1. The Final PASS

    2010:10:11.2115

    As the Pan African Space Station makes its final orbital maneuvers for 2010, we suggest you catch up on the action from the last 30 days in photos on Flickr.

    PASS 2010 closes with Songs for Busi, Tuesday 12th, 7pm (SAST) at 44 Long St, Cape Town and streaming online.

    A luta continua.

    Photos by Niklas Zimmer, Gregory Franz, Yang Zhao, Masekwe Gozo, Christoph Lenz, Sydelle Willow Smith and Kadiatou Diallo.

  2. 2010:10:02.2354

    Date: Monday 4 October 2010Time: 8pm – midnight (SAST)Venue: PASS Radio, 44 Long St, Cape Town, and streaming at http://panafricanspacestation.org.za The ‘ardkore assault team takes to the airwaves once more to delight and disturb you. Navigating the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, will be: HTarquin LessingBruno MorphetMartin Sims Expect deep-dub-electro-jazz-bass-tech-hop with bleeps, sweeps and the odd crooner classic straight out of the fifth dimension. Join us in studio/lounge for drinks, or listen online at http://panafricanspacestation.org.za. This music radio programme is brought to you by the Pan African Space Station and Liquid Fridge. Thank you for listening.

    Date: Monday 4 October 2010
    Time: 8pm – midnight (SAST)
    Venue: PASS Radio, 44 Long St, Cape Town, and streaming at http://panafricanspacestation.org.za

    The ‘ardkore assault team takes to the airwaves once more to delight and disturb you. Navigating the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, will be:

    H
    Tarquin Lessing
    Bruno Morphet
    Martin Sims

    Expect deep-dub-electro-jazz-bass-tech-hop with bleeps, sweeps and the odd crooner classic straight out of the fifth dimension. Join us in studio/lounge for drinks, or listen online at http://panafricanspacestation.org.za.

    This music radio programme is brought to you by the Pan African Space Station and Liquid Fridge.

    Thank you for listening.

  3. 2010:09:26.2013

    The Pan African Space Station will be busting genres this week, live from September 28 - October 2. Go here for the line-up and to book. This year’s line up features musical giants such as South Africa’s enigmatic, innovative seer and composer-band leader Doctor Philip Tabane & Malombo, who channel the spirits of Venda through rich polyrhythmic African beats and alchemic free jazz improvisation. They play alongside the young jazz guns of the Kyle Sheperd Trio who fearlessly blaze a new musical trail through everything from free jazz to goema grooves and Xhosa melodies. The ‘King of 6/8 Rhythm,’ Cameroonian drummer/percussionist Brice Wassy is both a legend and an innovator. His Brice Wassy Trio walks the line between advanced tech-iness and the deliberately antediluvian, bringing together nu-jazz and central African riddims, improvisation with sophisticated compositional imagination. Switzerland based Imperial Tiger Orchestra, in a unique collaboration with Ethiopian singer Endress Hassen, chart a similarly timeless trajectory, mixing ancient Ethiopian traditions with killer big-band hooks and fierce grooves that betray a future-forward electronic vision. Los Angeles’ othaship connection G&D (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime) are equally unafraid of crossing borders. In their hands boom-baps are rewired into improvisational forays and corrupted with tinges of g-funk, electro, soul and modern laptop mayhem. The trans-contextual remixing continues with the gloriously tangled roots electronica of Cape Town’s Johnny Cradle and ravenous dynamism and genealogical eclecticism of Thandiswa Mazwai‘s Afro-jazz trio. Be prepared to have your conceptions of dance music rewired by Detroit beat pioneer Theo Parrish. In his hands techno is a cross-generic tradition of expansive composition that fuses fragments of jazz, ragas, blues, rock, soul and afrobeat into other-worldly sonic sculptures. He shares the control room with legendary producer and selector Mbuso T and his Maf &so Soundsystem, whose street-infected Soweto funk, Afro-jazz and irresistibly thumpin’ house has had South Africa on its feet for the past decade. Kisangani (DRC) based dance collective Studio Kabako‘s More more more… Future takes PASS’ three year long exploration into uncharted territories to new heights. A collaboration between world acclaimed Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula, Afro-punk fashion pioneer Xuly Bët and famed guitarist Flamme Kapaya and his band, and based on the words of dissident poet Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, More…Future simply defies categorisation. It is a pre-Sputnik space travelogue that splices age old rhythms with cyber-punk polemics, explosive dance with experimental theatre, fashion with politics, and mysticism with militancy.

    The Pan African Space Station will be busting genres this week, live from September 28 - October 2. Go here for the line-up and to book.

    This year’s line up features musical giants such as South Africa’s enigmatic, innovative seer and composer-band leader Doctor Philip Tabane & Malombo, who channel the spirits of Venda through rich polyrhythmic African beats and alchemic free jazz improvisation. They play alongside the young jazz guns of the Kyle Sheperd Trio who fearlessly blaze a new musical trail through everything from free jazz to goema grooves and Xhosa melodies.

    The ‘King of 6/8 Rhythm,’ Cameroonian drummer/percussionist Brice Wassy is both a legend and an innovator. His Brice Wassy Trio walks the line between advanced tech-iness and the deliberately antediluvian, bringing together nu-jazz and central African riddims, improvisation with sophisticated compositional imagination. Switzerland based Imperial Tiger Orchestra, in a unique collaboration with Ethiopian singer Endress Hassen, chart a similarly timeless trajectory, mixing ancient Ethiopian traditions with killer big-band hooks and fierce grooves that betray a future-forward electronic vision.

    Los Angeles’ othaship connection G&D (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime) are equally unafraid of crossing borders. In their hands boom-baps are rewired into improvisational forays and corrupted with tinges of g-funk, electro, soul and modern laptop mayhem. The trans-contextual remixing continues with the gloriously tangled roots electronica of Cape Town’s Johnny Cradle and ravenous dynamism and genealogical eclecticism of Thandiswa Mazwai‘s Afro-jazz trio.

    Be prepared to have your conceptions of dance music rewired by Detroit beat pioneer Theo Parrish. In his hands techno is a cross-generic tradition of expansive composition that fuses fragments of jazz, ragas, blues, rock, soul and afrobeat into other-worldly sonic sculptures. He shares the control room with legendary producer and selector Mbuso T and his Maf &so Soundsystem, whose street-infected Soweto funk, Afro-jazz and irresistibly thumpin’ house has had South Africa on its feet for the past decade.

    Kisangani (DRC) based dance collective Studio Kabako‘s More more more… Future takes PASS’ three year long exploration into uncharted territories to new heights. A collaboration between world acclaimed Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula, Afro-punk fashion pioneer Xuly Bët and famed guitarist Flamme Kapaya and his band, and based on the words of dissident poet Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, More…Future simply defies categorisation. It is a pre-Sputnik space travelogue that splices age old rhythms with cyber-punk polemics, explosive dance with experimental theatre, fashion with politics, and mysticism with militancy.

    Notes: 1
  4. 2010:09:10.0454

    Theo Parrish - Took Me All The Way Back (KDJ, 1997)

    Theo’s musical expression fuses the rhythmic, disco-based pulse of Chicago house with the modernist motorik soul of Detroit techno; at the same time pointing to a lineage in black music that runs directly from Sun Ra to Sound Signature. “Jazz spawned house music, jazz spawned hip hop, jazz spawned funk and they all reflect back into that,” says Theo. So if you want to see the future via the raw, soulful and black roots of house music, then you’ve come to the right teleporter.

    — Red Bull Music Academy Session with Theo Parrish, Seattle, 2005

    Mr. Parrish will house you, Cape Town, Sept 29. More info.

    Notes: 1
  5. 2010:09:09.2003

    The Pan African Space Station will be in orbit again from Sunday, September 12 - October 12, 2010. Now in its third year, PASS continues its cross-cultural and cyber-spatial exploration, bringing together diverse pan-African sounds from ancient techno to future roots. Space I: 30 days of cutting edge music streamed live online from the PASS Studio at 44 Long Street, Cape Town and the satellite studio in Limbe, Cameroon. Space II: performances by Doctor Philip Tabane & Malombo, Kyle Sheperd Trio, Brice Wassy Trio, Imperial Tiger Orchestra, Endress Hassen, Thandiswa Mazwai, Mbuso T, Theo Parrish and many others. Space III: audio-visual public art installation by artist Douglas Gimberg and architecht Greer Valley. For the full line-up, info on how to get onboard the Space Station, and much more, go to http://www.panafricanspacestation.org.za There are other worlds out there they never told you about. (Photo: Cindy Blackman, PASS I, 2008)

    The Pan African Space Station will be in orbit again from Sunday, September 12 - October 12, 2010. Now in its third year, PASS continues its cross-cultural and cyber-spatial exploration, bringing together diverse pan-African sounds from ancient techno to future roots.

    Space I: 30 days of cutting edge music streamed live online from the PASS Studio at 44 Long Street, Cape Town and the satellite studio in Limbe, Cameroon.

    Space II: performances by Doctor Philip Tabane & Malombo, Kyle Sheperd Trio, Brice Wassy Trio, Imperial Tiger Orchestra, Endress Hassen, Thandiswa Mazwai, Mbuso T, Theo Parrish and many others.

    Space III: audio-visual public art installation by artist Douglas Gimberg and architecht Greer Valley.

    For the full line-up, info on how to get onboard the Space Station, and much more, go to http://www.panafricanspacestation.org.za

    There are other worlds out there they never told you about.

    (Photo: Cindy Blackman, PASS I, 2008)

    Notes: 1