clan dest ino
It’s always shocking to notice how the void we’ve been filling in the cultural scene has not shrunken, but has instead expanded during all the years we’ve been around. This regardless of how many actors cast their gaze beyond the cultural mainstream and its focus on the marketable bling bling that permeates the music industry. Time speaks clearly.
People ask us how we find all the unique artists who perform at the festival. Do we travel the world searching high and low? Do we have secret agents working for us in the far reaches of the world?The truth is more that they come to us. Every day our inbox
is filled with tips about artists who would be a good match for our program.
The hard part is to choose, especially when we don’t draw any borders to geography, music style, or even the form of alternative expressions that exist outside the radar.One thing makes it easier. While the mainstream continues to produce artists that neither the industry nor consumers admire—let alone love— we do the opposite.
This year we also have help from two of Sweden’s most influential artists doing the selection: Mariam The Believer and El Perro Del Mar.
Besides a four-day long festival program that takes place at different venues in Gothenburg, we’ve arranged a series of club and concert evenings to look forward to over the spring and summer—and who knows what will happen this fall. There is a rumour we’ll continue to arrange a program of talks in the spirit of James Baldwin. He was a good friend with Nina Simone, Miles Davis, and many other influential artists. What makes them into unique artists is just what gives us reason to activate their legacy in our present time.
I love you baby, but I can’t stand your dirty ways.
6-9 junE 2019
The Como Mamas
Soulful gospel trio
THURSDAY 6TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
The members of this powerful gospel trio had been singing together for ages, without ever thinking much of taking their show outside their small hometown of Como, Mississippi.
But one day, a man from a New York-based record company came to town and was completely blown away by the way their voices merged into a trinity of utmost soulfulness: the deep voice of Angela Tay lor, her energetic sister Della Daniels, and Ester Mae Smith’s raspy voice right up front.
The meeting led to the Daptone label releasing the trio’s debut album Get an Understanding. At the church back home in Como they had long lacked musicians to back up their singing, and hence it was quite natural for The Como Mamas to record a capella. Raving reviews led to tours in the US and Europe, and soon the trio recorded their second album, Move Upstairs , this time backed by the The Glorifiers, known for their collaborations with Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones.
BCUC
Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness
THURSDAY 6TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
BCUC is a seven-headed party machine from South Africa. The band was formed in Soweto, more specifically in a shipping container that was converted into a restaurant that was rebuilt into a practice space. With funky bass lines, whistles, plenty of drums, as well as singing and
rapping in Zulu, Sotho, and English, they create a hedonistic dance party that doubles as a weapon in the political struggle for equality. They call it emo-indigenous Afro psychedelic fire from the hood. The songs are long, often up to twenty minutes. With an awesome sense of dynam -
ics, they let the pressure build and then hold back and start over in another direction. Lead singer Jovi’s stage presence is about as intense as it gets. He shares the mike with several other members, who together manifest BCUC as a collective where everyone plays the main role.
Ariel Ariel
A creole universe
THURSDAY 6TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
Ariel Tintar’s falsetto voice, with that slightly nervous vibrato, is unmistakable. He sings in French and Creole, combining dreamy pop and soulful moods à la Moses Sumney with the musical legacy of Martinique. As a child he left his home in the Antilles for Bordeaux, where at only eight years old he began to study classical piano at the conservatory. A few years later, he was involved in most of the local bands worth mentioning. After some time as a touring musician, he started Ariel Ariel, performing his own material for the first time. Meanwhile, poets like Aimé Césaire and Edouard Glissant helped him see beyond his everyday horizons and reconnect with the Martinique of his childhood. Ariel Ariels’s debut EP Mwen Menti is a product of that search, a personal universe to travel and explore.
Farida Mohammad Ali
Madame Maqam
THURSDAY 6TH OF JUNE ANGEREDS TEATER
Maqam: a centuries-old music tradition from the Middle East. Musicians devote their lives to mas tering complex improvisations, often on bowed and string instruments, tambourine, and darbouka drum. The real virtuoso is usually the singer, almost always male. So it’s doubly unlikely that today, while Maqam languishes in Iraq, a woman living in the Netherlands has emerged as its biggest star, even earning the title The Mother of Maqam. Farida Mohammad Ali
grew up in Kar bala, a city where women were allowed to become musicians, and was encouraged by her parents to follow her dreams. She studied under masters such as Munir Bashir, Hussein El Hazami, and her husband Mohammed Gomar, who currently plays in her group. After moving to Utrecht, Farida Mohammad Ali started the Iraqi Maqam Foundation to pass on both the music and the Arabic and Iraqi poetry that is such an integral part of Maqam.
TARTIT
Feminist desert blues
THURSDAY 6TH OF JUNE ANGEREDS TEATER
Tinde drums imitate the rhythms of a camel’s walk. Added to this are riffs on the string instrument imzad, and some funky strumming on a lute called tehardent. The serpentine music and melodic vocals merge to create a groove both familiar and hypnotic. It’s the desert blues of Mali—but unlike other superstars of the genre, Tartit is fronted by female musicians, carrying an outspokenly feminist message. They sing about divorce and women’s rights, as well as the Tuareg’s struggle in Mali for peace and dem ocracy. Homesickness is another recurring theme on their new album Amankor / The Exile: songs indeed written in exile, while band members were forced to live in refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Mauritania because of the violent unrest in their home region of Timbuktu.
Bonga Legendary semba master
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE STORA TEATERN
He is known as the king of semba, the frantic dance rhythm of Angola. But as a young man, Bonga was the fastest runner in the entire Portuguese empire. In his hometown, the capital Luanda, the colonial pressure cooker was about to explode. When Bonga was sent to competitions around Europe, he took the opportunity to contribute to the struggle for liberation by helping
build a secret international network. The police were closing in on him though, and he was soon forced to go underground in Rotterdam, where he focused on his true passion, music. Despite being banned, his debut album Angola 72 became a big success and a milestone in semba music. He had a worldwide hit with his coarse interpretation of Sodade, an old ballad from Cape
Verde about a migrant’s homesickness, a song later popularized by Cesária Évora. As independent Angola deteriorated into corruption and civil war, Bonga continued to criticize the rulers through his music. Today, this 76-year-old legend keeps on running: he tours fre quently and recently released an album in collaboration with Lisbon’s electrokuduro producer número um, Batida.
El Perro del Mar, José González & Mariam The Believer
I unikt samarbete med El Sistema
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE STORA TEATERN
Clandestino Festival proudly presents a concert where El Sistema meets three of Sweden’s most interesting artists. El Sistema was founded in Venezuela as a music school where children and young people in poor areas learn to play classical music. Sweden’s first El Sis tema operation was started
in 2010 in Hammar kullen through a collaboration between Angered’s kulturskola and the Gothenburg Symphony on the initiative of star conductor Gus tavo Dudamel. Today, El Sistema is found in large parts of Sweden and around the world, but it is the very same El Sistema in Angered whose students make
up the two orchestras in this one-off concert: the symphonic orchestra Los Angered and the hardswinging Bur nstein Orchestra. A total of fift y-nine pupils aged 9–19 will share the stage with El Perro del Mar, José González and Mar iam The Believer, who choose a series of gems from their repertoires.
Bamba Pana & Makaveli
Razor sharp hyper punk
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
Tanzania currently boasts one of Africa’s most innovative scenes for electronic music. Along with Jay Mitta, Bamba Pana is a driving force within Dar es Salaam’s hottest collective, Sisso Studios—and is one of the pioneers of Singeli, the electronic dance music style dominating East African dance floors. His album Poaa (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2018) got reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic excited,
with one writer calling it “music for a new kind of humanity”. Tea ming up with MC Makaveli, Bamba Pana delivers one of the most intense variants of Singeli: razor sharp synth attacks looped at hyperspeed while digital rhythms buzz incessantly. You might even call this punk music—played on rusty machines from the future, in a steamy backyard in Dar es Salaam... and Gothenburg.
Jay Mitta
Singeli pioneer
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
Jay Mitta is one of the producers from the now legendary Sisso Studios in Dar es Salaam. His debut album Tatizo Pesa was released by Nyege Nyege Tapes from Uganda—currently one of the world’s hottest labels for dance music. Thanks to their compilation Sounds of Sisso, European dance floors have also begun to vibrate to singeli rhythms. Hard, trashy, and above all fast: with tempos between 180–300 BPM, you would be hard pressed to come up with a more maxed out sound. The music is often crafted using rudimentary software, which has enabled a boom of new producers hailing from Dar es Salaam’s shanty towns. Singeli has also recently taken on the Tanzanian mainstream culture, with both poppy versions heard on the radio, and more raw variations—Jay Mitta included—where rap replaces the melodic singing.
Kampire Pan-African dance party
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
One of the hottest new names on Uganda’s dance music scene is the DJ, activist, and writer Kampire Bahana. She is one of the core members of the Nyege Nyege collective, which arranges festivals and par ties for those with curious ears as well as alternative lifestyles, while also releasing East African outsider music on the label Nyege Tapes. Born to Ugandan parents, Kampire grew up in Zambia’s copper belt, a
place that gathered miners from near and far. There she soon discovered music and culture from all over the African continent, which would come to inspire her DJ sets: Kampire blends modern and traditional styles into an irresistible pan-African dance party. Tropical bass, kuduro, South African house, soukous and afrobeat ... powerful, bass heavy music that won’t settle until everybody’s butt is shaking.
Kelman Duran
A dark netherworld
FRIDAY 7 TH OF JUNE FOLK
Born in the Dominican Republic, as a boy Kelman Duran moved to New York City, where he was raised on jazz and hip hop. Today, he is a musician, filmmaker, and writer. His first album 1804 Kids was a bouncy mix of reggaeton and trippy, manipulated voicework. While the title may have referred to the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), it was first and foremost festive music for the body, the sound of endorphins flowing. But his latest release, 13th Month, is another story. Dancehall, gqom, kuduro,
and hip-hop rhythms emerge slowly from a dark netherworld of synths and echoing samples. Fragments from Notorious B.I.G’s Ready to Die blend with recordings of an activist from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In parallel to his music, Kelman Duran has been working on a film about Native Americans. Introducing this theme into his music, he makes parallels between the shadow lives of those living in the reservation and those inhabiting the ghettos of the inner city.
Les Sœurs Hié
Balafon sisters
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE
MUSEUM OF WORLD CULTURE
The sisters Melissa and Ophelia Hié grew up in a family of musicians. Early in their lives, they learned the music and dance of their family’s homeland of Burkina Faso, taught by their older brother and father. More specifically, they learned the music from the Turka culture, a small minority group of around 50,000 people. As the sisters started out as performers in their home town of Bordeaux, their interpretation of Turka music naturally began to be colored by urban beats, which can be heard as a mild flavoring. Les Sœurs Hié focus on the two-harmony singing and the polyrhythmic sounds of djembe drums and the balafon—a kind of West African marimba with traditions going back thousands of years. While a marimba normally consists of wood and metal, the balafon instead employs calabash fruits as resonators, providing its unique sound. Tones flow like drops of water in an interaction so tight that probably only the bonds of sisterhood could create it.
Bhaskar Sunkara
The Socialist Manifesto
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSEUM OF WORLD CULTURE
Radical politics in a time of extreme inequality: in his new book The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores the history and future of socialism, showing that socialism is not just an economic system but a weapon against all forms of oppression, inc luding racism and sexism. According to Sun kara, the ulti mate goal is to give everyone the right to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic
institutions. In a lecture at the Museum of World Culture, Sunkara will present some of the historical and contemporary themes dealt with in the book. Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor and publisher of the journal Jacobin. Moderator: Lovisa Broström, PhD, researcher at the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg. Arranged in collaboration with Tankekraft and the Museum of World Culture.
BbyMutha Changing the rules
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
Brittnee Moore’s stage persona BbyMutha has been described as a combination of a black Marge Simpson and a single “baby mama.” With songs like Fuck Me and BBC (nope, not the British media company), BbyMutha is changing the rules for what a black female rapper can do—and what motherhood is. She grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a rapper, she kept a low profile
until her song Rules exploded on social media last year. Funky beats, quirky guitar sounds, and laid back rhymes about life as a single mother of four... this is previously unexplored lyrical territory. We can hear a line or two in her songs about changing diapers or dropping off the kids at kindergarten, but it’s the parts about really great sex or the daily hustle to pay the bills that really
get into details. BbyMutha’s bold new perspectives earned her plenty of critical acclaim, as well as some gruesome comments from internet trolls. BbyMutha’s debut album will be released during the spring, where we will find her collaborating with producers Rock Floyd and Crystal Caines—and with her kids, two pairs of twins who are constantly involved in the writing process.
Bambii
Contagious dance poision
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
R&B, hip-hop, dancehall, trap, afrobeat, funk ... it seems like no matter what genre Kirsten Azan—aka Bambii—spins, this rising Canadian DJ star manages to tie it all together into a contagious dance euphoria. In her home town of Toronto, she runs the LGBTQfriendly club / block party JERK, on a mission to bring together party lovers from the city’s various cultural stratospheres. But in recent years, Bambii’s calendar has been filling up with gigs around the globe, both solo and as support for superstars like Snoop Dogg and Mykki Blanco. This spring, Bambii will release her debut EP filled with her own music.
Dj Raph Colonial field recordings
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
Heavy hip hop beats meet ethnographic sound collages in the music of DJ Raph, one of the most exciting new names on the African expe rimental dance music scene. His debut album Sacred Groves was created while an artist in residence at the University of Bay reuth, Germany. He was attracted to the picturesque Bavarian city due to its extensive archive of field recordings from col onial Africa.
The plan was to use sound fragments from the past to create a kind of pan-African future music, cutting, pasting, and looping drum rhythms, wind instruments, and ritual singing from across the continent. But not just instruments—even the noise found in the old field recordings becomes a musical element in DJ Raph’s hypnotic patchwork of clubby dance rhythms.
Cüneyt
Sepetçi Into the next level
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
If you are lucky, you might see him playing for spare change on Istanbul’s famous pedestrian street Istiklal Caddesi. But wedding parties and circumcision ceremonies are Cüneyt Sepetçi’s real home ground. Always dressed to the nines, he is the mustachioed clarinet virtuoso taking Turkish-Roman music to the next level. Notes jump giddily out of his instrument, but when the rhythm pushes everything to a climax,
Cüneyt Sepetçi can make his clarinet scream in all the right moments. He is backed by manic drum rhythms and a keyboardist who conjures up an end less stream of manneristic microtonal riffs. These are updated party versions of old Turkish and Roma melodies—but now and then Sepetçi sneaks in odd tunes like Dick Dale’s Misirlou, suavely reminding us of sur frock’s connections to Turkish music.
Bad gyal The new generation
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
22-year-old Bad Gyal’s route to world domination has been unlikely, to say the least. Born Alba Farelo, she grew up in Vilassar de Mar, near Barcelona. Newly enrolled at university and working part time at a call center, her life suddenly changed thanks to a hastily made video uploaded to YouTube, in which she inter -
preted Rihanna’s megahit Work in her characteristic mix of English, Spanish and Catalan. Millions of views led Spanish radio to pick up the track, and several more penned by Bad Gyal herself. Singing about sex and partying, her melancholy blend of reg gaeton, dancehall, and trap has become the soundtrack
for a new generation of party-goers on the Iberian Peninsula—and soon the rest of the world—hungry for dance and a good snog. She has most recently released a couple of mixtapes, followed by her first single Jacaranda which has been named the best song this year by Fact Magazine.
gidge
Pine tree electronica
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE OCEANEN
Drawing inspiration from the northern Swedish forests and mountains, Gidge sounds like a mixture of electronic and organic elements. Along with wistful voice samples and warm, fuzzy chord progressions, Gidge forges a unique sound. The duo consists of Jonatan Nilsson and Ludvig Stolterman. These two Umeå natives met at school, soon bonding over their
common interest in electronic music, and started producing songs together. Twelve years on, they have released their debut album Autumn Bells , the EP För Seoul, the short film Lulin, and the mini- alb um LNLNN on the Atomnation label. The group won XLR8R’s prize for “Best New Artist” and has played to full houses in Amsterdam, Berlin, and London.
OZZY Here to stay
SATURDAY 8 TH OF JUNE MUSIKENS HUS
There’s been plenty of buzz around Osman “Ozzy” Maxamed ever since his guest appearance with Kartellen. He was only 19 at the time, but seven years later his long-awaited debut album Ett öga rött—named after Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel— finally arrived. In 2019 Ozzy was shortlisted for the P3 Guld award and no less than three Swedish Gra mmis
awards, and has generally been praised as king of the new, dirty Malmö sound. Producer Durimkid delivers hard beats without any unnecessary decorations. Ozzy’s unpretentious style reflects how he has been writing ever since he was a kid. His words take us back to his childhood—he came to Sweden at just five months, with his five brothers and mother
from Somalia. His father had been killed in the war, before Ozzy’s birth. He raps about being bullied in school, referring to himself as a “fat black fatty.” But from time to time, he also depicts the life in his neighborhood Rosengård as bright and gleeful. 2019 is undoubtedly Ozzy’s year, but the young rapper looks further ahead: he is here to stay.
SIBUSILE XABA
SUNDAY 9 TH OF JUNE HAGAKYRKAN
The grand finale
Why settle for one when you can make two? Sibusile Xaba is the South African guitarist, singer and storyteller who came from nowhere, and the international music press showered him in acclaim for his debut albums—yep, there are two of them! He had just finished the malombo-jazzy album Unlearning , when, suddenly, they appeared: dreams,
several nights in a row, about old African ladies in green meadows, singing oddly beautiful songs. He immediately played the melodies on his guitar each time after waking up, and soon a new collection of songs was completed: Open Letter to Adoniah the second half of Sibusile’s double debut. It’s a collection of dre amlike arrangements for acoustic
guitar and sparse yet captivating playing on hand drums and wooden blocks. And Sibusile’s singing: his lyrics consist of simple fables and metaphors, repeated in an infinite variety. His vocal cords take jazzy adventures reminiscent of role model and mentor Philip Tabane: constantly looking for new timbres, new voices.
GYÐA VALTÝSDÓTTIR
The epicycle project
SUNDAY 9 TH OF JUNE HAGAKYRKAN
Her musical journey began in earnest with the experimental pop group Mùm. She left the band to continue her cello studies, graduating with Master degrees in both classical music and improvisation. Since then, Gyða Valtýsdóttir has created music for film, art installations, dance performances, and collaborated with musicians such as The Kronos Quartet, Josephine Foster and Damien Rice, as well as artist Ragnar Kjartansson. At Clandestino Festival, she will be performing her project Epicycle
Playing cello, piano, cittra and other instruments, Gyða Valtýsdóttir interprets composers who have been guiding stars throughout her career: From the Seikilos Epitath, the oldest intact piece of music known to the world, through classical composers like Schubert and Mes siaen, to avant-garde experimentalists such as Harry Partch and George Crumb. But instead of a strict reverence for these giants, Valtýsdóttir takes them on with a curious playfulness and finesse.
Alice Boman
Bedroom recordings
SUNDAY 9 TH OF JUNE HAGAKYRKAN
A piano, a few simple chords. A voice: “Are you com ing back? I’m waiting.” Notes bubble. It sounds as if Alice Boman is at the bottom of the ocean, enticing us to let go and sink into the depths of her sound world. A place where dreams begin. Contours are softened, a brittle saxophone swims around, and in the distance we can just about make out the ticking rim shots of a snare drum, a pulse setting waves in motion.
Alice Boman is a singer-songwriter from Malmö. Her first EP Skisser was recorded at home in her bedroom, without any thought of an official release. Since then, she has produced a number of EPs and singles which have received critical acclaim in, among others, The New York Times, Billboard, and KEXP. Her music can also be heard in TV series such as Transparent and Suits, and in the movie Paper Towns
6 APRIL OCEANEN 20.00–01.00
Msafiri Zawose Çaykh
11 MAY OCEANEN 18.00–01.00
Joshua Clover Ahmedou Ahmed Lowla
Skator
DJ Jens Lekman
25 MAY OCEANEN 20.00–01.00 Kel Assouf DJ Livsfarligt
31 MAY FASCHING 20.00
Wildbirds & Peacedrums Nuri
CLANDESTINO FESTIVAL 6–9 JUNE 6 JUNE
ANGEREDS TEATER 13.00–17.00
Farida Muhammed Ali
Tartit
OCEANEN 19.00–01.00
The Como Mamas Ariel Ariel BCUC
OCEANEN 20.00–01.00
STORA TEATERN 19.00–22.00
Bonga
El Sistema:
El Perro Del Mar
Mariam The Believer
José González
MUSEUM OF WORLD CULTURE 13.00–17.00
Bhaskar Sunkara
Les Sœurs Hié
HAGAKYRKAN 16.00–21.00
Alice Boman Sibusile Xaba
Gyða Valtýsdóttir
CLANDESTINO OFFICIAL AFTER PARTY
14 JUNE OCEANEN 20.00–01.00
Curl (Coby Sey, Mica Levi + Brother May)
All arrangements are subject to change. Time changes and updates will be posted to www.clandestinofestival.org.
Kampire
Jay Mitta
Bamba Pana & Makaveli
OCEANEN 20.00–01.00
Gidge
FOLK 01.00–03.00
Kelman Duran
tickets Ticket information can be found online at www.clandestinofestival.org. Age limit of 18+ applies only for venues (Oceanen, Musikens Hus, Folk) where alcohol is served. Children are welcome to Angereds Teater, Stora Teatern, Hagakyrkan and Museum of World Culture.
backstage Clandestino Festival has been proudly organized and operated since 2003 by the non-profit Clandestino Ins titut. This event is made pos sible with support from Västra Götalands regionens Kulturnämnd, Sta tens Kul turråd, Göteborgs Stad Kulturnämnd, Med borgarskolan. artistic director: Aleksander Motturi. co-curator: El Perro Del Mar and Mariam The Believer. graphic design: Milena Karlsson. editor: Markus Görsch. production manager: Lovisa Ralpher. tech coordinator: Karl Kaardal. copy editing: Sara Johansson & Barrie Sutcliffe. press: Ebba Lindqvist PR. financial administration: Silva Hildbrand & EMK revision. web: Nodestar.
MUSIKENS HUS 19.00–02.00 Bad Gyal Bbymutha
Ozzy Cüneyt Sepetçi
DJ Raph Bambii
venues stora teatern Kungsparken 1, 411 36 Göteborg. hagakyrkan Haga kyrkoplan, 411 23 Göteborg. oceanen Stigbergstorget 8, 414 63 Göteborg. angereds teater Triörgatan 1, 424 65 Angered. musikens hus Djurgårdsgatan 13, 414 62 Göteborg. världskulturmuseet Södra Vägen 54, 412 54 Göteborg. folk Olof Palmes Plats, 413 04 Göteborg.
photo credits the como mamas: Aaron A. Greenhood. bcuc: Private.
ariel ariel: Private. farida mohammad ali: Jean Herve. tartit: Private. bonga: N’Krumah Lawson-Daku. el perro del mar: Alex de Brabant. mariam the believer: Private. josé gonzález: Malin Jonhansson. kelman duran: Private. les sœurs hié: Lauriane Tronchere. bhaskar
sunkara: Erin Baiano. bbymutha: Aylin Güngör. dj raph:
Brenda Alamilla. cüneyt sepetçi: Private. bambii: Neva Wireko. bad gyal: Ana Sting. gidge: Private. ozzy: Ikram
Abdulkadi. sibusile xaba: Harness Hamese. gyða valtýs -
dóttir: Lilja Birgisdottir. alice boman: Aela Labbe.
7 JUNE 8
JUNE 9 JUNE
CLUB CLANDESTINO
