BKO Quintet is a journey into the heart of contemporary Malian music. Their key innovation is the fusion of two well-known West African traditions, that of the Mandinka griots (jelis) and the Bambara hunters (donso). And it is a completely new sound. This pairing brings master drummer Ibrahima Sarr (who toured globally with Oumou Sangare) together with the formidable Adama Coulibaly who sings and plays the donsongoni (hunter’s harp), with Mamoutou Diabate on the smaller djelingoni. Griot singer Fassara Sacko and French percussionist Aymeric Krol round out the group, creating a potent mix of sound that has both a rawness and a dense, propulsive groove (think Congotronics), yet retains the airy, incantational spirit of traditional Malian music (Ali Farka Toure, Rokia Traore).

WATCH BKO Quintet, “Tangwanana”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ElgTAo3J0

BKO is Bamako’s airport code. And this new super-quintet from Mali, emerging in a tumultuous era of civil war and jihadist violence, makes it very clear they are shaking up their country’s musical traditions with a sound that fuses, explodes, and transcends into a global ruckus. This is electrified, highly danceable music representing the urban sounds of Bamako today, pierced through with its rural ancestry.

World Music Collider is delighted to be teaming up with Hawks & Reed in Greenfield for the first time to bring you another explosive Valley debut. Get ready for mid-Summer Malian dance party with one of West Africa’s finest and brazen new voices.

Advance tickets $15 / $20 at the door. Laudable Production's ticketing gateway does not charge any fees, so make sure to get them in advance.

The Nigerien band Tal National represents one of the most important cultural crossroads of modern Africa. The band’s members comprise Songhai, Fulani, Hausa, and Tuareg communities: different tribes co-inhabiting the former French colony and each with their own songs, traditions and languages. In the music we hear the rolling 12/8 rhythms in the Hausa's Fuji percussion, the pensive aridity of the Tuareg's assouf or "blues,” and the exquisite "griot guitar" of Mali's Songhai, all delivered with virtuoso precision and unrelenting energy.

But fundamentally, they’re a rock n’ roll band.  Here’s Rolling Stone: “Tal National play rollicking, dizzying, high-octane grooves with the joie de vivre of afrobeat and highlife, but have a hard-rocking polyrhythmic tumble reminiscent of experimental rock bands like Battles, Horse Lords and Tortoise.”

Its a thrill and an honor to host them in the Valley as they swing through the US for another blistering run in 2019.

If you like: Desert blues; Bombino; West African guitar; ecstatic, high-energy sets; bands that can play for hours.

Tickets: $12 adv, $15 at the door. Children 12 and under free. Thanks to our series sponsors Dean’s Beans, there will be $10 student tickets available at the door with ID.

Our Dean’s Bean’s Planetary Party cycle is made possible in part by our series sponsors and go-to coffee roasters Dean’s Bean’s!

VISIT THE OFFICIAL FESTIVAL WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS: WWW.BARBESINTHEWOODS.COM

Take a privately chartered bus with other festival-goers. Our busses are super-comfortable, airconditioned, wi-fi equipped, with power outlets for each seat.  The bus will pick you up at the corner of Barbès and drop you off at the festival gates in Montague, MA. Round-trip service returning to Park Slope departs from the festival at 11:30 PM and arrives back in Park Slope around 3 AM. Plugin your phone and sleep all the way home if you like.

Barbès is the little bar that could in Brooklyn. Over the past two decades, it has incubated and gestated some of New York's most creative music projects. The tiny venue only seats 60 and hosts more than 700 performances a year.

This Summer, we're celebrating the iconic bar in our own neck of the woods. It's going to be the quintessential backyard festival — the sort of thing you’ve always wanted in the middle of your summer — on a pristine tract of historic farmland in Western Massachusetts. Learn more at www.BarbesInTheWoods.com

When it rains, it pours. For the second time this year, a legendary Peruvian cumbia band is touring the world and stopping in Easthampton. But in many ways, Los Wemblers de Iquitos are even more exotic and unique than the Los Mirlos appearance back in May. 

In 1968, a shoemaker named Solomon Sanchez decided to form a band with his five sons in the largest most-isolated city in the world, Iquitos. Called Los Wemblers, they are said to be the original founders of Peruvian Cumbia, a delirious cocktail of traditional music of that time (cumbia, carimbó, pandilla), mixed with surf, psych rock, Afro-Latin rhythms, and tropicalia. Fifty years later, the original members of the band are touring internationally, spurred by a broad revival in psychedelic cumbia and a profound love for their music.

Los Wemblers were responsible for some of the first hits in the psychedelic cumbia genre — including the iconic “Sonido Amazonico” and “Danza del Petrolero”, two titles co-opted (stolen, claim Los Wemblers) by that other popular band, Los Mirlos. Their new album Vision del Ayahuasca celebrates the 50th anniversary of the band and confirms their unquestionable position in the genre. The recording sounds timeless and joyful, oscillating between the band’s love of tropical dance music and brazen guitar rock rooted in late 60s psychedelia.  

PLUS! The Peace & Rhythm DJs are bringing their highly relevant collection of tropical music to the party, before and after the live music.

The Planetary Party drops monthly in Easthampton’s New City Brewery, celebrating world-class music from everywhere and made possible in part by Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Roaster. Zero-Fee $18 advance tickets are available at www.laudable.productions . $20/door. $10 student tickets available with student ID at the door thanks to our sponsor!

LIVE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/R33w8Y3DKpg
ABOUT THE BAND: https://youtu.be/xtEgPBgP5fQ

Sons of Mali, musical refugees, groundbreaking artists, virtuoso performers, survivors. Unforgettable & undeniable. ‪Songhoy Blues‬ are the future of African rock n’ roll.

Steeped in the deep traditions of classic Malian music & desert blues fused with a youthful & super-charged sound of today, these 4 young men from Timbuktu continue marching, playing & dancing their way into the hearts & minds of music fans everywhere with their electric, eclectic & kinetic songs.

The band’s sophomore album, 2017’s critically-acclaimed RESISTANCE, solidified them as a group to watch, and they’ve followed it up with consistent live touring on 5 continents, helping to make them a force to reckon with.

2019 sees the release of their new album and expectations are high, for good reason –
‪Songhoy Blues make music that is unique, exciting, contagious & paradigm-shifting. 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 are poised to put their musical footprint down for years to come. ‬

Songhoy Blues will be supporting their new album with live dates across N. America this fall, setting the stage with month-long residencies in New York City (April) and Los Angeles (May)

Most recently, the band completed a sold out run of UK dates, recorded a live session for BBC 6 Music; filmed an episode of the new UK TV show ‘Noughts & Crosses’ in South Africa (where they’re featured performing in one of the main scenes); are featured in a new photography exhibit called ‘My Rockstars’ by Hassan Hajjaj at La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris; and will be collaborating with UK artist Andy Morgan on a multimedia exhibition called ‘Music & Conflict’ at the Imperial War Museum, which debuts June 2019.

The band are also proud spokespersons for the charity WaterAID, and have helped to raise money & awareness toward providing relief in their native Mali. They will be appearing in an upcoming documentary on climate change in the Sahara; and were featured in the award-winning documentary “They Will Have to Kill Us First”, about the plight of musicians in war-torn Mali (https://www.theywillhavetokillusfirst.com)