Heads-up: A New Complation in the Pipeline

Analog Africa is going to release a compilation of Somali music from the '70s and '80s. The reissue is slated for 13 December, but you can already pre-order it on Bamdcamp and below is the appetiser:  

A mindblowing mixture of Somali Funk, instrumental masterpieces and previously unreleased Reggae tunes from the vaults of Radio Mogadishu. We´ve prepared a little beauty for you, a beauty you can Now Pre-Order on Bandcamp! Bandcamp orders will be shipped on December 1st, basically two weeks before official release date!

The LP comes with a 16 Pages Magazine-Size-Booklet and the CD comes with a wonderfully designed 44 Pages Booklet! In that booklet 50 pictures and biographies of the artists are included .....and a lot of passion !!

A bonus track (from this blog, not in the compil).


Enjoy!

P.S. (November 26): I've recently seen the liner notes and they're truly fascinating. I read the 16-page Berliner/broadsheet in one go while travelling on the train and when I was done, my initially steaming cup of tea was already ice-cold and still half-full. The booklet is peppered with alternately informative/chilling/entertaining anecdotes and interviews with artists & others involved in the music profession, period-perfect photos & posters, interesting Somali newspaper clippings from the years covered by the compilation, spellbinding accounts of Analog Africa's own adventures in Mogadishu etc. All the above make the album notes vividly alive and captivating. Simply fantastic!

Guduudo Carwo & Cabdullaahi Qarshe: Anticolonial Songs (1950s)

A few pro-independence tracks originally recorded by Radio Hargeysa in the 1950s. Shamis Abokor (Guduudo Carwo) & Cabdillaahi Maxamuud (Qarshe) were among the pioneers of the modern/popular Somali music that was spearheaded by the dhaanto in the 1930s and, mainly, the balwo & heello and their multiple subgenres in the 1940s. All the tracks on this post belong to the latter two styles.

The epithet 'modern' denotes, in my view, that the shortened songs were played by innovative artists on mainly non-Somali instruments and aired on the newly-established radios, which often employed the musicians. The older Somali music is more sophisticated as it uses a wider variety of centuries-old traditional instruments, singing modes, scales, (sub)genres, dance techniques etc. Unfortunately there were, before the 1940s, no/hardly any facilities to record, broadcast or distribute music. All was live and localised, except the touring artists who were largely hindered by the long distances and dearth of adequate transportation or funding.

This live session comes from Francesco Giannattasio, professor of ethnomusicology at the Sapienza University in Rome. He recorded it during one of his fieldwork researches on Somali music in the 1980s.

1. Hurdaa Lay Diidee ("I'm Chronically Sleep-Deprived [Because of Colonialism]")


2. Gar Weeye Inaad Ka Gubataaye ("You've Every Right to Rise Up")


3. Qabanqaabiyoo Wax Ila Qabo ("Help Me to Organize [the Struggle for Independence]")


4. Ragaadayoo Roob ("The Rains are Delayed/Longing for Liberation")


5. Hobyo Hereriyo Hawaasta Galbeed Hadmay ["When will the Colonially Partitioned Regions of Somalia Join Hands?]"


6. Dadkan Dhawaaqayaa ("The People are Shouting [for Freedom]")


7. Baxnaanada Dheeri Waa Bilaw ("Taking Care [of My Country] Has Just Started") 


Enjoy!

Nightmares of The Don, The Strutting Naked Emperor