You ready for this!? A Fluorescent swarm of insects is hovering over town. On Saturday, May 4, the premiere of Clandestino Festival’s new format will take place at Stora Teatern. One of the most musically ear opening and expansive festivals in the world, Clandestino is now entering its second decade and simultaniously starting a new chapter; we have split our festival up into five shorter editions, spread throughout the year – five seasons if you like.
Much else is new. For the first time, we have a pretty juicy emphasis on (weird, innovative versions of) Latin American music: Meridian Brothers‘ psychedelic Colombian Cumbia, dubstep pioneer Mala‘s collaboration with Cuban musicians, DJ Hugo Mendez from London and Stockholm-based DJ Masaya.
But the evening’s brightest star is a songbird whose voice stands for the liberation of Western Sahara, a name that could be compared to such celebrities as Tinariwen and other desert blues stars by now: Mariem Hassan.
Also new this year is Aktivistsalongen (“the activist lounge”), where political activism, art and provocative hip-hop blend in a crowded pot that was brought to a boil thanks to the resistance against REVA during the srping of 2013.
We continue to upgrade the already massive program to Clandestino Festival’s spring edition 4 May at Stora Teatern, now with Gothenburg’s own Dj Lebb Zeppelin. Expect plenty of hip hop and r’n’b. Occasionally she also plays dance hits and a little more “thump thump and stuff-that-you-all-love”, as she describes it. Lebb Zeppelin is known as resident of Bonanza among other clubs. | More
Clandestino Festival spring edition 4 May Stora Teatern Göteborg
Dj Lebb Zeppelin is Gothenburg dj and artistic renaissance woman Iki Gonzalez Magnusson. Expect plenty of hip hop and r’n’b when she takes control of the dj booth during Clandestino Festival May 4. Occasionally she spices things up with some dance hits and a little more “thump thump and stuff-that-you-all-love”, as she describes it. Iki began to CD-R djing using the moniker Sir Ike and switched to Bike Bonkers for a while before the current pseudonym fell into place. If you’ve vistied clubs like Fête, SWEAT and Konstfuck in Gothenburg in recent years, chances are good that you danced to her beats. In 2013 Dj Lebb Zeppelin is resident at Bonanza and also working with the club Cakemob at Nefertiti.
Two new artists booked to the this year’s first Clandestino Festival: one a hip hop project from Gothenburg, noted for its harsh social criticism and protest (and for a controversial video directed at politicians in their home town). The second a Swedish-Guatemalan explorer in the fields of electrified cumbia, balkan beat and swing grooves. Are you ready for this year’s most visionary dance party?
Maktskiftet
Five rapper from Gothenburg’s suburbs who recieved strong reactions for their video “Tro, Hopp & Utanförskap”. One politician called it an attack on democracy and suggested they should make a video showing young people who vote instead of storming the Gothenburg City Hall. Maktskiftet is about those who have tried, pursued an education, been good. Who were born in Sweden and speak Swedish, pay Swedish taxes, vote in Swedish elections but still are told that they should go home. The change in leadership is in a sense an expression of despair and lost illusions, but it is also a call to wake up and smell the coffee. | Video | Read more
Understanding a video: In addition to their live performance at Clandestino Festival 4 May, Maktskiftet will also participate in Aktivistsalongen (“The Activist Lounge”), which takes place the same day at 13-19, also at Stora Teatern in Göteborg. A mini-marathon will be held where not only the band themselves but also politicians, scholars and others have the opportunity to discuss the much talked about video for “Tro, Hopp & Utanförskap.” | Aktivistsalongen
DJ Masaya
He moves up a cocktail consisting of transatlantic tones mixed with electronic beats. Swing, Balkan and cumbia rhythms are his specialties, mixed with house, breakbeats and so little reggae … a global party full knökat with beats and energy – the perfect combination for the eclectic, international dance festival that is Clandestino Festival May 4 | Listen | Read more
From South African ghetto-blipp blopp to Japanese cyborg music. Four new acts are confirmed for Clandestino Botnik, our festival excursion to the country side of Bohuslän 27-28 July. But we also invite you to party with us much sooner, namely this weekend, read more below.
Shangaan Electro: Blippblopp Soweto style
Synthetic marimba licks. Soulful singing on top of a grid of outrageously maxed electronic beats. It sounds as if Super Mario ate one too many mushrooms, went down one of those green pipes and came out in a South African shanty town: A humoruos, mega artificial dance music saturated by plenty of harmful coloring agents and lots of call and respons chanting. | Read more
Daito Manabe: Robot soul
Japanese programmer mathematician and multimedia artist ooperating in a borderland between man and technology where his own face turns into a musical instrument and cubes of light and microphones are used to explore the interactions between machine code and music – are they in fact one and the same? | Read more
Xenia Kriisin: Experimentell skönsång
The voice in focus and a sparse sound made up of zither and synth bass pedal. Before having released any recording whatsoever, Xenia was invited to perform on national tv show TV4 Nyhetsmorgon, was called ”Up and coming-artist” by magazine Nöjesguiden and has toured in both Sweden and abroad. Debut singel “Firearms” out soon. | Read more
Amina Hocine: Lofi-rymdpop
David Lynch-atmospheres. Waves of synthetic sound. Strings. Pop melodies and darkness. Just a few of the ingredients that make up the music of Amina Hocine. But first and foremost Amina Hocine is a talented songwriter and a magnificent singer. Currently collaborating with dub electro wizzard Andreas Tilliander and featured in the latest edition of music magazine Sonic. | Read more
Party at Kino
We are inviting everyone to join us in the celebration of our new festival program, which will be available fresh from the print shop at Kino in Göteborg on Friday 5 April. Come and be among the first to read it and have a drink with us between 9 PM and 2 AM and feel the vibrations from djs Scout Klas, Nathalie Barusta and others. Dembo Jatta will drop by and do a percussive guest performance. The party is thrown in collaboration with the film festival Cinemafrica.
Tickets Tickets to all editions of Clandestino Festival 2013 here.
Zār is a community healing ritual of drumming and dancing whose tradition is carried mainly by women (men have the second roles) and whose main participants are women.
This ritual has been widely misconceived as a form of exorcism. However, the goal is to harmonize the inner lives of the participants. The Zār is a space in which women can work out the tensions and frustrations of social constraints which limit their movements, their dress, their voices and even their dreams. Lower class women who live in poverty are under a great deal of stress in their daily lives. Yet there are few if any outlets for them.
Zar music is raw and unpolished. The lyrics of these songs are minmal and repetitive. They speak of the desert and the region’s long history. A featured instrument in the Zar ritual in Egypt is the tamboura, the six-string lyre, which, like the Zar practice itself, exists in various forms in a an area stretching across East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula – a relative to the Indian “drone” instrument tamboura known from raga music. Other instruments are the Mangour, a leather belt sewn with many goat hooves and various percussion instruments. Call and respons singing, maracas. The hypnotic drum rhythms grow gradually, accelerate and explode in a percussion climax just as dawn breaks. It is an ancient purification rite and it aims at pacifying numerous spirits. Communication with unseen spirits is driven by the insistent and varied drum rhythmic interaction which can lead to an altered state of consciousness and even, trance. It is also disappearing, as Islamic fundamentalists crack down on what they believe to be animistic beliefs. That is why I wanted to preserve this music and present it to the world community – so that it is not lost or forgotten.
It appears, however, that things are changing for the zar in Egypt, and it is becoming more publicly visible, as a musical, and ritual, practice. In Cairo, Mazaher is the foremost example of this, a group in which women play a leading role and are connected to a most ancient tradition practiced in several countries in the region.
Clandestino Festival spring edition 4 May Stora Teatern Göteborg
Mariem Hassan, with her very special ornamented and almost bluesy singing voice, is often called the most prominent musician of Western Sahara. She is a figurehead of women’s liberation in Northen Africa, but also a symbol of the Sahrawi people’s fight for liberation from first the Spanish colonial power and later the Moroccan occupation. When Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975, she was 17 and allready a performing musician. She and her family took refuge to Algeria along with a great part of the Sahrawi population. A couple of years later, an opportunity materialized to spread the word about life in the refugee camps, along with a chance to embark on an international music career: She went on tour to Europe, Africa and Cuba with the band Luali.
After performing in a number of different constellations, Mariem Hassan started her own band in 2004 together with friend and guitar geniuos Baba Salama, in which she explored various methods of modernizing and stretching the traditional haul sound. This was the beginning of a long and productive period of touring and recording, however interspersed with numerous hiatus due to visa issues and health problems. Mariem Hassan had found something new with her band: The music has since then been intensily rhythmic, and thanks to a band consisting of two percussionists and two electric guitarists, she has managed to create an electric version of Western Saharan traditions.
The songs are powerful stories about struggle and tragedies but also about tenderness and love. Among many other subjects, she has written a musical reply – paragraph by paragraph – to Felipe González’ speech 1976 to the Western Saharan refugees, critisizing the Spanish socialist for having not kept his promisses. On her last album “El Aaiun egdat” (El Aaiun burns) Hassan is inspired by Sahrawi protests during the Gdeim Izik camp in 2010, and by the Arab spring. Musically this album differs from the two previous by allowing blues and jazz into the musical mosaik – a fierier version of the desert blues band Tinariwen to some ears. The lyrics – in hassania and occasionally in Spanish – are partly written by Western Saharan exiled poets such as Ali Bachir and Lamin Allal.
Mariem Hassans life and music is the subject of a documentary, ”Mariem Hassan, la voz del Sáhara”:
Clandestino Festival summer edition 7 June Stora Teatern
Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar is deeply rooted in Indian classical music, having studied exclusively with her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, from the age of nine. Thriving as a composer, she has been exploring fertile ground in the crossover between Indian music and a variety of genres including flamenco, electronica, jazz and Western classical music. Twice-nominated for a Grammy Award, Anoushka was the first Indian musician to perform at the Grammy Awards in 2006 when she was nominated for Rise, soon after becoming the youngest-ever nominee and the first woman nominated in the World Music category, for her album Live at Carnegie Hall in 2002.
Born in London, and raised between there, New Delhi and California, Anoushka’s career was international from the start. She made her performance debut in 1995 in New Delhi at the age of thirteen, and was playing venues such as Carnegie Hall by the age of fifteen, accompanying her father at his concerts worldwide. At sixteen she signed an exclusive recording contract with Angel/EMI and released three classical recordings: Anoushka (1998), Anourag (2000) and Live at Carnegie Hall (2001), all to great critical acclaim. After finishing her schooling, Anoushka put all of her focus into following her musical pursuits and began touring in earnest, developing a solo career as a classical sitarist, while also continuing to accompany her father.
Two further albums marked a radical departure for Anoushka. On Rise (2005), Anoushka composed, arranged and produced her own music, influenced by East and West, employing both acoustic and electronic instrumentation. The positive response for Rise turned into a second Grammy nomination and a global tour of over ninety concerts, and Anoushka formed the Anoushka Shankar Project in order to maintain a clear distinction between this more experimental work and her classical sitar concerts.
In 2007 Anoushka collaborated with the talented Indian-American musician Karsh Kale, to create the album Breathing Under Water. Co-produced by Gaurav Raina of the group MIDIval Punditz, this album featured guest appearances by Anoushka’s father, her half-sister Norah Jones, Sting, and others.
In 2011 Anoushka released Traveller, an exciting exploration of two musical traditions: Spanish flamenco and Indian classical music. For this, Anoushka worked with legendary producer Javier Limon, and invited renowned guest artists like Shubha Mudgal, Buika, Pepe Habichuela and longtime-collaborator Tanmoy Bose, among many others. In support of Traveller Anoushka has embarked upon an extensive worldwide tour of which will continue well into the second part of 2012.
She has made guest appearances on recordings by diverse artists, among them Herbie Hancock, Joshua Bell, Lenny Kravitz, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Thievery Corporation. In 2002 Anoushka conducted and performed at the historic Concert for George, a tribute to the late George Harrison. Anoushka has developed a strong bond with Western classical music; as a teenager she had the good fortune of performing in duet with legends such as cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (2000), and flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal (1998). She has also appeared as a soloist with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, and premiered her father’s 3rd Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2009, and his first Symphony, with the London Philarmonic Orchestra in 2010.
Today, from her home in London, where she lives with her husband and son, Anoushka’s career reflects her aim to constantly stretch herself creatively. As multi-award winning musician Nitin Sawhney wrote in the sleeve-notes of Traveller, “no one embodies the spirit of innovation and experimentation more evidently than Anoushka Shankar.”
“Blending ragas with the intense rhythms of Andalusia, Shankar carves passages of rare beauty”
– Sunday Times
“[Traveller’s] hybridism feels as natural as conversation…”
– The New York Times
“Boldly passionate flamenco notes with soul stirring Indian instrumentals add up to a deeply satisfying musical journey.”
– The Times of India
We are excited to announce two new musical acts that will perform at our festival excursion to the country, Clandestino Botnik on 27-28 July. And then some poetry:
Baloji – congolsese hip hop rumba
Baloji played a magnificent concert at Clandestino Festival in Gothenburg 2011 – now he’s back but this time in a more rural environment on stage at Clandestino Botniks scen. Rapper, dancer, gentleman and sorcerer Baloji (the latter being what Baloji means in Swahili) creates a futuristic breed of African post-hiphop. Live, backed by phenomenal Orchestre de la Katuba, Baloji is a euphoric experience: count on high energy hip shake dance. | More
Nazarenes – pure roots reggae
The Nazarenes’ voices are their instruments, and through them the Caribbean’s music rejoins it’s ancestral continent as Eritrea and Ethiopia’s rich past finds a voice in in today’s roots music movement. Reggae’s diaspora returns home in the voice of the Nazarenes, firmly planted in reggae’s rootical and rebellious sound. In the Nazarenes, beauty, pain, love, pride, and hope come together.| More
Ida Börjel and Andrzej Tichý – poetry Sunday in the barn
Music may the focus of Clamndestino Botnik, but as usual there will be poetry in the barn on Sunday. This year with Andrzej Tichý and Ida Börjel.
We proudly present two new bookings to Clandestino Festival 8 juni at Stora teatern in Göteborg.
Batida (Lissabon): Multimedia party machine Batida is the brainchild of Angolan / Portuguese Pedro Coquenão. A distinctly modern and vibrant project with its feet firmly rooted in the past, Batida combine samples from old 1970s Angolan tracks with modern electronic dance music. Music is the starting point but through dance, poetry, graphics, photography, radio and video, Batida expands, taking in politics and social commentary but always bringing it back to the party. What originally started out as a radio show designed to promote new African music has slowly evolved into a collaborative project crossing continents, a full on live show with dancers, live samples, MCs & visuals. | Read More | Tickets
Mata Hari (Köpenhamn / Barcelona): Hacktivism on the dancefloor Barcelona and Copenhagen based dj Mata Hari, described as pure dynamite on the stage, her mixes are a myth in the european dancefloors. Resident for 5 years in the famous club Apolo (Barcelona), she has played in the best clubs of europe and festivals. Her sessions are full of sensuality, playing all the genres of the Global Bass, with her preference for asiatic music, oriental and balkan. She is a member of the collective United Global Beats, co-owner of the rebel label Post World Industries with Filastine, collaborator in the famous blog Generation Bass and social protester with the collective of sound interventios SHH.| Read more | Tickets
You ready for this!? A Fluorescent swarm of insects is hovering over town. On Saturday, May 4, the premiere of Clandestino Festival’s new format will take place at Stora Teatern. One of the most musically ear opening and expansive festivals in the world, Clandestino is now entering its second decade and simultaniously starting a new chapter; we have split our festival up into five shorter editions, spread throughout the year – five seasons if you like.
