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b/art's Playlist for Maandag 25 Oktober 1999 (17.30- 19.00)
no. 35: Arabia #3a + The Heresy of the Beat | |
| Cut | Artist |
|---|---|
| Wreck This Mess Story (vocals only) #v03.o1299 | |
| ‚ Roots | The Atlas Project [1] |
| Hine Ma Tov (traditional Sufi Motif) | The Music of Shabbat at BJ [2] |
| Tale of the Caliph Hakem | Genesis P. Orridge & Anne Clark vs Eyeless in Gaza [2a] |
| Street Cassettes Vendor in Fez Medina, Summer 1987 | field recording b/art |
| Taqsim in Maqam, Bahrain | Hejaz [3] |
| The Delicate Prey | Paul Bowles reading [4] |
| Taqsim Hausi in Makam, Iraq | Aboubekr Zerga [3] |
| Tambur Solo | Baba Hakim [3] |
| Ratchet Wreck ID #1120a97 | |
| Folk Song, Gunbri, Morocco | Unknown Musicians [3] |
| Taksim in Ankara, Turkey | Erol Sayin [3] |
| Douk Liam | Safaraï [ Bijnaboven vol. 5 / dvdwestern@hotmail.com] |
| Street Cassettes Vendor in Fez Medina, Summer 1987 | field recording b/art |
| Raninhaous Ali | Chaba Amina [5] |
| Feel Like Iraq | Camper Van Chadbourne [6] |
| Galen Horo | Theodosii Spassov & Kaval [7] |
| + Reports of Shaking Buildings / Radio Bagdad / Suicide Attacks (remix) | Black Sifichi field recording 1991 |
| Algerian / Andalusian Radio | Black Sifichi field recording 1990 |
| White Rada | Trio Bulgarka-Penev [8] |
| Tabla & Buzz Chime | Robert Rutman [9] |
| To Mohammed on Our Journeys | Harold Norse [10] |
| Tuareq | Muslimgauze |
| Pop Up Jazz | Si- {Cut}.DB [11] |
| Hot / Sexy / WTM #1124.697 | |
| God's People Out of the Closet | Jack van Impe [Radio Rantevangelist] |
| Culture Clash | Muslimgauze vs Mario de Falla vs Black Folly Sifichi |
| A Pattern of Islands | Mike Cooper [12] |
| Revolution is Triggered by the Sequence of Beats | Jack van Impe [Radio Archival Oddities / WFMU] |
| There's Nothing Wrong With A Beat | Boom Smack [13] |
| Change [Now Entering the Final Restructuring] | DJ Spike vs Andy Fairley |
| The Media | Rebel Voices |
| Charming Demons (Keep on Dreaming | Senser vs Adrian Sherwood vs Skip McDonald |
| Open the Gates | Blood [14] |
| Freedom / Peace / Wreck ID #112397 | |
| [1] Wechma, the second Atlas Project CD on Prikosnovenie [prikos@worldnet.fr http://www.multimania.com/prikos] is a stunning record of what the French call "topographiques sonores", a subtle and sublime disc that pulsates between the hidden vibrations of many musics both found and manufactured as produced by Norsq, the genius behind the French ground-breaking ethno-techno band of the late 80s, the Grief. As if soundings were made in countries without names. Imagine Zoviet France being led out of the desert into a Berber mountain retreat by the Joujoukas. | |
| [2] "With Every Breath" on Knitting Factory www.knittingfactory.com is a project initiated by composer Anthony Coleman which matches NY downtown jazz musicians with some rabbis set in NY's biggest temple. The result is mixed: the idea(l) outstripping the results. There are some moments of transcendence where jazz and religious and world music come together to truly jam in the collective soul. But for the most part it remains vaguely pretty, decratively sentimental and the recording seems thin and traditional and lacks the touch of the intrepid modern producer - it could have used the touch of Laswell, Rootsman, Spooky, Don Was or Adrian Sherwood to give it that robust edge. I vote for a total remix version of the entire project. [2a] "Hashisheen: The End of Law" produced by Bill Laswell / PL Wilson / Janet Rienstra on Sub Rosa. It tells the story of the mysterious Persian sect of assassins founded in 1090 AD. Anyone opposed to their secret freethinking ways might be disposed of by one of its secret assassins. Hasan-i Sabbah, the sect's founder, built an elaborate and exquisite garden of delights as a reward for his hitmen's loyalty to the cause. The myth of the sect is told mostly through fragments of texts written by the sect's members. This piece tells of an experience with hasish from Freya Stark's "The Valleys of the Assassins & Other Persian Travels": He seemed prey to extraordinary exaltation: hosts of new thoughts, unheard of and inconceivable. A bold attempt with mixed results, and yet, definitely worth some attention. www.subrosa.net | |
| [3] "Music in the World of Islam" Recordings by Jean Jenkins & Poul Rovsing Olsen on Tangent Records is a beautiful effort to bring the rooted sounds of the Islamic world to the fore. In my agnostic struggle to underestand the disparity between this world and the Islamic world of faith in a sense were given some clarity on this disc. I see an adherence to the Koran but then an adversarial or radical independence from all dogma and the use of these two lines in Arab pop music. In my view it is pop singers or musicians of this world who help mitigate what seems to be an ever constricting notion of what Islam encompasses. As with all orthodoxies and fundamentalisms, the joy of living in this life is, if not denounced, then devalued. Many fundamentalists in many paranoid forms will issue the same apocalyptic drifting away from religion through the enchantments of secular music. The attacks on jazz and rock and roll in America are legend because they were so histrionic and ludicrous - but maybe they were right to be afraid of music's enchantments. It certainly does cut into their autocratic holds over the minds and wallets of the people ... Jean Jenkins wrtes: "The great instrument of Arabic classical music is the 'ud' [or] pear-shaped lute" | |
| [4] "Paul Bowles Reads The Delicate Prey & A Distant Episode" on Spoken Arts, Inc. Box 289, New Rochelle, NY 10801. This 1983 reading serves to Bowles well. His acerbic, cool, calm and horrifically minimal approach to storytelling in his adopted Morocco perfectly matches the terrain. Sinister and moving minus all the sentimental moralizing. | |
| [5] "Rai! Rai!" A compilation on La Voix du Maghreb / Buda Musique is a collection of Rai singers. Rai developed long ago in the region of Oran, a harbour area of Algeria, near Morocco and Spain. It is a hybrid that reflects the many influences that have been floating around in this region for centuries - mainly Bedouin, Moroccan, Spanish and French. Rai popped up in the clubs of this region and reflected the everyday concerns of the people. Rai translates into opinion or way of thinking and the themes were like those of all popular music - everyday life, love, jealousy, attraction, misery, unmentionable desires ... In the 70s the sound began to change with the introduction of electronics and advanced recording techniques. Pop Rai like all great world musics mixes the local, the ethnic, the indigenous (derboukas and violins) with the modern (synthesizers, drum machines and mixers). | |
| [6] "Used Record Pile" on Knitting Factory www.knittingfactory.com is an excellent mixed bag of the rough-edged Woody Guthrie meets hallucinogens works of Eugene Chadbourne with Camper van Beethoven [1987-1991]. These angry satirical takes on American macho Foreign Policy buffoonery is no less strong in its critique 10 years later because the humor is still so sardonically seditious. | |
| [7] "Welkya" on Gega New is on first hearing a kind of Bulgarian free folk jazz. Very eccentric and intrepid. Lots of jamming with echoes of folk themes wafting in and out. The Bulgarian Albert Ayler or Frank Zappa. Courtesy of Nina. | |
| [8] "Folk Songs" on Gega New is an excellent introduction to the vocal music of Bulgaria. Not as famous as Les Voix Mystere de Bulgare but just as awesome in their harmonies. Courtesy of Nina. | |
| [9] "1939" on Pogus http://www.taojones.com/pogus.htm is a stirring blend of electronic and indigenous sounds. This label seldom fails to deliver the very edge of experimnetation but that doesn't mean unlistenable. Challenging can also be enjoyable. Formerly known as Sound of Pig, at the 80s avant garde of the cassette music revolution. | |
| [10] "Harold Norse of Course" on Ins & Outs, Amsterdam, 1984. Part of the excellent series of spoken word cassettes masterminded by ex-pat Eddie Woods. Harold Norse is certainly a much underappreciated poet of substance and levity. For more info about this series contact the dj. | |
| [11] "TX 99: Recycling Moments" TripleX www.triplex.nl Is a sampler which presents some of the work of musical ensembles that will be participating in the adventurous conceptual performance festival in Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek, a recuperated gas works. This sampler offers highlights of what will happen at this year's delayed festival which manages to annually assemble some of the world's most interesting contemporary acts including performance and music. Among others: Bask, Bitonic, Funckarama, London Electricity, Sofa Surfers, Si-{Cut}.DB and others. | |
| [12] "Kiribati" on Hipshot cooparia@compuserve.com is a beautiful sonic evocation of ecological disaster - an "ambient exotica soundscape" which evokes paradise on the edge of disaster. More about this excellent CD in subsequent shows. Highly recommended. | |
| [13] "Anarchist Songbook" a humorous compilation of anarcho-leaning bands some of whom aren't afraid of a beat! This one is funny because it indeed samples the apocalyptic lunacy in extremis of Jack van Impe which 30 years after his rantings seems to have not aged an ounce in its raving inaccuracies. | |
| [14] "Crooklyn Dub Outernational presents Certified Dope Vol. 3" on Word Sound www.wordsound.com The boys with their sedition-not-sedation approach to dub keep the mutiny of expectation raw and unexpected. MUCH more later! | |