MUSIC

When it first appeared in 1986, the Desert Equations: Azax Attra album was greeted with enthusiasm, awe and disbe- lief: nobody had done anything quite like that before, and this dizzying, inspired blend of Persian tradition, New York avant-garde and electronic music remains incomparable, powerful and mesmerising to this day. 

Combining the sublime voice of Iranian vocalist Deyhim and the electronic wizardry of US composer Horowitz, Desert Equations wonderfully blends the duo’s multiple sources, including their experiences at the epicentre of New York’s early ‘80s avantgarde music and theatre scene, Sussan Deyhim’s intimate knowledge of traditional Persian music and its reverberation in modern Iranian arts, and Richard Horowitz’s background in jazz (he spent time with Paris-based US freejazz expats in the ‘70s, and played with Braxton, Steve Lacy and Alan Silva), electronics and the folk music of Morocco (where he lived for a while). 

This haunting and futuristic album prompted writer Paul Bowles to wonder: “Was this composed under the influence of Majoun?”. It then convinced filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci to entrust the soundtrack music for film adaptation of Bowles’ cult novel The Sheltering Sky movie to Richard Horowitz (which earned him a Golden Globe), and also led to a series of music/theatre Azax Attra performances at New York’s iconic experimental La MaMa Theatre. 

This 2022 remastered reissue includes three previously-unreleased bonus tracks, and a rich booklet with photographs and extensive notes recounting the duo’s fascinating life stories 

Sussan Deyhim and Richard Horowitz went on to record numerous albums, together and separately, including Majoun, Logic of the Birds, Madman of God and Shy Angels (Sussan’s albums devoted to Persian Sufi poetry), Possessed and Turbulent (Sussan’s albums in collaboration with renowned visual artist Shirin Neshat), and La Belle et la Bête. Sussan Deyhim also worked with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Jah Wobble, Bobby McFerrin, Adrian Sherwood, Bill Laswell, Ornette Coleman, and Alexandre Desplats (on the soundtrack for Argo). Richard Horowitz collaborated with Jaron Lanier, Hassan Hakmoun, David Byrne, was the original artistic director of the Gnaoua Festival in Essaouira, wrote and recorded film soundtracks for Oliver Stone, Bob Swaim, and several Mococcan filmmakers including Nour Eddine Lakhmari, Faouzi Bensaidi & Souheil Ben Barka. Prior to Desert Equations, Richard had recorded and released two albums, including cult record Eros in Arabia (1981, recently reissued on NY label FTS/RVNG) 

In April 2021, Deyhim and Horowitz have performed at the Nobel Prize Summit. Deyhim is currently collaborating on a new project by Philip Glass and filmmaker Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi). 

87年に〈Sondor〉から発表されたオリジナルは限りなく希少。アルゼンチン音響派にも影響を及ぼした、ウルグアイ音楽における代表格にして最高の音楽家Eduardo Mateoとその盟友Ruben Rada、カンドンベ・ビートの創設者として伝説的バンド”El Kinto”でも活動を共にした二人の巨匠が発表した大傑作が待望のアナログ・リイシュー！日本では〈Beans Records〉がCD再発していましたがヴァイナル復刻は今回が初。フォルクローレ〜カンドンベ〜ジャズ〜ロックまでもがハイブリッドに溶け合ったサイケデリックすぎる近未来的空想民俗！

Caracol is one of the first examples of fusion between Brazilian percussive music and electronics. Synthesizers, samplers and sequencers were still a novelty in Brazil in the 1980s, but João de Bruçó and R.H. Jackson created an avant-garde masterpiece.

Using popular references and an eagerness to escape any retro / stylistic cliché that came to haunt Brazilian youth music at that time, they plunged into an audacious, intuitive and improbable sound journey in Caracol.
This rare adventure of Brazilian music was released independently in 1989, financed by the artists themselves. The original small pressing sold-out, belonging now to record collectors around the planet. For the first time Caracol is re-released on vinyl, with two extra tracks found after decades!

Remastered from the original tapes, this reissue includes a reproduction of the original graphic art, new testimonies from João de Bruçó and RH Jackson and a long article signed by Bento Araujo, author of the book series Lindo Sonho Delirante, which investigates audacious and fearless music created in the Brazilian underground.

If you like DJ Lag, Nazar and Slikback, you'll love this one! Hailing from Umlazi Township in Durban, South Africa, 27-year-old trackmaker Menzi was one of the early pioneers of the GQOM scene, which has now become a worldwide movement. This is the debut album from the man who has been producing for some of South Africa's biggest artists such as Babes Wodumo, Mahotella Queens and Zolani Mahola for the past few years, as well as organizing Festive Road Block Umlazi, the biggest GQOM block party held annually in Durban for the past few years. The album is made up of tracks recorded at Umlazi Durban and Boutiq Studios Kampala (Uganda) in '19 and '20, and includes "GQOM Tera," a collaboration with Ugandan MC Ecko Bazz.

Psychedelic trance ritual music! It is an imaginary and vast horizon. From the percussion instrument group "Kodo", which has its roots in Sado, great performance of Kenta Taku Yutaku, a unit consisting kodo! Reminds me of Mohammad Reza Mortazavi or Ricardo Villalobos & Oren Ambarchi "Hubris"!!

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Kenta Taku Yu Tataku 2nd Album
Physical release on cassette tape along with digital release. The cassette is limited to 100!

Imagine from the sound.
Create sound.

The "sound" that overflows from Kenta Nakagome and Yuta Sumiyoshi, who chose the media "cassette" in an era where they can listen to anything with various streaming services, is particular about their own sound and the sound that only two people can make "NAYUTA". It became a work called.
Please prepare a cassette deck and fully enjoy the difference in texture and sound quality peculiar to analog that can never be reproduced digitally.
Also pay attention to the cassette design that you want to collect and the bonus stickers that come with it!

0on Zero-on, a label run by the percussion group "Kodo 鼓童" which has its roots on Sado Island, has released a cassette recording of a solo performance by percussionist Yuta Sumiyoshi, a member of the "Kodo" group. 

KENTATAKU YUTATAKU’s 3rd album “Zero On” is the eponymous first release on Kodo’s new label 0on.
Featuring four improvisational tracks, ranging from large ensemble works without musical instruments to vast sound collages, KENTATAKU YUTATAKU’s latest work is packed full of heart, soul, and fresh new sound.
Limited release of 200 cassettes + download code. 

0on Zero-on, a label run by the percussion group "Kodo 鼓童" which has its roots on Sado Island, has released a cassette recording of a solo performance by percussionist Yuta Sumiyoshi, a member of the "Kodo" group. 

“Mogari” is Yuta Sumiyoshi’s debut solo album. Features six tracks of 100% shinobue (bamboo flutes) music, recorded entirely at his home studio. This uncharted exploration of shinobue sound drifts and shapeshifts through drone, noise, minimalism and more, leading to untold possibilities. Limited release of 100 cassettes + download code.

The Chakachas were a Belgian based group of Latin soul studio musicians. Also known as Les Chakachas or Los Chakachas. They started out in the late 50s, recording a playful mixture of Latin music, jazz, and European-style exotica. This same titled album is a much sought after album amongst the connoisseurs.The song "Stories" on this album was featured on the soundtrack of the very popular game Grand Theft Auto V. This song was also covered by the band CAKE.Get your latin groove on.

Following releases for The Tapeworm and 12th Isle, Christos Chondropoulos lands on The Death Of Rave with this incredible album of "Athenian Primitive” riffs on ancient Greek music and proto-techno prisms, highly recommended if yr into Paul DeMarinis, Rashad Becker, Jonathan Bepler’s soundtracks for Matthew Barney, Black Sabbath or Aphex Twin. Continuing Christos’ singular fascination with, and reappraisal of, Ancient Greek modes, ’Relics’ further excavates the deeptime topography of Greek music prior to the ban of “oriental” or 1/4 tone microtonal modes nearly 100 years ago. Clandestine, euphoric, hyperreal and otherworldly; it takes shape as faintly familiar forms of new age folk, avant-techno and metal musicks, but with an alien appeal that treats the past almost like another planet, never mind a foreign land. Christos studiously raids the past for lost treasure, navigating his tuned instincts as an improvising percussionist, and lover of non-Western composition, to create a uniquely absorbing soundworld that resembles an AI’s dreams after ingesting encyclopaedia entries on thousands of years of Greece prior to 1936. In the process, the album acutely questions his and our relationship to the past, and what has become lost in translation with reliance on prelaid templates and the “wisdom” of elders. Bursting to life with the iridescent arps and new age AI chorale of ‘First Love Fereter’, and concluding with bone-clacking raverie of ‘Jungle X’, the album offers a stunning advance of the themes and aesthetics in Christos previous records, from the self-released free jazz of ‘Fingerpainting’ (2013) to 2021’s 12th Isle released ‘Athenian Primitivism.’ Thanks to meticulous detailing, ‘Relics’ allows a finer play of textured light and almost tangible - yet entirely generated - voices into his music: most strikingly on the sublime songcraft of ‘Regret’ and ‘I Dream Of You’, while the likes of ‘Asham’ are bathed in deeply uncanny atmosphere, and his percussive proprioceptions are most heightened in the delirious battery of ‘War Horns’ and ‘Sacrifice’, with ‘Cyber Crust’ calling up demonic, cthonic pagan spirits resembling Black Sabbath undergoing regression therapy.

Just one week after the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Riad brought his sisters Hanan, Alia and Nariman together in their living room and began recording The Intifada album on equipment he had made himself. One of these was co-written with their friend, the acclaimed Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish. Riad printed 3000 copies of the cassettes which he began distributing in the Old City of Jerusalem and across the West Bank. The Israeli Army immediately confiscated all the copies they could find, the vast majority of which remain in the military archives to this day. Riad was arrested, interrogated and detained for several months. Straight after his release, he formed a band, Palestinian Union, and put out a new album. He then founded a school, offering kids in the West Bank an alternative musical education, teaching them how to create their own electronic equipment. In 2005, Riad was tragically killed in a car accident. His legacy lives on through his family, his timeless music and his powerful story, which continues to inspire 34 years on from the First Intifada. *** During the first lockdown of 2020, artist and music collector Mo’min Swaitat was in Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, when he met up with a family friend and former record label owner, whom he remembered from childhood. The family friend told him he no longer ran the label and that all his cassettes were now in storage and had not been played for decades. Mo’min purchased over five thousand cassettes from him, amongst them a large collection of music from the First Intifada. One of these was The Intifada album.

Les Filles de Illighadad present their first ever studio album “Eghass Malan.” The female led avant rock group hailing from the village of the same name bring their new genre of Tuareg guitar mixed with traditional rural folk. Versed in tradition, Fatou Seidi Ghali and her band have created contemporary studio versions that are unlike anything ever before recorded, transporting rural nomadic song into the 21st century. Les Filles are all from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside support hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries. The sound that defines rural Niger is a music known as “tende.” It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements, vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It is a music form dominated by women. Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps, played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season. In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar have become synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response. The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that has always been sung by woman, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart, and Tuareg guitar music is a male dominated scene. Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother's guitar, she taught herself to play.While Fatou's role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, so popular in contemporary Tuareg rock bands, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende. Recorded on their debut tour in Europe after just a handful of concerts, “Eghass Malan” maintains a feeling that is spontaneous and inspired. With a minimal effects in an artist led production, Les Filles stay true to their form and origin. Hypnotic guitar riffs, driving rhythm, and polyphonic resonant vocals combine to create an organic sound that is timeless and ancient, bridging ancient tradition and modern worlds. With songs of love, celebrating the village, and praise for the desert and its people, Les Filles create a repertoire of ancient songs, village tende favorites, and new classics. Les Filles de Illighadad breath new life into the genre, and "Eghass Malan” promises to shake up Tuareg guitar both at home and abroad.

Tuareg rock from Niger's singer-songwriter Mdou Moctar. Tales of anguished love and broken hearts, plus some well known classics. Famous for his autotuned studio sessions popular on West African cellphones, here Mdou performs live. Recorded on location in Niger, electrifying, distorted and blown out guitar balances with sweet melodies of Saharan folk. 

Young Congolese DJ/producer Oyisse, based in Kampala, makes his debut on the white label series of Hakuna Kulala, a subsidiary of Nyege Nyege Tapes, the African version of PAN, a stronghold of experimental music from Uganda. It's an avant-garde fusion of abstract electronics, South African dark house (GQOM), trap, Central African music, and Congolese songs, all fused together in a futuristic imagination. Four tracks of experimental electronic sounds.

This innovative work of Okinawan pop music is based on island songs, subtly blended with the essence of reggae, soul, rock, etc., and has a comfortable and unique laid-back vibrato. This is a rare masterpiece that includes many originals, and is finally being reissued this year, the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's return to mainland Japan!

Otoroku present the first vinyl reissue of Louis Moholo Octet's Spirits Rejoice!, originally released in 1978 on Ogun Recordings. One of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced, Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti, and Kenny Wheeler, this is former Blue Note artist Louis Moholo's first album under his own name and is a classic example of the cross-pollination between South African and British players. Mongezi Feza's 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me" alone is enough to make your life a better place. Made with permission and in association with Ogun Recordings. Features an exact reproduction of the original artwork and liner notes, along with new liner notes from Matthew Wright. Remastered by Giuseppe IIelasi. High gloss sleeve.

Johnny Clarke ruled the dancehall in the mid '70s, using the clever "Flyers Rhythms" that gave some of his tunes an edge with the sound systems. But his voice was always bigger than this and his versatility to sing a wide range of vocal styles has seen him cut through the decades as one of reggae's best voices. Produced by Bunny Lee, mixed at King Tubby's studio, an absolute reggae/roots classic.

Now-Again Records presents a new, essential entry into the growing phenomenon known as Psych-Funk with Those Shocking Shaking Days: the untold story of Indonesia¡Çs various underground 70s musical scenes. Few are aware of the progressive music scenes from 1970s Indonesia, as censorship imposed by the dictator Suharto lead to crackdowns on those courageous enough to rebel. This insurgent sound - marked by relentless fuzz, over the top, politically charged lyrics, strong rhythms and a cranky low-fidelity - is as similar to that of Rare Earth protégés Power of Zeus as it is to that of South Korean psych-god Shin Jung Hyun. It is as informed by James Brown¡Çs funk as it is by the hard, progressive rock of Deep Purple and King Crimson. This anthology contains 20 tracks of hard, psychedelic, progressive rock and funk that has been largely unheard or ignored outside of the confines of this island nation. This is all thanks to the tireless (and expensive) research of Canadian hip hop producer and Southeast Asian music specialist Jason ¡ÈMoss¡É Connoy, the trust that Indonesian rock legend Benny Soebardja placed in Now-Again Records as he traversed his homeland¡Çs islands securing the necessary rights for the tracks contained within this anthology, and the cultural context added to the proceedings by Indonesian ex-pat Chandra Drews, who assisted in a track-by-track annotation. This anthology is the first of its kind – the first Western-based survey of the most impressive organizations to offer their take on the psychedelic and progressive rock and funk sounds during the shocking, shaking days of Suharto¡Çs regime. This gem can be purchased as a deluxe ¡Èmini-LP¡É tip on sleeve CD or a 3 LP triple paste on gatefold. Included are extensive liner notes, photographs, ephemera in full color booklets and, of course, fully restored and remastered audio.

Tender tonkori melodies, meditative dub excursions and hallowed folk vocals combine on Tonkori In The Moonlight, an 11-track collection of mostly traditional songs performed by indigenous Ainu musician OKI. Born on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1957, OKI's released his debut album in 1996 and since then he has recorded 11 studio albums both solo and with his Dub Ainu Band and toured internationally -- from WOMAD in the UK to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC via festival appearances in Singapore, Australia and across Europe. OKI is one of only a handful of musicians who play the tonkori, a five-stringed Ainu harp, which is both the pulse of this record and the force that unifies the disparate sounds he introduces such as reggae, dub, Irish folk, throat singing, African drumming and music from Central Asia. Tonkori In The Moonlight features Umeko Ando and Kila. For fans of: Midori Takada, Siti Muharam, Minyo Crusaders, Les Filles De Illighadad, African Head Charge, Mamman Sani. "Supercool Japanese minimalism" --The Observer. "Like nothing you've ever heard before" --The Wire. "The edgy cool of Jamaica meets the kitsch cool of Japan... charming and compelling" --The Independent.

For the first time ever, Vampisoul, the sister label of Munster Records, is reissuing this Argentinean Balearic Jazz/Fusion masterpiece. The album was released on Vampisoul, a sister label of Munster Records. This is a fantastic album by one of the top Argentinean musicians who left his work for "Melopea Discos" under the direction of Litto Nebbia. This is an ethno-fusion/jungle ambience masterpiece with rich sonic nourishment and Brazilian flavors. Includes an insert with unpublished photos and notes. Highly recommended for fans of obscure South American music such as "Outro Tempo" (Music From Memory) and "América Invertida" (Vampisoul) as well as Azymuth, Mono Fontana and Motohiko Hamase!

For the first time ever, Vampisoul, the sister label of Munster Records, is reissuing this Argentinean Balearic Jazz/Fusion masterpiece. The album was released on Vampisoul, a sister label of Munster Records. This is a fantastic album by one of the top Argentinean musicians who left his work for "Melopea Discos" under the direction of Litto Nebbia. This is an ethno-fusion/jungle ambience masterpiece with rich sonic nourishment and Brazilian flavors. Includes an insert with unpublished photos and notes. Highly recommended for fans of obscure South American music such as "Outro Tempo" (Music From Memory) and "América Invertida" (Vampisoul) as well as Azymuth, Mono Fontana and Motohiko Hamase!

Pow wow singer and Bon Iver collaborator Joe Rainey directs his astonishing voice thru industrial grit, widescreen orchestrals and chaotic DIY synth noise on "Niineta", his debut for Justin Vernon's 37d03d label. Completely singular music. Rainey was brought up in Minneapolis, with a heritage that links to the Red Lake Ojibwe - an indigenous tribe that has a sovereign state in northern Minnesota. And while he didn't grow up there, he long felt the pull of a culture that at various times has been blotted out by the USA. Rainey has been involved in pow wow singing since he was just five years old, and has performed in bands as well as building up an immense archive of field recordings. 'Niineta' is his debut album, but he's been performing for years - in 2016, he even brought Justin Vernon to tears during a festival show in Wisconsin. It was enough for Vernon to invite Rainey to contribute to his last album, and sign him to the 37d03d he runs with The National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner. The record is an example of how pow wow traditions can be synthesized into different forms without losing their musical core; Rainey's range and vocal style roots the album in tradition, but his production and willingness to experiment fires "Niineta" into the future. With help from Fog's Andrew Broder, Rainey has put together a distorted, abstract backdrop that happily ducks from jagged beatscapes into luscious orchestral cinematics without any unintentional jerkiness. The music is consistent with Rainey's pow wow tradition, but acknowledges decades of music that too often has sat distant. 'b.e. son' loops vocal phrases across each other over blown-out percussion and sweeping strings, and 'easy on the cide' foregrounds a beat that sounds rougher than gravel, Autotuning Rainey's lead vocal and contorting it evocatively. On 'no chants', a frazzled TR-808 kick booms beneath tape saturated pulses, creating a soundscape that's not a million miles from Kanye West's game-changing "Yeezus" - but this isn't homage, Rainey uses the distortion to hint at darker elements, a disturbance in his culture that's violent, deafening and charged with emotion. The album's lengthy finale 'phil's offering' is also its most impressive, building slowly over looped crackle that gives a rhythmic click to Rainey's unforgettable vocal performance - eventually the track disappears into an industrial blur as processed field recordings reveal Rainey's heritage. Trust us, this ain't like anything you've heard before.

In 2020, Sahel Sounds hosted a project called Music from Saharan WhatsApp. This series consisted of ephemeral digital EPs, documenting live performances by some of the most exciting acts in the Sahel playing music, including Nigerién techno, wedding rock, Woodabe guitar, WZN, traditional music, Mandingue music, and more. Responding to an open call from our network of artists, musicians recorded a handful of tracks on their cellphone and sent them over the popular mobile app WhatsApp. Each session was hosted for a month on Bandcamp and sold on a sliding scale, with all profits wired directly to the musicians. After a month, the EP would disappear, replaced by another one. Now, some of the label's favorite tracks from this series are collected for the first time outside of Bandcamp as the Music from Saharan WhatsApp compilation LP. This LP features tracks by established Sahel Sounds artists such as Etran de L'Aïr, Hama, Alkibar Jr, Amaria Hamadaler (of Les Filles de Illighadad), and artists new to the label like Bounaly and Andal Sukabe.

Hardly anyone outside Ethiopia seems to know Hailu Mergia & The Walias Band “Tezeta” exists. Within Ethiopia this tape has been impossible to find for decades. That’s about to change with this release, which makes available this epochal recording on LP, CD and Digital formats for the first time. From their genesis as members of the Venus club in-house band in the early 70s, Hailu Mergia and the Walias Band were at the forefront of the musical revolution during an era where modern instruments and foreign styles superseded the traditional fare to become the staple sound of Ethiopia. No one would argue that the Walias were the trailblazing powerhouse of modern Ethiopian music. They were the first band to form independently without affiliation to a theatre house, a club or a hotel; unprecedented and risky as they had to raise all funding for expenses by themselves including buying equipment. They were the first to release full instrumental albums, considered to be commercially unviable at the time. They opened their own recording studio, with band members Melake Gebre and Mahmoud Aman doubling as technical buffs during sessions. They were also the first independent band to tour abroad. In short, they were the pioneers every band tried to emulate; some more successfully than others. Odds are, any Ethiopian over the age of 35 who had access to TV or radio by the early 90s, will instantly recognize the sound of Walias. What is not a given is, how many would actually identify the band itself. Barely a day went by without hearing the Walias either in the background on radio or as an accompaniment to various programs on TV. This Tezeta album is the band’s second recording, released in 1975. Sourced by Awesome Tapes From Africa and expertly remastered by Jessica Thompson, its unique and funky renditions of standards and popular songs of the day are so quintessentially Walias, flavorful and evocative. Hailu’s melodic organ, unashamedly front and center in every track, makes even the complex pieces accessible. Profoundly engaging; it’s an immersive trip down memory lane for those of us getting reacquainted with it, while also an enthralling and gratifying experience for fresh ears. (text by Tessema Tadele)

„Gnawa, bottom heavy trance music of North Africa. Repetitive bass lines, generated by the gimbri or sintir with metal clappers, hand drums and voice. Seven trances, seven colors, seven scents, Gnawa not only moves, it can remove.“ Bill Laswell, Hell's Kitchen, NYC, May 2022 Remastered vinyl reissue of this 1990 BILL LASWELL / RICHARD HOROWITZ production of local Gnawa musicians, recorded in the Medina of Marrakesh. According to Allmusic.com „a must for fans of both African and Middle Eastern music” and voted one of the „10 essential Gnawa albums” by Songlines. The Gnawa are an ethnic minorityin today’s Morocco, descendents of slaves from West Africa who were brought to Morocco in the 16th century and who (although they quickly converted to Islam) nevertheless brought with them remnants of their animistic practices. The Gnawa perform a complex ceremony (called lila or derdeba) that over the duration of several hours recreates the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine, represented by seven colours. Those ceremonies, led by a master or „maleem“, are still taking place today privately while Gnawa music in general has clearly been modernizing and thus become more profane, but witnessing a performance is still an astonishing experience. With the exception of a handful of recordings by PAUL BOWLES and PHILIP SCHUYLER (more ethnographic documents in a field recordings style), Gnawa music was barely heard outside of Morocco before 1990 – one of the first westerners to come and record the music was BILL LASWELL, back then running his AXIOM label that portrayed a wide range of ethnic music and musicians like THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA or MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA, to name just two. „Night Spirit Masters“, recorded in the Medina of Marrakech, delivers soulful tracks of lead and group singers in call/ response mode, fired by sentirs, drums, hand clapping, and qrakechs, while others are drum features or sentir/ vocal pieces. Over 30 years after its initial release, this essential Gnawa album is finally available again – remastered and on 180gr audiophile vinyl!

More than 30 years after the first release, the first ever LP reissue with 180g heavyweight / audiophile / remastering specifications.

Gustavo Yashimura-Arce comes from humble origins in the Ayacucho region of the Peruvian Andes. He started playing guitar in 1987 and 2 years later he travelled to Montevideo in Uruguay to study music at La Casa de la Guitarra. After spending some years playing classical guitar in Japan, Gustavo returned to Peru in 2004 and began his intense studies of the Andean guitar styles of the Ayacucho region. Later, in 2008 he found the perfect teacher – 80 year old veteran guitarist Don Alberto Juscamaita Gastelú, known locally as Rahtako. Through Don Alberto, Gustavo was able to learn songs and styles from across the Andes, though the main focus remained on the traditional styles of the Ayacucho region. The Ayacucho Province of Peru is mountainous and remote and mainly populated by indigenous people of Quechuan descent, with the main language remaining Quechua, or Runasimi ('the People's Language'). The Quechuan people of the Andes remained resistant to Spanish colonisation and fierce in their preservation of their culture but on this album you will hear one of those strange, hybrid artefacts that can arise when cultures meet. The Spanish guitar was taken by the Quechuan people of the Ayacucho region and employed as a new means to convey their traditional music. The melodies you hear are versions of the traditional Huayno melodies usually played on harps, Andean pipes, charango and mandolin. Gustavo is joined by Luis Sulca Galindo on second guitar and Greys Berrocal Huaya on vocals on 4 tracks on the album. We've been extremely happy to work with Henkel Bellido (Sounds of the Andes) to bring this beautiful music to light.