ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΣΚΑΛΕΝΑΚΗΣ το μοντέρνο, λαϊκό και κοσμοπολίτικο σινεμά του στα χρόνια του ’60

October 4, 2017, 3:22 am

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Ο σκηνοθέτης και δάσκαλος του κινηματογράφου Γιώργος Σκαλενάκης μπορεί να έφυγε από τη ζωή, στα 88 του, πριν τρία χρόνια, όμως οι ταινίες του είναι πάντα παρούσες στην τηλεόραση (κάποιες τουλάχιστον απ’ αυτές) και στο YouTube (όταν δεν τις κατεβάζουν).

Ο κόσμος τις βλέπει και τις ξαναβλέπει γιατί είναι άψογα γυρισμένες, έχουν «αέρα», χάρη, δροσιά, λαμπερούς πρωταγωνιστές και επίσης ξεχωριστή μουσική. Χοντρικά, είναι προϊόντα ενός έλληνα σκηνοθέτη, που ήξερε να κάνει κινηματογράφο όσο ελάχιστοι άλλοι, συνάδελφοί του, στη δεκαετία του ’60.

Μπορεί ο Σκαλενάκης να μην έκανε ποτέ μια ταινία, που θα σφράγιζε για πάντα την εγχώρια κινηματογραφία (όπως έκαναν άλλοι συνοδοιπόροι του στα σίξτις), έκανε όμως ταινίες που είχαν πολλά επιμέρους προτερήματα – και αυτό δεν πρέπει να παραβλεφθεί.

Με σπουδές στην πρώην Τσεχοσλοβακία, στην περίφημη σχολή FAMU (μία από τις παλιότερες κινηματογραφικές ακαδημίες της Ευρώπης) κι έχοντας ως συμμαθητές μεγάλες μορφές του τσεχοσλοβάκικου σινεμά, όπως τους Miloš Forman και Ivan Passer, o Σκαλενάκης μπλέκει από νωρίς με τις παραγωγές, συμμετέχοντας ως ηθοποιός σε ταινίες άλλων και γυρίζοντας ο ίδιος φιλμ μικρού μήκους.

Το 1963 του δίνεται μάλιστα η δυνατότητα να γυρίσει και την πρώτη μεγάλου μήκους ταινία του, την Prazské Blues (Τα Μπλουζ της Πράγας), η οποία διακρίνεται για τα πολλά και πρωτότυπα χαρακτηριστικά της, αποτελώντας σταθμό για τον τσεχοσλοβάκικο κινηματογράφο των αρχών του ’60.

Ο Σκαλενάκης κινηματογραφεί, βασικά, το πώς διασκέδαζαν οι ξένοι φοιτητές στην Πράγα της εποχής, καταγράφοντας το μοντέρνο κλίμα που αρχίζει να αναπτύσσεται στα νεανικά κυκλώματα της πόλης στις αρχές των σίξτις (πρωταγωνιστούσαν ερασιτέχνες ηθοποιοί, Τσεχοσλοβάκοι και αλλοδαποί), παράλληλα με την αποκάλυψη (είναι η σωστή λέξη) της μεγάλης τσεχοσλαβακικής τζαζ της περιόδου.

Να πούμε λοιπόν πως στην ταινία Prazské Blues συμμετείχαν μουσικοί που έκαναν τρανό όνομα αργότερα στα πάλκα και την τζαζ δισκογραφία όπως ο φλαουτίστας Jiří Stivín, η τραγουδίστρια Jarmila Veselá, ο ντράμερ Alan Vitouš (αδελφός του διάσημου μπασίστα των Weather Report Miroslav Vitouš), αλλά κι ένα από τα πολύ σημαντικά γκρουπ της εποχής, οι SHQ του τενορίστα και βιμπραφωνίστα Karel Velebný μέλη των οποίων ήταν (ανάμεσα σε άλλους) οι Jan Konopásek βαρύτονο σαξόφωνο, Rudolf Dašek ηλεκτρικές κιθάρες και Ladislav “Laco” Déczi τρομπέτα (όσοι γνωρίζουν πρόσωπα και πράγματα της czech jazz αντιλαμβάνονται το «βάρος» αυτών των ονομάτων). Στιγμές από το soundtrack του Pražské Βlues ακούγονται στο LP-συλλογή “Československý Džez 1963” [Supraphon], με την ταινία να θεωρείται, το ξαναλέμε, μνημείο του μοντέρνου νεανικού κλίματος της περιόδου.

Λάτρης της τζαζ, και γενικότερα της μουσικής (και) ως ακρογωνιαίο κινηματογραφικό στοιχείο, ο Σκαλενάκης φύλαξε τις υπόλοιπες ιδέες του για την ελληνική πλέον παραγωγή.

Τον Απρίλιο του 1965, επί Ένωσης Κέντρου, ο Γιώργος Σκαλενάκης έρχεται στην Ελλάδα (ως ένας σκηνοθέτης που διέπρεπε στην Πράγα), στο πλαίσιο των τότε επαναπατρισμών (σε ατομική βάση) από τις χώρες του πρώην eastern μπλοκ. Μάλιστα πολύ γρήγορα θα βρεθεί να σκηνοθετεί την πρώτη ελληνική ταινία του, για τους παραγωγούς Δαμασκηνό-Μιχαηλίδη, την περίφημη Διπλοπεννιές, με την Αλίκη Βουγιουκλάκη και τον Δημήτρη Παπαμιχαήλ – και βεβαίως με την απαστράπτουσα μουσική τού Σταύρου Ξαρχάκου ως συμπρωταγωνίστρια.

Η συνέχεια εδώ…

http://www.lifo.gr/articles/cinema_articles/162605

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Weaves – Wide Open (2017)

October 4, 2017, 4:35 am

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320 kbps | 73 MB | LINKS

Just a few weeks after Weaves’ self-titled debut album was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize, the Canadian indie rockers have announced its follow-up. The band’s sophomore record, Wide Open, is set for an October 6th via Buzz Records/Kanine/Memphis Industries.

Weaves refer to the style of the new album as “Americana,” though that doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned their indie punk edge. Instead, the songs take on an expanded sound that seeks to “blow up” singer/songwriter Jasmyn Burke’s personal experiences as they relate to her generation. As she explained in a press statement,

“It felt right to try to represent my own experience in the world while knowing that everyone in my age group is poor or having a tough time with life in one way or another, so I was thinking about how to blow those feelings up into these kinds of songs. Blowing up a regular life into something like an anthem. In a way I was thinking about it like Bruce Springsteen, but in a lot of ways my experience of the world couldn’t be less like Bruce Springsteen’s.”

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Re: [CD] Ana Moura - Moura [Deluxe Version] (2016) [FLAC]

October 4, 2017, 5:26 am

≫ Next: Re: [CD] Ana Moura - Moura [Deluxe Version] (2016) [FLAC]

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Obrigad...

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Re: [CD] Ana Moura - Moura [Deluxe Version] (2016) [FLAC]

October 4, 2017, 5:26 am

≫ Next: Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

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Obrigad...

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Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

October 4, 2017, 6:39 am

≫ Next: JASON MCNIFF RAIN DRIES YOUR EYES - 2017 https://open.spotify.com/album/1OAgNxZwyZ5TlblVv10TOf...

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JASON MCNIFF RAIN DRIES YOUR EYES - 2017 https://open.spotify.com/album/1OAgNxZwyZ5TlblVv10TOf...

October 4, 2017, 7:27 am

≫ Next: The Darkness – Pinewood Smile [Deluxe Edition] (2017)

≪ Previous: Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

JASON MCNIFF

RAIN DRIES YOUR EYES - 2017

https://open.spotify.com/album/1OAgNxZwyZ5TlblVv10TOf

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The Darkness – Pinewood Smile [Deluxe Edition] (2017)

October 4, 2017, 7:32 am

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320 kbps | 105 MB | LINKS

“England’s most distinctive, multiple award-winning, platinum-selling, hugely entertaining rock gods – and one-time saviours of rock’n’roll turned national pleasures – The Darkness are back with their fifth album Pinewood Smile, due for release October 6th through Cooking Vinyl.

‘All The Pretty Girls’ is a glorious, hard-rockin’, autobiographical anthem intellectually examining the fact that when you’re a rock star you get a lot of attention from ladies and discussing the ethical conundrums that come with that.

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Liam Gallagher – As You Were [Deluxe Edition] (2017)

October 4, 2017, 7:32 am

≫ Next: Michael Jackson – Scream (2017) [24bit Hi-Res]

≪ Previous: The Darkness – Pinewood Smile [Deluxe Edition] (2017)

VBR~267 kbps | 109 MB | LINKS

Liam Gallagher’s eagerly anticipated debut album ‘As You Were’ will be released on October 6th on Warner Bros. Records.

After igniting the writing process with the heavy duty soul-rock of ‘Bold’, ‘As You Were’ was recorded in two locations. Greg Kurstin performed all of the instruments on the four songs that he produced (‘Wall Of Glass’, ‘Paper Crown’, ‘Come Back To Me’ and the psychedelic whoosh of ‘It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way’), while Dan Grech-Marguerat produced the remainder of the album at Snap! Studios in London.

The result is exactly what you would have hoped a Liam Gallagher solo album would sound like: the passion for the classic 60s/70s influence that he’s always had has been updated for the here and now.

“I didn’t want to be reinventing anything or going off on a space jazz odyssey,” says Liam. “It’s the Lennon ‘Cold Turkey’ vibe, The Stones, the classics. But done my way, now.”

One of the most striking aspects of ‘As You Were’ is that all the songs have a purpose. There’s no flab, nothing to cut. They all feel directed at something or someone, setting the record straight or getting his side of the story over, be that the swinging, Bo Diddley-like ‘Greedy Soul’, which incinerates someone who’s the “ungrateful dead” or the mega-ballad ‘For What It’s Worth’ which Liam wrote with Simon Aldred of Cherry Ghost and serves up the album’s biggest chorus.

The album’s cover features an iconic new portrait of Liam which was taken by the influential photographer, fashion designer and creative director Hedi Slimane.

The Deluxe Edition features 3 additional tracks.

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Michael Jackson – Scream (2017) [24bit Hi-Res]

October 4, 2017, 7:35 am

≫ Next: Two Door Cinema Club – Gameshow (2016) [24bit Hi-Res, Deluxe Edition] FLAC

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Michael Jackson – Scream (2017) [24bit Hi-Res]

Artist: Michael Jackson | Album: Scream | Released: 2017 | Genre: Pop

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Two Door Cinema Club – Gameshow (2016) [24bit Hi-Res, Deluxe Edition] FLAC

October 4, 2017, 7:35 am

≫ Next: Alison Krauss - Forget About It (1999)

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Two Door Cinema Club – Gameshow (2016) [24bit Hi-Res, Deluxe Edition] FLAC

Artist: Two Door Cinema Club | Album: Gameshow | Released: 2016 | Genre: Pop, Indie Pop

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Alison Krauss - Forget About It (1999)

October 4, 2017, 8:12 am

≫ Next: Ashton Shepherd - Sounds So Good (2008)

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Artist: Alison Krauss
Title Of Album: Forget About It
Release Date: 1999
Location: USA
Label: Rounder Records (11661-0465-2)
Genre: Bluegrass, Country
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue+covers)
Length: 40:04 min
Tracks: 11
Total Size: 241 MB (+5%)

Forget About It is the eighth studio album by Alison Krauss, released in 1999. It reached number 5 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. The lead single, "Forget About It", peaked at number 67 on the Country Singles Chart, and "Stay" reached number 28 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

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Ashton Shepherd - Sounds So Good (2008)

October 4, 2017, 8:12 am

≫ Next: Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

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Artist: Ashton Shepherd
Title Of Album: Sounds So Good
Release Date: 2008
Location: USA
Label: MCA Nashville (B001003902)
Genre: Country
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Length: 40:49 min
Tracks: 11
Total Size: 290 MB (+5%)

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Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

October 4, 2017, 8:12 am

≫ Next: Irreversible Entanglements Irreversible Entanglements

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Artist: Laramarka
Title Of Album: Qapac Nan
Release Date: 2015
Location: Peru
Label: Not On Label (Laramarka)
Genre: Ethnic, Folk
Quality: FLAC (image+.cue+covers)
Length: 01:15:00 min
Tracks: 16
Total Size: 490 MB (+5%)

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Irreversible Entanglements Irreversible Entanglements

October 4, 2017, 8:47 am

≫ Next: (Salsa) [CD] Celia Cruz & Ray Barretto - Ritmo En El Corazon - 1988, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless [271.3 MB]

≪ Previous: Laramarka - Qapac Nan (2015)

Irreversible Entanglements
Irreversible Entanglements
(International Anthem, 2017)
more details

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(Salsa) [CD] Celia Cruz & Ray Barretto - Ritmo En El Corazon - 1988, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless [271.3 MB]

October 4, 2017, 8:59 am

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(Salsa) [CD] Celia Cruz - Siempre Vivire - 2000, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless [531.5 MB]

October 4, 2017, 8:59 am

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Photo Essay: Group Doueh and Innov Gnawa in NYC

October 4, 2017, 9:07 am

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If you’ve been following Afropop this year, you’ve gotten a taste for some of the Maghreb’s musical multitude in our recent program on the World Sacred Music Festival in Fes, Morocco and maybe even gotten a chance to hear some of it yourself in New York City. This past Friday, Sept. 29, two bands took the stage at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge (LPR): Group Doueh and Innov Gnawa. We’ve heard a lot from Innov Gnawa here on Afropop, the excellent group of local Moroccan musicians proudly keeping the Gnawa tradition alive in New York City. Group Doueh, who hail from Dakhla, in the disputed territory of Western Sahara (claimed by Morocco), are back in the U.S. for the second time, after their first and only tour here in 2011.

Innov Gnawa opened the set with their reliably superb performance of the churning, sinuous Gnawa music that beats at the heart of Morocco. Mâalem Hassan Ben Jaafer leads the group on guembri, the three-string bass lute whose melodies give the music form. The five-man chorus drives the sound forward with the tireless gallop of the metal castanets called qraqeb. Samir Langus, the young Gnawi who got the group together, occasionally takes over on guembri for the elder Ben Jaafer, proving his worth as a rising gnawa mâalem, or master. Gnawa is a music that, when experienced live performed by masterful musicians, of which you cannot get enough. Innov Gnawa is band you won’t be able to resist seeing again and again.

Innov Gnawa with Samir Langus on guembri. Photos by Sebastian Bouknight.

Maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer

Maalem Ben Jaafer and Innov Gnawa

Head down the coast of Morocco, from Casablanca or Agadir, hometowns of some of the members of Innov Gnawa, and you’ll cross a hazy, disputed border into the territory of Western Sahara. It’s a vast swath of mostly desert that was long occupied by Spain and now is administered in part by Morocco and in part by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Republic. Far south on the Sahrawi coast is Dakhla, where Doueh and his family live. They are holders of the Hassania culture and language, which span the borders of Western Sahara and Mauritania and boast some unmistakable music styles. The music Group Doueh plays is, as Doueh himself says, is right about at the juncture of Sahrawi music and Jimi Hendrix, one of his biggest influences.

Doueh, of Group Doueh

You can hear Hendrix through and through in the group’s music: Doueh shreds so hard. He plays his electric guitar with a virtousic, loud, distorted rawness that would do the American rock god proud. The power of his strings plays out over drums, synth and vocals from his wife Halima, sons El Waar and Hamdan, and friend Bashiri. The synth drum machine layers with a real-life drum set to make beats that alternate between a 4/4, somewhat cheesy, upbeat feel, and intensely danceable 6/8 grooves that tumble over themselves. The latter are rooted in Sahrawi music, traditionally propelled by clapping and a bowl-shaped drum. Although the dose of Hendrix in Group Doueh’s music is very real, the Hassania sound comes through strong as well, bringing to mind the guitar stylings of Jeiche Ould Chighaly, bandmate and husband of the great Mauritanian singer Noura Mint Seymali. Doueh began the set on an electrified tindit, a small three-string lute that is a close relative to Gnawa’s guembri and the Malian ngoni.

Group Doueh

Halima on vocals

El Waar on keys

Bashiri on vocals

The band’s live energy is hot but restrained, without theatrics (except for Doueh soloing with his guitar behind his head) but very compelling. Sometimes their songs seem to begin without really beginning and end without really ending, in a way that feels so natural and fluid. Innov Gnawa’s Mâalem Hassan Ben Jaafer hopped onto the stage next to Doueh to play qraqeb during a song propelled by a drum machine cranking out a rhythm that mirrored Gnawa.

Doueh channeling Hendrix

Maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer and Doueh

Towards the end, Halima and Bashiri hopped down to dance in the middle of the crowd, breaking that border between audience and performer and inspiring an attitude more in line with the regular site of Group Doueh performances: weddings (you might want to check out the recently premiered documentary film of the wedding of Doueh’s daughter). They closed with the energy hot and kept the adoring crowd cheering for a solid five minutes before coming back out for an encore.

Keep your eyes out for Group Doueh if they come through a town near you! Otherwise catch a plane to Dakhla and ask around for Doueh–he never stops playing.

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Ticket Giveaway: Sinkane

October 4, 2017, 9:07 am

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≪ Previous: Photo Essay: Group Doueh and Innov Gnawa in NYC

Listening to Sinkane can transport you to many different eras and geographic locations all in the span of a three-minute song. His voice ranges from a sweet falsetto like that of the Bee Gees and then low and sensual over heavy bass and a reggae rhythm section. He doesn’t shy away from synths and groovy effects to give his music a quirky and dream-like quality. When you understand that his background includes time spent in London, Sudan and Brooklyn, this natural mash-up of sounds and time periods makes perfect sense.

Afropop has been following the talented musician for a couple years. You can read this interview from Oct. 2015 with Sinkane, born Ahmed Gallab, and producer Sam Backer.

Interview: Sinkane’s Ahmed Gallab

On Oct. 19, Sinkane will perform his effortlessly psychedelic sound at Brooklyn Bowl, and Afropop is giving away a pair of tickets to the show! All you have to do to enter is sign up for our newsletter here and send an email to info@afropop.org with “Sinkane 2017” in the subject line. If you’ve already subscribed to our newsletter (thank you!), just send an email to info@afropop.org.

In the meantime, listen to more of Sinkane’s music here: