Syria/Turkey: DJ K-Sets – Popular Kurdish Cassette mix
As a music fan, you occasionally chance across a resource on the web that makes your heart leap with joy because of the numerous new sonic pathways it opens up . That is exactly what happened when Spanish compiler Manuel Sánchez sent me a link to his awesome DJ K-Sets web page. This is one of the best sets of Middle Eastern tapes I’ve come across, and the names of the mixes are enough to tantalise alone: Canaanite Galaxy; Destroy Route; Tel Aviv Bus Station; Tehran Electro Tunes; Iberia Ancient Songs … I’ll certainly be revisiting this page until I’ve soaked up each and every mix. The first selection that Manuel flagged up to me was the one below, the Popular Kurdish Cassette mix. He said: “From 2005 to 2010 I was compiling Kurdish tapes sourced from around Istanbul, Berlin and Aleppo in Syria. I made this mixtape on video to illustrate the tracks with their covers. Not many people have heard this mixtape, and now, when the progressive Kurdish citadel of Kobani is being attacked by the international jihadis, it could be a good moment to show western audiences some aspects of the Kurdish people through their daily music.” I couldn’t agree more.
Mali: Songhoy Blues – Al Hassidi Terrei
“Hey you guys! We’ve got some Malian rock music here, supported to the hilt by Damon Albarn and produced by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs! Wait! Come Back! Where are you going?!” However you feel about the celebrity endorsement of Malian pop and rock music – I tend to think it’s all completely OK until Bono turns up for his duet (trigger warning; this cannot be unwatched or unheard) – Songhoy Blues deserve to be a household name. Their first album Music in Exile is released by Transgressive on 23 February, 2015 and trailing that, this track is taken from their debut single, out on 8 December. Aside from giving your correspondent a raging case of shirt envy, the quality of this clip suggests that the band may just get what they deserve.
Mauritania: Mariem Hassan – Gdeim Izik
This clip of Mariem Hassan performing one of her most popular songs live in Switzerland a couple of years ago is included simply as an excuse to celebrate one of the best African singers performing today. Probably the most feted vocalist to hail from Western Sahara, Hassan was displaced from her family’s nomadic way of life in 1975 in Smara, Spanish Sahara, when she was 17. She became a singer while she was working as a nurse in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Algeria, only leaving for her new home in Spain some 27 years later. She still sings songs calling for the liberation of her occupied home territory and has become a representative voice of all of her people, no matter where they now live.
Egypt: DJ Figo and Cheetos – Figo Vs Cheetos
I have absolutely no information on this banging new chaabi track featuring Chipsy-inspired keyboard stabs, other than the fact I know it’s smoking. Incisive commentary, I’m sure you’ll agree. Ahmed Vigo, a 23-year-old, is another mainstay and originator in the Cairene/El Salam City electro chaabi scene alongside collaborators Sadat and Alaa 50 Cent. Plenty more tunes at dj-figo.com.
Syria: Bashara! – Various
The competition to stand out as a dabke artist must have been pretty fierce in various Syrian regions up until recently (although one suspects that they currently have bigger fish to fry). These clips of keyboard wizard Bashara go to show that not all of the hype goes to singers such as the awesome Omar Souleyman. He’s clearly an all-rounder, just as good at commanding raves as he is at entertaining at weddings, although there is something almost NSFW about this clip of him playing a keyboard riff with his nose and his tongue.
Thanks this month go to Joost Heijthuijsen and Manuel Sánchez. Please feel free to email suggestions for inclusion in future playlists to John@TheQuietus.com
