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The Slow Music Movement Blog

Reading about music is a bit like looking at pictures of food - not nearly half as much fun as getting involved, so we scribble a brief intro to hopefully whet your appetite but strongly advise you just hit play and make up your own mind.
There's a lot of music to check these days & hopefully you'll find these recommendations a handy filter.
Trust your ears, not opinions.

28/2/2021 1 Comment

Sébastien Radiguet - Lentomania (Onto)

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WHAT WE SAY:

A short, serene and Sunday suitable ambient piano piece from Onto Records so just hit repeat, as misty lunar soundscapes are interrupted from their early morning rest by the gentle prodding of Sébastien Radiguet's minimal and measured keys.

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Sébastien Radiguet’s debut album is a minimalist and delicate piano work. A timeless universe emerges from the 7 ambient piano pieces, haloed with electronic textures. With this ambient record, the Normandy-based composer is taking his cue from the musical path carved out by labels like Erased Tapes, Kranky, Sonic Pieces or 12k of which he likes "the often introspective music where electronics and acoustics are intimately mixed".

This is true of Insulated Soul, a piece vaguely inspired by a waltz by Maurice Ravel, which was composed and recorded in a few hours in March 2020, on his 44th birthday. "That day, the solitude imposed by circumstances really jumped in my face. Insulated Soul evokes this solitude of the mind, but also the notion of isolation, as a process of self-protection or a survival mechanism," explains Sébastien Radiguet.

Listening to the album, we may think to Goldmund, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nils Frahm or even Otto A. Totland whose influence Sébastien acknowledges on Weastern, "one of the most obscure pieces on the record".

With Lentomania, his first solo album, Sébastien Radiguet expresses the need to return to his primary instrument. The desire to record tracks with the piano thrived at the beginning of the first lockdown. From this forced lymphatic state resulted a fair and intelligent "deceptively indolent" record written and recorded outside of time. Here, less is more, the musician favors atmosphere, seeking to attract and stretch our attention with a set of ethereal electro-acoustic clips.

For this release, graphic designer Virgile Laguin collaborated with Sébastien to translate the light and dark, electronic and acoustic universe of Lentomania's music. Crossing mediums, Virgile Laguin feeds on these ambivalences to make us lose our bearings: a photograph of an out-of-phase Californian seascape decomposing under a rain of pixelated glitches.
Credits:

All songs composed and recorded by Sébastien Radiguet
Graphic work by Virgile Laguin

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27/2/2021 0 Comments

Caravela - Orla (None More)

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WHAT WE SAY:

Brazil & the UK have always had a long distance musical love affair so Caravela decided to finally tie the knot, uniting London jazz with classic Afro-Brazil, but not without plenty of telenovela like twists & turns, in this modern, microdosed meeting of minds None More Records.

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Caravela’s debut full length LP ‘Orla’ is an intoxicating mix of Afro-Brazillian rhythms and contemporary London jazz drenched in modern psychedelic and progressive textures.

The band’s deep and infectious grooves form the basis from which they can showcase their beautiful and mature songwriting craft. Lyrics touching on social and environmental issues in both Brazil and Cape Verde, as well as reflections on modern life, weave between the songs in Loubet’s native Portuguese. Initially inspired by a recent period of living in Bahia, Brazil, interacting and working with local musicians there, Caravela took that experience and melded it alongside their wide range of influences to deliver a stunning set of contemporary songs.

Hypnotic and groove-laden percussion ties together all the different elements Caravela are bringing to the table, from Afro-Brazilian influences like candomblè music or the tropicalia of Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso with some darker, electronic elements reminiscent of Radiohead, electric era Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. There’s also a grittiness from the band’s music evolving from within London’s contemporary jazz scene that makes Caravela’s music uniquely their own. The African and Brazillian rhythms and jazz approach remain at the core of the groups sound, but the development and growth of their own songwriting, diverse range of textures and influences and their soaring vocals and spiritual lyrics make their sound so distinct.

‘Orla’ showcases the Caravela’s growth from their debut EP in 2017, building on their digging into Brazilian and Cape Verdian music to develop their songwriting and sound. ‘Orla’ represents the growing sense of identity of Loubet and Sousa’s songwriting partnership, organically developing the songs through spontaneously singing lyrics and melodies over Sousa’s ideas on guitar, the music came together very naturally.

Lead single ‘A Macieira’ builds on a clipped and funky guitar line, strong percussion and tight, syncopated drums as Loubet’s incredible vocals soar above the band, reflecting on the folk themes of maturity and innocence, as with the eyes of an old woman, strong and steady, like the old apple tree.

‘Vale do Capão’, a deep cut that highlights the psychedelic musical textures the band are exploring, documents the experience of Vale do Capão in Bahia and finding communion with nature.

Both ’Mar Pretu’ a stunning, brief experimental song and ‘Pexi Secu’, a stirring song that builds musically to a dramatic and dark climax, both highlight the suffering in fishing villages caused by oil pollution at sea that affects both Brazil and Cape Verde, two countries that share an ocean as well as a deep connection, both spiritually and musically.

‘Liame de Mel’, Portuguese for ‘bond of honey’ is a beautiful, stripped back song where Loubet sings of a relationship ending, but the special bond that remains over just Sousa’s raw guitar.

‘Um e Meio’, a modern heavyweight of a song that musically builds around some beautiful piano work from Costi and haunting, spacious guitar work from Sousa, is a song dedicated to Juraci Tavares, the composer, singer and poet from Bahia who is fighting to preserve black culture in the region. The band spent time with Juraci during their trip to Bahia as he shared poems, songs and his life experiences with the group. The song is about the enriching exchange of life and music that happened on the trip. The song also features Dizraeli, a prominent force in London’s contemporary sound as well as an activist, who delivers an incredible piece of spoken word poetry amongst the music.

‘Orla’ closes with ‘Solta o Sinal’, the band’s humble dedication to samba from Bahia, the ‘samba de roda’ and their first experience of hearing Brazilian music from their parents. Joao Mendes, a renowned musician from Santo Amaro guests on acoustic guitar.

The album is released on the 26th February 2021.

Caravela:
Inês Loubet Franco - Vocals
Telmo Sousa - Electric & Nylon String Guitar
Joseph Costi - Piano, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer & Synthesizers
Greg Gottlieb - Electric & Double Bass
Ben Brown - Drumkit
Jansen Santana - Percussion, Backing Vocals
Guests:
Dizraeli - Vocals on "Um e Meio"
João Mendes - Steel String Guitar on "Solta o Sinal"

All tracks written by Inês Loubet and Telmo Sousa
Lyrics on "Um e Meio" by Juraci Tavares & Spoken Word by Dizraeli

Produced by Caravela
Engineered, mixed & mastered by Rui Ferreira
Recorded at Giant Wafer Studios and Estúdio Antena Zero in February 2020
Vinyl master at Curved Pressings
Art Direction and Design by Degrau

(C) None More Records 2020
NMR006
Initial Run of 300 vinyl records. Pressed at Curved Pressings, Hackney.
www.nonemorerecords.com
nonemorerecords@gmail.com

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26/2/2021 0 Comments

Karima Walker - Waking The Dreaming Body (Orindal)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

It's great to hear Karima Walker back on Orindal Records for another stunning ambient folk offering. Whether she's seducing with her voice, lulling with gentle guitar, serenading with the sounds of the sea or soothing with ambient synths, one thing is for sure you'll be whole lot more relaxed & feeling better about life after listening.

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Tucson, Arizona interdisciplinary artist Karima Walker walks a line between two worlds. Aside from her long resume of collaborative work with artists in the diverse fields of dance, sculpture, film, photography and creative non-fiction, Walker has long nurtured a duality within her work as a musician, developing her own sonic language as a sound designer in tandem with her craft as a singer/songwriter. The polarity within Walker’s music has never been so articulately explored, or graced with as much intention, as on her new album, Waking the Dreaming Body.

Waking the Dreaming Body was written, performed and engineered entirely by Walker, with the exception of some subtle upright bass from C.J. Boyd on the song “Window I.” Producing the album on her own wasn’t Walker’s original intention, though; after flying to New York in November 2019 to develop some home-recorded tracks with The Blow’s Melissa Dyne, a sudden illness forced Walker to cancel the sessions and return home to Tucson to recover, and soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic ruled out the possibility of a return trip to New York. Instead, Walker decided to finish the album herself in her makeshift home studio. She spent the following months recording, processing and arranging her self-described “messy Ableton sessions” into densely harmonic arrangements of synthesizer, guitar, piano, percussion, field recordings, tape loops and her own dulcet singing voice, allowing trial, error and intuition to guide her way. The final result is a 40-minute dream-narrative of her conscious and subconscious minds that oscillates between the rich textures of her ambient compositions (as in the instrumentals “Horizon, Harbor Resonance” and “For Heddi”) and the melody and poetry of her melancholic, Americana-tinged songwriting (as in the lyrics-focused tracks “Reconstellated” and “Waking the Dreaming Body”), their ebb and flow recalling liminal states of half-sleep where images and emotions are recalled and forecasted from the previous night's dreams. Night falls in regular intervals throughout the album, forming a natural dialogue between waking and dreaming.

Walker explains:

“I wanted these songs to stand alone as complete worlds, and this required a shift in my usual way of writing. I found myself trying to escape from an excess of interiority by exploring outward, by thinking about the mirroring that happens when you seek connection to others and to the natural world—when you try to bring the outside in. I sought to make arrangements that swell at certain moments and barely hold together at others, moving with my breath and other rhythms connecting my body to the natural world. Ultimately, I was seeking to draw myself out, to reconstruct my personal narrative.”

“I see myself as an in between person I guess,” Walker continues. “Though I haven't very explicitly brought my own personal history into my music, I think it's there, and it continues to show up in its own ways and time. I am Arab, half North African/Tunisian on my mother's side, but was raised in a very white context, with a lot of white passing privilege, especially as I've gotten older. My mom came to California as an immigrant to this country after marrying my dad in the rural village where she grew up. She came to Los Angeles and was working at McDonald’s and different Mediterranean restaurants around the city, and was kind of discovered at one of these jobs. The singer didn't show up one night, so her coworkers told her to sing a couple songs she knew. She only knew three by heart and she sang them over and over again that night. That was the beginning of her career, and she has worked as a singer in Europe and North Africa for over twenty years now. She's like a jukebox for the Arab diaspora and beyond. I didn't grow up with her, though, knew almost nothing about her, except that she was Tunisian and was a singer and that she left when I was little. I think that planted a seed in me, even though what I do is very different from her idea of being a singer. She has this rich full big voice, she listens to my records and then sits me down and says, "You know Whitney Houston, right? Why don't you sing like her?" The difference in what we do is laughably different! But my journey into making music was so different. I kept falling in love with musicians and artists for a while before I realized that maybe I wanted to be so close to these people because they were doing something that resonated deeply in me. So there's a way in which making music has been a way for me to overcome divides that I couldn't quite articulate in other ways. Maternal lineage, intimacy and connection, but also, with this record, attempting to overcome my own internal divides.”

Waking the Dreaming Body holds a deep connection to the environs in which it was created, and the mountains, rivers and starry skies of Walker’s desert home are referenced in nearly every song she sings on the album, simultaneously grounding the action and imbuing it with a sense of otherworldliness.

Sonoran sky plays a movie
Draw a line to the stars inside of me
Write it down, tell your friends
I know where I am but I can’t tell where I started
— “Reconstellated”

“Tucson is where I grew up, I moved here from California as a kid,” Walker recalls. “And after leaving for school and traveling, I moved back about seven years ago. It's such a distinct and notable place to folks not from the desert, but this is my home. My formative understanding of the natural world, aside from the ocean, comes from here, so it always seems to make its way into my work. I think that porousness would be there regardless of where I was, but I do think that the pandemic forced me back into the desert seasons in a way that I hadn't experienced since I was a kid. We had one of our hottest and driest summers on record, and I usually try to tour when it’s super hot at home. But this year I was kinda stuck, the mountain where everyone runs away from the heat, about an hour away, caught fire and burned for weeks so there really was no escaping it. I started thinking about our rivers- they're called dead rivers or washes, because they don't run usually, and our watershed, all the plants that survive here and the seasons that were still happening even under all the stress of this summer.”
Throughout Waking the Dreaming Body, Walker’s uncanny sound design evokes the delicacy, grandeur and terrifying enormity of the American Southwest. Close your eyes while listening to “Horizon, Harbor Resonance,” the thirteen-minute instrumental at the album’s center, and watch the shifting desert landscape in your mind’s eye; from the babble of flash flood runoff to the slow parade of cumulus cloud shadows across the red earth, cactus and creosote, and then, moving backwards in time, the thunderous eruptions of ancient volcanoes that pushed the Tucson Mountains skyward.

Walker continues:

“Waking the Dreaming Body was influenced by my preoccupation with natural sublime phenomena: tsunami videos and the dreams of ocean waves I was having last year, large mountain ranges that can only be seen by a plane or over the course of a day of driving. These images allowed me to think about immense horror and beauty—something that overwhelms but simultaneously is so hard to look away from, something that holds violence but also reflects a better understanding of ourselves in the context of that immensity and scale. Looking out and looking within, and knowing that the divide is false, but feeling the pain of that division nonetheless.

“Waking the Dreaming Body became an attempt to break out of my insularity, wrestling with my separation from the natural world. I write about mountains and rivers but all through more of a longing and detachment. Maybe there’s hope in there? I made this whole record almost entirely alone so I’m actually not sure if I make it to the other side.”
Credits:
All songs written, performed, mixed & produced by Karima Walker
Thanks to C.J. Boyd for playing bass on "Window I"
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart
Album art & layout by Karima Walker

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25/2/2021 0 Comments

Iguana Moonlight - Jaguar (Not Not Fun)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

Natural, artificial, New Age, ancient rituals, ambient & club worlds collide in this fine extended EP of electo-shamansim from Moscow's Iguana Moonlight on the ever reliable purveyors of ambiguous electronica Not Not Fun Records.

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The sophomore offering by Moscow illusionist Ilya Ryazantcev aka Iguana Moonlight centers on a lost shaman's soul transmuted into a mythical jaguar lurking in the Amazonian unknown. As with his 2017 desert island debut, Wild Palms, the music acts as both score and summoning, remote dreaming a gradient of sights, sounds, and smells via synthesizers and field recordings.

The six songs of JAGUAR waver at the threshold of fantasy and hallucination, saturated and surreal, awash in colors not found in nature. It's a virtual reality jungle of smeared neon, steel drums, and deep bass, hyperreal fauna floating in fluorescent mist. Purist portal music at its most potent, born of and for black mirror séances past and present.

Credits:
Recorded and mixed by Ilya Ryazantcev.
Design by Britt Brown.

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Mostly instrumental, uptempo ambient and slow beat driven, atmospheric electronic music. Perfect headphone music to assist disengagement from the rat race. Equally suited to late night reality escapism.

Smartlink to Deezer, Apple Music, Youtube & Soundcloud.

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24/2/2021 0 Comments

Francisco Sonur - Morning Trials (Time Preserved)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

This is a lovely LP of ambient & leisurely electroacoustic strumming & humming from Francisco Sonur. Living in a garage with his family preparing a van for nomadic adventures, he also managed to cobble together this charming & can do exploration of family life, uncertainty, hopes & dreams of the open road for Time Released Sound. A real heart warmer.

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We are very pleased to announce this beautiful new release from Australia based, Argentinian composer, Francisco Sonur...entitled, "Morning Trials". This gentle excursion into the heart and mind of a man, his family, and their impending intention to travel the world will be available physically and digitally this coming Friday morning, February 5th, 2021.

This release will be available in two distinct physical versions, as well as digitally. The first, limited edition deluxe version, in an edition of 50 copies, each w/ factory pressed CD comes in a vintage 5" film can, with an assortment of travel oriented 1940's automotive game cards, subway tickets, and other antique paper ephemera all strung from a thread that also runs through the vintage, circle cut maps that cover the can front and back, and inside...along with attached, old world maps of the night sky to guide their journey by night! On the back of each can is a custom printed rounded, atlas page magnet...and also hanging from the thread is a uniquely original road trip snapshot from the 70s, with a hand typed meaningful haiku poem on each, and the artist and album title hand typed on a little vintage vellum strip.

This is also available in a "standard" CD edition of 50 copies in hand stamped, recycled kraftboard DVD cases with attached vintage "road trip" snapshots.

"This album was composed in a garage where we lived for a while, perhaps the most difficult moment of our life, but always with the hopes intact that better times will come! We alternated recording with homeschooling, and trying to arrange ¨spirit¨, the bus that would take us around Australia! In the album you can hear the voice of Sara, my daughter, in several tracks, as well as the voice of Migret. The album ended up being the most ¨family¨ project I have recorded to date, it is full of ¨imperfections¨, but I preferred to keep it that way...simple...homemade... warm!"

Francisco Sonur

Credits:
Artist Name: Francisco Sonur
Album name: Morning Trials
Album Credits: Vocals by Migret
French horn by Juan Aout
Miz and Master: Truz in ¨losotrosolo¨ mobile studio
Guide along the way: Nico Aimo

Artwork/design by Colin Herrick
Time Released Sound 2021

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An eclectic ambient selection for relaxation, meditation, introspection and contemplation. (Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Youtube and Spotify)

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23/2/2021 0 Comments

Loshh - Ífaradá

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

Distilling rather than diluting the sounds & power of Fela, supported by the ghosts of black music greats & a proper dose of JA dread, Loshh pleasingly distorts the music but the messages of social justice ring loud & clear.

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22/2/2021 0 Comments

Om Unit - Acid Dub Studies (Self Release)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

With club subwoofers gathering dust, Om Unit has moved with the home listening times, mined bass history and acid house sound palettes and with a futuristic twist combined them into a laid back, locked down lesson in dub deviance.

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Jim Coles once again turns the tide towards a new horizon and travels further into the echo chamber. Leading on from the much-lauded ‘Secret Location’ mini-album with Seekersinternational, one-offs such as ‘Open Palms dub’ (Dub Stuy) and other teasings, ‘Acid Dub Studies’ is the fully-fledged result of the merging of the calligraphic expression of the 303 Acid bassline with the stern sway of Dub Reggae and the hazier edges of Dub Techno and Ambient music.

For those who have been paying close attention, this project will come as a welcome return to the vulnerability and playfulness of early Om Unit records such as his sub-radar single from 2010 ‘Lightgrids/Lavender’ (All City Records) or the unearthed chugging ambience of ‘Friend of Day’ (Idle Hands) and indeed in some sense draws from similar wellsprings as moments on 2013’s Bass classic ‘Threads’.

Whilst being perhaps an ‘interim project’ this is still a vital and important expression of exploration and playfulness. A study in the true sense and borne out of a subtle but pervasive frustration with the rigidity found in musical words he has up to now been cohabiting, Acid Dub Studies comes from the pressing need to break with perceived expectation and to explore an honest and natural space away from the genre labels and tags that had been often lazily applied to his sizeable catalogue of music.

With no desire to reinvent the wheel, rather to paint pictures in an honest framework, the LP was crafted using a medley of classic analogue mixing techniques inspired as much by the adventurous dubbing of Adrian Sherwood as by the inward-delving haze of Scott Monteith’s Deadbeat project. Created during a period of lonely introspective walks through his home town of Bristol, the cover art is a photograph of some of the iron kerbstones that are found almost exclusively in the characterful and hardy city which were installed in the late 1800’s to protect pavements from cart wheels. Something about the permanence of those iron slabs and cobblestones inspired a sense of comfort and determination.

Acid Dub Studies is due for release as yet another self-released label-free project leading on from recent EP titles ‘Violet’ and ‘Submerged’ both of which hinted at some of the shapes found in this full length album.

Once again Jim has shown a rare convincing adaptability that few electronic artists can embody. Another step on the journey of personal and creative curiosity that fans are sure to appreciate.

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21/2/2021 0 Comments

Masaya Kato & Valotihkuu - Swallow (Shimmering Moods)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

A distant meeting of minds between Russia's Valotihkuu & Japan's Masaya Kato is the source of today's ambient offering. Tape loops, anchorless electroacoustic sounds, fender Rhodes & nature's rich sound palette all combine in this hazy, woozy, Sunday Suitable soundtrack plucked from the recent Shimmering Moods Records release deluge.

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This is the first collaborative album by Japanese composer Masaya Kato and Russian composer Denis Davydov (Valotihkuu). Denis made soundscapes with nature sounds and a variety of acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, tape loops. After that Masaya composed and played Fender Rhodes and added little bits of vinyl and tape noises.
The track titles are named after ingredients of dyestuffs, pigments for blue colors.

We hope you enjoy this magical collaboration!

Credits:

W&P by Masaya Kato and Denis Davydov (Valotihkuu)
Mastered by Denis Davydov
Artwork pictures by Oleksandr Demianenko

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An eclectic ambient selection for relaxation, meditation, introspection and contemplation.playlist:

(Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Youtube and Spotify)

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20/2/2021 0 Comments

Adeline Hotel - Good timing (Ruination Records)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

Big thanks to one of my favourite new blog discoveries Petal Motel for hipping me to Adeline Hotel's new LP for Ruination Records. Like a vivid & most pleasant dream, guitar notes suddenly appear twinkling all around, before slowly settling into a snug, winter warming ambient folk blanket. Honestly this album has made my weekend.

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Good Timing was performed and recorded by Dan Knishkowy, mixed by Ian Wayne, and mastered by Patrick Klem.

The album art was designed, sewn, and photographed by
Chrissy Ziegler.

Credits:
Where does a piece of music originate? Before decisions about form and refinement of material, before building up or carving down, before composition itself—what lies in this white room, and how does one find it? Dan Knishkowy of Adeline Hotel did not set out to answer these questions when he began recording Good Timing, a mostly instrumental album whose crystalline latticework of acoustic guitar marks a departure of sorts from his previous releases as a songwriter. But as he worked, he found a certain freedom in a process uninhibited by pretense. “I liked the idea of embracing that,” he says, “instead of turning this into something more conventionally polished.”

Knishkowy created Good Timing by layering improvised guitar parts, each one reacting intuitively to those that came before and guiding those that came after. Like a fractal blooming or a snowflake accumulating ice, the music dictated its own shape as it grew, a dynamic that is perceptible in the shifting surfaces of each piece. Rhythms unspool slowly, without tether to any strict pulse. Lines begin in apparent disarray, then converge for an epiphanic moment, then separate again. Though Knishkowy is well versed in the greats of solo guitar—among several possible connotations of the album’s title is a sly homage to a Jim O’Rourke acoustic masterwork—the effect of these multitracked pieces may have more in common with ambient music than anything from the American Primitive school. Low strings toll like distant bells; high ones sparkle like windchimes just outside the window. The physical properties of Dan’s instrument are as present in the music as his own hands.

He arrived at this instinctual approach while working alone at home in the quarantine summer of 2020, when more precisely arranged compositions began to feel stifling. As a reprieve, he began recording the sort of ostensibly aimless music that had often uncovered the seeds of songs in the past. By centering these embryonic sounds as an expression in themselves, rather than a route to some other end, he crafted 10 pieces that glow with intimacy and presence, vessels for capturing memory in real time. “I feel like all records are approximations of your creative process, in a way" he says, "but with Good Timing, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to the source.” - Andy Cush

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:

A laid back and open minded look at the world of traditional, indie and acid folk, Americana, singer songwriters, cosmic blues, global roots & electro acoustic fusions.

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19/2/2021 0 Comments

4 Mars - (Djibouti Archives Vol. 1) Super Somali Sounds from the Gulf of Tadjoura [Ostinato]

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

WHAT WE SAY:

Another killer compilation uncovering long hidden Somalian grooves from Ostinato Records, this time of cultural super group 4 Mars, in what has to be one of my favourite African reissue series. They aren't wasting their unique access to the vaults, perfectly showcasing the evocative sounds of the East coming to the raunchier African party where Jamaica & black America have already started the dancing.

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In 2019, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories from East Africa.

The first in our Djibouti Archives series is a seminal anthology of 4 Mars, a 40-member Somali supergroup behind the most streamed and downloaded track on our Grammy-nominated Sweet As Broken Dates compilation. The personal band of a political party, 4 Mars' sound reveals a brand new history of the world.

Turkish synths, Jamaican Reggae, American brass, Bollywood vocals, Egyptian and Yemeni rhythms, and Chinese and Mongolian flutes all rendezvous in a corner of East Africa that for centuries served as the world's most brisk trading hub, the midway point connecting Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean. All roads led to the Gulf of Tadjoura, not Rome.

This is Somali music at its sassy, soulful, synthesized best.

Warmly restored and remastered from digitized master reels and cassettes housed in the RTD archives.

FULLY AUTHORIZED by RTD and Le Palais du Peuple (The Palace of the People), which created and oversees 4 Mars. Royalties paid directly to The Palace of the People.

————————--

In 1977, on the eve of independence of the Republic of Djibouti, a small country on the Red Sea in East Africa, a densely packed archive was pieced together in a quiet corner of the national radio. Over the years, it became a premier but largely unknown African archive housing thousands of master reels and cassettes of the finest East African sounds.

It has endured fires and theft of invaluable recordings. Those scars linger on the delicate films of quarter-inch reels and cassette tapes. It remains one of the most expansive, well-maintained archives in Africa – but also one of the most restrictive. For decades, the archive remained off-limits to foreign entities of any kind.

In 2019, after negotiations spanning many years, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories—from East Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, and of course Djibouti itself.

The story of epic Somali supergroup 4 Mars, authors of one of the most popular songs on our Grammy-nominated Sweet As Broken Dates compilation, is the first chapter in our “Djibouti Archives" series because their rich globalized sound reveals a brand new history of the world.

For centuries, all roads led to this corner of Africa, not Rome. As the major transit point connecting Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, goods, ideas, peoples, and culture were briskly exchanged. Egyptian, Turkish, Arab, Persian, Indian, and Chinese traders and tastemakers dropped anchor in Djibouti’s Gulf of Tadjoura, each arrival deliciously peppering a deeply layered sound.

Egyptian and Yemeni rhythms. Sudanese music structures. The synth melodies? Turkish-inspired. The signature off-beat licks of reggae? Depending on who you ask, they came from Jamaica’s greatest export or are simply identical to the Somali Dhaanto rhythm. The horns are courtesy of master saxophonist Mohamed Abdi Alto, first featured on our contemporary studio album, “The Dancing Devils of Djibouti” by Groupe RTD. 4 Mars was his first gig. Alto was a distant but diligent apprentice of Harlem’s jazz era. Both the flute traditions and the instrument itself were imported from China and Mongolia. The vocals? Somali singers infatuated with Bollywood.

Today, a third of world trade again passes through Djibouti’s straits and a similar mix of characters roam the streets and docks. A South African diplomat pointed to Djibouti on a map and told us, “This is the future.”

4 Mars offers a bright window into its past, when an African country was building itself from scratch. Their name—Quatre Mars in French—translates as the 4th of March (1977), the founding date of The People's Rally for Progress, the political party in charge of Djibouti since independence. 4 Mars was the party’s band.

Young countries need unity. Djibouti’s leaders saw music, and 4 Mars especially, as the ideal soundtrack to an independent era. Almost all music was brought under the state’s wing. But this is not propaganda music. In the context of a new country, think about what “propaganda” means. You have a divided society. You need to build a national identity and instill values. Look at the track titles: Power. Compassion. Motherland. Gratitude. Hello, Peace! These are not just songs, but the nurturing of a country performed by world-class musicians.

An off-limits archive aside, 4 Mars is unknown outside the region because of its 40-member Olympic-style entourage, staffed by actors, singers, dancers, musicians, and percussionists. Only wealthy leaders like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi brought them on tour.

At home, the once-lavish national theater, dilapidated and out of commission for years, was the center stage of 4 Mars’ legendary live shows. A new 800-seat theater built by China and training in analog music technology at Chinese universities for the young archivists at RTD offer opportunities for a revival.

Ostinato operates on the guiding principle that no physical historic recordings should leave a country and agreements with archives should be a win-win trade, not aid. Part of the deal for archival access and licensing rights included a finely refurbished Technics reel-to-reel player from the ‘70s with upgraded software to replace a worn-out model for RTD to continue their digital preservation of the entire archive in high-quality.

Compiled from master tapes and reels, all recordings were done in RTD’s studios and during live performances at the national theater between 1977 and 1994. Authorized by both RTD and The Palace of the People, which founded and oversees 4 Mars, this seminal anthology of a Goliath of a Somali group is a perspective-shifting journey through ancient trade routes and the currents of history that gave this small but grand Red Sea hub a signature music style that in every sense reveals a truer story of our world. Listen to Djibouti’s past so you can keep an eye on its promising future.

Credits:
Produced & Compiled by Vik Sohonie
Archive Digitization by Mark Gergis
Restoration & Remastering by Mark Gergis
Equipment Transport & Project Coordination by Janto Djassi
Design by Pete 'Piwi' White
Translations by Hawa, Mulki and Amina Abdulle

SPECIAL THANKS to Les Palais du Peuple Director Abayazid Houmed Ali, RTD Director Mahmoud Souleiman, His Excellency Mr. Aden Mohamed Dileita (Djiboutian Ambassador to Germany), Djiboutian Customs Director Mr. Gouled, Abdulkader Ahmed Idriss, Andreas Wetter and the hardworking staff of RTD.

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YOUR CART

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Iguana Moonlight - Jaguar (Not Not Fun)

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