Sublime Frequencies

KOUDEDE - Guitars from Agadez Vol. 7

In October 2012, the Tamashek community lost one of its most luminous voices when Koudedes life was cut short by a car crash during his trip home to Niger from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Koudede was a leading light among the myriad musical groups that have recently proliferated in Niger and Mali to voice the Tuareg struggle against exploitation and to exalt their proud but waning nomadic heritage. His outstanding reputation and corpus of songs garnered the respect of his contemporaries, and his altruistic persona made him a formidable conduit for younger generations of musicians; he was always eager to foster dialog by spreading the music and message of his people. These recordings were captured in an atmosphere of tumult as the 2012 Tuareg insurgency led to a series of battles in the northern Sahara between the government of Mali and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). In a misbegotten alliance, the MNLA was drawn together with a rogue movement of dogmatic fundamentalists who were bent on destabilizing West Africas generally symbiotic relationship with a peaceful, centuries-old Afro-Islamic culture. Three of these four tracks were recorded on location at Toumast -- the Tuareg headquarters in Malis capital city of Bamako -- shortly after Koudede appeared as a featured artist at the Festival au D_ɬ©sert in Timbuktu. In February 2012, as conditions worsened for the Tuareg in Mali, Koudedes peers advised him to flee the country. The remaining track was recorded in Ouagadougou, after Koudede and his group left Bamako for the safer soil of Burkina Faso. These recordings showcase Koudedes mastery of song and emotion, and memorialize his tragically short tenure as one of the Tuaregs most venerable prophets of the Kel Tamashek message to the outside world. Sublime Frequencies is honored to perpetuate Koudedes extraordinary legacy with this four-song, 45-rpm 12 EP. Recorded and compiled by Hisham Mayet." - Sublime Frequencies.

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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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