Taking A Stand

Take a closer look at Tel Aviv's burgeoning underground music scene and you will come to discover a host of promising acts, currently redefining Israel's musical landscape in their own sweet way. Among the most promising acts of this generation is MALOX.

Uber-talented reed player Eyal Talmudi and mega-drummer Roy Chen's two-man instrumental outfit blends elements from Klezmer, Jazz and more, in a wide array of warm, round and distorted sounds, "from Balkan [...]

Last Saturday the tireless Tel Aviv-based Jewish Monkeys rocked Copenhagen's Global music venue only to travel to Dresden one day later for a series of concerts, workshops, jam sessions and 'bridge-building' with refugees there, in a call for more humanity and less racism:

"It's a special honour for us to play for people from our neighbouring country Syria and to build bridges with the potential to overcome hostility. Just like the generation of our [...]

Seeing as 'habibi' is a word too seldom heard these days, we decided it's time we shared the tremendous Habibi Funk episodes hand-selected and compiled by Jakarta Records' main man Jannis, who did his digging on his numerous travels to North Africa and Tunisia in particular:

“While being there, I did some digging and found some incredible music from the ’60s and ’70s. Some of the music in [...] has zero info on the Net, was never sold on eBay, and has [...]

If you have yet to experience Konono No. 1's 2004 "Congotronics" debut on Belgian imprint Crammed Discs, then stop what you are doing and tune in asap. The groundbreaking album "introduced the world to the strange and spectacular electro-traditional mixtures being concocted in the suburbs of Kinshasa, Congo", by a band originally founded back in the 1960s by Mingiedi Mawangu, a legendary Iikembé (a traditional instrument consisting of metal rods attached to [...]

Back in 2014, the Jewish Monkeys performed at the International Klezmer Festival in Fürth, Bavaria. Among our favourite live recordings from the concert is this rambling rendition of their ode to the fictive female temptress "Luba Lubaviczer", who had the boys in quite an infatuated frenzy. But hear for yourselves. Let's just say the audience got it's fair share of 'oy's:

"Petrosilia / Che Guevara
Rojte Paprika / Mata Hari
Superwomen / Metaplastik
[...]

In a brilliant TEDx talk Simon Broughton (writer, film maker and Editor-in-Chief of Songlines Magazine ) shares his take on music's transformative power, on how music reveals our humanity, brings people together and has the potential to break down prejudices. Take this encounter with a Dutch DJ performing at the West African Fes Festival for example: "I love Iranian music. Why? Because it makes me realize that Iranians are also human beings." Watch [...]

Tel Aviv's charismatic, psychedelic and incredibly musical Surf-outfit Boom Pam had the honor of performing live at the closing concert of the 23rd Jewish Culture Festival in Munich, in 2009. For their breathtaking half-hour performance they were joined on stage by fellow multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Kutiman, each delivering some heated freestyle exchanges. Watch two of Israel's premier underground acts win over the festival-sized crowd in [...]

A few years back, Bashir and Kamir (alias Krimau), two Rouen-based DJs, passionate record collectors and sons of North African immigrants themselves, launched their ongoing quest to rediscover their own musical heritage.

They began digging for records of Maghreb origin, involving regular trips to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in an attempt to reappropriate the North African diaspora’s vintage sounds from the 1950s to the 1970s and in turn, make this music [...]

Today, 55 years ago, Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom. The country is home to Africa’s largest population, over 500 spoken languages as well as a wide array of ancient cultural traditions.

Among the artists reviving some of these traditions in the musical sense is Lágbájá. Since his emergence in the early 90s, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Nigerian Afropop singer/saxophonist has been among the nation’s most audible and [...]

Fresh on the heels of last night's 'supermoon' lunar eclipse, we decided now would be the right time to introduce you to the otherworldly electronic sounds of pioneering Afro-Peruvian soundsystem Novalima and their latest album, suitably entitled “Planetario" (planetarium), released on Brooklyn's Wonderwheel Recordings back in June.

Initially founded by four friends from Lima, sharing a mutually deep passion for traditional Afro-Peruvian music and global DJ [...]

Little do many know about the history of Jewish gangsters in early 20th century America or the so-called Kosher Nostra movement of Jewish organized crime with its key figures the likes of Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Cohen or Bugsy Siegel. As an estimated two million jews emigrated from Eastern Europe between 1881 and 1914 (New York alone counted 1.7 million Jews in 1910), they were met with a new struggle for survival in the New World, [...]

On our global search for extraordinary material, we recently stumbled upon this sublime documentary on Cambodia's emerging music scene during the 60's and 70s, creating a sound clearly composed of Western influences yet distinctly their own:

"Cambodian musicians crafted this sound from the various rock music styles sweeping, America, England and France, adding the unique melodies and hypnotic rhythms of their traditional music. The beautiful singing of their [...]