PANDEMIC DANCE PARTY EVERY FIRST FRIDAY
@ BRILLOBOX (4104 Penn Ave)
Cumbia Amazonica pioneers return to Pittsburgh
LOS WEMBLER’S DE IQUITOS
5 Brothers playing together since 1969 and legendary Peruvian chicha pioneers Los Wembler’s de Iquitos celebrate their 50th anniversary with an all-new album,Visíon del Ayahuasca Availableon Barbès records and return to Pittsburgh (for their 2nd ever US Tour).
Date: Sunday September 15
Location: 25 Carrick Ave Pittsburgh PA
Bus line 51 exit at Biscayne
Time: 7pm doors show at 8pm
25 Carrick Ave and Pandemic Present:
Los Wembler’s De Iquitos
Plus Pandemic Pete & tbd
Legendary Peruvianchichapioneers Los Wembler’s de Iquitos celebrate their 50th anniversary with an all-new album,Visíon del Ayahuasca Availableon Barbès records,September2019.
LosWembler’s haven’t lost any of their creative edge. To watch them perform or record is to witness musicians at the height of their powers. Their happy first experiments with cumbia and indigenous rhythms were not the product of chance. These are accomplished musicians in tune with their environment but also infinitely curious about the world. The style LosWembler’s pioneered more than forty years ago has finally found an audience around the world, and LosWembler’s intend to keep it relevant by finding new ways to experiment.
In 1968, in Iquitos, the capital of the Peruvian Amazon, a shoemaker named Solomon Sanchez decided to form a band with his five sons. They were the first band in the Amazon to play popular local rhythms with electric guitars. The new hybrid they were creating would go on to have an enormous impact on South American popular music. Some of their songs, such asSonido AmazonicoorDanza del Petrolerobecame the most emblematic of this newcumbia amazonicamovement.The brothers were born and raised in Iquitos – the largest isolated city in the world. Iquitos boasts close to half a million inhabitants, but its nearest road is six days away by boat. The river and the forest are a big part of the culture, but the city remains a large urban center. Indigenous folklore and urban living have created a singular culture with the river dolphin and the moto-taxi as its primary symbols.
The brothers’ main link to the outside world was the radio. In addition to their daily diets fTahuampa,PandillasandCriollowaltzes, long wave radio broadcasts would expose them to Colombian Cumbia, Brazilian Carimbo, Ecuadorian SanJuanitos, Venezuelan joropos – and psychedelic rock.Curious to a fault, and willing to experiment, LosWembler’s managed to incorporate all these styles into their playing.
THEN
TICKETS. and FACEBOOK RSVP
Dance to live music performed by local and international artists. Eat delicious food from around the world. Check out work made by local artisans.
Presented in partnership with All for All, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, and Pete Spynda of Pandemic and Pittonkatonk.
Featuring
RAM (from Haiti) – “Vodou rock ‘n’ roots”, and has been one of the prominent bands in the mizik rasin musical movement in Haiti. The band’s music incorporates traditional Vodou lyrics and instruments, such as rara horns and petro drums, into modern rock and roll. The band’s songs include lyrics in Haitian Creole, French, and English.
CUMBIA RIVER BAND (NYC)
New York based Cumbia River Band’s music draws from a festive repertoire of Colombian Cumbia and Riverside music. These sounds will take you back to the golden years of Cumbia as well as inspire you to dance and contemplate the joy and energy that this Cumbia River brings along. Featuring tuba, accordion, clarinet, percussion, guitar and voices, the band delivers a captivating performance, supported by the band’s particular approach to orchestration, which honors both traditional and contemporary sounds found in today’s tropical music scene.
MOURNING [A] BLKSTAR (Cleveland)
We are a multi-generational, gender and genre non-conforming amalgam of Black Culture dedicated to servicing the stories and songs of the apocalyptic diaspora.
plus local performers
AND THEN!!!
Les Filles de Illighadad come from a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside supports hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries.
It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements: vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It’s a music form dominated by women. Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps – played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season.
In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar are synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response. The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that for women, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart.
Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles de Illighadad is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother’s guitar, she taught herself to play. While Fatou’s role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles de Illighadad are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende.
Date: Sunday October 13
Location: 25 Carrick Ave Pittsburgh PA
Bus line 51 exit at Biscayne
Time: 7pm doors show at 8pm
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