NEW RELEASES OUT NOW: THE DIVINE RIVER DVD and KOUDEDE 7"

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

http://www.sublimefrequencies.com

KOUDEDE

GUITARS FROM AGADEZ 

Vol. 6

 SF076 EP

The second 7" from Koudede for Sublime Frequencies and the sixth volume in the now-legendary Guitars from Agadezseries. The circumstances surrounding these recordings are the stuff of which legends are made: In January 2012, a major insurgency brewing in the far north of Mali turned Timbutku's Festival au Désert into a heavily fortified spectacle. Just one day after the festival, rogue Tuareg rebels launched a full takeover of northern Mali, armed to the teeth with weapons from the Libyan war that ended in the murder of Col. Gadaffi, the spiritual father of the Tuareg in their struggle with the surrounding governments. By the time Koudede's group made it back to the capital city of Bamako -- with Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet in tow -- discord had flared between the mostly Bambara ethnic south and the Tuareg community in the capital region. With a Tuareg exile already in progress, Koudede decided after much hesitation to follow through with a live concert at Toumast -- the Tuareg compound in Bamako -- in defiance of advice that all Tuareg should leave the city immediately. Recorded on location at Toumast by Hisham Mayet in January 2012, these two tracks are a scorching distillation of the urgency and fire in Koudede's music: the pure sound of his people and their constant struggles. Limited edition of 700 copies. 
p.s. With deep regret, Sublime Frequencies is saddened to confirm that on October 28th, 2012, Koudede was pronounced dead from a fatal accident on the road back to Niger from a gig in Burkina Faso. This news was delivered the same day as the test pressing was approved for this release. His legacy will live on through his music. RIP Koudede!

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THE DIVINE RIVER: 

CEREMONIAL PAGENTRY IN THE SAHEL

Directed by Hisham Mayet

SF075 DVD

Sublime Frequencies announces a new film by Hisham Mayet: The Divine River: Ceremonial Pageantry in the Sahel. Condensed from 40 hours of footage shot between 2007 and 2012, The Divine River is an exhilarating, hallucinatory, harrowing record of music, ritual, life, and landscape along the Niger River -- which the Tuareg call "Egerew n-Igerewen," or "River of Rivers" -- as it winds through Mali and the Republic of Niger. Traversing 300 miles of this transitional zone between the Sahara and the Savanna, The Divine River is not a linear record of a journey so much as a phantasmagoria of visual associations that create their own emotional topography and chronology (always accompanied by music) that blurs the lines between sacred and secular, past and present. Highlights include intimate views of ecstatic dance in the painted houses of the island-dwelling Wogo; the seductive courtship rites and trance vocals of young Wodaabe men; a mesmeric Tuareg and Zarma duet for guitar and molo; Hausa griots enchanting with comsaa strings; Zarma spirit possession ceremonies; and heart-stopping footage of the Dogon mask ritual atop the Bandiagara Escarpment in the village of Endele. True to Sublime Frequencies' "aesthetic of extra-geography and soulful experience," The Divine River refuses hasty contextualizations and rote interpretations that, far from "explaining" cultural displays, deaden viewers to the presence of mystery. Avoiding the temptation to reduce ritual to a simple matter of ends and means, its silence respects the chasm that separates concepts like "possession" from their lived reality. Rejecting the distractions of an imaginary understanding in favor of simple attention and humility, it traces the portal to deeper knowledge counseled in a centuries-old Sufi prayer: "O Lord, increase my bewilderment." 47 minutes/color; digipack; all-region DVD, NTSC format. Limited one-time edition of 1,000 copies.

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SUBLIME FREQUENCIES is a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate foundations. SUBLIME FREQUENCIES is focused on an aesthetic of extra-geography and soulful experience inspired by music and culture, world travel, research, and the pioneering recording labels of the past including OCORA, SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS, ETHNIC FOLKWAYS, LYRICHORD, NONESUCH EXPLORER, MUSICAPHONE, BARONREITER, UNESCO, PLAYASOUND, MUSICAL ATLAS, CHANT DU MONDE, B.A.M., TANGENT, and TOPIC. SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

NEW RELEASES OUT NOW: Koudede - Guitars from Agadez Vol.5 7 inch / Omar Khorshid: Guitar El Chark (Guitar of the Orient) 2-CD

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

http://www.sublimefrequencies.com

Koudede:

Guitars from Agadez Vol.5

7 inch SF072

First American release for one of the leading lights from the Agadez guitar scene. Koudede Maman finally steps out of the shadows and delivers two scorching tunes recorded live from the European tour of last year. The sinuous sound of the electrified West African guitar has long mesmerized listeners both at home in the Sahel and abroad, from the explosion of global phenomenons such as Tinariwen and Abdallah Oumbadougou to the recent emergence of the rawer sounds of Group Bombino and Group Inerane. Linking these first and third waves of the Tuareg guitar revolution is Koudede, an enigmatic figure who has stepped out of the shadows as one of the strongest songwriters of the Sahel scene. The Tuareg guitar revolution is inextricably linked to the the all-too-familiar struggle between a nomadic people whose age-old ways of living are bound to the landscape and the rise of modern nation-states and their categorical usurpation of the limited resources in a region. Like the sounds of those who came before and after him, Koudede’s music is forged in the fires of such political unrest and struggle. Born in Agadez (Niger), Koudede grew up in in the dust of the uranium mines of Arlite, between the foothills of the massif of Aïr and the sands of the Sahara. In his youth, Koudede joined the uprising and left Niger to take up arms in the rebel camps of Algeria and Libya. It was here that Koudede discovered the galvanizing force of the Tuareg music scene. From the young visionary who made his first guitar out of a tin can to his current avatar as the heir apparent to the legacy of Ali Farka Toure in West African guitar music, Koudede has blazed forth from a relatively small following in Agadez and Niamey to take the world by storm. His songs are rooted in the poignance of Tuareg lore, speaking of migration, of warrior virtues, of distant camps and difficult loves, and at the same time they reverberate with the modern chaos of warfare and the contemporary Tuareg crisis. This is the truest music of revolution - where the transcendence of historical poetry and the daily grit of human struggle are in dialogue, from verse to verse and refrain to refrain. Sublime Frequencies is proud to present the latest manifestation of Koudede’s musical journey 

- Limited ed. one time pressing of 600 copies.

Omar Khorshid:

Guitar El Chark (Guitar of the Orient)

2 cd SF052

The late Omar Khorshid remains an iconic legend of the Arab world, though he’s received criminally little international acclaim. Born in Cairo in 1945, the glittering age of Egypt's cultural reinvention, Khorshid was soon to become one of its luminaries and most well-known, if short-lived, voices. He is regarded as the greatest guitarist the Arab world has ever known. By the mid 60s Khorshid was established with his group Le Petit Chats, an Egyptian beat group modeled after the prevailing influence of Elvis and the Beatles. It was at this time that one of the reigning figures of contemporary Arabic music, Abdel Halim Hafez, asked Omar Khorshid to join his orchestra. With Baligh Hamdi composing, Hafez with Khorshid in place would create some of the most innovative modern sounds in the Arabic musical canon.

Time with the Hafez orchestra offered Khorshid instant fame, and it wasn’t long before he was asked to play with the queen of Arab music, the voice of Egypt herself -Oum Kalthoum. Over the next few years Khorshid became a well-established and integral part of the Arab musical landscape. He was featured heavily in live concerts, national TV and radio and studio recordings, playing for the leading artists of the day. The guitar had now become an essential ingredient in the Oriental orchestra.

Khorshid began recording albums under his own name for the prestigious Lebanese record labels Voice Of The Orient and Voice Of Lebanon. Working with visionary engineer Nabil Moumtaz at Polysound studios in Beirut, Khorshid would take his music into some of the most progressive musical terrain of its time. The tracks included here in this retrospective are from the prolific span of Khorshid’s career in Beirut from 1973 to 1977. The venerable Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish best encapsulated this time in Lebanon: “unfortunately, it was paradise”.

Khorshid’s prolific instrumental music enjoyed recognition that transcended class and status during the brief period he shone. It’s a testament to his immense talent and some of the finest guitar music the world has ever heard.

 - Double CD reissue of the out of print vinyl addition. 

With an additional ten bonus tracks and a 14 page booklet in a tri-fold digipak.

Hayvanlar Alemi Tour Dates Spring 2012 / Tour 7"

Hayvanlar Alemi Live Dates 2012

05 May - Lausanne (CH) Le Bourg
08 May - Milan (IT) Lo-Fi (w/Sir Richard Bishop)
10 May - Geneva (CH) Le Cave 12 à L'Ecurie
16 May - Paris (FR) Les Instants Chavires
18 May - Berlin (DE) Koplos Festival
19 May - Aarhus (DK) Pop Revo Festival

Booking for Hayvanlar Alemi, please contact:
john.qujunktions@gmail.com 
www.qujunktions.com
vimeo.com/qujunktions

There will be a limited edition tour 7" single

Yekermo Sew 7"

SF 070 EP

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/