Tag: Ostinato Records

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Jantra – Synthesized Sudan: Astro-Nubian Electronic Jaglara Dance Sounds from the Fashaga Underground

This wonderfully weird album from a composer called Jantra is a bit of a challenge to describe.  Best to let the magnificent Ostinato Records lay out their case for this gem, as written on their Bandcamp site:

“Near the border of Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, a disputed area called Fashaga is home to one of the most raucous, hypnotic, addictive, and celestial dance musics being made anywhere in Africa, perhaps the least known to the wider world of them all. Far from the townships of South Africa or the cities of Nigeria, this sound belongs to people intimately tied to their land, deep in the rural areas of Sudan.”

…

Jantra has no songs. He simply freestyles a combination of his melodies incessantly for hours on end, acting as a live producer and DJ for emphatic crowds in compact spaces, where the energy of his 155-168 BPM music is known to inspire the odd gunslinger to raise his pistol in the middle of the dance floor, ready to fire away a few shots into the air when the build up reaches climax. “

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Music

Noori & His Dorpa Band – Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast

I can’t say I know much about who Noori, the tambur-guitarist and leader of his eponymous band is, but to learn more, consider reading this article by OK Africa.  From the Bandcamp site:

A soundtrack of Sudan’s revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture.

Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai—all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji’s impeccable, haunting tenor sax, and of course, Noori’s tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa.

A truly ancient community, Beja trace their ancestry back millennia. Some say they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush. Beja melodies—nostalgic, hopeful and sweet, ambiguous and honest—are thousands of years old.

The Beja community has been on the forefront of political change in Sudan for decades because successive Sudanese governments have turned a blind eye to their calls for recognition and access to the gold wealth of their own soil. Noori believes an unleashing of Beja music would form the most potent act of resistance in their quest for equity and justice.

Ostinato Records continue to impress!

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Music

Star Band de Dakar – Psicodelia Afro-Cubana de Senegal

Cuba has a long, storied history of sharing a strong bond with many countries in Africa.  From the horrifying slave trade to the Cuban Communist “revolution,” culture and music have flowed back and forth between the island nation and most of the richly cultured continent.  This release from the now-legendary Ostinato Records documents one of my favorite bands, the Senegalese powerhouse Star Band de Dakar.  The music is a wonderful mix of their mbalax, one of the many native styles of Senegal, with rhumba and other styles to make an Afro-Cuban cocktail.  This is a joyful release – fun, danceable and energetic.