{"title":"Ostinato","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"pour-me-a-grog-the-funana-revolt-in-1990s-cabo-verde","title":"Pour Me A Grog: The Funana Revolt in 1990s Cabo Verde","description":"\u003cp\u003eRaw Funana music, a sibling of Cumbia, distilled from the Badiu masters of the accordion. Crafted in the isolated northern heartlands of Cabo Verde's Santiago Island, where revolt and rebellion against injustice courses through its history's veins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHypnotic notes on aged accordions tuned and flavored in ways found nowhere but Santiago are infused with inviting baselines, raucous rhythms, blade-on-iron percussion, and the bubbling lyricism and lament of the island's finest ambassadors.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50417235525963,"sku":"1084464","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50417235591499,"sku":"1084465","price":6.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/889facdd-9d26-4e6f-aefb-09447e3fe125_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726722847"},{"product_id":"two-niles-to-sing-a-melody-the-violins-and-synths-of-sudan","title":"Two Niles To Sing A Melody: The Violins and Synths Of Sudan","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlthough Sudanese styles are endlessly diverse, this compilation celebrates the golden sound of the capital, Khartoum. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach chapter of the cosmopolitan city's tumultuous musical story is covered through 16 tracks: from the hypnotic violin and accordion-driven orchestral music of the 1970s that captured the ears and hearts of Africa and the Arabic-speaking world, to the synthesizer and drum machine music of the 1980s, and the music produced in exile in the 1990s. The deep kicks of tum tum and Nubian rhythms keep the sound infectious. Sudan of old had music everywhere: roving sound systems and ubiquitous bands and orchestras kept Khartoum's sharply dressed youth on their feet. Live music was integral to cultural life, producing a catalog of concert recordings. In small arenas and large outdoor venues, musical royalty of the day built Khartoum's reputation as ground zero for innovation and technique that inspired a continent. Musicians in Ethiopia and Somalia frequently point to Sudan's biggest golden era stars as idols. Mention Mohammed Wardi — a legendary Sudanese singer and activist akin to Fela Kuti in stature and impact in his music and politics — and they often look to the heavens. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA popular story is of one man from Mali who walked for three months across the Sahel to Sudan because the father of the woman he wanted to marry would only allow it if he got him a signed cassette from Wardi himself. Saied Khalifa is said to be the one of the few singers to make Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie smile. Such is the stature of Sudanese singers and the reputation of Sudanese music, particularly in the \"Sudanic Belt,\" a cultural zone that stretches from Djibouti all the way west to Mauritania, covering much of the Sahara and the Sahel, lands where Sudanese artists are household names and Sudanese poems are regularly used as lyrics until today to produce the latest hits. Sudanese cassettes often sold more in Cameroon and Nigeria than at home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut years of anti-music sentiment have made recordings in Sudan difficult to source. Ostinato's team traveled to Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Egypt in search of the timeless cultural artifacts that hold the story of one of Africa's most mesmerizing cultures. That these cassette tape and vinyl recordings were mainly found in Sudan's neighbours is a testament to Sudanese music's widespread appeal. With the Sudanese partner and co-compiler Tamador Sheikh Eldin Gibreel, a once famous poet and actress in '70s Khartoum, Ostinato's fifth album, following the Grammy-nominated \u003ci\u003eSweet As Broken Dates\u003c\/i\u003e, revives the enchanting harmonies, haunting melodies, and relentless rhythms of Sudan's brightest years, fully restored, remastered and packaged luxuriously in a triple LP gatefold and double CD bookcase to match the regal repute of Sudanese music. A 20,000-word liner note booklet gives voice to the singers silenced by an oppressive regime. Take a sail down the Blue and White Nile as they pass through Khartoum, carrying with them an ancient history and a never-ending stream of poems and songs. It takes two Niles to sing a melody.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F472790214\u0026amp;show_artwork=true\u0026amp;color=f2667e\u0026amp;buying=false\u0026amp;theme_color=232323\u0026amp;font=Helvetica+Neue\u0026amp;show_user=false\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"CD | x2","offer_id":50435949625675,"sku":"1042650","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP | x3","offer_id":50435949887819,"sku":"1042651","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/cd044587-438f-454c-9b01-89845b181386_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1731592660"},{"product_id":"sweet-as-broken-dates-lost-somali-tapes-from-the-horn-of-africa","title":"Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1988, on the eve of a two decade civil war, Somalia's authoritarian ruler Siad Barre launched punishing air strikes on the north of the country, known today as Somaliland, in response to agitations for independence. The bombing leveled the entire city. Barre targeted Radio Hargeisa to prevent any kind of central communication system that could organize a resistance. With the attack imminent, a few brave radio operators and dedicated vanguards of Somali culture knew the archives, containing over half a century of Somali music had to be preserved. Thousands upon thousands of cassette tapes and master reels were quickly removed from the soon-to-be targeted buildings. They were dispersed to neighboring countries like Djibouti and Ethiopia, and buried deep under the ground to withstand even the most powerful airstrikes. \"We buried them in the ground so the bomb's won't hit,\" one former leading journalist with Radio Hargeisa told us. These audio artifacts were excavated and recalled from their foreign shelters only very recently. Some of those recordings are now kept safe in the 10,000-strong cassette tape archive of the Red Sea Foundation, the largest collection of Somali cassettes in the world, in Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa. The Ostinato Records team digitized a large portion of the archive, distilling 15 songs that reveal the panoramic diversity of styles and sophistication of Somali musicianship. Over a millennia of trade in the Indian Ocean invited the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and even China to slowly work their melodies, scales, and sounds into Somalia's rich musical repertoire. Each track is a keen illustration of a carefully refined, rarely revealed cultural crossroads of the world. The archive offered a living window to the Mogadishu of the 1970s and 1980s, when the coastal capital glistened as the \"Pearl of the Indian Ocean,\" when wine flowed freely. With its iconic ivory-colored architecture and crescent beaches overlooking the Indian Ocean, Mogadishu was home to the lavish Al Uruba and Jazira sea side hotels, where youthful bands like Iftiin, Sharero, and Dur Dur serenaded cosmopolitan crowds at some of the most elegant nightclubs in East Africa. These damaged cassettes evoked memories of the revered national theater, where Waaberi Band provided unforgettable soundtracks. Mogadishu's nightlife culture was rich and booming. Raucous rhythms, rugged horns, celestial synthesizers, and stalking baselines came alive alongside majestic voices like Mahmud \"Jerry\" Hussen and powerful and adored female singers like Faadumo Qaasim, Hibo Nuura, and Sahra Dawo. Somali music of this era is set apart by its empowerment of women. Female singers, often more prolific than their male counterparts, are inseparable from its evolution. Half the compilation is sung by women, their voices often compared in Somali poetry to the sweetness of broken dates. Poetry, intrinsic to the cultural fabric, forms the foundation of Somali songwriting. Somali music's golden age, curiously, occurred under a socialist military dictatorship, which effectively nationalized the music industry. A thriving scene was owned entirely by the state. Music was recorded for and by national radio stations and only disseminated through public broadcasts or live performances. Private labels were virtually non-existent. This music was never made available for mass release. Almost all recorded material came from original masters or homemade recordings of radio broadcasts. As a result, most of it has never been heard outside Somalia and the immediate region. During the Cold War, Somalia drifted between Soviet and American support — and a decade of U.S. backing allowed soul and funk to capture the imagination of Somali youth, adding the final touch on this masterpiece era. This project took our team to Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Djibouti, and across the Somali diaspora in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. For the last year, from Minnesota to Mogadishu to Malaysia, we have tracked down the musicians, songwriters, composers, former government officials, and quirky personalities that colored Somali music life. Their words and stories are revealed in a 15,000-word liner note booklet — the only document of its kind to cover this era of Somali music in depth. Alongside the story of Somalia's music before the civil war, the selection is also focused on the pan-Somali sound. Spread over much of the Horn of Africa, Somali language and culture transcend arbitrary borders. Somali singers from Djibouti were at home in Mogadishu. This compilation seeks to revive the rightful image, history, and identity of the Somali people, detached from war, violence, piracy, and the specter of a persistent threat. These 15 tracks should serve as a necessary starting point. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50435952509259,"sku":"1015739","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6051a6ba-b598-4187-81f7-ad2e52de42ca_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726910117"},{"product_id":"beja-power-electric-soul-and-brass-from-sudan-s-red-sea-coast","title":"Beja Power! Electric Soul and Brass from Sudan's Red Sea Coast","description":"\u003cp\u003eA soundtrack of Sudan's revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture. \u003ci\u003eBeja Power!\u003c\/i\u003e is a living archive of the finest, most heartfelt Beja songs—a six-track portal to another time and place, of melodies long forgotten and never before interpreted by an electric and brass-driven ensemble. Few older Beja recordings were produced. Even fewer, if any, remain. Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai—all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji's impeccable, airy tenor sax, and of course, Noori's tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA truly ancient community, Beja trace their ancestry back millennia. Some say they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush. They are even depicted in the hieroglyphics. Beja melodies—nostalgic, hopeful and sweet, ambiguous and honest—are thousands of years old. Yet their sounds are also reminiscent of Dick Dale's 1963 \"Misirlou\" and jazz great Charlie Rouse's 1968 \"Meci Bon Dieu\". This album could be 6,000 years, 60 years, or 6 months old. Along with his Dorpa Band, formed in 2006, Noori's instrumental Beja music forms the latest link in an unbroken chain of an inherited, arresting sound that is local as it is global, a gift of a storied past and the exchanges of the well-traveled Red Sea. Ostinato Records is honored to bring the nearly forgotten Beja sound in all its nostalgia, sweetness, honesty, and power, recorded and mastered to maintain the warmth of Sudan's signature aesthetic, to your sound system. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50453621080395,"sku":"1158538","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Beja_Power_Electric_Soul__Brass_from_Sudans_Red_Sea_Coast_a150ed0a_thumbnail.jpg?v=1727174554"},{"product_id":"the-dancing-devils-of-djibouti","title":"The Dancing Devils of Djibouti","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first ever international album from the Republic of Djibouti and Ostinato's first studio recorded album. While the music of Somalia is widely celebrated, its neighbor, Djibouti, formerly known as French Somaliland, is home to an equally deep reservoir of its own unique Somali music.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA stunning collision of Indian Bollywood, Jamaican dub and reggae, sleek horns inspired by Harlem's jazz era, and the haunting and joyous synthesizer melodies of the Red Sea by Groupe RTD, the national radio band of Djibouti and one of East Africa's best kept secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelmed by Mohamed Abdi Alto, possibly the most unheralded saxophone virtuoso in all of Africa, and mentored by guitarist Abdirazak Hagi Sufi -- both of whom feature as instrumentalists on our Grammy-nominated compilation Sweet As Broken Dates -- Groupe RTD is the finest expression of Djibouti's cosmopolitan music style.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlto honed his trade from a steady diet of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Abdirazak's guitar style draws heavily from his love affair with Jamaican music. Young singers Asma Omar and Hassan Omar Houssein are fluent in the classic hits of Bollywood and Indian music. Synth player Moussa Aden Ainan brings a distinctly dexterous Somali touch, reminiscent of the exceptional keys work of Somalia's Iftin and Waaberi Band. Their sound is kept afloat by measured Tadjouran rhythms, courtesy of drummer Omar Farah Houssein and dumbek player Salem Mohamed Ahmed's perfect interplay.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecorded in three days -- as per the strict limit set by Djibouti's national radio authorities -- with a state-of-the-art mobile recording studio replete with the very best audio interfaces and carefully positioned microphones around a less than soundproof room to achieve a vibrant, professional sound while maintaining the analog warmth of decades prior.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP | x2","offer_id":50458535985483,"sku":"1093192","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/e962ba22-a8e7-47ba-bfe1-040ebe962a99_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727211691"},{"product_id":"the-strings-of-sao-domingos","title":"The Strings of So Domingos","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the small inland town of São Domingos on Cape Verde's Santiago Island, The Ano Nobo Quartet delivers a fresh take on Koladera, a guitar-driven, subtly rhythmic sound of a lighter spirit. Their sound tells a global story with Cape Verde at its center, a creole melting pot in the middle of the Atlantic attracting the best from four continents: hypnotic, haunting Koladera guitars inflected with twangs of Salsa Cubano, Spanish Flamenco, Brazilian Samba Canção, Jamaican Reggae, Argentine Tango, Mozambican Marrabenta, and finished with a dash of Black American Blues. It's all here. Absent percussion, the quartet's sound still drips with rhythm. Rich, raw acoustic music you can dance to.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis album was recorded in three locations on Santiago Island: at homes, by the sea, and on the volcanic hills of Cape Verde. Each location used a mobile recording studio equipped with different mics placed near and far to capture both the Spanish and Chinese-made guitars and the natural environment that shapes the saudade, a melancholic longing, of Koladera. 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In smaller pockets, second generation musicians were independently contributing to one of the most lush periods of cultural innovation by immigrants in Europe. 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Jantra is a rather unknown quantity even in Sudan, outside of the circles which have granted him cult status to perform at their humble gatherings or at street parties far from the gaze of the cities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJaglara, which roughly translates as improvisation, has no songs. Jantra simply freestyles a combination of his melodies incessantly for hours on end, acting as a live producer and DJ for emphatic crowds, where the energy of his 155 - 168 BPM music is known to inspire the odd gunslinger to raise and fire his pistol in the middle of the dance floor. His music is hopeful in a hopeless world, uplifting in spirit, ancient and new, childish and mature, familiar yet refreshingly obscure, fueled by the hypnotic Sera rhythm. His Yamaha keyboard is specially tweaked to achieve what you're hearing — the perfect, sweet key tone, literally universal in its appeal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA hybrid reissue-contemporary album, Ostinato combined extracted individual melodic patterns, rhythms, and MIDI data from Jantra's Yamaha keyboard with his older cassette and digital recordings to recreate his lengthy sessions into individual dance tracks for a worldwide audience to reach the enviable frenzy of Sudanese crowds. This promising new dance music emerging from the deepest reaches of Sudan has never made its way outside of Jantra's parties, let alone outside of the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis record is confirmation that the many electronic styles being exported from Africa have a worthy sibling and rival—Jantra's signature electronic Jaglara from the Fashaga underground. It is a privilege of the highest order to be exposed to this unheralded, incredibly well kept rural Sudanese secret.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ostinato","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50490634830155,"sku":"2026491","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/cover.ki-1_7c65a0b4_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727668877"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/ostinato.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}