Cerca:tua

Erstmalige Vinyl-Wiederveröffentlichung des 2009 erschienenen Albums ”Imidiwan: Companions” der gefeierten
saharauischen Tuareg-Gruppe Tinariwen. Das auf schwerem 180-Gramm-Vinyl gepresste Album vermischt
auf hypnotische Weise malischen Wüstenblues mit zuckenden, gitarrengeführten Tichumaren-Agitationen
und schafft so einen ganz eigenen Sound.

Erstmalige Vinyl-Wiederveröffentlichung des von der Kritik gefeierten dritten Albums der saharauischen
Tuareg-Gruppe Tinariwen, ”Aman Iman: Water is Life”. Das 2007 international veröffentlichte und hier
auf 180 Gramm schwerem Vinyl wiederveröffentlichte Album wurde von dem langjährigen Partner Justin
Adams produziert und enthält die Stimme und Gitarre des Gründungsmitglieds Mohammed Ag Itlale. Das
mit dem GRAMMY Award ausgezeichnete Kollektiv spielt einen gitarrenbetonten Zweig der malischen
Musik, der als Tishoumaren bekannt ist, einen perkussiven, rockorientierten Wüstenblues.
Das Album erscheint als 2LP.

Two decades since they formed in New York City and over ten years since their last album, Tel Aviv based quartet Shotnez are back with Dose a Nova, an album of 10 exhilarating jazz filtered jams, with vibrations indebted to tuareg desert blues, Ethiopian-jazz, 1950's Afro Cuban recordings, surf- rock and folk from across the East Mediterranean basin.

This one is highly recommended for fans of Khruangbin, Lord Echo, Leon Bridges or Fat Freddy's Drop.

Open is the sixth studio album from acclaimed composer, producer, filmmaker and multi-instrumentalist, Kutiman. It is an addictive & irresistible twelve-track trip taking in elements of classic soul, Middle Eastern psychedelia, Afrobeat, Thai funk, jazz fusion, cosmic library soundscapes and more.

The uptempo “Vanishing Point” opens proceedings, recalling both Abstract Orchestra’s 2017 Dilla tribute and the lounge OST/library music flips of Tosca and DJ Vadim fame.

My Everything introduces prominent guest & frequent Kutiman collaborator, Dekel, whose soul-pop vocals coupled with jangly acoustic guitar riffs tip to contemporary indie artists such as Michael Kiwanuka and SAULT. “A Day Off passes through” Anatolian psych and Khruangbin-esque Thai funk whilst the afrobeat/jazz fusion “Confetti” pays tribute to Kutiman’s other namesake, Fela Kuti.

Dekel rejoins for the beatdown, lilting dub-soul “Believe In You” with hints of Lord Echo and the sun-inflected New Zealand dub-soul sound. The Tuareg-leaning guitar lines on “Canoe” travel across the Saharan desert easterly towards Sudan and Ethiopia by the end, whilst meditative and Coltrane-adjacent album closer “Ripples” provides a final moment of reflection from a truly global excursion of soundscapes.

A soundtrack of Sudan's revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture.

Beja Power! is a living archive of the finest, most heartfelt Beja songs—a six-track portal to another time and place, of melodies long forgotten and never before interpreted by an electric and brass-driven ensemble. Few older Beja recordings were produced. Even fewer, if any, remain.

Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai—all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji's impeccable, airy tenor sax, and of course, Noori's tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa.

A truly ancient community, Beja trace their ancestry back millennia. Some say they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush. They are even depicted in the hieroglyphics. Beja melodies—nostalgic, hopeful and sweet, ambiguous and honest—are thousands of years old. Yet their sounds are also reminiscent of Dick Dale's 1963 "Misirlou" and jazz great Charlie Rouse's 1968 "Meci Bon Dieu". This album could be 6,000 years, 60 years, or 6 months old.

Along with his Dorpa Band, formed in 2006, Noori's instrumental Beja music forms the latest link in an unbroken chain of an inherited, arresting sound that is local as it is global, a gift of a storied past and the exchanges of the well-traveled Red Sea.

Ostinato Records is honored to bring the nearly forgotten Beja sound in all its nostalgia, sweetness, honesty, and power, recorded and mastered to maintain the warmth of Sudan's signature aesthetic, to your sound system.

Futuropaco’s long sold out debut is finally repressed! it’s a wet, enigmatic cocktail of part 1970’s Italian library music, part krautalicious beat-galore and part riff-driven heavy psych. Justin Pinkerton, from Oakland, California, is the one-man army behind the opaque merge of seemingly different forces: from mad fuzz guitar breakdowns à la Morricone at his most intense, to the syncopated drum learnings of Can’s Jaki Liebezeit, Justin weaves a blanket of sound that’s simply loaded with deep vibes

Based in Bamako for sixteen years, Philippe Sanmiguel has been the producer of albums by the famous Malian bluesman Samba Touré since his international debut. Over the years, Philippe has expanded his work with other artists such as the legendary Tuareg band Tartit, Anansy Cissé, Mariam Koné or Djimé Sissoko among others.

While working on the albums of these artists, he often had the inspiration to add influences from his original rock culture but in small measures. That's how Black Mango was born, to gather his favorite musical collaborators around his own compositions and expand the vision. It started with an EP released on Glitterbeat Records in 2014 from which the idea for a full-length album was born.

Black Mango's Quicksand album was recorded in Bamako over a period of several years, in various recording sessions, giving each musician free range to play on a rhythmic and melodic basis prepared in advance. The alchemy was immediate in all cases, often from the first takes.

Philippe originally met producer and musician Hugo Race with Chris Eckman during their stay in Bamako for the recording sessions of Dirtmusic's Troubles & Lion City albums. Hugo loved the raw feeling of the tracks and offered to remix the album in his Melbourne studio, bringing his own unique touch.

The fruit is ripe!

Recorded at Akan Studio & Funhouse Studio in Bamako, Mali by Konan Kouassi & Philippe Sanmiguel
Produced, mixed and mastered by Hugo Race at Helixed Studio

A few words about the main " stars " :

- Samba Touré is Samba Touré.
- Anansy Cissé is a young songhoy artist for whom Sanmiguel has produced two albums, including the recent and acclaimed "Anoura".
- Mariam Koné is one of the most beautiful voices of Mali, who has a self-produced album and teaches music at the conservatory of Bamako.
- Singer Bocar Sana Coulibaly & Ali Traoré are singer and guitarist from Niafunké, nephews of the great Ali Farka Touré and have a band called Espoirs de Niafunké

‘The Radio Tisdas Sessions’: The 20th Anniversary edition of Tinariwen’s first studio album has been remastered and repackaged with a bonus unreleased bonus track, exclusive photos and brand-new liner notes. The first vinyl pressing is on white vinyl, with digital download card. ‘The Radio Tisdas Sessions’ feature songs from Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Kedou Ag Ossad, Mohamed Ag Itlal aka ‘Japonais’, who passed away on February 14th 2021, and Foy Foy. White vinyl 2LP.

Tinariwen are Tuaregs, children of a nomadic Berber tribe who have roamed the Saharan desert for thousands of years. Over recent centuries, colonialism has seen the Tuareg’s ancestral territory partitioned into distinct countries - Mali, Algeria, Libya, Niger. This drawing of borders has turned the Tuareg into ishumar, a displaced people in search of a homeland lost to them. Tinariwen’s music - a blend of West African traditional music and electrified rock ‘n’roll - speaks directly to this feeling of longing: a sound that critics have called ‘desert blues’.

Amassakoul’: Tinariwen’s breakthrough album originally released in 2004, now remastered and repackaged with a bonus unreleased track, exclusive photos and brand-new liner notes. The first vinyl pressing is on indigo vinyl, with digital download card. ‘Amassakoul’ features songs from Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, Touhami Ag Alhassane. Indigo vinyl 2LP.

Tinariwen are Tuaregs, children of a nomadic Berber tribe who have roamed the Saharan desert for thousands of years. Over recent centuries, colonialism has seen the Tuareg’s ancestral territory partitioned into distinct countries - Mali, Algeria, Libya, Niger. This drawing of borders has turned the Tuareg into ishumar, a displaced people in search of a homeland lost to them. Tinariwen’s music - a blend of West African traditional music and electrified rock ‘n’roll - speaks directly to this feeling of longing: a sound that critics have called ‘desert blues’.

Etran de L'Aïr (or "stars of the Aïr region") welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, Agadez celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding. Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa "Abindi" Ibra was only 9 years old. "We only had one acoustic guitar," he explains, "and for percussion, we hit a calabash with a sandal." Over the decades, the band painstakingly pieced together gear to form their band and built an audience by playing everywhere, for everyone. "It was difficult. We would walk to gigs by foot, lugging all our equipment, carrying a small PA and guitars on our backs, 25 kilometers into the bush, to play for free_ there's nowhere in Agadez we haven't played." Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L'Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous. It's perhaps this quality that makes them so beloved in Agadez. "We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa," Abindi explains. "When you invite us, we come and play." Their music is rooted in celebration, and invokes the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.

For 20 years the Tuareg culture and music has fascinated the world. Their quasi-sacred poetic songs inspire western songwriters like KURT VILE or JOSÉ GONZALEZ, while the virtuosity of their guitar playing fascinates guitar heroes like JIMMY PAGE, and finally the spirituality and meditative hypnotism impresses electronic music producers like FOUR TET.With two albums, IMARHAN has become an emblem of the new Tuareg generation, breathing new life into “Assouf”, the desert blues.

While most of current Tuareg productions are exiled to the United States, the group, led by Sadam, is part of their culture and their city, the capital of the Tuareg people, with an open door to the desert. By building their own studio in Tamanrasset Aboogi, Imarhan become the spokesmen of the young Tuareg lost generation (forgotten by Algerian, Nigerian and Malian governments).With their new album Aboogi, Imarhan manipulate the rights and ancestry of the Tuareg. By inviting the legendary Mohamed At Itlale aka Japonais (who has since, sadly, passed away) and the genius musician Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, IMARHAN follows the heritage of TINARIWEN, the godfathers of Assouf. When they recorded with GRUFF RHYS of the SUPER FURRY ANIMALS, their brilliant and universal songwriting takes on every sense of the word. Finally, by inviting the Sudanese singer Sulafa Elyas, we understand that IMARHAN is open to all of Africa, defenders of the Tuaregs but above all spokesperson for the new African generation.

Xochimoki - celebrated American ethnomusicologist Jim Berenholz and Aztec descendant / wisdom keeper Mazatl Galindo - traverse millenia with career compendium Temple Of The New Sun, an album recorded in New Mexico in the mid 1980’s but tracing a lineage back thousands of years.

Xochimoki summon feathered gods and animal spirits. They incant mythological folktales of celestial glory and supernatural dread. Their songs are sung in Pre-Columbian Central and South American languages, including Nahuatl, Maya, Purepecha and Quechua.

Finally available the 2nd – unreleased – album by iconic Italian post-punk outfit. Born in 1979 as Sextons, in 1980 they became Rats and in 1981 they published their classic debut ’C'est Disco’. Set to release in 1982 on cult label Italian Records, the record didn’t make it due to several diatribes with the company itself. Here’s your chance to taste this precious moment in Italian wave revolution.

PURPLE COLOURED VINYL

Mdous Musik hat ihre Wurzeln zwar in traditionellen Tuareg-Melodien, gibt aber auch immer wieder Einflüsse von u.a. Eddie Van Halen preis. Neben Mdou besteht die Band aus Bassist und Producer Mikey Coltun, Drummer Souleymane Ibrahim und Gitarrist Ahmoudou Madassane. Zusammen haben sie längst auf ausgiebigen Touren bewiesen, dass sie nicht nur heimische Hochzeitsfeiern rocken können, sondern ebenso Festivalbühnen auf der anderen Seite der Erdkugel. Dabei beherrschen sie sowohl den hypnotischen Boogie von Black Sabbath der Masters of Reality-Ära, als auch den erhabenen elektrisierenden Groove von Black Uhuru. Mdou Moctar lebt in Agadez im Niger, einer eher ländlichen Gegend, die wie eine kleine Oase mitten in der Sahara wirkt. Hier entsteht auch ein Großteil seiner Musik, die ihn in West-Afrika zu einer echten Berühmtheit hat werden lassen. Verbreitet haben sich seine Sounds dort nicht durch das Internet und Social Media, sondern über die Speicherkarten aus Mobiltelefonen, die wie Tapes weitergegeben und getauscht werden und wie analog-digitales Lauffeuer durch das Land gehen. Den internationalen Durchbruch schaffte Mdou Moctar 2019 mit dem Album "Ilana: The Creator". Mit seiner vierköpfigen Band reiste Moctar anschließend durch die Welt und wurde schnell zum inoffiziellen Botschafter seines Landes. Nun liegt der langerwartete Nachfolger vor.

The first new album from Les Filles de Illighadad in four years At Pioneer Works is the highly anticipated new album by the Tuareg Avant-rock group. Les Filles de Illighadad recorded the album in Brooklyn at the tail end of a two-year-long world tour. At Pioneer Works finds Les Filles at the height of their powers, creating a sound that transcends all known genres. This is a heavy and meditative set of music from one of the world's most exciting bands. "If you listen long enough, and make yourself open enough, it is possible to reach a kind of holy place while experiencing the music of the Tuareg quartet." - The New Yorker // "Les Filles de Illighadad are taking the world by storm" - The Guardian // "Les Filles de Illighadad is Revolutionizing Traditional Tuareg Music" - She Shreds

The first new album from Les Filles de Illighadad in four years At Pioneer Works is the highly anticipated new album by the Tuareg Avant-rock group. Les Filles de Illighadad recorded the album in Brooklyn at the tail end of a two-year-long world tour. At Pioneer Works finds Les Filles at the height of their powers, creating a sound that transcends all known genres. This is a heavy and meditative set of music from one of the world's most exciting bands. "If you listen long enough, and make yourself open enough, it is possible to reach a kind of holy place while experiencing the music of the Tuareg quartet." - The New Yorker // "Les Filles de Illighadad are taking the world by storm" - The Guardian // "Les Filles de Illighadad is Revolutionizing Traditional Tuareg Music" - She Shreds

Mdous Musik hat ihre Wurzeln zwar in traditionellen Tuareg-Melodien, gibt aber auch immer wieder Einflüsse von u.a. Eddie Van Halen preis. Neben Mdou besteht die Band aus Bassist und Producer Mikey Coltun, Drummer Souleymane Ibrahim und Gitarrist Ahmoudou Madassane. Zusammen haben sie längst auf ausgiebigen Touren bewiesen, dass sie nicht nur heimische Hochzeitsfeiern rocken können, sondern ebenso Festivalbühnen auf der anderen Seite der Erdkugel. Dabei beherrschen sie sowohl den hypnotischen Boogie von Black Sabbath der Masters of Reality-Ära, als auch den erhabenen elektrisierenden Groove von Black Uhuru. Mdou Moctar lebt in Agadez im Niger, einer eher ländlichen Gegend, die wie eine kleine Oase mitten in der Sahara wirkt. Hier entsteht auch ein Großteil seiner Musik, die ihn in West-Afrika zu einer echten Berühmtheit hat werden lassen. Verbreitet haben sich seine Sounds dort nicht durch das Internet und Social Media, sondern über die Speicherkarten aus Mobiltelefonen, die wie Tapes weitergegeben und getauscht werden und wie analog-digitales Lauffeuer durch das Land gehen. Den internationalen Durchbruch schaffte Mdou Moctar 2019 mit dem Album "Ilana: The Creator". Mit seiner vierköpfigen Band reiste Moctar anschließend durch die Welt und wurde schnell zum inoffiziellen Botschafter seines Landes. Nun liegt der langerwartete Nachfolger vor.

Remastered from the original tapes in 2004 for release on World Circuit, 2021 sees this classic album back on vinyl for the first time since its original 1984 release.

In 1982, the great Malian singer songwriter and guitarist Ali Farka Touré, then still in the early years of his recording career, teamed up with the brilliant percussionist Hama Sankare. Together, from a base in Ali’s home village of Niafunké they travelled through Northern Mali, refining a collection of new songs. When they were ready to record they followed the River Niger as it wound down through the desert, to the capital city of Bamako.

In one afternoon, the great Radio Mali house engineer Boubacar Traore captured these eight superb performances on two microphones: two voices so close it was thought they were double tracked, one guitar (the distinctive Bulgarian acoustic model that Ali treasured) and Hama’s calabash percussion making its first appearance on record. The album, which includes some of Touré’s best loved songs, was released self-titled with no sleeve notes, just an enigmatic group photo on the cover. It became known as the ‘Red’ album due to the colour of its original sleeve.

Vinyl and cassette copies of ‘Red’ began to circulate in West Africa, as well as making their way to Ry Cooder in the US and to specialist journalists and DJs in the UK and France. It was popular in Mali and the Tuareg refugee camps in Libya, where it became an influence on the musicians who came together as Tinariwen.

On a tip from Toumani Diabaté and with a copy of ‘Red’ in hand, World Circuit’s Anne Hunt travelled to Mali in the mid 80s to find Ali to invite him to record and tour. An appeal was broadcast over Radio Mali, and Ali, who by chance was visiting the capital Bamako, heard it. Thus began Ali’s incredibly successful international career which took him around the world and resulted in the release of eight acclaimed albums including three GRAMMY winning collaborations, with Ry Cooder (Talking Timbuktu) and Toumani Diabaté (Ali & Toumani; In The Heart of the Moon).

Though any and all vocals on De Sidera are wordless, language is central to the album. ‘I try to make my vocalisms sound like words,’ she explains, ‘but it is a kind of invented language.
Somehow the form, the signifier, is enough to express meaning, sense, emotion.’ Burelli notes that this concept has resonance with her practice in Greek and Turkish music, in which wordless vocals and instrumental improvisations are common.
This is front and center on a song like the title track ‘De Sidera,’ where Burelli’s rising and falling vocals dance atop an undulating, contemplative bassline - close your eyes, and the clear tides of the Mediterranean lap at the sand - her wordless intonations guiding you to a tranquil state.
Burelli surrenders to the natural world and the ineffability of words - on De Sidera she shares the gem of universality she discovered while doing so.

In a world governed by stereotypes, Lachinos break down the boundaries between people and gender. It is impossible to clearly distinguish the origin, roots and cultures that are specific to each of its members. An association that turns out to be as unexpected as it is effective on their first EP America Lachina, out on Goutte d’Or, a sub-label of french team Cracki Records.
America Lachina is also and above all an ode to Latin American music. One travels to the rhythms of merengue, cha cha cha, cumbia or even Brazilian surf, always with a musical commitment to rock accents.

Gitkin's music exists somewhere between primal, rootsy memory and distant exotic yearning — A dusty bordertown where the familiar blends imperceptibly into the enchantingly foreign.

After a long and fruitful run as a bandleader with relentlessly touring party-rockers Pimps Of Joytime and a Grammy-nominated country blues collaboration with Cedric Burnside, multi-instrumentalist Brian J set out to "explore tonalities I'd never messed with," as he puts it. It was a release from "having to write lyrics or involve my voice," he notes, and so the (mostly) instrumental sound of Gitkin came into being.

Reviews of Gitkin's first LP grappled with descriptors, tagging it vaguely as "cinematic" and comparing it favorably with Khruangbin. True, the music is largely wordless, emotionally evocative, and guitar driven. But it possesses an alluring alchemy all its own.

Gitkin's first release, 2018's well-received Five Star Motel, amply demonstrated his ease with earthy funk and comfortably-cut rhythm. On his new full-length release Safe Passage, the itinerant guitar slinger broadens his already rich palette with melodies informed by Greek and Middle Eastern modalities, Peruvian Chicha and Tuareg Saharan guitar styles. No gimmick, this juxtaposition of gut-bucket blues and funk low-end with unexpectedly twisting lead phrases highlights the intense flavors found in each savory ingredient.

Recorded at his home studio in New Orleans, Safe Passage showcases a new batch of immediately engaging, repeatedly satisfying cuts, ranging from surf exotica ("Cat Nip") to raunchy roadhouse stompers ("Fools Gold" and "The Drive") to dreamy vocal cuts "Foot Steps" and "Hold On" to the floating finale of "Safe Passage."

Gitkin's production radiates character and warmth, leaning on soft-focus vintage mics, dubby spring reverbs and the quirks of a tape console. Further enhancing the intimate vibe are guests like veteran Chauncey Yearwood (congas) and New Orleans local "Spug" Smith, who provides a sousaphone low-end on the cumbia-not-cumbia "Spug Life." Carol C lends her striking voice to three tracks, including the strutting single "De La."

Safe Passage will be released by Wonderwheel on September 18th, 2020 and will be available on vinyl, CD and digitally.

Historic cassette of first Tuareg guitar studio recording. Newly restored and remastered. Tuareg guitar gets the electronic treatment, with a reissue of the cassette by legendary Nigerien composer Abdallah Oumbadougou. Produced in Benin in 1995, “Anou Malane” is one of the first studio recordings of Tuareg guitar. The genre, known for minimal folk ballads performed on acoustic guitar, is transformed with a full-on 90s swinging groove. Abdallah Oumbadougou is one of the original creators of Tuareg guitar music. Active in the Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s, his early compositions were politically charged, addressing the fighters scattered in the desert. These low-fi recordings were recorded on boomboxes, and found their way throughout the diaspora, passed through clandestine networks of cassette dubbers. In exile, Abdallah traveled to Benin to record an official release with Nel Oliver, a West African producer known for his work on a number of seminal boogie and afro-funk records. Oliver’s influence is heavily felt on the recordings with early digital techniques of programmed drum effects and backing synthesizer, transforming Saharan political ballads into Afro-boogie anthems for the discotheque. The resulting album went on to become a classic and pushed Tuareg guitar and the rebellion into the public consciousness

“Experimental trio Giraffe crystalize time on ‘Desert Haze’, their new LP on Marionette. Giraffe is the musical project of Sascha Demand (guitar), Jürgen Hall (keys), and Charly Schöppner (percussion). Sascha Demand is a composer that comes from a contemporary and improvised musical background, collaborating with the likes of Ensemble Integrales and Vinko Globokar. Jürgen Hall works in electroacoustic experimental projects, theatre and film scores, with releases on Staubgold and Edition Stora. Charly Schöppner is known for his popular music releases such as Boytronic on major production companies in the 1980´s and composes for theatre, dance, and film scores. With only a couple of releases to date on the wonderful Meakusma imprint as well as an EP on Marmo, little is known about Giraffe. After letting go of other artistic projects, the trio now focuses solely on Giraffe by continuously searching for and finding their own unique language.

Sascha, Jürgen and Charly have quite diverse musical backgrounds, though morphing into Giraffe they tower into one single composer. Their music is a critical statement, not in a political sense but rather an artistic one. Being mindful about what it means to create and how to position themselves as artists nowadays (without the constant hassle of being en vogue and short-lived trends) shaped their rather rare and stoic artistic stance. It is refreshingly honest to see their expression develop so naturally.

On Desert Haze, they’ve created a vibrant and minimalistic tribal sound that feels inspired by the Saharan traditional music of the Tuareg, Jazz, and German psychedelic krautrock. Giraffe themselves also list the radical music of the Viennese School (Schoenberg along with his pupils Berg and Webern) as well as the Köln School with its early electronic experiments as their main influence and inspiration. More precisely the composition process and the organization of musical material within space and time, where a conceptual and intellectual approach melds with an experimental yet expressive sound searching method.

Side A focuses on the trios studio work; it is built around tone color and pitch analysis of resonating prepared guitar sounds. Through a unique mixture of free improvisation and a serialism "rule set”, they develop instrumental layers and structures to form their tracks. Side B sees Giraffe playing more freely with a reduced setup - representative of what you may hear when listening to them live.
Desert Haze, along with its track-titles, showcases an almost mimetic approach to art. The haptic music grabs the listener not as a passive recipient but as an active resonant body to vibrate through. One can almost feel the Elements, pressure and heat forming a diamond, hypnotic overtones ringing through windy caves, shamanistic rhythms conjuring up mysterious and ancient landscapes - where the constant cycle of sedimentation and erosion reveals structures of fragile beauty - always gentle to the hand’s touch and the mind’s eye.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s, unbeknownst to most, Saigon (today named “Ho Chi Minh City”) had become a fertile environment for a flourishing music industry which produced countless recordings of beautifully crafted songs.

Ho Chi Minh City based band, Saigon Soul Revival has been bringing alternative pre 1975 music from Saigon back to the stage since 2016 with their live performances. Honoring the original composers, singers and the golden era from which this music (Nhạc Vàng) came, while applying new arrangements and interpretations of old Vietnamese songs. With tight grooves, psychedelic textures and a powerful unique sound, SSR has performed countless shows at a variety of venues across Vietnam, and accompanied live the two release tours to the Saigon Supersound Compilation releases.

While spending the last three years studying and playing this music, Saigon Soul Revival teamed up with producer Jan Hagenkötter (Saigon Supersound / INFRACom!) and finally in January 2019, they started to create own compositions in the same vein for their debut album Họa Âm Xưa. The album was recorded in Vietnam with additional guests during one week in May this year.

The album focuses on compositions that fuse Vietnamese lyrics and sounds with influences of western rock, soul, bolero, tango and other popular genres of this time period, most of which was banned after the war. This project strives to revive this beautiful musical heritage of Vietnam which represents an important cultural bridge between east and west.

In an era of boundless self promotion, anonymity is a rare and precious thing. Listening to Trevor Jackson's NTS show one night we heard a glorious piece of music by something called Elite Beat. A quick search found 10 years worth of recorded material but not a single photo or youtube clip. They had made a record with Niger born guitarist Mdou Moctar but were based in Portland, Oregon. More questions than answers but we knew we had just heard one helluva cosmic link up!

We still don't know what they look like but we can tell you Elite Beat is a 6 piece ensemble now in their 12th year as a musical collective. Their sound is non prescribed rhythm music with an emphasis on live playing, free form expression and dubbing techniques. Players who have absorbed the plethora of global grooves from dub, Ethiopoques and Tuareg guitar music (probably the odd Dead bootleg too). They aren't retromaniacs or here to revive a genre. Just some cats from Oregon talking that universal language, fueled by laugher and a vision of the eternal.

"By The Light Of The Pyramids" and "Postcards From Gortupal" are their latest and greatest offerings, birthed out of live sessions.

*The vinyl versions are shorter edits of the original / digital to preserve sound quality.

Kosmo Sound's new single 'ILAM' comes with heavyweight bass lines, Tuareg inspired guitar riffs and Moroccan percussive elements. On the B-side there is a Special Dub mix by Daniel Boyle (Lee Perry, Max Romeo)

Formed in Ghent in 2016, Kosmo Sound mixes tight dub grooves with jazzy guitar and storytelling saxophone melodies, yielding an organic dance-oriented dub experience. Members have been active in Belgian avant-garde acts such as Madame Blavatsky, Nordmann and Pura Vida among many others; their self-titled debut EP was released last year on Zephyrus Records.

Re-issue of this Italo disco rarity from the year 1986. Side A contains the two rare original versions and as a highlight we present on side B two new and exclusive remixes by the Italo Disco legends Flemming Dalum and George Hysteric.

First ever experimental Tuareg guitar soundtrack. Original soundtrack recording to the film Zerzura, the first ever Saharan acid Western, telling the story of a nomad's search for a magic city of gold. Evoking the desert journey with free form guitar improvisations, the soundtrack is a meditation on the mysteries of the Sahara. Composed by writer and actor Ahmoudou Madassane, the instrumental score takes the familiar Tuareg guitar tradition into new directions, transforming desert blues into ambient soundscapes. Recorded in studio while watching footage from the film, the score was recorded in live and spontaneous takes. Heavily based around the electric guitar, Madassane also plays a handful of other in-studio instrumentation (prepared piano, Moog, Timpani) and is joined by a number of collaborators, including guitarist Marisa Anderson. A prolific and backing artist in a number of groups (Mdou Moctar, Les Filles de Illighadad), Madassane is well versed in Tuareg guitar folk and draws inspiration from this tradition before veering off into uncharted territory. Pieces fluctuate in timing and break free from standard rhythm, moving from melancholic serenity to blurry psychedelic fury. An experimental foray for Tuareg guitar, Zerzura is the first of its kind.

IDM excursions into the tuareg land: gem alert!

Gitkin sold guitars. To be precise, he re-branded, sold and traded knock-off Gibsons. A lone, travelling salesman, he toted his counterfeit wares to guitar stores and music emporiums. His trade took him to most corners of the USA, passing through big, smoggy cities and nowheresville small towns. His nights were spent at not-so-salubrious motels. It was at those nocturnal stop-offs that he'd often cross paths with newcomers to the States. His fellow travellers were mostly immigrants, newly-arrived, from places like Ethiopia, Mexico, Indonesia.

Or at least, that's the story as Brian J Gitkin has been able to piece it together. This album, '5 Star Motel', is by a different Gitkin, an ode to the one described above. Or to put it another way, this is the younger Gitkin's homage to his elder relative: the elusive, guitar salesman uncle he never met. A steady drip of anecdotes have construed an image of his relation's itinerant, huckster lifestyle. Finding a cassette of his recordings, it spoke of the effect of those encounters: lo-fi and scratchy, the music leaped seamlessly, in difficult to discern ways, between different far-flung styles.

On '5 Star Motel', that younger Gitkin (henceforth referred to simply as Gitkin) has sought to expand the philosophy he encountered on that tape. The guitar is common thread, the raft to navigate a sun-dappled stream of ideas. It's an embrace of cultures where folkloric stringed instruments still rule, or where they've led to a more recent embrace of the electric guitar. He traces the loose, meandering paths which join them together.

It's about America, the world outside its borders, and the inscrutable, inevitable dialogue that exists between them. Take 'Cancion Del Rey', where the sound of Peruvian chicha - steady-moving, alluring, and lyrical - winds its way through Gitkin's fuzz-filtered licks, and the rhythm underpinning it. Or 'Yama', where Middle Eastern influences echo out of grooving, cyclical riffs. Touching on the distinctive tones of Tuareg music and the Sahara, too, 'Grand Street Feast' charts a sand-dusted, melodic misadventure.

There are some records that manage to sound both of a time and utterly timeless and Bon Voyage Organisation's Jungle Quelle Jungle (a nod to Supertramp's Crisis What Crisis) is one of those albums. Its silken-smooth production, irresistible grooves, funk-tinged guitars, lush soundscapes and general glowing presence could easily lead one to believe that have dug up a lost disco gem from the 1970s. However, behind the disco-pop gleam lies eerie dystopian sci-fi ruminations of a futuristic bent and tones that can often feel as French as they do Asian or African.

This sort of cross-continental exploration is an expansion on BVO's previous two EPs, the man behind the Organisation, Adrien Durand, says. 'I tried to continue the musical expedition between dystopian Science-Fiction Haunted Africa - plus Haitian Vaudou on 'Soleil Dieu' - and futuristic Asia. Addressing, in a double entendre manner, some of the political issues that I am sensitive to.' In fact the jungle in question in the album's title is a metaphorical one and one that creates a vast series of environments for Durand to explore such subjects as world trade, utopian ideals and themes of idols, as well as of time and communication. However, one will need to speak French to decipher such explorations, as well as shake off the natural impulse to move with every glorious beat on its 13 tracks, of which are moved along by Maud Nadal and Agathe Bonitzer's golden vocals.

Durand is a full-time producer based in Paris, working with the likes of Amadou & Mariam, so it makes sense that this record would absolutely sparkle in this department. Durand feeds off the variety of musicians coming and going during recording sessions as well as the rotating members and numbers of people involved with the band but fundamentally he writes all songs on piano first before bringing them to record live. 'We recorded a rhythm section of five - drums, percussion, guitar and myself on bass/synth bass and keyboards - at La Frette which is a studio located in a mansion outside of Paris and fitted with a beautiful 1973 NEVE desk. We only used analogue gear, by taste really, and found it a pretty reliable way of doing things. This simply consists of putting good players together in a room and waiting for the right take to happen.' Two four-day sessions and a 'cooling off' period (to let the recordings settle) soon followed before Durand picked the material back up to give it a final polish.

The resulting album is one loaded with intricacies and idiosyncrasies, something that Durand puts down to his own unique approach. 'I don't consider myself much of a songwriter but I love arranging rhythm sections and I'm pretty proud of the ones on this record.' This applies when it comes to working with such musicians as Inor Sotolongo Zapata, who with Durand used traditional Cuban percussive instruments and explored Haitian rhythms. When Durand expands on some of the ideas and influences that were funnelled into the record, you begin to get a sense of the vastness of the sounds that fill his world, from Trevor Horn's production work on ABC's Lexicon of Love, to the literary work of JG Ballard to the visual flair of the original Blade Runner and even the Tuareg sounds of Tinariwen, due to the fact that his studio neighbours their manager's and he would hear their rhythms bleeding through the walls. You therefore end up with an album that offers tracks such as 'GOMA' that fuses Chinese and African rhythms as well as 'SI D'Adventure' a piece of pop music that is dazzlingly hook-laden.

As a result of this cooking pot of sounds, influences, thoughts and creations, Durand has more of a gumbo approach to making this music than a set-out scientific formula. 'There is no definite recipe for me to like the production of a record,' he says. 'Of course it really sticks out that my work is really influenced by the 1978-1983 period, the golden age and last stand of analogue studios and session musicians.' Whilst Durand adores the traditional and conventional music, he really views this as something bigger and wider. 'I have a taste for the otherworldly vibe from records coming from less sought-after musical scenes, particularly Poland, Haiti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo and early Cantonese pop. Languages and the rapport of the people involved in the making of those records really inspires me. I particularly hate the use of the word 'World Music' as a potpourri for everything that doesn't sound quite western enough.'

De-Bons-en-Pierre is a project from Beau Wanzer & Maoupa Mazzocchetti. Beau Wanzer spends the majority of his days sifting through paraffin embedded animal tissues and reading old issues of Fangoria, occasionally breaking his monotonous routine to record in various fits and bursts. As well as solo material, he is also in numerous projects including Streetwalker, Mutant Beat Dance, Civil Duty, and Corporate Park. He's released on many labels including; Diagonal, L.I.E.S, Cititrax, Nation, Rush Hour, and Light Sounds Dark. Maoupa Mazzocchetti is the pseudonym of Florent Mazzocchetti, a French producer based in Brussels. Florent is strictly devoted to a DIY mentality around music production and his sound revives the electro-industrial aesthetic of the late 70s and early 80s. He's released notable productions on labels such as Unknown Precept, PRR! PRR!, Knekelhuis and Mannequin Records.

While Beau was visiting Brussels he stopped by Maoupa's house to jam for a bit. All songs were recorded on April 4, 2016 between 11:00am and 11:00pm, as single live takes.'Crepes' is a 6-track EP, titled so because they ate crepes the majority of the session. Beau says, "There was a bit of a language barrier. We'd mostly just laugh and nod when something sounded cool to us." The equipment set up included a Roland TR-808, TR-606, SH-101, CR-78, CR-8000, two Syncussions and effects. Over 23 minutes of garbles, sludgy synths and leviathan rhythms. Surfing the slippery slope between industrial and electro, but never quite falling in, just a dip of your pinky toe to to test the temperature.

All songs are mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Housed in a sewage green/blue jacket featuring a crepe-masked duo reminiscent of pulpy VHS covers. Designed by Eloise Leigh and Florent Mazzocchetti. Each copy includes a 2-sided postcard with a photo taken during the recording session.

Repress

Part 1 of Slam's Reverse Proceed Interpretations with reworks from Planetary Assault Systems, Flug, Edit Select & Slam themselves.

Confirmed Press & Promo:

Press - * DJ Mag, Mixmag, Tilllate, Raveline, Groove, Daily Record, Edinburgh Evening News, TopDJ Ua, Nightshade Mag, Nitebeat, Posivision, DJ Times, Time Out NY. Sound Effect Magazine

Radio - * Carl Cox Global, Laurent Garnier Radio, Kiss 100, Ministry of Sound, Galaxy Network, Radio Scotland, Dinamo FM, Acik Radio, BBC Radio Ulster, Future Radio, Reconwarriors, The Beat Delivery, Anton Banks, XM Satellite Radio, RTE. Dance Under The Blue Moon (Anja Schneider), WHCR, KVRX, Power FM, Dinamo FM, Rise, Pulse Radio, Proton Radio, BBC Radio Cardiff, The Radio Dept, Fresh FM (Holland), Mystic Vibes (NYC), Show B, An Taobh Tuathail, RTE RnaG, Untitled Music, Ibiza Sonica, 88.1FM WESU (USA), Sutil Sensations. Global Dance Sessions

Online - * Soundwall.IT, Ibiza Voice, Radio Magnetic, Mixxradio.fr, CHRY, WESU, Untitledmusic, Ibiza Global Radio, Paris_One Reverse, Doce Pulgadas Spain, Ibiza Sonica, Andres Aguirre - KVRX student radio, FACT, Little White Earbuds, mnml ssgs, Gridface.