Name: Ancestor Sounds
Brand: Africatown AL

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

DIRT0115

Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2024-03-08

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

877746011528

Total Cap

Artist

Africatown AL

Genre GB

African

Label GB

Free Dirt

Free Dirt is a Grammy-nominated independent record label founded by John Smith and Erica J. Haskell in 2006. Over the years, Free Dirt has released music from talented artists such as *Pokey LaFarge*, *Anna & Elizabeth*, *Hackensaw Boys*, *Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge* (Grammy-nominated), *Cahalen Morrison*, *Dori Freeman*, *JP Harris*, and *The Two Man Gentlemen Band*. In addition to their impressive roster, Free Dirt collaborates with PM Press to co-release spoken word and folk music, featuring lectures by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, as well as music from Chumbawamba, Leon Rosselson, Robb Johnson, and more. Furthermore, Free Dirt serves as a distributor for several other roots labels including Jalopy (Brooklyn), Big Muddy (St. Louis), Hi-Style (Nashville), and Mashed Potato (New Orleans).

Newest Listed Items

A collection of landmark recordings of residents from the Africatown neighborhood in Mobile, AL, 'Ancestor Sounds' features descendants from the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved people across the Atlantic to America. Conceived by GRAMMY-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project) and his wife, Italian Rwandan filmmaker and photographer Marilena Umuhoza Delli, the project features musical accompaniment from the local community as well as ambient recordings from the factories that surround and pollute the community. Meant as an impressionistic document rather than a definitive historical narrative, all recordings were captured on-site as live, first takes. The outdoor nature of the recordings graphically renders the encroaching and ominous industrial sounds and foregrounds the environmental racism that has plagued the community. Years before, in rural northern Ghana, Brennan had been struck by a hand painted "Alabama Barbershop" sign. This seemed particularly telling given the region's link to the transatlantic slave trade. In another uncanny parallel, a Blues musician in Mobile pulled out a Kologo, a northern Ghanaian instrument, which he knew by another name. These surprising and often arresting "ancestor sounds" resonate across centuries and continents on this important, irreplaceable document.

Ancestor Sounds

Music GB

Discover Ancestor Sounds by Africatown AL. A landmark collection of recordings featuring descendants from the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved people across the Atlantic. Available in various formats from Free Dirt label.