***In The Handover, Aly Eissa, Ayman Asfour, and Jonas Cambien explore the common and uncommon senses of Egypt's ritual music. It is clear that Aly Eissa's original composition is deeply rooted in Egyptian and Arabic traditions. At the same time, this band is one of the most progressive coming out of Egypt today. This is in big part thanks to Eissa, who has proven time and again to be not only an extremely skillful composer, but also a real visionary, combining tradition with modern experimentation. A performance by The Handover is typically one stretch without break: a long build-up that lasts for the duration of the concert. Towards the end of the performance, all the tension is released in an exuberant, joyful climax, when wild improvisations are driven forward on top of exciting dance-rhythms from rural Egypt. The Handover elegantly combines the delicacy of classical Arabic music, the raw expressiveness of Egypt's countryside music, and the spontaneity of free improvisation, carefully obliterating the artificial separation between acoustic and electronic instruments. Despite the remarkable absence of any percussion or drums, The Handover is an extremely groovy band, with an ability to slow down and accelerate the tempo in almost telepathic synchronization at exactly the right moments. Alongside the tight ensemble playing there is plenty of room for individual expression as the oud, synthesizer and violin take turns playing solos on top of repetitive riffs. Throughout the album, native Alexandrian Ayman Asfour plays the violin with breathtaking beauty, while not being afraid...
LP $30.75
05/31/2024
***This is the first Vinyl LP ever released featuring a woman playing the Rudra Veena. Madhuvanti Pal is from Kolkata India, teaches the Rudra Veena and builds her own instruments. The name Rudra Veena derives from two Sanskrit roots: Rudra, which is a name for Shiva, and veena, which means "instrument." The first historical accounts of the instrument are given in the Vedas, and then the Puranas. According to Hindu mythology, the Rudra Veena has a unique origin. It is said that Shiva saw his beautiful wife Parvati sleeping, with her arm over her breasts, and decided to build an instrument in her form. It is a stick zither, with two large gourds attached to a hollowed neck. Dhrupad is the oldest form of North Indian classical music that is still performed today. During the Mughal period, the Rudra Veena was a popular Dhrupad instrument, and was often played in courts throughout north India. Dhrupad musicians, including Rudra Veena artists, enjoyed the patronage of various Kings and Princes. In recent years the Rudra Veena has gained some popularity, in part thanks to interest from musicians outside of India. Madhuvanti Pal is one of the new generation of Rudra Veena artists who is teaching students in India and abroad. Early documentation suggests that women played the instrument. This can be seen in sculptures in Hindu temples—some dating back more than 2000 years—which depict only women playing the Rudra Veena, and miniature paintings from the 15th - 17th centuries often depict a...
2XLP $38.95
10/20/2023
***REISSUED!!! Erkin Koray and Sublime Frequencies are pleased to present this collection of rare tracks and lesser-heard singles. All tracks were recorded and released in Turkey between 1970-1977 and culled from Koray's personal vinyl collection. Includes exclusive photos and remastered audio. "What more is there to say about Erkin Koray? An iconic guitar and songwriting genius. A voice of gold. Having founded the country's first-ever rock and roll group in 1957, he is regarded worldwide as the father of Turkish rock. Forging Western sounds with his own inimitable musical mastery, he self-produced singles and LPs throughout the 1960s and 1970s that shook and altered Turkish society. Erkin didn't stop at rock and roll. Over time, he began to find inspiration in folk sounds from Turkey's Anatolian interior, and radio broadcasts received from Egypt and Lebanon. He looked to the East from his West-leaning Istanbul perch, and began incorporating these sounds into his own work. This amalgamation was as unprecedented and unorthodox in Istanbul at the time as rock and roll itself had been in the 1950s. The resulting hybrid sound ignited what became known as the Arabesque music movement in Turkey—which continues to this day. While Erkin has recorded and performed tirelessly throughout the years (both as a solo artist, and with the powerful groups he formed), his extensive back catalog only began to be explored by the international community in the 1990s. He is now recognized as one of the foremost global leaders of psychedelic, folk rock, pop and...
LP $30.50
10/06/2023
***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! BABA COMMANDANT AND THE MANDINGO BAND are a contemporary group from Burkina Faso. Coming from Bobo-Dioulasso, the group is steeped in the Mandingue musical traditions of their ancestral legacy. The enigmatic lead singer Baba Commandant (MAMADOU SANOU) is an original and eccentric character who is well respected in the Burkinabé musical community. A sort of punk Faso Dan Fani activist for traditional Mandingo music, Baba continues to redefine the boundaries between traditional and modern. In 1981, he joined the Koule Dafourou troupe as a dancer. Later, he embarked on his current musical direction as a singer, first in Dounia and then in the Afromandingo Band. His current band—when he's not playing with the now-famous Burkinabé musician Victor Démé—is the Mandingo Band. At present, he is a practitioner of the Afrobeat style, drawing inspiration from the golden era of Nigerian music.Fela Kuti/Africa 70 and King Sunny Adé are big influences, as is the legendary Malian growler Moussa Doumbia. Baba Commandant plays the ngoni, the instrument of the Donso (the traditional hunters in this region of Burkina Faso and Mali). His audience comprises multiple generations and strata of Burkinabé society; he accordingly adapts his repertoire to his surroundings, which range from cabaret Sundays in Bobo-Dioulasso to the sound systems of Ouagadougou. Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band are a formidable force steeped in Ouagadougou's DIY underground musical culture. Juguya is their sound.
LP $21.75
02/24/2015
CD $17.75
09/29/2023
***Mystic choral beauty drifting far into the outer cosmos, this other worldly traditional music ensemble creates a contemporary-sounding avant-garde vocal fusion combined with strange instrumental accompaniment. The HANI are linguistically derived from the YI branch of the Tibeto-Burmese and number a million and a half in the southern part of Yunnan province in China above Laos and Vietnam where smaller Hani communities also live. As with many other ethnic groups of the area, an original traditional singing pattern is used with each singer adapting the words to the context. The choir that gathers all singers at the same time is considered to be a very unique style of vocal polyphony or heterophony. The cascading, mournful feel of this music is powerfully transcendent and you've never heard anything like it. Many of these songs express intimate strong emotions that bring tears to the performers while they are singing. Instruments used by the ensemble include the BABI (single tree leaf) and MEPA (rolled up tree leaf in a shape of a horn or mirliton), a CHIWO (3-stringed bowed instrument), a LABI (6-holed bamboo flute), a LAHE (3-stringed small lute) and a MEBA (vertical reed instrument). All tracks featuring singers and musicians from the Hani tribe in Yunnan China. Recorded by Laurent Jeanneau in 2011, this Limited-Edition vinyl LP includes a two-sided insert with photos, liner notes, and names of all the vocalists and accompanying musicians.
LP $30.50
09/29/2023
***Baba Commandant And The Mandingo Band return with their second LP, Siri Ba Kele. After the Afro-beat fury of their first album Juguya (2015), the band has now distilled a potent mix of traditional and modern Burkinabe funk with a reverent take on the iconic Mandingue guitar music of the 1970's. Mamadou Sanou (Baba Commandant) leads the band with a confidence earned from years of toiling in the DIY underground of the West African music scene. His riveting growl and main instrument, the doso n'goni, still strike with a profound delivery. The band's guitarist, Issouf Diabate, is on board again and his breathtaking guitar work is one of the greatest examples of the instrument displayed in modern times. Massibo Taragna (bass) and Mohamed Sana(drums) are simply one of the finest rhythm sections working today, each a master on his instrument and the chops displayed here are truly something to behold. The band has become an interlocking five-headed hydra of complex funk and cosmic guitar explosions. Recorded in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in February 2018 by Camille Louvel and mixed with SF'sHisham Mayet, the Mandingo Band's sophomore LP is a modern statement of searing Sahelian compositions. It stands shoulder-to-shoulderwith such classics as the self-titled efforts from Super Biton De Segou (1977), Kanaga De Mopti (1977), Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux (1981) and the mighty Rail Band. Limited edition.
LP $23.75
11/09/2018
CD $17.75
09/15/2023
***Sublime Frequencies release the third LP from Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band . Sonbonbela was recorded in the beginning of 2022 in the Republic of Burkina Faso. The group continue to hone their trademark fusion of Mandingue and Afro-beat styles. The Mandingo Band are a hit machine, sculpting seven new tracks of near Beefheart/Magic Band dynamics, Fela inspired groovers dusted out in the Sahel zone, rather than the humidity and sweat of Lagos, creating one of the most original and propulsive musical statements to come from the contemporary West African cultural juggernaut. As with previous releases, the band features the legendary guitar pyrotechnics of Issouf Diabate, truly one of the greatest West African (or Earth for that matter) guitarists of the last forty years. The band is completed by a near bottomless barrel of artistry from the Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso musical talent pool. On bass guitar, Wendeyida Ouedraogo, on drums Abbas Kabore, and on percussion and balafon, Nickie Dembele. Leading the charge again is the captain himself, Mamadou Sanou on the Doso Ngoni featuring one of the most distinctive voices of the modern era. The opposite of the banal trends of auto-tune that have pervaded most of West African popular music, Baba's voice still impresses with its gravel and grit, showcasing a range that is ancient and defiant in equal measure. This LP is a non-stop hit parade of Afro-beat bangers destined to light dancefloors and living rooms ablaze! This album is dedicated to the memory of Massimbo...
LP $30.75
11/11/2022
CD $17.75
09/29/2023
***Sublime Frequencies present the first ever retrospective of Phương Tâm, the groundbreaking Saigon teenager who became one of the first singers to perform and record rock and roll in 1960s Vietnam. By chance in early 2020, Hannah Hà (USA) learned that her mother, Phương Tâm, had once been a famous young singer, performer and recording artist at the heart of Saigon's music scene in the early 1960s. The family had heard some mention of their mom as a singer at the time, but the extent of her legacy and the many songs she had recorded came as a big surprise. Further investigations soon led Hannah to producer Mark Gergis, compiler of Saigon Rock and Soul (2010), enlisting him to join her on a journey of discovery and recovery. The result is this essential document of Phương Tâm's brief but prolific career, and at the same time, reuniting the long-lost music with its singer. As the veils of history were slowly lifted, the genuine thrill was witnessing Phương Tâm herself, hearing these songs for the first time in over 50 years—sometimes since the day she recorded them. At the heart of this project is a family story—Hannah Hà's dedication to recovering and sharing her mother's musical legacy is helping put Phương Tâm back on center stage after 55 years. But it is also a story that adds critical context to the fragmented understanding of Vietnamese popular culture during the 20th century, particularly after so much has been lost to war and dislocation....
2XLP $42.95
08/05/2022
***Sublime Frequencies finally unleashes its essential compilation from 1970s Egypt, produced and compiled by Hisham Mayet . Modal instrumental tracks from Baligh Hamdi -- one of the most important Arabic composers of the 20th Century (writing for legends Umm Kalthum , Abdel Halim Hafez , Sabah , Warda , and many others). Features his legendary group the Diamond Orchestra with Omar Khorshid on guitar, Magdi al-Husseini on organ, Samir Sourour on saxophone, and Faruq Salama on accordion. All of these musicians were discovered and recruited by Hamdi to interpret his vision of a modernized, hybrid Arabic music. Under Hamdi's direction, this orchestra charted a new melodic direction and created a new musical language. This compilation is culled from a specific era of Hamdi's long career, a decade where he fully realized an international music which incorporated beat driven Eastern-tinged jazz, theremin draped orchestral noir, tracks that feature searing guitar solos from none other than Omar Khorshid, and a selection of buzzing, sitar driven, Indo-Arabic tracks establishing a meeting of mid-east and eastern psychedelic exotica, and a vision that created some of the hippest music coming out of the Middle East from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Includes extensive liner notes by Hisham Mayet with rare photographs. Housed in tip-on gatefold jackets.
2XLP $32.75
02/04/2022
***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! The late OMAR KHORSHID remains an iconic legend of the Arab world, though he's received criminally little international acclaim. Born in Cairo in 1945, the glittering age of Egypt's cultural reinvention, Khorshid was soon to become one of its luminaries and most well-known, if short-lived, voices. He is regarded as the greatest guitarist the Arab world has ever known. By the mid-'60s, Khorshid was established with his group LE PETIT CHATS, an Egyptian beat group modeled after the prevailing influence of Elvis and The Beatles. It was at this time that one of the reigning figures of contemporary Arabic music, Abdel Halim Hafez, asked Omar Khorshid to join his orchestra. With Baligh Hamdi composing, Hafez with Khorshid in place would create some of the most innovative modern sounds in the Arabic musical canon. Time with the Hafez orchestra offered Khorshid instant fame, and it wasn't long before he was asked to play with the queen of Arab music, the voice of Egypt herself, Oum Kalthoum. Over the next few years, Khorshid became a well-established and integral part of the Arab musical landscape. He was featured heavily in live concerts, national TV and radio and studio recordings, playing for the leading artists of the day. The tracks included here in this retrospective are from the prolific span of Khorshid's career in Beirut from 1973 to 1977. CD version features ten bonus tracks and a 14-page booklet in tri-fold digipak.
2XLP $30.50
04/06/2010
2XCD $20.75
06/19/2012
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! Thai pop history has been largely ignored and neglected by the international musical community for far too long. By the late 20th century, Thai pop music had developed as many faces as localized roots music such as molam or styles like luk thung or luk krung (each with their own respective pop-sectors). Bangkok—always the hub of the Thai recording industry—attracted musicians and singers from across the country that were both informed by tradition and inspired by the wealth of international sounds entering the region via radio and phonograph. Jazz, for instance, had a profound influence on early Thai pop music, the King of Thailand himself being a noted jazz composer. This superb collection features modern Thai music styles combining with elements of surf, rock, funk, disco and comedy, revealing the use of clever instrumentation, brilliant vocals, great arrangements, twisted breaks, and resourceful production techniques. Discover the Queen of Luk Thung, the 1960s "Shadow Music" sound, classic tracks from Thai films, blazing examples of Bangkok disco from the 1970s, legendary Thai comedy pop, and the most outrageous version of "The Night Chicago Died" you'll ever encounter. Thick horn sections, wah-wah guitars, tight drums, and funky organs help round out this astounding set which proves beyond a doubt that the Thai were a completely unique and powerful force during the 1960s, '70s & '80s global popular music explosion. Gorgeous double-LP heavy gatefold vinyl.
CD $17.25
01/26/2010
2XLP $29.65
04/18/2015