The Super Collider is back this October! Its HAFLA (حفلة) time — the word means party in Arabic — with Arabic New Wave from the Levant and pioneering female-fronted Tuareg trance rock from Niger. Once again, we’re debuting two international artists in Western Mass and setting you up for some serious dancing.

47 Soul is a synth-driven New Wave electro Dabke group from Palestine/Jordan/UK that is taking the world by storm. Beloved by Arabic youth across the world, their music is shaking things up globally with their message of international political solidarity and a joyful call for a borderless humanity. (Their break-out video “Intro to Shamstep” just hit ten million views on YouTube). The band’s music is rooted in traditional Dabke, which is a Levantine folk style from the 80s that literally translates to “stamping of feet.” The genre has broken out of its regional locus in recent years thanks to Omar Souleyman, who released hundreds of live recordings of his sets at Syrian weddings; the cassettes eventually reached elated fans in Europe and the USA and set the stage for an electro Dabke revolution. 47 Soul’s ability to infuse the emergent genre with elements of with dub, hip-hop, and rock, as well as to sing in both English and Arabic, has made them more accessible to Western audiences.

VIDEO: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0aPuIpOAoc]

Les Filles de Illighadad (“The Girls of Illighadad”) are all from the village of the same name, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The surrounding countryside supports hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries. Fatou Seidi Ghali is the first Tuareg female guitarist in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother’s guitar, she taught herself to play. That in itself is groundbreaking, but what’s more interesting is the music they’re playing: in a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, women typically confine themselves strictly to tende — a ceremonial music for festive events with singing, clapping, and traditional drums. While the past twenty years have seen the rise of fantastic male-driven Tuareg guitar bands, such as Tinariwen and Bombino, women have been noticeably absent. Les Filles’ innovation is their transliteration of tende into guitar. Its never been done before, and the resulting sound has mesmerized audiences in Europe and North Africa. We are beyond thrilled to welcome Les Filles de Illighadad on their debut US tour.

VIDEO: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIAOG9nhrt8]

Step back in time and experience the future at OLD TOWN HALL BALL — a celebration of 150 years of our jewel of Easthampton. This epic building turns 150 years old and guests are invited to an evening with music performances, dancing, and historic installations. Get gussied-up in the era of your choice, past, present, or future, show off your time machine elegance, and dance to timeless music by Baby Soda. Clink your glasses with the ghosts of the past that built Old Town Hall and toast to the next 150 years. Guests will enjoy an evening of passed hors d’oeuvres, a shared toast, special Old Town Hall prizes, and a night to remember.

Serving up New Orleans style street jazz, Baby Soda was formed in 2007 in Brooklyn New York, by musicians who met playing traditional jazz in Washington Square Park and the NYC subway system. The group has grown and changed over the years, to include a large family of talented New York musicians, many coming here to realize their musical aspirations.

For 150 years, Easthampton’s Old Town Hall has been an integral part of the history, civic life, culture, and entertainment of Easthampton. Since 2005, CitySpace has worked to restore, manage, and preserve Old Town Hall as a center for the arts in Easthampton. This year marks the inauguration of its campaign to bring it’s second-floor upper hall back to life where formerly dances, town meetings, theater performances, and community events were held. Bring out your dapper selves and revel in Easthampton yesterday, today, and tomorrow. All are welcome to Old Town Hall Ball.

If there’s anything good at all that came out of the conflict in Northern Mali, then its audible in the defiant guitar licks of Songhoy Blues. After being forced to leave their homes in Timbuktu by Islamic extremism, the young quartet formed in Bamako in 2012 and began to navigate their refugee condition and celebrate their birthright through music — the arid, hypnotic desert blues of the Songhoy people.

Their high-voltage live performances in Bamako paved the way to international stardom — The band already counts such luminaries as ‪Nile Rodgers‬, ‪Gary Clark Jr‬., ‪Run the Jewels‬, ‪Iggy Pop‬, Nick Zinner, Matt Sweeney & ‪Will Oldham‬ as fans — and for a band still in their 20s, thats some really good buzz. One thing’s for sure — Ali Farka Toure never got this funky. Bamako these days is electric and alive with Western music, and Songhoy Blues is a modern groove machine in the effusive spirit of James Brown or Sly Stone. The hypnotic trance rhythms of classical Malian music are threaded with classic rock and funk riffs in provocative fusion.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/puZrrI1bA5k

“Picture what would happen if Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin met Ali Farka Touré in a garage in West Africa. . . . The band is Songhoy Blues.”—World Café, NPR

Talk about a Planetary Party — Brooklyn's own Nikhil P. Yerawadekar & Low Mentality is also on deck for this one, delivering personal and uplifting original songs suitable for dancefloors, car stereos and headphones worldwide. The group plays organically cultivated styles drawing from Nikhil’s wide range of experiences, from his formative years as a teenage hip-hop junkie in Queens, NY, to later in his life when he found himself working closely with artists such as Hailu Mergia (Awesome Tapes From Africa), Zap Mama, Tony Allen, Cedric “Im” Brooks and Khaira Arby, and performing all over the world with Antibalas and collaborators such as Santigold, Sharon Jones, Billy Gibbons, Nels Cline and Esperanza Spalding.

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB1qw64FIPw

“Nikhil P. Yerawadekar and Low Mentality make some of the best music coming out of NYC. Not the best Afrobeat, not the best post-highlife, not the best South African psychedelic disco. Some of the best music, period.” -Saxon Baird, AFROPOP WORLDWIDE

Its the first Friday night Planetary Party at New City Brewery since April, so don’t sleep on tickets for this one! Celebrating world-class music from everywhere and made possible in part by Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company. Zero-Fee $15 advance tickets are available at www.laudable.productions . $20/door. $10 student tickets available with student ID at the door thanks to our sponsor!

After eight years in Colombia working as a DJ, promoter and music journalist, trumpeter Etienne Sevet returned home to Lyon, France to form the Afro Caribbean band The Bongo Hop. The rich tone of their take on Afro-Caribbean dance music is the result of many influences including Sevet’s time in Cali where he met frequent collaborator and folkloric vocalist Nidia Góngora, and the African rhythms he encountered at home among the African diaspora, as well as his many travels around the world. This is the Bongo Hop's debut US tour.

If you've been a fan of our other Afro-Latin joints these past two years (Rio Mira, Betsayda Machado, Combo Chimbita), this is another sweet one for you. Sevet's DJ ear is carefully tuned to what gets people moving, so get ready for a universal-feeling dance-party, complete with funky horns and an international buffet of grooves. Think of the Bongo Hop as an Afro-Caribbean equivalent of the Greyboy All-stars. This fairly new project is already turning hips and heads in Europe.

PLUS! Its a Saturday night, so the Peace & Rhythm crew will be on the turntables with a highly relevant selection of vinyl -- before, between, and after.

The Planetary Party! Celebrating world-class music from everywhere and made possible in part by Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company. Zero-Fee $15 advance tickets. $20/door. $10 student tickets available with student ID at the door thanks to our sponsor!