For numerous years, Le Guess Who? collaborates with VPRO Vrije Geluiden to capture special, intimate sessions with festival artists. This year, these were recorded at the beautiful Stadsklooster and on a boat in Utrecht's scenic canals. Watch below.
Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff
Vital and exciting, the music of Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is rooted in a very specific community, Dakar’s nightlife scene, but speaks to the world. For twenty years and across three generations of band members, they have played raucous all-night jams at weddings, secret parties, and political rallies; until grainy cell phone footage of their shows has spread online reaching new audiences globally. Senegalese poet Djiby Ly preaches a message of uplift and cooperation, backed by different percussive instruments plus horns, winds, balafon and the occasional accordion.
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta
Electronic musician Ale Hop and virtuosic guitarist Titi Bakorta fuse the pulsating rhythms of reimagined Congolese music with hypnotic guitar riffs and buoyant electronics. Their bold blend of pop experimentalism merges danceable electronica with fiercely fragmented soukous. Titi Bakorta brings his signature psychedelic approach to Congolese folk, filled with intricate guitar loops and fuzzy tones, locking into the finely textured grooves, fragmented electronics, noisy guitars, and kaleidoscopic synths of Peruvian sound artist Ale Hop.
Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian
Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian is a young master of the tanbur, a millenia-old lute strongly tied to the city of Kermanshah (western Iran). Its practice is associated with mystical Yarsan religious beliefs and its knowledge is passed down through generations. Heydarian was immersed in this culture from an early age, as he began learning the maqams (modes/scales) as a child and now he’s sharing his hypnotic compositions on the tanbur, as if it was an extension of his soul.
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