★Unrock
The Arabic Room
* 300 copies * A critical meditation on variations of Orientalism practiced by Arabs themselves, as well as those who were born and raised within the diaspora. It originally began as a documentation of extended drum techniques, but eventually morphed into a project of more ambitious scope. Having an open timeframe, Julius Masri gave himself reasons to include all the instruments he obsessively picked up and learned over the years. The work accumulated intentions and guiding principles, and it be…
Karaoke (7")
If you ever witnessed an Alvarius B. show you are probably aware that there are a few things only in underground music matching this level. If you haven't, don't miss him when he's coming close next. Karaoke shows one of the many characters you could explore during his shows. As his brother Richard, the other keyholder of Sun City Girls legacy, Alan Bishop played a lot of shows not only under the Alvarius B. moniker on various Unrock stages through the years. "Solo Nostalgia" (E. Morricone) and …
The Binding Third
The legendary Lebanese trio of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj (Karkhana, Johnny Kafta), guitarrist Sharif Sehnaoui (Calamita, Karkhana, Johnny Kafta ) and bassist Raed Yassin (Praed, Praed Orchestra) celebrates their 20th anniversary with The Binding Third on Unrock.
They still create acoustic improvised drones that range from insistent, chiming resonances with emergency alarm bells to low, thrumming hums but with growing intensity. Avoiding conventional technique, A Trio manages to create sounds like m…
Inscrutable Intentions
After a long hiatus the noisy and most telepathic Montreal impro trio Jane & The Magik Bananas, led by Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Karkhana, Dwarfs Of East Agouza) returned with a shifted focus exploring rhythm in a global sense. Live compositional practice, with rhythm and polyrhythm as the structuring principle, lead the group to different kinds of Western/non-Western tuning and micro tonality. In a certain way they play in the Western tradition of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time Band, Harry Partc…
Fayrus
More than ten years after the demise of Sun City Girls as an entity, something wild and weird has now surfaced, grown and ripened in the heat and dust of the same desert. Described as “deep spirited, Arabic-music-tinged free jazz-punk and harsh exotica”, Sunn Trio’s ever-evolving ensemble digests a number of genres, spitting them back out in “creative destruction.” Carrying on a long tradition of sun-beaten Phoenix punk, Sunn Trio evokes the sweltering and hallucinatory Arizona desert. Echoes of…
Burj Al Imam
140-gram LP in gatefold sleeve with a special drawing by Mazen Kerbaj. Mastered for vinyl by Harris Newman. Edition of 500. Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios on the outskirts of Beirut, Burj al Imam's five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of Sun City Girls track "The Imam," and a cover of traditional Americana song "Gently Johnny" (a highlight of Alan Bishop's live Alvarius B. shows). True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, guitari…