In the studio with NETTLE. This is what it’s like. A snapshot of the magic. Jorge Dubya’s aloft to Lindsay on violin. Rare Behind The Scenes footage of KREATIVITI IN ACTION.
Blog (2008-2018)
NETTLE RECORD RELEASE PARTY w/ LAMIN FOFANA: NYC
Join us for an intimate night of sound & celebration on Saturday, December 3rd @ Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn (L to Graham). Mint tea, dates, and homemade deliciousness will be served.
We are celebrating the release of Nettle’s new album on Sub Rosa, El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai. (get it at: iTunes Amazon Boomkat eMusic actual record stores, etc)
“Dubai may be a cipher masquerading as a city, but it’s not a complete blank slate unencumbered by theoretical and contextual baggage, and El Resplandor depicts it as you might expect: ancient and dignified ‘Middle Eastern’ airs buffeted by howls of the ghosts in modernity’s machine. This is not to say that the album is merely conventional, however, for El Resplandor contains some of /Rupture’s most vivid and striking music… provocative and as chilling as anything in the real Shining” – Peter Shapiro, The Wire Nov 2011
Sat. December 3rd: Nettle (live), Lamin Fofana (dj). Vaudeville Park, 26 Bushwick Ave. Bklyn. doors at 8:30pm $8. Come early warm bodies shining ghosts.
Nettle IN D.C. w/ DJs Bent and Mothersheister – FREE!
An album release party and free night of celebration in the heart of the heart of the country!
Click on the huge GIF to see the huge GIF in all its huge GIFNESS.
djs mothershiester and bent invite you to:
The 2nd Happy Hour installment of Africa is Not a Country features a special performance by Nettle. Led by DJ /rupture, this inter-continental project blends electronic beats, North African folksongs and percussion with avant garde noise. We’ll be celebrating the release of group’s new record — El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai / iTunes / Amazon / Boomkat. “For this album, Nettle imagined a remake of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining set in a luxury hotel in Dubai, U.A.E. El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai is their soundtrack for that nonexistent film.”
Live DJ sets by bent and mothershiester through the night will feature Rock, Ska, and Punk anthems from Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Jazz arrangements from Madagascar and Ghana. Soukous jams and Chaabi gems. Plus a glut of “pirated” Kenyan Pop mp3s that dj bent found while idly cruising the information superhighway.
Friday, December 2
Marrakech Lounge
1817 Columbia Rd. NW
7 to 11 pm
Nettle plays at 9pm!
free!!
enjoy drink specials of $3 beers, $5 wine and rail drinks, and delicious $5 appetizers at this brand new north african spot – Marrakech Lounge.
plus hooka/sheesha for enjoyment on the veranda
Africa is Not a Country is an anti-colonial musical journey, using the dancefloor/barstool to deconstruct the idea of “African music†as we rock out from Jo-burg to Cairo, from Dakar to Nairobi, with a quick lap around the islands.
NEW NETTLE ALBUM: OUT OCTOBER 25th ON SUB ROSA
[reposted from Mudd Up!
As Pitchfork announced on Friday – We’ll be releasing the new Nettle album on October 25, on avant-garde/experimental powerhouse label Sub Rosa! (Sub Rosa has been publishing quality weird for over 20 years, from archival material by James Joyce and Marcel Duchamp to albums by Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, and Tod Dockstader).
For this album, we imagined a remake of Stephen King/Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining set in a luxury hotel in Dubai, U.A.E. El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai is our soundtrack for that nonexistent film.
I produced and arranged El Resplandor, working with musicians Abdelhak Rahal, Jennifer Jones, Khalid Bennaji, Andy Moor, Brent Arnold, and Lindsay Cuff. Artwork is by Emirati photographer Lamya Gargash, taken from her incredible Presence series documenting “unwanted houses and structures in the United Arab Emirates that have been abandoned or left for demolition.” Architecture writer and Studio X co-director Geoff ‘BLDGBLOG’ Manaugh gave us some mindbending liner notes.
What else can I say? I put a lot of time into making this album & I hope you enjoy it. October 25 is the U.S. date; it should reach shops in Europe about 2 weeks before that.
This Wednesday I’ll be at the Decibel Festival in Seattle, giving a free, all-ages presentation of my setup for concerts with Nettle (laptop/gear/instrument- and vocal-processing): real talk about strategies to make live electronic music more dynamic and flexible.
El Resplandor tracklist:
01 El Resplandor
02 Radio Flower
03 There Is a Hole in the Middle of the World Filled With Languages That Don’t Have Names
04 Espina
05 Empty Quarters
06 Nakhil
07 Simoom (Wasp Wind)
08 Red Masque Ticker
09 El Resplandor: In the Marsh
10 Shining One
11 Khalid’s Song
AS IS BABY, PLUS ITS FREE
[The poster uses 3 alphabet character sets: Arabic, Tifinagh, Latin]
This Friday we’re presenting Beyond Digital Morocco at the Cinematheque de Tanger, then moving outdoors for a free concert featuring Nettle (here in Morocco Nettle is a trio: myself, Lindsay Cuff, and Brent Arnold) and Hassan Wargui (Imanaren). All happening in Tangiers’ incredible medina.
Nettle is from NYC, and Hassan’s from Souss Berber country in Morocco’s south — we’re using these days to develop and record new songs together. It’s not that music ‘transcends’ language, it’s that music is language, and our motley crew is enjoying its communicative glow. Lindsay’s learning the words (in the Berber language of Tashelhit) to an Archach song we’ll cover; Hassan’s Amazigh banjo lines help us extend ‘Mole in the Ground’ even further; Abdellah’s joining in on rebab and bendir… and things are just getting started.
Here’s a quick video of our first practice together:
RSVP on the Facebook event page if you’d like to let the C.I.A. know you support us. Offline, we’re making event posters at a truly special letterpress studio that’s been open for over half a century.
bonus: late-night afterparty at Morocco Palace (located on a street called ‘the Devil’s Alley’, one block over from Tangiers’ synagogue, which had a congregation of around 200,000 during its heyday) with Adil El Miloudi!!
ROMAN IMPROVISATIONS
A quick post to say that on Thursday July 7, Nettle will perform at the Maxxi Museum of 21st Ct. Art in Rome, Italy. The event forms part of a summer series curated by Nero Magazine. We’ll be in town for a few days, so leave a comment if there’s anything on that we should check out!
NETTLE SHOW @ 92Y TRIBECA THIS SATURDAY
In just a few days I leave New York City for a season. Beyond Digital in Casablanca, then shows in Poland, Denmark, Italy, and I think Croatia… But there’s one last event to shake things up in NYC before I go: a concert at 92Y Tribeca.
This Saturday will be Nettle’s last stateside show until our new album comes out this fall. (Details on the album soooon). We’ll be performing with Debo Band, an Ethiopian group based in Boston who I’d heard about via mutual friends for awhile; and Alsarah & the Nubatones, a Brooklyn-based Nubian soul crew. (Nubian like Ali Hassan Kuban, whose song is still up.) I’m excited!
Here’s a beautiful Alsarah tune, “Rennat”:
Saturday night should be special. KEYWORDS: pentatonic, love, darbouka, max/msp, soft-synth
Event info:
Saturday, May 28, 8pm doors, 9pm show
Debo Band / Nettle featuring DJ/rupture / Alsarah & The Nubatones / DJ E’s E of NYC Trust
92YTribeca, 200 Hudson (just south of Canal), NYC. $16
TO REPEL GHOSTS
a quick reminder that tomorrow is the Nettle concert / tea ceremony event in Brooklyn, with Korean experimentalists Cha Jun Sim & Lamin Fofana. Nettle is my band project, we’re releasing an album later this year and this is our last show until at least late summer… so if you’re curious, now’s the time!
more info here. & then there’s Nettle’s low-info site. Lastly, there are those in the band who believe that we should have a facebook page.
FERAL CHAMBERS
If you haven’t seen Nettle yet now is your last chance for awhile. We’ve also invited the Seoul-based trio of Cha, Jung, and Sim. The three women are Korean traditional music virtuosos who’ll be sharing their very intense, very far out take on Sinawi and Sanjo ritual music. And Dutty Artz Recording Artiste Lamin Fofana is gonna debut his hybrid live/DJ performance. So come explode with us, this evening will be special.
Nettle
Seungmin Cha, Eunsun Jung, Woonjung Sim
Lamin Fofana (DJ)
Vaudeville Park, 26 Bushwick Ave, Bklyn (L: Graham ave.)
Sat., April 9, 2011 8:30pm $5
NETTLE, KHAIRA ARBY, SWAY MACHINERY
[Khaira Arby]
On Saturday March 5th, Nettle will perform at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Info. Nettle, flexible and growing, is currently a 5-piece. We’ve even started using words and a guitar – although not too much of either.
Malian singer Khaira Arby will headline. The event is a benefit for ASSOCIATION OF THE SAHEL TO AIDE DECENTRALIZED DEVELOPMENT (ASSADDEC), a collection of 71 women’s groups in north Mali, supporting women’s small business enterprises, HIV/AIDS awareness and more. Which is awesome. Also performing: The Sway Machinery and DJ Israel Soulico.
Here’s a nice clip of Khaira and her band performing on KEXP — note, at least three of her musicians are rocking WFMU stickers! A wise band with excellent taste.
This Thurs: NETTLE + LAMIN FOFANA @ ZEBULON
Come out to Zebulon in Williamsburg tomorrow night for a live performance by Nettle (Jace/Rupture’s band of real musicians and noisemakers!) Yours truly will be adding extra bump between the live sets. Solo guitarist Piers Faccini will also be performing.
Facebook RSVP here.
this thurs: NETTLE & LAMIN FOFANA @ ZEBULON
Nettle is a band I started in Barcelona which knows nothing if not change. This spring we will release an album — a soundtrack to a remake of The Shining, set in Dubai — on a label I’ve admired for awhile. (details soon…)
This Thursday we’re playing a free show at Zebulon in Williamsburg. It’s an intimate space where you can come get close to our strange music. There will be a little bit of singing and 100% no guitars. We use old instruments made from trees (Lindsay’s violin, Brent’s cello, Bill’s bendir frames), and homebrew digital tools (Sufi plug-ins, #mudd) and if you like to listen then this is your night. Icing on the cake: Lamin Fofana will DJ throughout the evening.
And remember: after Tropical comes Arid.