ROOTS WORLD REVIEW FOR RADIO VIETNAM SF095 CD

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Roots World review of SF095 CD Radio Vietnam.

Which brings us to the latest in Sublime Frequencies' confounding, mapless, aural travelogues into “the other.” Like their other radio series recordings, Radio Vietnam is a jarring stew. Here we have politically charged transistor snippets, news in English, ESL lessons, Vietnamese electric slide street guitar, lo-fi, synth drenched pop not unlike the grooves from neighboring Cambodia and Thailand, and hit-and-run hunks of ethnic minority music that somehow got caught up in the mix. The track titles, as usual, only enhance the confounding collage. “Morning Exercise in the Coded Ether,” for example, starts with digital beats, but switches abruptly to what sounds like a Martian pronouncing doom over a zither and feedback, only to be interrupted by a young Vietnamese woman speaking about something made esoteric by its lack of context before some of the most gorgeous electric guitar balladry ever copped from radio appears. This then is interrupted again by water chimes, incantations, socialist radio and perhaps what truly is an exercise regimen. And all of this takes about five minutes.

To go through this track by track seems as futile as trying to alleviate US poverty while Republicans have control of government. On and on this collection goes, perhaps useless to Vietnamese in country, but likely a joy to the few expats to hear it. But for the audience this is no doubt aimed at, it's another blunt missive fired at an already media-saturated west from a label whose early novelty has long been replaced by some seriously profound collections. Whether or not this CD-only release finds itself amongst them doesn't really matter. Oh, and Woody Guthrie even appears for a millisecond. 

- Bruce Miller

Radio Vietnam CD: Dusty Groove Review

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Radio Vietnam CD SF095 

A very cool set that returns to the earliest style of the Sublime Frequencies label – those 90s releases that often had the company grabbing global sounds out of the ether, then committing them to tape! The set here is exactly what's promised by the title – music from the radio in Vietnam – put together at a level that's extremely thoughtful and a lot more compelling than just flipping the dial in Southeast Asia! Each track is kind of a different pastiche of songs and spoken bits – assembled in a way that creates a certain flavor, and really makes a new sort of music out of these invisible sounds from the air. Titles include "Home Village Identity Event", "Induction Temperature", "Hit Zones", "Morning Exercise In The Coded Ether", "Message To The Age Of Twenty", and "America Lost The Vietnam War". © 1996-2015, Dusty Groove, Inc.

MARK GERGIS: RADIO VIETNAM - FULL LENGTH AUDIO CLIP

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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.