Typically these radio shows are completely improvised, a conversational race against the needle to pull the next record off the shelves, without a concept in mind. And yet when I listen back, there is always a thematic thread that reveals itself. I’ve returned to this particular mix from March, 2024 frequently, listening either as a meditation or as a multi-directional launch point for research, allowing me to learn about the ideas, folklore, stories and mythologies that inspire this music. Each artist draws from the embodied knowledge of their own cultural history, bodily memory, and improvisational instincts to perform distinct sonic ceremonies, opening up doorways for the unknown in the process. Rooted in primordial and ancestral energies, these sonic ritual assemblages channel waves of transformational, empowering and healing vibrations through the air, planting seeds for an inter-relational, post-colonial future.
This mix was edited from a radio show that originally aired in March 2024 at www.bedcrumbshow.com
Tracklist:
- Vibracathedral Orchestra – “Me Me”
- Ilyas Ahmed – “Samanjhna”
- Embryo – “Lost Scooters” / “Chan Delawar Khan”
- Mwandishi – Hidden Shadows
- Brötzmann, Graves, Parker – “Historic Music Past Tense Future”
- Dadawah – Know How You Stand
- Dumama + Kechou – Uveni (ft. Angel Bat Dawid + Dylan Greene)
- Spaza – “Sunlight, Glycerine, 2 loose draws”
- Irreversible Entanglements – “Our Land Back”
- Meredith Monk – “Dolmen Music (Movements A & B)”
- White Boy Scream – “Apolaki”
- Alanis Obosawin – “Of the Earth and of the Sea” / “Thêo” / “Nzi Waldam”
MIXTAPE LINER NOTES:
- Vibracathedral Orchestra – “Me Me” (2006)
- After devoting years to exploratory drone jams and freeform psychedelia, this UK collective is well-practiced in conjuring the unknown through their shapeshifting sonic rituals. Culled from hours of improvisations, these recordings feel like auditory snapshots retrieved from deep unconscious wanderings, bypassing the rigid structures of the ego to tap into something primordial and unnamable. Flanging open-tuned guitars, clanging bells, and hypnotic communal percussion wash over each other in resonant waves of overtones, coalescing into an ocean of pulsations and mysterious ghost tones1.
- Ilyas Ahmed – “Samanjhna” (2005
- Recorded on an isolated farm in Minnesota, these hermetic early solo albums from Ilyas Ahmed can feel both claustrophobic and expansive. His cyclical fingerpicking, nocturnal drones and haunting vocals lull you into a shadowy inner world, where dense grainy fog dissipates into vast open skies. “Samanjhna” is a particularly reflective and meditative piece, meaning “to comprehend” or “to understand” in Hindi. Having immigrated from Pakistan to New Jersey when he was young, Ahmed’s imagery and song titles often connect to his family’s cultural roots, but his lineage of musical inspiration is extensive and borderless. “Islamic and Hindustani music and culture are a huge part of what I am, but not any more than, say, late 60’s/early 70’s English folk. I’m aware of the tendency human beings have to compartmentalize and categorize things so it’s not really a surprise certain things get heightened over others. it makes me feel good that my family can look at album art/song titles etc. and catch references that are there in honour of their culture.”2
- Embryo – “”Lost Scooters” / “Chan Delawar Khan” (1979)
- In the decades after WWII, Germany’s youth felt that they were at a cultural ground zero, obviously wanting to uproot themselves from the toxic national culture of the past. For many so-called Krautrock bands, this meant looking to the cosmos and the future as they developed innovative forms of Kosmische and electronic music. The Munich rock group Embryo, however, decided to look eastward in order to break out of their bubble, realizing that using music as a bridge to connect with other cultures could help them reflect and learn more about themselves in the process. In 1978, these German hippies piled in busses and vans to caravan from Germany to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. They spent an entire year engaging in heavy cross-cultural exchange, jamming and recording with local musicians at every stop in their journey. Considering Embryo’s restless, exploratory spirit and eagerness to connect with other people and cultures, it’s no wonder Madlib acknowledges them as his favorite rock band.
- Mwandishi – “Hidden Shadows” (1973)
- When playing on the session for Kawaida by Kuumba-Toudie Heath, Herbie Hancock and the rest of the band were encouraged to adopt Swahili names in order to build solidarity in their Pan-African identity. After Kawaida’s release, Herbie continued to use the name Mwandishi (“the composer”) for his next trilogy of albums, encouraging the members of his own ensembles to adopt their own Swahili names: Mchezaji (The Player of the Art) for Buster Williams; Jabali (Energy) for Billy Hart; Mwile at Akya (Body of Good Health) for Bennie Maupin; Pepo Mtoto (Spirit Child) for Julian Priester; and Mganga (Doctor of Good Health) for Eddie Henderson. This cultural solidarity, along with their shared spiritual practice of Nichiren Buddhist chants, resulted in such a dynamic musical chemistry that the band shared “one mind”, according to Mwile Bennie Maupin. As a group, they created a constellation of transcendent Afrofuturist masterpieces in the 70’s, where each musician had a turn being bandleader. While each album had distinct characteristics, they were united by “collective improvisation and the careful listening it requires; open musical forms; the primacy of timbre (tone color) and rhythm over and above melody and harmony; Black cultural identification and representation; and the integration of acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds as part of a single sonic tapestry”.3
- Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves, William Parker – “Historic Music Past Tense Future” (2002)
- “I think the music we do has to do with sound going into the human body and touching the spirit and healing it in some way. The intent is not to create a musical event, the music is a by-product of the healing event” (Parker, 2002)
Free improvisation inevitably invokes ideas of newness, spontaneous expression, and living in the moment, yet it is also a deeply rooted practice. For most of his life, Milford Graves was dedicated to research and education regarding the connection of musical expression with biology. The rhythms of our heart and the electrical impulses of our nervous system inform our music when we improvise, expressing the wealth of information stored in our bodies—from our traumas, joys, and ancestry to the endless mysteries we’ve carried in our DNA since the dawn of humanity. Graves, and Brötzmann were already improvising elders when this set was recorded in 2002, and continued to share their wisdom until they passed on to the realm of the ancestors in 2021 and 2023, respectively. William Parker continues to hold it down as a vital creator and respected teacher that all improvisers should look to for guidance.
I highly recommend listening to Parker’s recent illuminating and inspiring interviews on the Ear Expansion podcast
- “I think the music we do has to do with sound going into the human body and touching the spirit and healing it in some way. The intent is not to create a musical event, the music is a by-product of the healing event” (Parker, 2002)
- Dadawah – “Know How You Stand” (1974)
- In the 1930s, early Rastafarians took influence from Jamaican Burru drumming and developed their own drum ceremonies. This form of drumming was performed, alongside communal chanting, at religious gatherings known as “Nyabinghi”, which means “mother of abundance” or “death to all oppressors” according to different sources45. As can be expected, these rituals were both spiritual and political, meant to confront oppressive systems and generate abundance, liberation, and healing for the people.
Dadawah, aka Ras Michael, was a master percussionist that recorded on many reggae sessions, but mostly specialized in these religious forms of Nyabinghi drumming reserved for communal ceremonies. In 1974, Dadawah decided to capture some of this magic on tape, and paired these sacred rhythms with psychedelic dub-production, culminating in the mystical and powerful Peace and Love—Wadadasow.
- In the 1930s, early Rastafarians took influence from Jamaican Burru drumming and developed their own drum ceremonies. This form of drumming was performed, alongside communal chanting, at religious gatherings known as “Nyabinghi”, which means “mother of abundance” or “death to all oppressors” according to different sources45. As can be expected, these rituals were both spiritual and political, meant to confront oppressive systems and generate abundance, liberation, and healing for the people.
- Dumama + Kechou – “Uveni” (ft. Angel Bat Dawid + Dylan Greene) (2020)
- Released on the progressive South African label Mushroom Hour Half Hour, Buffering Julu blossoms into a vibrant document of “nomadic future folk”, rooted in ancestral rhythms and folklore. With collagist sensibilities, homemade instruments and an orientation towards magical realism, Dumama + Kechou weave their Xhosa chants and poetic storytelling into polyrhythmic tapestries of percussion loops, layered improvisations and futuristic production.
“As much as we have a hard time grounding and existing in the urban West we also feel a strong sense of non-belonging within more rural and culturally integral parts of our communities. This gap within your own existence is a mirror of the sociocultural gap between communities all around the globe pushes us to become mediators and bridges.” -Kechou6
- Released on the progressive South African label Mushroom Hour Half Hour, Buffering Julu blossoms into a vibrant document of “nomadic future folk”, rooted in ancestral rhythms and folklore. With collagist sensibilities, homemade instruments and an orientation towards magical realism, Dumama + Kechou weave their Xhosa chants and poetic storytelling into polyrhythmic tapestries of percussion loops, layered improvisations and futuristic production.
- Spaza – “Sunlight, Glycerine, 2 loose draws” (2019)
- On May 17, 2015, six improvising musicians from the Johannesburg avant-garde convened at the Spaza Art Gallery to record this magical, one-off performance. Although the polyrhythmic grooves of upright bass and hand percussion feel intricately interlocked, this complete ancient-future ritual was actually improvised in a single take. The haunting vocoder voices seem to reach out from the future to guide us through the ether.
9. Irreversible Entanglements – “Our Land Back”
Listening to Irreversible Entangements’ discography from an elemental perspective, I’ve always heard the scathing free jazz of their debut as fire music, the ostinato grooves of Who Sent You? as grounding earth music, and the fluid meditations of Open the Gates as healing water music. Protect Your Light, their first on the legendary Impulse! Records, possesses a lightness that isn’t really found on those heavier International Anthem records. This is celestial, luminous air music…and the air must have been rich with ancestral resonances when this LP was recorded at the historic Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey, where so many holy grails of so-called jazz were created. A chorus of horns from the past and present harmonize in their calls for love, peace, protection, healing, “cultural preservation, strong community bonds, the furtherance of human potential, and above all liberation.”7
”Weaving past futures / And not-yet threads of a story / Ending in the present / Always late arriving / Who holds our stories/ Who takes our land
Who knows what happened? / In South Carolina, in New York, in Palestine, in Iran / Who knows what happened, / Post-ponder chaos / A light at the end of what can’t be illuminated” (Camae Ayewa)
10. Meredith Monk – “Dolmen Music (Movements A & B)” (1981)
With the help of a sympathetic choral ensemble and limited accompaniment for cello, the composer and experimental vocalist Meredith Monk is committed to exploring the visceral, emotional and somatic aspects of the voice, discovering and expanding the possibilities of its expression. Named after prehistoric stone monuments known as dolmen, these solemn rituals evoke mysterious visions of megalithic ceremonies, taking listeners deep into a pre-lingual, primordial space.
11. White Boy Scream – “Apolaki”
Drawing from ancestral Filipino knowledge and myth, the experimental opera singer and sound artist Micaela Tobin creates “sonic rituals for decolonizing the ancestral voice”8. “Apolaki” refers to the powerful god of the sun and warfare, who warned of the foreigners (Spain, America, Japan) that would colonize their islands and try to kill their gods9. In their brutal mission to Christianize the original peoples of the Philippines, the colonizing Spanish would portray these ancient deities as demons, even identifying the moon-eating dragon Bakunawa10 as Satan himself. Using her impassioned vocals and noisy electronics, White Boy Scream summons the power of these sacred deities to exorcise ancestral trauma and declare spiritual warfare against these colonizing forces that have persisted over the centuries. Just as the original people of the islands’ would create communal cacophony to prevent Bakunawa from swallowing the full moon, White Boy Scream’s abrasive sounds rage against the oppressive powers attempting to swallow the world.
12. Alanis Obomsawin – “Of the Earth and of the Sea” / “Thêo” / “Nzi Waldam
Although her family moved out of the Odanak reservation when she was a child, Alanis Obomsawin would return frequently throughout her life in order to sustain that vital connection with her culture and community. Now 92-years old, the filmmaker, activist, printmaker and folk singer is primarily known for creating over fifty documentaries for the National Film Board, many of which depict the issues and resistance of first nation people in so-called Canada and the northeastern US. In her youth, she began writing her songs as a healing response to the challenges and anti-indigenous sentiments she experienced while growing up in the settler society of Québec. She began performing around the folk and activist circuits in 1960, but wnet going many decades without recording a full album. Finally in 1988, she privately pressed her debut LP, Bush Lady, which sets Obomsawin’s multilingual storytelling and poetry, as well as Waban-Aki folk songs, to traditional drumming and avant-garde chamber arrangements for strings and woodwinds.
The record’s second side begins with “Of the Earth and of the Sea”, a brief, animistic poem inspired by Obomsawin’s time visiting multiple indigenous nations throughout so-called Canada, seeking to understand what connected these diverse communities11. On the 16-minute “Thêo”, Obomsawin’s voice is accompanied by the slow beat of a traditional drum and occasional swirls of woodwinds. In French, she somberly shares the tragic history of the 1759 raid on her ancestors in Odanak, when Major Rogers and his British Rangers ruthlessly attacked a village of women, children and hunters while their warriors were away.12 Closing the circle, Obomsawin returns to her native Waban-Aki language to sing a traditional a ’cappella that was written in the wake of this tragedy. “Nzi Waldam” is an intimate lamentation, sung from the perspective of a young girl who survived the raid by hiding in a ravine. “I am lonesome. Malianne is lonesome. Where are my friends? Where are the trees? Odanak is gone.” And yet, despite the pervading apocalypse of settler-colonialism, the “people of the sunrise” continue to exist, resist, and remain connected with their occupied traditional territories.
Further Research
1 https://www.furious.com/perfect/neilcampbell.html
2 https://www.clashmusic.com/features/silent-sigh-ilyas-ahmed/
3 Gluck, B. (2012). You’ll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi band. Chicago. Page 2.
4 https://afranaphproject.afranaphdatabase.com/images/stories/downloads/dictionary/kinande-en_dictionary.pdf
5 https://jahbillah.com/2016/11/03/on-ghetto-nyabinghi/
6 https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/dumama-kechou-duo-went-rare-musical-excavation
7 Protect Your Light LP sleeve notes
8 Micaela Tobin (White Boy Scream) “Almost Songs of the Bakunawa” – “Latík: Songs for my Grandmother”
9 APOLAKI’S LAMENT: Who killed the ancient Filipino gods?
10 BAKUNAWA: The Moon Eating Dragon of Philippine Mythology
11 Bush Lady LP liner notes
