Dharma - Metal Fracture
The crushing sound of industrial heaviness, the inevitable constructions around us, the fractures life brings about (both physical and mental), extreme metal in my youth and coming back to it at this later age, Allan Holdsworth’s Metal Fatigue in 1987 (though nothing musically like that here) and finally, the electric guitar with the joys of fuzz.
Drissi El-Abbassi - Rai Sidi Bel Abbes - Volume 2 (Nashazphone)
Drissi El-Abbassi was a pioneer of the style who bridged its early roots with the era of multi-track digital recording during the sound’s rapid evolution, making for an insane set of microtonal synths, psych guitars and drum machines for fans of Cheb Khaled, Omar Khorshid or Omar Souleyman. In 1978, the Algerian Rai musician joined
Les Aigles Noirs as a stage animator and 1979 he was part of
Les Freres Zergui. First cassette release on Editions Mekkeraphone in '79. Later he worked for labels like La Nouvelle Etoile, Editions Anwar, Editions Maghreb or Editions Saint Crepain.
Eva Fernández Suárez & Thomas Barrière - Adela (Morctapes)
Eva Fernández Suárez and Thomas Barrière have both been around for a while, just not as a duo. Eva is originally from the Asturias region in northern Spain but has been residing in France for quite a few years now. As a solo singer, her work is firmly rooted in classic folk-inspired material, more specifically in the bleak, bare-bones, and stripped-down kind.
Frente Cumbiero - Inconcreto & Asociados (Biche)
Frente Cumbiero is widely recognized as one of the spearheads of the cumbia nueva (new cumbia) movement in Colombia, because of their fresh, contemporary and exciting take on cumbia. The quartet is headed by Colombian songwriter and producer Mario Galeano, who also is part of Ondatrópica and Los Pirañas. He draws his inspiration, ánd his samples that form the base of his contemporary tracks, from his large collection of cumbia records, mainly from the 60s and 70s.
Glasspack - Rarefied Airs (Stoned To Death)
Rarefied Airs is the debut album by Glasspack, duo of Henry Birdsey and Ian McColm. Both Birdsey and McColm are part of an extended New Haven (CT) musician family (think of Stefan Christensen, Shirese, David Shapiro, Center, Figured, Tongue Depressor etc.). In Glasspack they fuse Birdsey’s bagpipes with McColm’s computerized sounds to hammer out rock solid modern fourth world music masterpiece.
Håkon Berre - Mirror Matter (Barefoot Records)
Mirror Matter is drummer and sound artist Håkon Berre’s solo project. Mirror Matter presents Håkon sitting on the floor with his expanded and diverse floor-setup. Using a “gran cassa” as a habitat for his vast diversity of trash and objects, he juggles scrupulously with materials such as metal, plastic, cardboard, paper, wood and expanded polystyrene on top of the horizontally lying bass drum. In this project Håkon focuses mostly on friction / bodies in motion, where he works on a micro level with different objects and their possibilities for friction / vibration, and the resonance it subsequently produces on a receptive sounding board. In addition, the sound is processed electronically using contact microphones and computer software. Ultimately, the acoustic sounds blend in with distortion pedals and synthesized drum machine beats.
Henry Kaiser & Tungu - Night Lamp (Shrike Records)
This release out on the London based imprint Shrike comprises Henry Kaiser on guitar and Tungu aka Sergiy Senchuk on voice, field recording and samples.
