After Ascension it’s Ramadan now. Because of this, there is the The Nights of the Ramadan festival in Berlin. The first event of this festival was a concert of the first big band of the Arabic world . The Syrian Big Band played some classic Big Band tunes more or less in an Arabic style, but the band also covered some well-known Pop or Rock tunes, for instance by Led Zeppelin. Being a bit too sedate at first, they became quite impressive afterwards, especially after the break because of the sunset, and after the rain shower. The darling of the public was the beatboxing bassist (I’m the bassist only. ), who was bound to an encore. I liked very much the performance of the female singer.
Because of this impression, I was bound to select some Big Band sounds from my archive in turn. I do not have anything from The Syrian Big Band, but the music from the films Murder on the Orient Express, Lawrence of Arabia and Carry On Spying as well as the music by Tommy Dorsey & His Original Orchestra is also quite cool, isn’t it?
While The Syrian Big Band played a Led Zeppelin song, Hector Zazou, Barbara Eramo & Stefano Saletti have published a new album with lots of covers of famous Pop songs in an Arabic style. The album comprises many 1970’s Disco classics like Donna Summer’s I Feel Love , Y.M.C.A. by The Village People, Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever by the Bee Gees, Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell as well as Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive . I like this album.
Furthermore, I selected some Arabic Electronica between Techno & House (by The Kasbah Rockers & Bill Laswell, Oryx, Roger Abboud) and Dubstep (L-Wiz). In between some radio sounds from the Palestine, some curious by The Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra, some reflective by The Forty Thieves Orkestar from London, traditionals from the Iraq, a classic by Natacha Atlas, Breakbeats from Prague by Le Pneumatique who performed a quite cool and phat concert on the “Karneval der Kulturen” (carnival of the cultures) in Berlin on Whitsun 2010, also some Asian and Arabian Breakbeats or Dub sounds from London by Fusing Naked Beats, Jah Wobble and Temple of Sound. The Punk classic Rock The Casbah by The Clash is interpreted by Rachid Taha.
Happy Fasting!
Links
In the following, there is the link for the listening pleasure @ Mixcloud as well as the playlist.
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2010-08-13: The Ramadan Orchestra”
On a Sunday night in May I listened to some new (mostly) Dubstep stuff. In the following some information about this.
Last week, Balkan Beat Box were again in Berlin to present their third album Blue Eyed Black Boy. My first impression was that the predecessors had more catchy tracks. Anyway, I like their fusion of different cultures and music styles because it represents the more innovative approach of Balkan music in my opinion.
Same place (Festsaal Kreuzberg) two days later, there was the record release party of the Berlin band Jahcoozi’s third album Barefoot Wanderer. My current favourite track on it is Close To Me which has been already remixed by Milanese. He did it in a laid-back Dubstep approach. Before Jahcoozi’s gig, their beat master Robot Koch presented some of his solo stuff. In my opinion, some more song structure would be helpful. My favourite on this evening was his cover of the track People Are Strange by the The Doors.
Finally, the debut long player from David Starfire has been published in Germany. He has been already known from his digitally released mini EP at Six Degrees as well as from some remixes and DJ sets in the conglomerate of Asian Beats, Breakbeats, Dubstep and Mashups. His debut album is as manifold as his previous work. A highlight is his Dubstep interpretation of The Beatles’s Hey Jude .
Related to him is the work of the Shiva Soundsystem crew from London. DJ Nerm and D-Code released an album with various collaborations last year: Phasmatis In Machina – Asian influenced Drum’n'Bass, Dubstep and other Electro tracks from London’s Electro East.
Badawi contributes an arabic influenced monster on a 12″ to the Dubstep scene. Breakage as well as Scuba explore the capabilities of Dubstep: While Breakage is based on Drum’n'Bass, Scuba investigates the connection to Techno sounds. This approach reminds me of the Berlin production by Moderat from last year (by the way, Rusty Nails is a really beautiful track).
More new interesting Dubstep was released from Mutt (who previously has produced beautiful DnB), DJ Madd, Cardopusher and Riz MC. The latter both were released by True Tiger, known from transglobal influenced Dubstep tracks on the Around The World 12″s and by Sukh Knight, respectively. Pinch’s release of Get Up stems from his album Underwater Dancehall where Dubstep was heavily enriched with vocals, whereby most of the Dubstep releases are instrumentals or with only samples.
I very like the work of Geiom. His new 12″ Sugar Coated Lover is a conglomerate of Dubstep and Garage with some nice percussion samples.  He will be DJing in Berlin on June 5: at the “We Want More Bass” party of the Freak Camp crowd @ VCF.
Various Production were active again. They remixed a track by The Hundred In The Hands.
In the following, there are the links for the listening pleasure @ Mixcloud.
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2010-05-02: On a Sunday Night in May”
14 October 2009 | iskra
File under: Radio, Event
Im Rahmen der Veranstaltungsreihe Radio Geschichte: DT64 wird heute im Zeughauskino in Berlin das Radiofeature Ein Sputnik ist abgestürzt – Das Vorwende-jahr Bei DT64 von Jürgen Balitzki und Marcus Heumann präsentiert:
Am 19. November 1988 wird in der DDR die sowjetische Monatszeitschrift “Sputnik” verboten, die Gorbatschows Glasnost- und Perestroika-Politik nahe steht. Moderatorin Silke Hasselmann beginnt ihre Sendung bei DT64 mit dem Satz: “Ein Sputnik ist heute abgestürzt.” Anschließend läuft Aufruhr in den Augen von der Berliner Band Pankow. Hasselmann wird daraufhin strafversetzt, der beteiligte Musikredakteur Gröschel bekommt Mikrofonverbot. Das Feature von Jürgen Balitzki und Marcus Heumann vermittelt einen Eindruck vom Alltag bei DT64 in den letzten Monaten vor dem Mauerfall. Marion Brasch erinnert sich 1993: “Zwar tut es gut, jetzt immer wieder zu hören, DT64 sei renitent gewesen – doch das ist nur die halbe Wahrheit. Wir waren vielleicht wie kein anderes Medium in der DDR privilegiert durch eine relativ lange Leine. Selten sind wir über uns und die Scheren im Kopf hinausgewachsen. Und wenn doch, gab’s Stürme im Wasserglas. (…) Und heute? Die Realität gibt sich seitenverkehrt, und noch immer gilt der Slogan: ‘Solange du deine Füße unter unseren Tisch stellst…’ – nur der Tisch ist üppiger gedeckt…”
Im Anschluss an die Präsentation des Features werden Marion Brasch und Friedrich Küppersbusch über Möglichkeiten und Grenzen ihrer journalistischen Arbeit in Ost und West sowie vor und nach dem Mauerfall diskutieren – in Anwesenheit von Jürgen Balitzki, Regisseur und Co-Autor des Features über DT64, und Silke Hasselmann.
Weitere Infos: www.radio-geschichte-dt64.de
Veranstaltungsort:
Zeughauskino
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Unter den Linden 2
Eingang Spreeseite
10117 Berlin
Info zum Feature @ Deutschlandfunk
The 1997 released sampler Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Undergorund was the fundament for the year of the “British Asian Underground”. It was published on the label Omni of the tabla player Talvin Singh, after he successfully established the club night Anokha in Blue Note in London. Various British-Asian artists were on the sampler, e.g. State of Bengal, Amar, Lelonek, Osmani Soundz, who fused their Asian musical heritage with western Electronica, without using the popular Bhangra. TripHop, Drum’n'Bass, Jungle were the club sound of the 1990ies. Talvin Singh’s Anokha was the climate of an explosion of new a kind of music that was initiated by the London label Nation Records (e.g. Transglobal Underground, Asian Dub Foundation, Fun-Da-Mental, T.J. Rehmi) and whose fire was sparked by the Outcaste label (e.g. Nitin Sawhney, Badmarsh & Shri) (according to Rough Guide World Music).
Then in 1998, his debut album OK was released, three years later we got the album HA. Since then I’m waiting for his third release named AN.
AN  
On October 18th, 2009, his tablas will be bubbling, thumping, and snapping at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Talvin Singh will perform his landmark, award-winning debut album OK, this time with an all-new lineup. The concert will take place within the annual Asia Pacifics Weeks Berlin and was coproduced with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Closing event of the 7th Asia Pacifics Weeks in Berlin 2009
Talvin Singh – Experience No 1
Sunday, 18.10.2009, 8 pm
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
Berlin
Recommended Listening
   
- Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground (Omni 1997)
- OK (Omni 1998)
- HA (Omni 2001)
- Calcutta Cyber Cafe – Drum+Space (Chilly 2009)
Links
8 October 2009 | iskra | →  Deutsch
File under: Asian Beats, Concert, Party
8.30 pm early Friday night will see a little Spark* live gig with Badram (NY) and DJ Shazam (Berlin) at Mama Berlin Club.
Spark* promise to “play a very eastern conglomeration of electro organic music, balancing somewhat between phattest beats & basses out of a groovebox (no laptop onstage) and live melody instruments”.
After that at 10 o’clock, it’s Bombay Boogie Night time. The successful traveling party series from Heidelberg provides lots of nu school asian beats.
With DJs Kerala Boy, Wekas Gaba and Shazam.
 
Info:
www.myspace.com/sparksoundz
www.myspace.com/shazamberlin
www.bombay-boogie.de
Mama Berlin Club
www.myspace.com/mamaberlinclub
Zionskirchstraße 5
Berlin (Mitte)
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