Album: Ilpo – Sahara
Genre: Global / Electronic / Pop
Release Date: 14.7.2016
Publisher: AWAL / Ilpo Jauhiainen
Sahara is the 3rd solo album by Ilpo Jauhiainen. The album has its origins in the artist residency of Villa Karo in spring 2013 and it brings together elements of Afrobeat, Malian Blues and traditional West African musics with those of electronica, Western minimalism and experimental pop. It continues the exploration started on the previous album Arrival City, and further evolves Ilpo’s lifelong interest in African music. The idea has been to develop a new musical landscape located somewhere between those of Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Touré, Steve Reich, Björk and Brian Eno.
The album features vocals by Noël Saïzonou of Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble (Cotonou Phase, Long Now), Ulpu (Cycles) as well as more abstract vocal contributions from Diana Bada, Sade Aboderin and Riikka Theresa Innanen; Adjanohun Loetamini and Moritz Cartheuser on guitars; Adama Koné on balafon and kora; Georges Agbazahou and Franck Koumolou on percussion. The cover art and design is by Ali Akbar Mehta.
The title refers to an unfamiliar land prone to imagination, a possible world or another landscape: a borderless space with deeper sense of time and greater horizon. The larger issues informing the album have been those of globalization, human migration, urbanization and ecology, both the challenges and progresses they present.
The album has been developed and recorded in various locations, spaces and studios in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) and Europe (Finland, Germany, Italy and Spain), between 2013 and 2016.
The album is available now as download/streaming from Ilpo’s Bandcamp store ilpo.bandcamp.com/album/sahara, and later in August from all the major music download and streaming services.
Ilpo (Ilpo Jauhiainen, b. 1977 Finland) is composer, music producer, sound artist and writer. He studied electroacoustic composition and sound art in Middlesex University, London (BA Sonic Arts), and sound in new media in Aalto University, Helsinki (MA Sound In New Media). He works collaboratively and globally across the arts. Albums: Shimmer & Bloom (2011), Arrival City (2013), LOS-HEL: Possible Cities (in collaboration with Emeka Ogboh, 2015), Sahara (2016).