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LP
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AKU 1054LP
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$27.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2024
A surreal mosaic of eerie chant processionals, tape-rot trickery, and panicked oud madness. These are sonic forgeries of atavistic heritages, recorded by analog means using esoteric techniques. They have been known by many names: The Givers of Illness; The Bandylegged Riders of the Ill-Promised Sun, etc. Honed and expanded through their travels, Ak'chamel's singular sound comprising desert-scorched psychedelia, post-apocalyptic shamanism, and bizarre ritual folk is as unique as the physical theater of their otherworldly live performances.
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AKU 1055LP
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$27.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2024
Iranian multi-instrumentalist Kamyar Arsani (Faraway Ghost) and Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin (Sunken Cages) create their own brand of digital folk music that draws on Sufi mysticism, traditional Persian Music, street rhythms from Mumbai and contemporary electronic music at once. Momin accompanies Arsani's vocals and daf (frame-drum) with a masterful blend of electronic and acoustic percussion, including live-looping via his unique drum-loop performance system. Kamyar Arsani is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter based in Washington DC. Through his solo work and numerous collaborations, Arsani creates music across an array of styles, ranging from classical Persian music to genre-defying electronic experimentation. A teacher, performer and scholar of the daf (the Iranian frame drum), Arsani has been a featured artist at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, Voice of America, Georgetown University and numerous other stages throughout the region. Along with his solo work and collaborations, Arsani is also the singer and lyricist of Shadow Riot, a Washington D.C punk band. Sunken Cages is the moniker of drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin, who studied with US Jazz master-drummer Andrew Cyrille. He has worked as a sideman with a wide array of musicians including US avant-Jazz legend Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre (AACM/Chicago.) In addition, he has also led his own Jazz/global group Tarana on international stages for the past 14 years. As Sunken Cages, Momin plays electronic and acoustic drums. He layers loops while manipulating them in real-time to blur the lines between composition and improvisation. While rooted in Indian and Black Music traditions, he is also influenced by the street sounds of underground dance music from Sao Paolo to Durban to Mumbai and beyond.
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AKU 1043LP
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$25.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/1/2024
KahruMusiqa is a musical retrospective by Tunisian singer and composer Badiâa Bouhrizi AKA Neysatu. She is known as the author behind the protest songs that became the anthems of the Tunisian revolution. Songlines Magazine elected Badiâa as the best artist for 2024. "KahruMusiqa" means "electronic music," but is never used as such in Arabic to name the genre. The record is a collection of sonic experimentations that started when Badiâa first got her hands on music production software in the 2000s. The tracks are based around poems in classical Arabic language or Tunisian dialect written by Badiâa herself or female poets she admires, such as Palestinian authors Fadwa Tuqan or Salma Al Jayusi, or the Tunisian poet Noureddine Werghi. Most of the vocal work features improvisations recorded with a computer microphone. A take on the classic Turkish folk song "Muhabbat" is almost a modern harmonic rewriting, using only classical guitar, vocals and delays. KahruMusiqa's themes are in line with Badiâa Bouhrizi's ideological trajectory. She is a woman in the moving sands of Tunesia in the song "Transrimel." She also questions the political contract that led to Balfour and the displacement of millions of Palestinians in 1948, describing a journey between London and Nablus, in "Fil Madinatil harima" ("In The Old City"). This lo-fi bedroom album (the first ever record Badiâa Bouhrizi was willing to release) also displays several songs that have become classics of the Arab underground milieu like "Ila Selma."
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AKU 1051LP
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$25.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/1/2024
In 1940, over 100,000 Jewish men and women lived in Tunisia. Thirty years later, no more than 10,000 remained. Today, only a few of them have resisted the historical forces that dispersed their families and their neighbors. In spite of this exile, the thousand-year-old presence of Tunisian Jews has left an eternal and delightful imprint on the country's landscapes and its heritage -- cultural, culinary and, of course, musical. Habiba Msika, Louisa Tounsia, Raoul Journo. and El Kahlaoui Tounsi, represented here on the record's side A, are four legendary artists, narrators of a history that they never ceased to sing on both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, along with the waves of migration. On side B, DJ and producer Sharouh revisits their songs, plays with their rhythms and sounds in a series of reworks that reclaim this heritage and breathe new life into it. Through the new release of these four musical gems alongside Sharouh's unique reworks, the cultural diversity of Tunisia challenges oblivion and reinvents itself. Includes liner notes.
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AKU 1050LP
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$25.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/1/2024
The Buffalo sacrifice is a significant ritual among the Bahnar people, an ethnic group residing in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It symbolizes a connection to ancestral spirits and the natural world. Prior to the sacrifice, the community gathers to prepare offerings and adorn the buffalo with symbolic decorations. The ceremony typically involves prayers, chants, and dances led by village elders. The sacrifice is performed with reverence and gratitude, honoring the buffalo's sacrifice for the well-being of the community. It's believed to ensure fertility, protection, and prosperity for the village. The ritual underscores the Bahnar people's deep-rooted spiritual beliefs and their harmonious relationship with nature. After the sacrifice, the buffalo's meat is shared among the villagers in a communal feast, fostering unity and solidarity within the community. This tradition serves as a cultural cornerstone, preserving the Bahnar's heritage and spiritual practices for generations. Recorded in the village of Plei Hven (Vietnam) in 2019 by Vincenzo Della Ratta, this unique album offers a deep immersion in this ancestral ceremony. Includes liner notes.
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10"
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AKU 1049LP
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Boîte Boîte is the latest collection from French trumpeter Jac Berrocal. Composed of rare and previously unreleased tracks, it plunges the listener into the fascinating world of this unclassifiable and timeless avant-garde artist. Recorded between Paris, New York, Berlin and Riga, the works are received like postcards from an unknown sender and enjoyed without moderation. The selection, devised by Jac Berrocal himself, oscillates between experimental tracks such as the eponymous "Boîte Boîte" and electronic pop delusions such as "Amarena." Impeccably mixed by Vincent Epplay. Limited edition.
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LP+CD
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AKU 1046LP
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Agua Larga offers an immersion into the Afro-Ecuadorian culture of the province of Esmeraldas. The authors have captured how music is part of the daily life of the inhabitants, and how it interacts with the other sound elements that surround it. The musical material is thus accompanied by stories, poems and scenes of everyday life captured on the spot, far from aseptic studios, in public spaces, on river banks or by the sea. The guiding theme is water ("agua" in Spanish), in all its forms. It was the sea that brought the slaves to this new continent, but it is the sea that supplies the fishermen of today with fish. The rivers and streams used by boats and pirogues connect the villages of this rainforest. Water has also become a rare commodity in the city, where access is still difficult for some of the population. Scenes taken on the spot will mark this omnipresence of water, as a place to live and a necessary daily resource. This documentary project is intended as a sound testimony to an oral culture that is still too little known.
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LP+CD
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AKU 1045LP
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An original instrumental music project led by composer and Oud player, Aly Eissa. Featuring his diverse musical influences, Eissa's compositions create versatile and twisted meditative atmospheres throughout the musical experience. Aly Eissa is a composer and Oud player based in Cairo, Egypt. He was mentored by legendary composer Abdo Dagher and Oud virtuoso, Hazem Shahin. Eissa's style is deeply-rooted in the Egyptian classical and folk traditions, and influenced by various western genres. Since 2012, Eissa has been regularly performing his compositions with an ensemble for live audiences in Cairo, offering a meditative musical experience with a twist. One of Eissa's musical approaches is the experimenting approach through a unique trio formation including the Belgian synthesizer player Jonas Cambien and the Egyptian percussion player, Ayman Mabrouk. In this trio, Eissa is trying to explore a different sound and space in the originally composed Arabic music. Includes CD with bonus tracks.
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AKU 1044LP
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Baskot Lel Baltageyya (which, loosely translated, means "Cookies for Thugs"), is a project headed by musician Adham Zidan and poet Anwar Dabbour. On the Egyptian band's debut album, Dabbour's colloquial Arabic lyrics paint visions of a world spinning into chaos, where reality often veers into absurdity. Zidan, who produced the album in addition to writing the music, harnesses the madness with serpentine melodies that mingle and dance over hypnotic grooves like a psychedelic version of ring-around-the-rosie. Zidan plays keyboards and sings in The Invisible Hands alongside Sublime Frequencies/Sun City Girls co-founder, Alan Bishop. He honed his own style of lo-fi folk on Today Is Tomorrow, and is now expanding his horizons even further with Baskot Lel Baltageyya. Over the past decade, he has gained widespread recognition for his work as a musician, producer, recordist, and mixer. Dubbed "Egypt's musical renaissance man" by Scene Noise in 2019, he's lent his keen ear to numerous other projects -- such as Youssra El Hawary's No'oum Nasyeen (2017), Tarkamt's Live at the Necropolis (2018), Maurice Louca's Elephantine (SR 474LP, 2019), Natik Awayez's Manbarani (SF 116LP, 2020), and Nancy Mounir's Nozhet El Nofous (2022) -- and has collaborated with many of the biggest names in the region's independent music scene, including Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Nadah El Shazly, Raed Yassin, and Sam Shalabi. Baskot Lel Baltageyya started as an audiovisual project, and from the beginning, Zidan has resisted the idea of it being pinned down as any one thing. As he puts it, "You can think of Baskot as a genre of music, a name of a group, or as something to consume." The album serves as an extension of Baskot's phantasmagoric live show. With his voice slathered in vocoders, Dabbour weaves his fragmented rhyme schemes with surreal images, odd characters, pop-culture references and imperative prescriptions for managing everyday life. Astute listeners can find links between the album and the dark absurdist humor that prominently featured in Egyptian popular culture before life became more absurd than the culture. You may perceive similarities to monologuist performances, or to the different shaabi musics of the region, or to old Egyptian TV scores, or to early electronic music, or to western psychedelia. Alternatively, however, you can choose not to want to view everything in relation to things you already know. Bridging the gap between experimentation and pop, Baskot Lel Baltageyya stands as a style, a sound, and an edible entity all its own. Mastered by Heba Kadry. Includes 12" double poster.
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CD
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AKU 1042CD
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New album of the Swiss/Lebanese experimental duo (Raed Yassin and Paed Conca). Praed is a band whose musical oeuvre can be described as a mixture of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics. Since then, the band has frequented numerous international music festivals and toured intensively world-wide, spanning Japan, Europe, and Canada. Through these endeavors, the band has created a large global network with other renowned musicians as musical collaborators. CD version comes in digipack; edition of 300.
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LP
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AKU 1042LP
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LP version. Edition of 500. New album of the Swiss/Lebanese experimental duo (Raed Yassin and Paed Conca). Praed is a band whose musical oeuvre can be described as a mixture of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics. Since then, the band has frequented numerous international music festivals and toured intensively world-wide, spanning Japan, Europe, and Canada. Through these endeavors, the band has created a large global network with other renowned musicians as musical collaborators.
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AKU 1036LP
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Akuphone present Fuji-Yuki's latest masterpiece, One Butoh. A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the "dance of the obscure body". It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-World War II Japan. One Butoh resonates as a perfect acoustic introduction to this subversive art and propels the listener deep into his own soul. Fuji-Yuki is a Japanese vocalist who uses her voice like an instrument. With special vocal techniques, glossolalia and electronic pedals, she creates a wide variety of sounds. Inspired by the spirits of Buddhism and Shintoism, she creatively transforms her vocals into an ambient drone or prayers resonating in a church-like space. Her live performances are always different, depending on the place and space they take place in. She is also known as the vocalist of the experimental band Sarry. Reverse cardboard sleeve; 28-page A5 portfolio; edition of 500.
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AKU 1041CD
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Eka Faune offers a surprising mix of Asian cultures, shamanism and post-punk in the form of a record called Healing of the Nation. The band merges dark mantras, hypnotic rhythms, ethnic samples and the acid sounds of Seika Faune. Delphine Poupard's voice and Robin Plastre's sax are added to produce a haunting music, dark and luminous at the same time, alternating dance and trance, taking the listener far inside... Similarly, to the other albums by Eka Faune, Seika first recorded his drums and sounds machines as well as his sampler-sequencer in one take. Then he added the instruments and voices. Sax, bass, sarod, tambourine, and vocals accompany loops captured on the streets of Delhi, the mountains of Asia or old acid house vinyl. Eka Faune is a musical project based in Nantes, France, initiated in 2014 by the artist Guyseika. The project evolves under the influence of guitarists, cellists, singers, or dancers who join the band for a concert, a recording, a tour -- or more. Over the years, Amélie from Breedz Insane, Steph from Modules Étranges, Budwarrior, or Vincent Roy, have taken part in the project. Recorded in 2021, the album Healing of the Nation is a deeply thought-out answer to the crisis we are all going through. It offers a way to heal from it: sounds coming straight out of a feverish cave located between the Himalayas and Detroit bewitch us into quite a trip.
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AKU 1040LP
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Akuphone present the Jerusalem-based improvisational trio Leviot and its hypnotizing debut album Sharav. Leviot (Hebrew for "Lionesses") is the brainchild of the multifaceted musician and composer Yael Lavie. She is accompanied by classically trained percussionist and music teacher Cnaan Canetti, and synth enthusiast Yishay Seroussi. The project is a result of Lavie's explorations beyond the restraints of classical kanun and her fascination for electronic sounds and modern composition. The project initially started after Yael performed and recorded with the Spiritczualic Enhancement Center. With Leviot, she favors improvised sets over rehearsed pieces, revolving around virtuous interpretations by Cnaan and Yishay. The three musicians have been active since 2019, playing their immersive shows in a wide variety of settings, venues and festivals. The trio's debut release is a live session recorded in late 2020 at the Mazkeka Studios (Jerusalem), for the lockdown edition of the annual Zikuk Festival. It's a meditative improvised piece in five parts that melts boundaries between traditional and experimental music, combining primal and futuristic sounds. Lavie's graphic melodies are a road map for the piece, as Leviot takes off on a cosmic journey with deep drones, whispering chimes, mesmerizing Arab melodies, pulsating rhythms and iridescent ambient patterns. Reverse cardboard sleeve; includes printed inner; edition of 500.
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AKU 1039LP
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The cabalistic duo Ak'chamel strikes again with a second record called A Mournful Kingdom of Sand. Following the publicly and critically acclaimed The Totemist (AKU 1023LP) released in 2020, this album sucks the listener into another esoteric journey which -- according to the band -- is a perfect soundtrack for the desertification of our world. Ak'chamel, The Giver of Illness is an enigmatic duo from a border state. Fourth World Post-Colonial Cultural Cannibalists Circumcising The Foreskin of Enlightenment. Performing in homemade costumes and masks, they have played festivals in various cities around the US gaining international attention from Vice, the Wire, Tiny Mix Tapes, Consequence of Sound, and many more. They have amassed over ten cassette albums and one VHS full-length film. Reverse cardboard sleeve; includes printed inner; edition of 500.
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AKU 1031CD
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Kadef Abgi came together in a serendipitous way. Devin Brahja Waldman was walking up St. Laurent borough in Montreal when he heard an otherworldly voice emanating from the venue Divan Orange. He walked in and listened to the singer on stage. When he was done, Devin walked over to him. After a short exchange about playing a house show in a couple of days, Ziad Qoulaii told Devin that he was available for all his projects. Shortly thereafter, Devin and Ziad met up at Mathieu Pelletier-Gagnon's studio with Anas Jellouf and Hamza Lahmadi. Later on, Anas Hejam, Vicky Mettler, and guitarist Sam Shalabi (Shalabi Effect, The Dwarfs Of East Agouza, Karkhana, Land Of Kush) joined. The music materialized in a natural, collectively improvised way, without any compositions or ideas discussed beforehand -- and without second takes. From there, Waldman began editing and mixing. Ala Dehghan painted the album's great artwork. A single composer's imagination would not have produced Diva Of Deva Loka as it is music created from a collective consciousness unfolding in real time. The album has its roots in each musician's sonic experience: this includes Arabic music including most notably Moroccan Gnawa -- as well as rock n' roll, jazz, and the avant-garde. Devin Brahja Waldman is a New York saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer. He has performed with Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, Lydia Lunch, along many other artists. He has also accompanied his aunt, the poet Anne Waldman, since the age of ten. He leads a NYC/Montreal-based band, B R A H J A, performs in Heroes Are Gang Leaders and is a member of Artists For A Free World Marching Band. Along with Anne Waldman and his cousin Ambrose Bye, Waldman co-directs Fast Speaking Music -- a still-active music and poetry label which has released the works of Amiri Baraka, Meredith Monk, CA Conrad, and many others. Vinyl replica style CD.
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AKU 1038LP
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Contrarily to the rest of Tasos Stamou's experimental discography, the musician's latest album Balkan Express has a more obscure electro-folk approach. It consists of seven pieces, all recorded with seven different vintage electric keyboards from Stamou's own collection, blended with oriental acoustic solos. Since Stamou grew up in the Balkans in the '80s, he wanted to pay homage to the essence of the sound of the era that unintentionally shaped a whole culture. It was when these inexpensive, available-to-all electronic keyboards with synth sounds and drum machines replaced traditional Balkan folk music ensembles. The acoustic instruments solos and melodies of the album were influenced by local traditions and the heritage of the Ottoman music. Balkan Express is meant to be a time capsule taking the listener to the folk-wave retro-Balkan subculture. Tasos Stamou is an electroacoustic music composer and performer, alternative electronic instrument maker, instructor and sound technician. He explores the gap between ancient and contemporary transcendental music, using both traditional and advanced media. For ten years, he has been performing and recording, developing a unique style of live electroacoustic composition.
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AKU 1034CD
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As a traveler-without-age, Damo Suzuki has been touring all over space-time. Presenting the light of "instant composing" to new generations, he refers to his makeshift collaborators as sound-carriers. Exactly fifty years after the release of the profoundly iconic Ege Bamyasi (1972), you can hear his voice on yet another fantastic album, as in "derived from fantasy." Manifested from the meeting with Spiritczualic Enhancement Center -- an eight-piece group of self-proclaimed disciples from the CAN University have gathered at Arkaoda (Turkish for "backroom"). Named after the place in Berlin where it was recorded, this release freewheels down the "Autobahn of Consciousness" as it swerves along that ancestral road. A witness of this session was quoted calling it "unfiltered, freeform, de-programming music." The album's three volatile tracks -- "U," "Ra," and "Beya" -- are unity-enhancing, non-boolean excerpts from this serendipitous symposium at the beginning of 2020 (just before the new measures). Let your children hear this! Deluxe limited CD in a 350grm vinyl replica sleeve; printed on reverse cardboard; edition of 400.
"Damo was so natural, like a zen master, a spiritual elder. He spoke to us in kind, authentic, deep mannerisms -- and yet, was so approachable, not the least apparent in the fact that he immediately said 'yes, sure' to my offer to partake in some Hashish smoking -- and we sat and laughed and spoke for hours ... rather philosophically and intellectually, you could say, but in a way that seemed so easygoing nonetheless. I was moved by this, as I didn't know what to expect -- there was this anticipation that he'd be 'too big' and kinda feel above us, but this feeling was not there in the slightest. We were merged, from the start. And this felt like his secret, the way by which he's able to tour and play with completely new musicians every time, for decades. And it isn't a method or a tactic." --words from Spiritczualic Enhancement Center.
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AKU 1035CD
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Expedition is a collaboration between sound artist The Dead Mauriacs (aka Olivier Prieur) and collage artist Evan Crankshaw, based on their mutual interest in treating exotica as both a subject and a material. Evan Crankshaw's 2015 collage book, also entitled Expedition, is assembled and collaged by hand from a vast archive of popular exoticist printed materials, and explores recurring motifs in expedition narratives, simultaneously evoking and alienating the exoticist fantasy. In 2018, the book was interpreted for a live performance at Festival BBMix in collaboration with The Dead Mauriacs, who created a complete exotica-concrète score accompanying projected images of the book and live narration. That collaboration can be heard on this album, an armchair-travel virtual-voyage to the heart of an imagined actual elsewhere, stitched from pieces of narcotizing fabulisms, disturbing actualities, and incomprehensibilities -- an interior excursion into the exotic immensity. Evan Crankshaw is a collage artist residing in North Carolina and the host of Explorers Room on WFMU's Give The Drummer Radio. The Dead Mauriacs' music is a journey into post-industrial landscapes, concrete exotica, Ballardian dystopia: a joyful nightmare. It is Olivier Prieur's art and music project. Gatefold CD sleeve.
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AKU 1037LP
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Jac Berrocal, David Fenech, and Vincent Epplay are back with a true gem of an album: Transcodex. Turning more towards pop than in their beginnings, this fourth record follows the footsteps of their previous album, Exterior Lux (AKU 1026LP, 2021). The trio seems limitless: they experiment with a large variety of styles (pop, dub, electronica, dark jazz), always colored by their very own touch. Jac Berrocal's trumpet, richer than ever, plays over an ever-changing sonic landscape engineered by the duet of musicians/producers Vincent Epplay and David Fenech. For this album, they invited two amazing musicians: Jah Wobble (founding member of Public Image Ltd and collaborator of African Head Charge, Brian Eno, Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, Evan Parker, Sinéad O'Connor) plays deep bass lines on two tracks and Jean-Hervé Peron (founding member of the German band Faust, and who recorded with Tony Conrad, Nurse With Wound, Pascal Comelade) brings his prowess to two tracks as well. Peron writes lyrics in French, German, and Russian -- and plays the French horn like no one else/ The closing track of the A side is a tribute to Christophe Bevilacqua (1945-2020), friend to Jac Berrocal. The song summons the place Bevilacqua used to live in: an Art Deco flat on Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris. Even if its intentions are clear, Transcodex does not reveal all its secrets right away. It's up to you to find the solution, the key, the Transcodex yourself. It must be revisited over and over again for its beauty to be fully revealed.
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AKU 1033CD
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Mulid El-Magnoun addresses the term "moulid" and its various manifestations it takes on in Egyptian folk music. Here, the word "moulid" does not exclusively refer to Sufi moulids: rather also the intertwined artistic spaces that lie between the moulid in its Sufi sense and what it carries in distinctive rhythmic patterns, musical instruments, and artistic forms, and the moulid as a musical genre originating from folk weddings that enjoy special aesthetics and unique styles. Through this project, YUNIS tries to explore the spaces where those two concepts collide through producing an original musical composition which reflects his own vision and understanding of "moulids" as well as the manifestations the word carries within him. Deluxe limited CD in a 350grm vinyl replica gatefold sleeve; printed on reverse cardboard; edition of 300.
YUNIS (b. 1994 - Kafr El-Dauwar) is an Egyptian musician and music producer. He has produced two albums until now; The Blue Djinn Dance which was his first solo album, and Ya Khal which was a collaborative work with Ibrahim X. He is also a co-founder of Kafr El-Dauwar Records, an independent digital record label interested in contemporary and experimental music, founded by a group of young artists with the aim of creating a musical movement in the city, by supporting a group of artists to start their music from Kafr El-Dauwar with the potential of going with the music to the farthest point it could arrive. In his music, YUNIS seeks inspiration from the popular Egyptian folkloric heritage, which boasts many instruments, tools, and musical styles. He then reads and analyzes the musical legacy and presents it with the forms of his contemporary time.
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AKU 1030LP
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Akuphone present the first compilation dedicated to musician John Bolloten, aka The Rootsman. As a precocious punk, he formed his first band, State Oppression, in his teens. Yet he is best known for his dub music, a genre that gave him international recognition. Largely influenced by the rhythms of North Africa and the Middle East, he built his musical identity around samples from these regional repertoires. His encounter with Bryn Jones -- better known as Muslimgauze -- further defined his artistic path. This selection offers an overview of his work from 1996 to 1998, a prolific period when Into The Light (1996), 52 Days To Timbuktu (1998), Union Of Souls with Celtarabia (1998) and Distant Voices with Pachakuti were released. A visionary production that predicted today's growing international predilection for the musical heritage of the MENA regions. The compilation is enriched with an explanatory preface by Mabrouk Hosni Ibn Aleya and illustrated with rare archival photos. Jacket design by Ghiya Haydar.
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AKU 1028LP
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Innéisme: The title alone sums up perfectly the eighth album of French artist My Jazzy Child. Inspired by Noam Chosmky's "universal grammar", it refers to man's innate ability to develop language. It is that English, Occitan, French patois, Hindi, Pygmy or French cohabit on this record, juxtaposing on rhythms and beats that appear as a fantasized primordial tradition. If My Jazzy Child, aka Damien Mingus, questions languages about Innéisme, he also questions musical languages, mixing Asian rites and free jazz, electronic wanderings and traditional percussions. A virtuoso and experimental collage that nevertheless knows how to remain melodic and, in the end, strangely pop.
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2LP
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AKU 1027LP
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In a similar vein to an archeologist, Raed Yassin's new album Archeophony takes you on a journey through sounds and voices excavated from collected sonic archives from the past, rearranged and reproduced through electronics, distortion, sampling and assembly. Drum machines, synthesizers, and electronic sounds merge with solo traditional voices and instruments recorded in different parts of the world, coming together to create a contrarian yet magical sound unlike any other. Based on so-called "ethnic" music recordings conducted between the 1950s and '80s by Western ethnomusicologists in true colonial fashion, the album attempts to achieve an archeology of sound that reflects both the course history and its continuous distortion by the powers that be. The result is a dizzying living archive of sonic history as well as the presentation of a unique experimental orchestration. By rereading musical history in this way, Raed Yassin strives to play the role of a conductor. The orchestra is history itself, and he selects, deconstructs, emphasizes, mutes and distorts it through this album. As a musician, Raed Yassin has been a key member in the Lebanese underground music scene for many years. One of the organizers of the Irtijal Festival of Experimental Music from its early beginnings, he founded his concept music label Annihaya in 2009. He is a member of several bands and groups, including "A" Trio, PRAED, among others. As a double bassist, he developed a personal and independent extended technique, by employing different preparations and objects on his instrument. His interest here relies heavily on textures, energies and vibrations, the density of volume and sound, rather than conventional melodic structures. Also an electronic musician and experimental turntablist, his approach to vinyl ranges from deconstructing Arab pop music, to reexamining the traditional music archives of countries from the global south. With his duo band PRAED (along with Paed Conca), he acts as the lead singer and synth player, merging free jazz with psychedelic rock and Egyptian Shaabi music. Gatefold sleeve.
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LP
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AKU 1029LP
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On Maza Gusu, Mikado Koko transforms into Mother Goose, hissing Charles Perrault's fairy tales from her native tongue in your ears. Her unsettling, regressive voice is backed up by a subtle and chilling electronic soundscape sprinkled with traditional Japanese instruments, creating a realm of sound that feels both weirdly familiar and deeply unknown. Mother Koko hurls you deep down the rabbit hole, back to your darkest childhood anguishes, before gently leading you by the hand to a joyful catharsis. As you slowly get used to its disturbing familiarity, Koko's music feels like waking up in the pale morning light, shaky but relieved after a feverish dream. In summer 2017, Mikado Koko started her solo career as a club music producer with the elements of Japanese traditional music. After many releases, remixes and compilations, such as Seitō: In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun (AKU 1016CD/LP), she now focuses on avant-garde poetry reading related to feminism and gender equality.
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