GLITTERBEAT - Forced Exposure

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Liraz, the highly touted Israeli-Persian singer, returns with a buoyant and border-busting new album. Shimmering electro-pop meets pulsing dance rhythms and retro Persian sonics. Includes clandestine collaborations with Iran-based musicians and composers. For her second album, Zan ("Women" in Farsi), the Israeli- Persian singer collaborated online with composers and musicians from Iran. Everything had to be secretive to avoid the gaze of Tehran's mullahs and secret police. The result is her private revolution, songs with a true message, music to make people dance and smile -- and above all, think. The songs on Zan are the fulfilment of a dream, taking Liraz deep into the soul of the country that fills her heart and populated the stories her parents told her as a child -- but one she's never seen. Her family, Iranian Jews, moved to Tel Aviv in the 1970s. Yet although Liraz was raised in Israel, she's always believed that "my culture is Iranian." The real revelation came when she moved to the US for three years to work as an actress, appearing in several big-budget movies, including A Late Quartet and Fair Game. In Los Angeles she found a huge Iranian community. When making Naz (2018), she wrote and sang in Farsi, the music at times exploring the sounds of pre-revolution Iranian pop music. On Zan, she worked with Iranian musicians, some anonymously, and let her voice and her music resonate further. One of those anonymous players, a female percussionist based in Tehran, features on the opening track, "Zan Bezan," (in English "Women, Sing") alongside Liraz's Israeli band. It's an insistent, catchy piece of electro-pop with heavy musical nods to Iranian pop stars of the 1970s like Googoosh; the message of female empowerment, however, is absolutely contemporary. Another secret Iranian collaborator worked on the powerful earworm that's "Joon Joon," where the dance beats erupt straight from a 1970s Tehran disco, while the big chorus implants itself in the brain and refuses to leave. Zan is an album of contrasts, like "Shab Gerye," the ballad that Liraz knew she needed to include "because the words and music fit so perfectly. It's a love song about reality," or the aching closer, "Lalai." The album continues breaking the walls her mother and aunts began to dismantle. But it does much more: it burrows under borders. It connects countries and cultures. Zan, Liraz insists, is the second chapter of the story that began with Naz. But it's also one that stands alone.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Liraz, the highly touted Israeli-Persian singer, returns with a buoyant and border-busting new album. Shimmering electro-pop meets pulsing dance rhythms and retro Persian sonics. Includes clandestine collaborations with Iran-based musicians and composers. For her second album, Zan ("Women" in Farsi), the Israeli- Persian singer collaborated online with composers and musicians from Iran. Everything had to be secretive to avoid the gaze of Tehran's mullahs and secret police. The result is her private revolution, songs with a true message, music to make people dance and smile -- and above all, think. The songs on Zan are the fulfilment of a dream, taking Liraz deep into the soul of the country that fills her heart and populated the stories her parents told her as a child -- but one she's never seen. Her family, Iranian Jews, moved to Tel Aviv in the 1970s. Yet although Liraz was raised in Israel, she's always believed that "my culture is Iranian." The real revelation came when she moved to the US for three years to work as an actress, appearing in several big-budget movies, including A Late Quartet and Fair Game. In Los Angeles she found a huge Iranian community. When making Naz (2018), she wrote and sang in Farsi, the music at times exploring the sounds of pre-revolution Iranian pop music. On Zan, she worked with Iranian musicians, some anonymously, and let her voice and her music resonate further. One of those anonymous players, a female percussionist based in Tehran, features on the opening track, "Zan Bezan," (in English "Women, Sing") alongside Liraz's Israeli band. It's an insistent, catchy piece of electro-pop with heavy musical nods to Iranian pop stars of the 1970s like Googoosh; the message of female empowerment, however, is absolutely contemporary. Another secret Iranian collaborator worked on the powerful earworm that's "Joon Joon," where the dance beats erupt straight from a 1970s Tehran disco, while the big chorus implants itself in the brain and refuses to leave. Zan is an album of contrasts, like "Shab Gerye," the ballad that Liraz knew she needed to include "because the words and music fit so perfectly. It's a love song about reality," or the aching closer, "Lalai." The album continues breaking the walls her mother and aunts began to dismantle. But it does much more: it burrows under borders. It connects countries and cultures. Zan, Liraz insists, is the second chapter of the story that began with Naz. But it's also one that stands alone.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Firmly established as an influential voice in the burgeoning Russian DIY rock scene, Lucidvox's incendiary mixture of atmospheric psych-rock, heavy riffs, and Russian folk mystery has already gained them both critical attention and audience loyalty outside of their hometown of Moscow. We Are (мы есть) is their first international album release and the next element in their rapid rise. Bands in which all or most of the members learn how to play their instruments just to be in the band are something of a special category in the history of popular music. British avant-gardists Wire and American roots hit-makers Creedence Clearwater Revival come to mind, as do, in varying degrees, post-punk legends like The Raincoats and The Slits. The individual player's inexperience becomes an asset -- they are free to create without the burden of past prejudices -- and the sound attains a mysterious balance. Formed in 2013, Lucidvox comprises four women based in Moscow: Alina (vocals/flute), Nadezhda (drums), Galla (guitar), and Anna (bass). The band's original repertoire consisted of cover versions of songs by Sonic Youth, Pixies, White Stripes, and Warpaint. Being in a "girl band" was, from the beginning, an essential and empowering concept. Lucidvox quickly became a tight circle that encouraged musical experimentation, emotional honesty, and future plans. After a year or so of playing covers, the band began to assemble original material, which had its own sonic footprint. And like everything else in Lucidvox, the songwriting process was highly democratic from the start. Unlike the majority of bands, this process allows all of them to contribute lyrics. The lyrics for the most part revolve around intense personal experiences. While Galla notes that the overall sound of the new album is "more powerful, more rock," the band's trademark post-Siouxsie and the Banshees squall is now more nuanced than ever. There is more depth and space, and more sense of the majestic rumble that the band conjures up in a live setting -- an experience in which the ensemble lays down an interlocked, almost krautrock-like groove. Even as their international reputation has grown, they have never considered singing songs in English, and in the band's sonic explorations, there has always been a subtle nod to Russian traditional music and folklore. Lucidvox is at the front of this growing wave, along with Moscow's Glintshake and the fast-rising St Petersburg band Shortparis.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

Firmly established as an influential voice in the burgeoning Russian DIY rock scene, Lucidvox's incendiary mixture of atmospheric psych-rock, heavy riffs, and Russian folk mystery has already gained them both critical attention and audience loyalty outside of their hometown of Moscow. We Are (мы есть) is their first international album release and the next element in their rapid rise. Bands in which all or most of the members learn how to play their instruments just to be in the band are something of a special category in the history of popular music. British avant-gardists Wire and American roots hit-makers Creedence Clearwater Revival come to mind, as do, in varying degrees, post-punk legends like The Raincoats and The Slits. The individual player's inexperience becomes an asset -- they are free to create without the burden of past prejudices -- and the sound attains a mysterious balance. Formed in 2013, Lucidvox comprises four women based in Moscow: Alina (vocals/flute), Nadezhda (drums), Galla (guitar), and Anna (bass). The band's original repertoire consisted of cover versions of songs by Sonic Youth, Pixies, White Stripes, and Warpaint. Being in a "girl band" was, from the beginning, an essential and empowering concept. Lucidvox quickly became a tight circle that encouraged musical experimentation, emotional honesty, and future plans. After a year or so of playing covers, the band began to assemble original material, which had its own sonic footprint. And like everything else in Lucidvox, the songwriting process was highly democratic from the start. Unlike the majority of bands, this process allows all of them to contribute lyrics. The lyrics for the most part revolve around intense personal experiences. While Galla notes that the overall sound of the new album is "more powerful, more rock," the band's trademark post-Siouxsie and the Banshees squall is now more nuanced than ever. There is more depth and space, and more sense of the majestic rumble that the band conjures up in a live setting -- an experience in which the ensemble lays down an interlocked, almost krautrock-like groove. Even as their international reputation has grown, they have never considered singing songs in English, and in the band's sonic explorations, there has always been a subtle nod to Russian traditional music and folklore. Lucidvox is at the front of this growing wave, along with Moscow's Glintshake and the fast-rising St Petersburg band Shortparis.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

Glitterbeat present the first-ever reissue of The Pace Setters, the classic 1981 debut album from this much revered Ghanaian band Edikanfo. Vibrantly produced by British sound explorer Brian Eno in Accra, Ghana. Highlife meets Afro-funk. Almost four decades after a coup d'état in Ghana prematurely halted their career, Edikanfo's surviving band members are at last gearing up to reissue and tour The Pace Setters. Features exclusive liner notes from Eno and an extensive interview with Edikanfo band leader, Gilbert Amartey Amar. In 1981, London-based E.G. Records released the debut album from a young Ghanaian group called Edikanfo. The eight-piece band was the last group to be managed by the late Faisal Helwani, a charismatic impresario who was based at the popular Napoleon Club in Osu, a suburb in Ghana's teeming capital Accra. Edikanfo quickly rose to international notoriety following the release of The Pace Setters because of the infectious, forward-looking highlife meets Afro-funk synthesis the band committed to tape. But the album also caught an additional wind of publicity due to its producer, the already legendary British musician and sound conceptualist Brian Eno. During that time, Eno was researching and openly propagating West African music. He recently collaborated with Talking Heads on Remain in Light (1980) and with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). Eno and Edikanfo's work together at Studio One in Accra (Ghana) was yet another inspired morphing of soundworlds and processes and a significant touchstone for both artists. Just when the sky seemed the limit for Edikanfo, the coup d'état in Ghana on the last day of 1981, tragically put the brakes on the band's quickly developing fortunes. For years after that, the country endured enforced curfews at night, which of course ultimately gutted the live music scene in Accra and elsewhere. Because of this and other financial setbacks, the band ceased activity and its members spread out in exile, all over the world. Now, almost four decades later, Edikanfo has returned. And with its surviving members gearing up to reissue and tour their classic 1981 album, The Pace Setters, the band is once again excitedly pointed towards the future. Bassist, songwriter and founding member Gilbert Amartey Amar, popularly known as Chi-Kin-Chee, talked to the label from Accra, Ghana where he is currently rehearsing Edikanfo and preparing for an upcoming European tour -- the group's first ever.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. Glitterbeat present the first-ever reissue of The Pace Setters, the classic 1981 debut album from this much revered Ghanaian band Edikanfo. Vibrantly produced by British sound explorer Brian Eno in Accra, Ghana. Highlife meets Afro-funk. Almost four decades after a coup d'état in Ghana prematurely halted their career, Edikanfo's surviving band members are at last gearing up to reissue and tour The Pace Setters. Features exclusive liner notes from Eno and an extensive interview with Edikanfo band leader, Gilbert Amartey Amar. In 1981, London-based E.G. Records released the debut album from a young Ghanaian group called Edikanfo. The eight-piece band was the last group to be managed by the late Faisal Helwani, a charismatic impresario who was based at the popular Napoleon Club in Osu, a suburb in Ghana's teeming capital Accra. Edikanfo quickly rose to international notoriety following the release of The Pace Setters because of the infectious, forward-looking highlife meets Afro-funk synthesis the band committed to tape. But the album also caught an additional wind of publicity due to its producer, the already legendary British musician and sound conceptualist Brian Eno. During that time, Eno was researching and openly propagating West African music. He recently collaborated with Talking Heads on Remain in Light (1980) and with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). Eno and Edikanfo's work together at Studio One in Accra (Ghana) was yet another inspired morphing of soundworlds and processes and a significant touchstone for both artists. Just when the sky seemed the limit for Edikanfo, the coup d'état in Ghana on the last day of 1981, tragically put the brakes on the band's quickly developing fortunes. For years after that, the country endured enforced curfews at night, which of course ultimately gutted the live music scene in Accra and elsewhere. Because of this and other financial setbacks, the band ceased activity and its members spread out in exile, all over the world. Now, almost four decades later, Edikanfo has returned. And with its surviving members gearing up to reissue and tour their classic 1981 album, The Pace Setters, the band is once again excitedly pointed towards the future. Bassist, songwriter and founding member Gilbert Amartey Amar, popularly known as Chi-Kin-Chee, talked to the label from Accra, Ghana where he is currently rehearsing Edikanfo and preparing for an upcoming European tour -- the group's first ever.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

Following his critically acclaimed debut, God Is Not a Terrorist (GB 067CD/LP, 2019), 49-note scale microtonal vocal master Ustad Saami returns with an epic part two. Pakistan Is for the Peaceful presents an even more immersive work, comprised of just three extended tracks and again produced 100% live at the master's rooftop home in Karachi by Grammy-winner Ian Brennan, with musical accompaniment provided by Ustad's four sons: Rauf (group leader, harmonium, vocals), Urooj (primary response vocalist, tambura number one), Ahmed (tambura number two, vocals), and Azeem (tablas, vocals). Ustad Saami is the last living surti master, a precursor of the ancient Islamic devotional music of qawwali. Despite being under constant threat from Islamic fundamentalists, the master has spent his life as a dedicated practitioner of a vanishing art -- one that has been passed on from generation to generation since the 13th century. The seventh release from Glitterbeat's acclaimed Hidden Musics series.

"At age seventy-six, Ustad still practices from 4 AM to noon most days, drilling himself with exercises. Though his physical hearing has declined and he requires in-ear aids for daily communication, his powers of perception continue to rise. As a child, he was the chosen one from his family and his master forbade him to speak for years. During this period, he was only allowed to express himself vocally, not verbally. He studied for 35 years to perfect this system before he ever even stepped onstage. It was the same trajectory as puff pop-stars, only inverted -- they start performing prematurely and get even more flaccid over time. Instead, Ustad explores the subtlety of human emotion through microtones, an attempt to turn "negatives positive" through the reclamation of those tones deemed out-of-tune. Following Saami's debut album, a World Music expert in Los Angeles was flummoxed that she could not find any reference to the master's system on the internet. Ironically, this absence of reference actually stands as proof rather than refuting his rarity. It cannot be found elsewhere precisely because it is his system -- a customized work of recovery -- with Ustad the only living vocal practitioner." --Ian Brennan

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AMMAR 808's previous album Maghreb United (GB 060CD/LP, 2018) -- a powerful mixture of deep TR-808 bass and Pan-Maghreb beats and voices -- received widespread critical acclaim and shook dancefloors throughout Europe, North Africa, and beyond. This time Brussels-based Tunisian electronic producer Sofyann Ben Youssef (aka AMMAR 808) has traveled to the Tamil Nadu region of southern India for a breath-taking new adventure. With a suitcase full of recording equipment, he set up base in the pulsing city of Chennai and undertook a collaborative reimagining of the area's rich and resonant music. Ranging from trance temple sounds to rap-like street theater performance and ending with the mathematical richness of Carnatic music, Ben Youssef's in situ recordings form the foundation of his potent new album: Global Control / Invisible Invasion. He's crafted them from Hindu mythology and created a philosophical jolt of a disc that sweeps him far from his native Maghreb and deep into the ancient Carnatic tradition of South India. While the ideas are timeless, the music leans modern, with AMMAR 808 and his arsenal of analogue electronics and subsonic beats, morphing traditional legends and soundscapes into the future tense. The recording itself only lasted ten days, while even the post-production barely took a month. All those years of thought had laid very firm groundwork. The "invisible invasion" in the album title isn't a contemporary reference to the coronavirus pandemic. The virus flung us all into a dystopian universe. The track "Ey Paavi" comes from the Mahabharata, one of the great Sanskrit epic tales of India, composed over 2000 years ago. The song relates episode where the threats of death and destruction between Bhima and Duryodhana ratchet up and up. Mythology and tradition run all through the record. "Mahaganapatim" is another name for the god Ganesha, for example, while the songs "Marivere Gati" and "Pahi Jagajjanani" both have long roots in the South Indian history. Global Control / Invisible Invasion is an album of songs -- some in the Tamil language which is widely spoken across the region. That's perfectly natural, given the vocal tradition which is the chief thread of Carnatic music (as opposed to North Indian music, which is largely instrumental). It's also quite deliberately very percussive album, another reflection of India itself. Every track resonates with tightly wound passion. Global Control / Invisible Invasion offers a perfect soundtrack for these times.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

Sometimes, things fall together as if they're simply fated to exist. Orkesta Mendoza found that; as soon as the songs began to flow for Curandero, their second album for the Glitterbeat label, the stars seemed to align and everything was composed, recorded, and mastered in just a few short months. In 2018, the band began work on new material, but it didn't quite click. The music crosses and re-crosses that fluid border between Mexico and the United States, mixing rock and pop with ranchera and cumbia alongside snatches of mariachi horns. And hovering over everything is the spirit of '60s boogaloo. Band leader Sergio Mendoza was born in Nogales, Arizona (USA) but grew up across the border in Nogales, Sonora (Mexico). Rock arrived in his life after he moved back to the US, when he was still a young child. Inevitably, the different styles simply blended in his mind and fit together in his life. "Eres Oficial" looks back to the 1950s to evoke the ghost of Buddy Holly in its insistent guitar chords, and the production that puts an emphasis on the drumbeat. A stripped-back sound is apparent in cuts like "Head Above Water" and "Little Space." They bristle with hooks and immediacy and the kind of Latin flavors that would have been perfectly at home on old AM radio. Curandero quickly became an album filled with guests, featuring Joey Burns of Calexico, Chetes from the legendary Mexican rock band Zurdok, and Spanish singer Amparo Sánchez. Curandero has a close, intimate feel, but this wasn't a band playing together in a room; all the musicians came in separately to track their parts. The consistency of sound comes having the touring band drummer and bassist on most of the songs, and from Mendoza's production which makes everything seem organic and bright. The album's sole instrumental, the toe-tapping "Bora Bora," sounds like it was recorded in a dark, smoky club, with the feel of a soulful big band fueled by the retro, percussive power of Mambo. A vintage sensibility even takes Orkesta Mendoza back further -- all the way to the 1940s on the closing track. "Hoodoo Voodoo Queen" is the Andrews Sisters on a fantasy trip south of the border. The harmonies of Moira Smilie, Carrie Rodriguez, and Gaby Moreno sparkle over percussion, pedal steel and glorious, honking sax. Curandero is border music, without borders.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. The inventive duo of brothers from the Golan Heights -- Hasan and Rami Nakhleh -- return with an infectious re-imagining of their sound. Jammed full of pop hooks and quarter-tone melodic lines, Migrant Birds unleashes a disco whirlwind that pays homage to the Middle Eastern dancefloor scenes of the '80s. The new synth-powered album from TootArd takes them to the dancefloor, about as far from the spare, guitar-driven desert blues of their highly touted Glitterbeat debut Laissez Passer (GB 054CD/LP, 2017). The '80s may be the catalyst, with the glittering, hedonistic party vibe. But the real roots of the music here run deeper, to musicians like keyboardist Magdi al-Husseini and Ihsan Al-Munzer, who were the first to introduce synthesizers to the Arabic classical style, or Omar Khorshid, who pioneered the addition of electric guitar and worked with the legendary Umm Kulthum. They brought Arabic music firmly into the modern age. Migrant Birds winds all those strands from the past together into a very intricately-crafted whole with a full sound. Under the beats and joy, there's a dark contrast, a sorrow that casts its shadow all across the lyrics. The album's heart is simple idea -- freedom; of being those Migrant Birds and flying away. But perhaps that's as natural as breathing for people who remain officially "undefined" and stateless. Those who are born in the occupied Golan Heights have no passport, depending instead on a document called a laissez passer to be able to cross borders. It is a situation that has existed since the late 1960s when Israel took control of the region. A feeling of leaving, of knowing the emotional distance from where you began, is captured in "Wanderlust" with its Kerouac images of existing on the road. In "Babe," the thoughts of escape come from an Arabic woman, desperate to flee her dominant husband. That sadness which ripples through the lyrics is a perfect fit with the album's two slower tracks, "Ya Ghali" and the stately closer, "Remote Love." All through Migrant Birds, the focus is on songs that have plenty to say. Only one is an instrumental, the enigmatically-titled "Stone Heap Of The Wild Cat." While proudly rooted in the Middle East, Migrant Birds is infectious and globally accessible. But the album embraces a basic pop concept, with short, well-produced songs.

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Raw and celebratory funeral music from northern Ghana. Recorded 100% live and outdoors by Ian Brennan. Sixth release from Glitterbeat's acclaimed Hidden Musics series. Ian Brennan is a Grammy award winning producer (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, Zomba Prison Project, Ramblin' Jack Elliot) and the author of several books, the most recent being: Silenced by Sound: The Music Meritocracy Myth (2019).

"On the dusty-road outskirts of Tamale (Ghana) near the School of Hygiene, the group says they prefer to use the name given to their tribe by colonialists (Fra Fra) rather than being commanded what to correct after the fact. The fra fra trio is led by Small, a man who celebrates his diminutive size rather than seeing it as a lack. He picked the two-string Kologo 'guitar' with dog-tags fastened at the head as rattles. Another hallmark of Fra Fra culture are the tiny bone mouth flutes that they actually call horns, since that is what they are made from. As funeral songs are often done in procession, I took the mics to the group when they seemed reluctant to enter the compound, instead gyrating in circles on the gravel outside. In recording, coverage is more important than precision. Every microphone tells a slightly different version of the truth, so I quickly threw up as many as possible. Far from deathly dirges, these were largely celebrations. Their process of mourning bares more than a passing resemblance to a New Orleans second line marching band. It is challenging to disregard this as mere coincidence given the sad history of the transatlantic slave trade exploiting their very region in the north. Ghana struggles with its own north/south divide . . . This northern zone was a wellspring of the Blues, a land where they emanated and never left. As so often is the case, literacy in no way determined creativity. Small was able to riff almost endlessly. In fact, his performances grew freer and stronger past the ten-minute mark, so much so that songs would become nearly different tunes entirely. Following his flow, I simply let tape roll until things fell apart, but even then, I feared that still greater things may've lay beyond if only the musicians had kept going. When we were through, Small asserted that he could see that music was 'in my blood.' But I protested. Music is in all of us..." --Ian Brennan

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. AMMAR 808's previous album Maghreb United (GB 060CD/LP, 2018) -- a powerful mixture of deep TR-808 bass and Pan-Maghreb beats and voices -- received widespread critical acclaim and shook dancefloors throughout Europe, North Africa, and beyond. This time Brussels-based Tunisian electronic producer Sofyann Ben Youssef (aka AMMAR 808) has traveled to the Tamil Nadu region of southern India for a breath-taking new adventure. With a suitcase full of recording equipment, he set up base in the pulsing city of Chennai and undertook a collaborative reimagining of the area's rich and resonant music. Ranging from trance temple sounds to rap-like street theater performance and ending with the mathematical richness of Carnatic music, Ben Youssef's in situ recordings form the foundation of his potent new album: Global Control / Invisible Invasion. He's crafted them from Hindu mythology and created a philosophical jolt of a disc that sweeps him far from his native Maghreb and deep into the ancient Carnatic tradition of South India. While the ideas are timeless, the music leans modern, with AMMAR 808 and his arsenal of analogue electronics and subsonic beats, morphing traditional legends and soundscapes into the future tense. The recording itself only lasted ten days, while even the post-production barely took a month. All those years of thought had laid very firm groundwork. The "invisible invasion" in the album title isn't a contemporary reference to the coronavirus pandemic. The virus flung us all into a dystopian universe. The track "Ey Paavi" comes from the Mahabharata, one of the great Sanskrit epic tales of India, composed over 2000 years ago. The song relates episode where the threats of death and destruction between Bhima and Duryodhana ratchet up and up. Mythology and tradition run all through the record. "Mahaganapatim" is another name for the god Ganesha, for example, while the songs "Marivere Gati" and "Pahi Jagajjanani" both have long roots in the South Indian history. Global Control / Invisible Invasion is an album of songs -- some in the Tamil language which is widely spoken across the region. That's perfectly natural, given the vocal tradition which is the chief thread of Carnatic music (as opposed to North Indian music, which is largely instrumental). It's also quite deliberately very percussive album, another reflection of India itself. Every track resonates with tightly wound passion. Global Control / Invisible Invasion offers a perfect soundtrack for these times.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. Raw and celebratory funeral music from northern Ghana. Recorded 100% live and outdoors by Ian Brennan. Sixth release from Glitterbeat's acclaimed Hidden Musics series. Ian Brennan is a Grammy award winning producer (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, Zomba Prison Project, Ramblin' Jack Elliot) and the author of several books, the most recent being: Silenced by Sound: The Music Meritocracy Myth (2019).

"On the dusty-road outskirts of Tamale (Ghana) near the School of Hygiene, the group says they prefer to use the name given to their tribe by colonialists (Fra Fra) rather than being commanded what to correct after the fact. The fra fra trio is led by Small, a man who celebrates his diminutive size rather than seeing it as a lack. He picked the two-string Kologo 'guitar' with dog-tags fastened at the head as rattles. Another hallmark of Fra Fra culture are the tiny bone mouth flutes that they actually call horns, since that is what they are made from. As funeral songs are often done in procession, I took the mics to the group when they seemed reluctant to enter the compound, instead gyrating in circles on the gravel outside. In recording, coverage is more important than precision. Every microphone tells a slightly different version of the truth, so I quickly threw up as many as possible. Far from deathly dirges, these were largely celebrations. Their process of mourning bares more than a passing resemblance to a New Orleans second line marching band. It is challenging to disregard this as mere coincidence given the sad history of the transatlantic slave trade exploiting their very region in the north. Ghana struggles with its own north/south divide . . . This northern zone was a wellspring of the Blues, a land where they emanated and never left. As so often is the case, literacy in no way determined creativity. Small was able to riff almost endlessly. In fact, his performances grew freer and stronger past the ten-minute mark, so much so that songs would become nearly different tunes entirely. Following his flow, I simply let tape roll until things fell apart, but even then, I feared that still greater things may've lay beyond if only the musicians had kept going. When we were through, Small asserted that he could see that music was 'in my blood.' But I protested. Music is in all of us..." --Ian Brennan

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Sometimes, things fall together as if they're simply fated to exist. Orkesta Mendoza found that; as soon as the songs began to flow for Curandero, their second album for the Glitterbeat label, the stars seemed to align and everything was composed, recorded, and mastered in just a few short months. In 2018, the band began work on new material, but it didn't quite click. The music crosses and re-crosses that fluid border between Mexico and the United States, mixing rock and pop with ranchera and cumbia alongside snatches of mariachi horns. And hovering over everything is the spirit of '60s boogaloo. Band leader Sergio Mendoza was born in Nogales, Arizona (USA) but grew up across the border in Nogales, Sonora (Mexico). Rock arrived in his life after he moved back to the US, when he was still a young child. Inevitably, the different styles simply blended in his mind and fit together in his life. "Eres Oficial" looks back to the 1950s to evoke the ghost of Buddy Holly in its insistent guitar chords, and the production that puts an emphasis on the drumbeat. A stripped-back sound is apparent in cuts like "Head Above Water" and "Little Space." They bristle with hooks and immediacy and the kind of Latin flavors that would have been perfectly at home on old AM radio. Curandero quickly became an album filled with guests, featuring Joey Burns of Calexico, Chetes from the legendary Mexican rock band Zurdok, and Spanish singer Amparo Sánchez. Curandero has a close, intimate feel, but this wasn't a band playing together in a room; all the musicians came in separately to track their parts. The consistency of sound comes having the touring band drummer and bassist on most of the songs, and from Mendoza's production which makes everything seem organic and bright. The album's sole instrumental, the toe-tapping "Bora Bora," sounds like it was recorded in a dark, smoky club, with the feel of a soulful big band fueled by the retro, percussive power of Mambo. A vintage sensibility even takes Orkesta Mendoza back further -- all the way to the 1940s on the closing track. "Hoodoo Voodoo Queen" is the Andrews Sisters on a fantasy trip south of the border. The harmonies of Moira Smilie, Carrie Rodriguez, and Gaby Moreno sparkle over percussion, pedal steel and glorious, honking sax. Curandero is border music, without borders.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

The inventive duo of brothers from the Golan Heights -- Hasan and Rami Nakhleh -- return with an infectious re-imagining of their sound. Jammed full of pop hooks and quarter-tone melodic lines, Migrant Birds unleashes a disco whirlwind that pays homage to the Middle Eastern dancefloor scenes of the '80s. The new synth-powered album from TootArd takes them to the dancefloor, about as far from the spare, guitar-driven desert blues of their highly touted Glitterbeat debut Laissez Passer (GB 054CD/LP, 2017). The '80s may be the catalyst, with the glittering, hedonistic party vibe. But the real roots of the music here run deeper, to musicians like keyboardist Magdi al-Husseini and Ihsan Al-Munzer, who were the first to introduce synthesizers to the Arabic classical style, or Omar Khorshid, who pioneered the addition of electric guitar and worked with the legendary Umm Kulthum. They brought Arabic music firmly into the modern age. Migrant Birds winds all those strands from the past together into a very intricately-crafted whole with a full sound. Under the beats and joy, there's a dark contrast, a sorrow that casts its shadow all across the lyrics. The album's heart is simple idea -- freedom; of being those Migrant Birds and flying away. But perhaps that's as natural as breathing for people who remain officially "undefined" and stateless. Those who are born in the occupied Golan Heights have no passport, depending instead on a document called a laissez passer to be able to cross borders. It is a situation that has existed since the late 1960s when Israel took control of the region. A feeling of leaving, of knowing the emotional distance from where you began, is captured in "Wanderlust" with its Kerouac images of existing on the road. In "Babe," the thoughts of escape come from an Arabic woman, desperate to flee her dominant husband. That sadness which ripples through the lyrics is a perfect fit with the album's two slower tracks, "Ya Ghali" and the stately closer, "Remote Love." All through Migrant Birds, the focus is on songs that have plenty to say. Only one is an instrumental, the enigmatically-titled "Stone Heap Of The Wild Cat." While proudly rooted in the Middle East, Migrant Birds is infectious and globally accessible. But the album embraces a basic pop concept, with short, well-produced songs.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; included download code. On Tamotaït, Tamikrest's fifth studio album, the music blazes bright and long. With the political situation so volatile and desperate in the Saharan ancestral lands from which Tamikrest come, this is more than an album. Tamotaït means hope for a positive change. Change as in an end to the fighting that's plagued northern Mali and the wider region for the past several years; change such as the chance to prosper within their own homeland -- Azawad -- a proto nation that the nomadic Tuareg (or Kel Tamasheq as they prefer to be called) briefly possessed in 2012. It's assouf, music forged in exile. Because of the toxic regional conflict, for much of the last decade the founding members of Tamikrest have not lived in Kidal, Mali, the desert crossroads town where the band began in 2007. They live in Tamanrasset (Algeria), Paris, and at times along the desolate Algerian/Malian borderlands. Yet, exile can also mean the hope of return, and on "Amzagh" and "As Sastnan Hidjan", the two tracks the group sees as pivotal to understanding the themes of Tamotaït, Tamikrest sing of the possibilities that lie ahead for the Kel Tamasheq people. The music builds and builds, the dual, intertwined guitars of Ag Mossa and Paul Salvagnac relentless and insistent, until it finally all boils over. It also brings light and warmth and comfort, and its glow fills the beautifully aching "Timtarin", where the band is joined by an ideal collaborator, the renowned Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra. Tamotaït is the most expansive and adventurous album that Tamikrest have made, exploring every corner of their sound. There's even music they made far from the Sahara -- in Japan. On tour there, Ag Mossa had been very taken by the sound of their traditional instruments. Tamikrest's plans to record there were almost derailed by a typhoon. But one track does appear on the album: the final cut, "Tabsit", with its atmospheric, gossamer melody. The shamisen and five-string tonkori of guests Atsushi Sakta and Oki Kano glide around the guitars to create a piece where the desert truly does meet the Rising Sun. Most of Tamotaït, though, was recorded in rural France, working with producer David Odlum (Glen Hansard, Gemma Hayes, Tinariwen), stepping up from his mixing role on the band's 2016 release, Kidal (GB 043CD/LP). Tamikrest have become one of the best rock n' roll bands in the world.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

On Tamotaït, Tamikrest's fifth studio album, the music blazes bright and long. With the political situation so volatile and desperate in the Saharan ancestral lands from which Tamikrest come, this is more than an album. Tamotaït means hope for a positive change. Change as in an end to the fighting that's plagued northern Mali and the wider region for the past several years; change such as the chance to prosper within their own homeland -- Azawad -- a proto nation that the nomadic Tuareg (or Kel Tamasheq as they prefer to be called) briefly possessed in 2012. It's assouf, music forged in exile. Because of the toxic regional conflict, for much of the last decade the founding members of Tamikrest have not lived in Kidal, Mali, the desert crossroads town where the band began in 2007. They live in Tamanrasset (Algeria), Paris, and at times along the desolate Algerian/Malian borderlands. Yet, exile can also mean the hope of return, and on "Amzagh" and "As Sastnan Hidjan", the two tracks the group sees as pivotal to understanding the themes of Tamotaït, Tamikrest sing of the possibilities that lie ahead for the Kel Tamasheq people. The music builds and builds, the dual, intertwined guitars of Ag Mossa and Paul Salvagnac relentless and insistent, until it finally all boils over. It also brings light and warmth and comfort, and its glow fills the beautifully aching "Timtarin", where the band is joined by an ideal collaborator, the renowned Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra. Tamotaït is the most expansive and adventurous album that Tamikrest have made, exploring every corner of their sound. There's even music they made far from the Sahara -- in Japan. On tour there, Ag Mossa had been very taken by the sound of their traditional instruments. Tamikrest's plans to record there were almost derailed by a typhoon. But one track does appear on the album: the final cut, "Tabsit", with its atmospheric, gossamer melody. The shamisen and five-string tonkori of guests Atsushi Sakta and Oki Kano glide around the guitars to create a piece where the desert truly does meet the Rising Sun. Most of Tamotaït, though, was recorded in rural France, working with producer David Odlum (Glen Hansard, Gemma Hayes, Tinariwen), stepping up from his mixing role on the band's 2016 release, Kidal (GB 043CD/LP). Tamikrest have become one of the best rock n' roll bands in the world.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Fado rewired and recast. Raül Refree - one of Europe's most innovative producers (Rosalía, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo) -- meets Lina, a Portuguese singer renowned for her haunting interpretations of Amalia's classic repertoire. Analog synths and hushed sonics. Making history by breaking the rules. Shedding the skin. A fresh beginning. That's what singer Lina and producer/multi-instrumentalist Raül Refree have given Portuguese fado on Lina_Raül Refree. They've sloughed off the old trappings and exacting traditions of the country's national music and given it into a perfect fit for the 21st century. Gone are the chiming guitars that were the music's instrumental trademark, and in their place comes piano and analog synths. Lina has a deep background in the music; her family has sung it for two generations and she took it up when she was 15, studied opera and turned to the stage, where she portrayed fado's great queen, Amália Rodrigues, before being invited to become a regular at Lisbon's iconic Clube de Fado. Raül Refree has been widely-praised for his solo work, like the album La Otra Mitad (GB 065CD/LP, 2018), as well as his ground-breaking productions; he'd collaborated with the flamenco incendiary Rosalía on her Los Angeles album (2017), the disc that first made her name. Lina chose the songs, fado classics associated with Amália Rodrigues. It was material she knew and loved deeply. Not being a part of the tradition, Refree was unfamiliar with the originals. That helped him and allowed him to come to the music without the weight of history. Beginning in May 2018, over the course of three sessions, they let the sound take shape. In the world they created, the music embraces and captures the listener via the time-honored songs, the minimalist textures and Lina's performances -- so full of bittersweet hope. Yet there are also some delicious, unexpected moments that add to the majesty, like Lina, multi-tracked, rising out of the mix like a choir on "Barco Negro," or the fragile, quivering of piano notes that take wing on "Gaivota." Throughout, Refree's arrangements are quietly subtle, the analog synths and ambience very sparingly used to keep the voice very much at the heart of everything. It's a perfect balance; the instruments are a frame for Lina as she explores every nuance of sorrow and fleeting joy, feeling every word she sings at the core of her being.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

Fado rewired and recast. Raül Refree - one of Europe's most innovative producers (Rosalía, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo) -- meets Lina, a Portuguese singer renowned for her haunting interpretations of Amalia's classic repertoire. Analog synths and hushed sonics. Making history by breaking the rules. Shedding the skin. A fresh beginning. That's what singer Lina and producer/multi-instrumentalist Raül Refree have given Portuguese fado on Lina_Raül Refree. They've sloughed off the old trappings and exacting traditions of the country's national music and given it into a perfect fit for the 21st century. Gone are the chiming guitars that were the music's instrumental trademark, and in their place comes piano and analog synths. Lina has a deep background in the music; her family has sung it for two generations and she took it up when she was 15, studied opera and turned to the stage, where she portrayed fado's great queen, Amália Rodrigues, before being invited to become a regular at Lisbon's iconic Clube de Fado. Raül Refree has been widely-praised for his solo work, like the album La Otra Mitad (GB 065CD/LP, 2018), as well as his ground-breaking productions; he'd collaborated with the flamenco incendiary Rosalía on her Los Angeles album (2017), the disc that first made her name. Lina chose the songs, fado classics associated with Amália Rodrigues. It was material she knew and loved deeply. Not being a part of the tradition, Refree was unfamiliar with the originals. That helped him and allowed him to come to the music without the weight of history. Beginning in May 2018, over the course of three sessions, they let the sound take shape. In the world they created, the music embraces and captures the listener via the time-honored songs, the minimalist textures and Lina's performances -- so full of bittersweet hope. Yet there are also some delicious, unexpected moments that add to the majesty, like Lina, multi-tracked, rising out of the mix like a choir on "Barco Negro," or the fragile, quivering of piano notes that take wing on "Gaivota." Throughout, Refree's arrangements are quietly subtle, the analog synths and ambience very sparingly used to keep the voice very much at the heart of everything. It's a perfect balance; the instruments are a frame for Lina as she explores every nuance of sorrow and fleeting joy, feeling every word she sings at the core of her being.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

On the front cover of Saharawi singer-songwriter and activist Aziza Brahim's new album, Sahari, a young girl poses in ballet shoes and a glistening white tutu. It's a common childhood scene, but it's tipped upside down. She's an exile, living nowhere near her homeland, and behind her stand the tents and buildings of a refugee camp. There's a desert on the ground and a burning sky above. Yet even in this bleakness, she has optimism. She believes in a better future. The music Aziza Brahim makes reflects both the sorrow and the hope of these people. She grew up in one of those camps in the Algerian desert, along with thousands of other Saharawi who were removed from their homes in the Western Sahara. Her grandmother was a famous Saharawi poet, her mother well-known as a vocalist, and they passed their strength and fearlessness to her. Now, as one of North African most lauded singers, Brahim uses her position to make the plight of her people known -- and of the refugees across the world who have no choice but to exist in the camps. Sahari is for them as much as it's for her own family. The political remains intensely personal for Brahim. She lives in exile, in Spain, and the music for Sahari -- her third album for Glitterbeat -- was written there. And while her songs remain grounded in her homeland, her gaze is increasingly global. To achieve that, Brahim worked with the acclaimed Spanish artist Amparo Sánchez of the band Amparanoia on the album's pre-production, and the collaboration has made a transformative impact on the music. The focus is broader, with programming and keyboards a vital part of the new sound. The different approach extends to the very root of Brahim's music, the tabal drum that's been the heart of Saharawi music for centuries. The process was made smoother by having a sympathetic band who've been with her for years. All the members played a part in framing the new material. When Brahim began as a composer, her work reflected her own reality, growing up in the far, rocky desert known as the hamada. These days she's become a voice for refugees across the globe, and what she sees every day on the news has inevitably affected her writing. Perhaps Aziza's empowered, healing music, can help refuel our sense of justice and compassion.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. On the front cover of Saharawi singer-songwriter and activist Aziza Brahim's new album, Sahari, a young girl poses in ballet shoes and a glistening white tutu. It's a common childhood scene, but it's tipped upside down. She's an exile, living nowhere near her homeland, and behind her stand the tents and buildings of a refugee camp. There's a desert on the ground and a burning sky above. Yet even in this bleakness, she has optimism. She believes in a better future. The music Aziza Brahim makes reflects both the sorrow and the hope of these people. She grew up in one of those camps in the Algerian desert, along with thousands of other Saharawi who were removed from their homes in the Western Sahara. Her grandmother was a famous Saharawi poet, her mother well-known as a vocalist, and they passed their strength and fearlessness to her. Now, as one of North African most lauded singers, Brahim uses her position to make the plight of her people known -- and of the refugees across the world who have no choice but to exist in the camps. Sahari is for them as much as it's for her own family. The political remains intensely personal for Brahim. She lives in exile, in Spain, and the music for Sahari -- her third album for Glitterbeat -- was written there. And while her songs remain grounded in her homeland, her gaze is increasingly global. To achieve that, Brahim worked with the acclaimed Spanish artist Amparo Sánchez of the band Amparanoia on the album's pre-production, and the collaboration has made a transformative impact on the music. The focus is broader, with programming and keyboards a vital part of the new sound. The different approach extends to the very root of Brahim's music, the tabal drum that's been the heart of Saharawi music for centuries. The process was made smoother by having a sympathetic band who've been with her for years. All the members played a part in framing the new material. When Brahim began as a composer, her work reflected her own reality, growing up in the far, rocky desert known as the hamada. These days she's become a voice for refugees across the globe, and what she sees every day on the news has inevitably affected her writing. Perhaps Aziza's empowered, healing music, can help refuel our sense of justice and compassion.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

A dark, thundering Kinshasa meets Paris soundworld. Ecstatic vocals, broken beats, subterranean bass and full-throttle energy. This four-piece group of sonic groundbreakers have delivered a scintillating debut album. Bantou Mentale was born in Chateau Rouge and born out of Matongé. Drummer and song-writer Cubain Kabeya -- originally from the DRC, now resident in Paris -- has been in or around every big thrill to come out of Kinshasa over the past decade: Staff Benda Bilili, Konono No.1, Jupiter & Okwess, Mbongwana Star. Guitarist Chicco Katembo was part of the Staff Benda Bilili story in the early days, before moving to Paris to live with his French mother. Singer Apocalypse is an ace face on the Parisian Congo scene, an alumnus of the orchestra of Koffi Olomide, emperor of contemporary Congolese soukous. Liam Farrell, aka Doctor L, born Irish, raised Parisian, is a musician, composer, and producer with an impressive score sheet that includes Assassin, FFF, Psycho on Da Bus, Tony Allen, Mbongwana Star, Babani Koné, Nneka, Les Amazones d'Afrique. The Bantou Mentale sound is neither traditional, nor slave to the all-encompassing tropes of Congolese rumba, nor slick and arty and self-consciously stylish. They're bringing something modern, raw, open to the world. Liam and Cubain have been distilling experimental mashes of electro African beats on-and-off for years, under names like Black Cowboys or Negro-P. The sound is a gleeful borderless up-cycling of all the urban styles that Paris, London, New York, Kinshasa have been doling out to the world these past two decades, combined into something new and purposeful. There are songs like "Zanzibar" and "Sango" that lament the clandestino stuck in the desert, penniless, screwed. And songs like "Chateau Rouge" that celebrate the wild uncertainty, the liberation, the fellowship of the migrant. "Boko Haram" bemoans the intellectual subservience and social servitude of many Africans, with music that's underpinned by the pulse of the forest and propelled by roughneck riffs and phasing guitars. "Papa Jo" pays homage to an old departed friend from Kinshasa who threw the best parties in his ramshackle house. The delicious grime of "Suabala" hides a story of love, with levels of passion and guitars frolicking in the red. "Boloko" is slower, more ethereal, with its subversion of the sound of those angelic choirs of "saved" little African kids that were the pride of the missionaries. "Syria" tells you that there's no future in petrol wars, with music that's strangled, painful, urgent, tragic, with plenty of glorious distortion.

$34.50$29.33 IN STOCK

Double LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. A dark, thundering Kinshasa meets Paris soundworld. Ecstatic vocals, broken beats, subterranean bass and full-throttle energy. This four-piece group of sonic groundbreakers have delivered a scintillating debut album. Bantou Mentale was born in Chateau Rouge and born out of Matongé. Drummer and song-writer Cubain Kabeya -- originally from the DRC, now resident in Paris -- has been in or around every big thrill to come out of Kinshasa over the past decade: Staff Benda Bilili, Konono No.1, Jupiter & Okwess, Mbongwana Star. Guitarist Chicco Katembo was part of the Staff Benda Bilili story in the early days, before moving to Paris to live with his French mother. Singer Apocalypse is an ace face on the Parisian Congo scene, an alumnus of the orchestra of Koffi Olomide, emperor of contemporary Congolese soukous. Liam Farrell, aka Doctor L, born Irish, raised Parisian, is a musician, composer, and producer with an impressive score sheet that includes Assassin, FFF, Psycho on Da Bus, Tony Allen, Mbongwana Star, Babani Koné, Nneka, Les Amazones d'Afrique. The Bantou Mentale sound is neither traditional, nor slave to the all-encompassing tropes of Congolese rumba, nor slick and arty and self-consciously stylish. They're bringing something modern, raw, open to the world. Liam and Cubain have been distilling experimental mashes of electro African beats on-and-off for years, under names like Black Cowboys or Negro-P. The sound is a gleeful borderless up-cycling of all the urban styles that Paris, London, New York, Kinshasa have been doling out to the world these past two decades, combined into something new and purposeful. There are songs like "Zanzibar" and "Sango" that lament the clandestino stuck in the desert, penniless, screwed. And songs like "Chateau Rouge" that celebrate the wild uncertainty, the liberation, the fellowship of the migrant. "Boko Haram" bemoans the intellectual subservience and social servitude of many Africans, with music that's underpinned by the pulse of the forest and propelled by roughneck riffs and phasing guitars. "Papa Jo" pays homage to an old departed friend from Kinshasa who threw the best parties in his ramshackle house. The delicious grime of "Suabala" hides a story of love, with levels of passion and guitars frolicking in the red. "Boloko" is slower, more ethereal, with its subversion of the sound of those angelic choirs of "saved" little African kids that were the pride of the missionaries. "Syria" tells you that there's no future in petrol wars, with music that's strangled, painful, urgent, tragic, with plenty of glorious distortion.

$15.50$13.18 IN STOCK

BaBa ZuLa, the legendary ensemble from Istanbul, have brilliantly established themselves over the past two decades as the missing link between Turkish psych, krautrock, and dub-wise stylings. Derin Derin is the thrilling follow-up to their acclaimed retrospective XX (GB 042CD/LP, 2017), and finds the band more experimental and expansive than ever. On Derin Derin, BaBa ZuLa's first studio album since 2014, they create their art with beautiful eloquence and stinging passion. It takes wing and soars high; the instrumental portion of the disc grew out of music BaBa ZuLa were asked to record for a documentary about falcons. It grew, little by little, drawing together the elements that have been the heart of the band's sound throughout its existence: the rich wildness of Turkish psychedelia and the blinding, pure emotion that runs through traditional Anatolian music, tempered with the constant musical questing of the band's inspiration, krautrock pioneers Can, and the electro-dub experiments BaBa ZuLa has undertaken with producer Mad Professor. It's an utterly 21st century sound, where the voices are sometimes submerged, sometimes screaming loud to breaking through the noise. "U Are the Swing" is a track that carries particularly profound echoes of Can's late drummer, Jaki Liebezeit. The drum part was played by Ertel's children on a kit Liebezeit himself had modified, and Liebezeit sat in with BaBa ZuLa on many occasions. Those rhythms form the bedrock of BaBa ZuLa's sound, just as they were the foundation of the early Turkish psychedelia of the 1960s and '70s that has been a lifelong influence on Ertel. Psychedelia seeped into his soul and helped to frame his vision for BaBa ZuLa when he formed the band in 1996. And throughout their existence, they've kept their unique mix of electric saz and electric oud to give that double fretboard attack that's so markedly not Western. The psychedelic sound of BaBa ZuLa also feeds quite organically into dub. On "Eagle Got Wolf", for instance, phrases and riffs echo and hang suspended in the air as the bass dives and swoops, while plucked notes appear, only to flicker away again. Derin Derin melds the past into the present and sends it flying into the future. Derin Derin is fearless music. It's the truth. And there is hope.

$23.50$19.98 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. BaBa ZuLa, the legendary ensemble from Istanbul, have brilliantly established themselves over the past two decades as the missing link between Turkish psych, krautrock, and dub-wise stylings. Derin Derin is the thrilling follow-up to their acclaimed retrospective XX (GB 042CD/LP, 2017), and finds the band more experimental and expansive than ever. On Derin Derin, BaBa ZuLa's first studio album since 2014, they create their art with beautiful eloquence and stinging passion. It takes wing and soars high; the instrumental portion of the disc grew out of music BaBa ZuLa were asked to record for a documentary about falcons. It grew, little by little, drawing together the elements that have been the heart of the band's sound throughout its existence: the rich wildness of Turkish psychedelia and the blinding, pure emotion that runs through traditional Anatolian music, tempered with the constant musical questing of the band's inspiration, krautrock pioneers Can, and the electro-dub experiments BaBa ZuLa has undertaken with producer Mad Professor. It's an utterly 21st century sound, where the voices are sometimes submerged, sometimes screaming loud to breaking through the noise. "U Are the Swing" is a track that carries particularly profound echoes of Can's late drummer, Jaki Liebezeit. The drum part was played by Ertel's children on a kit Liebezeit himself had modified, and Liebezeit sat in with BaBa ZuLa on many occasions. Those rhythms form the bedrock of BaBa ZuLa's sound, just as they were the foundation of the early Turkish psychedelia of the 1960s and '70s that has been a lifelong influence on Ertel. Psychedelia seeped into his soul and helped to frame his vision for BaBa ZuLa when he formed the band in 1996. And throughout their existence, they've kept their unique mix of electric saz and electric oud to give that double fretboard attack that's so markedly not Western. The psychedelic sound of BaBa ZuLa also feeds quite organically into dub. On "Eagle Got Wolf", for instance, phrases and riffs echo and hang suspended in the air as the bass dives and swoops, while plucked notes appear, only to flicker away again. Derin Derin melds the past into the present and sends it flying into the future. Derin Derin is fearless music. It's the truth. And there is hope.