NEW! FEBRUARY RELEASES NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! BABA COMMANDANT AND THE MANDINGO BAND: JUGUYA / MARK GERGIS: RADIO VIETNAM / MUSIC OF TANZANIA: VA

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NEW! FEBRUARY RELEASES 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

 BABA COMMANDANT 

AND THE MANDINGO BAND:

 

JUGUYA

AVAILABLE ON CD AND LP

SF - 097 CD / SF - 097 LP

To hear Samples and to Pre-Oder from Forced Exposure (cd version): http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/baba-commandant-and-the-mandingo-band-juguya-cd/SF.097CD.html

To hear Samples and to Pre-Oder from Forced Exposure (lp version): http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/baba-commandant-and-the-mandingo-band-juguya-lp/SF.097LP.html

Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band are a contemporary group from Burkina Faso. Coming from Bobo-Dioulasso, the group is steeped in the Mandingue musical traditions of their ancestral legacy. The enigmatic lead singer Baba Commandant (Mamadou Sanou) is an original and eccentric character who is well respected in the Burkinabé musical community. A sort of punk Faso Dan Fani activist for traditional Mandingo music, Baba continues to redefine the boundaries between traditional and modern. In 1981, he joined the Koule Dafourou troupe as a dancer. Later, he embarked on his current musical direction as a singer, first inDounia and then in the Afromandingo Band. His current band -- when he's not playing with the now-famous Burkinabé musician Victor Démé -- is the Mandingo Band. At present, he is a practitioner of the Afrobeat style, drawing inspiration from the golden era of Nigerian music. Fela Kuti/Africa 70 and King Sunny Adé are big influences, as is the legendary Malian growler Moussa Doumbia. Baba Commandant plays the ngoni, the instrument of the Donso (the traditional hunters in this region of Burkina Faso and Mali). His audience comprises multiple generations and strata of Burkinabé society; he accordingly adapts his repertoire to his surroundings, which range from cabaret Sundays in Bobo-Dioulasso to the sound systems of Ouagadougou. Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band are a formidable force steeped in Ouagadougou's DIY underground musical culture.Juguya is their sound. Limited edition LP housed in a Stoughton tip-on sleeve.

NEW! FEBRUARY RELEASES 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

MARK GERGIS: 

RADIO VIETNAM

SF - 095CD

To hear Samples and to Pre-Oder from Forced Exposure: http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/gergis-mark-radio-vietnam-cd/SF.095CD.html

Radio is an audio compass; the radio antennae, a divining rod. Positioned anywhere, it opens an exclusive window directly into the location in which it sits. Signals received on the medium wave (AM) and FM bands reveal programming intended for a local population by governmental, independent, pirate, or corporate media broadcasters. Anything from low-powered ethnic minority transmissions, high-powered westernized pop stations, and omnipresent state-run radio can be found on these bands. Shortwave bands expand the breadth and scope, pulling in regional and international receptions. Everything received factors into the experience. Music, news, talk shows, advertisements, station IDs, cross-phased interference, errant or intentional static-generated sounds, distant detritus, and random broadcast anomalies all become equally relevant. This disc continues the Sublime Frequencies locale-specific radio collage series with Vietnamese radio recordings culled and assembled from signals received in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City between December 2013 and November 2014. Inside the 70-minute program are moments of outstanding folkloric, traditional, and pop music, including performances on the electric guitar and the dan bau (a one-stringed guitar-like instrument), eclectic Vietnamese folk and rock stylings, dramatic effects-laden radio theater and musical segues, new wave pop forays, traditional percussion and vocal chants, news segments, dynamic radio bumpers, jingles and advertisements, comedic interludes, phoned-in karaoke sing-a-longs, English-language programming, early-morning exercise regimens, and coded messages from the outer ether. The grand total sum of these radio recordings doesn't aim to present a certified ethnographic study of contemporary Vietnam. Rather, the material here aims to distill and replicate the excitement, engagement, and discovery gained during heavy exposure to Vietnamese broadcasts over an eleven-month period during the teenage years of the twenty-first century. CD comes in a beautiful digipak with full color images, a booklet, and liner notes by Mark Gergis, who recorded, compiled, sequenced, and produced the project for Sublime Frequencies on location in Vietnam.

NEW! FEBRUARY RELEASES 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

MUSIC OF TANZANIA: VA

SF - 096LP

To hear Samples and to Pre-Oder from Forced Exposure: http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/va-music-of-tanzania-2lp/SF.096LP.html

Music of Tanzania is a spectacular collection of field recordings gathered by Laurent Jeanneau between December 1999 and March 2000. This debut volume of Sublime Frequencies' exploration of indigenous Tanzanian music compiles sacred and profane songs and dances of the Hadza, Datoga, and Makonde people. Highlights include stoned ecstatic dancing in a Hadza encampment; a drunken celebration of preteen sexual initiation from a Makonde fishing village; baboon imitations performed on the malimba; electrified Islamic trance percussion; and useful tips for amateur hyrax hunters. Many of these poignant, exhilarating performances come from dwindling minority groups whose way of life stretches back to the Stone Age, and who are capable of creating breathtaking music with anything from agricultural tools to tin cans and plastic tubes. Laurent Jeanneau is absolutely fearless in his pursuit of rare, exceptional and vibrant performances. He views his ongoing documentation of ethnic minority music as an act of resistance to globalization, state-sanctioned "peasant traditions," and cultural homogeneity, and accordingly spends months living under harsh and dangerous conditions in order to capture impromptu performances in their everyday cultural context. Using this method, Jeanneau has self-produced almost 100 albums preserving threatened musical traditions from some of the most remote regions on earth, in addition to compiling multiple volumes for Sublime Frequencies. This limited edition double LP tip-on gatefold package includes striking photographs by James Stephenson and detailed liner notes by Jeanneau.

ROBERT MILLIS EUROPEAN TOUR: MAY - JUNE 2014MAY

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Sublime Frequencies' European 
Film Screening Tour 

with Robert Millis presenting

THIS WORLD IS UNREAL

 LIKE A SNAKE 

IN A ROPE

Folk cinema from the eternal never-ending collage that is INDIA. A journey through the ancient Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu featuring Hindu trance ceremonies, street music, festivals, nagaswaram improvisations, impossibly loud cities, ancient temples, processions, devotions, decay, fireworks, abstractions and more. India is impossible to know: it is impossibly old and impossibly new, impossibly rich and impossibly poor, quiet and chaotic. Offered here is one perspective, raw, captured live and in the moment, with an emphasis on India’s complex and mesmerizing sounds. 

MAY 14: BERLIN - N.K. Elsen Strasse, 52 12059 Berlin

http://www.nkprojekt.de/ May 16: BERLIN - (improv set w/ Ratbag and Gilles Aubry) Loophole, Boddinstrasse 60 12053 Berlin http://www.loophole-berlin.com/ May 18: BERLIN - Schwelle 7, Uferstraße 6, 13357 Berlin, Germany 

performance with Sublime Frequencies' contributor, Laurent Jeanneau, 

Using material gathered on various Sublime Frequencies expeditions. May 21: GENEVA - Cave 12, 4 Rue de la Prairie 9pm CHF10 www.cave12.org May 22: BRUSSELS (film screening) Crickxstraat 15, 1060 bruxelles 8.30PM €5 http://www.lesateliersclaus.com/ May 23: AALST - Houtkaai z/n, 9300 Aalst 8pm €13/10 with Dean Blunt http://www.netwerk-art.be/en/concerts/989/dean-blunt-rmillis May 24: AMSTERDAM - OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 1075XL Amsterdam 9pm €7 http://occii.org/ May 25: BRADFORD - Threadfest @ Fuse Art Space, 

5-7 Rawson Place BD1 3QQ 1pm Free entry. Also appearing: Philip Jeck + Basic House + Lee Patterson + Dean McPhee + Female Band https://www.facebook.com/events/488180197953434/ http://wearefuse.co/threadfest/ May 26: COVENTRY - The Coal Vaults, Coal Vaults CV1 4LY 

8pm £5/7 http://thetinmusicandarts.org.uk/events/robert-millis-presents-sublime-frequencies/ May 27: LONDON - Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin St, Dalston E8 3DL

* Also screening Robert Millis' film: Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan 8pm £7/8 http://cafeoto.co.uk/sublime-frequencies-robert-millis-the-world-is-unreal-like-a-snake-in-a-rope.shtm

May 28: HELSINKI - Korjaamo, Töölönkatu 51 a-b, 00250 Helsinki with Avarus

* Screening This World Is Unreal Like A Snake In A Rope 8pm €tba http://www.korjaamo.fi/ May 29: TAMPERE - Telakka, Tullikamarinaukio 3, 33100 Tampere

* Screening: Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan 8pm €tba http://www.telakka.eu/ May 30: BRIGHTON - The Cowley Club, 12 London Rd, BN1 4JA 

with F.Ampism + Dickinson/Murphy/Nyoukis 7.30pm £5 http://www.cowleyclub.org.uk/ May 31: GLASGOW - The Old Hairdressers, 20-28 Renfield Lane, G2 6PH

with Bridget Hayden www.stereocafebar.com June 1: BRISTOL - Cube Cinema, Dove Street South, BS2 8JD 8pm £6/8 http://www.cubecinema.com/programme/view/2014/3/28?daysahead=90#event_7324 June 3: Film screening, Athens TBA June 5: Performance Athens, TBA June 7: PARIS - Espace en Cours, 56, rue de la Réunion, 75020 Paris 

with Tara Jane O'Neil 7.30pm €7 http://alifibgigs.wordpress.com/

Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong) interviewed on Dung Mummy Radio 11.14.13

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Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong) 
interviewed on Dung Mummy Radio 11.14.13

3 NEW RELEASES OUT NOW! Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq Vol. 2 - 2LP / DAVID HARRIS: Small Path Music (with Laurent Jeanneau) DVD / OMAR SOULEYMAN: Dabke 2020: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria LP

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES COMMUNIQUÈ

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Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq Vol. 2 VA 

SF 085LP

In 2005, Sublime Frequencies released Choubi Choubi: Folk and Pop Sounds from Iraq, and in the ensuing years it has become one of the most beloved and venerable titles in their catalog. Now almost 10 years later, this highly-anticipated second volume is finally here. Compiler and producer Mark Gergis has once again put forth a revelatory and poignant collection of Iraq's national folk music. What has happened to Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion and eventual occupation? Endless death, destruction and chaos, the complete take-down of a functional and sovereign secular government (regardless of your opinion on that government), puppet installations, contrived sectarian divisions, the wholesale looting of culture, rampant opportunism, and apparently no lessons learned -- all at the Iraqi people's expense. Naturally, music has continued to be produced in Iraq -- however, since 2003, musicians and artists have been consistently targeted and attacked by extremists, who have also bombed music shops and forced the closing of venues and music halls. The musical style most prominently focused on in this volume is the infamous Iraqi choubi, (pronounced choe-bee), with its distinct driving rhythm that feature fiddles, double-reed instruments, bass, keyboards, and oud over its signature beat. Choubi is Iraq's version of the regionally popular dabke, another celebratory Levantine folkloric style of rhythm and line dance. What really defines the Iraqi choubi sound are the crisp, rapid-fire machine-gun style percussive rhythms set atop the main beat. To the uninitiated, they sound almost electronic. Sometimes they are, but more often this is the work of the khishba -- a unique hand-drum of nomadic origin (aka the zanbour -- Arabic for wasp), which appears across the board in many styles of Iraqi music today, with extensions of it also heard in Syrian and Kuwaiti music. Among other styles featured in this volume are Iraq's legendary brand of mawal -- an ornamental vocal improvisation that sets the tone of a song, regardless of the style, and the outstanding Iraqi hecha, with its lumbering and determined rhythm pulsing beneath sad, antagonized vocals -- as heard on tracks A4 and B2. The tracks on this collection were produced during the Saddam era -- between the 1980s and early-2000s. An important goal within the Iraqi Baathist agenda was to promote its brand of secularism, which saw the establishment of cultural centers, and a fostering of the arts. Music was more encouraged, albeit more institutionalized than ever -- particularly folkloric and heritage music such as choubi. In an Iraqi army comprised of seven divisions, Saddam referred to singers as the eighth. Still, unless a rare level of stardom has been achieved, being a singer or musician isn't usually encouraged or viewed as a respectable lifestyle in much of the Arab world. It's often those deemed social outsiders that tend to find their niche in music -- particularly the "party music" heard on this collection. Among them are the Rom Gypsy Iraqis (known as Kawliya in Arabic). A number of female singers wear masks and adopt pseudonyms to protect their identities, as some are runaways or prostitutes making ends meet in the seedy nightclub scene. Occasionally, they end up with successful recording careers. Sajida Obeid, who has appeared on both volumes of Choubi Choubi! is an example of a talented Kawliya singer from the nightclub scene of the 1980s who rose to choubi infamy in Baghdad. Choubi inevitably invokes tawdry connotations within Iraqi society (cheap nightclubs for the lower classes, outcast gypsies and singing prostitutes), but in fact, many calibers of Iraqi singers and ensembles have recorded and performed the music. Unofficially, choubi can be called the national dance of Iraq. Though some may deny this claim (mostly due to its reputation and stigma), at most Iraqi weddings you'll find people from all walks flaunting their best choubi moves. Iraqi music has always had a way of transcending religious groups and ethnicity, collectively shared between Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and myriad other Iraqi minorities. In 2013 sadly, this diversity and unity within Iraq is increasingly fragmented, but traditions continue throughout the internationally displaced diaspora. Limited edition 2LP set in a heavy gatefold jacket with beautiful artwork and liner notes by Mark Gergis.

Order from Forced Exposure: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.085LP.html

DAVID HARRIS: Small Path Music (with Laurent Jeanneau) 

SF 082DVD

Small Path Music was shot on location in Southeast Asia in 2010 with Laurent Jeanneau on his relentless quest to capture audio recordings of vanishing indigenous music from ethnic groups of this vast region. The documentary (shot over a period of eight months) takes us travelling with Laurent in the field through remote northern Laos and Yunnan Province of Southwest China and invites us into the world of the folk artists he explores. From shamanic rituals to love songs, historical epics to lamentations, his microphones document what he discovers there. Laurent tells us of the state he finds these artists in today, how this music speaks to him, and we learn what drives the urgency of his work. As perhaps the most committed and accomplished procurer of rare and threatened music from this part of the world, Laurent recounts experiences from a decade of recording in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and China, and we gauge his perspective on the musical traditions of the area. We see how he relates to them and how his work has led his life in new directions. Along this journey he met his wife, Tanding and together they established a recording label (Kink Gong) to release their field recordings. Sublime Frequencies is pleased to present this unique story shot by filmmaker David Harris about the man behind the Ethnic Minority Music album series. 56 minutes, 16:9 NTSC DVD all regions, English with Mandarin subtitles. 

Order from Forced Exposure: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.082DVD.html

OMAR SOULEYMAN: Dabke 2020: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria

SF 049LP 

LP version. Sublime Frequencies is pleased to present the second volume of Northeast Syrian dabke music from legendary vocalist Omar Souleyman and his group. This record was compiled by Mark Gergis to coincide with the Sublime Frequencies UK/European tour in May and June of 2009, featuring live performances by Omar Souleyman himself. Culled from dozens of cassettes recorded in Syria from 1999-2008, the music here is an extension of Omar's Highway to Hassake: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria (SF 031CD) release, touching on some previously-unheard angles. Their trademark serpentine synthesizers, electrified bouzok (traditional stringed instrument) and driving rhythms forge a severe form of "new wave dabke" with a live energy and integrity that captures the essence of the Syrian Northeast; one-of-a-kind Syrian dabke party tunes, regional atabat-styled crooners, and unbelievable Iraqi party jams. This is the limited edition LP version packaged in a heavy-duty tip-on jacket.

Order from Forced Exposure: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.049LP.html

NOW OUT! NEW RELEASE: Ethnic Minority Music of Southern China CD SF081

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Ethnic Minority Music of Southern China CD 

SF081

 

The 5th Sublime Frequencies volume in Laurent Jeanneau’s amazing documentation of vanishing indigenous music of the rural Asian frontiers, this CD focuses on ethnic minority groups of Southern China. Presented here are 17 tracks of supremely infectious vocals and folkloric instrumentals played on a wide variety of local traditional instruments. The centerpiece of this collection is the 13 minute Do Djui Atsei (track 5), an absolutely epic male and female group choral vocal piece which is improvised as a song of intimate personal emotions that brings tears to the performers as they are singing together. Jeanneau has spent many years traversing the hills and valleys of Southeast Asia and China, and he has captured a dizzying array of folk music, much of which has never been documented before. He is perhaps the most committed and accomplished procurer of rare and threatened music from the region and seems more focused than ever as he states in his liner notes for this release: “In China, by the end of the 1950s, 400 ethnic groups registered to be counted in the census. There might be 300 remaining groups nowadays. I was facing an incredible amount of potential musicians. Now after 6 years spent in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, I have recorded 55 CDs of raw stuff. This Sublime Frequencies product is a compilation from those CDs, displaying the diversity I was able to find between 2006 and 2012, and I’m not finished....” This disc comes with a 16-page booklet of detailed notes and photographs of the musicians by Laurent Jeanneau.

Order via Forced Exposure: http://beta.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/SF.081CD.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.