Širom live at National Radio Slovenia, Val 202, radio show Izštekani 20.09.16, with guests:
Tea Vidmar - voice
Neven M. Agalma - electronics, noise art
Yoshio Machida - steel pan 

Foto: Alan Orlič Belšak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKO_8QMNPwc&feature=youtu.be

http://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/izstekani-video/174427431

01 Čolni (Širom & Tea Vidmar)

ŠIROM - I.

Release date:
- Europe: 12.01.2016, ZARŠ Rec. / KLOPOTEC Rec. (CD / DL)
- Japan: 17.07.2016, AMORFON Rec. (CD / DL)

Download:
https://zars.bandcamp.com/album/i
https://amorfon.bandcamp.com/album/i

I. is the debut album of the Širom trio, comprised of Ana Kravanja, Samo Kutin and Iztok Koren, who stem from the Slovenian regions of Kras, Tolminsko and Prekmurje and are members of various other groups, such as Najoua or ŠKM banda. 

Their form of expression is original, stylistically homogeneous, incorporating a wide array of folk sounds on one side and contemporary acoustic rock style meditations on the other. The end result is grounded yet still mystical minimalism. 

Širom's music is contemplative, but can get harder when necessary, it is closer to being band- than chamber-like, to being street as opposed to urban in nature. It is mostly instrumental and features miniature combinations of folk, classical and improvisational elements to make for an original and very moving experience. It is already interesting enough to look at the building blocs of Širom's sound, since the musicians use a wide range of instruments from around the world, including the banjo, ukulele and balafon, as well as homemade instruments and bells. It is unbelievable what a world of sound they conjure up, how many nuances of sound, how quickly this penetrates the ears and cuts into the subconscious. 

The creating of patterns and entwining of delicate musical pastels calls for a focused listener, since there is a feeling that the fragile edifice can be blown away in any moment. The lyrical and sophisticated album reveals an unfathomable beauty of dichotomies – it is sophisticated but at the same time never finished, unobtrusive but still principled, improvisational and collective, curious and simultaneously fatigued, restless and ethereal. 

Širom have released a record which unveils the personal while discovering new worlds and which deserves to be celebrated as a gem of the Slovenian music scene, notwithstanding or maybe precisely because of all the misguided attempts at defining “slovenianhood”. 

Tracklist:
1. Samotni mora dehteti / The Lonesome Has to Scent 05:32 
2. Svetlobni prelaz čez vrnitev / A Passage of Light on Return 15:31 3. Trilogija / Trilogy 17:44 
4. Mehki koraki rjovenja / Roar's Soft Steps 07:27 
5. Vsak dan je jutri nov dan / Tomorrow, Each Day is a New Day 02:12 

Iztok Koren - banjo, bass drum, chimes, balafon 
Ana Kravanja - violin, viola, ribab, kalimba, bendir, balafon 
Samo Kutin - ukulele, kalimba, homemade harps and steel drum, balafon 

Painting Marko Jakše 
Photo Nada Žgank, Noemi De Pas, Tit Brecelj
Cover design Eva Kosel, Yoshio Machida
Recording, mixing and mastering Iztok Zupan 
Recorded without overdubbing in Posavec, Slovenia 2015

05 Vsak Dan Je Jutri Nov Dan

taken from: Tamikrest - Kidal
Order direct:
https://goo.gl/jpnbkM
Streaming, iTunes & Amazon:
https://idol.lnk.to/Kidal

All around Kidal, the Malian desert stretches in every direction. Endless horizons of rock and sand, barren and parched. This is the southwestern edge of the Sahara, the home of the Tuareg people, and the town of Kidal is one of their main cultural centres. Fought over, conquered and re-conquered, it remains the symbol of Tuareg defiance and hope, the spiritual home of a dispossessed people.

It is also the town in which Tamikrest first came together as a group, and on Kidal, Tamikrest’s fourth studio album, the band pays homage to this place that’s nurtured them and their people.

It’s a cry of suffering and the yell of rebellion. It’s power and resistance. This is pure Tuareg rock’n’roll.

“Kidal talks about dignity,” Ag Mossa says. “We consider the desert as an area of freedom to live in. But many people consider it as just a market to sell to multinational companies, and for me, that is a major threat to the survival of our nomadic people.”

The Tuareg have always been nomadic people, their lives in motion across the desert, sometimes taking with them only the bare essentials. But for one brief moment they possessed a home after the Tuaregs rose up in 2012 and declared the independent state of Azawad in the northeast of Mali. It lasted less than a year, as first al-Qaeda conduits swept in from the north, imposing Islamist rule, and then the French military arrived to liberate the area - once again leaving the Tuareg with little or no chance for self-determination. But the dream remains, still trapped between governments and the greed of global corporations.

“Kidal, the cradle of all these uprisings, continues to resist the many acts perpetrated by obscure hands against our people,” notes band associate Rhissa Ag Mohamed. “This album evokes all the suffering and manipulation of our populations caught in pincers on all sides.”
The songs on Kidal evoke a long history. And for all the electricity, as Ag Mossa observes, “It’s very traditional if you go deeply into what I’m playing.”

Everything here is focused. Everything burns. Ag Mossa punctuates his lyrics with inspired bolts of guitar. Even an acoustic song like “Tanakra” maintains a luminous edge.

With Kidal, that blaze is roaring. Recorded in Bamako, Mali in the summer of 2016, the album was produced by Mark Mulholland (Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra) and mixed by David Odlum, who received a Grammy for his work with Tinariwen. It’s an album that’s taken two years to make, Ag Mossa says, “because we share the same difficulties of our people.” And the songs here mirror their joys, their pain and their unwillingness to accept things as they are.

There’s a raw beauty in Tamikrest’s rock’n’roll. It’s there in the driving, insistent groove that powers the songs, the lean, snaking bass lines and the guitars that twine and twist around the melodies, and the utterly natural musical blending of Sahel Africa, the Maghreb, and the West – a reflection of influences as diverse as Pink Floyd, Rachid Taha, and flamenco. Yet the Sahara, and the people who live there, is always firmly at its heart.

“This music was founded on a very precise cause, the Tuareg cause,” Ag Mossa told journalist Andy Morgan in 2013. They might be threatened on all sides, but they won’t give up, and this album celebrates who the Tuareg are, the Kel Tamasheq (“those who speak Tamasheq”), the keepers of an ancient and endangered cultural voice.

Tamikrest’s new album is the music of defiance, of hope. It’s rock’n’roll from the Sahara, the sound of the Tuareg dream, a dream that will be renewed again, in their ancestral town: Kidal.

Kidal

Ehad Wad Nadorhan

Tamikrest - Ehad Wad Nadorhan

ŠIROM

Ana Kravanja:violin, viola, ribab, qeychak, balafon, bendir, flutes, various objects, voice

Samo Kutin: ikitelia, hurdy gurdy, tampura brač, lyre, melodica, chimes, percussion, objects, voice

Iztok Koren: banjo, three-string banjo, balafon, gamelan, tank drum, percussion, various objects


The intertwining of diverse musical approaches, tools, histories of sounds and unbridled musical imagination and craftsmanship; these are the expansive guiding principles behind the Slovenian trio Širom. 

More than a dozen instruments can be found in the repertoire of Širom and at least as many musical forms can be perceived as inspirations for this new ensemble. However, despite these diverse influences and strategies, Širom remain anchored in a highly individual creative process, that keeps them from merely reflecting pre-existing musical patterns. They create an original, stylistically homogeneous form of expression that oscillates between a wide array of folk sounds and contemporary acoustic rock-style meditations.
 
Širom music is contemplative, but can be sharp when necessary, it is closer to being band- than a chamber group.

Band contact: sirom.band@gmail.com

Website: http://siromband.si/

Store: https://zars.bandcamp.com/album/i
https://sirom.bandcamp.com/

Label: https://glitterbeat.com/

05 Vsak Dan Je Jutri Nov Dan

Širom

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