Music from Saharan Cellphones, by Various

Music from Saharan Cellphones

by Various

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noinoeso Death Grips heavily sampled this album for their landmark The Money Store. It's easy to see why: this is an absolute banger! Takes you to another continent while celebrating the magic of sharing songs with friends and strangers. Favorite track: Yereyira.

patrickte_ file under: vernacular beats

nuke 'em from orbit what else is there to say, this is as peer driven and DIY as it gets. that's worth supporting on its own

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1.	Tinariwen 06:16	info
2.	Abandé 03:31	info
3.	Alghafiat 06:37	info
4.	Guetna 01:14	info
5.	Yereyira 04:48	info
6.	Tahoultine 05:37	info
7.	Moribiyassa 03:40	info
8.	Faroter 05:27	info
9.	Aicha 06:08	info

about

Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation of music collected from memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert.

In much of West Africa, cellphones are are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, playback songs on tinny built in speakers, and swap files in a very literal peer to peer Bluetooth wireless transfer.

The songs chosen for the compilation were some of the highlights -- music that is immensely popular on the unofficial mp3/cellphone network from Abidjan to Bamako to Algiers, but have limited or no commercial release. They're also songs that tend towards this new world of self production -- Fruity Loops, home studios, synthesizers, and Autotune.

In 2010, various versions of saharan cellphone music were released on cassette. Many of the songs were unlabeled, giving no insight to their mysterious origins. In the past year, the artists have been tracked down to collaborate on a commercial release. As such, 50% of the proceeds go directly to the artists.

The official vinyl release is available for purchase here:
littleaxerecords.weebly.com/distributed-titles.html

The original cassette was also remixed and reinterpreted here:
boomarmnation.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-saharan-cellphones

chris
sahelsounds

credits

released December 2, 2011

Collected in Kidal, Mali, 2009-2010 by Christopher Kirkley
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic
Front cover graphics by Mystére
Back cover images from cellphones in Kidal
sahelsounds-003

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Sahel Sounds Portland, Oregon

Sahel Sounds is a recording project and vinyl record label focused on culture in the West African Sahel.

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