Hassan Wargui
ⵜⵉⴷⴷⵓⴽⵍⴰ = Tiddukla

Inversions: ...After the release of Technique & Rite in 2017, and the album Terminal Desert release under the name LaBrecque / Barakat earlier this year, here comes the second “official” Crème de Hassan record on Inversions.Whereas the two previous releases were based on longer instrumental jams, Tricontinental Circus is focused on rhythm and language, and the resulting 11 tracks are short and compact, exploring the possibilities of combining these into improbable hybrids.The tracks include Haitian voodoo rhythms, a Burkinabe flute player aligned with a sequencer and a guitar + synth jam with echoes of the sound of early 1970s Düsseldorf.The languages that are dispersed across the album come from Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco and include an Arabic translation of Nietsche by friend of the band Ayoub El Mouzaine.

EM Records: ...Sonthaya Kalasin was the male lead singer in in the molam section of legendary producer/impresario Surin Phaksiri's beloved musical troupe Thidso Lam Phloen; his female counterpart was Phairin Phonphibun (EM1147CD/LP). These recordings, the very best of Kalasin's work with Phaksiri, cover the period from the mid-70s to the early 80s and showcase Kalasin's mastery of the traditional male molam lower vocal range. Also highlighted here are Phaksiri's production skills and his penchant for pushing the boundaries of standard molam arrangements and instrumentation, always trying to fuse new ideas with tradition. An uncredited Phairin Phonphibun makes an appearance on a few tracks here, giving lucky listeners a glimpse of the singers' Thidso Lam Phloen dynamism: Phaksiri's genius, a long-standing backing band, and simpatico vocal styles honed in the crucible of performance. This is the first CD release of any music from Sonthaya's years with Surin Phaksiri and as such represent a valuable document, with accompanying English lyric translations; but more than a document, "Grade A Guy" is grade A music.

Seance Centre: ...We humans, the nascent beings that we are, still haven’t quite figured out the full potential of music. Dancing, meditating, emoting, protesting; these are all pretty basic. But what if we communicated more complex ideas with music? What if we codified all of our activities with music? This idea came to composer Joanne Forman when she was commissioned to create the soundscape for an environmental exhibition of sculpture called Artifacts from an Alien Civilization in 1987. The sculptures, elaborate ruins that had been found on the moon, begged the question: who created them and for what purpose? Joanne Forman imagined that Earth’s moon was a vacation spot for advanced beings from another galaxy. Cave Vaults of the Moon became a collection of sonic texts describing the fun things that went on there; earth-viewing, collecting information, building and playing. In her mind the sculptures in the exhibit were the remnants of a deserted playground of moon castles.