[engl] Ayuune Sule brings the Soul into Kologo Power. In Kumasi, the second city of Ghana and capital of the Ashanti region, Ayuune Sule is the main kologo star. The most famous kologo player these days in the whole of Ghana and abroad is King Ayisoba. Together with King Ayisoba, Guy One, Atongo Zimba and Sambo, he represents the generation that broke kologo music outside of the North East Region of Ghana. In Europe we know Ayuune Sule as a member of King Ayisoba's band and as a solo artist who often opens up for his shows. In 2015 he released his 7" single with the songs "What A Man Can Do A Woman Can Do More Better" and "Who Knows Tomorrow" on Makkum Records (MR12), which put his name out into the western scenes. And now there is the full length album of Ayuune Sule! When listening to Sule’s guest vocals on King Ayisoba's albums you hear the warm velvet voice of Ayuune Sule as a striking contrast to King Ayisoba's forceful rasping vocals. "We Have One Destiny" is full of that velvet tone and true West African soul power. Living in Kumasi makes it easy for Ayuune Sule to be influenced by southern Ghanaian music styles such as Azonto and Hiplife and fuse those with the rhythms and scales from the north. This album is a true mix between modern and traditional as Ayuune Sule included the song “Senyaane”, an acoustic song with just the sinyaka (the kalebas filled with hard berries that sounds like a giant maracas and is hit and thrown up between two hands played by Sule in King Ayisoba's band) and his voice.

[engl] Even before they would become a disruptive force on the Dutch rock scene, with their albums Wil Met U Neuken and Moddergat, the still young members of It Dockumer Lokaeltsje were admirers of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft. In 1981 these Düsseldorf-based electro-punks created a stir with their acclaimed record Alles Ist Gut. In their best known track “Der Mussolini”, a massive alternative dance hit, Gabi Delgado-López en Robert Görl dared to provocatively link totalitarianism with Christianity. In 1987 lt Dockumer Lokaeltsje recorded a cover version of “Der Räuber Und Der Prinz”, the most tantalising gay ballad ever written. Now, three decades later, the band have put all 10 vintage DAF-tracks through the wringer. Lovingly and, of course, in the Frisian language. IDoL have created a rural microcosm – populated by reluctant ghost cows, wanton mummies and rattling skeletons – whereas DAF inhabits a darkly romantic, metropolitan universe. Bridging that gap – both thematically and musically – was the main challenge. Many hours were spent holding on to beats and grooves, in order to blend IDoL’s typically short and capricious song structures with DAF’s radical minimalism. Songs such as “Sato-Sato” (whose title remains a mystery, even in Frisian), “De Röver En De Prins” and “As Wie’t De Lêste Kear” don’t stray too far from DAF’s distinct bass lines and beats. Whereas “Der Mussolini” originally by DAF ran over de dancing crowd like a tank division, It Dockumer Lokaeltsje’s steam train drivers have opted for a more rolling shuffle feel. “Myn Hert Dat Slacht” starts with an intro the band members found lying around in their rehearsal room, before settling into the compelling cadence they heard in “Mein Herz Macht Burn”. Delgado’s rhythmical singing on “lch Und Die Wirklichkeit” inspired IDoL to interpret their version as a tango. Which stays in time for a full two minutes, before complety collapsing in classic Lokaeltsje style.

[engl] Between 1985 and 1990, It Dockumer Lokaeltsje left a trail of happy confusion everywhere they went, with their whimsical, jittery songs about spooks, cows, mummies and trains. After the albums Wil Met U Neuken and Moddergat and the CD compilation It Dockumer Totaeltsje, the band took a well-earned holiday. During the absence of the trio from Leeuwarden, the microcosm that they had spawned quietly continued to grow. New characters, some dead and some alive, took up residence in the Frisian ghost village where “de Deale” (the Evil One) is feared and where the village pub stands in the middle of the graveyard, for the sake of convenience. The imperative to report on these new developments within this little world manifested itself within the band members in the way that thunder announces itself: at first with an apologetic subterranean rumble, to be followed by the brash inevitability of thunder, lightning, gathering winds and lashings of rain. This is why the album that is to be released in October is called Tonger: The Frisian word for both thunder and lightning. The music magazine Vinyl once called It Dockumer Lokaeltsje the Chroniclers of Weird Frisian Life. On Tonger, the band chronicle away lustily, while within eighteen new songs new little musical avenues are explored, branching left and right. David Thomas of Pere Ubu used to document his home region around Cleveland, Ohio by taking on the role of various characters in his songs. In the same way, we can lend our ear to the outpourings of a gamut of different characters in the songs of It Dockumer Lokaeltsje. The old school punk song “De Leafde” presents us with a primal reaction to an unrequited rural romance. “Armaggeddon Hoptille” tips its hat to New York No Wave in the form of a breathless narrative about an irreversibly upturned sheep. And while “Kettinggang” invokes a Jamaican chaingang song in the Nick Cave tradition, “De Komeet Fan Strikwerda” concerns itself with a group of suspicious villagers who gossip about and pour scorn on the scientific discoveries of a wilful fellow villager.

[engl] A black vinyl 33 1/3 RPM 12? that contains five totally adventurous remixes of bass culture clasher Malorix and one original new track by Malorix himself. In 2009 Malorix’ debut album Sound System Culture Clash appeared on Redrum Recordz. Over the following three years DJs like Filastine, Maga-Bo and JF/DS put tracks of Malorix in their sets. Here are five brand new tracks – versions and remixes of Malorix material by lovers of this album that stayed underground but is unique in style. Malorix himself delivers a shiny new track on top.

[engl] Bongo is a small town and is the capital of Bongo District, a district in the Upper East Region of Ghana. It’s a twenty minute drive to the border of Burkina Faso; “we share water” one of King Ayisoba’s band members once said. King Ayisoba, one of Ghana’s most famous musicians, was born and raised in Soe, a small village just outside Bongo; a fifteen minute drive on a sand road. Each time I visit the Bongo District, I have to visit King Ayisoba’s family too and pay my respects. Ayisoba’s father and mother are old but vital, they still work the land. I heard that during the harvest time everyone is a farmer. Young people come back home from the big cities like Accra and Kumasi to help with the harvesting and most of them have herded cows and goats when they were young. Sitting on the back of Francis Ayamga’s motorbike we make many stops. Francis plays the traditiona drum in King Ayisoba’s band and he runs a studio in Bongo. He knows most of the people in Bongo, and there is always something new going on. Of course he has to explain why he has a white man on the back of his bike. The people in Bongo are proud of all the musicians and especially of King Ayisoba and his band who play the whole world and bring the Frafra tradition to all the continents. Actually he is teaching the world some Frafra along the way since King Ayisoba is well known for his powerful shouts and interaction with the audience. During one of the King Ayisoba tours Francis gave me a pendrive full of music he recorded in his studio. I listened through all and heard a lot of great music. I made a selection, sat down with Francis and King Ayisoba and then came the idea to make a compilation that represents the music from the Upper East, focused on Bongo, all in Frafra and full of variation: rap, gospel, kologo and traditional chanting, it’s all there. I spent a week at Francis’ Top Link studio and met many great musicians. One of them was Zenabu, a traditional singer who brought her whole women group. They did not fit in the studio so we recorded them outside and it sounds beautiful.

[engl] Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. Human agency entails the claim that humans make decisions and enact them on the world. But in the time of the Anthropocene, Earth seems to have taken all the characters of a full-fledged actor. It is not humanity opposite the rest but humans in direct interaction with earth, elements, objects, animals and plants. So we better rebuild our democratic institutions and let the “things” have a say in future plans or the future might one day explode in our face.

[engl] The Swimming City is Zea’s fifth album, and the first one featuring guest artists. Immediately in the first song “Sub Specie Ludens” Mats Gustafsson appears on baritone sax and “People Shrink, People Grow” features Oscar Jan Hoogland on piano, who returns in “All Words Have Been Here First”, the song that also features the characteristic and recognisable clarinet playing of Xavier Charles who De Boer made a 7" single with in 2012 called Bourgeois Blues. Zea has toured all over the world and played in thirty five different countries including Ethiopia and Ghana. In Ghana Zea set up a studio with local musicians where two of the songs on The Swimming City were recorded: “Dark Minded Me” and “Ik Kin Der Net By”. This last song is sung in Frysian, De Boer’s first language, who grew up in a small town called Makkum, in Fryslan in the northern part of The Netherlands.

[engl] The Quietus: "These tracks seem to come up unseen and tap the listener on the shoulder; and initially obtuse metaphors make wider points courtesy of a clever lick or a simple phrase. The combination of gentleness and bracing honesty is very disarming: a track such as ‘I Never Threw A Stone’ for example can easily create space for contemplation and allow a sensual indulgence in all the odd nooks and crannies of the sound. If ever a record deserved to be heard in its own time, it’s this one." RJF