The concert will feature Jeremiah Lockwood’s (of the Sway Machinery) world premiere work, inspired by the Brooklyn Museum’s special exhibit, American Identities.

The Sway Machinery’s new record is available from JDub Records: http://bit.ly/hofgcd

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While this column is primarily about the non-JDub music I’m listening to, I would be remise this week if I didn’t share a few new tracks with you from the label I co-founded 8 years ago this week.

First up: Two songs from Soulico, the Israeli DJ collective I discovered through a mashup mixtape in a Tel Aviv record store in 2005, remixing and re-imagining material from their 2009 JDub release, Exotic on the Speaker.

“1000 Nights Remix” begins as a dark, brooding, synth-driven beat.  Your first hint of the Middle Eastern flavor to come is the flute.  Then Ravid Kahalani‘s voice hits you.  Ravid’s been getting a lot of attention for his own band, Yemen Blues, and as a singer with Israeli superstar Idan Raichel. And while he tries – admirably – to take lead here, Soulico’s beat is no second fiddle.  Check it two and a half minutes in – it picks up, mutates, and I suddenly imagine a midnight desert rave in the Negev, fist-pumping desert-dwellers who’ve never bothered with clubs and strobe lights alongside Pauly D, all of them caught up in this cross-cultural musical ecstasy.  Yes, its that good.

“Bitter Crunk” – Soulico introduces an appropriately exotic sample, throw in the synth they can’t seem to put down these days, and then bring in Rye Rye, who’s turn on Exotic on the Speaker’s title track was a banger in its own right.  Here, though, she gets the “chopped & screwed” treatment.

Today’s final selection is the first single from The Sway Machinery‘s forthcoming album, The House of Friendly Ghosts, Volume 1.  The band is led by Jeremiah Lockwood, a former Six Points Fellow and regular Balkan Beat Box guitarist, who explores new contexts for his family’s Cantorial musical tradition and his own 15 years as a blues musician in New York City’s subway stations.

“Gawad Teriamou (45 Edit)” – The song, like much of the album, features Malian superstar Khaira Arby and was recorded in Mali during the band’s journey there to perform at the Festival of the Desert.   On an album where you might expect to hear a jarring meshing of cultures or traditions, you instead hear joyous, funky harmony.

Soulico and The Sway Machinery are both playing The Festival of Strikes on Tuesday 11/30 in Brooklyn, a pre-Hanukkah party and fundraiser for JDub, to help us continue our work with new Jewish music, media, and culture.  They’ll be joined by label-mates Deleon and comedian Eugene Mirman.  We’re buying a free drink for the first 150 people in the door.  We’d love to see you there.

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Every year since 2001, amidst the sweeping barren landscapes of the Sahara Desert, artists, nomads, patrons, musicians, tourists, and traders converge to create, share, and celebrate. On January 7-9, 2010, the tenth edition of The Festival in The Desert will take place featuring an all-star lineup of musicians from all over Africa, Europe and The United States, including The Sway Machinery.

The Festival Au Desert seeks to combine modernity and tradition, simultaneously opening its doors to the outside world while still preserving the cultures and traditions of the desert. It is in that vein that The Sway Machinery were invited to perform. For a band based out of Brooklyn, NY, The Sway Machinery have a decidedly desert sound. The group’s leader and songwriter, Jeremiah Lockwood, descends from a familial tradition of Jewish Cantorial music to which his grandfather introduced him at a young age. He was also indoctrinated into the American blues when he met piedmont blues legend Carolina Slim at a music festival and went on to play with him in the subways of New York City for several years.

Lockwood’s deeply personal relationship to these two musical traditions helped him to forge a unique musical language of his own fostering a unique blend of deeply moving sounds and concepts, bolstered by a powerful horn section featuring members of Afrobeat collective Antibalas such as Jordan McLean on Trumpet and Stuart Bogie on Tenor Sax. Add Colin Stetson rounding out the bottom register on Bass Saxophone and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on drums, and what results is The Sway Machinery’s rich, other-worldly sound that fuses influences and traditions from divergent cultures and places. Powerful and dynamic, yet entrancing and captivating, The Sway Machinery have a presentation that communicates on many differing levels.

“We have always strove with our music to connect seemingly disparate worlds–the past and the present, the secular and the profane, the obscure and the populist,” Lockwood describes the opportunity The Festival Au Desert provides, “In this latest journey I see a wealth of connections opening up between cultures and between musicians and between individuals that would never have been otherwise possible.”

Malian music is and has been for some time a source of inspiration for Lockwood, “I’ve been heavily into Malian music for the last five years or so, initially having gotten excited about the music through hearing records of Boubacar Traore. I immediately heard in it connections to the early Blues records that have always been a central part of my musical life. This connection between the old world and the new also resonated with me deeply–it felt connected on a deep level with the process I am going through in trying to delve into my family’s Jewish musical heritage.”

The connection Lockwood identified is one many European and American artists have sought out in the past. In 2003, Robert Plant (lead singer of Led Zeppelin) performed at the festival and described it as one of the highlights of his career. The music of West Africa has had a global impact on many levels. Not only do contemporary African musicians like Vieux Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté tour the world and enjoy widespread acclaim and success, but American blues and rock ‘n roll descend from West African musical traditions carried over through the Atlantic Slave Trade. Those musical traits have permeated contemporary musical trends all over the world several times over.

As part of their pilgrimage to Mali, The Sway Machinery plan to record an album in Bamako, Mali’s capital city, at the legendary Studio Bogolan, which was founded by the late African guitar legend Ali Farka Touré. The album will feature Malian musicians including Khaira Arby, “The diva of Timbuktu.” They also have enlisted eight-time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Jonathan Hock to follow the band through their journey and document their experiences.

A journey such as this is not inexpensive. Transportation costs for both getting across the Atlantic as well as maneuvering within the country will be substantial. Recording an album as well as filming a documentary will place an even greater burden on the band’s monetary limits. Over the past six months, Jeremiah Lockwood has undertaken the massive effort of raising funds for their journey, but they are still in desperate need of donations. Lockwood describes their situation eloquently:

“I am a strong believer in the ability of the powerful emotions present in the aesthetic experience to enact deep change in the lives of those who are open to them. It has always been my goal with my music to create moments where this kind of change can take place. It is my deepest hope that our performance at the Festival of the Desert will bring this goal to its highest point yet. The recording and documentary film we will make about our experience will allow us to share this experience with all of the world!

“The missing ingredient is not passion or artistic achievement or even opportunity. The missing ingredient, sadly, is money. At this moment, I come to you all with open hands, wishing that you will open yourselves to our passionate desire to see this project to fruition and that you will help us in any way you can!”

If you are able and willing to help fund The Sway Machinery’s pilgrimage of cross-cultural exchange and artistic ingenuity, please do so through this website:

https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=1001136&code=smalltsmpgeneric

Marc Gabriel Amigone is founder of The Afrobeat Blog: www.afrobeatblog.blogspot.com

Editor’s note: The Sway Machinery is a JDub Records artist. JDub is this blog’s parent company.

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