Album preview for the debut international LP from Argentina's legendary 
= LOS SIQUICOS LITORALEÑOS = "Sonido Chipadelico" out on Sham Palace (LP) and Annihaya records (CD)(SHAM004-LP // END 09-CD)

Los Siquicos Litoraleños are the contemporary group you keep hoping exist, but can never find. A unique triumph of homegrown rural psychedelia, standing alone on the edge of an unchartered vanguard. 

•••

"Sonido Chipadelico" features some of the greatest moments in the group's dense and damaged repertoire -- mind-melting tropical psych-rock, swirling solar instrumentals, pitched down cumbias soaked in dub brine, and surrealist, shamanic lyrics laid across guitars, drums, tapes and electronics. Rich with strange passion, beauty, horror, experimentation, and humor.

Despite it being 2013, this is one of the most genuine things that has happened to contemporary music in many years. 

44 surprising minutes of deep, multi-fidelity electric and acoustic psychic sound-forms for a better today. 

Limited LP issue on Sham Palace – with insert containing lyrics, translations and anecdotal lore – available through Forced Exposure and in discerning record shops everywhere.

Also available as a limited pressing CD through Annihaya records (Beirut)
•••

Los Siquicos Litoraleños • "Sonido Chipadelico" – ALBUM PREVIEW

Singer Kieng Yuthhan from Sisophon, Cambodia recorded this track –  with his group in a makeshift studio inside the SITE 2 refugee camp near the Cambodian border in Thailand in 1986.

From the compilation CAMBODIAN CASSETTE ARCHIVES: KHMER FOLK & POP – vol. 1 (SF011 CD/LP) Sublime Frequencies 2004 CD / 2016 deluxe edition LP reissue. Compiled by Mark Gergis.

Blue Basket - All Rights Reserved - Kieng Yutthan
published by porestsound 

Kieng Yuthhan • Blue Basket (aka Sronos Kantong Khiev) •        Sublime Frequencies (SF011)

"Indonesia Pop Nostalgia" is an eclectic compilation of inspired 1970s & 1980s Indonesian pop, folk, rock and children’s songs culled from cassettes and vinyl. 
The collection spans several contemporary popular genres – each inherently unique and born from very different cultural and geographical origins within the archipelago. All, however, are also vitally informed by the confluence of Islamic, Arabic and South Asian popular and traditional musics, alongside various western musical fads – a distinctly Indonesian blend that encompasses its histories of physical colonizations, spiritual assimilations and economic and cultural exchanges. 

With synth-heavy, funked-out rock grooves, space-age organ instrumentals, folky mood-rock, and stunning hybrid traditional/pop masterpieces, "Indonesia Pop Nostalgia" features a surprising union of nostalgic musical ephemera from the islands of Java and Sumatra – connected here to serve as one of many possible entry points into the gloriously diverse sounds of Indonesian folk-pop music.

Limited edition LP Available October 9, 2012 through Forced Exposure http://www.forcedexposure.com
and fine record stores.

Featured: 

•Three incredible synth-heavy funked-out rock grooves by child singers Ira Maya Sopha & Dina Mariana.

•Orkes Melayu Bulan Purnama with the instrumental track Malam Joget in fantastic space-age organ and synth parlance.

• Dikijoknyo by Sumatran singer KIM, retelling the classic Bollywood song Man Dole Mere Tan Dole (from the 1954 film Nagin) in classic 1980s pop Minang style 

• The ethereal Borondong Garingan, performed by legendary group Bimbo – A beautiful example of Sundanese pop music from western Java, at a time when it was first becoming electrified in the 1970s.

• Orkes Melayu Purnama’s Bangla Desh, a stunning high-drama gem, driven by haunted wind and thunder sound effects woven through a chilling buzz-guitar.

• A legendary folk-rock mood-piece ("Jangan Menghina") by Aria Junior.

• Two essential Sumatran Minang instrumental tracks by the composer 
Kamar Ruddin Z., embodying a striking hybrid traditional / pop quality.

– and more, totaling 12 tracks in 43 minutes on this LP.


Indonesia Pop Nostalgia - various artists (SHAM003LP) audio samples

Dabke is the celebratory music and dance found throughout the Levantine Middle East. 
By the mid-1990s, a new wave of high-energy electronic dabke music had emerged – to be heard at weddings, parties and cassette-stalls region-wide. New wave dabke was first introduced to western ears by way of Omar Souleyman and his northeastern Syrian sounds. This collection presents a hypnotic and diverse selection of electrified dabke dance cuts from a region in the south of Syria known as the Houran.

The Houran refers to a swathe of south Syria and northwestern Jordan, beginning just below Damascus, and encompassing the Syrian cities of Daraa, Suweida, Bosra and the Golan Heights.  Its populations include Syrians, Bedouin, Druze, Palestinians and Jordanians – and this unique confluence of cultures is evident throughout these tracks. 

Hourani dabke is relentless and commanding, driven by heavy rhythms and weaving synthesizers. Long passages of intense musical fervor are punctuated by fierce male vocals, belting out calls for the audience to dance, alongside the lyrical laments and tributes to love and lust. But the sound of the Houran is best defined by the mejwiz - a double-reed bamboo flute famed for its droney overtones as well as shrill, buzzing melodic lines achieved by circular breathing techniques. 

Historically, Hourani dabke was played with mejwiz, hand percussion and narrative vocal chants.  Electronic beats have inevitably embellished the contemporary sound, magnifying the intensity – and the mejwiz players have taken their craft to the microphone, in order to maintain the instrument’s prominence over the resulting volume.  The sampled mijwiz sound has its own specific qualities and in recent years, can even be heard in combination with its organic counterpart. 

The recordings featured in this collection were captured live to the mixing desk during weddings and parties throughout the Houran during the 1990s and 2000s, and represent a mere sliver of the sounds found in tape and disc vendors throughout the region.

Release date: April 2, 2013: 
"Dabke – Sounds of the Syrian Houran" Reissue on CD (Compact Disc).

Proceeds from this release will be donated to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (IFRC) to help support urgent humanitarian aid work during the ongoing crisis in Syria.

Dabke – Sounds of the Syrian Houran - various artists (SHAM002) audio samples

Urgent:

Sham Palace is pleased to announce that “I Remember Syria” – an album Mark Gergis put together for Sublime Frequencies in 2003/2004 – will be reissued on April 23rd, 2013 as a special Sublime Frequencies digital edition in conjunction with Forced Exposure – available through iTunes, and featuring an expanded downloadable booklet with photos and text.

The most important thing about this reissue is that all proceeds will be donated to a charity that assists Syrians in need. And they are in need. 

Syria doesn’t sound like it did on “I Remember Syria” anymore, and it doesn’t look like the photographs in the expanded booklet. As you may already know, Syria is suffering in the midst of unthinkable turmoil, attack and destruction. As a wide-scale humanitarian disaster continues to unfold, Syrians both within the country and in refugee camps beyond its borders are in need of immediate assistance.

So remember to purchase a digital copy on iTunes – available after April 23rd... and tell friends. 

“I Remember Syria” was assembled as an audio love letter to the country I grew to know as one of most civilized places on Earth. It contains recordings made and collected during my first travels to Syria between 1997 and 2000. Across the span of 14 years, I would travel there as frequently as possible. When initially released on Sublime Frequencies as a double-CD in 2004, the aim was to showcase and humanize a land and its people that had been politically and culturally exiled by the west for decades. Hopefully, these recordings can serve again as a testament to the beauty and unity of Syria, and the grace, hospitality and integrity of its people. 

– Mark Gergis – March, 2013

“I Remember Syria” (SF009DI)

Sublime Frequencies is proud to present this digital reissue of I Remember Syria: an assemblage of field recordings, interviews, radio broadcasts and music, from one of the least-known quarters of the Arab world. Before the west associated Syria with its current crisis, it had politically and culturally isolated the country for decades – leaving little known of its contemporary peoples, or its rich heritage of art, music and culture. 
Originally released as a 2-CD set in 2004, this one of a kind audio document was recorded and surgically assembled by Mark Gergis from recordings he made in Syria between 1997 and 2000. The results offer a multi-faceted glimpse into the country, as it was at the cusp of the 21st century. 

Disc one features sounds from the ancient capital city of Damascus – including vivid street soundscapes, interviews, spontaneous live music, sounds captured inside the world-renowned Ummayad Mosque, and fragments of radio and television broadcasts, as well as exploring the mystery of a legendary underground city called “Kazib”.
Disc two takes us out to “Greater Syria”, capturing live musicians, political opinions of the day, radio excerpts and sketches, songs from cassette releases found around the country, and other audio anomalies. The closing track showcases the haunting sounds of wood against wood produced by the Norias – the giant irrigation waterwheels that have churned in the Orontes River, in the city of Hama, for centuries. 

All proceeds from the sale of this release will be donated to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (IFRC) to support urgent humanitarian aid work during the ongoing crisis in Syria.

http://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/where-we-work/middle-east-and-north-africa/syrian-arab-red-crescent/

www.sublimefrequencies.com

Also available for purchase immediately - with proceeds being donated the the Syrian Arab Red Crescent –  is the "Dabke – Sounds of the Syrian Houran" CD on SHAM PALACE. Available through www.forcedexposure.com or at fine record shops.

Sham Palace

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