Tribal Affairs

Late last week The Vinyl Factory released a mix of North African 78 rpm records by ways of Parisian blog Ceints de bakélite, tracing the origins of Maghreb music. Ceints de bakélite specializes on 78s from around the world, focussing mainly on non-Western popular music and other musical curiosities.

The 52-minute mix features 12 tracks spanning "both folk and popular music recordings made in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia from the 1930s to the 1950s. It [...]

Months of protests led by the Native American Sioux Indian community, involving hefty clashes between demonstrators and federal law enforcement on behalf of a planned pipeline project in the state of North Dakota, took a decisive turn this weekend, as the US Army intervened and will now allegedly look into alternative routes.

Meanwhile, across the border in Canada, native producer and DJ crew A Tribe Called Red (est. 2008), aka Bear Witness, 2oolman and DJ [...]

East London-based Sofrito collective/imprint has been steadily adding flavour to a vast global scene of tropical club culture for the past decade and is still going strong:

"Sofrito mixes up vintage sounds from across the tropics with modern productions and exclusive dubplate specials, bridging the gap between eras and continents to produce a unique and intense sound that has seen them play at clubs and festivals across the world, [...] while the label covers [...]

"What started out as studio jams in a smoky basement in Berlin evolved into a world-wide-touring, three-headed, music-making love monster."

Leave it to Tel Aviv's Buttering Trio to release an intensely melodious third album, with a beauty of an opener, somewhat reminiscent of the thoroughly enriching soundscapes of a certain Portishead.

And yet, composed of bassist/prolific producer Beno Hendler, production wizard/Raw Tapes founding father Rejoicer and majestic [...]

Sometimes it's nice to follow up on musical projects from around the world, we've already introduced to you. Take London/Kenyan Owiny Sigoma Band for instance, who released their third longplayer "Nyanza" last year in August via Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings imprint along with a trailer, previewing the accompanying documentary to the project.

Well, as you may have guessed, the 20-minute documentary was released over a year ago and we just realized, [...]

With temperatures in the Eastern and parts of the Western Hemisphere leaning towards zero these days, who wouldn't want to be a polar bear?!

Just the time for us to return to the vaults and dig up this frosty little gem for you.

Let us fill in the blanks: Back in 2014, the enigmatic artist still known as Joe Fleisch (front-runner of the Jewish Monkeys under his real name Jossi Reich) teamed up with budding French pop arrival Petite Meller, an enticing [...]

November 15th marked Palestinian Independence Day, as proclaimed by Yasser Arafat in 1988. And although this day may have slipped under your radar, MALOX decided to issue a musical statement by premiering the official music video to the title track of their third studio album "Gaza Trip" on this day.

The video features a rare collaboration between two Israeli musicians, aka MALOX, and Palestinian parkour athletes 3run Gaza. Despite ongoing political [...]

"These guys are just like their lyrics: They're hard to nail down, it's as if music somehow happened to them.” – German weekly Die ZEIT

The less we know about something the more curious we get. When it comes to this quartet, hailing from the municipality of Oberammergau, picturesquely situated in the Bavarian Alps, a simple truth proves valid yet again.

Kofelgschroa are four craftsmen and artists, who have been going against the grain for the past eight [...]

If it's answers you are looking for, well, keep on looking. Because providing definite answers to life's most existential questions would be pretentious to say the least and that is not what Istanbul's free-spirited, borderline nihilist, progressive rock outfit Nihil Piraye is all about. The seven-piece ensemble would much rather ask questions, serve up food for thought and do its musical thing.

If we may diverge into existential nihilism for a moment, being [...]

Adorcism in the sociology of religion is defined by Jean-Michel Oughourlian as a "voluntary, desired, and curative possession" and is thus, in a sense, the polar opposite to exorcism. "It consists of practices and attitudes aimed at placating and integrating spiritual entities in a person or place. Unlike exorcism the presence of these entities is regarded as healing, empowering or beneficial. They are not considered necessarily negative, even if they appear [...]

Bringing a potent, technocentric mix of all things 'Eastern' to the table are Parisian tandem Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalho, alias Acid Arab. The two DJs have fallen deeply in love with the soundscapes of North Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia or even Mumbai, blending their finds with the club sounds they know best to create havoc on dancefloors across the globe:

“We are fascinated by eastern music and its codes, such as complex rhythmic [...]

Wow, what a trip! Fresh off the heels of their recent China Tour, with a string of shows in Beijing, Guizhou, Guangzhou and finally Shenzhen (as part of the OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival), MALOX just dropped a new 20-minute reminder of all the additional fun they had along the way. Watch the video below to see them explore a raucously wild sax 'n' drums face-off with the local Red Scarf crew, during a live improv session at Shenzhen's Old Heaven Book Store, [...]