Various
The Paths Of Pain The CAIFE Label, Quito, 1960-68

Greetings from the darkness. Tunnel Vision Records is delighted to introduce you this forgotten masterpiece. Lola V.Stain was a not so typical band formed in 1987 in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. They took inspiration for the name from a Marguerite Duras novel.Their music can be described as avant-garde, electro-acoustic ambient with Macedonian ethno influence. They released two albums, Ikona (1990) and Mansarda (1992), both for the Croatian label “Blind Dog Records”. The group ceased work after its second album.This is an historical masterpiece from Europe. The music on this record is a great document of pre-war Yugoslavia as it was released on a Croatian label Blind Dog Records.The ethnic identities of four of the quintet's members might have been best described by the term Serbo-Croatian, an eventually discarded name for the mix of languages shared by much of what was once Yugoslavia.The founding member of the group was Zlatko Origjanski, who was born in Skopje in 1963. He formed the band Gospodinot Otiden in the mid-'80s and this is the ensemble that formed the roots of what would shortly become Lola V. Stain. The fifth member is what really gives this group a distinct identity. He is Pece Atanasovski, a traditional Macedonian bagpiper . Lola V. Stain creates a blend of traditional and modern instruments, throwing in everything that comes to mind. It is a totally unique concept. The combination of bagpipe and oboe is beautiful, and many of the percussion and electronic textures seem to foreshadow the post-rock movement that would come along a few years later.Although an obviously negative impression was created by the series of wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, the involvement of a Croatian label in releasing Macedonian music was just typical of the kind of artistic cooperation between sections of the country that made the independent record scene successful. Of course, enjoyment of music is so much a matter of time and place ( and space ) , and perhaps no sensation could match the impact of hearing music like this in Sarajevo in 1990, only a matter of a year or more before a terrible war would split the country apart, making collaborative efforts between Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, and Macedonians not impossible, but much more difficult. Yet there is plenty of majestical mystery residing in the grooves, and fans of world music fusions can keep this in mind anytime they want to embark on a quest for something next to impossible to find.

Fortuna Records reissues an incredible Greek belly dance scorcher by little known artist Koko. Following the Israeli Greek craze of the ’60s and ’70s, Moroccan singer Koko learned how to sing in Greek and delivered this tavern-style party masterpiece. Organs seer through hard drums and pounding bass while Koko’s deep voice guides through the evocative world of Greek tsifteteli. For lovers of Aris San and Levitros.

The Tenets of Forgetting is the long-awaited follow-up to MSYLMA’s lauded 2019 debut, Dhil-un Taht Shajarat Al-Zaqum. This time he’s joined by fellow musician and producer ISMAEL for seven tracks, built around a lush palette of synths and MSYLMA’s singular voice.Written and produced in Cairo between 2015 and 2020, The Tenets of Forgetting is the first collaboration between MSYLMA and ISMAEL. Like his first record, The Tenets of Forgetting finds MSYLMA singing in classical Arabic, and the musicians have enlisted Nariman Youssef to provide translations of the lyrics. This gesture of openness runs parallel to the themes of the record; romance and vulnerability; growth and change; pathos and passion. Listeners who aren’t familiar with pre-Islamic poetry or classical Arabic will find the lyrics just as rich and beautiful as the vocal melodies imply, telling a story of love, loss, self-doubt, and grave introspection.Musically, the album moves in broad, painterly sweeps of 808 kicks, rich synthesizer chords, and MYSLMA’s soaring, plaintive voice. The English translations reveal a second world of mathematically sound rhythmic structures and poetry in the lyrics. The music pushes and pulls in both tempo and timbre, swirling both around and underneath MSYLMA’s voice but never losing a sense of self-contained narrative.The album is rounded out by Jesse Osborne-Lanthier and Omar El-Sadek’s immersive, esoteric art, and features additional production on track 7 by Osborne-Lanthier, Pierre Guerineau, and Asaël Robitaille.Limited run of 300. Includes insert + DL code.

After NEF's album in 2019, Ici Bientôt is happy to present today the reissue of "Comme Au Moulin" by Nyssa Musique. Paris 1985... ‘Extra-European’ Traditions meet Jazz and Minimal Music. An unusual array of instruments turn music into a dialogue. For a unique record ... vivid, full of texture, somewhere between Midori Takada, Don Cherry and Jon Hassell.Beginning of the eighties, 5 musicians rehearse in a contemporary dance class hall, upstairs from the ‘’New Morning", renowned Music venue in Paris. Nyssa Musique is born. Passionate for a long time about traditional music, like those of the Middle East, India and East Asia, but also about African traditions, they throw a bridge between Jazz and ‘Extra-European’ traditions, resulting in what would be called "Spiritual Jazz" today, a little bit in the style of Don Cherry's Organic Music or Pharoah Sanders. With the notable difference, however, that their creations are strongly infused by contemporary classical and repetitive music, notably Steve Reich's work with whom they share a great interest for the traditional cultures of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and its gamelans.In the original group we have Armand Amar, Ballet Music composer and John Boswell. Both specialists of traditional hand percussion which they had been studying for a long time in India and the Middle East, they are also very fond of synthesizers. Three other talented musicians quickly join them: Jean-François Roger, percussionist, marimba and vibraphone specialist, Henri Tournier, multi-flutist and Renaud Garcia-Fons, double bass player, who has a passion for the Middle East and has developed a virtuosic play of the bow, reminding that of Cecil Mc Bee.Each of them enriches the ensemble with their personality, originality and musical generosity. The rehearsal hall is rapidly invaded by the phenomenal instrumentarium put together by Armand Amar. A great opportunity for the musicians, for the dancers, to have access to an endless choice of instruments, offering infinite possibilities for mixing different colors and timbres. Their sense for being a group and their great capacity for improvising culminates, in 1986, in the composition of their first and only album Comme au Moulin (« As by the windmill"), testimony of years of creating without hidden agenda.Authentic, free and vibrant, still today, this album has no real equivalent. Even though it recalls the Fourth World current by its combination of traditional instruments with a subtle use of synthesizers, Comme au moulin gives more space to improvisation. It may also recall those of Midori Takada, less the New Age esthetics. An album that should delight as well lovers of "Love Supreme" by John Coltrane, of "Vernal Equinox" by Jon Hassell, as those of Moondog, an artist who, like them, invented a music based on the use of untypical percussions, at the confluence of 'Extra-European' traditions, Jazz and Classical, all together complex and hypnotic.

RSD021 // Rocksteady Disco Remixes by Dudu Tucci