#syrian;;cassette

[obstinaterixatrix]

Oh by the way check this out

[recklessyokohama]

syrian cassette archives

[bu1410]

Good afternoon TUMBLR - April 21th - 2024

''Mr. Plant has owed me a shoe since July 5, 1971."

Algeria Tiaret – 2003 – 2004

Part 2

MECHANICAL SUB CONTRACTOR The SAIPEM Head Office Management had decided to entrust the mechanical assembly to a Syrian subcontractor called LEAD. Luckily I wasn't directly involved in the mechanical activities, but LEAD will prove to be a very tough nut to crack for the good Angelotti. Quite good on a technical-organizational level, the Syrians created a lot of problems from a contractual point of view. Arguments over what was included in the contract and what was considered extra-work were common place. The biggest problem, however, was represented by the fact that LEAD boasted a direct line with the San Donato headquarters, so the site management was almost always bypassed. In the end, the dispute with the Syrians far exceeded the contractual amount.

ALGERIA AND OVERLAND Overland is an Italian Travel Agency specialist in organizing travel adventures all over the world. During my stay in Algeria, the Overland caravan happened to pass through those area. In the evening I followed the episodes and misfortunes of that old scoundrel Beppe Tenti, who had found a way to travel the world at the expense of sponsors. In one of the episodes, however, I noticed several inconsistencies, such as route jumps, errors in naming places and so on. I then decided to write an email directly to Overland Customer service, explaining that I was in the places that were described in the travel episodes and exposing their mistakes. No response from Mr. Tenti, and then I forgot the matter. During one my days off in Italy, I got a phone call: it was him in person, Beppe Tenti, he owner of Overland! He told me that he had read my email with interest, and that he recognized the errors made but that these were due to ''editing'' needs of the videos (Mmmm…). In any case, he inquired about the reason why I was in Algeria, complimented me, and asked me for my home address to send me, he said, a series of VHS cassettes with all the Overland adventures. Furthermore, he promised that on one of the next trips he would invite me to participate in the adventure. After 21 years, and I'm still waiting for video cassettes and invitation.

FINAL DEPARTURE FROM ALGERIA. It was November 2003, the project was coming to an end, the station was almost completed when I received an email from my former director, Giorgio Borchia. He asked me if I would be available to return to Kazakhstan, to Atyrau, a city near the Caspian Sea. The prospect was tempting: working on the development of the Kashagan project, the second largest oil field in the world, discovered by AGIP off the Caspian Sea. My contract with SAIPEM would expire at the end of the year, so I sent notice to the Company that I did not intend to renew it. I then took the SP6 – Ghardaia – Hassi Messaoud route for the last time and then the charter to Paris Charles De Gaulles T3.

The next morning the first flight Paris - Milan took me home in less than 1 and half hour.

[unfriendlybat]

Just became aware of this site, which is an archive of syrian cassette tapes. Found it through this article, there's some very interesting stuff here.

[torley]

According to the archive’s website, the cassette medium transformed the country’s musical landscape when it was introduced in the 1970s by providing an accessible platform for many musicians to record and distribute their works in ways they couldn’t before. Mekdad says that the cassette democratized music production and distribution, not just in the Middle East, but across the Global South. “Prior to the cassette, people had to make it to a certain level in their careers as serious artists in or Sound & Music https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/syrian-cassette-archives

[graywyvern]

( opalina salas on fb / "entrance to the museum of relativity" via )

Many mass shootings ago.

"You do not really understand a poem until you have turned it into Latin verse." --Ronald Knox

"As war is the extremity of evil, it is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care of nations, to avert it from their charge."

"pharaonic plague"

cerulean demons grawlix burned to the ground antelucan calm spelt in sibyl's leaves the framework shaken not yet dried is the blood

Syrian Cassette Archives. (via aetherphonica)

" 'The only thing easier to buy than an AR15 assault weapon is a @GOP politician' (just heard on @MSNBC, courtesy of a Houston @NRA protestor)" --@MichaelEMann via @joycecaroloates

Smoking Man.

[writing-after-the-disaster]

SYRIAN CASSETTE ARCHIVES

Syrian Cassette Archives (SCA) is an initiative to preserve, share and research sounds and stories from Syria’s cassette era (1970s-2000s). At the heart of the initial collection are hundreds of cassette tapes acquired by audio producer and archivist Mark Gergis during multiple stays in Syria between 1997 and 2010. The tapes weren’t originally collected with intentions of developing a public archive or forming a comprehensive overview of Syrian music. Instead, they reflect a period of personal research and curiosity, aided by connections made with local music shops, producers and musicians in Syria during the time. 

The material is broad in scope – offering a small window into what could be found at cassette shops and kiosks throughout Syria during the 1990s and 2000s – a time when the country’s abundant retail cassette production was at its peak. The collection features an overview of musical styles from Syriaʼs many communities, including Syrian Arabs, Assyrians, Kurds and Armenians, as well as Iraqis displaced by sanctions and wars throughout the latter part of the 20thcentury. Amongst the tapes are recordings of live concerts, studio albums, soloists, classical, childrenʼs music and more, with special focus on the regional dabke and shaabi folk-pop music, performed at weddings, parties and festivities.

https://syriancassettearchives.org/about

[redofthewestcountry]

MARCH: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE WONDERFUL.

Well, folks we passed level 3 of Jumanji, with just...

March

1st Mar: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to prison for corruption.

1st Mar: Arrests at Camp Nou for financial crimes

1st Mar: Meteor seen over UK

1st Mar: Japan asks China to stop conducting rectal covid tests on Japanese citizens

1st Mar: Perseverance Rover being controlled from flat above hairdressers in London, because Covid forced him to work from home

1st Mar: Zimbabwe Vice President resigns over voice cloning sex scandal

2nd Mar: Former Liverpool player Ian St John passes away aged 82

2nd Mar: Hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian girls released

3rd Mar: 6.2 magnitude Earthquake in Greece

3rd Mar: Thai Navy rescue four cats from burning ship

3rd Mar: Cat rescued from train roof

4th Mar: ICC opens war crimes investigation in Gaza and The West Bank

5th Mar: Illusion of ship floating in mid air photographed of Cornish Coast

5th Mar: Nun stands up against Myanmar military

6th Mar: Pope Francis meets Iraq's top Shia Cleric, in a private meeting in his home - the first between senior Christian and Muslim leaders

7th Mar: Bata, Equatorial Guinea explosions

7th Mar: Yemen migrant detention Centre fire

7th Mar: Myanmar political official dies in custody

7th Mar: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Oprah interview

8th Mar: German MP resigns over face mask sale, firm earned €250,000 euros from sales

8th Mar: Switzerland votes to ban religious face coverings in public

8th Mar: Syrian President and wife test positive for covid

8th March: South Africa student protests

9th Mar: Piers Morgan quits Good Morning Britain

9th Mar: UK to return £4.2 million stolen loot to Nigeria

9th Mar: Bangladesh's first transgender news reader makes debut

9th Mar: Trevor Peacock, Vicar of Dibley passes away

9th Mar: Met Police Officer arrested on suspicion of kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard

10th Mar: Tanzanian President in Kenyan hospital with Covid - asking for prayers and herbal infused steam therapy

10th Mar: Myanmar police defecting to India after orders from military to shoot protesters

10th Mar: Second ship floating in mid air illusion photographed off British coast

10th Mar: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 - protest powers outlined

11th Mar: 13 killed in Nigerian school attack

11th Mar: Egyptian clothing factory fire

11th Mar: Ivorian Coast PM dies in German hospital

11th Mar: China approves plans to control Hong Kong elections

11th Mar: Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape dies aged 94

11th Mar: EU declared LGBT Freedom Zone

12th Mar: George Floyd family given $27 million settlement prior to murder trial

13th Mar: Met Police officer charged with kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard

13th Mar: Spanish police seize home made submarine in drugs raid

13th Mar: Amazon announces refusal to sell books that frame sexual identity as mental illness

14th Mar: Spanish police arrest biggest cocaine gang in Madrid

14th Mar: Minibus carrying Argentine President attacked by anti open pit mining protests

14th Mar: Women detained at vigil for Sarah Everard

15th Mar: Australian sexual assault protests

15th Mar: Beijing sandstorm

15th Mar: Niger-Mali border attacks

16th Mar: Dinamo Zagreb manager given five year jail sentence for fraud

16th Mar: Bulgarian Police seize millions in counterfeit during operation with US

16th Mar: Rare ancient scroll, circa 2nd century a.d. found in Isreal Cave of Horror

16th Mar: Atalanta massage parlour shootings

17th Mar: Japan finds same sex marriage ban unconstitutional

17th Mar: Sabine Schmidtz passes away aged 51

17th Mar: Iceland records fifty thousand earthquakes in three weeks

17th Mar: Reddit investors adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

17th Mar: First Sound recording of a Mars rover driving released by Nasa

18th Mar: Man arrested outside Kamala Harris' residence with rifle and ammunition

19th Mar: Salia Suluhu Hassan becomes first female Tanzanian President

19th Mar: 2,500 year old bull figurine found at ancient site of Olympia

19th Mar: Drugs worth over a million euros seized by French police turned out to be ground up strawberry haribo

20th Mar: Turkey withdraws from Istanbul convention to combat violence against women

21st Mar: Australia sees worst flooding in sixty years

21st Mar: 'Kill the Bill' protests turn violent in Bristol

22nd Mar: BBC and Sky announce deal to broadcast live women's football

22nd Mar: Boulder, Colarado ten killed in mass shooting, seventh in seven days in US

22nd Mar: Canada, EU, UK, and US impose sanctions against Chinese officials over Uighur detention camps and human rights abuses

23rd Mar: Container ship runs aground in Suez Canal

24th Mar: Virginia becomes first Southern state to abolish death penalty

24th Mar: Norwegian football team wears human rights t-shirts in protests over Qatar World Cup human rights abuses of migrant workers

25th Mar: Protests outside West Midlands school over Prophet Mohammed cartoon

25th Mar: German team follow Norwegian team in wearing t-shirts to support migrant workers in Qatar

25th Mar: North Korea tests ballistic missiles

25th Mar: Japan begins Olympic torch relay

26th Mar: Egyptian train crash

26th Mar: Dominion voting sues Fox News for $1.6 billion over election fraud claims

26th Mar: Western brands boycott cotton produced in China's Xinziang provence

27th Mar: Walrus spotted in Tenby

27th Mar: World Anti-Doping Agency launches investigation over British cycling allegations

27th Mar: 114 killed by security forces in Myanmar

28th Mar: 6 year old boy finds 488 million year old fossil in garden

28th Mar: Militant attack in Palma, Mozambique

29th Mar: Stern of grounded ship in Suez Canal freed, and position corrected by 80%

29th Mar: Derek Chauvin trial begins for the death of George Floyd

29th Mar: Ever Given freed from Suez Canal and on the move, after six days

29th Mar: Indonesian oil refinery fire

29th Mar: Mafia fugitive captured after posting cooking video to you tube

30th Mar: Rebecca Welch becomes first female ref appointed to English Football League game

30th Mar: Teen who called himself 'Hitler' jailed for terror offences

30th Mar: Japan's cherry blossom earliest peak since 812 ad.

30th Mar: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear agency account

30th Mar: Police bust World's biggest video game cheat operation, with a revenue of £55 million

31st Mar: Attempted coup foiled in Niger before inauguration

31st Mar: Italian Naval Officer caught selling secrets to Russia

31st Mar: North Macedonia beat Germany in 2022 World Cup qualifier

[snackpointcharlie]

If you don’t know whether you’re coming or going or which way is up these days, well take a number, buddy. When the going gets weird, the weird tune in Snackpoint Charlie for an earful of music from hither and yon and points in between. Last night’s broadcast is now available via WGXC’s patented Podcast-O-Matic™ process, and not a moment too soon:

Snackpoint Charlie - Transmission 091 - 2022.05.18 PLAYLIST https://wavefarm.org/wf/archive/zpfa9z

1) Ubon Pattana with Surin Paksiri - “Lam Sarawan” from SIAMESE SOUL: THAI POP SPECTACULAR VOL. 2 https://sublime-frequencies.bandcamp.com/album/siamese-soul-thai-pop-spectacular-vol-2

2) May Sumarna - “Untuk Ibu” from PARADE 1968 - VOL. 1 https://madrotter-treasure-hunt.blogspot.com/2019/04/parade-1968-vol-1.html

3) Ian Carr - “Summer Rain” from BELLADONNA https://www.discogs.com/master/437717-Ian-Carr-Belladonna

(underbed throughout) Pinetop Gherkins - “iranaway”

4) Lilis Surjani - “Gendjer Gendjer” from Lilis . . . . Ia Tetap Diatas! https://madrotter-treasure-hunt.blogspot.com/2019/03/lilis-surjani-orkes-baju-lilis-ia-tetap.html https://www.discogs.com/release/12537182-Lilis-Surjani-Ia-Tetap-Diatas

5) Echo Del Africa - “Yiri Wah” from Bobo Yéyé: Belle Epoque in Upper Volta https://boboyeye.bandcamp.com/album/bobo-y-y-belle-epoque-in-upper-volta https://numerogroup.com/products/bobo-yy-belle-poque-in-upper-volta

6) キングコングパラダイス [King Kong Paradise] - “レゲエ ヴドゥ [Reggae Vudu]” from あつさもさむさも [Atsushi and Samusa] https://www.discogs.com/master/1520717-%E3%82%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3%83%91%E3%83%A9%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B9-%E3%81%82%E3%81%A4%E3%81%95%E3%82%82%E3%81%95%E3%82%80%E3%81%95%E3%82%82

7) Los Golden Boys - “Sonrieme” from Cumbia De Juventud https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/cumbia-de-juventud https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4323594/reference/

8) لطوارق = Touareg - “عزف على القصبة = Gasba” from Chants Et Musique D'Algérie RTA N°3 https://www.discogs.com/release/2992160-Various-%D8%A3%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A-%D9%88%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%82%D9%89-%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9-Chants-Et-Musique-DAlg%C3%A9rie

9) Mdou Moctar - “Asdikte Akal (Yugen Blakrock Remix ft Kanif The Jhatmaster)” from Afrique Refait https://mdoumoctar.bandcamp.com/album/afrique-refait

10) Tom Recchion - “Obscure Joe Doaks” from Japanese Cassette https://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/japanese-cassette/

11) 天気予報 「Weather Forecast」 - “Imminent Sunset” from ひまわり画像 「Sunflower Image」 https://asutenki.bandcamp.com

12) DakhaBrakha - “9 Nedilechok (I'm Sunday)” from Live on KEXP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o88sTCmJlb4

13) Cieba Coqui - “3a” from Coqui of Ceiba, Puerto Rico, 2002 https://fredlonberg-holm.bandcamp.com/album/coqui-of-ceiba-puerto-rico-2002

14) Ahmed Ag Kaedi - “Imouhagh Siwlat” from Agrim Agadez https://sahelsoundscompilations.bandcamp.com/album/agrim-agadez

15) Alhaji K. Frimpong - “Enna” from Abrabo https://hotcasarecords.bandcamp.com/album/abrabo

16) David Greenberger & The Waldameer Players - “Down at the Rock & Roll Club (Ken’s Corner)” from TODAY! http://www.davidgreenberger.com/

17) Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - “Bassekouni” from Ba Power http://bassekou-kouyate.bandcamp.com

18) Sublime Frequencies/Mark Gergis - “Youth Radio of the Syrian Arab Republic” from I Remember Syria https://sublime-frequencies.bandcamp.com/album/i-remember-syria

19) Daniel Bachman - “WBRP 47.5” from Axacan https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/axacan

20) Geylang Electric Phin Band - “Hek Sib Gau” from Sounds of Lecak Vol. 1 https://kriborecordsggb.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-of-lecak-vol-1

21) “Cucak Rawa (Ropel)” and “Murai Batu (Juara)” from SONG BIRDS OF INDONESIA https://sublime-frequencies.bandcamp.com/album/song-birds-of-indonesia

[sarroora]

Here is the link to OffQuest’s podcast episode 6, interviewing Emara’s director, Fatma Elmeheiri. This podcast was uploaded on May 18th, around the time the first episode hit YouTube about 6 weeks ago.

The interview is in Arabic (what were you guys inhaling at the start of the podcast what’s going on over there and can I have someXD), so read below for some fun highlights:

Fatma: “I learned that you need to be good at storyboarding if you eventually want to be a animated series director. You don’t have to be a great animator to be a director. My biggest problem in animation was that my timing was always off. I tried and I tried but I couldn’t do it well enough. My teacher at the academy advised me to focus on storyboarding and directing instead.”

“Our studios (in the Emirates) are very small, so you have to do several jobs. I had to be both the director AND the manager, which was very draining.”

Although Emara is a mini-series, Fatma admits she severely overestimated what she and the team could do, especially since the team is so small

“You could put the most elaborate plan in the world - you’ll still face a lot of problems during production. You have to deal with them.”

“School was so much easier than this.”

In early development, Dhabian was going to be the series protagonist, but of course that later changed

“If he were the main character, I feel he wouldn’t be as liked. He’s likeable as the deuteragonist.” The interviewer agrees with this, saying that deuteragonists have a lot of charm because they’re more unpredictable than the protagonists, and have their own minds and agenda that the viewers might find unclear till much later

Interviewer: “Will Dhabian ever get his own spin-off series..?” Fatma: “Who knows? Maybe.”

“Comics would be more likely, since animation is so expensive.”

Fatma doesn’t go into details, but she wanted to put the series on YouTube for a while; it seems that big networks’ politics were just too much for her and her small team’s peace of mind and resources

Large networks are implied to not be passionate about animated series (I don’t find this surprising at all). They’ll pay millions for local live action dramas and imported foreign series, but not for cartoons

It’s also apparently extremely hard for young creators to pitch their work to any network, period. The bureaucracy is mind-numbing and it seems the people able to do anything are stars and people who are famous and/or well-connected and wealthy

Apparently one network wanted to air the series for free?!1?!? The heck is wrong with people O_O This is the whole “do it for exposure” crap again

Finally they found a network that wasn’t shady or trying to take their work without credit, and helped them put up Emara online on YouTube and promote it

“There’s no point in airing the series on a network that doesn’t care about it after all, and wouldn’t market it to people who could care about it.”

Fatma had so many things she wanted to show in Emara, but it just wasn’t possible. She says she had to learn to let it go, and her Art Director Ahmed helped her with that

Dhabian - as a proposed superhero name - received a lot of mixed reviews when his name was first suggested during pre-production. Several members on the creative team are non-Emirati Middle Easterners (Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, etc.) and that word makes no sense in their own languages, so they didn’t know what to do with it. But she stuck with it, and wanted a name that also isn’t hard to pronounce in English

Both the names of Emara and Dhabian are references to UAE geography

Fatma went with the name Moza even though it’s such a common Emirati name. Fatma says the foreigners on the creative team thought nothing of it, but the Middle Easterners were hella confused. Because Moza in Egyptian and pretty much every other language in the region means ‘Banana’. However in Emirati, Moza is a kind of pearl

Emara’s outfit is inspired by the colors of the flag

Maitha is a mix of Fatma’s mother and paternal aunt’s personalities

Fatma is credited with creating the designs and looks of Emara, Dhabian, and Maitha. Art Director Ahmed Beyrouti designed other characters in the series

The interviewer asks her if Emara’s outfit is in anyway related to the police force’s outfit because there are some similarities. She doesn’t wanna answer that so he thinks it’s probably a spoiler

The interviewer is impressed at how Dhabian’s design (heavily inspired by traditional men’s garb in UAE) can actually look practical as a superhero outfit, down to the ghutra. No one in real life can fight wearing that stuff 

She loves the art styles of Rebecca Sugar and Natasha Allegri, and both inspire her as women in animation

The reason the lip syncing in particular HAD to be animated to the English script and not the Informal Arabic one is because several of the animators don’t know Arabic. The lip syncing and facial expressions would’ve been completely off

Fatma says it’s highly unrealistic for the series to have only Emirati peeps since the country is a metropolitan with a huge expat population, and so she wanted to reflect that

She intentionally didn’t want every character in the series to be Emirati, because that would’ve bored her. That’s why we see many ethnicities in the background characters (and have a Lebanese and an Egyptian as speaking roles and antagonists, hopefully there’ll be even more characters the future)

She’s weirded out by how Dhabian seems to be more popular among fans than Emara when she appears a lot more oftenXD “Because he’s cool and a badass, that’s why” the interviewer answers herXD

The interviewer is loving on all the Studio Trigger homages and inspirations (thanks to Ahmed Beyrouti)

The 2 episodes Fatma storyboarded herself ended up being deleted because they had neither the money nor the funds. On her twitter, she also mentions one episode would have been about Dhabian’s past, but that was deleted too

Someone asks her what is the one thing she learned during her work, and she replies: “Knowing how to improvise.”

Her favorite people to work with were the voice actors, composer, and art director

She sadly laments that producing quality animation in UAE and the Middle East in general is so difficult, so expensive, and the environment is so harsh and unsupportive of animators that’s it’s easier to go animate in another country

A fan sends her a question asking why she decided to create Emara, and Fatma says she wanted to create a girl she wished existed when she was a child. Because there weren’t much, and a character such as Disney’s Jasmine is so hilariously unrealistic to Middle Eastern girls no one could relate to her. She’s more of a mythical creature

“Guys, do you remember Cow and Chicken, when we were kids?” “Ugh, I remember that, it was so weird, so bizarre!”

Aww, she had my Neighbor Totoro on video cassette

Fatma: “I was so terrified by Princess Mononoke I buried the DVD out in our yard.” Interviewer: “What the heck…”

(Ok, I have no idea how this segway happened, but the conversation suddenly shifted to tips on finding Halal food places in Japan among other things XD)

[deepartnature]

Syrian Cassette Archives

“... For these reasons, tapes were widely popular in many parts of the world, Syria being one potent example. Syrian Cassette Archives, a new website created by a team led by Iraqi-American musician and collector Mark Gergis and Damascus-born DJ and community organizer Yamen Makdad, offers a window into the country’s rich musical history through tapes. Gergis grew up hearing pop by the likes of legendary Egyptian vocalist Umm Kulthoum and famed Lebanese diva Fairuz before making his first of many trips to Syria in 1997, where he began amassing mountains of cassettes as he immersed himself in the local music. ...”

4columns

Cassette tape collection captures music of Syria lost to years of bloodshed (Audio)

Syrian Cassette Archives (Audio)

[researchbuzz]

Scotland Medieval Manuscripts, Syrian Cassette Archives, Prince of Wales Heritage Centre, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 3, 2022

Scotland Medieval Manuscripts, Syrian Cassette Archives, Prince of Wales Heritage Centre, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 3, 2022

NEW RESOURCES Scottish Field: Knights Templar Beard Advice Goes Online. “The 12th century advice on why excessive facial hair wasn’t needed is part of 240 documents digitised by the library, thanks to a donation from Alexander Graham, the television producer behind the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? The manuscripts – which date from the 9th to the 16th centuries – also include…