{"product_id":"what-u-mean","title":"What U Mean","description":"\u003cp\u003eMultidisciplinary artist Jermay Michael Gabriel and producer Giovanni Isgrò team up as Plethor X to present a debut EP of anti-colonial resistance, an unfolding experiment in self-determination.\n\nColonial trauma has no linear trajectory, and neither does memory. It seeps and sinks into the fibres without a temporal pattern, crossing generations, back and forth between past, present and future. Plethor X channel the multifaceted dimensions of such phenomena, exorcising trauma through sound, embracing cultural legacies and collective memories as a form of healing.\n\nThe driving force behind the record is the Habesha musical tradition, distinctive of Jermay's childhood - samples of the masinko, an Ethiopian and Eritrean one-stringed instrument, are used extensively - transposed into rhythmic structures onto which Isgrò playfully grafts elements of footwork, ghetto house, as well as gqom and singeli—a space-time gateway of complicity and experimentation.\n\n\n\nPlethor X's soundscapes are Afro-futurist ecosystems of explicit messages—'Don't use the N word' is distinctly heard in 'Negro'—coalesced with frenzied percussive textures built through destruction. With 'Bet' we experience Muna Mussie's hypnotic recitation of Tigrinya words drawn from a set of nursery rhymes and words emblematic of Eritrean culture. The voice of Mussie, who shares the same origins as Jermay, serves here as a vehicle to express a certain identity melancholia, the repetitive mode sounding like a soothing process of reconciliation. PAN-affiliated producer STILL makes his own contribution by reworking Plethor X's material in 'Fendika', raising the rhythmic tension with his signature colourful, plugged-in dancehall style.\n\n\n\nThat with Europe is a bridge to an indefensible continent, with a predatory, plundering nature, sold as 'civilisation'. In 'What You Mean', Isgrò and Jermay conspire against their own Eurocentrism, regurgitating it from within.\n►Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, cover-art by Jermay Michael Gabriel, photo by Jim C. Nedd, layout by incepBOY.\n\n\n►Limited Edition of 100, 140gr. black vinyl, Includes instant download code.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50416083861835,"sku":"2197999","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_8ae3816c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726695375","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/products\/what-u-mean","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}