Friday in late April. How did that happen? In my head it feels like we're only a few weeks into 2025 and yet next week it's going to be May. We got back from Marrakech a week ago today, Easter is gone and there's another four day week on the horizon. My head's still spinning from everything we saw and did out in Morocco, I haven't yet written in any detail about the musicians we saw playing in the desert last Thursday night and there's a post about Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Joujouka and Sufi desert trance music that's been percolating in my head for a few days.
Eliza is in Bali- and that's a whole other story- she came back from university last summer and went straight into work, working at the day care club that Isaac used to go to. Having saved up enough money to pay off her student overdraft and finance a bit of travelling she dropped it on us with about ten days notice before departure that she'd booked a flight to Bali and was going off for a month travelling solo- she flew the day before we flew to Morocco. When she was due to land in Bali, me and Lou would be landing in Marrakech, none of us with a working phone, all three of us needing to buy SIM cards and being in completely different continents and time zones. You'll be relieved to know all has been fine in Bali and she's having the time of her life.
Sometimes things just fall into place. This track came to me two days ago, one of those things which shouldn't work but does brilliantly, a track that re- configures an older one into something entirely, wonderfully new- this is an Afro- Beat, Afro house cover version of Aphex Twin's 1999 track Windowlicker by Raz and Afla...
Raz and Afla are a duo. Raz Olsher is a producer from Hackney and Afla Sackey is a musician from Ghana- they style themselves as taking 'a cosmic journey through the African continent and beyond'. Heavily percussive but light on its feet, with wordless and spooked vocal sounds, brightly coloured synths and funked up African guitars, this take on Windowlicker does exactly what good cover versions should- it re- imagines the original, shifts it somewhere else, throwing new light on an old song. You can buy it at Bandcamp.
Aphex Twin's Windowlicker is one of Richard D. James' freakiest, sleaziest and out there pieces of music, heavily processed and filled with gasps and moans, that diverts into various future sounds- a drum 'n' bass intro, a weird, time- stretching middle section, some futuristic alien dub, and a nerve shredding noisy ending.
2 comments:
Wonderful to hear that Eliza's adventures are proving to be so enjoyable.
I've never been a lover of Windowlicker in its original format and haven't ever listened to it more than a couple of times.....and I certainly would never have recognised the tune by that thoroughly decent cover. Great stuff (as usual), Adam.
Windowlicker is very much an acquired taste- but this cover is very much the business
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