A little over a year after the last edition, here’s The Fluke #33! Given the current weather in France, I went for something a bit exotic.
First up is Gitkin, whose blend of Middle Eastern funk and South American rhythms I can’t stop listening to. We’ll stay in South America with Trio Ternura, a Brazilian yé-yé group from the sixties. Their 1973 song "A Gira" was dug out of the vintage vinyl crates by a Dutch DJ in the 2010s, much to our delight. Next up, we have a peaceful instrumental jazz piece from Marvin Horsch, a.k.a. Gianni Brezzo, a Cologne-based musician with Italian roots.
Then we’ll change styles with "Villes invisibles," the opening track from the eponymous album by Toufic Farroukh, a French-Lebanese jazz saxophonist, where he's playing with Bachar Mar-Khalifé (see The Fluke #3). Of course, it’s a nod to Italo Calvino’s poetry-infused book, in which Marco Polo describes imagined cities to the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. It’s not a novel you can (or should) read straight through, but rather a collection of short, oneiric meditations on life, to be quietly savored and pondered. It has inspired numerous artists and architects, in particular the Peruvian designer Karina Puente, who starting twelve years ago the (ongoing) project of illustrating the full set of 55 cities.
And to conclude, here’s a wonderful song from my friend Ismaïl Sentissi’s latest album (see The Fluke #6). I had the pleasure of hearing it live as the closing number of his concert last January at the Sunset/Sunside in Paris. Since his previous album, he’s been hard at work rearranging his music to include a horn section, and it gives the project a whole new atmosphere and dimension.
You can find the complete playlist on Spotify, Deezer, or YouTube.
Till next time!
Tracklist :
- Go Time - Gitkin
- A Gira - Trio Ternura
- Flower Rain - Gianni Brezzo
- Villes invisibles - Toufic Farroukh
- Hors Scénario - Ismaïl Sentissi
