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Ancestor Sounds

by Africatown, AL

supported by
John Rendall
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Sharon Howard
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David Wesley
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stevemac
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Kestrel Wolgemuth
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dkws
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ancestor Sounds via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $14 USD or more 

     

1.
Run, If You Can (Don’t Go Down that Road) 04:11
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2.
Family Secret 01:34
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3.
Do You Hear Me Now? 02:08
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4.
Lead Me Home 01:01
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5.
Black Part of Town 01:12
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6.
Illegal Factory (Smokestack Sighs) 00:46
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7.
Africatown in Their Face 00:54
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8.
Kept Me 01:31
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9.
First Thing He Did When Freed Was Build a Drum 01:23
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10.
Haunted by Her Capture 01:24
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11.
Sent to Vietnam, But Never Been to Africa 00:56
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12.
Only Black School 00:42
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13.
Reconstructed Memory 02:44
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14.
Cudjoe’s Statue Defiled 00:46
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15.
Birdsong Beside the Refinery 03:03
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16.
Walk With Thee 00:53
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17.
Graveyard Shift Emissions 03:53
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18.
The Blues Return (Taking Flight) 02:28
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about

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.

credits

released February 23, 2024

Produced by Ian Brennan
Co-released with PM Press (pmpress.org)
Proceeds benefit the Africatown Drummers, LLC and various other local organizations

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all rights reserved

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Africatown, AL Mobile, Alabama

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.

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