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Showing posts from March, 2023

Special Bow tribute project

📌 On the 7 April 2023 the AOI label managed by Michael Blake will release a special album featuring traditional African musical bows as its central theme. Here the press releases from the label. BOWSCAPES (Bow Project 2) - digital release 7 April Africa Open Institute announces the release of the latest album on the AOI label - Bowscapes (Bow Project 2) in memory of Jürgen Bräuninger (AOI CD 05).   The original Bow Project CD (on TUTL records) with 12 string quartet paraphrases of Nofinishi Dywili’s songs, included a collaborative work by Jürgen Bräuninger and Sazi Dlamini, and as a lagniappe on the disc, a short electronic bowscape “Tsiki’s got a headache” by Bräuninger. The latter piece was the inspiration and model for 20 new bowscapes by former students, colleagues, and friends working in the electronic medium, as well as admirers from around the globe.   Jürgen’s sudden death in 2019 came as a great shock to the South African compositional world and at Africa Open we wanted to pa

Second Chirkutt release of 2023

🎸 Bangladeshi folk rockers Chirkutt deliver a surprise this time. On the 29th of March they unleash their first "rock metal” release - Laal e Laal .  (c) Songwrights Publishers This track has recently become the closing song of their live shows. Once again sung and written by the band’s leader, Sultana Sumi. It is a departure from their usual more melodic fare. Music Link after release - 

Too Late for the Prayers

 📌 An album titled, Too late for the prayers , featuring four compositions, two by Justinian Tamusuza and two by Michael Blake, will be released on the 17th March 2023. It features the performers Marietjie Pauw and the Duo Infinite. Sleeve artwork  Here is the press release from the label -  Too Late for the Prayers - digital release 17 March Press Release The long-awaited second release on the AOI label is a CD of works for solo flute and works for marimba and vibraphone duo by two composers from Africa – Justinian Tamusuza (Uganda) and Michael Blake (South Africa). While he studied in Europe and the USA, Tamusuza’s music has always drawn on the indigenous Buganda music of his own country, and Blake’s music engages with various African musics, in particularly the indigenous Xhosa one-string bow tradition of South Africa. During a residency at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in January 2019, Hoofstraat Conceptual in Riebeek Kasteel presented a concert of their music. Soon af

Tiny Magnetic Pets - Ghosts Again

 🎹  On the 17th of March 2023 a very creative arrangement of the Depeche Mode hit, Ghosts Again was made available from Vitamin C Records. The track is performed by the Irish Synthpop Band, Tiny Magnetic Pets who have toured with Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark, Midge Ure and collaborated with ex-Kraftwerker Wolfgang Flur.   (c) Vitamin C Records 2023   The music track was synched to visuals of the band’s singer Paula to make a promo-clip and posted on Youtube. What makes this version different is the female lead vocal. To the surprise of the group it clocked up over 43K views in a very short time. They have thus decided to make the track available for streaming and download ASAP. Tiny Magnetic Pets will be touring in May with a co-headline show in Copenhagen before joining VNV Nation on their UK tour.  Music link  >   https://orcd.co/96xlkj1 Video link >  https://youtu.be/ZJpcUqB3a-c