Never mind “the fact that we fill stadiums in Dar Es Salaam and are loved by millions in our country,” wrote the two musicians American immigration authorities “still assumed we were going to run away and hide illegally in America.” In the spirit of entertainers everywhere, they determined that the show must go on they just moved it to the internet, delivering this blistering, 48-minute blast of 235-BPM beats and auctioneer-speed chat. But despite having paid artist-visa fees in excess of their combined families’ annual incomes, they were refused the right to enter the country. Back in May, Tanzania’s MCZO and Duke, Nyege Nyege Tapes signees and representatives of Dar Es Salaam’s breakneck singeli sound, were scheduled to perform at New York’s Red Bull Music Festival. Walls, both physical and metaphorical, are going up around the world. Beta Librae – Oscillate Recording No 09 (September 2019)
Best of all, a partial tracklist she created on Buy Music Club (a website she cofounded to share playlists on Bandcamp) provides handy links for everything that's available on the independent download platform. It’s an exhilarating two-hour tour of EBM, acid, breakbeats, and sneaky samples that range from Middle Eastern flutes to Nina Simone. Like her Printworks set from a couple years ago, this one, captured at MUTEK Mexico, includes the faintest background layer of crowd noise, and those raucous cheers make the recording truly come alive. Her muscular, propulsive playing could suit any mainstage or basement, and it’s infused with enough moments of straight-up fun-a breaks 'n' acid remix of Fast Eddie’s 1988 hip-house anthem “ Yo Yo Get Funky,” a sneaky segue into Josh Wink’s classic “A Higher State of Consciousness”-to remind revelers to go wild because dammit, this is a party. Over the past few years, the Berlin-based American artist Avalon Emerson has emerged as one of the best club DJs out there.
Avalon Emerson – Live at MUTEK Mexico (January 2019) As the set builds in intensity, a kind of violence takes hold, but the destruction is purely cathartic-a burning away of useless layers to reveal a vivid inner core. Her cadences zigzag across contrasting moods and textures yet always feel interconnected. Her tastes are the opposite of dogmatic: Trance stabs lean on dembow rhythms, and gothic ambient envelops East African club beats. “When people are partying, they are looking for that enlightening factor.” To achieve it, Devi utilizes the same awe-inspiring sense of scale that dictates cathedrals’ towering proportions: Her synth leads soar overhead, and every surface is polished to a brilliant gleam. “Club music is changing,” she tells Resident Advisor. It helps that both her productions and her mixing aim for transcendence. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to use Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi as the intro to your mix, but Aïsha Devi pulls it off. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.