Suche:mark gergis

Tape / Cassette

Mark Gergis is a producer, musician and audiovisual archivist known for his radio and video productions, recordings and performances. His work has focused on regional folk-pop music from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, including choubi and dabke from Iraq and Syria. As an archivist, Gergis is currently working on the project Syrian Cassette Archives, for which he aims to restore, preserve, catalogue and share his large collection of Syrian media from what can be called Syria’s ‘cassette era’ (1970s–2010). As an artist, under his name and others (Porest) he has released music on the Sublime Frequencies, Discrepant and Nashazphone to name just a few. It’s a wonder that amongst this hectic schedule he still finds time to present us with a new (old) collection of early century recordings (1999-2013).

Locational recordings, radio and TV intercepts, cassette excerpts, environments and street music all expertly all expertly meshed up into a vivid sound journey from places that were (and might) never be again.

PRAED return to Discrepant, after their 2017’s entry Fabrication of Silver Dreams (CREP44)

Known for their signature blend of Egyptian Shaabi, free jazz and improvisation, the Lebanese duo behind PRAED - Raed Yassin and Paed Conca - now assemble a full orchestra for the second time taking the music to a deeper, rooted level.

Following their 2020 release Live in Sharjah, also under the PRAED Orchestra! moniker, the duo now revisit their unique blend of Arabic heritage and free jazz sensibilities with an album that keeps pushing further into strange and unexpected directions.

The Dictionary of Lost Meanings is just that, seven fully composed pieces and large-scale improvisations, performed by an expanded ensemble of musicians from across the globe. The result is dense and playful, unpredictable but familiar, a record where Arabic rhythms and microtonal melodies collide playfully against electronics, warped vocals and orchestral textures.

It’s less about genre than about memory — like tuning into a radio station broadcasting from somewhere between the past and the future.

PRAED continue to blur the line between popular culture and experimental music in ways that feel both grounded and completely their own.

PRAED ORCHESTRA! are
Raed Yassin: Synthesisers, Vocals, Beats
Paed Conca: Clarinet, Electric bass
Alan Bishop: Alto saxophone, Electric bass, Vocals
Andreas Bral: Harmonium, Electronics
Elisabeth Klinck: Violin
Christian Kobi: Soprano and Tenor Saxophones
Hans Koch: Bass Clarinet
Martin Küchen: Alto and Sopranino Saxophones
Maurice Louca: Synthesizer, electronics
Stan Maris: Accordion
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh: Buzuk, Vocals, Modular Synth
Youmna Saba: Electric Oud, Vocals
Sam Shalabi: Oud, Electric Guitar
Els Vandeweyer: Vibraphone
Khaled Yassine: Drums, Percussion
Michael Zerang: Drums, Percussion
Recorded by Jasper Jan Peeters at the Summer Bummer Festival, DE Studio,
Antwerp August 26, 2022
Mixed by Adham Zidan
Mastered by Mark Gergis
Produced by PRAED
Photos by Geert Vandepoele

Bulbous Monocle focuses its lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned—a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band’s musical snake appendages emanating from its Medusa crown—is presented as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). It gathers together the band’s singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL’s musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest / Sublime Frequencies / Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach. This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado. “…In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as its own body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope youʼll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening.” —Mark Davies (2023)

Originally released in 1989 on the band’s own Thwart Productions label, Tangle was the first vinyl release from Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. Coming after their debut cassette, Wormed, By Leonard, it shows the band leapfrogging stylistically into a more mature phase of their patented surreal compositional modus operandi. Tracks like the opener, "Sister Hell," foreshadow the band's later evolutionary mutations and was a minor hit in the underground circuit at the time. The rest of the album is a sleek maelstrom of crackpot dissonance, noise-rock power balladry, schizo-telepathic improv and some of the finest underground music of the era. In short, Tangle is a template and Proclamation of Intent that presages TFUL's classic 90s releases. Originally produced by their longtime engineer and thaumaturge, Greg Freeman, this reissue is impeccably remastered from the original master tapes by Mark Gergis. New and contemporary artwork ties a saucy bow around this astonishing reissue.

Warped and dragged through the murky underbelly of the Levantine underground comes 'Volume 1' the x-rated left-field debut from the pseudonymous DJ GAWAD.

Via pitched up vocals dripping with delay, DJ GAWAD takes us on a tour of the region's most urgent artists, his interjections oscillating between cocky boast and frustrated lament.

Through this new persona, DJ GAWAD pulls back the curtain to reveal himself as the protagonist of the mixtape-like album, as replete with features as it is with expletives, an enigmatic ghoul in the back of the studio with an endless supply of broken sample flips, giving the album its old school feel while still speaking to contemporary hip hop aesthetics.

A Jordanian/Palestinian Memphis gangster rap parody par excellence, the album is infused with satirical commentary on the state of the contemporary music scene, yet DJ GAWAD shows as much as he tells, expertly fashioning a sound that makes you wonder about the identity of the artist behind the braggadocious persona of the self-titled "best producer in the Middle East."

Drawing heavily from the Memphis rap mixtapes of the mid 1990s, DJ GAWAD has clearly identified the same brooding atmosphere in his own surroundings. On Mat3'anish (feat. Bleng & Fara7) DJ GAWAD makes his most explicit reference to the Memphis sound, twisting the hallmark cowbells that defined that movement to reflect the equally raw nature of his own setting.

Similarly, in Bandana (feat. Jurum), DJ GAWAD finds the perfect tension between his romantic sampling tendencies and the brutal sensibilities of his featured artist. As if liberated by DJ GAWAD's anonymity and irreverence, his menagerie of artists appear to have been emboldened, embracing the obscene free naturedness of the album, setting their lyrical prowess free to wander.

No expense was spared in the post production treatment of DJ GAWAD's debut, with Iraqi-American artist Mark Gergis incorporating the Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck in the mastering process, as is evidenced by the crisp saturation of the album's sonics.

First ever retrospective of Phương Tâm, the groundbreaking Saigon teenager who became one of the first singers to perform and record rock and roll (known in Vietnam as nhạc kích động, or, action music) | 25 tracks spanning Phương Tâm’s recording career: early rock and roll, surf, twist, soul, blues and jazz ballads recorded in Saigon between 1964-1966, featuring electric guitars, contrabass, lush brass, saxophone, drums and organ, and rich backing vocal arrangements. | Produced by Mark Gergis (compiler of Sublime Frequencies’ 2010 compilation Saigon Rock and Soul) and Hannah Hà (daughter of Phương Tâm). | Audio restored and remastered from original records and reel tapes. | A family story – as told by Hannah Hà, whose dedication to discovering and sharing her mother’s musical legacy, is helping to put Phương Tâm back on center stage after 55 years | Adds critical context to the fragmented understanding of Vietnamese popular culture at the time.

Comes with printed innersleeve and download code. Limited 300. "Musician, composer and one of the most revered figures for today's younger generation of experimental and alternative Arabic music scenes, Kamilya Jubran (text, oud & vocals), collaborates with long standing musical partner, composer, accomplished trumpet player and seasoned electronic musician Werner Hasler (trumpet & electronics). In Wa (Arabic for and), their third album together as a duo, Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler continue to interrogate their listening and their expression, their research and their desires, to unravel a musical universe of possibilities; "a unison of timbres, cultures complementing, the complicity of verses, and modes and languages confronting each other" in the duo's own way of communicating respective origins and contemporaneity. Lyrical, within a sound full of contrast and ornamentation, they pursue an expansion of their repertoire with imaginative interpretation and improvisation." Originally released in CD and digital by Everest Records (Switzerland). Vinyl issued in collaboration with Akuphone. Vinyl mastering by Mark Gergis.

Previously released on CD accompanied by “Gone, Gone Beyond”, “The Mirror” is the
dreamy soundtrack of an a/v project from collage artist extraordinaire Vicki Bennett aka
People Like Us.

With ‘’The Mirror’’ Bennett continues her eternal disassembling of popular music by
exploring how the narrative of familiar sounds/songs can change dramatically under a
new context, with that context always changing, in a never-ending flow.

Each song is singular. And each song is a collage of and undefined number of other
songs from other artists. It sounds familiar because that has been the modus operandi of
People Like Us since the early 1990s. But “The Mirror” plays with the notion of familiar,
driving around a collection of famous pop songs/artists, messing around with the memory
of the listener and, of course, his unique comprehension of those specific songs applied
in a new context.

Because of the use of familiar pop sounds, “The Mirror” is often grandiose. Like an epic
film only with highs, never letting the listener down or letting him doubt the power of pop.
Even, of course, when the coordinates are twisted, mixed, over or underrepresented.
Each moment feels like something that could only happen in a parallel universe.

Although that may sound naïve, it’s just a lost thought of reaction to the beautiful collages
of People Like Us in “The Mirror”. This mirror doesn’t reflect an image of ourselves or an
image of pop. But an image on the way memories drift and are being constant rebuilt. An
unfinished collage.

Mastered by Mark Gergis
Vinyl Cut by Rashad Becker