“Africa produces its fair share of aspirational pop with glossy videos featuring fast cars and seemingly faster women. But peer under the hedonistic surface and you discover there are musicians all over the continent who are worthy successors to the griots, Africa’s traditional storytellers.” Article by DJ Rita Ray. Read >>
Africa’s Musical Activists: a New Generation of Griots
Ondos Do Mar
Surrender, Recovery, Fluidity -> Liberation:
embodied expressions by James O’Hara and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
TranceFusions
Many western electronic music-makers creating deeper, rhythm-based music have sought to connect and work with indigenous musical traditions that share a focus for trance states and spiritual awareness.
This meeting of Morrocan Gnawa musicians and Ambient & Techno music-makers brings a sometimes harmonious, sometimes uneasy, sonic dialogue between the ancient and the modern. 21st-century cultural evolution explored through sound:
Listen & watch Biosphere playing with Maalem Mohamed Kouyou >>
Read the overview & see the other sessions >>
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Posted in Sound
Tagged with: Electronic Music, Globalisation, Gnawa, Indigenous Culture, Spiritual Practice, Trance
Tagged with: Electronic Music, Globalisation, Gnawa, Indigenous Culture, Spiritual Practice, Trance
Portrait of the Global Mega-City
It is estimated that in 2008, for the first time more people globally lived in cities than in the countryside. That increase in urban population is predicted to double in the next forty years, with most of the growth being in the relatively recently industrialised developing world.
Marcus Lyon’s BRICS photographs explore these shifts by portraying the rapidly-growing mega-cities of the BRICs nations. (Brazil, Russia, India, China)
Photograph of Rio de Janeiro by Marcus Lyon
38 Maps that Explain Europe
Almost every country on the planet was formally or informally incorporated into a European colonial empire at one point or another in history… And of course we still see the consequences all over the world today.
This map is one in a series of 38 maps exploring what is/was/will be Europe.
View & Read >>
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Cities, Space and the Landscape of Experience
How do cities, their design and the particularities of their history all shape the lives and the communities that exist within them? Postcard from New York by Julian Stodd.
Read >>
Meet the Babylonians – part 3
Iraq was the cradle of civilisation, its deserts the location of the first documented cities. Now, after decades of dictatorship, war and ongoing conflict, the reconstruction of Iraq’s crumbling cities is being masterminded by… a family business in Yorkshire using computer modelling software. Stuart Jeffries goes to meet them…
Read the article >>
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Xanax – or Shaman…?
“In the shamanic view, mental illness signals ‘the birth of a healer’ explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born. When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening…” Exploration of an indigenous African approach to mental health, by Stephanie Marohn. Read more >>
Meet the Babylonians – part 2
“If you want to understand the future of humanity – where we’re headed, who’ll be in charge, and exactly how worried you should be about that – you could do worse than begin with two unremarkable buildings, on opposite coasts of the U.S.” Oliver Burkeman probes the Google project… Read on >>
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Bamboo Bicycle Club
Urban eco-living & nature-based technology, the next level: Bamboo Bicycles…
Watch this clip and Read the Full Article ->>
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It’s Just a Ride
The late Bill Hicks offers his inimitable take on consciousness, reality and society…
The Rise of Dark Tourism
Twenty-first century capitalism excels in creating commercial opportunities from seemingly fruitless situations. The phenomenon of dark tourism seems to fuse the appeal of VR wargames, extreme sports & package holidays into a killer formula. Article by Debra Kamin.
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The Five Biggest Threats to Human Existence
The threat of extinction is not new to humanity. But our era is the first time in which those threats are anthropogenic – they are dangers we have created. Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute considers five potential doom scenarios that can enhance appreciation of the present moment… Read the article >>
[Photographer unknown]
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A Viable One-State Solution?
What did Palestine look like in 1896? This film footage of Palestine at the end of the 19th century shows Palestinians of all faiths – Christians, Jews and Muslims – living and praying side by side.
Techno Resistance
Techno, clubbing and pirate radio as political catalysts… Stories from B92 FM and Klub Industrija in the wartorn dissident underground of ’90s Belgrade. Article by Thomas Gorton & photography by Srdjan Veljovic
Posted in Movement
Tagged with: Belgrade, Community, Music, Photography, Pirate Radio, Resistance, Techno, Writing
Tagged with: Belgrade, Community, Music, Photography, Pirate Radio, Resistance, Techno, Writing
Meet the Babylonians
Investigative analysis by Tim Dickinson on the shadowy Koch Brothers’ empire and its extensive influence in American politics and beyond
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Chant Down Babylon
Sending out the rootical sounds of the Burning Spear to launch the PfB Stream…
Postcards from Babylon
Live Lockdown Stream
27-5-20
20h London time
Audiophile hi-quality Stream:
http://postcardsfrombabylon.net:8000/stream
(live from 8pm)
Zoom Virtual Cinema:
Meeting ID: 838 0351 2701
Password: liberation
Facebook Live:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1597564133736100/
The PfB project predates the pandemic but touches on many of the questions, problems and potential solutions that Covid-19 and the global lockdown have brought to the surface. So we're offering a free live stream of the 55-minute soundtrack, taking a journey from the streets to the forests, from the financial system to house music clubs, and from anarchist protests to Zen meditation temples.
It's a personal narrative designed to evoke and carry the listener's own existential enquiry. The album was premiered to a packed Ritzy cinema in Brixton, London last year, to overwhelmingly positive response.
We'll be streaming on Zoom, Facebook Live and via a high-quality audio-only stream. Christian and Alex will give a short introduction to the project before we take the journey together. Afterwards there will be an opportunity to hang out for Q&As, reflections and integration.
During the stream, we recommend you sit or lie back in a darkened space with the highest-quality speakers or headphones you have access to. This is an imaginal audio experience for your co-creative engagement!
