Conversations about Funding Programs and Music Tradition: NBHAP Newsletter #04

Hey there. Welcome to NBHAP’s newsletter. We are glad you’re here. Sit down, put on your headphones, drink a glass of water, and take a moment to browse through the music and stories we encountered this month.

Including conversations about Mongolian Long Song, the legacies of Jazz and Blues music, Musicboard's funding programs, and a 40-song strong update to our Politics of Pop playlist.

Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes

Reading and Listening Time: 40 minutes

Currently playing:

Sometimes it is a surprise to see that a well-known artist in the local circles is just now releasing their solo debut. Berlin-based singer douniah (Opens in a new window) previously collaborated with many artists like rapper Ebow, High John, and Move 78. "Sabah El Noor" is her very first solo release and will be followed by the debut EP "A Lot, Not Too Much" out in November. Tune into the mellow RnB single driven by a steady bassline and the distinct warm vocal timber of the artist.

Tapping into Tradition

“I think music can be a relief and an escape. Music helps to deal with trauma.”, Elisapie Qupanuaq Lissie Akumaliik Isaac, known as Elisapie (Opens in a new window) (ᐃᓕᓴᐱ), says during our conversation (Opens in a new window) about her new album Inuktitut (ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ). The record is a collection of classic rock and pop songs that the Inuk artist translated and adapted into the Inuktitut language. It is a connector of worlds, a reclamation, a reappropriation of popular culture, and a gift to her community.

The story of the album is one that cannot be told without speaking about the history and ongoing violence of colonialism that affected Elisapie’s community. She explains: “When rock ‘n roll arrived in the 60s and 70s, my uncles had to go South to the residential schools. Our grandparents were told their kids needed to be educated to be a part of Canada. So, I think all this pain and trauma of colonization and residential schools is connected to the music they listened to back then.”

“There is something very rich and very real in my blood. In the process, I had to rethink how I see Inuktitut. It is more than just a language or a cultural reference. It is a way of life.” - Elisapie

Singer and songwriter Dominique Fils-Aimé (Opens in a new window) shares the home base of Montreal (Tio’tia:ke) with Elisapie. Ancestry plays a key role in both of their musical outlets. Working in album trilogies, Dominique Fils-Aimé concluded a three-record homage to Blues, Jazz, and Soul artists and is now turning her gaze inward. The new record "Our Roots Run Deep" is based on the previous musical tribute. In conversation (Opens in a new window) with Sophie Romy, the singer talks about reconnecting with her inner child and why the color green plays such a special role in this album.

“The first chapter was about how I understood and explored Blues, Jazz, and Soul music. I felt like this new chapter had to start with me. Now, I can start talking about my heart here, today, where we are at, and work towards my dreams of the future. I can talk about what I wish to see and try to contribute to that future by creating music that is a representation of that future that I dream of where people are free to be themselves and live in safer spaces. Spaces where there is more room for everyone to live together support each other in their differences and talk about what they have in common. Our souls feel the same emotions, but our bodies, depending on what body you have, and where you are, will be treated differently.”

- Dominique Fils-Aimé

Connecting both, jazz and traditional Mongolian folk is the new record by Munich-based artist Enji (Opens in a new window). The musician was born and raised in a small working-class town in Mongolia and continued to teach music in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. The new album, "Ulaan" is named after the city, but the title also has a special connection to Enji's childhood. Liv Toerkell spoke to the singer via Zoom to find out how the traditional Long Song or Urtiin Duu connects to Enji's studies of contemporary jazz on "Ulaan". Read up on the conversation (Opens in a new window) about tradition, dreams, and communal singing.

“In Long Song, you don’t have bars or strict tempo. You are stretching words. It is more a picturing of the melody and the song. You have your own energy and your own tempo, and you can sing in a completely free way. The techniques and sounds are related to nature. You can, for example, hear sounds like water, animals, or mountains reflected in the music.” - Enji

Have you met...?

Part of what we love doing most at NBHAP is uplifting newcomers and introducing lesser-known talent to our readership. Every month, we curate several updates of the Introducing feature and playlist on our website and on Spotify. In September, we had the pleasure of meeting Becky Sikasa (Opens in a new window) and Laurence-Anne (Opens in a new window).

"It is hard to pin Becky Sikasa down to just one of her talents. The musician, singer, producer, instrumentalist, and lyricist knows how to use them all", author Anna Grubauer writes about last month's Introducing act. The Edinburgh-based singer Becky Sikasa just followed her debut "Twelve Wooden Boxes" with the single "Work of Love" and shares her thoughts (Opens in a new window) on complex emotions and her artistic journey from growing up in Bavaria to exploring creative communities in Scotland's capital.

The feature was followed by the synth-pop artist Laurence-Anne (Opens in a new window). Her new record "Oniromancie" is dedicated to the night and a darker part of her oeuvre. In conversation, she talks about (Opens in a new window) her multilingual approach, automatic writing techniques, and the essence of nocturnal fascination.

Tune into the current version of our Introducing (Opens in a new window) playlist below, and follow it to listen to not miss out on any of the updates.

If you want to listen to the previous Introducing playlists, consider becoming a member (Opens in a new window). For a small monthly donation to support the NBHAP team, you will receive access to our library of over thirty exclusively artist-curated playlists.

Politics of Pop: Armenia

What we listen to, who we support, and who gets heard is political. Who has access to the resources to express themselves and release songs is political. This section of the newsletter is dedicated to the intersection of music and politics and today we want to listen to Armenia. The region and de-facto Armenian republic of Bergkarabach is facing new military actions by Azerbaijani forces, which led to the violent expulsion of thousands of people from the largely Armenian-inhabited region. This follows the ten-month-long military blockade by Azerbaijan cutting the region off from its Armenian support leaving the people to suffer from food shortages and hunger.

To raise awareness, we updated our "Politics of Pop" playlist with contemporary and traditional musicians from Armenia and encourage you to take a moment to read about the situation (Opens in a new window), donate (Opens in a new window), and listen to these beautiful sounds. Leading the playlist is the debut release by Ladaniva (Opens in a new window), a multicultural group, founded by the Armenian singer Jacklin Baghdasarayan, who just released their self-titled debut. Tune in below to listen to the diverse, multi-genre musical treasures with homages to traditional Armenian folk by Marine Manasian (Opens in a new window), electronic explorations by JINJ (Opens in a new window) and Jrimurmur (Opens in a new window), and the close-harmony group Zulal (Opens in a new window).

Music Industry Tea: Commissioned Works and Residencies

After visiting this year's Pop-Kultur (Opens in a new window) festival in early September, we took a closer look at the distribution of the funding of commissioned works and residencies that premiered at the festival. Author Liv Toerkell spoke to the festival's creative producer Pamela Schlewinski as well as the artists Anika (Opens in a new window) and Portrait XO (Opens in a new window) who premiered works this year. “I want to create a space that frees energies,” Pamela Schlewinski says about the goal of the commissioned works. “Each artist has a vision and something they have always wanted to do. The opportunity of the commissioned work can bring that vision to the surface and finally provide the space to put it into practice. It is beautiful to see the happy artists at the end of the festival because they have brought something onto the stage that they love, and they had fun while making it, but it was also challenging them.” Read up on the full conversation about how the commissioned works create artistic freedom on our website (Opens in a new window).

Another program that premieres each year at Pop-Kultur is the Co-Creation Residencies funded by Musicboard Berlin (Opens in a new window). As part of the exchange program, an artist from Berlin is matched with an artist from the collaborating city. They then get to work together and explore the local community in the hometown of their partner. We took a closer look at the program by speaking to Musicboard's project manager Maureen Noe and three artists who participated in the exchange this year: Aka Kelzz (Opens in a new window) from the Berlin-Accra program as well as the Berlin-Kampala residents Sara Perisco (Opens in a new window), and Chrisman (Opens in a new window). In our conversation (Opens in a new window), Maureen Noe shares how Musicboard strives to make the residency programs more accessible and how they confront the colonial power dynamics, that programs like these can easily reproduce, through the collaboration with researcher and writer Natasha A. Kelly (Opens in a new window).

“Often, we think of networking as meeting the very important people in the business. We want to rethink connections and networking in terms of the direct community surrounding the artists. A more sustainable way is horizontal networking: looking at who is on your level and creating bonds of solidarity and community. And when you grow, you grow together and take your peers with you. We want our artists to gain access and make long-lasting connections, so they can further their career through a residency program.” – Maureen Noe

Electronic Empathy

In September, our Electronic Empathy playlist received a make-over by the one and only Romy (Opens in a new window) from The xx. Following the release of the artist's solo debut "Mid Air" (Opens in a new window), Norman Fleischer met up with Romy to talk about her journey to this record of personal emancipation and how queer club culture shaped her understanding of music.

NBHAP: As a part of the community, do you feel like queer spaces have a different way of celebrating? 

Romy: "Oh, definitely. I think that the LGBTQIA+ community really has to have that extra level of awareness. They need that output of energy to walk into a situation and think “Am I safe here? Can I let my guard down? Can I kiss the person I love? Is this okay?” Going into a queer venue and knowing that you’re safe there is a real relief.  It has been for me, but I also sense that in the people around me."

You can read up on the interview right here (Opens in a new window) and listen to the playlist that Romy curated for us via Spotify (Opens in a new window).

"I think there’s that kind of euphoria of just being."

- Romy

Favorite Lyric

“Have you ever heard of wind without air?
deadened sky. who lies kneaded with silence
tell me a silence that won’t fit a prayer.”
– excerpt from Nasim Luczaj ‘Anemone, Windflower’ featured on Anika

This is an excerpt from the poem "Anemone, Windflower" by Nasim Luczaj (Opens in a new window) and featured on the collaborative single "No Fly Zone" by Anika (Opens in a new window) and Ni Vash. It was performed as part of "Lost Voices" (Opens in a new window)at Pop-Kultur via the commissioned works and Anika shares her thoughts and emotions that shaped the performance in an extensive guest article (Opens in a new window).

Anika writes: "This a piece about lost voices – those in society, and in a more direct sense, those in music, specifically bass, over phone speaker, frequencies that get lost, as well as songs that get lost in the algorithm of music apps and generated playlists. The norm curve excludes the rebels. As a musician privileged enough to travel the world, visit other countries, and perform for people I have never met, I think it’s important to keep this exchange symbiotic – to offer a platform to the people themselves, to tell their stories."

"This piece reminded me of the importance of music in protest, in coming together, and in its purpose beyond the market, beyond capitalism – as a conversation between humans." - Anika

Berlin Focus: Space Sessions

This month, we met up with James Michael Rodgers, the host of the Space Sessions (Opens in a new window) at the bar Space Meduza to discuss the beginnings of the format, the art of curation, and its surrounding politics. The long conversation (Opens in a new window) between author Andreas Peters and James brings to light some of the struggles that indie newcomers face. To gain a deeper understanding of this, Andreas also spoke with two notable artists in that scene: Thala (Opens in a new window) and Mone (Opens in a new window).

“I wanted a space where the musicians could properly perform in Neukölln and Kreuzberg and actually get paid for it. And I like the idea of someone actually hosting it, you introduce them.”

- James Michael Rodgers

What's Next?

For next month, we are in preparation for a brand new Label Story as well as another update of the Electronic Empathy playlist with Sofia Kourtesis (Opens in a new window). You can also look forward to an extended conversation with Jamila Woods (Opens in a new window) about her new record "Water Made Us" out October 13th. Keep your eyes open for our two exciting Introducing acts as well!

On That Note

That's it from us for now. Thank you for reading and listening. Before you go on with your day, here is one more song we invite you to give a spin. Our latest Daily Tune is the alternative pop gem "the train to nowhere" by hemlocke springs (Opens in a new window).

Follow our Daily Tune playlist (Opens in a new window) to receive regular song recommendations.

Our NBHAP playlists are currently still curated only on Spotify. While we are working on changing this, and encourage you to consider alternatives like Tidal (Opens in a new window) for a fairer compensation of artists you love, or go old school and support them by buying merch and vinyl. Remember that the best day to make your purchases is Bandcamp Friday (Opens in a new window), where 100% of the proceeds go to the artists. The next one is on October 6th.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter and our content on NBHAP, you can make a financial contribution (Opens in a new window) to keep the project going or become a member (Opens in a new window) to support us regularly and gain access to exclusive playlists.

Feel free to share this newsletter with fellow music lovers. If you are not yet subscribed, sign up right here (Opens in a new window).

Thank you for reading and listening.

Love, NBHAP Team