During a rather busy bit of international touring the Latin Grammy-nominated act, Boogarins, holed up in house near Austin, TX’s SPACE Studios for most of the summer, and they spent their time writing and recording new material in between a several weeks- long Austin club residency. the band’s latest single “Elogio a Instituição do Cinismo” (translated into English, the title is “Praise the Institution of Cynicism”)is a decided sonic departure as the band incorporates the use of thumping beats and breakbeats, swirling and whirling electronics, abrasive and buzzing guitars to create a malevolent and angrily brewing storm of sound that’s paired with vocals that manage to be both dreamily placid yet pissed off. While being hallucinatory, the song manages to be a rowdy, furious almost dance floor-like stomp, revealing a band that’s readily and aggressively pushing psych rock and Brazilian rock into strange, yet excitingly new directions.
Filmed and edited by Victor Souza and featuring collages by Beatriz Perini, the recently released lyric and subtitled video emphasizes the bitter, vitriol-fueled critique of society at the heart of the song, suggesting that society encourages people to be deceptive and allows people to be used as means for more ends in themselves. The collages help emphasize the song’s whirling malevolent storm.
Live Concert Review: Xylouris White with Marissa Anderson at National Sawdust
November 11, 2016
Those who know me the best know that I lead an insanely full life. I commute back and forth between my apartment in Queens and my full-time day job as an Acquisitions Editor at a downtown Manhattan-based book publisher, run this site on the side as a mostly full-time effort, participate in a radio segment that airs Fridays on Norway’s P4 Radio and on occasion I even have time for a social life. And if I had a 40-hour day, I’d probably squeeze in even more that I’d need to do or would like to do! As you can imagine, with all of those various and competing obligations it can be difficult to spend some time to actually sit down and write in a way that I’d like; but as a wise man once rhymed “the hustle don’t sleep.”
Last month, I was at one of Williamsburg’s newest and most intimate venues, National Sawdust to catch the highly-acclaimed duo Xylouris White along with the incredibly talented Northern California-born, Portland, OR-based guitarist Marisa Anderson. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past month or two, you may recall that Xylouris White is comprised of Comprised of Melbourne, Australia-born, New York-based drummer Jim White, who’s best known as a member of the internationally acclaimed instrumental rock act Dirty Three and for collaborating with an incredible list of equally renowned artists including PJ Harvey, Nina Nastasia, Cat Power, Bill Callahan a.k.a. Smog and others; and beloved Crete-born vocalist and laouto player Giorgos Xylouris, best known as the frontman of Xylouris Ensemble and the son of legendary vocalist and lyra player Psarantonis Xylouris. The duo’s collaboration together can trace its origins back to the early 90s when the renowned Cretan vocalist and laouto player was touring through Australia in the early 90s. At the time, White was a member of Melbourne, Australia-based avant garde rock band Venom P. Stinger, when he met and befriended the younger Xylouris. When White along with bandmates Warren Ellis (violin and bass) and Mick Turner (guitar and bass) formed The Dirty Three, Giorgios Xylouris would collaborate with the band whenever he and his Ensemble were in town. Interestingly enough, the members of The Dirty Three have publicly cited Psarantonis and Giorgios Xylouris as being major influences on their sound and approach.
Although White and Xylouris have known each other for more than 20 years, it wasn’t until 2013 when they decided that should collaborate together, and it was accelerated when White played with both Psarandonis and Giorgios Xylouris at an All Tomrorow’s Parties Festival, curated by Nick Cave. Unsurprisingly, the duo’s long-held mutual admiration has deeply influenced how they write and perform music – and in some way, it sounds as though the duo is dancing, as at any given point they could be accompanying or leading each other and at any given moment and their live sound reflects that same mischievous fluidity while drawing simultaneously from both contemporary and ancient folk; in fact, during their National Sawdust, Giorgios Xylouris sang the lyrics of a song based around a 14th century love poem in his native Greek and the although the majority of the audience didn’t understand the words, we could understand the ache and longing within the song, punctuated by White’s jazz-like drumming. Several other ballads throughout their set evoked the imagery of herders and farmers singing around campfires with friends and family, before passing on the instrument to the next person.
While watching the duo playing “Black Peak” off their recently released Black Peak album, the stomping and rollicking song took on an improvisational and jazz-like feel as you can see both musicians practically having a non-verbal conversation with each other – in which at any given point White or Xylouris will say to the other “now, it’s your turn.” “Hey Musicians,” took on a wildly, mischievous, almost danceable feel; in fact, off to the corner of the room, I saw a few people dancing and stomping about with a joyous ecstasy while the rest of the crowd was enraptured by the old pros, doing their thing with an effortlessly cool, self-assuredness while walking a tightrope between an elegantly simple beauty and a muscular forcefulness.
Northern California-born, songwriter and composer Marissa Anderson is a classically trained guitarist, who dropped out of college at 19 to walk across the country and eventually settle in Portland, OR, where she’s currently based. Interestingly, Anderson is a classically trained guitarist, who has honed her skills playing in country, jazz and circus bands, collaborating with Beth Ditto, Sharon Van Etten, Circus Des Yeux and others, and has written the scores to a number of short films. With the release of her first solo efforts – namely, her 2009 debut The Golden Hour, 2011’s Mercury and 2013’s Traditional and Public Domain Songs Anderson has developed a reputation for a sound that channels the entire history of guitar-based music and stretches the boundaries of tradition, as many of her compositions are not only based upon the landscape of American music but attempt to re-imagine them as her work possesses elements of minimalism, electronic music, drone, 20th Century Classical Music, blues, jazz, gospel, country, folk and Americana – often simultaneously.
Anderson’s latest effort Into the Light has Anderson leaving the Appalachian folk and Delta blues that first won her attention from the likes of Billboard, Rolling Stone, NPR,Spin Magazine, Pitchfork and Wire among others – with Into The Light landing on Spin Magazine’s best of 2016 and her split LP with Tashi Dorji being named one of the best experimental records of 2015 by Pitchfork and The Out Door. Anderson’s latest effort Into the Light, has the composer and songwriting leaving Appalachia and the Delta Blues – with the album’s ten compositions written as though they were the soundtrack of an imaginary sci-fi/western in which she tells the story of a lost visitor wandering the Sonoran Desert. And as a result, the material on the album is naturally cinematic and anachronistic in a similar fashion to the night’s headliner – in the sense that the material manages to feel both contemporary and yet timeless.
Adding to a growing national and international profile, Anderson has made appearances at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Sweden’s Gagnef Festival, Fano Free Folk Festival, Le Guess Who and the Festival of Endless Gratitude, as well as opening for the renowned duo Xylouris White during their brief East Coast tour, a tour which also included a stop at National Sawdust last month. Accompanying herself with only her guitar, Anderson’s set further cemented her reputation for material that went across both the breadth and length of American music – briefly touching upon early Delta blues, folk, murder ballads and country but a with a uniquely earthy and post-modernist take, while being deeply contemplative. She’s been known to perform a version of “House Carpenter,” a title given to most American derivatives of the British folk song “Demon Lover,” a song roughly about a woman, who takes up a lover, has an affair and leaves her husband and kid – only to discover that she’s fallen in love with a demon/Satan; however, Anderson’s rendition, as she explained before she played it was meant to consider the woman’s perspective, which not only humanizes the song’s main character, but manages to be pensive and lonely in a similar fashion to “Make Sure My Grave Is Kept Clean.” Interestingly, Anderson has frequently played a medley of both songs – and it shouldn’t be surprising as the narrators of both songs wind up dead and in some way plead for forgiveness, understanding, empathy through the years.
The material off Into the Light manages to evoke natural phenomenon – a song inspired by Anderson’s time in the desert, observing harshly swirling and howling winds can make you picture people huddling in from dust storms or sitting around a fire, just listening and thinking. It was a song that possessed an elegant and deceptive simplicity. And the entire time the crowd was enraptured by this woman playing instrumental compositions that could burrow deep into the earth, yearn and arch themselves heavenward or just focus on the simple joys of being happy and existing in a particular place in time. Simply put it was a fascinating night of old pros capturing a crowd and taking them in challenging, new sonic and thematic directions.
The Parisian collective’s highly-anticipated sophomore effort Mystere was released earlier this year and you may recall that I’ve written about three of the album’s singles — Sphynx,” a track that manages to evoke a lingering fever dream, “Ou va la mode” a somewhat stripped down track that seemed as though the French act were returning to the breezy and decidedly French take on surfer rock that comprised Le Podium # 1 but with warped, carnival from hell-like organ and “Septembre,” a track that sounded indebted to 60s psych rock and psych pop with a mournful, bittersweet air. The album’s fourth and latest single “Mycose” is a moody and somewhat atmospheric track comprised of undulating synths, a propulsive bass line, some industrial clang and clatter paired with punchily cooed lyrics and a psychedelic-leaning guitar solo. And of course, Mystere’s latest single will further cement the French collective’s reputation for crating a propulsive and danceable sound that also manages to be difficult to pigeonhole.
Directed by Paul Gondry, the son of renowned director Michel Gondry, the recently released video for “Mycose” was shot on the streets of New York and while coolly seductive, the video possesses a nightmarish horror-film meetings high-fashion ad logic.
Monika Brodka is Polish singer/songwriter, who rose to fame after winning the third season of Polish Pop Idol back in 2004. And since winning Polish Pop Idol, Brodka has released three critically and commercially successful albums in her native Poland — her full-length debut 2004’s Album was certified gold within a few months of its release, her sophomore effort 2006’s Moje piosenki (My Songs) was also certified gold; however, her third full-length effort, 2010’s Granda revealed a radical change in sonic direction, as the material drew from electro pop, rock, roots music and pop and received international attention, while being certified double platinum. Additionally, she’s received several Fryderyk Award nominations (Poland’s equivalent to both the BRIT and the Grammy Awards) winning a Song of the Year Award in 2013 for “Varsovie” off her LAX EP while singles such as “Ten”, “Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka”, “Miałeś być” and “Znam Cię Na Pamięć” have all topped the Polish charts.
As for the aforementioned LAX EP, Brodka along with producer and engineer Bartosz Dziedzic wrote and recorded the material while at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles, and the material included two songs with lyrics written and sung in English, the aforementioned “Varsovie” and “Dancing Shoes” along with remixes. Of course with tremendous success across her homeland under her belt, Brodka hopes to expand her profile Stateside with the recent release of her fourth album, Clashes, which is also her English language debut, as well as arguably her most ambitious and diverse album she’s released to date — with the material possessing elements of brooding, orchestral pop as you’ll hear on “Holy Holes,” off Clashes. Essentially, her fourth album finds Brodka continually experimenting and pushing her sound forward.
Sonically speaking, in “Holy Holes” Brodka pairs looping accordion chords, stomping percussion and her gorgeous and lilting Kate Bush-like vocals, buzzing bursts of what sounds like guitar and stomping percussion to create a song that manages to be simultaneously intimate and cinematic while drawing from folk, orchestral pop, jazz and other genres. Additionally, as Brodka mentions in press notes, the material on the album thematically draws from her earliest experiences and memories of Catholic Church services. “For this album the big inspiration was liturgical outfits,” the Polish singer/songwriter explains. “I wanted to take the colors – silver, gold, white, purple, blue – and the shapes of some of these clothes and turn them into something more modern. I am always trying to take some of the meanings of the subjects that I am interested in, chew them up, digest them, and throw up something that is more my kind of thing.”
Directed by Jan Simon, the recently released video for “Holy Holes” pairs the song’s dramatic vocals features a series of geometric shapes being filmed as they move across the screen in a dramatic, slow-motion.
Eddie Palmieri is a legendary, Grammy-winning New York born and -based pianist, composer and bandleader who has released a number of beloved and highly-regarded Latin funk albums that have pushed the boundaries of what the genre should sound like and concern itself thematically, through renowned labels including Fania Records, Alegre Records, Tico Records, RMM and Concord Picante. Back in 1971, Palmieri along with a new backing band Harlem River Drive wrote and recorded Harlem River Drive, a sociopolitically charged album inspired by the inequality that his fellow Puerto Ricans faced in the New York of the early 1970s — and as a result, the album was a fiery and much-needed protest that featured novelistic lyrics that immersed you into its creators world. Interestingly, the album wasn’t a major commercial success but over the years, it became a cult-favorite album, while being as powerful and relevant today as it was when the album was originally released.
Earlier this year, Red Bull Music Academy invited Palmieri and his backing band to perform the material off Harlem River Drive live for the first time in several decades on what turned out to be a rainy afternoon and evening at Harem’s Marcus Garvey Park — and the folks at NPR’s Jazz Night in America shot some great live footage that includes album title track “Harlem River Drive,” “Seeds of Life” and “Comparasa.” Check it out by clicking on the link above and it’ll lead you to a full-screen embed.
Now, over the past couple of years, the Turkish indie rock quartet have released a series of singles that have that have seen international attention across the blogosphere, including this site where the band has added their name to a growing list of mainstay artists. Up until recently, it had been about a year since we had last heard from the renowned Istanbul-based quartet; but as it turns out, the band had been busy working on the material, which will comprise their highly-anticipated full-length debut effort. The album’s first two singles “Less Is More” and “World Horizon” were atmospheric yet lush tracks in which plaintive vocals were paired with ethereal and shimmering synths — while drawing from the band members’ lives as musicians in a society in which their efforts are viewed suspicious and seditious.
“Places to Go,” the third and latest single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut is a lush and plaintive song featuring layers of shimmering guitar, a tight motorik-like groove and a soaring, anthemic hook — and in some way it makes the song sound as though it were inspired by classic shoegaze and contemporary pop and indie rock; however, the song manages to possess a deeply held tension as lyrically, the band draws from their lives and the lives of Turkish young people as the song touches upon the sense of frustration, boredom, oppression and conformity, lack of opportunity and their overall restlessness.
Now, as you may remember “Caramelos,” featuring Salvador Duran was the first single off the collective’s recently released album ¡Vamos A Guarachar!, and unsurprisingly the single managed to capture the act’s signature, genre mashing style –enormous tweeter and woofer rocking beats and synths, organ, twangy pedal steel guitar, a bit of mariachi, a bit of mambo, a bit of cumbia, a bit of flamenco, a bit of this and a bit of that are employed in a stomping dance floor-friendly song that manages to be familiar and alien and mischievously difficult to pigeonhole. And much like the work of a newer JOVM mainstay like El Dusty, this particular track should remind listeners and readers that arguably some of the most sonically inventive club banging music is coming from those who grew up in close proximity to the American-Mexican border.
The album’s latest single “Cumbia Volcadora” is a collaboration with renowned Mexican electronic music pioneer Camilo Lara is a swaggering, riotous and subtly modern take on the classic cumbia sound that kind of nods at Rob Base’s and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two” thanks to a series of distorted vocal samples, El-Dusty’s “Cumbia Anthem” but with a psychedelic flair — and paired with a band playing one of the funkiest and tightest grooves I’ve heard in recent memory.
As for the recently released video is a wild visual collage of styles including animation, black and white footage of dancer dancing to the song, people wandering around and purchasing goods at a local market and of the band playing but superimposed with cartoon drawn masks, as well as homages to old movie posters and record art. And in some way it emphasizes the psychedelic nature of the song.
Comprised of Melbourne, Australia-born, New York-based drummer Jim White, who’s best known as a member of the internationally acclaimed instrumental rock act Dirty Three and for collaborating with an incredible list of equally renowned artists including PJ Harvey, Nina Nastasia, Cat Power, Bill Callahan a.k.a. Smog and others; and beloved Crete-born vocalist and laouto player Giorgos Xylouris, the son of renowned vocalist and lyra player Psarandonis Xylouris, best known for leading the Xylouris Ensemble, the world music duo Xylouris White can actually trace their origins to when the renowned Cretan and his ensemble was touring Melbourne in the early 1990s. At the time, White was a member of Melbourne, Australia-based avant rock band Venom P. Stinger when he had met and befriended Xylouris, who later would collaborate with the members of Dirty Three whenever he was in Australia –and interestingly enough, the members of Dirty Three had at various points have publicly cited the renowned Cretan and his father as influencing their sound and approach.
And although White and Xylouris had known each other for quite some time, it wasn’t until 2013 that they decided to collaborate as a duo, a process which was accelerated when White played with Xylouris and Psaradonis at an All Tomorrow’s Parties festival that was specially curated by Nick Cave. Interestingly, the duo’s long-held mutual admiration has influenced how they the write and perform music — and in some way, it’s almost as though the duo is dancing together, as at any given point, they could be accompanying and leading each other, simultaneously and in a very fluid fashion. Interestingly, the duo’s debut Goats was influenced by Xylouris’ poetic analogy for their creative approach “Like goats walking in the mountain. They may not know the place, but they can walk easily and take risks and feel comfortable. Really, the goats inspired us.”
The duo’s sophomore effort Black Peak furthers their goat analogy as the album’s title is derived from a famous Cretan mountain, and the album, which was “recorded everywhere,” as Xylouris says in press notes and produced by Fugazi‘s Guy Picciotto reportedly has the band expanding upon their sound while focusing even more on ancient traditional sounds while having a subtly modern take, as the duo pushes each other harder, as you’ll hear on the rollicking and stomping album title track “Black Peak.”
The duo will be on a Stateside and Australian tour throughout November and December, and it’ll include a November 18 stop at National Sawdust. Check out the tour dates.
Tour Dates
Nov 15 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse Music Hall
Nov 16 – New Haven, CT – BAR Nightclub
Nov 17 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre
Nov 18 – Brooklyn, NY – National Sawdust
Nov 20 – Somerville, MA – ONCE Lounge
Nov 22 – Burlington, VT – Arts Riot
Nov 23 – Montreal, QC – La Vitrola
Nov 24 – Wakefield, QC – The Black Sheep Inn
Nov 25 – Toronto, ON – The Drake Hotel
Nov 27 – Detroit, MI – Third Man Records
Nov 29 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle
Nov 30 – Washington, DC – DC9
Dec 1 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Café
Dec 2 – Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
Dec 3 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
Dec 4 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
Dec 18 – Melbourne, Australia – Melbourne Recital Centre
Last month, I wrote about Elwan’s first single “Tenere Taqqal,” a slow-burning and hauntingly gorgeous song that possessed an understated yet aching longing for a way of life and for a home, which as Thomas Wolfe once wrote and the members of the band recognize, they may never be able to return to and will never have again. And certainly while there’s a tacit acknowledgement within the song that life continues onward as it always does, there’s also a brooding and pensive urgency within the song that comes from the members of the band recognizing that they have a sacred and profound duty of ensuring that something of the old traditions could be preserved and passed on to future generations. The album’s second single “Sastanàqqàm” is as the band’s Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni explains “an ode to the Sahara and its Nomads. It expresses the needs of the traveller as he crosses the desert on his mount. Essential needs: find water and a way to preserve it, find a good mode of transport. But also the love-hate relationship with the desert, the natural elements and the certainty that we will always go back to it.” Pairing those sentiments with a shuffling and deeply hypnotic groove and a propulsive and stomping percussion give the song a hopeful and downright joyous feel. At it’s core it’s the hope and promise of returning to the ancestral homeland — of its smell, of seeing beloved sights, of returning to the place where your ancestors have lived, played, prayed, wandered, hunted and died.
The band and their label have done a kind favor by providing an English translation of the song’s lyrics, which you can check out below.
Sastanàqqàm Lyrics
SASTANÀQQÀM
I QUESTION YOU
TÉNÉRÉ, CAN YOU TELL ME OF ANYTHING BETTER THAN TO HAVE YOUR FRIENDS AND YOUR MOUNT,
AND A BRAND NEW GOATSKIN, WATERTIGHT,
TO FIND YOUR WAY
BY THE LIGHT
OF THE FOUR BRIGHT STARS OF HEAVEN,
TO KNOW HOW
TO FIND WATER IN
THE UNLIKELIEST OF PLACES, AND ENLIST THE MOMENTUM OF THE WIND
TO HELP YOU MOVE FORWARD
TELL ME, TÉNÉRÉ
HOW YOU AND I
CAN REMAIN UNITED,
WITH NO HATE FOR EACH OTHER.
TÉNÉRÉ, I CAN NOW ADMIT THAT
I HAVE TRAVELLED FAR THROUGH THIS WIDE WORLD.
TÉNÉRÉ, I GIVE YOU MY OATH
THAT AS LONG AS I’M ALIVE,
I WILL ALWAYS COME BACK
Olivera’s latest single “La Chusa” is a collaboration featuring Camilo Lara and Toy Selectah, which as Olivera explained to Univision in a recent interview, derives its title “from a South Texas Chicano folk story about this owl [in some Spanish speaking countries lechuza means owl] with the with the face of an old lady that stands on top of your house and scares kids into acting good. When I was a kid I was petrified of it!” Sonically though the song is comprised of a classic and beloved Columbian cumbia track, Los Hermanos Tuirán’s “La cumbia de la cordillera,” a track that’s not only about a bird on a mountain, and note even remotely related to El Dusty’s title, but it has also been used by sound systems and global bass DJs in Columbia and elsewhere. Interestingly, the track is a buoyant and swaggering track, full of tweeter and woofer rocking beats and bass paired with a joyous and mischievously anthemic hook that will make you get off your ass and move.
Hector Mendoza is an Dominican Republic-born, Miami, FL-based DJ, electronic music, producer and artist, best known in urban sound system and bass music circles as Happy Colors, and along with El Dusty, Mendoza has been at the forefront of a swaggering and emerging bass music scene that draws from traditional and beloved sounds across Latino America, including merengue, cumbia, bachata, Caribbean moonbahtron and meshes those sounds with trap, drum ‘n’ bass, footwork and other electronic music genres. And as a result of hooking up with Diplo‘s Mad Decent crew, the Dominican Republic-born, Miami, FL-based DJ, electronic music producer and artist has seen a growing national and international reputation as he’s collaborated with the likes of renowned artists including the aforementioned El Dusty, as well as some of electronic music’s renowned artists and producers including Major Lazer, Jack U, DJ Blass, De La Ghetto, Lapiz Conciente and Los Rakas. Additionally, Mendoza has played EDC Mexico, SXSW, Life in Color and at the Sony Music Latin Grammy’s 2016 After Party.
Interestingly, this past year may arguably be Mendoza’s breakthrough year, as his collaboration with El Dusty, “Cumbia Anthem” is the first world bass music track to be nominated for a Latin Grammy — for “Best Urban/Fusion Performance.” Of course along with that, Mendoza has been pretty busy — he released his latest single “Mamaguevo” earlier this month and as you’ll hear, the Miami-based producer creates swaggering and anthemic productions consisting of chopped up vocal samples, explosive, tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, twitchy synths and electronics. And while being as equally club-banging as El Dusty’s work, Mendoza’s sound seems to push the Latin bass music sound towards a mainstream-leaning direction.
Comprised of founding members Kos Island, Greece-born, Athens, Greece-based Angelos Krallis (vocals, guitar, lute, tsambouna, and udu), Evangelos Aslanides (drums, percussion, djembe, darbuka and bendir) and Pantelis Karasevdas (drums, percussion, congas, djembe) and a rotating cast of friends and collaborations, Chickn is a Athens, Greece-based indie act, whose work has largely been influenced by Eastern Mediterranean music, psych rock, prog rock and jazz fusion. And since their formation in 2012, the band has developed a reputation for free flowing improvisation and a constantly morphing lineup that fits their particular needs at the time.
The band’s self-titled debut was written over the course of 2014-2014 in Athens and Valencia and was recorded from July 2015 to October 2015 at Sonic Playground Studio and at Iraklis Vlachakis’ Athens home, where it was co-produced by Chickn and Nikos Triantafyllou before being mastered by Alan Douches at New York’s West Side Studios. And interestingly enough, the album’s first single “Aleppo/Jam” will remind some listeners of Animals-era Pink Floyd, Drakkar Nowhere, Rush and several others as a persistent bass line is paired with shimmering synths, swirling electronics, a buzzing guitar solo and an anthemic hook — all while drawing from jazz fusion, sci fi and psych rock in a trippy yet loose arrangement that manages to emphasize some exceptional musicianship.
Building on the growing attention they’ve received internationally, GOAT will be releasing their highly-anticipated third, full-length effort Requiem on Friday. And from the album’s first single “Try My Robe,” the band continues on a similar path to the singles they’ve released earlier this year, as the song revealed an acoustic, psych folk sound that at times seems influenced by African and Middle Eastern music, which gives the song a mind-bending and mesmerizingly hypnotic quality. The album’s latest single “Union of Mind and Soul,” is based around a looping flute line, layers of jangling and propulsive bass and guitar chords, a buzzing and trippy guitar solo and howled lyrics focused on opening one’s mind towards greater understanding of themselves and the universe. And while sonically drawing from 60s folk and psych rock, the song may arguably be the most urgent and yet old-timey song they’ve released to date.
The recently released video is a fittingly psychedelic video that looks as though it could have been shot in the 1960s, thanks to the Instagram-like filters and the use of slow-motion and the use of rewound footage. And in some way, the video accurately captures small town Swedish life in all of its beauty, boredom and sameness.
Arbina’s latest single “Na Sane,” consists Seymali’s gorgeous, siren-like vocals, Chingaly’s shimmering and dexterous guitar work that will make you say to yourself “I’ve never heard guitars sound like that,” Toure’s muscular, driving bass grooves and Tinari’s precise, jazz and rock-inspired drumming, with the result is a song that possesses a lush, enveloping and hypnotic quality. And while being thoroughly modern, the song draws from something deeply timeless and unmistakably universal — an aching yearning to be immersed in the love and power of the infinite.
As the band’s drummer and producer Matthew Tinari explains of the recently released video “Essentially, we just threw an impromptu family barbecue. One of the dancers is Noura’s brother Baba; some of the younger boys are nephews of Jeiche. The girl dancer is a friend from the neighborhood. It was a family affair!” The video manages to captures Moorish traditions and daily life in a gorgeous and cinematic fashion.
Over the course of the band’s three albums and several lineup changes of collaborators, friends and musicians, the band’s material has gone through a variety of changes — but it’s the the band’s forth full-length effort Ojos Del Sol that may be arguably be the most radical turn in sonic direction, while returning to familiar themes of searching and personal discovery — themes that have come up a number of times in Mendoza’s own life, whether as the daughter of Mexican immigrants connecting with her ancestry and searching for spiritual meaning that goes much further than organized religion. In fact, as Mendoza explains in press notes, the material on the album thematically is a “cerebration of family and community” — but a community of shared humanity.
Interestingly, the album’s first single “Libre” finds Mendoza and company at their most self-assured but in one of the breeziest and pop-leaning songs as they pair an infectious and anthemic hook with an arrangement that includes what sounds like xylophone, a mischievous and sinuous bass line, a steady backbeat, Mendoza’s gorgeous vocals along three part harmonies in English and Spanish, a rolling, African folk music-like guitar line in a song that evokes a sense of almost childlike wonder and joy, while making a connection both to Mendoza’s ancestral homeland and Africa in a way that subtly channels Paul Simon’s Graceland.
The recently released video accompanying the song is a lush, cinematically shot video using impossibly verdant greens, bright reds, and a seemingly primal and ecstatic dance routine in the fields just featuring women wearing ancient-inspired costumes, masks and the like. And while being swoon worthy, the video manages to make a vital connection between the primal and ancient and the modern, between celebrating spring and summer and fertility, and a celebrating a community of strong like-minded women simultaneously.
