Soundway Records

Soundway Records, along with the Goethe-Institute and Adaptr.org, present TEN CITIES a new compilation including, amongst many others, the likes of Bristol dubstep producer Pinch, Lisbon-based producer Batida and Kenyan group Just A Band.

Between Autumn 2012 and Spring 2013 the TEN CITIES project brought electronic music producers and musicians from five cities in Europe (Berlin, Bristol, Kiev, Lisbon and Naples) to five cities in Africa (Cairo, Johannesburg, Lagos, Luanda and Nairobi). They were invited to collaborate and create, spending an intense time together making music in sticky studios and blacked-out rooms across the African continent. TEN CITIES put together approximately 50 electronic music producers and instrumentalists from the ten cities selected. They were invited to collaborate in studios over the course of more than six months. A selection of the outcome of these cross-continental experiments can be heard on this record.

It's no surprise that the results are far from what many would term 'World Music' and its often generic mixture of aural clichés, where all too often African music (as with that of the rest of the planet) from Mali to Madagascar, and from Morocco to Malawi is all filed under one ridiculous, meaningless genre.

TEN CITIES attempts to do something quite different: whilst searching for common ground it is also trying to highlight the differences. As a result hip-hop from the squats of Naples, bass music from Bristol, experimental techno from Berlin or jazz-tinged deep-house from Kiev are thrust upon the pumping kuduro of Luanda, the free-thinking crackled electronica of Cairo, afro-jazz from Lagos or the Sheng street-slang of Kenyan rap.