Dissidenten

Artist Information

Biography

D I S S I D E N T E N

‘The World’ was Dissidenten’s main musical subject long before such ideas floated into fashion. Over a thirty-year span their projects have ranked not only among the most innovative multicultural collaborations but they also figure among the most telling and groundbreaking contributions to the development and broadening of today’s popular music. Since the term ‘World Music’ entered the music lexicon in the early 1980s their name has been synonymous with, and at the forefront of ‘World Music’. After all, it was the Rolling Stone that dubbed Dissidenten “Godfathers of World-Beat” long before the term became popular.
More Info: The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music


DISSIDENTEN

‘The World’ was Dissidenten’s main musical subject long before such ideas floated into fashion. Over a thirty-year span their projects have ranke not only among the most innovative multicultural collaborations but they also figure among the most telling and groundbreaking contributions to the development and broadening of today’s popular music. Since the term ‘World Music’ entered the music lexicon in the early 1980s their name has been synonymous with, and at the forefront of ‘World Music’. After all, it was the Rolling Stone that dubbed Dissidenten “Godfathers of World-Beat” long before the term became popular.
More Info: The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music

1981/83: Dissidenten and their own label Exil Musik are founded in Berlin by Uve Muellrich, Marlon Klein and Friedo Josch. Following a one-year tour of Asia, the group decides to stay in India to produce their first albumGERMANISTAN with the help of the Karnataka College Of Percussion, their charismatic female singer R.A. Ramamani and percussionist Ramesh Shotham. The live line up is joined by India’s outstanding pianist Louis Banks and American sax legend Charlie Mariano. Concerts between Calcutta and Madrid, Casablanca and Stockholm are documented on the live album GERMANISTAN TOUR 83.

1984/85: Concerts worldwide. Having toured North Africa, Dissidenten set up camp in Tangier, Morocco. Composer and author Paul Bowles and Tangier’s musical godfather Abdesalam Akaabouneintroduce them to Moroccan musicians Jil Jilala, Nas El Ghiwane, Lem Chaheb and the likes. Dissidenten’s third album SAHARA ELEKTRIK is recorded in Tangier with Lem Chaheb and their outstanding leader Cherif Lamrani. FATA MORGANA -the album’s hit song becomes famous not only in North Africa but a top dancefloor success in Europe and South America. 250.000 people see and hear Dissidenten live during a three-week tour of Spain. British DJ John Peel features the group in his legendary BBC program. ’Dissimania’ -initially started out in the Mediterranean, spreads via England to Canada and the US. Dissidenten make it to the top of independent charts worldwide. Concert for German TV-WDR at the famous Rockpalast is broadcasted live all over Europe.

1986/88: Concerts worldwide. Dissidenten move to Spain. LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS is recorded in Madrid and Casablanca. The album includes TELEPHONE ARAB, Dissidenten’s hit song and videoclip. With a coverversion of TELEPHONE ARAB, Egyptian superstar Mohammed Mounir makes it number one all over the Arab world. Dissidenten tour major places in Europe and North America as well as North Afrika and Asia. One of these legendary concerts at New York’s packed Palladium is recorded for the album DISSIDENTEN – LIVE IN NEW YORK. The song FATA MORGANA from the 1984 album SAHARA ELEKTRIK becomes a major hit in Brasil and South Amerika –ten years later it will have sold more than 1,5 million copies in Brasil alone. Dissidenten play the title song for the famous telenovela SASSA RICANDO. Till today Dissidenten enjoy a strong following in Brasil.

1989/91: Morocco: Recordings with the Royal Orchestra of Rabat for the album OUT OF THIS WORLD, featuring singer Mahmoud Saadi and the incredible talents of Cherif Lamrani on mandolincello.
1989 OUT OF THIS WORLD is released worldwide. The video for the album’s title song was filmed and produced by Dissidenten in East Berlin -just before and during the Berlin Wall came down. Concerts in North America. Recording for Real American Music in Ottawa. The album involves native American Indian musicians made friends and worked with while touring Canada.

1992/95: Concerts worldwide. Recordings in Mumbay and Bangalore for the album THE JUNGLE BOOK, an artistic reunion with many musicians and friends from the group’s past years working and touring all over India. Most of them have become internationally acclaimed by now. Ramesh Shotham, R.A. Ramamani, Karnataka College of Percussion, Louis Banks or Trilok Gurtu to name a few. European radio DJs vote Dissidenten second place amongst 800 albums in their annual European World Music Charts. DJ Sven Väth remixes the single-release JUNGLE BOOK PART II from the THE JUNGLE BOOK album and thus introduces the “Love- and Trance-Generation” to Dissidenten.

1996/99: INSTINCTIVE TRAVELER is recorded in Hawaii, India, Canada, Morocco, Spain and Germany featuring the charismatic voice of Bajka and Germany’s Manfred Schoof on trumpet. This highly esteemed album incorporates Dissidenten’s decades of experiences in almost every corner of the sounding globe. INSTINCTIVE TRAVELER is a time-travel between the various planets of Dissidenten’s unique musical universe. Hawaiian singers meet Basque accordionists, native American vocals, Arabic court musicians and Celtic drone as well as South Indian chanting and European Zeitgeist. Dissidenten live -featuring Izaline Calister, Noujoum Ouazza, Manickam Yogeswaran and Manu Gallo- play Europe’s biggest festivals including two times in a row Glastonbury, Montreux Jazzfestival and Roskylde. Highlights from each of these shows are released on the album LIVE IN EUROPE.

2000: Dissidenten are exploring yet another musical world. Teaming up with composer Gordon Sherwood and video artist Stefanie Seidl they create the “Documentary Opera” THE MEMORY OF THE WATERS, first performed at “Internationales Donaufestival Ulm” for German National Radio SWR by the Bratislava Sinfonic Orchestra & Choir. Director: Peter Feranec, featuring Charlie Mariano, Nojoum Ouazza, Manickam Yogeswaran, Barabara Buchholz and Tomás San Miguel – more than 100 musicians on stage. Between 2000 and 2005 THE MEMORY OF THE WATERS is performed by various orchestras all over Europe. LA MEMORIA DE LAS AGUAS, the Spanish version is performed with conductor Tomás Garrido and the Orchestra & Choir Pamplona for the Festivales de Navarra – broadcasted by Spanish National Radio live nationwide.
World Exhibition Expo 2000 Hannover: In collaboration with German sculptor Albert Hien, Dissidenten compose and perform a piece for 96 Bavarian brass bands and a sound installation incorporating the sound of bells from 96 different Bavarian cathedrals and churches.

2001/05: 20 years around the world: Dissidenten once again call upon friends and collaborators to celebrate the anniversary. The album 2001: A WORLD BEAT ODYSSEY, gathers some of Europe’s most famed DJs: Badmarsh, Tricatel, Ravi Bal, Shantel, Deep-Dive-Corp, Lelonek, Kulisch & Vana and Slop Shopremix nine tracks from almost all musical phases of Dissidenten. In 2003 the remix-collection is completed with the album DISSIDENTEN REMIX.ED 2.O: A NEW WORLD ODYSSEY. At Womex 2001 in Rotterdam Dissidenten present thier new project IN 80 NIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD – including various DJs, VJ Annah and Andreas Leifeld, which later is performed live all over Europe

2006: Dissidenten are touring North Africa with Moroccan hereos Jil Jilala. Between concerts they work together in Tangier and Casablanca to complete the new DISSIDENTEN & JIL JILALA album »TANGER SESSIONS«

2007: The band composes and arranges the musical program at the final party of Germany’s spectacular CREOLE-Award for World Music.

2008: The album »TANGER SESSIONS« is released. Concerts in Europe and North Africa from April onwards. The first gig of the tour is broadcasted live and online by German National Radio SWR in April 2008, followed by various concerts in Europe

2009: Dissidenten are touring Europe from Finland to Spain with TANGER SESSIONS. The line up includes guitar heroes Roman Bunka of EMBRYO/MOHAMED MOUNIR and Henning Rümenap from the GUANO
APES.

2010: sees Dissidenten performing at the two biggest African Festivals L’BOULEVARD in Casablanca (featuring CREATEUROPE fashion design award winner Amine Bendriouich, Morocco’s DJ MOOD plus MCs Flip & Flo) and the MAWAZINE FESTIVAL in Rabat, (featuring JIL JILALA). Later in the year concerts in Russia, North America and Europe are scheduled.

Instrumentation

7 musicians + guests
DISSIDENTEN
MARLON KLEIN - drums/percussion
UVE MÜLLRICH - bass/guitar
plus:
MENNANA ENNAOUI - vocal/percussion
Mennana Ennaoui is one of the most impressive singers of contemporary Moroccan music and has been involved in various past Dissidenten projects. Her musical work ranges from Moroccan folk songs to jazz, and her latest effort was with jazz legend
Toots Thielemans on harmonica.

ELKE ROGGE - hurdy-gurdy
Elke Rogge is an exceptional hurdy-gurdy player who masters the ancient instrument in unusually modern way. She gained nationwide attention in Germany as the front woman for the ‘free folk’ group Hölderlin Express and has won numerous prizes including the German World Music Award and the German Folk Music Award.

NOUJOUM OUAZZA - vocal/mandolincello
Noujoum Ouazza is an ex-member of Morocco’s famous group Lem Chaheb. With the late Cherif Lamrani, he is one of the most respected mandolincello players of his country and has worked with Dissidenten since the late 1980s.

ROMAN BUNKA - guitar/oud
In Germany, everybody knows the fabled Roman Bunka. He is not only an exceptional guitar player but is also probably the best European player of the Arabic oud. He performs regularly with Egypt’s superstar Mohamed Mounir. Starting out with Germany’s legendary group Embryo, he has been involved in various Dissidenten projects in the past.

SUSANNE PAUL - 5-String Violoncello
Since years she is known as the “Wunderkind” of modern cello. Her musical range spreads from punk to classic and Jazz. She got to national fame with her project “Stringthing”- often compared to the Kronos Quartett. Susanne Paul is a performing
musician as well as a teacher.

+ guests

Discography

CDs

2008: TANGER SESSIONS - Fuego/Exil 2008

2005: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 NIGHTS - Exil/Fuego

2003: A NEW WORLD ODYSSEY - Exil 2003

2001: A WORLDBEAT ODYSSEY - Exil 2001

LIVE IN EUROPE Exil 1998 Germany/World

INSTINCTIVE TRAVELER Exil 1997 Germany/World

MIXED UP JUNGLE Exil 1996 Germany/World

LOVE SUPREME REMIX Exil 1994 Germany/World

THE JUNGLE BOOK Exil 1993 Germany/World

GERMANISTAN Exil 1992 Germany/World

LIVE IN NEW YORK Exil 1991 Germany

OUT OF THIS WORLD Sire / Warner Bros. 1990 World

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Exil 1990 Germany/world

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Exil 1990 Germany/World

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Globestyle 1989 UK

SPECIAL COMPILATION Exil 1986 Germany


MAXIS

FATA MORGANA Ginger 1985 Spain

CASABLANCA Exil 1985 Germany

FATA MORGANA Golden Denia 1986 France

INSHALLAH Materiali Sonori 1986 Italy

INSHALLAH Ginger 1986 Spain

FATA MORGANA Materiali Sonori 1986 Spain

FATA MORGANA Sigem 1987 Brazil

FATA MORGANA L'escargot 1988 France

JUNGLE BOOK REMIX E-Que, WEA 1994 World

MIXED UP JUNGLE Exil 1997 Germany/World


LPS

LIVE IN NEW YORK Exil 1991 Germany

OUT OF THIS WORLD Sire / Warner Bros. 1990 World

POLO MIX Ginger 1988 Spain

SASSARICANDO Globo 1988 Brazil

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Amok 1988 Canada

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Melodie 1987 France

DISSIDENTEN & LEM CHAHEB 1987 Mexico

HITS COLLECTION Globo 1987 Brazil

ARAB SHADOWS Materiali Sonori 1987 Italy

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Dro 1986 Spain

ARAB SHADOWS PICTURE Materiali Sonori 1987 Italy

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Materiali Sonori 1987 Italy

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Amok 1986 Canada

ARAB SHADOWS Nuevos Medios 1986 Spain

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Materiali Sonori 1986 Italy

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Exil 1985 Germany

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Exil 1984 Germany

GERMANISTAN Exil 1982 Germany

SINGLES

THREE FISH IN THE DESERT Sire / Warner Bros. 1990 World

OUT OF THIS WORLD Sire / Warner Bros. 1990 World

FATA MORGANA L'escargot 1988 France

TELEPHONE ARAB Exil 1987 Germany

MATA HARI Exil 1987 Germany


MCS

THE JUNGLE BOOK Exil 1993 Germany

OUT OF THIS WORLD Sire / Warner Bros. 1990 World

LIFE AT THE PYRAMIDS Exil 1986 Germany

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Hilali 1985 North Africa

SAHARA ELEKTRIK Exil 1984 Germany

GERMANISTAN Exil 1982 Germany

EXIL 002 Exil 1981 Germany

EXIL 001 Exil 1981 Germany


FILMMUSIC

AIR INDIA - Air India 1995

DISSIDENTEN - LIVE IN INDIA Vox TV 1993

PANKUJ PARAHAR - Louis Banks Bombay 1992

GREAT JOURNEYS - BBC 1991

SASSARICANDO - Globo TV 1990 Brazil

WILD ORCHID - Warner Brother 1989


VIDEOCLIPS

JUNGLE BOOK Remix Exil 4:00 1995

20 MINUTES Exil 20:00 1990

LIVE AT THE POW WOW Exil 5:00 1991

OUT OF THIS WORLD Sire/ Warner Bros. 4:15 1989

LIVE IN NEW YORK Exil 45:00 1988

TELEPHONE ARAB - KAIRO Exil 3:50 1985

Links

• Dissidenten - MySpace
• Dissidenten - iTunes
• Dissidenten - Homepage

Audio

• Tanger Sessions - Album Mix
  Listen   Download
• Jungle Book - Album Mix
  Listen   Download
• Sahara Electrik - Album Mix
  Listen   Download
• A Worldbeat Odyssey - Album Mix
  Listen   Download

Video

Dissidenten & Jil Jilala - Morock'n Roll »Tanger Sessions« Live Berlin 2008

Photo Gallery

Press

• Rolling Stone [+ Show ]
  

  Back from the global jungle After musical expeditions through India and North Africa ...
  
  Back from the global jungle
  
  After musical expeditions through India and North Africa
  
  DISSIDENTEN have again discovered a New World: the exotic world of Pop
  
  By Hollow Skai - (translation Ken Hunt)
  
  And there was a time - back when Persia was still under the Shah's thumb and Afghanistan was still unoccupied by the Russians - when the German jazz-rock group Embryo undertook a journey to India. The Caravan of Vagabonds was on the road for a year. On their way to Hippy Heaven they made music with many a musician met along the way. And so it came to pass that in a Maharajah's palace - Bhalkrishna Bharti's palace - rather than in a stable, a girl child was born to the guitarist Uve Müllrich on December 25, 1978. Bajka by name, a name meaning "fairy tale" in Polish.
  
  Even whilst she was still in her mother's womb she was a wanderer, even later stopping only where the music was playing. When her father left Embryo after the Indian trip in order to found Dissidenten with Friedo Josch and Marlon Klein, young Bajka got to know what other children usually only get to read about: other parts of the world, countries and customs. Her parents shlepped her all over Asia, from one concert to another. Constantly changing wardrobes served as her nursery. At the age of two she was singing ascending and descending parts with the Indian vocalist Ramamani in Bangalore and drumming as fas as her little hands could manage. And because "it wasn't fair she had to go to bed when the concerts began" - and her father got to stay in bed all hours - she decided to follow in his footsteps. Gnaoua Moroccan trance music influenced far more than the American charts. And when Bajka's parents separated and she went off to live with her mother in Durban in South Africa, where they lived in the sugar factory ghetto "outside of society's acceptance", she sang gospel in the church choir. She used to stop on the way home by the burning oil drums - where people hung out - in order to make up poetry and sing. "In places like that, " Bajka says, "where people have nothing but the air that they breathe, people make music in order to know they are living."
  
  I sing: therefore I am. And how in her case! On Dissidenten's latest album she raps as explosively as her sisters from the ghetto - and sings as lasciviously as if she had spent her whole life in a London night club.
  
  Without question, Instinctive Traveler's high point, besides the title track, is the "Lobster Song", the stuff of summer hittery, on which she duets with the Tamil vocalist Manickam Yogeswaran. But there are other ways in which the "true Godfathers of Ethno-Beat" (NY Times) have amazed. Although in Germany they are counted because of their time served in the German underground, in other countries they are placed on the same level as David Byrne, Brian Eno or Khaled. This time they have mixed an album drawing on souvenirs brought back from their "expeditions through the global jungle of danceable sounds and noises."
  
  On the way they meet Dorian Wright, the son of Gary Wright of Spooky Tooth (who collaborated on the song "Shine On Me") and the Karnataka College of Percussion who were also to be heard on the Jungle Book. The string section comes courtesy of the Royal Orchestra of Morocco, the Native American voices from Canada's Ojibwa Singers and the Maori melody in "Broken Moon" comes from the Hawaiian songstress Kumuhula Nona Kaluhiokalani. Also in attendance are Paul Simon's saxophonist Richard Landry, the jazz trumpeter legend Manfred Schoof, and the North African singer Noujoum Ouazza who also contributes mandolin-cello. The three core Dissidenten melted down an album from this, trip-hop and drum 'n' bass, of a sort to show Enigma where the boundries lie.
  
  Ever since the mid-Eighties and Sahara Elektik when they popularised rai and World Music in Germany, Dissidenten have continually caught people intent on branding them as "Third World Grandfatherss" on the hop. Along the way Instinctive Traveler got to be a pop album. and although their practice has been to dedicate each album to a particular country or continent, this time English is in the forefront. Instead of sinking beneath the ethno-wave, this time they wanted to dive for pearls.
  
  At the beginning of their career their motto was, "Home is where the head is." Now the head has come back home. One might say that back home through Bajka they found a pearl in their local swimming pool. Marlon Klein, the album's producer, enthuses that "from the very first moment she was absolutely spot-on tonally" and that even at 18 she lacks nothing when it comes to feeling.
  
  But also she lacks nothing when it comes to being self-aware. That is why her debut solo album ought to be called, with all due respect to Michael Jackson, HerStory.
  
  Rolling Stone, May 1997
  
  

• El Pais / Spain [+ Show ]
  

  Spain, Julio 1997 Dissidenten- Instincitve Traveler. El grupo más multiétnico del pla...
  
  Spain, Julio 1997
  
  Dissidenten- Instincitve Traveler. El grupo más multiétnico del planeta con voca a una cantante hawaiana, otro berber y un tercero tamil, junto a una orquesta marroquí, para engendrar un álbum de cálida y vibrante música pop. Confluyen melodías pegadizas (Lobster Song, Broken Moon)y una eficaz producción para un disco destinado a trepar en las listas de world music. Pero queda la duda de si, en su afán por no molestar a nadie, este Viajero Instintivo no terminará despertando sospechas por su escaso compromiso.**** Exil Sonifolk
  
  Etno-Beat Para Las Masas "Hace un tiempo, mirando la televisión, la BBC emitá un programma sobre el altiplano boliviano. En cierto momento el locutor comentó que ahora se iba a escuchar auténtica música étnica del altiplano boliviano, la música de un tipical bolivian club ¿Y qué era? Fata Morgana en una versión para quena y pincuyo." Esta graciosa anécdota que cuenta Marlon Klein, uno de los bateristas más finos y personales del panorama musical europeo, nos remite a la suerte que la música de Dissidenten ha corrido en Sudamérica y otras regiones. "E una ocasión, hace ya unos a–os, comenzamos a recibir en la Sociedad de Autores de Alemania talones por cifras que no esperábamos obtener. Cuando averiguamos de dónde venían, pudimos comprobar que un famoso cantante de culebrones brasile–os llamado Leon Leal habiá hecho una versión de Fata Morgana con la letra cambiada que se vendía de una modo increíble en todo el Brasil. Llego a vender 500.000 copias en muy poco tiempo."
  
  Precisamente fue Fata Morgana, de su álbum Sahara Elektrik, el éxito que lanzó a la fama a Dissidenten, banda que inventó, a mediados de los ochenta, lo que podríamas llamar etnobeat. Una fama, por otro lado, no reconocida por todo el mundo; quizás por la sencilla razón de que los Dissidenten han viajado y grabado más que hecho show business. Fata Morgana se convirtió en 1985 en un gran éxito de las pistas de baile en Espa–a e Italia, y sus conciertos por Espa–a fueron escuchados por mile de seguidores.
  
  La música de los Dissidenten se nutre de aquellos sonidos que sus miembros han cosechado en sus diferentes viajes por la India, Marruecos y otros sitios del mundo entero. Sonidos que, por otra parte, no eran transmitidos sin procesar, sino a través de las tradiciones musicales europeas y occidentales. De este modo Dissidenten, sin querer ni buscar ser una banda bailable, se transformó en una preferencia de las pstas de los clubes.
  
  Quizá sea ésa el cóctel que agitan con una maestría cada vez más depurada Dissidenten: realizar una música que, con una estructura verdaderamente elaborada y compleja, parece sencilla y agradable al oído.
  
  "Nosotros no hacemos música étnica. Los músicos africanos o asiáticos con los que nos juntábamos ya tenían una experiencia musical occidental, tanto en el rock como en el jazz y el pop. Sí nos nutrimos de sus modos de hacer música, pero en cierta medida ellos eran tan hippies como nosotros viajeros. Nosotros no pensamos hacer tal o cual música desde Dissidenten. Simplemente la hicimos y asi salió."
  
  "Inclusive-añade Klein parademostrar que no todo lo que reluce com etno es siempre un hecho de progresión-, muchos de los músicos hindúes que tocan con nosotros han tenido serios problemas con los músicos de las escuelas tradiciona listas de su país.
  
  El trío compuesto por Friedo Josch, Uve Müllrich y Marlon Klein se constituyo en Berlín en 1981. Desde aquel entonces a los Dissidenten los han acompañado una gran cantidad de músicos de diferentes tradiciones, formando una banda de exploración musical que, como nos demuestra su último trabajo, Instinctive Traveler, está muy lejos de haberse agotado.
  
  Fue Paul Bowles quien, en 1083, después de una gira por el norte de Africa, los introdujo en el mundo de los músicos marroquíes. Justamente en Marruecos grabaron su disco Sahara Elektrik, gracias al apoyo del sheik Abdessalam Akaaboune, un rico mecenas de la música árabe, quien les instaló un estudio de grabación en su palacio tangerino.
  
  Desde sus primeros discos Dissidenten muestra un permanente estilo y compromiso por la evolución en materia de sonidos, texturas y ritmos. Podria decirse que Instinctive Traveler es su mejor disco, pero no sería del todo justo. Sin duda es su disco donde la relación entre todos los ritmos y sonidos se mezclan de un moda más homogéneo dentro de una base de músicas europeas que van desde el blues hasta el rock con excelentes momentes de un pop depurado y exótico.
  
  La vozde la jovencísima Bajka suena como si fuese la de una cantante con unaexperienca de años de grabación. Asimismo la presencia de Dorian Wright, hijo de Gary Wright, mítico miembro de la banda Spooky Tooth a quienes los Dissidenten han producido un último trabajo le da un contenido extrañamente occidental, en el cual no dejan de mezclarse desde las voces norteafricanas hasta los coros al estilo de los indios huopi de norteamérica. Préstales atención: vale la pena.
  
  Fernando Neira
  
  
  
  

• The Rhythms of the World [+ Show ]
  

  DISSIDENTEN AND LEM CHAHEB This album is the Bible or the Koran of Ethno-Beat or World Music, the...DISSIDENTEN AND LEM CHAHEB
  
  This album is the Bible or the Koran of Ethno-Beat or World Music, the one that marks the birth of the genre. It’s an extraordinary piece of work, released in 1984, in which a group of blond German rockers worked alongside and on equal footing with another group of darker-complexioned Moroccans who were already considered ahead of their time in Morocco. It is Dissidenten’s second album. Their first one, Germanistan, recorded in 1981 with the Karnataka College of Percussion, served as the training ground for working in Tangiers on this, their seminal achievement and the most influential album of the last twenty years. A sleeve inside the original German vinyl cover described its music as Ethno-Beat, of which a loose translation into Spanish is Ritmos Étnicosi. As an anecdote, that album was to inspire the author of this text to produce a program in Radio 3 called Disiden-3, from which Discópolis later stemmed.
  
  EXIL, 1990
  INCLUDES: INSHALLAH / FATA MORGANA / EL MOUNADI - THE DESERT LIFE / SAHARA ELEKTRIK / CASABLANCA – WACHA WACHA / SHADOWS GO ARAB
  
  
  The Rhythms of the World
  
  The album Sahara Elektrik, performed by Dissidenten together with Lem Chaheb, was released in Berlin in February 1984. This album, recorded on the German label Jaro, changed the course of contemporary popular music. It was the first time that a work merged together two distinct types of music originating from different cultures without one prevailing over the other. It was a progressive approach since it used rock music’s most innovative language at the time together with the most open and cosmopolitan facets of Maghrebian music.
  
  There are previous examples documenting similar efforts in the past. Some are rooted in jazz (John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Mann…), yet most are rock-based (Santana, Odibisa, Mick Fleetwood…). Similarly in Spain, Los Pasos recorded a curious single entitled Habibi in 1969, and later Triana or Imán Califato Independiente released works along the same lines, all of which were very intriguing. These endeavors are called “rock with roots”, a style of rock incorporating ethnic flourishes but with no desire to go beyond that, as the ethnic ornamentation was set upon a solid rock foundation.
  
  Meanwhile in Africa itself, Fela Anikilapo Kuti was working on a new concept called Afrobeat, where he combined jazz and indigenous elements. In Senegal, the Touré Kunda group was doing the same based on reggae. These explorations continued and blossomed in 1984 with the recording of Sahara Elektrik, which was released months earlier than two other similar albums: Congolese Ray Lema’s Medicine, and Touré Kunda’s Natalie. All three sought to find a new egalitarian language for the diverse styles incorporated. Of these, Sahara Elektrik stood out the most for its innovative forms of expression, which were danceable and very accessible.
  
  From there on out a field of almost infinite possibilities opened up with a myriad of surprising fusions which are still being created today.
  
  In 1984, as the people of Spain were enjoying la movida (the Madrid movement), this new genre went unnoticed among the reigning post-modernity. Worldwide, the rock audience was competing with punk, the sounds of new wave, or techno-pop. The hippies gave way to the yuppies. Utopia had been buried and in its place came the technocrats and stockbrokers who reveled in the new age. In Madrid as in Silicon Valley, cellophane and packaging were more important than essence. Yet, many rock fans embraced the new genre precisely because it was grounded in the authentic and the creative, while re-inventing the language of its expression.
  
  This Fonoteca Civican de Ritmos Étnicos (“Civican music library of ethnic rhythms”) offers almost six hundred initial examples of works published since 1984. The samples collected are blends exemplifying egalitarianism and tolerance, which without losing their own identity are enhanced with that of others. These are outward-looking works sustained by an utmost mutual respect. The approximate number of new releases averages 700 per year, according to the monthly listings produced by the panel of European critics at World Music Charts Europe. Although collecting all of these is an enormous and cumbersome task, the resulting selection, periodically updated, provides a spectacular and basic sampling of key works.
  
  Some albums are no longer catalogued, others haven’t been transferred to digital media and still others have been impossible to find; yet those that are included are accessible and essential works, which can provide enormous knowledge and enjoyment to anyone who’s interested, from the expert to the casual fan.
  
  The only criteria selected for the works’ inclusion has been that of quality, trying to balance their geographical and historical origins while also taking into account the character of the compositions in order to offer a greater range of aesthetic experience.
  
  So take it easy, and try to listen to a couple of records daily. It will take you a bit over a year to listen to all of them, but your knowledge will have increased dramatically and, most importantly, you’ll have enjoyed yourself tremendously.
  
  José Miguel López
  Translated from the original Spanish by Carolingua (www.carolingua.com), 2008
  

Setlist

The idea of "Dissidentens Universe" is to show all phases of the bands history in a global music show. 30 years of live music with the current sound of Dissidenten 2010.
It´s never the same!

Basic Requirements

Calendar