Bossaphonik 21st Anniversary featuring The Scorpios + Tashkezar

Event information

Bossaphonik reaches yet another milestone as we celebrate the 21st anniversary on Friday 17th October! Marking the occasion is a first time ever double-bill of music with a North African funk theme – featuring The Scorpios and Tashkezar.

The Scorpios were founded in central Sudan in the 1970s and are now based in London after fleeing the fundamentalist takeover in the region in the 1980s. The band are a 10 piece that meld Arabic rhythms and guitar chops (and a kind of swooning cyclical ecstasy) with a raw Eastern funk feel, properly dismantling cultural barriers in pursuit of a unifying rhythmic bliss. Heavy bass, synths, horns and percussions drive through traditional Sudanese forms to create a sound that owes as much to Detroit as it does to Khartoum. Since establishing themselves in the UK as their new home, they have released music on the Afro7 label and have released two albums and a number or singles. They entered the international spotlight with their version of “Mashena,” originally by Al Balabil - a Sudenese female vocal trio, taking the music into hypnotic dancefloor Arabian jazz-funk territory. This and an array of tunes have been a hit on international dancefloors due to their exotic high energy mystical grooves.

Check out their video for the tune Mashena:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOqO97qtxxY

Check out a live clip from a gig at The Mosaic Rooms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddJKaAj_Hfg...

Check out extended footage from a gig at Tusk Festival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYvbeqB1XhM

Opening the night’s live music is Tashkezar, a London-based 7 piece who evoke the 1970’s psych-funk and pop of Egypt and Turkey alongside forays into a variety of Mediterranean folk music. They're led by Egyptian-born vocalist Mariam Ali and feature a line up from Uzbekistan, the US and UK. The band wowed us at Bossaphonik around 10 years ago at which they had a sound rooted in the folk of the Balkans as well as the Middle East. Their recent music has taken a new direction with a more funk and electronic backbone with influences from the likes of A-WA, 47 Soul and TootArd but sitting in a genre all of their own. The band’s recent second LP “Ew’aa” (“Watch Out!”) collides Middle-Eastern bouzouki, strings and percussion with funk bass, horns, synths and soaring layered vocals. Inspired by events in Egypt and across the globe in the last decade, Mariam Ali’s vocals dance a line between fatalism and hope whilst exploring themes of exclusion, exile, repression and illusion. The band’s new music is aimed squarely at the dancefloor and they have imbibed the sounds of their favourite funk records and dance hits from the 70’s til the 90’s of Egypt and Turkey.

Check out Tashkezar’s latest album Ew’aa:
https://tashkezar.bandcamp.com/album/ewaa

Check out a live video at Purbeck Valley Folk Festival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a33ngGnJ9wM

Check out a full recent gig at The Bell Inn, Bath (starts 3:30):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmCtIijo378

Following on from the band as ever is a Bossaphonik club session. Along with resident DJ Dan Ofer is guest DJ Chez Woods, an Oxford-based DJ who specialises in an original selection of jazz dance and global grooves. Check out his regular radio show on mixcloud.com/ChezWoods. The dancefloor will be treated til 1:30am to the sounds of…
Jazz Funk * Afrobeat * Highlife * Afro Jazz * Brazilica * Latin Jazz * Cumbia * Global Hip Hop * Middle Eastern Delights * Balkan Beats * Soul Jazz * Electro Swing * Global Grooves Galore * Nu Jazz Bizniz!

Friday 17th October
Bossaphonik 21st Anniversary featuring The Scorpios + Tashkezar + Bossaphonik DJs
Cowley Workers Social Club, Between Towns Road. OX4 3LZ (Near Templars Square Shopping Centre. Regular buses 1 and 5 from City Centre go up Cowley Road and back til 2:55am, stopping opposite the venue)
8pm – 1:30am
Live music starts at 9:30pm

**Greater savings on advance tickets**
£17 advance + £1.70 booking fee (wegottickets.com) / £19 student ID on door / £22 door

See ya there!