If you are a copyright owner and believe that your copyrighted works have been used in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, here is our DMCA Notice.
Ah, Grasshopper! A mainstay of My Castle of Quiet playlists from the very beginning. This Brooklyn duo has traversed the most-eerie of improvised / otherworldly territories, and come out the other end, as outstanding soloists and collaborators, in many projects outside of Ghop. Their musicianship remains expert, the sheer quality of them "knowing what they're doing," and choosing to do THIS, is one of the great charms / inspirations of Grasshopper, still very much the "mothership" for Josh and Jesse.
Fans will find the band largely in familiar territory here, painting a slow-burn garden of creeping dread and pulsation, cradled by ethereal long tones. "Witch's Blood in a Sauce" finds them especially "on," adding unanticipated horror-dressing to their usual array of mesmerizing sound evolution. Always good, and always at home on MCoQ.
Grasshopper have new work out or coming soon, on various formats / labels. The new, full-length Grasshopper LP (their third 12" on vinyl), Dark Sabbath: Symbols of Evil is coming soon on Hausu Mountain. Jesse and Josh also have a solo / split tape, Josh Millrod / Shingles, also on Hausu, there's a full Shingles cassette, First God Planted a Garden (2AM Tapes) ,and a Josh Millrod solo cassette, Seeking the Millenary Kingdom, on Solid Melts. (MCoQ archive links: Josh | Shingles)
Thanks as always to audio engineer Juan Aboites, for his professionalism and talent, and to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting, for continuing to immortalize my crappy iPhone band captures. (This one is especially good, recalling the hippie-photo-collage covers of Amon Düül and their ilk.)
WFMU, among a great many other things, is about community, i.e., presenting and promoting local musicians / artists / humorists, in addition the great International performers we present. My Castle of Quiet has always been about the business of seeking out exceptional local musicians, and it doesn't get too much more local for us than Through Thorn and Brier, their craft honed in our shared County of Hudson, NJ. At one time, WFMU's staff was chock-full of NJ-bred radio personalities, many of whom lived and or passed through nearby Bayonne, including late-great broadcasters and good friends of mine, Terry Folger and Frank "Vanilla Bean" Balesteri, both of them taken from us way too soon. Bayonne borders directly on WFMU's home town of Jersey City, and offers great pizza, good bars and a decent standard of living for a largish NJ city. All that considered, if you told me that Bayonne had bred a strong, talented, one-of-a-kind punk / metal band, I still might have doubted the veracity of your claim, not sure why though. That is, right up until the first time I heard Through Thorn and Brier.
Originally stumbling upon their songs on bandcamp, in a position I now often find myself in, checking out a band that I missed live for no good reason except that I generally like to stay home. Sporting twin brothers on vocals and guitar, amidst a mighty, accomplished lineup, TTAB play a threatening, driven brand of metal-infused punk music, with arcing guitar melodies, swinging, thudding riffs, and ominous, almost tribal beats; add roaring vocals and a general mood of rolling with reckless abandon. If punk-metal hybrid bands can be "catchy," TTAB certainly ARE, their riffs immediately inspiring head swirling; one of those physically motivating bands that make me wish that I had long, straight, flowing hair to swing in time.
Every Through Thorn and Brier song is something like a mini-suite, blasting through multiple inspiring riffs and you-must-pay-attention time signatures in a matter of minutes, taking you on a ride you can't fully absorb the first time, and isn't that the way? Shouldn't a band's numbers be such that new pleasures reveal each time you listen?
Call them screamo (don't!), call them hardcore, or metal—all those genre labels quickly dissolve in the hands of the best of bands—and TTAB's songs cover a wild breadth of punk and metal styles with purpose and ease, such that the hops are never gratuitous and always contribute quite naturally to the sum of their parts.
I was very pleased to present this excellent band, well-deserving of more widespread notoriety, as evidenced here. (Note: Where songs were played without a complete stop in between, they are presented here as such, i.e., tracks 1 and 3 consist of three songs apiece.)
Thanks and much appreciation must go to engineer Juan Aboites, for working his ass off, and making everything sound full and ferocious. Thanks too, to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting, who for maybe the 100th time, pieced together a handsome band portrait from my miserable iPhone captures.
You can hear the Good Grief EP and Failure Prone MLP (both worth owning) and purchase hard copy of the same at Through Thorn and Brier's bandcamp page. There, you'll also see their use of non-typical, decidedly un-metal imagery, a move well appreciated by this DJ / writer. Also visit ttabhc.com for more up-to-date band info.
Join us for a weekend of vinyl worship: WFMU's 2014 Record Fair throws down at the Armory at Lexington and 26th St (68 Lexington Ave) in Manhattan THIS Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!
HOURS & ADMISSION
Friday, May 30th - Early Admission 4-7pm ($25, with unlimited re-entry all weekend) - Regular Admission 7-10pm ($7)
LIVE BROADCASTS - Michael Shelley (Sat 11am-1pm) - Fool's Paradise with Rex (Sat 1-3pm) - Cherry Blossom Clinic with Terre T (Sat 3-6pm)
LIVE VIDEO (watch Record Fair madness on our Ustream feed) - Clay Pigeon of the Dusty Show interviews revelers at the Fair (Sat 1pm & 6pm, Sun 1pm & 6pm) - Dan Melchior and The Flatmates perform live (Sat 3:30pm) - Live set by Laura Cantrell (Sun 2pm) - Ubu Sings Ubu Band performance (Sun 5pm)
WFMU returns once again to Austin, Texas during the annual SXSW Festival for a daytime party at Beerland! on Saturday, March 15th at 2pm Eastern (1pm Central for those in town) with a dynamite nonstop afternoon of beer-and-BBQ fueled rock! On tap: Protomartyr, Buck Biloxi and The F***s, Spray Paint, Obnox, Guerilla Toss, and Pampers! Liz Berg and Brian Turner will be hosting the broadcast live from the club, which is at 711 Red River in central Austin. It's not an official SXSW event, so no badges, but the best part is that it's FREE to the public, so those in town for the festival should get there early, or tune in to WFMU.
Check out our new 2014 swag, featuring our new Mighty Goldfinch T-shirt (left), a truckload of new DJ Premiums, and more! All new and current Swag for Life members are eligible to receive our exclusive, limited-edition black Woof-Moo T-shirt, and early pledgers get first dibs on adopting a WFMU DJ or fixture!
Yo La Tengo will be playing cover song requests in exchange for pledges on Wednesday, February 26th (9pm-midnight) on the Evan "Funk" Davies show with co-host Gaylord Fields, and WFMU's Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia close out the Marathon on Sunday March 9th with drunken live band karaoke.
Don't miss out on our biggest on-air bash of the year!
Don't miss out on the best record shopping weekend of the year! Luxuriate in the presence of hundreds of thousands of records and CDs, great films and live music, plus tons of live WFMU broadcasts!
WFMU Record Fair Nov 22nd - 24th (Fri - Sun)
Metropolitan Pavilion 125 W. 18th St, Manhattan
Early admission ($25): Fri 4-7pm (includes unlimited re-entry all weekend) Regular admission ($7): Fri 7-10pm, Sat/Sun 10am-7pm
Bring in your Record Fair postcard or this coupon for $2 off admission!
Live Music: - Shannon & the Clams: Sat 3-6pm - Liquor Store: Sat 3-6pm - Blowfly: Sun 1pm - Jeffrey Lewis & the Rain: Sun 3pm
Films: - The Mystery in Old Bathbath - a puppet movie by Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Sat 10am - MeanEnsemble: Raymond Scott's Perfect Musical World, Sat 2pm - Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals, Sat 4pm - Andrew Bird: Fever Year, Sun 4:15pm and more!
Live WFMU Broadcasts from the Record Fair include Miniature Minotaurs with Kurt Gottschalk (Fri 3-6pm), Put the Needle on the Record with Billy Jam (Fri 7-8pm), Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine (Fri 8-9pm), Michael Shelley (Sat 11am-1pm), Fool's Paradise with Rex (Sat 1-3pm), and The Cherry Blossom Clinic with Terre T (Sat 3-6pm).
Don't miss out on WFMU's 3rd annual Radiovision Festival this Saturday, October 19th, at the Scholastic Auditorium (557 Broadway) in NYC! Tickets here.
Radiovision celebrates radio's future as it takes on new forms in the
digital age for the medium's fans, tinkerers, and future thinkers.
WFMU's Studio of Tomorrow silent campaign to raise enough money to open our 100-seat radio theater to the public is gaining steam! Help us make our goal by October 31st by making a pledge below!
Earlier this year, WFMU reclaimed the ground floor space of our building* and renovated it on a shoestring. But right now the space is just an empty room with a stage, and we now need to bring it up to code and purchase some basic audio equipment so that we can open our doors to the public and start hosting events.
*(previously, we rented it out to a business that closed shop)
Station Manager Ken explains it all in the video below:
And if that didn't convince you to pledge, perhaps we can entice you with our fantastic new Junk Food T-shirt ($50) or Knit Hat ($100). More swag on view here.
What makes a great grind band? Doing as much as you can in an average of 43 seconds' song duration, flexing those ferocious chops from all angles, and, though this may be hard to explain to someone whose ears are attuned to pop music and the traditional song form, a certain "catchiness," an anthemic propulsion that will make the listener/receiver want to propel oneself into the pit without a care for personal safety. Psychic Limb have all these qualities, in spades.
I've liked these guys from the second I heard them, they stand out mightily from the pack of late 2000s grind on bandcamp and elsewhere, and they make records that stand firmly amongst the classics of the genre. And yes, they can and do reproduce it all in person.
For months, drummer Casey and I tried to schedule a live radio appearance for PL, and finally were able to line something up for the final MCoQ weekly broadcast on June 7, 2013.
This set represents their latest (and reportedly final) release, Jamaica. They still seem to be playing a few shows here and there, so if you have the chance, catch them live while you still can.
Huge thanks to live-sound engineer Juan Aboites, who deftly scultped many a live Castle session in the show's final months of its original tenure. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess, for taking these photos of the band, and for co-hosting the last show with me in person, flying in from Vancouver Island, BC, to do so. Full broadcast archive can be streamed here.
Track titles, though they hardly seem to matter, are as follows: 22, 27, 19, 20, 29, 28, 24, 26, 21, 23, 30, 25. Psychic Limb's set is presented here as it should be, as one continuous mp3.
Still working my way through the last few months of live performances on the My Castle of Quiet program, we find ourselves now at this haunting session from late May by Pat Murano and Tom Carter.
This is an exciting time for improvised music in general, and the releases on Murano's Kelippah label, including the Carter/Murano LP, are at the very forefront of this exciting post-everything era in the genre. Here, we're "after" Krautrock, after 90s space-rock (Carter being a veteran of the much-respected, much-loved Charalambides), after the Parker/Bailey EMANEM-label vibrations from the UK, after doom/drone/"organic" improv, and basically that's all a good thing, as anything goes—one can tweak and kerplunk, be melodic, be massive, be subtle and contemplative, and give bursts of electronic noise, all in the course of one session, or even one piece.
Carter and Murano seem to guide one another into vast fields of arcing melody and rhythm, and at least for this session (one must consider all the Murano / Carter works to really get the gist, including the aforementioned LP, and NATCH 4, also offered on our Free Music Archive), we're in blooming meadows of post-Kraut brilliance. Especially in "Music #2," Murano's synth figures weave intricate spiderwebs over and under Carter's Michael Rother-like, slow-burn guitar improvisations, before collapsing into a welcome noise-gasm in the concluding minutes.
Yet again, that "magic room," also known as WFMU's studio B, and the forum of the My Castle... show, seem to have provided the comfortable environment for another history-making session to occur. And though kraut/space might be the listener's initial reaction, absolutely nothing is off the table, and I hear elements of dub, doom, and wild, free noise in these tracks. Lie back, with or without your inebriant of choice, and enjoy.
Huge thanks to Tom and Pat (Mr. Murano having the dubious distinction of being the most-often-featured live performer on The Castle, having played this session, as well as ones with Malkuth, K-Salvatore, solo as Decimus, and also on Brian Turner's program in the duo Key of Shame), and to engineer extraordinaire Juan Aboites, and to Tracy Widdess for yet another varicolored photo manipulation of my scrappy captures.
As I said to the members of Bludded Head, for a good, long while, I'd been subsisting on the two, outstanding tracks from their debut 12"—and with great enthusiasm, am now proud to bring you live versions of these four, new compositions from this unique Texan doom outfit. Studio versions of the songs are also available from the band on limited CDr.
With two new members added to the lineup (and the original, intact core of Nevada Hill and Darcy Neal), these songs find BH in the realm of even greater dynamics and subtlety when compared to the tracks on their debut; the addition of double bass and an accomplished new drummer having opened up the compositional palate of the band considerably. None of the crunch has been sacrificed though, and Nevada's outrageous screams still ride atop the steamrolling melee of Bludded Head's mighty downbeats.
Doom bands come and go, many sounding similar to one another, with the greatest emphasis being placed on how far apart those gut-punch downbeats can be spaced; not so for Bludded Head, who seem in it to write, arrange and execute great songs, several worlds apart from the sameyness that characterizes many of their peers in the genre. My Castle of Quiet and WFMU caught up with the band mid-tour, and it shows, such that the freshness and intensity of these selections are at a dazzling peak.
Huge thanks are due to engineer Juan Aboites, for capturing the acoustic and electric powers of Bludded Head in equal measure, and creating a terrific, rich mix for broadcast. Thanks again to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting, for the Alchemical process she always applies to my pixel-challenged captures of the band, weaving mediocre photo-snapping into art.
This session is a monster, black-metal fire that strafes the earth and then salts it for good measure. Fuckin' unbelievable.
Speaking very generally, black metal can be divided into two, distinct subgroups; the raw and the dirty, with its roots in punk, and the more "musicianly," with expert playing, and grander, more-"orchestrated" concepts. Either way, to pass my filter, the songwriting is key, and has to be there to bring the sound across.
Naturally, there's been significant cross-pollination of these two basic styles over the years, and One Master are perhaps the finest example of a band that has chops to spare, with longer, epic songs, but with not an ounce of grit sacrificed—in fact, the sheer gut-punch of this session, as well as One Master's two full-lengths and split cassette with Glass Coffin, will simply bowl you over like a life-affirming ass-kicking. Even as I listen now, after many a deep sit-down with the material, the ferocity of One Master's Castle session is staggering and the first thing your ears will notice—melodic riffs, deftly arranged and well-written songs, delivered with mighty, mighty force.
These guys were also great to hang with, and we had lots to jaw about off-air, with our shared obsessions for classic horror / exploitation film and the like. These are men you can have a beer with, and talk about Cannibal Ferox on into the night. I recall saying, "Is there any scene in Requiem for a Vampire other than the basement-torture scene? 'Cause if there is, I don't remember it...." hehe....
Thanks a fuck-ton to the band for bringing their exquisite black-metal art to WFMU, and to engineer Juan Aboites for creating a clean, solid and forceful mix for the broadcast. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for re-crafting my shitty iPhone band captures.
WFMU returns to Barcelona's amazing Primavera Sound Festival on Friday, May 24 and Saturday, May 25th!
This year's broadcasts happen from 3pm to Midnight both days, artist schedule below. Don't miss it!
Friday, May 24
3:00 Hot Snakes
4:00 White Fence
5:00 Woods
6:00 Fuck Buttons
6:45 Merchandise
7:35 Killer Mike
8:10 Daniel Johnston
9:00 Om
10:00 Neurosis
11:00 Josef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch
11:30 Fourtet
Saturday, May 25
3:00 Swans
4:20 Orchestra Poly Rhythmo de Cotonou
4:50 Guardian Alien
5:30 Goat
6:00 Tinariwen
6:20 Mulatu Astatke
6:45 Death Grips
7:10 Thee Oh Sees
7:40 Meat Puppets
8:15 Dan Deacon
9:00 Jesus and Mary Chain
9:30 Dead Can Dance
10:00 Nurse With Wound
11:00 Omar Souleyman
11:30 Wu-Tang Clan
As the festival's official USA radio partner, WFMU has been carrying sets live from sunny Spain five years in a row, and artists we've broadcast in the past included Glenn
Branca, Grinderman, Sonic Youth, Codeine, The Pop Group, Demdike Stare,
The Monochrome Set, Marianne Faithfull, Einsturzende Neubauten,
Pavement, Pere Ubu, Wire, and many more, with archives available online and the FMA!
Carrier Belleuse Pierre La Maison De Musique (Public Domain)
This April, WFMU and the Free Music Archive are challenging artists everywhere to create new recordings and contemporary arrangements of historic compositions available in the public domain. We’re calling this our Revitalize Music Contest.
To inspire entries, we’ve handpicked a selection of out-of-copyright songs with compelling lyrics, beautiful melodies, and unusual stories. Keep in mind that unless materials are listed in our contest repository, the recordings of performances we link to are still within the scope of copyright. After learning about the songs and contest rules here below, you can browse our pool of entries and submit your own here.
An old Mormon hymn with a beautiful melody that first came to our attention when Haruomi Hosono (of Yellow Magic Orchestra) recorded a version. You can stream this version for inspiration. It features lyrics by Jeremiah E. Rankin (1828-1904) and music by William G. Tomer (1833-1896).
In addition to showing up constantly on TV, movies, and when you open musical jewelry boxes, this song has been recorded by Bing Crosby, Roy Orbison, and (our personal favorite) Justine and the Victorian Punks. It was originally a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864) that was published posthumously by Wm. A. Pond & Co. of New York.
A comic song that was performed by Al Jolson in his show The Honeymoon Express. It's also notably been sung by "outsider" musician Tony Mason-Cox, an Australian insurance agent who believed himself to be the reincarnation of a black slave from 19th Century Alabama. It was written by Billy Merson.
Felix Arndt (1889–1918) wrote this novelty ragtime-style piano roll as an engagement gift to his fiancée (and later wife), Nola Locke. He died just three years after it was published, and lyrics were later added by James F. Burns.
One winning song from our pool of entries will be given a Rebecca Black "Friday" treatment. We’ll be hiring a music video professional to create an original music video that showcases the winning song and shares it with a wider audience.
Our judges include Edward Guo (Founding Director, IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library), April Ledbetter (Dust-to-Digital Record Company), Laura Cantrell (Singer-Songwriter), Joel Meyer (Executive Producer, WNYC's Soundcheck), Adam Green (Editor, Public Domain Review) and Ken Freedman (Station Manager, WFMU). They'll be evaluating entries based on originality, creativity, artistic merit, adherence to the "Revitalize Music" theme, and general musical appeal. For the songs we’ve chosen above, we welcome exact covers, in-exact covers, repurposed elements, mashups, stems, and everything in-between.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Entries should be comprised of music that you create yourself, material that's in the public domain, or other material that you have express permission to use. Keep in mind that most recordings and performances of these public domain songs are still within the scope of copyright.
Entrants must create accounts on the Free Music Archive in order to submit to the contest. This way we have your info. You can sign up here.
Entries must be in the form of an audio recording and in MP3 format, stereo bitrate 192kbps or higher (256kbps preferred).
Entries must be submitted using our form here. You can submit as many entries as you'd like.
Songs enter the public domain when their copyright expires or if the song’s author has forfeited rights and dedicated the song to the greater good. The Public Domain Review explains the public domain eloquently as an "invaluable and indispensable good, which - like our natural environment and our physical heritage - deserves to be explicitly recognized, protected and appreciated."
MORE ABOUT CC0
While most songs enter the public domain because of old age, Creative Commons offers a CC0 Public Domain Declaration that allows artists to dedicate their work to the public domain. It seems fitting that entries to the contest will breathe new life into the Public Domain by returning to whence they came. These new works can then be more easily shared, remixed, and built upon during the contest and after the contest ends. We imagine these entries being used in video projects, coursework, video games, podcasts, and beyond.
Using CC0, you waive all copyrights and related or neighboring rights that you have over your work, such as your moral rights (to the extent waiveable), your publicity or privacy rights, rights you have protecting against unfair competition, database rights, and rights protecting the extraction, dissemination, and reuse of data. More information here.
This is the second and final week of WFMU's fundraising Marathon and we are still less than halfway to our goal, which must be met by Sunday, March 17th! Make a pledge now!
Special highlights this week:
TONIGHT - Tuesday, March 12 (9pm-mid)
A.C. Newman and John Hodgman join Tom Scharpling on the Best Show on WFMU for 3 hours of mirth, music, and mayhem! Tune in to win killer prizes, and watch it all go down on our live video feed at wfmu.org. Pledge to the Best Show using this link.
Thursday, March 14 (9am-noon)
Yo La Tengo play your cover song requests in exchange for pledges of $100 or more on Hello Children with Faye and co-host Gaylord Fields! Pledge to the Yo La Tengo request-a-thon NOW fromthis page, or tune in to pledge live.
All new and current Swag for Life members are eligible to receive our new messenger bag, and early pledgers get first dibs on adopting a WFMU DJ or fixture!
Yo La Tengo will be playing cover song requests in exchange for pledges on Thursday, March 14th (9am-noon) on Hello Children with Faye and co-host Gaylord Fields, and WFMU's Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia
close out the Marathon on Sunday March 17th with drunken live band
karaoke.
Don't miss out on our biggest on-air bash of the year!
Blissfully unaware of what was to come later in the month, in preparation for WFMU's Web-only, "silent" fundraiser, the plan for My Castle of Quiet was to mount three special programs; The Sonics of Terror, a soundtracks-only special; and two double bills—one improvised / experimental "noise" bill, and one metal bill, the latter showcasing two bands that I'd been "courting" for some months—Chicago's excellent Sun Splitter, passing through on tour, and Brooklyn's relatively unsung black-metal giants, Yellow Eyes. The latter program was to top off a very eventful month on the show, and boy, did it ever.
As great as they are different, Sun Splitter and Yellow Eyes are both exemplary and plainly evident of how wildly varied what falls under the banner of "underground metal" can be; Splitter draw on "rock," with a thick and good-smellin' Sharpie, culling from Big Black, Led Zeppelin and all points between, with a pure, dense psychedelia permeating their unique compositions, while Yellow Eyes are one of Brooklyn's best-kept black-metal secrets, true to the parent genre, while unquestionably having their own sound, wickedly sea-ferring accomplished players, great songwriters with a murky sound and an attitude to match, seeking neither fame nor widespread success; thus far, YE have released their mini-masterpieces only on cassette, though two full-length vinyl releases threaten to drop within the coming year.
Intrepid WFMU sound engineer Juan Aboites helmed both sessions, bringing to both projects the cohesion that their complex deliveries demand, and though Sun Splitter were pre-recorded on 10.24, the night before the broadcast, had I not been admitting of this fact, the listeners would never have known, the band's pulsating energy and sheer volume rattling the walls at 43 Monty; heavy, hypnotic Gibson riffs broken asunder by the psychedelic cage-rattling of men captured in H.H. Holmes' damned filthy Chicagoan underbelly.
Yellow Eyes blistered through four of their finest songs, acute treble and assaultive blast beats casting their vivid mental picture of a band of ghost sailors, maddened by syphilis and too many hours alone at sea, listening to the persistent slap of the waves against the hull.
Keep your eyes and ears on both of these bands, to build continually impressive live performances and discographies, and I cannot recommend highly enough the two full-lengths, Sun Splitter III (Bloodlust!) and Silence Threads The Evening's Cloth (Sol y Nieve.) Huge thanks to Juan and the bands for a night to remember. Both sets are presented as relative continuums, with Sun Splitter's final chunk broken off on its impressive own, and YE's set laid out as one continuous mp3.
In a never-ending quest to dig out the subterranean sounds from all corners of the earth, WFMU has hooked in with the first-ever Alchemy At Zahar festival for what's sure to be a most amazing event in the Moroccan desert province of Zagora on April 18-21st. The event, which is being put together as a philanthropic, government-sponsored endeavor to help create forward motion in a wells project in order to bring a dwindling population back into the province, will have support from the Alchemy Association, the Association of Development for People with
Specific Needs (ADPSN) of Tagounite and the Association for
Alphabetization of Tagounite. WFMU and our fellow freeform broadcast pals at KFJC in the Bay Area of California will conduct a joint broadcast (and hopeful video simulcast) from quite a bit of this event, which will feature an amazing cross-section of Western and African adventurous sounds:
Ahwach N Tferkine (traditional group from the Souss-Massa Drâa Region, featuring a choir of twelve female singers and four male percussionists), Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (experimental/film noir European combo), Lee Ranaldo (w/Leah Singer, and his band), Pelican (post-rock Chicago metal ensemble), Brothers Unconnected (Alan and Rick Bishop of Sun City Girls, also performing solo sets), Master Musicians of Bukkake (playing the Totem Trilogy), AND the legendary Master Musicians of Jajouka, ethno-prog West Coast stalwarts Secret Chiefs 3, Portuguese psych band Black Bombino, Tinariwin d'Mhamid (young Tinariwen covers band!), Abraxas, and more (full lineup/updates here). A dream lineup for both stations.
The idea of riding six and a half hours from Marrakech to the desert town of M'hamid Al Ghislane, then taking 4x4s on sand tracks an hour away to a tent/stage setup almost at the Algerian border (the Screaming Dune of Zahar) isn't your usual WFMU remote, but with the support of the Festival to bring us out, we're up for the challenge! If all goes well we will be documenting the beautiful sights and sounds along the way, hopeful camel excursions to the well sites to boot. We're extremely excited to work with organizer Basile and Alchemy, and our friends from KFJC at this event. More info to follow, and please keep an eye on Alchemy's site and Facebook. Tickets and packages for the (intrepid) public and concertgoers is also on the site. Should be amazing!
