Channelled madness – the sound Dawn of Midi spent years shaping, culminating into their most mesmerising work yet

With Dysnomia, the Brooklyn-based group Dawn of Midi abandons improvisation in favour of composition, utilising sophisticated rhythmic structures from North and West African folk traditions to weave a sonic tapestry of trance-inducing grooves. From close up one may see only dots, but when stepping back an undulating image reveals itself. “We didn’t want to create anything cerebral,” says Belyamani, “we wanted something visceral, something that would awaken our instinctive dance impulses.”
Having met at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles in 2006, bassist Aakaash Israni, pianist Amino Belyamani and drummer Qasim Naqvi found their original rapport through late night tennis matches on the campus court. The chemistry they founded there eventually led them back indoors to improvise together; something they did in total darkness to deprive themselves of all their senses except the crucial one – their hearing.
The manner, by which a trio of solely acoustic instruments ends up sounding like electronic music, has to do with the unconventional ways the group play their instruments on Dysnomia. The record comes to life in the trio’s critically acclaimed live shows, a test of endurance and trust that involves performing their hand-looped acoustic minimalism note for note, just as the compositions were recorded. Dawn of Midi’s sets are as energetic and rhythmic as a seamlessly mixed DJ-set, mesmerising fans in the same way the group’s favourite experimental and electronic acts have for decades.
The album was recorded to 2-inch tape at Waterfront Studios in Hudson, New York - a former church that was purchased and transformed into an analogue recording playground by the great engineer Henry Hirsch. Once the band visited the studio and met Henry, an expert in analogue recording equipped with a vintage Helios console, 16 and 24-track tape machines and a superb collection of microphones, it was obvious they had to record there; it was miles ahead of anywhere else they had visited. Rusty Santos then mixed the album to make sure it would hit as hard as the group’s favourite electronic albums do in spite of it being entirely acoustic.
“We wanted to make a record that sounded both musically futuristic and sonically vintage,” explains Israni, “and since the album never saw a proper international release, it is very exciting to see what might happen when more people are exposed to it. And to be aligned with Erased Tapes, whose enthusiasm for the music they release has done a lot for exposing unique instrumental and electronic music, makes it that much more interesting.”

Dysnomia will be released worldwide on June 1st, 2015 through Erased Tapes – available on 2x LP, CD and Download.

The Caribbean is an American experimental pop group from Washington, D.C., primarily composed of Michael Kentoff, Matthew Byars and Dave Jones. The band has been critically acclaimed for its deconstructionist approach to pop music, its wry, literary lyrics, and its eclectic sound, which incorporates elements of American pop, indie rock and experimental rock, cool jazz, folk music, lounge music, and even Brazilian music.

The band's most recent album, Discontinued Perfume, received high praise from Pitchfork Media, with the reviewer stating: "It’s as though the band had all the pieces for comfortable indie pop in its possession but no interest in putting them into a standard order. This is of course what makes them interesting. They are bound to confound your expectations several times on any given album, and if you’re into that, they’re good enough at putting these weird songs together that they can pull you in with surprising ease." [15]
In addition, the record received a 9/10 from PopMatters, wherein the review stated, "They walk out of step with prevailing pop-culture trends and fashions. Yet they’re making some of the most interesting and multi-faceted music that exists right now. Operating on the fringes, they’re nonetheless capturing essential dilemmas of our time, and doing so through the musical equivalents of quandaries, rumors, and whispers. To the band, the listener, the songs’ characters, and the instruments themselves, Discontinued Perfume is an exciting exercise in unlocking the puzzle that is the world around us."[16] Additionally, PopMatters named Discontinued Perfume the "Best Indie-Pop Record of 2011" in their year-end "Best Of" list.[17] "Mr. Let's Find Out" from the record was named to Washington, DC City Paper writer Ryan Little's "Ten Best Local Tracks of 2011,"[18] the title track from the record was named to DC City Paper Arts Editor Jonathan Fischer's "Ten Best Local Tracks of 2011," [19] the Washington Post hailed the record as a "subtle masterpiece," [20] and the Denver Post's online site Reverb listed the record as one of their Top 10 Albums of 2011, as well.[21]
Over the past few years, The Caribbean has garnered further positive press in The Washington Post, The Washington City Paper, Magnet,[22] Tiny Mix Tapes,[23] Uncut (UK), The Denver Post,[24] Flak,[25] Stylus, Harp Magazine, and Signal to Noise.

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