Fulu Miziki Kinshasa Music Warriors

This is one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. Someone on Twitter posted a link to the live video for the song“Quarantine time with Warrior music” (which I have included below) and I was hooked.

Back when I was doing the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow, this definitely would have been featured prominently. Enjoy these three videos and do some digging on your own. Lots to discover.

The group’s Youtube says:

“Fulu Miziki is a collective of artists who comes straight from a future where humans have reconciled with mother earth and with themselves. This multidisciplinary collective of artists is based in the heart of the Congolese capital city Kinshasa and was founded by Pisko Crane. For several years now, it’s founder Pisko has spent an amount of time conceptualizing an orchestra made from objects found in the trash, constantly changing instruments, always in search of new sounds.

Couples of years ago, Pisko Crane joined efforts with performing artist Aicha Mena Kanieba who, with Le Meilleur, DeBoul, La Roche, Padou, Sekelembele, and Tche Tche formed the Eco-Afro-Futuristic punk ensemble Fulu Miziki. Making our own performance costumes, masks and instruments is essential to their approach of Fulu Miziki’s musical ideology. Their unique sound supports a pan-African message of artistic liberation, peace and a severe look at the ecological situation of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the whole world. For Fulu everything can be recovered and re-enchanted.”

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• Follow Fulu Miziki on Facebook

• Follow Fulu Miziki on Instagram

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Huun‐Huur‐Tu Live at KEXP

Oh man, this is so good.

From Episode 19 of the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow:

“Huun-Huur-Tu are a music group from Tuva, a republic of Russia located right on the border of Mongolia and Russia. Huun-Huur-Tu is internationally known for their throat-singing, also known as “over-tone” singing. The singer produces “both the note (drone) and the drone's overtone(s), thus producing two or three notes simultaneously.”

“KEXP presents Huun‐Huur‐Tu performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded August 15, 2017.”

Setlist:

1. Chyraa-Khoor (Yellow Pacer)

2. Konguroi (Sixty Horses in My Herd)

3. Odugen Taiga

4. Aa-Shuu Dekei-oo

Other Details:

• Host: DJ Rhythma

• Audio Engineer: Kevin Suggs

• Cameras: Jim Beckmann, Alaia D'Alessandro & Justin Wilmore

• Editor: Justin Wilmore

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• Like Huun-Huur-Tu on Facebook

• Purchase Huun-Huur-Tu’s music on Amazon

• Listen to ““Chyraa-Khoor” by Huun-Huur-Tu on Episode 19 of the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow or on the Holiday at the Sea music playlist Apothecary of Wonders.

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Eishan Ensemble Live For Phoenix Central Park

Eishan Ensemble’s Afternoon Tea At Six has been one of my favorite albums 0f 2020. In fact, I recently featured the track “Signs” on my Apothecary of Wonders playlist.

The group’s official website says:

“Led by acclaimed Persian-Australian tar player and composer, Hamed Sadeghi, the quintet Eishan Ensemble draws on contemporary and classical music traditions of both East and West. Eishan’s repertoire consists predominantly of Sadeghi’s original compositions with diverse improvisatory idioms featured powerfully. Variously described as “Persian chamber jazz” and “Middle-Eastern jazz fusion”, Eishan defies neat labels.”

Here is a three-song live set they did earlier this year for Phoenix Central Park.

The deets:

Eishan Ensemble:

• Hamed Sadeghi | Tar

• Pedram Layegh | Acoustic guitar

• Michael Avgenicos | Saxophone

• Elsen Price | Double bass

• Adem Yilmaz | Percussion

Songs:

• Black and White

• Signs

• Street

  • Composed by Hamed Sadeghi

• Visit Eishan Ensemble’s official website

• Follow Eishan Ensemble at Facebook

• Support Eishan Ensemble at Bandcamp

• Purchase Eishan Ensemble’s music at Amazon

• Listen to “Signs” by Eishan Ensemble at the Holiday at the Sea playlist “Apothecary of Wonders”

Zakir Hussain & Rakesh Chaurasia at ICE Kraków 08.07.2015

Thanks to my friend Alex for the tip on this 2015 live set featuring Zakir Hussain on tabla, percussion instruments and Rakesh Chaurasia playing bansouri.

The video’s page gives the following info:

“ZAKIR HUSSAIN is undoubtedly one of the greatest legends of world music, virtuoso of the tabla, and artist who tours and records with many other acclaimed musicians, including those form the world of jazz. His father was the famous musician Ustad Alla Rakha. Thanks to his father, Zakir learned to play musical instruments from his youngest days. He started performing as a teenager, and when he was 19 years old, he travelled to the US for the first time, appearing alongside Ravi Shankar. Audiences remember Hussain’s acclaimed albums, especially “Making Music” recorded for the famous ECM label. It is regarded as one of the finest musical fusions of the East and the West. Hussain was accompanied by John McLaughlin, Jan Garbarek and the legendary Hariprasad Chaurasia – uncle of Rakesh, who joins Hussain in Kraków. Hussain has worked with McLaughlin many times, for example when creating recordings with his groups Shakti and Remember Shakti. He also worked alongside Bill Laswell, leading the group Tabla Beat Science bringing together acclaimed tablists and percussionists. He has also co-created the outstanding projects Planete Drum and Global Drum, and worked with some of the greatest musicians of all time, from George Harrison and Van Morrison to Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd. He is a living legend himself.

RAKESH CHAURASIA is more than just a nephew of Hariprasad Chaurasia – he is also one of his most talented pupils. He plays the bansouri, a traditional South Asian bamboo flute. He has worked with musicians including Talvin Singh, participated in recording dozens of albums, and he leads the RAF ensemble – Rakesh and Friends. Recorded at ICE Kraków 08.07.2015.”

• Visit Zakir Hussain’s official website

• Follow Zakir Hussain on Facebook

• Purchase Zakir Hussain’s music at Amazon

• Listen to “Raga Kedar: Gat In Ektaal” by Pandit Shivkumar Sharma & Ustad Zakir Hussain on Episode 17 of the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Superhsow.

• Visit Rakesh Chaurasia’s official website

• Follow Rakesh Chaurasia at Facebook

• Purchase Rakesh Chaurasia’s music at Amazon

Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp"

The Sahel region of northwestern Africa, spans several countries including: Mauritania, Mali, and Niger, and includes dozens of languages and dialects. This region produces some of my favorite music in the world (browse my posts tagged “Tuareg”). And one of my favorite labels putting out some of my favorite music is Sahel Sounds.

Pitchfork says that at least part of the reason label owner Christopher Kirkley chose to work in the Sahel region was “in part because it was so hard to find English-language information about it.” The label’s website says:

“We work directly with artists that we represent and aim to have input and control over artistic endeavors. All profits are shared 50/50. We’re committed to using culture as a means of communication, helping our artists build careers, and listening to good music.”

Preview the trailer for 2016 German trailer about the label (which is available to watch at Amazon Prime):

In 2010, the label put out the terrific and fascinating Music From Saharan Cellphones compilation. The compilation’s Bandcamp page provides some context:

“Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation of music collected from memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert.

In much of West Africa, cellphones are are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, playback songs on tinny built in speakers, and swap files in a very literal peer to peer Bluetooth wireless transfer.”

The compilation not only helped highlight music from the region but was, for many, the first exposure to Tuareg guitar wizard Mdou Moctar, whose album Ilana (The Creator) was one of my favorites of 2019. Now, 10 years later, the label presents the follow-up to the ground-breaking compilation, Music from Saharan WhatsApp.

“For the year of 2020, Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp." Every month, we'll be releasing an EP from a musical group in the Sahel. Every album will be recorded on a cellphone, and transmitted over WhatsApp, and uploaded to Bandcamp - where it will live for one month only. Available for pay as you want, 100% of the sales will go directly to the artist or group. After one month, the album will be replaced by another one, until the end of the year.”

The label profiles the first installment at the Bandcamp page:

“This month's release comes from Agadez guitar band, Etran de L'Aïr. Translated to "Star's of Agadez," Etran is one of the longest running wedding bands in a city renowned for guitar. Constantly playing in the outdoor weddings, both in the city and the surrounding countryside, Etran play exhaustive concerts, late into the night. Even for a guitar band, they push the instrument to the extreme, with three guitars playing simultaneously, soloing over one another, creating a dreamy cacophony of sound. This session was recorded at night in their home in Abala, just outside the center of Agadez. "We invited friends over to the home, for encouragement," says Moussa "Abindi" Ibra. "But we asked them not to make too much noise, for the sake of the recording."

Preview the first EP here:

Head over to the Bandcamp page to download the first installment and track future releases.

• Follow Sahel Sounds at Facebook.

• Follow Sahel Sounds at Twitter.

• Follow Sahel Sounds at Youtube.

• Support Sahel Sounds at Bandcamp.

• Browse “Sahel Sounds” at Amazon.