Bilo Alban Cumbia Incaica (1973)
Remember when I fell down that cumbia rabbit hole? I haven’t experienced anything like that in a while… I was obsessed for weeks! Since I had little prior knowledge of the genre, the journey was particularly fruitful.
While I shared my favourite track already, I held back Bilo Alban, who comes a close second. His debut, El Organo Electrónico De Bilo Alban, is a true obscurity. Recorded in the early 1970s in Ecuador, Bilo Alban was reportedly a pre-pubescent keyboard prodigy—possibly around eight years old at the time of recording.
The whole album is pure fire (and surprisingly versatile), with the slow instrumental burner “Cumbia Incaica” being my personal favourite.
A record store I highly appreciate is Manchester-based online shop All Night Flight. Their curation is very specific—mainly ambient, experimental, and left-field—but all kinds of sounds pop up there. I trust their judgment so much that I sometimes randomly add an item to my basket—and I’ve never been disappointed. That’s how I discovered Jemima’s LP Even The Dog Knows this year. At the time, there was hardly any information online about either the artist or the record. It’s folk-y, experimental, uniquely its own, and incredibly beautiful. Start with the track “Coming Over”—that’s all you need to know for now.
Alongside the music I cover at The Rest, I also listen to a lot of experimental music. One label I follow closely is Hallow Ground, run by someone also named Remo (full disclosure: we’re friends, and he’s also my yoga teacher). This summer, he released a record by Amosphère, a Chinese-born, Paris-based composer and multidisciplinary artist I met through my ex-girlfriend a couple of years back. When I saw Amosphère’s name pop up on Hallow Ground, I was very excited—and I wasn’t disappointed. The album’s opening track, “Land of Eternal Delight”, is a 22-minute exercise in subtly shifting a reduced set of elements—minimal, quiet, delicate and mind-bending.
You know I love dub and reggae… And over the past couple of years, I’ve bought a lot of this music on vinyl. But after picking up “Kunta Kinte Dub” by Channel One Studios’ house band The Revolutionaries (featuring legendary Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare), I just… stopped. I can’t quite explain why. Maybe because the track feels like the end boss? I’m sure I’ll return to digging eventually, but for now, I’m completely satisfied.
By the way, I first encountered this track while watching Steve McQueen’s film Lovers Rock, which I highly recommend. It captures a single evening at a house party in 1980s West London that peaks as “Kunta Kinte Dub” is played.
In a parallel universe, I’d be a metalhead. In this one, it’s hard to find metal that really clicks—but I keep trying. Doom metal usually comes closest. Recently, I read about a record by Seattle-based doom duo Bell Witch that consists of a single track lasting over 80 minutes. That alone was enough to convince me to give it a try. The track called “Mirror Reaper” is split into four movements, and I coincidentally started with “Movement Four”, which turned out to be the best possible entry point for me. The opening of this last movement is epic—folk-y, vulnerable, and, at least in its first half, very far removed from what I thought metal was supposed to sound like.
P.S. If you like “Movement Four”, try listening to the entire piece. There are intense sections and some growling—but for me, it really works.
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