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23 February 2013

HISHAM MAYET FILM SCREENING SPRING TOUR


SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA


http://www.sublimefrequencies.com


Sublime Frequencies film tour with Hisham Mayet


Hisham Mayet is a founding member of the Sublime Frequencies Collective. His work with the label has been prolific and inspired. His many discoveries include introducing the legendary guitar bands from the Sahara; Group Doueh, Group Inerane, and Group Bombino. His many films for the label have been redefining the nature of ethnographic film and they continue to provoke, amaze and inspire.









Vodoun Gods on the Slave Coast
A Film By Hisham Mayet
Sublime Frequencies
50 minutes/2012

Hisham Mayet's exploration of West African possession ceremonies continues in Benin. Benin is the cradle and birthplace of Voodoo.  Formally known as the Slave Coast as, most of the slave industry was exported from its shores.    Voodoo worship is integral to the every day lives of the people of Benin.  This film, shot in 2010 during the country's rich Vodoun celebrations, is an impressionistic lens on the myriad ceremonies that this rich and diverse culture has to offer.   Showcasing intimate observations of a variety of Voodoo ceremonies: The cult of Sakpata (god of Pestilence and healing),   Egoun dramas shrouded in magisterial costumes and the Secret Police of the Zangbeto night watchmen, among other highlights.  This will be the premiere screening of this visual feast.




The Divine River: Ceremonial Pageantry In The Sahel
A Film By Hisham Mayet
47 minutes/2012

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."


TOURDATES AND VENUES


Deep Hearts, screening Monday, March 11















Staring into the Sun, screening Monday, March 11





Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya, screening Monday, March 18

























March on three consecutive Mondays, Mar 4, 11 & 18

BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM cinématek presents Saharan Frequencies, a 
seven-film exploration of the sounds of North Africa 


In-person appearances by acclaimed ethnographer Robert 
Gardner, Sublime Frequencies co-founder Hisham Mayet with
Olivia Wyatt, and music critic Byron Coley.

Link here to official BAM event site

BAM Blog link:
http://bam150years.blogspot.com/2013/03/saharan-frequencies.html#more

Thursday March 7th:
Sarasota Springs NY
Spring Street Gallery
110 Spring Street
Saratoga Springs, New York

http://www.springstreetgallerysaratoga.org/hisham-mayet

Friday March 8th:
Brattleboro VT
Luminz Studio
74 Cotton Mill Hill, #346, 3rd Floor
Brattleboro, Vermont 05301
(802) 258-7378

http://luminzstudio.com/

Saturday March 9th
Willimantic, CT
Willimantic Records
744 Main Street
Willimantic, CT 06226 USA
* with ROBERT JAZ DJing from the Sublime Frequencies' vault

http://willimanticrecords.blogspot.com/

Sunday March 10:
Providence RI
Fête
103 Dike Street
Providence, RI 02909
* with ROBERT JAZ DJing from the Sublime Frequencies' vault

Fete event link

Tuesday March 12:
Baltimore MD
Floristree Space
405 W Franklin St 6th Floor  

Wednesday March 13th:
Richmond VA
Gallery 5
200 W. Marshall St.
Richmond, VA 23220
(804) 644-0005

http://gallery5arts.org

Thursday March 14th:
Asheville NC
The Apothecary
39 S. Market St. #B, Asheville NC 28801
(919) 793-5441/(919) 609-3944


Email ashevilleapothecary@gmail.com

Friday March 15th:
Washington D.C.
Local 16
1602 U Street NW Washington, DC 20009
Email jim@tropicaliadc.com

http://localsixteen.com/





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

08 February 2013

Hisham Mayet on Africa-O-Ye! Radio Show - Portland


SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

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http://www.sublimefrequencies.com


Program: 
 Africa-O-Ye!
Air date: 
 Thu, 02/07/2013 - 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Short Description: 
 Guest DJ Hisham Mayet, hosted by Dr. Zomb

This week's host Dr. Zomb is pleased to welcome back Hisham Mayet to the show.  Hisham is one of the folks behind the great record label Sublime Frequencies and is responsible for tracking down and recording some very cool music in various regions in Africa and getting it out to the listening public on both cd and gorgeous lp releases.  He'll be bringing in material that he has been listening to and researching lately and sharing it with us all so don't touch that dial!

Link here:

http://kboo.fm/node/53647


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

26 January 2013

OLIVIA OWENS WYATT: 2 LA Events - LA Film Forum & Cinefamily


SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA


http://www.sublimefrequencies.com


Dear LA folks I am heading back to the west coast and would love to see you all or meet your friends! There are two really fun events happening. 

Details below...
Love 
O


LA FILM FORUM Presents: Jean Rouch's HORENDI 
+ panel discussion with Olivia Wyatt (Sublime Frequencies), Nancy Lutkehas & Michael Renov

Sunday, January 27th
7:30 pm

@ The Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA


Jean Rouch is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers and HORENDI (1972) is an analytic essay about the relationship between dance and music at the center of a possession ceremony (certain sequences are made in synchronous slow-motion sound). Two women possessed by Kirey, a lightning divinity, are present during the seven days of initiation.

----------------------------------------------------

CINEFAMILY & CINESPIA SALON Present: The films of Olivia Wyatt w/ THE PIERCED HEART & THE MACHETE, VIBRAQUATIC, STARING INTO THE SUN 

Polaroids and video portraits + Q&A


Thursday, January 31st
7:30 pm

@ Cinefamily
611 N Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles 90036
$12 Buy Tickets

I am really excited about this event. We will screen The Pierced Heart & The Machete, shorts from Vibraquatic and excerpts of Staring into the Sun, plus Staring Polaroid prints will be on display. There will also be a little after party at Cinefamily with several DJs.

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

3 NEW SUBLIME FEQUENCIES RELEASES - OUT NOW

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA


http://www.sublimefrequencies.com

Order from Forced Exposure http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Home.html


Pop Yeh Yeh: Psychedelic Rock from Singapore and Malaysia 1964-1970 CD SF079

Until now, for some unknown reason, the psychedelic rock movement in Singapore and Malaysia, aka Pop Yeh Yeh, has never been given the worldwide attention it deserves. This compilation- Pop Yeh Yeh – Psychedelic Rock from Singapore and Malaysia – 1964-1970 – Vol. 1 - is the first of its kind to focus solely on the Malayrock groups of this region.

The Pop Yeh Yeh era, which took place roughly between the years of 1964 to 1970, coincided with the rapid modernization happening at the time in Singapore and Malaysia. (Sublime Frequencies has already released many incredible compilations from neighboring Indonesia, so it’s about time that the Malaysian groups got some attention!) Pop Yeh Yeh artists instinctively cross-pollinated electric sounds of the West with Malay melodies, and added their own local poetic voice to the lyrics they wrote – sung in Malay (and sometimes Bawean). The Pop Yeh Yeh musicians started out playing in styles inspired by Western groups like the Beatles and Cliff Richard, but they eventually succeeded in creating a sound all their own – a sound that is not only accessible to the Western ear, but also retains an undeniable Malay personality.

Nearly eight years in the making, this compilation was exhaustively researched and compiled by Carl Hamm and features 26 classic tracks of the very best bands and singers from Singapore and Malaysia’s Pop Yeh Yeh era, including M. Osman, Orkes Nirwana, Adnan Othman, A. Halim, Roziah Latiff and the Jayhawkers, J. Sham, Hasnah Haron, Zaleha Hamid, and many more. This CD edition comes in a tri-fold digipak with gorgeous artwork, two 40 page booklets with insanely extensive liner notes including band/artist bios, an overview of the era, translated lyrics, and plenty of rare photos taken from vintage magazines, album covers, and the artists’ own personal collections.

Samples: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.079CD.html



Scattered Melodies: Korean Kayagum Sanjo LP SF077

[Sublime Frequencies releases their first 78rpm compilations, and true to form these are sounds rarely heard by contemporary Western ears. These 2 albums (SF077/SF078) are compiled by Robert Millis, a long time Sublime Frequencies contributor and a founding member of Climax Golden Twins, He is the author of Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days (Dust-to-Digital 2008), a book of historic early recording documentation, ephemera and music drawn from Millis' 78rpm collection. In 2011, he produced and helped design …i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces (Dust-to-Digital), a similar book drawn from the collection of artist Steve Roden. In addition to composition, sound art practice and design, he has filmed and produced experimental documentaries on Asian music: Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan and This World is Unreal like a Snake in a Rope (both for Sublime Frequencies DVD release) and is an obsessive collector of 78rpm music records and ephemera.]

Scattered Melodies (SF077) is a compilation of Korean Kayagum Sanjo Music. Sanjo, meaning "scattered melodies," is a form of stylized string improvisation developed in the 1890s originally for the Korean kayagum, a smaller distant cousin of the Japanese koto. Stark and haunting, falling in the gaps between folk and classical music, kayagum sanjo employs a gradually increasing tempo, focused improvisation (the “scattering of melodies”), elastic rhythms, and intense snaps and vibrato that seem to power through the hazy abstractions of the 78rpm recording technology (these are old, exceedingly rare records that have survived nearly insurmountable odds: invasion, occupation, war, division.) Presented here are a few of the masters of sanjo as it originally emerged in the early part of the 20th century on 78rpm recordings from 1925 to the early 1950s. This limited edition LP comes enclosed in a beautiful tip-on jacket with two-sided insert featuring extended liner notes by compiler Robert Millis.

Samples: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.077LP.html


The Crying Princess:78 rpm Records From Burma LP SF078


[Sublime Frequencies releases their first 78rpm compilations, and true to form these are sounds rarely heard by contemporary Western ears. These 2 albums (SF077/SF078) are compiled by Robert Millis, a long time Sublime Frequencies contributor and a founding member of Climax Golden Twins, He is the author of Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days (Dust-to-Digital 2008), a book of historic early recording documentation, ephemera and music drawn from Millis' 78rpm collection. In 2011, he produced and helped design …i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces (Dust-to-Digital), a similar book drawn from the collection of artist Steve Roden. In addition to composition, sound art practice and design, he has filmed and produced experimental documentaries on Asian music: Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan and This World is Unreal like a Snake in a Rope (both for Sublime Frequencies DVD release) and is an obsessive collector of 78rpm music records and ephemera.]

The Crying Princess (SF078) compiles rare Burmese 78rpm records gathered by Robert Millis and Sublime Frequencies co-founder Alan Bishop during various trips to Burma (Myanmar) and continues the tradition of amazing music from this Southeast Asian nation released by SF (Princess Nicotine, Guitars From the Golden Triangle, Music of Nat Pwe). Spanning the years 1909 to 1960 these unique and ridiculously rare records feature early sides by Po Sein (one of the giants of early Burmese music and theater), vocal and harp music from 1929, "modern songs with electric guitar", and unique Burmese pop songs with piano, all from 78rpm sources. This limited edition LP comes enclosed in a beautiful tip-on jacket with two-sided insert featuring liner notes by compiler Robert Millis.

Samples: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.078LP.html


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

05 January 2013

OUT NOW: Molam: Thai Country Groove from Isan 2-LP SF019

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

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http://www.sublimefrequencies.com


04 December 2012

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

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PO BOX 17971 SEATTLE WA 98127 USA

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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!



THE DIVINE RIVER: 
CEREMONIAL PAGENTRY IN THE SAHEL


Directed by Hisham Mayet

SF075 DVD




Sublime Frequencies announces a new film by Hisham MayetThe 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.




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