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Coming out of Sweden, Niki & The Dove have a more early eighties disco influence than late eighties Memphis pop.  The singer Malin’s voice sounds like an amalgam of Zara Larsson, Stevie Nicks, and Alaina Moore of Tennis.  The album have an upbeat tone even though it deals with the theme of heartbreak.  Reflecting the zeitgeist of 2017;  tired and heartbroken, but still optimistic.  Because, really, what option do we have otherwise?

I really hope they make a video for this track; it would be so. good.  I’m imagining a teal/pink/lime color palette with a tropical beach with tan Swedes lounging melancholically in the sun.

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This smooth track is from Lady Wray, aka Nicole Wray, a soul singer hailing from Virginia.  Guilty, a single off her first LP is a longing song a her brother who was in jail during the holidays.  She serves up some early Jackson family vibes with her vocalization.  A very nice track.

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Israeli Trio A-WA Mixes Modern and Ancient, East and West

A-WA is a trio of three Israeli sisters with Yemenite Jewish roots that grew up in the desert of the southern part of the country.  They blend the traditions of their heritage with electronic music, creating a danceable mélange of sounds that is a perfect remedy to the cynicism of our current worldwide state of affairs.  

Their debut album Habib Galbi features the sisters chanting and signing over electronic beats, reggae guitar riffs, and electro organs reminiscent of Greek/Arab/Balkan pop music.  Their lyrics are in Yemeni Arabic, arguably a transgressive detail at least in the contemporary Israeli music scene.  The tracks on the album are tied together by the trio’s chanting and the keyboard/organ sound of their keytar (!) which manages to be retro and current at the same time.  The sisters said in an interview that their vocal harmonies are influenced by the sounds of Motown groups.  Ala Wabda has an obvious Caribbean flavor with the happy off-beat guitar and deep, driving bass.  Galbi Haway could almost fit on an album by fellow Israeli band Fool’s Gold, except the keys make it sound more Ethiopian than (West) African Pop.  Shamak Zabad Radai is probably the second-most modern, for lack of a better term, tracks on the record, with its snare, it almost begs to be sampled.  The last track on the album, Ismer Ma al Gat, is the most classically Arabic-sounding, with heavy use of sharp violins, with a marching snare, and various tambourines, all rounded out by the sisters’ harmonizing voices.

The music video for the title track Habib Galbi shows the girls dealing with the patriarchy personified as an older, Middle Eastern, army general.  One of the girls giving him a shave - a visual metaphor reminding me of the quote from the romantic comedy “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”:  “The man may be the head of the household. But the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head whichever way she pleases.”  They then dance and sing throughout desert scences, decked out in awesome pink dresses.  The line dancing in the house with a group of matching b-boys while Grandma smokes nargile in the corner is great.

Mr. Worldwide himself did a remix of this song, which hopefully for the sisters of A-WA gives them more exposure to a wider audience.  That being said, the video for Habib Galbi has 7+ million views, they’ve been to SXSW (see previous post), and performed on KEXP

Check out their website as they’ll be touring in North America this summer, coming to Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Vancouver amongst others.

-Noah

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Vibin’ on this hard.  

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South X Lullaby: A-WA

!ليلة سعيدة

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Bienvenidos

Welcome to ¿Escuchaste Ese Ruido?, a new blog about fresh and exciting music from all over this cool little planet of ours.  Cross-genre, “world music”, non-English lyrics, transgressive aesthetics... are some keywords to describe ¿EER?. Above all else, it’s a place to share great music without barriers to where it comes from.

¿Escuchaste Ese Ruido? the blog has its beginnings from my time in college as a DJ at WUSC 90.5 fm, the student-run radio station at my alma mater, the University of South Carolina. After my first semester as a general rotation baby-DJ, I started a themed show centered on Latin Alternative music, first with my cohost Lyle and then by myself.  I named the show ¿EER? because well, not many shows were about non-English music and I also wanted to spin new and emerging artists from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. It was a blast to be able to share music I liked over an actual FM signal, especially music in Spanish that went beyond Los Huracanes del Norte and Marc Anthony.  I started a weak tumblr to go along with the show, but the meat of the matter was in on-air show, and the blog aspect never really got much traction (i.e. I hardly posted)

Fast forward to today and it’s been a few years since my college radio days, but I’m back in the saddle again with the new ¿EER?.  There will still be a large focus on Latin Alternative on this blog, but don’t be surprised if you see new groups from Israel or Iowa too.  I’ll mainly be writing in English, with the occasional post in Spanish.  I want to tread the middle ground between the big, well-known zines and the small time blogs.  Music has always been a great way of connecting different types of people, which without sounding too trite, we could use more than ever, given our current societal discourse.

This is music sin fronteras.

-Noah, Founder ¿EER?

noah@escuchasteeseruido.com 

Tweet @nowahklrk

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Last post from old blog.

Reencarnación

This blog was where I tried to put some music from my radio show on WUSC 90.5 FM back when I was a dj there. I haven’t been active on here in quite sometime, and truth be told, was not as active as I should have been on here to begin with.

I’m starting a new music blog at =“escuchasteeseruido.com”>EscuchasteEseRuido.com which will be the reincarnation of this blog and of my old radio show. While the new blog will not be exactly the same theme or format, like a reincarnated soul it will still have a lot of connection to my old radio show.

See you on the other side! ✌🏼

(I’ll reblog this post there, and explain my idea for the new blog over there)