What a list we』ve got for you.
Arabic krautrock, Pakistani improvisation, Indian jazz, Indonesian hip-hop and Korean drone-rock.
Here are some of our favourite albums from across Asia from the year so far. From Turkey and Egypt to Korea and Japan, with a few stops in between.
Pinkshinyultrablast – Grandfeathered
St Petersburg, Russia
We』ve written about these folks before! Pinkshinyultrablast is an up-and-coming band of five known for their dynamic combination of blissful pop-melodies with floaty shoegaze,with occasional forays into thrashing post-hardcore. Their debut EP Happy Songs for Happy Zombies was released back in 2009, followed by a debut album Everything Else Matters in 2015. Barely waiting a full year, their second album release, Grandfeathered dropped earlier this year.
It’s really, really good shoegaze. Lead singer Lyubov Soloveva’s angelic vocals counteract the band’s heavy sonic textures, settling into waves of comforting fuzz.
Sarathy Korwar – Day to Day
Pune, India/London, UK
Sarathy Korwar’s debut release on the seminal Ninja Tune label is a beguiling mix of jazz and folk instrumentation from the Sidi community in India, which draws on East African, Sufi and Indian influences. It’s a mix of hypnotic, transporting vocal passages interspersed with jazz grooves and mellow electronic elements. Our favourite track is 『Bismillah』, but the entire album is worth your time. Can't wait to see how this might work in a live setting.
The Dwarfs of East Agouza - Bes
Cairo, Egypt
Yes, we know Egypt isn't "Asia", but its music scene is inseparable from the broader West Asian underground - bands and musicians move fluidly between the hotspots across the Arab world. Cairo is in many ways the creative nerve center of a scene that spans Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The Dwarfs of East Agouza themselves come from three different countries.
'Bes' is an incredible debut for the highly accomplished trio - a long, psychedelic, krautrock freakout featuring traditional instruments from the region. It's glorious and tons of fun.
Nisennenmondai - #N/A
Tokyo, Japan
Enter the void.
Tokyo’s Nisennenmondai plunge listeners into dark, dark math rock. Math rock that is so doom-laden and relentless it almost feels like techno, or some kind of electronic drone experiment. It’s intense and serious and words don’t really do it any kind of justice. It’s chugging, pure guitar music – a whirlpool of ostensibly 『minimalist』 music that actually overwhelms.
The Karachi Files
Karachi, Pakistan
An incredible album of improvised electronic music, recorded in a specially remodeled studio in Karachi, featuring some of the city's best musicians along with collaborators from the Maldives and Germany.
What we particularly love about Karachi Files is that, if you listen closely, you can hear the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of Karachi life. The birds, the streets, the traffic, and even the power cuts. It's an album about the city, through and through, all without a single attempt to pander to 'world music' or feed into stereotypes.
Munma - Three Voices
Beirut, Lebanon
A dreamy album of ambient sound design from Beirut, Lebanon
Munma is a pioneer of Beirut's electronic scene, and on this album he collaborates with various writers, mostly women, to write personal texts and recite them in spoken-word form in the studio, then building specific musical beds around these recitations.
The vocal element has always been present in Munma's music, whether through radio broadcasts, samples of political speeches, or recordings of musicians' voices, and following his successful collaboration with rapper El Rass and other hip-hop artists from Beirut and the surrounding area (including Touffar, El Far3i, and Boikutt, among others), Nawfal became drawn toward the capabilities of the human voice -- more specifically the recitation of poetry by the human voice. Three Voices is the result, and it is one of the best ambient albums we』ve heard in recent time.
Jambinai - A Hermitage
Seoul, South Korea
We've written about Jambinai before, enough that you probably know we love this band a lot and would really like us to stop now.
We』ll just add this: this is a landmark post-rock album. The beginning of something new, something that pushes the boundaries of the genre beyond its comfort zone. Post-post-rock.
Rich Chigga - Dat $tick (Single)
Jakarta, Indonesia
Only a single, but it already feels bigger than any of the albums on this list.
Rich Chigga is a smooth Jakarta-based rapper, and his debut video was so popular online that hip-hop royalty, of the likes of Ghostface Killah, took notice – with Ghostface even promising to remix the song.
A viral sensation to watch.
Concrete & Grass 混凝草音樂節
『一方地，零常規』
2016年9月16 - 17日
（中秋假期周五、周六）
上海灘運動公社
（原上海瑞可碧橄欖球俱樂部）
浦東新區張楊北路2700號 近五洲大道
Concrete & Grass 2016
Date: 16-17th September (Fri & Sat)
Venue: Shanghai Community Sports Club
(formerly the Shanghai Rugby Football Club)
Address: 2700 Zhangyang Bei Road, near Wuzhou Avenue
(張楊北路2700號, 近五洲大道)
Metro station: Wuzhou Avenue
(五洲大道, Line 6, Exit 1)