Lagoss & Abagwagwa - Island Slang (Discrepant)
- The Slow Music Movement
- Aug 29
- 2 min read
*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's August 24th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***
Right! No more Mr. Chill, it’s time to get busy with this Kampala vs Canary Island sound clash. I’m not usually a fan of live recordings, my Dance Craze and Donny Hathaway vinyl being a couple of rare exceptions, but now they’ve got company.
Captured live at Espacio Cultural El Tanque in Tenerife, this album is an unholy sound clash between Lagoss - an audio-visual project founded by the Discrepant boss Gonçalo F. Cardoso alongside island dwellers Mladen Kurajica and Daniel García, and Kampala crew ABAGWAGWA ( AKA Nihiloxica) consisting of Henry Kazoma, Henry Isabirye, Jamie Mwanje, Peter Jones & Jacob Maskell-Key.
If you’re a dancer or drum head then this is for you. The album starts how it means to go on, immediately constructing a barrage of polyrhythmic percussion and layering the highly flammable rhythms with deviant dark room rave primed electronica and low frequency pressure, then peppers the percussive storm with evocative and provocative sound design.
For twenty minutes the album is unrelenting and the energy irresistible - don’t sit down after hitting play. Instead, draw the curtains, turn off the lights, or even better get a family member to continually flick the light switch on and off, whilst you get busy on the listening room rug. You can both have a breather when “Cayeñero” arrives with it’s slower, deviant dub, closely followed by the ambient dancehall of, “Dog Star Man” and the eery and insistent downtempo folkloric sludge of “El Sueño de Magec”.
I really hope this is an annual event, I want to go.
Playlist Companion
Find them in the End of Week Freak Playlist: