On the other hand/hemisphere, I was looking forward to seeing konono no.1, but they weren’t there. must be visa problems i thought. sadly it was. a statement from the group’s manager:

“This is the Schengen zone. The countries pass the buck to each other and each one asks for different documents. They are stopping a group which earns money, feeds dozens of families and has no intention of living anywhere except for the Congo from travelling to Europe. The proof of that is that they have all returned to their country after numerous international tours.” via.

Biometric visas are soon to be EU-wide, but the UK is ahead of the game. Each member of the band must travel to the nearest UK visa office to be fingerprinted. In Konono no.1’s case the nearest office is 1500 miles away in Kenya. This proved financially and logistically impossible despite the intervention of Congo’s interior minister and the contingent factors that the band are veterans of several international tours, have the high profile of having recorded with Bjork and been put on a pedestal by the BBC. As in the case of Les Amazones de Guinée the UK still retains the right to turn musicians with visas away at the border. (via). Precedents such as Papa Wemba’s entourage might provide an excuse, but mass-fingerprinting (for both now and held for posterity) whether it happens to anyone (non-EU) who wishes to enter the UK or to every Roma person in Italy - link -(with the echos of fascism and extermination that invokes) is terrifying, driven in no small part by the political logic of a permanent and total security emergency (”emergenza di sicurezza”) and the massive post 9-11 bubble economy that benefits from producing the technology such a situation claims to necessitate (you know that checking UK biometric visa applications is privatised and outsourced right?)

I should mention that in konono no.1’s absence el guincho stepped up and did a heavy percussive live set, but in the end that’s little comfort - especially for African musicians who don’t have konono no.1’s profile and who want to play in Europe. to explicate from one of the links buried above:

how can fingerprinting all visitors and EU nationals be considered proportionate? How can a system designed for the broad purpose of border management be limited in purpose? How can the European Commission ensure the quality of data when fingerprint and facial recognition processing is so unreliable? With no clear goal other than to use new technology how can this be seen as necessary? via.

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Konono no.1 at the Barbican, London in 2006. have old bald man must shock out.

they’re feeling tanya stephens in Greece. cover from last year:

Tanya Stephens - It’s a pity (darling riddim) 192k 5.8mb

Alkistis Protopsalti - Pame Havai (It’s a Pity) 9.5mb 320k

a cursory youtube search reveals alkistis protopsalti “celebrating 35 years of diplomatic relations between the hellenic republic and the people’s republic of china… the music is not from the concert itself.”
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next! night train to barcelona - lows of 19 degrees.

Spain’s pop-reggaeton entry to the eurovision song contest - a stain of floor lighting in central Madrid.

the US is currently holding 26000 people without trial reprieve reports, in a global network of outsourced captivity and torture that takes in or has used kenya, somalia, djibouti, albania, poland, thailand and 17 ships, 15 of which have operated around diego garcia, a UK colonial possession whose population was expelled in 1973 and which is now used as a military base. the UK government has admitted it has lied over the use of diego garcia as a site of prison/torture flights. next week it will try to push through legislation that will allow it to imprison people without trial for 42 days (that’s here, in plain sight, not hidden somewhere on the open sea). the BBC are currently reporting that enough concessions could be made to allow the legislation to pass. the political establishment rarely looks outside itself for answers. think of it as the left and right brain pan having an argument. this goes some way to explaining why anyone would think any amount of concessions would make 42 days of detention without trial acceptable. schizophrenic logic or the institutionalised believing their own terrifying bullshit depending on your choice of metaphor. its the same logic that allows systematic imprisonment and assault of people fleeing war.

the press release of the bug’s new record quotes Gibson’s Neuromancer and goes on to tell us we’re living in “end times indeed. Best start building the Marcus Garvey tug now.” although it doesn’t mention how the beast is manifesting itself. how do we feel about using (a vague sense of undirected and culturally divorced) apocalypse as a marketing strategy? is this really OK?

bear in mind that this reflects on the intentions of the publicists rather than the artists (although it’s bound to reflect on its reception as a cultural object).

but enough beating around the bush. the sound is STRONG>>>.

the bug f/ space ape - fukkaz 160k 6.6mb

kaseko is the dominant style here - breaking the body in dance since days of slavery. call, response and a big bass drum. it broke in the netherlands during the 70s when (at a guess) the first two of these records were made and distributed. a time of mass migration from suriname (one third of the surinamese population moved north) in the run up to independence in 75.

paul & the mixmo stars - moni man 320k 9.5mb

paul & the mixmo stars are playing a revival dance in holland this weekend. watch the tempo shift on this tune.

cynthia bhikharie - merie bhool 320k 9.5mb

like guyana, suriname saw an influx of indentured and migrant labour from india (and in suriname’s case dutch controlled java) after slavery was abolished. this slow dance is sung in hindi.

orchestra vejonica - dij boeko 320k 10.7mb

this one’s quite straightforward. i’ve seen indie kids dancing to it.

young cosje - snesi 320k 16mb

this one is definitely more recent - the sleeve has a picture of the band alongside a bus with the caption ‘kerst - tour - 1989′. dense drums.

and the new-school kaseko

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Kaseko-surinaams- Kawina- Bubble Mix. this guy’s got the uploads.

someone blogged it. let’s blog it again.

several heavyweight mixes raise their heads.

ripley’s latest is a killer. every thing done correct.

still tropical, vamanos brings the broad-bass blogariddims.

i think they call this momentum… you can’t argue with momentum. and the mix is full of dense open space and awesome refixes. boima’s baobab. great cover. samples here.

kingdom also has a great mix up via dot.alt - old skool stabs will grow and grow.

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Florin Salam - Regheton & Ban pe Ban [ live ]

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I daresay birdseed knows more about manele than me. a surface scraping overview might say it’s working class music from bucharest (mostly performed by Roma) which is widely considered crass, dirty, backward etc. to the extent that someone wrote a virus that deletes all the files labelled manele from your hard drive (again, birdseed knows):

“Practically any genre is worth looking up, but I say look out for the ones people hate.”

Hi-culture and middle-brow dialectics. Romanian literary critic George Pruteanu called manele: “The pisswater of society“. wiki.

something (globalised media?) brings a nice cross-current with reggae/reggaeton. Check this ‘Turn Me On’ version:

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Florin Salam & Denisa - Cineva ma suna cu numar privat (real video)

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keep on top of your manele here.

non-fiction here.

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Last summer Benge of expanding records released an album exploring the sounds of a history of synthesisers. it’s reviewed here. further synth-fetish here (via /r).

Benge - 1976 Yamaha Cs80 256k 6mb

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This one is for those who know. The golden condor rise!

Le Passage Secret 320k 4mb

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Diomay & Rma2n - les temps joue contre nous 320k mixtape version - shout if you have a clean copy. more.

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Rma2n and Vanessa Carlton

against: systematic and transnational cultural violence

what our opponents consistently misunderstand is this isn’t just about the money

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the above should not be considered the view of wordthecat but merely the view of wordthecat

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international workers day

space hijackers and the may fayre

indymedia

image from urban 75