Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse LIVE
ASHER GAMEDZE
Turbulence and Pulse
ON TOUR
At the top of 2024, Cape Town, South Africa based drummer, composer, and International Anthem recording artist Asher Gamedze - with the quartet of cohorts who accompanied him on our 2023 Mushroom Hour co-released LP Turbulence and Pulse - will embark on a series of EU shows organized by the good folks of JAW Family.
20 JAN // BRUSSELS, BE (Brussels Jazz Festival)
28 FEB // COPENHAGEN, DK (ALICE)
29 FEB // WARSAW, PL (Jassmine)
01 MAR // MECHELEN, BE (Nona)
02 MAR // COLOGNE, DE (King Georg)
03 MAR // OSTEND, BE (KAAP)
05 MAR // STOCKHOLM, SE (Fasching)
06 MAR // BERN, CH (Bee Flat)
07 MAR // ROTTERDAM, NL (De Doelen)
"Melancholia" Live Video & Johannesburg Show Photo Recap up now on Tracing the Lines
To accompany Asher's tour announcement today, we've published a new piece in the online version of our label's zine Tracing the Lines. "Asher Gamedze: Turbulence and Pulse in Johannesburg" is a dispatch from the album release event at Chiesa di Pazzo Lupi featuring words and photos from South African journalist Tseliso Monaheng, along with a video of Asher & his band performing "Melancholia" at the show.
Watch the video, read the piece, and see the full photo set via Tracing The Lines here
IARC0057 / M3H013
Asher Gamedze
Turbulence & Pulse
“Potent and gripping” – Cast The Dice
“Gamedze and his group project astrally into the outer realms of the known sonic universe.” – FADER
“Dark like Mingus, charged like Fela Kuti and boundless like Kamasi Washington.”– WBUR
“The deeply philosophical musings are as important to the recordings as the music.” – V13
“A triumph in understanding as an organizer, perspective as a student of history, and in song as a musician.” – Off Shelf
“An engaging quest for satori” – MOJO
2xLP, CD, Digital album now available.
((( photo by Dylan Valley )))
About Asher Gamedze
Asher Gamedze is a cultural worker based in Cape Town, South Africa, involved in music, education, and history. As an independent musician he works a drummer, composer, and bandleader.
A versatile drummer with an open sound and sensibility, Gamedze plays across and between multiple traditions of music including free improvisation, soul music, rock ‘n roll, and many locally situated traditions from Southern Africa. Asher has performed extensively in South Africa and other parts of the African continent including Egypt, Lesotho, and Malawi. He has been on multiple European tours and has also played some gigs in the USA, particularly in Chicago where he has a big community. Gamedze’s debut record as a bandleader, Dialectic Soul, was released to critical acclaim in 2020. The record received high ranks on Pitchfork and The New York Times‘s top ten jazz albums of the year, as well as winning ‘Best Traditional Jazz Album’ at the Mzantsi Jazz Awards. Gamedze’s second release, Out Side Work, consisting of two improvised duets with saxophone players Alan Bishop and Xristian Espinoza, came out in April 2022. He toured that record with the reedman Espinoza in Europe in September 2022 and, in November 2022, toured Dialectic Soul, playing venues and festivals such as Jazzfest Berlin, Le Guess Who? and Flagey.
He has recently played on the following recordings: Luh’ra’s Nice (2022), Xhanti Nokwali’s Umthombo (2022), the Mushroom Hour (Johannesburg) / Total Refreshment Centre (London) collaboration On Our Own Clock (2021), Manny Walters’ Dark Halo (2019) and Live at Milestone (2021), as well as both the full-length Angel Bat Dawid albums released on International Anthem, LIVE (2020) and The Oracle (2019). He has performed live with Ben LaMar Gay, Nduduzo Makhathini, Salim Washington, Sharif Shenaoui, Donna Khalife, and many others.
For Gamedze, the underlying message of his new album Turbulence and Pulse is “to claim a form of historical agency and realize that the future is not a foregone conclusion. As people we can organize, to transform our world in small and big ways.” This concept comes out of Gamedze’s involvement in radical cultural work and political organizing.
He adds: “One of the ideas that I've had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think about culture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that's important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.”
Joining Gamedze on Turbulence and Pulse is Thembinkosi Mavimbela on bass, Buddy Wells on tenor saxophone, and Robbin Fassie on trumpet. Vocalist Julian Otis guests on a track - a good friend whom he met through Angel Bat Dawid’s band. “I chose these musicians specifically because I know that they’re open to understanding and interpreting the music from my perspective and my way of working.”
!!! ANOTHER SIDE !!!
with Another Time Ensemble
The LP & CD versions of Turbulence and Pulse feature an extra side – i.e. three additional tracks – with alternate versions of “Melancholia,” “If It Rains. To Pursue Truth,” and “Out Stepped Zim” all recorded in December 2020 on a rooftop in Cairo, Egypt, by Gamedze with his Another Time Ensemble featuring Cairo-based musicians Maurice Louca (synthesizers), Adham Zidan (bass), Alan Bishop (alto saxophone, voice), and Chérif El-Masri (guitar).
*Deluxe Vinyl Package*
One Drop color vinyl
“I feel like my drawings represent the inside of my mind. It’s very free and improvisational,” Gamedze says about his hand-illustrated album art for Turbulence and Pulse. He worked with his friend, designer Naadira Patel, for the final cover layout, which includes liner notes penned by his sister, writer and artist Thuli Gamedze.
Turbulence & Pulse comes on two limited edition "One Drop" color vinyl LPs inside a heavyweight gatefold jacket with obi strip and custom IARC/MH3 printer inner-sleeves. Lacquers were cut by Daniel K at SST, and the vinyl was pressed at Pallas in Germany. The limited edition One Drop color edition is available for the first pressing only, on our Bandcamp page only.
Distribution via RedEye for US, Canada, North & South America
This album will also be available on CD and Classic Black Vinyl (same package specs as listed above).
Retailers in the United States or Canada or anywhere else inside of North, South and Central America... Please reach out to your sales rep at RedEye Worldwide if you are interested in making wholesale purchases of this album, or any other album in our catalog. Don't yet have a RedEye rep? Please just reach out to us and we'll get you hooked up!
Distribution via !K7 for Europe, UK, Australia, Japan and ROW
This album will be distributed by our good friends at !K7 and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Japan, Australia, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.
If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to reach out!!!
Turbulence and Pulse is the first collaborative release (of hopefully many) with the Johannesburg-based label Mushroom Hour Half Hour. This crew is a major inspiration for all of us here at IARC – definitely recommend keeping an eye out for any and all of their LPs !!!
