Gudugudu

It has been a decade since the multi-faceted Berlin-based duo Africaine 808 launched their brilliant, genre-bending electronic experiments with a wide array of influences to create an "amalgamation of rhythmic world music heritage with the zeitgeist and aesthetics of electronic dance music." Starting in 2013 with their debut singles "Tummy Tummy" on W.T. Records and "Cobijas" on Vulkan Dance, where they also released their "L'Exotica" EP, Dirk Leyers and DJ [...]

As we peered into our mailbox today, we were surprised to find a record in it. After all, the usual promo format remains a digital download link or in some cases a CD. This time, however, we obviously lucked out and removed a mint 7" single by the Aarhus-based four-piece Ipek Yolu from its packaging. Ipek Yolu (meaning 'Silk Road' in Turkish) had already come to our attention in 2021 following the release of their rolling debut full-length "Tropical Anatolia" [...]

Finally! This one has been a long time coming. Los Angeles-based imprint Discotchari has been an avid supporter of ours for quite some time now, probably since the COVID era, when we seemed all the more bound to our socials. Likewise, we've been following their pursuits of digging up and promoting rare grooves from the Armenian diaspora. A sublabel of electronic label Critique, Discotchari is on a self-proclaimed mission of "pushing the boundaries of Armenian [...]

Guitar madness! All you shred heads out there curious about celebratory grooves from West Africa and lucky enough to have neighbours that will tolerate your outernational listening habits, this one just might be for you: With the weekend rapidly approaching, we feel it's due time to turn up a few decibels and rock out. Fresh out on the always trustworthy Sahel Sounds imprint of Christopher Kirkley is this six-track delirium by prodigious Malian guitar player [...]

Drums, drums, drums, and a few more drums. "For two decades and across three generations of band members," the Assiko Golden Band has been tearing up the suburban nightlife scene of Dakar. Hailing from "the impoverished neighborhood of Grand Yoff and operating as a mutual aid group for the larger community, the band builds its songs on ancient rhythms passed on from Senegal, Cameroon and the infamous Gorée Island." Spreading their percussive rhetoric, led by [...]

In desperate need of a pick-me-up, we direct our ears to the city of Leuven in the Flemish region of Belgium, where an eleven-piece musical collective by the name of Alpacas Collective has been on a funking roll. Late last year, the group gave us a killer first taste of their far-reaching global grooves on their otherworldly seven-track debut album "Seven Wisdoms of Plutonia", blending a whole bunch of styles to fashion a soundscape of their personal liking. [...]

Isn't it strange how sometimes the points just connect? Just this week, we published a new annual "Best of Globalwize" selection from 2017, which happened to include a track from the highly original and very much progressive sounding 1983-released (and 2017-reissued) collaborative album "Noir et Blanc" by Congolese singer Bony Bikaye, alongside French composer Hector Zazou and electronic music experimentalists CY1. Now, some 40 years since his milestone Crammed [...]

It's times like these that make us want to return to the safe haven that is the local tavern. Where you can leave whatever worries you may have at the door and indulge in life's simple pleasures: good food, a drink or two or three, random conversations in the company of total strangers who may or may not become friends for a night and, of course, a sensual soundtrack to fan the flames. Very much familiar with these types of settings, Cherry Bandora celebrate [...]

Forget about Halloween. Please stand and join us in celebration of Ecuador's 'Día del Escudo Nacional', honouring the Andean nation's official emblem, or coat of arms, a day the country has been celebrating since 1900. It depicts several national treasures, such as the volcanic Chimborazo mountain, the grand condor and, of course, the golden sun, a nod to the sun god Inti, believed to be the ancestor of the Incas. We're sure there's more details that deserve [...]

Lagos Thugs. Let that ruminate before you jump to conclusions. What may sound slightly menacing at first is actually the name of a rising new afrobeat project. Hailing from the most populous city in Nigeria, this sensational twelve-piece is the latest proponent of a genre born from the legacy of Fela Kuti and his drummer Tony Allen and is currently blazing a trail of its own. The group just unveiled its four-track debut album earlier this month with a vinyl [...]

No idea what was going on in the '80s, but certain albums tell a fantastic tale of a time quite unlike any other, where going against the stream was considered good etiquette and electronic experimentation paved the way to new forms of musical production. It was in that era that Turkish bassist Bahtiyar Taş self-produced an exceptionally bizarre DIY solo album offering a glimpse of his parallel universe. We first stumbled upon the much needed reissue of this [...]

Anybody here scared of heights? Not ones to suffer from vertigo ourselves, we still might not be the first to volunteer to partake in some acrobatic tightrope act in lofty heights. Casting their musical line, one end fastened to the summit of Rio de Janeiro's Mount Corcovado with its mighty Christ the Redeemer statue, the other end tied to Berlin's iconic Fernsehturm, Brazilian flutist Mariana Zwarg (the goddaughter of a certain Hermeto Pascoal) and Berlin [...]