Sublime Frequencies

Pastor Chris Congregation

West Virginia Snake Handler Revival "The Shall Take Up Serpents"

Sublime Frequencies

***West Virginia Snake Handler Revival "They Shall Take Up Serpents" marks the arrival of a landmark record, documenting the last, snake handling church in Appalachia. Featuring hillbilly rock guitars, trance-like rhythms, and howling vocals, this album was recorded 100% live and without overdubs by Grammy-award winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project). The first release of American music ever by Sublime Frequencies, Brennan states, "As much as I've traveled around the globe to remote areas such as Comoros, the southeast Sahara or up-river in Suriname, few places have felt more foreign or 'exotic' than this part of Appalachia. The recording represents in many ways a companion and counterpoint—the other side of the Deep South, so to speak—to the music that was explored on the Parchman Prison Prayer albums. The Snake Handler album was an attempt to listen across that divide—a divide that's never fully healed and continues to haunt and imperil the USA to this day." The recording took place during a two-plus hour Sunday service in the West Virginia mountains. Brennan states, "I'd sworn to stay far away from the snakes at the service, but instead they were waved in my face as they coiled in the preachers' hands, and I crouched down at the foot of the altar tending to the equipment. The pastor soon was bitten and blood splattered, pooling on the floor. The female parishioners hurriedly came to wipe up the mess, and it instantly became clear just what the...

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Music From The Mountain People of Vietnam

Sublime Frequencies

***Other worldly folk music from the Central Highlands of Vietnam performed by some of the most renowned musicians of the region, this exceptional document features small ensembles and solo performers on a variety of unique instruments (many with vocals). This is rare and disappearing music from the Jerai, Banhar, Ede, and Rongao ethnic groups and although the recordings are made during informal settings, they are raw, emotional, dreamy, and transcendent.From Vincenzo Della Ratta's liner notes: "In recent decades, the traditional cultures of various ethnic groups in Vietnam have undergone dramatic changes, leading to the radical transformation or even loss of some long-standing traditions, all of which has also had a significant impact on the musical traditions of the Central Highlands. The recordings on this album reflect this period, in which the last representatives of the old musical traditions have coexisted with a new wave of musicians and performers. This shift has affected the musical instruments used, the functions or contexts in which they are played, the repertoires, and the playing styles. A further characteristic of musical change in the Central Highlands is the influence of Western or Vietnamese music, evident in the way young musicians perform with a clean and measured style, with the standard Western tuning. This contrasts with the traditional playing style of older generations, and both styles are featured on this album. Rather than just being a 'musical postcard,' this album is intended to provide an accurate sonic representation of the musical landscape in the Central Highlands...

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Born In The City of Tanta - Lower Egyptian Urban Folklore and Bedouin Shaabi from Libya's Bourni Records 1968-75

Sublime Frequencies

***Egypt's "official" popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo. However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records. Launched in the late 1960s in Benghazi, Libya, Astuanat al-Bourini (Bourini Records) published some 40 to 50 titles from 1968 to 1975. Bourini released 7-inch 45 RPM singles by 15 artists, all but one of them Egyptian, igniting brief careers for Alexandrian singer Sheikh Amin Abdel Qader and the blind Bedouin legend Abu Bakr Abdel Aziz (aka Abu Abab). The tracks compiled here comprise a full range of styles covered by the label, while highlighting some of its most gobsmacking moments. More than half century old, this music has lost none of its urgency, presence, or relevance. We hear these artists as if they'd just joined us in our living room, and not on a stage decades ago surrounded by tens of thousands of long-forgotten acolytes.

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Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar

Sublime Frequencies

***Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted—ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations—which last between three and seven days—cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings. This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of...

Pal, Madhuvanti

The Holy Mother - Madhuvanti Pal Plays The Rudra Veena

Sublime Frequencies

***This is the first Vinyl LP ever released featuring a woman playing the Rudra Veena. Madhuvanti Pal is from Kolkata India, teaches the Rudra Veena and builds her own instruments. The name Rudra Veena derives from two Sanskrit roots: Rudra, which is a name for Shiva, and veena, which means "instrument." The first historical accounts of the instrument are given in the Vedas, and then the Puranas. According to Hindu mythology, the Rudra Veena has a unique origin. It is said that Shiva saw his beautiful wife Parvati sleeping, with her arm over her breasts, and decided to build an instrument in her form. It is a stick zither, with two large gourds attached to a hollowed neck. Dhrupad is the oldest form of North Indian classical music that is still performed today. During the Mughal period, the Rudra Veena was a popular Dhrupad instrument, and was often played in courts throughout north India. Dhrupad musicians, including Rudra Veena artists, enjoyed the patronage of various Kings and Princes. In recent years the Rudra Veena has gained some popularity, in part thanks to interest from musicians outside of India. Madhuvanti Pal is one of the new generation of Rudra Veena artists who is teaching students in India and abroad. Early documentation suggests that women played the instrument. This can be seen in sculptures in Hindu temples—some dating back more than 2000 years—which depict only women playing the Rudra Veena, and miniature paintings from the 15th - 17th centuries often depict a...

Baba Commandant And The Mandingo Band

Sonbonbela

Sublime Frequencies

***Sublime Frequencies release the third LP from Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band . Sonbonbela was recorded in the beginning of 2022 in the Republic of Burkina Faso. The group continue to hone their trademark fusion of Mandingue and Afro-beat styles. The Mandingo Band are a hit machine, sculpting seven new tracks of near Beefheart/Magic Band dynamics, Fela inspired groovers dusted out in the Sahel zone, rather than the humidity and sweat of Lagos, creating one of the most original and propulsive musical statements to come from the contemporary West African cultural juggernaut. As with previous releases, the band features the legendary guitar pyrotechnics of Issouf Diabate, truly one of the greatest West African (or Earth for that matter) guitarists of the last forty years. The band is completed by a near bottomless barrel of artistry from the Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso musical talent pool. On bass guitar, Wendeyida Ouedraogo, on drums Abbas Kabore, and on percussion and balafon, Nickie Dembele. Leading the charge again is the captain himself, Mamadou Sanou on the Doso Ngoni featuring one of the most distinctive voices of the modern era. The opposite of the banal trends of auto-tune that have pervaded most of West African popular music, Baba's voice still impresses with its gravel and grit, showcasing a range that is ancient and defiant in equal measure. This LP is a non-stop hit parade of Afro-beat bangers destined to light dancefloors and living rooms ablaze! This album is dedicated to the memory of Massimbo...

Khorshid, Omar

Guitar El Chark

Sublime Frequencies

***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! The late OMAR KHORSHID remains an iconic legend of the Arab world, though he's received criminally little international acclaim. Born in Cairo in 1945, the glittering age of Egypt's cultural reinvention, Khorshid was soon to become one of its luminaries and most well-known, if short-lived, voices. He is regarded as the greatest guitarist the Arab world has ever known. By the mid-'60s, Khorshid was established with his group LE PETIT CHATS, an Egyptian beat group modeled after the prevailing influence of Elvis and The Beatles. It was at this time that one of the reigning figures of contemporary Arabic music, Abdel Halim Hafez, asked Omar Khorshid to join his orchestra. With Baligh Hamdi composing, Hafez with Khorshid in place would create some of the most innovative modern sounds in the Arabic musical canon. Time with the Hafez orchestra offered Khorshid instant fame, and it wasn't long before he was asked to play with the queen of Arab music, the voice of Egypt herself, Oum Kalthoum. Over the next few years, Khorshid became a well-established and integral part of the Arab musical landscape. He was featured heavily in live concerts, national TV and radio and studio recordings, playing for the leading artists of the day. The tracks included here in this retrospective are from the prolific span of Khorshid's career in Beirut from 1973 to 1977. CD version features ten bonus tracks and a 14-page booklet in tri-fold digipak.

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Thai Pop Spectacular - 1960s-1980s

Sublime Frequencies

***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! Thai pop history has been largely ignored and neglected by the international musical community for far too long. By the late 20th century, Thai pop music had developed as many faces as localized roots music such as molam or styles like luk thung or luk krung (each with their own respective pop-sectors). Bangkok—always the hub of the Thai recording industry—attracted musicians and singers from across the country that were both informed by tradition and inspired by the wealth of international sounds entering the region via radio and phonograph. Jazz, for instance, had a profound influence on early Thai pop music, the King of Thailand himself being a noted jazz composer. This superb collection features modern Thai music styles combining with elements of surf, rock, funk, disco and comedy, revealing the use of clever instrumentation, brilliant vocals, great arrangements, twisted breaks, and resourceful production techniques. Discover the Queen of Luk Thung, the 1960s "Shadow Music" sound, classic tracks from Thai films, blazing examples of Bangkok disco from the 1970s, legendary Thai comedy pop, and the most outrageous version of "The Night Chicago Died" you'll ever encounter. Thick horn sections, wah-wah guitars, tight drums, and funky organs help round out this astounding set which proves beyond a doubt that the Thai were a completely unique and powerful force during the 1960s, '70s & '80s global popular music explosion. Gorgeous double-LP heavy gatefold vinyl.