song will be accompanied by a tour-collage “found footage” style film clip in production at this
time.

Cherry Bandoras show their dedication to the bit with a rousing English version of the canonical rembetiko tune Dimitroula Mou. This amour song, popular with generations of female singers, is accompanied by real studio plate smashing, a ritual which sealed their final session for the album. 2 bonus tracks are included on the digital release, both a little more raw from the band’s home studio: the reeling dervish Rubi Rubi (which will be released as a second single with a video clip) and the emotionally dense and hypnotic slow burner Esý.

The album will be released digitally and on vinyl as a collaboration between Rebel Up Records (Belgium) and Rumi Sounds (Berlin) on Friday 3 november 2023 and is a prime example of what a raunchy, open minded and tireless bouzouki band can do as they hit their prime.

An extensive highlighted review will appear in Songlines magazine #135 December issue and the track ‘Benimde Canim Var’ will be featured on their free compilation. Also radioplay on Radio Campus France playlist (allover) during November and December.

Latincore is a musical journey that begins with this compilation. latincore is a virtual club. latincore is an attempt to reflect with artists whose origins share the same soil.

This compilation brings together 14 sound propositions, offering a snapshot of a latinx, political, migrant and diasporic underground scene. Curated by Marion Stucky Callañaupa and Juan José Moreno Izquierdo.

Remix EP 1 (incl. Remixes by Acid Pauli, Coldcut, DMX Krew, Shahrokh Dini, Frivolous)

After the release of Felix Laband’s highly acclaimed 5th album “The Soft White Hand” in November 2022, it’s about time to give it some extra class remix treatment. So here comes a massive package with remixes by living legends Coldcut, Acid Pauli, DMX Krew, Frivolous and Shahrokh Dini.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

Bongo Joe Records is pleased to announce the release of Yalla Miku's debut album. It is a new way of combining African, European, electronic, acoustic and electric music and cultures. The project was launched by Cyril Cyril duo, then joined by Simone Aubert and Vincent Bertholet from Hyperculte and three musicians with migrant backgrounds: the Moroccan Anouar Baouna, the Eritrean Samuel Ades and the Algerian Ali Bouchaki.

For its initiators, the idea was not to appropriate a non-European heritage and to interpret it in the company of musicians from these countries. They opted for a more radical approach: to propose a base of compositions on which the migrant musicians then worked with their instruments, which range from the derbouka to the guembri via the krar, the Eritrean lyre.

The album, nourished by these stage performances, was recorded in autumn 2021. The result is full of vibrations, unusual sounds and life experiences. Sung in Arabic, Tigrigna and French, the lyrics glide over throbbing rhythms, borrowing from gnawa, krautrock and electro trance. Their eponymous debut album sounds like a call to travel beyond the barriers of sound, a call to a horizon without a visa.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

“For this album, my source material became almost autobiographical as opposed to African statements I’ve worked with previously,” says the artist. “I have sampled a lot from documentaries from the 80s crack epidemic in impoverished African American communities and believe my work speaks unapologetically for the lost and marginalised, for those who are the forgotten casualties of the war on drugs. In the past, I have had my issues with substance abuse, and I know first-hand about the nightmares and fears, what it feels like to be isolated and abandoned.”

Few artists have managed to air these intimate aspects of their life so luminously as Laband does in tracks like “5 Seconds Ago”, “They Call Me Shorty” and in the strange and meditative “Dreams of Loneliness”. “I’ve been building this weird, autobiographical story using other people talking. It’s kind of humorous but it is also sad and beautiful,” says Laband.

Yet, as in all of Laband’s recorded output, the delineations between emotions are never starkly drawn and The Soft White Hand is also shot through with beauty. Nature appears in recordings made in his garden in the intimate early morning hours, whether as in the calls of the Hadada Ibis and other birdsong in “Prelude” or of the vertical-tail-cocking bird in “Derek and Me”. The last is a wonderful track with Derek Gripper, the South African experimental classical guitarist of international renown, whose 2020 song “Fanta and Felix” imagines a meeting between Fanta Sacko and Laband.

Laband’s eloquence in reinterpreting classical composers such as Beethoven in “We Know Major Tom’s a Junkie” is another thrilling aspect of the new record. “I’ve been properly exploring classical music on this album,” explains Laband, “taking melodies from classical compositions and reinterpreting them”. A fresh quality comes to his work through this sonic adventuring: the tender manipulation of the mundaneness of the computer’s AI voice to reimagine and reinvent iconic lyrics and melodies in strange and unexpected configurations.

The Soft White Hand is Laband’s most cohesive body of work to date. Yet it remains, in its sheer artistic scope, impossible to describe fully. Darkness abuts the gossamer light. A song that summons the sunrise and all the hope of a new day could also be about the final dipping down of the sun that portends a troubled night ahead. Interludes are invitations to expand outwards or shift inwards. Mistakes and “weird fuckups” in the sound are cherished as convincing statements against what Laband calls the “grossness” of perfect sound in modern music.

For this world-leading electronic artist, the boundaries are unfixed. He is inspired by the German Dada artist, Hannah Höch, who memorably declared: “I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” His music consequently reflects a primal artistic impulse that is also visible in Laband’s considerable visual art output as seen recently in several solo exhibitions such as that held in the No End Gallery in Johannesburg in 2019 and in the works he produced during his 2018 Nirox Foundation Artists Residency. “My music is always about collage, as is my art,’’ he affirms. “Everything I do is collage. It is a medium I find very interesting because you are taking history and distorting it and changing its meaning and turning it upside down and back to front.” In her book Recollections of My Non-Existence, Rebecca Solnit calls collage “literally a border art”; it is “an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill onto each other”.

With The Soft White Hand, Laband is confirming his singular ability to achieve this in both art and music, melting the divisions between the two creative disciplines until they become one. He is also affirming his belief that an album of music should be more than a collection of unrelated tracks, but should unfold a fully integrated, cohesive story as in the song cycles of the great classical composers. In doing so, he claims his position as one of the most significant artists working today.

Artist Statement – Felix Laband – August 2022

When the Khmer Rouge took their captives for processing, they identified their class enemies by looking at their hands. If they were sunburned, rough and calloused, they were those of a peasant, a proletarian to be spared. But if they were soft and white, then they were those of a city-dweller, an intellectual or bourgeois, an adversary to be liquidated.

In calling this album The Soft White Hand, I was reflecting on the Cambodian genocide and how it resonates in contemporary South Africa. The apartheid era is over, and gone with it is white political domination. Yet economic and social privilege is still held in soft white hands. But those who grasp it know just how tenuous is their hold, how it singles them out, and my music reflects their subconscious fears, the stress and guilt of clinging on to what others envy and desire.

The soft white hand of the title suggests to me a further image, one that relates to all of postcolonial Africa. In my mind’s eye, I see the soft, duplicitous handshake of the smooth representatives of the superpowers making deals and promising gifts that benefit only them, and not their African dupes.
Yet, soaring above the wailing of sirens sampled from the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, my music is also about love gained and passion lost. It is about the tender caress of a soft white hand that conducts you into a place of dreams to be enfolded by nocturnal melodies.

South-east Turkey born DJ, sound artist and producer Banu uses music as a political tool. For her, the strong message carried through sound is a vehicle to express emotions as well as a means of fighting against oppression. Using participation, social design, ecology, feminist and queer theory to create multimedia installations with sound as a main element, Banu‘s practice is closer to contemporary art and activist spaces than the club realm.

Banu‘s debut album TransSoundScapes is an exercise in female solidarity between her as a migrant woman and her sisters from the trans community, where an artist from one marginalised group is showing support towards her trans sisters, using her platform to help them amplify their voices and building a bridge towards a mutual understanding of femininity.

Conceptually, TransSoundScapes comes in continuation of Banu‘s previous research-based work, using music as a positive tool for change while working with various marginalised communities. The album originated from the very real experience of being confronted with verbal harassment in Berlin on a daily basis, particularly aimed at her transfeminine friends and companions. As a queer woman of Turkish and Kurdish origin, Banu did not only observe the verbal aggression directed at her friends, but also understood most of the insults shouted in languages such as Arabic. Seeing how she got signifi cantly more verbal violence directed at them when in company of trans people made a lasting impression on her, so she wanted to try and use her relative privilege to amplify transfeminine voices through her music.

Coming from a very conservative family, making music has been her lifelong dream. It was the moment she had the opportunity to work with the iconic Arp 2600 synthesiser (a younger sibling to Eliane Radigue‘s infamous 2500 machine) that all her disparate interests came into place to create an empowering soundscape with the aid of analogue drum machines. TransSoundScapes has a very full, porous sound, where every element that comes into play sounds soft yet clear. Across the 7 tracks, Banu conjures pounding subterraneous bassy techno („Surgery“), slithering tentacular EBM („First Time“) and pulsating cavernous soundscapes („Harem“), where oversized dancefl oor elements are woven with poetic spoken word passages, resulting in sensusous yet political anthems. Banu artfully merges loosely related genres such as techno, electro, dub and sound poems into a sound that is at once deeply personal and extremely compelling.

All of the tracks are collaborative efforts, Banu seeing the process as an exchange of care and shared experiences, while integrating research into her writing process. The lyrics in „Transition (part 1+2)‘‘ are an adaptation of Sara Ahmed’s “Living a Feminist Life”, while „Surgery“ was born out of series of interviews with trans people, channeling the metallic sounds of a surgery room to refer to society‘s perception of transness as a medical condition. Tracks like „First Time feat. Patricia“, „Harem feat. Prince Emrah“ or „We feat. Aérea Negrot“ document her encounters with various trans women, centering their life experiences while also developing a deep dialogue through the process of making music together.

The darkest and perhaps the most emblematic track is ‚‘Bianka (In Memory Of)‘‘, dedicated to the late Bianka Shigurova, a 22-year old Georgian actress found dead in her apartment. It was her Tbilisi photographer friend George Nebriedze who told her Bianka‘s tragic story, whose death is suspected to be an assasination due to transphobia. Banu chose one of Nebriedze‘s analogue photos of Bianka as the album‘s cover art.

Helmed by Dave Watts aka D.WattsRiot (Fun-da-mental), the debut KingL Man album, ‘Headonix’ is beat-laden shout out in response to the perpetual state of war we seem to find ourselves at. Outrage and disgust, love and hate, history and presence.

Contributions come from four continents.

Fresh on the scene is Senegalese vocalist Sidi I.B., who arrived on Canarian shores with two hundred other compatriots, cold, wet and hungry after seven days at sea with nothing but his future in his hands.

Temporarily housed at the infamous migrant holding centre in Las Raíces, Tenerife, the studio environment provided an avenue of relief from the inadequate conditions at the overcrowded camp.

Also from Senegal, living in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is rapper Ibrahima El Latigazo who delivers his lyrics in French, Wolof, Spanish, English & Sérère. Rounding up the Senegalese contingent is Mame Samba, a group that hold the spirits close when performing. Their contribution is from recording sessions they had with François R. Cambuzat & Gianna Greco (Putan Club / Ifriqiyya Electrique).

Kiki Hitomi (Waq Waq Kingdom/King Midas Sound) returns to the fold, exhaling positivity with Canarian multi-instrumentalist Javier Afonso (Grenouille). The Canarian faction also includes violinist Mónica Viñoly, Dani Garcia (Lagoss/Tupperwear) and Vakawuare. Further guests include percussionist Miroca Paris (Cesária Évora/Madonna); Hamid Mantu (TransGlobal Underground);
Ramjac (Dub Colossus), drums and percussion respectively.