Dekmantel Podcast 296 - Azu Tiwaline by dekmantel

Saharan artist @azu-tiwaline is inspired by the desire to explore her origins in the Tunisian desert. She did this to magnificent effect on Draw Me A Silence, a debut album released earlier in 2020 that unified traditional Amazigh music with contemporary dub cultures and hypnotic techno sounds. Defined by an ever-present polyrhythmic chiaroscuro - the contrast between light and dark - it's a mysterious album that gets you in a trance and encourages inward reflection.

The same sense of intoxicating repetition and minimalism runs through this week's podcast. It is an often multi layered listen that has stringy, drawn out rhythms. What sounds like ancient ethic percussion and instrumentation mingles loosely with moody synth drones. Naturalistic field recordings - water, birds, vocal chants - enrich the mix next to trippy studio effects and make for something utterly beguiling. Somehow old yet new, surreal but earthy, these disparate worlds rarely collide in such harmonious ways.