MUSIC FROM PLANET EARTH: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

Initially founded in 2002 as an offshoot of the celebrated Knitting Factory club in lower Manhattan, Knitting Factory Records, along with the new Knitting Factory club in Brooklyn, was reborn in 2009 with the acquisition and re-release of the Fela Kuti catalog. KFR also encompasses the catalogs of Instinct Records, Shadow Records, Shimmy Disc, and Evolver Records.

In partnership with Partisan Records, a Brooklyn-based artist-run label, Knitting Factory Records strives to honor the music of an eclectic array of relevant artists drawn from both the past and the present.

“Music is the weapon. Music is the thing of the future. Music is the weapon of the future.” - Fela Kuti

Asma Ghanem is a Palestinian visual artist & experimental musician, born in Damascus-Syria(1991). She has a B.A. from The International Academy of Arts-Palestine & M.A. degree in Audio-Visual Arts from ISDAT(École supérieure des beaux-arts de Toulouse)in France. Asma has participated in exhibitions, residencies and workshops in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, USA, Lebanon, UAE, Norway, Jordan and Palestine and was awarded the 3rd prize in the YAYA (The Young Artist Award- The Hassan Hourani Award, 2016)for her experimental music project (Homeland is…). She was also awarded a special mention in the Palest’in & out Festival in Paris in 2015 for her Photography project. Asma participated as a Fellow in OneBeat 2017 global music exchange, a U.S. State Department initiative managed by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation that each year brings outstanding individual musicians from around the world to the U.S. for four weeks of collaborative creation, performance, and engagement with communities.
For more information & projects: asma.ghanem.art@gmail.com

OKeh short history: 

OKeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann when he set up his own recording studio and gramophone record pressing plant in New York City in September 1918. Heinemann formed the name of the record label "OKeh", from his initials.  OKeh began by issuing popular songs, dance numbers, and vaudeville skits similar to the fare of other labels, but Heineman also wished to experiment with music for audiences neglected by the larger record companies. OKeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, and Yiddish for the USA's immigrant communities. In 1920, Ralph Peer's recordings by African-American blues singer Mamie Smith were a surprise smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant, little-tapped market for blues and jazz by African American artists. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Bix Beiderbecke are only a few names of jazz greats that have recorded for the label. By 1926 Columbia Records bought the label and kept it running into the 60's with jazz and R&B recordings. 

In 1994, Sony Music reactivated the OKeh label as a new-age Blues label. Okeh's first new signings included Keb' Mo, Popa Chubby, and Little Axe. By 2000, the Okeh label was again retired, but in 2013 it will see its re-launch as a jazz label once again.

Duo from north Wales.
https://fullofjoyrecords.bandcamp.com

Sad songs / Singer-songwriter / Portland, Oregon

Richard Beebe is following