Channa Riedel (f. 1990) är musiker, poet och skribent. Har publicerat dikter, essäer och krönikor i bla Göteborgs-Posten, Arbetaren och tidskriften Granta. Hösten 2020 påbörjar hon masterstudier i Litterär gestaltning på Valand.

Hon är sångare och kompositör i sjumannaorkestern Beloveds som 2019 släppte debutskivan ”Så tar natten dig åter” (Abrovinsch Records). Skivan kan beskrivas som en knutpunkt för friare jazz, progg, judisk och svensk visa och tar avstamp i erfarenheter som många delar: flykten, kampen, exilen, kärleken. Texterna är av henne själv samt poeter som Juliana Spahr, Stig Dagerman och Vladimir Majakovskij.

Foto: Simon Rydén

Playfulness and improvisation are at the center of this meeting of two masters in the field of contemporary Nordic folk music. Parkman and Hirvonen invite us to a space where two voices and two violins create unique melodic and rhythmic textures from the energies emanating from Swedish and Finnish heritage.

Päivi Hirvonen is a Helsinki based musician and composer. She is firmly rooted in her native music tradition while also creating new forms of expression, allowing sensitivity and strength to meet in her artistry. She has graduated from Sibelius Academy and is currently a doctoral student researching solo performance and storytelling.

Sara Parkman is a folk musician getting a lot of attention with work that refuses to bow to nationalistic ideas of cultural heritage. Christianity meets anti-fascism in her music, while tradition and revolution go hand in hand. She has released three albums, all to much critical acclaim. She is a writer and a founding member of the organization Folkmusiker mot rasism (Folk Musicians Against Racism). In 2016 she toured with Fäboland, a theatrical production based on songs and stories of female cattle farm workers. Parkman has twice been awarded at the Swedish Folk & Världsmusikgalan, and received national newspaper Dagens Nyheter’s Culture Prize in 2020. She is the co-curator of Clandestino Festival 2020.

Shida Shahabi grew up in Stockholm on a mix of Persian pop and Tchaikovsky, and started playing piano as a child. But instead of studying music, she was drawn to the freedom offered by art college. She composed and made sound art, played in bands and experimented. In 2018, she released the album Homes, eight piano pieces that could make even the greyest February morning feel cinematic. Future Music called it “A masterclass in simplicity.” Swimming along in similar musical currents as Nils Frahm, Shahabi’s floating modalities would make Claude Debussy smile. Guests at Clandestino Festival will hear Shahabi play together with master cellist Linnea Olsson. Since her 2012 debut Ah, Olsson has performed frequently in both pop and neo-classical contexts, and has toured globally with both her own music and with Ane Brun, Frida Hyvönen, Peter Gabriel and others. Here, her cello tones hover like an electric storm on the horizon, while we hear the mechanics inside Shahabi’s piano, hundreds of pieces of wood creaking at every touch of the instrument’s keys—a complicated machine, maybe a pair of impossible wings made out of wood.

Her electro-acoustic compositions range from multi-channel electronic pieces and installations to audiovisual works and collaborations with dancers, soloists and ensembles. Maria W Horn is a member of the Sthlm Drone Society and, together with musician Kali Malone, she runs the record label and concert organizer XKatedral. Her debut album Kontrapoetik was born by diving into the history of her home region of Västernorrland—including the executions of 71 alleged witches carried out by the church in the 1670s, and the Ådalen shootings of 1931—and from her research on satanic feminism. The latest EP Epistasis was composed in part for the Malva Quartet. Here, the listener is invited into a sonic world so dark and atmospheric even your goosebumps will tremble. A computer-controlled piano, as well as an organ and string instruments, are heard in slow instrumental pieces inspired by moods and harmonics from black metal and composer Arvo Pärt. Sometimes it sounds like a sacred mass in a mine shaft, sometimes like an abandoned ship, bobbing at sea.

Dressed in snazzy suits and black bow tie, singer Asnake Gebreyes was a phenomenon back in the 80s and 90s. His ornamental tenor could be heard on radio, TV, and countless cassette releases in Ethiopia. Weyene Ajir (my mysterious brother) became a smash hit and is a classic to this day. Outside Africa, however, Gebreyes’ music was difficult to find until musicologist Francis Falceto reissued it as part of his celebrated album series Éthiopiques. Falceto also introduced Gebreyes to French guitarist Damien Cluzel, who happened to be in Addis Ababa as part of a travelling circus company. After falling in love with the local jazz tradition, Cluzel returned to Lyon with the idea of starting a band that combined his own heavy rock riffage with Ethiopian sounds. Asnake Gebreyes agreed to join in on vocals, and soon uKanDanz was in the studio recording their first record. A marriage of Mulatu Astatke and Rage Against the Machine is one way to describe their debut Yetchalal. Fast forward a few years to album number three, Yeketelale, uKanDanZ tone down the distortion, making room for soul, synths and hand claps. Guebrey’s vocals grow into breathtaking melodies, while drums and synth bass lay down some seriously dance-friendly rhythms.

In the video for Goddess, we see her wearing a blue Cleopatra dress and a tiara resplendent with gold feathers. Delish is holding court, gazing down towards the floor upon a practically naked man engaged in an erotic dance, his skin painted gold. Message delivered with due clarity: Nobody puts Delish Da Goddess in the corner. Growing up in Violet, Louisiana—a city with little room for a queer female rapper with a stern radiance like hers—she soon found her place in New Orleans. To beats that mix bounce and trap, she raps about female perspectives on feeling divine, or just generally being hot and awesome. In an interview, Delish revealed that when writing she puts herself in the mind of a man, thus allowing herself a power and bossiness otherwise monopolized by male rappers. Her idea is to make songs into ammunition for every woman who has ever felt trampled on. She’s released several EPs, but so far nothing has really captured the punky feeling of Delish Da Goddess live. With a rap style characterized by raw screams, all at once she captures the carnival tradition of New Orleans, ecstatic gospel and soul music, and the queer futuristic hip hop currently coming out of Louisiana.

Nordic folk music as you’ve never heard it, most likely. Lira Magazine called the brothers’ album Pusinshi Ulla one of the most remarkable recordings in the genre, while British Folk Radio drew parallels to the Velvet Underground. Without ever becoming cerebral or boring, Hans and Rasmus Kjorstad execute one successful experiment after another. It’s scratchy, distorted, full of funny little thumping sounds, and sometimes the music moves in atonal rhythms, almost like a distant relative of Konono No. 1. Despite this challenging and almost punky attitude, their interpretations of hallings, springleiks and so on always come across as playful and shimmeringly beautiful. The brothers are from Fron in Gudbrandsdalen, where they have played since childhood. In addition to violins, they use their voices as well as flutes, a jew’s harp and the ancient Norwegian drone zither langeleik. Through improvisation, stories and lofi-aesthetics, they want to introduce a wealth of melodies for new listeners.

She began playing violin at the age of seven, and later studied classical music at the Tallinn College of Music. However, driven by her curiosity and passion for folk music, Maarja Nuut has delved deep into many other genres. At 21, she traveled to New Delhi to study traditional music. After returning to Estonia, she began digging in archives for field recordings of pre-Soviet era songs from rural villages. She continued her studies in Stockholm and immersed herself in music from, among other places, the Polish countryside. In the pursuit of a universal language, Nuut uses her violin, voice and a loop pedal to combine the moods, stories and melodies of forgotten villages and people, creating enchanting live performances. Maarja Nuut is a master of the subtle, demonstrating with small means the enormous possibilities of expression contained within the human voice. Among her many collaborations are projects with Estonian chamber choir Sireen, Sun Araw, Howie B and Hendrik Kaljujärv, aka Ruum, on their latest record Muunduja—an experimental journey through electronic sounds.

Imagine a West African version of James Brown, high on buckets of espresso while accelerating into hyperspace in a rusty tie-fighter. No? Okay, option two: Listen to Rob’s debut album Funky Rob Way from 1977. Rob Roy Raindorf is a true legend, sprung from Ghana’s most soulful nightclubs of the seventies, back in the spotlight again after years in obscurity. As a young man he was fascinated by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and of course The Godfather of Soul, Mr. Brown himself. He studied piano and was soon performing with greats such as Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. At the age of 28, Rob joined forces with the military orchestra Mag 2. Delightful, cosmic afro funk emerged, dripping with wahwah guitars and congas. His debut was followed by Make It Fast, Make It Slow, famously sampled by J Dilla and Camp Lo. When the release of album # 3, the doomsday disco epic Hellfire was cancelled, Rob disappeared from the spotlight and started working as a restaurant manager instead. But that all changed recently, when the Analog Africa label started its vinyl press, presenting the old songs to a whole new audience. What’s Rob like live in 2020? Backed by a tight combo, he dances on stage wearing a black hat, sunglasses and a glittery suit—he’s a funk explosion that just has to be experienced!

Through their mega-sexy performance art and music, this Johannesburg duo is fighting to change the lives of black LGBT people in South Africa—and across the world! Fela Gucci and Desire Marea can pull any audience into the vibrant dance performance that is their live show. With wigs and lofi video projections, they make a gesamtkunstwerk-ish experience out of their electronic dance music, gqom—a kind of bare bones house music created in South Africa’s townships. Gqom is distributed via authentically DIY methods, such as by taxi drivers who play the latest productions for their fares on the way out for a night on the town. FAKA call their extraordinary creation gqom-gospel “laments for cock.” When not performing their own music, FAKA are resident DJs at Cunty Power, a club that wants to make a safe and fun party zone for queer, trans and non-binary night owls in Johannesburg. The world outside of Africa became aware of FAKA when Mykki Blanco interviewed them in his South African documentary Out Of This World, and the duo made their first Swedish performance in a wild live show at Clandestino Festival 2018. Since then, they have written the soundtrack for a fashion show by Donatella Versace and performed at nightclubs, as well as given academic talks around the globe, proving that they are determined once more to make sure plenty of ass—not to mention worldviews—will be shaken to their foundations.

At a party deep in the forests surrounding Texcoco in Mexico, La Bruja (the witch) was born. While there accompanying a group of folk musicians on violin, Octavio Mendoza Anario miraculously rescued a woman possessed, collapsed in the convulsions of an evil demon. Holy rites were performed and Octavio, who hitherto had identified as a cis-man, was declared the witch of Texcoco. Dressed in a colorful huipil, the traditional garment common among indigenous women, wearing makeup and false eyelashes, she sings in a deep, warm voice and plays violin, viola, cello and harp, all with virtuosity. La Bruja’s fascination for the traditions of Mexico grew after years of struggling as a musician. As a child, Octavio had played the tambourine in their father’s gold-suited Acapulco-style band. A few years later, they spent thousands of hours practicing Mozart and Vivaldi, but became increasingly disenchanted by the hierarchies of European classical music. As La Bruja de Texcoco, they reinvent Mexican folklore by deepening the mystique, while at the same time liberating it from machismo.

Guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and leader of psychedelic rock band Acid Mothers Temple. But while best known for his earsplitting, speed guru guitar heroics with AMT, Makoto is also the founder of his own school of ecstatic guitar drone, using bowing and glissando techniques. 

Kawabata first started releasing works for electronics and homemade instruments in 1978. Since then he has toured and released albums with multiple units, spanning multiple genres. 

He has played with psychedelic originators like Gong, Silver Apples and Träd Gräs och Stenar; with avant-garde giants including Keiji Haino, Tatsuya Yoshida and Charles Hayward; and with Occitan trad musicians including Rosina de Peira, Marc Perrone and Beatritz. In 2019 he began to perform and create new works for modular synthesizers, a return to the electronic music from where he started his musical career. This concert is presented in collaboration with Koloni.