in briefrelease

Echoes from the Olive Trees

Mai Mai Mai: »Karakoz«

Grief is hereditary. It is collective and more than mere streams of tears – as countless generations of oppressed Palestinians can attest. On the album Karakoz, the Rome-based musician Mai Mai Mai creates a resonance of this collective sorrow and attempts to grasp the desperate hope of the Palestinian people. Not through political slogans, but through dark spiritualism and synthesizers.

Karakoz is an ancient form of shadow theatre with roots in the Ottoman Empire, and the album title serves as an omen of the musical pulse that sets in from the opening track, »Grief«. Here the music sounds like an archaic folk hymn: slow, repetitive percussion creates a tear-soaked minimalism, and the piece feels like a ceremony passed down through generations. With synthesizers slowly coiling around Maya Al Khaldi’s yearning vocals, »Grief« becomes a cultural bridge between forgotten traditions and the painfully current tragedy that today envelops Palestine in an all-consuming darkness.

Across the seven tracks, one hears trauma like a wind murmuring through the streets and among the olive trees. This may be because the album was created in collaboration with local artists and includes archival material from The Palestinian Sound Archive – an archive of decades of forgotten music, poetry, and album covers. Karakoz is a reinterpretation of Middle Eastern spiritualism and forgotten music. It is a testament to grief as lived experience, and as an archival bulwark, Karakoz thus takes part in the struggle for a free Palestine.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

in briefrelease

08.02.2024

Behind the Words

Alexander Tillegreen: »In Words«

Raster. 24.11

Rasmus Weirup

One of the most mysterious – and at times boundary-pushing – interviews ever captured on tape is Meatball Fulton’s 1967 interview with Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett. Filled with broken sentences, incongruous word combinations, questions and answers that seem to bear no relation to one another, and pauses that feel endless, the interview pushes the limits of what can meaningfully be called communication at all. »Your impression of me… which you must have… would you care to tell me? And be like absolutely honest… Do you have one?« the interviewer asks at one point. »In words?« Barrett replies.

In Words is also the title of multidisciplinary artist Alexander Tillegreen’s debut album, whose closing composition samples a full seven minutes of the interview. It is not difficult to understand what Tillegreen hears in this peculiar exchange. For someone who, in his artistic explorations of psychoacoustics and phantom words, has consistently probed sound’s possibilities and limitations as a carrier of meaning, the interview must appear as a rather sensational example of the illusory nature of language.

None of this would, of course, be of any interest if the music were not as strong as it is: richly atmospheric, detailed, texturally varied, emotionally potent, and filled with pleasing, warm synth tones that recall 1970s German Kosmische Musik. The fact that a large part of the compositions originate in earlier installation works often leaves me with the strange feeling that there is a dimension or context I do not fully grasp – which, of course, is entirely in keeping with Tillegreen’s spirit.

playlist

07.02.2024

My name is Phil Battiekh – would you like to see my playlist?

Phil Battiekh (Basel, Switzerland) has been a Mahraganat DJ and producer for over a decade. He is one of the first to dedicate himself to Mahraganat outside of Egypt. In addition to his most popular Mahraganat mixes on Soundcloud (over 450K streams worldwide), he released the acclaimed Cairo Concepts compilation in 2019. Featuring DJ Plead, DJ Haram, Alaa Fifty, Nustaliga and others, Cairo Concepts contextualises the impact and developments of the Mahraganat scene and examines the way certain artists have appropriated Mahraganat for club scenarios.

Mahraganat (Egyptian Arabic: مهرجانات( , which literally means »festivals«, is a mix of Egyptian Shaabi, electronic dance music, rap and trap. It is characterized by percussion-heavy rhythms, massive bass and loads of autotune. Phil Battiekh is curating the SWANA night – a joint event by pantropical, turkis, and Volume Village, which takes place at the latter in Aarhus. Next to his own set, Phil will also have a role as Wezza Montaser's DJ.

playlist

01.01.2024

My name is Bill Frisell – would you like to see my playlist?

Bill Frisell. © Carole D'Inverno

»I like when it's impossible to tell at first if something is black or white, or country or blues, or whatever.«

Bill Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings. From Aaron Copeland and Charles Ives to Bob Dylan and Madonna. Born in Baltimore, Bill Frisell played clarinet throughout his childhood in Denver, Colorado. His interest in guitar began with his exposure to pop music on the radio.

playlist

11.09.2023

My name is John Grant – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music has been a healing balm for me.«

John William Grant is an American singer, musician, and songwriter holding both American and Icelandic citizenship. He first came to prominence as a co-founder, lead vocalist, pianist, and primary songwriter of the alternative rock band The Czars. After releasing six albums between 1994 and 2006, the band disbanded, and Grant withdrew from music for four years before embarking on a solo career.

He returned in April 2010 with a critically acclaimed debut album recorded in collaboration with Midlake. Queen of Denmark was named Album of the Year 2010 by Mojo magazine and was also selected as one of the ten best albums of 2010 by The Guardian’s music critics and writers.

in briefrelease

23.01.2022

Finnish Space Travel

Tomutonttu: »Hoshi«

Vauva, 02.12

Kristoffer Møllegaard

The Finnish multimedia artist Jan Anderzén has, with the album Hoshi, released under the solo moniker Tomutonttu, created a true little star. Not only because »hoshi« literally means »star« in Japanese, but above all due to the music itself. There is something cosmic, yet infinitely minute, about the sonic worlds Anderzén conjures—like a galaxy reflected in a puddle, or a space journey in a rocket carved from a hollow tree trunk. Synths emit busy, warm blips and bloops, while ultra-short vocal and instrumental samples create a recognizable blur. At once artificial and organic – soft, rounded, jagged, crackling.

Anderzén approaches sound with a playfulness I simply adore. His music is strange in an incredibly comforting way. It places me in a kind of colorful, trance-like state, only interrupted when, several times over the course of the album, I find myself smiling in delight at a particularly great sound. The synths on »Katse osuu sähköön!« The choral samples on »Kesä oli äkkiä ohi!« Milo Linnovaara’s flute on »Malta lausua ‘AH’!« And many more. Hoshi is an album packed with microscopic moments that together form a frayed, exploding, radiant, idiosyncratic whole—a stellar moment of just under 38 minutes.