(Luka Productions in studio, 2012)
Here is a stunningly gorgeous album from Mali-based artist Luka Guindo, who makes music as Luka Productions. A nice blend of roots percussion and deft use of electronics, this is unique and pretty. Luka is a veteran of the Bamako hip-hop scene and has produced tracks for Supreme Talent Show and dozens of other local artists. This shimmering beauty of a record, however, is of a different mood. Fasokan is available from the amazing Sahel Sounds, digitally or 500 press LP. Mixed by Jesse Johnson at Boomarm Nation.
From the Sahel Sounds press release:
"New age music from West Africa. Lush and hypnotic dreamscapes combine traditional instrumentation with sweeping electronics, field recordings, and soothing affirmations in these original compositions. Cut up kora and balafon are layered over software percussion, flute, horns, and synthesizer. Meditative and cosmic, Fasokan guides the listener through ways of living, from the village life into the modern world.
Luka Productions is Luka Guindo, rapper, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. One of the most sought after producers in Bamako, he has worked with Supreme Talent Show, Ami Yerewolo, Iba One, Van Baxy, and many more. Here Luka Productions channels his avant-griot, transforming ancient music into the 21st century.
This is one of the most left field recordings to ever come out of Mali. If Sahel Sounds has emerged with a hands off approach, recording as a fly on the wall, Fasokan is a radical departure. A collaborative work stemming from the sci-fi concept album Uchronia, the album is both an original creation and an cross-cultural experiment, drawing inspiration from new age music, early electronic compositions, and library records. The result is a strange hybrid, wholly unique in sound. In execution, Fasokan finds itself back to Mali, at once strikingly familiar - with the measured voice speaking over a looping melody, offering sage advice for a new world."
Give it a listen:
Also brand new from Sahel Sounds...
--Agrim Agadez compilation of contemporary guitar music
--a selection of incredible & raw songs from the Top WZN artists in Mauritania
--Waande Kadde, improvisations from the Futa Tooro region