Stone Tapes is an

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small and medium-sized enterprise, small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels ...

, music collective and imprint of

Joyful Noise Recordings Joyful Noise Recordings is an independent record label with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The label was founded in 2003 in Bloomington, Indiana by Karl Hofstetter, who also played drums on several of the label's first releases. Joyful N ...

curated by

Yonatan Gat Yonatan Gat () is an Israeli American Music producer, producer, guitarist, and composer based in New York City. His cross-genre work has been called "a vital new music form" by a "legendary live performer" by ''Magnet (magazine), Magnet'' magazi ...

. The label was founded in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

, branching off of Joyful Noise's artist-in-residence program, and emerged from visions and insights arising in conversations between players, producers, promoters, journalists and other indigenous artistic peers around the eponymously titled Medicine Singer's LP, which ultimately evolved into Stone Tapes' debut release.

History

As Stone Tapes recorded and began to tour its first releases and art projects, collaborators internal to the collective took to calling the new approach "End of World Music" or "Scorched Earth Music." Despite presumed good intentions the existing conventions of the established

World Music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

genre now seemed, in 2022 and in light of public conversations around cultural issues accelerated by reactions to the white supremacist rhetoric of the under the umbrella of the American right during the Trump administration, fetishistic and exclusionary—ultimately limiting the scope and potential of performers and releases. A new and more collective approach, balancing traditional spirit with radical new forms of musical experimentation would be the mission of the collective. As Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson said, reflecting on the

Medicine Singers Medicine Singers is a group of singers and drummers in the Native American pow wow style. They sing in an Eastern Algonquian dialect under their original moniker, Eastern Medicine Singers. In 2017, they began collaborating with Israeli guitari ...

release, "I think it's a completely new realm of music." In the summer of 2022, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' printed a feature about this rising sense of a new direction or changed inflection of emphasis and sense of mission amongst Indigenous artists, both affiliated (Joe Rainey Sr. of Niineta) and unaffiliated ( Pulitzer prize winning composer of " Voiceless Mass", Raven Chacon (

Diné The Navajo or Diné are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Navajo language, Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Din ...

), Laura Ortman (

White Mountain Apache The Fort Apache Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in Arizona, United States, encompassing parts of Navajo, Gila, and Apache counties. It is home to the federally recognized White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation (We ...

), Suzanne Kite (

Lakota Lakota may refer to: *Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...

), Warren Realrider (

Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language: * Pawnee people * Pawnee language Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States: * Pawnee, Illinois * Pawnee, Kansas * Pawnee, Missouri * Pawnee City, Nebraska * ...

), Nathan Young ( Delaware Tribe/

Kiowa Kiowa ( ) or Cáuigú () people are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colora ...

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( or ) is the largest of three list of federally recognized tribes, federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Old Cheroke ...

), Postcommodity, Ajilvsga, and others). The articles includes a meditation on the shift in tone from one of the

' Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson, a member of the unrecognized Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation, appearing at a climax in the cycle of reflections included in the article that recalled a conversation with the mentor who taught him elements of the

Wampanoag The Wampanoag, also rendered Wôpanâak, are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Northeastern Woodlands currently based in southeastern Massachusetts and forme ...

and Algonquian dialects among other things:

"...Jamieson, worried hat the experimental approachmight bend those historic sounds until they broke. A 62-year-old Air Force veteran who learned the Massachusett language only as an adult, Jamieson asked his mentor, Donald Three Bears Fisher, to approve the lyrics for “Daybreak,” the album’s first single and an ecstatic aubade with pounding drums. 'He said, ''I want it played everywhere'',' Jamieson remembered... Fisher died in 2020. 'So that’s what I’m doing.'"

Other releases from the first year of the Stone Tapes label/collective include releases by Maalem Hassan BenJaafar "Moroccan

gnawa The Gnawa () (or Gnaoua, Ghanawa, Ghanawi, Gnawi'; ) are an ethnic group inhabiting Morocco, that had been brought as slaves from the West African Sahel. The name Gnawa originated in the indigenous language of North Africa and the Sahara, Sahar ...

master of Innov Gnawa fame", Mamady Kouyaté "

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

n guitar legend, formerly of Bembeya Jazz", Yonatan Gat's American Quartet "featuring Mikey Coltun of

Mdou Moctar Mahamadou Souleymane (born 1984), known professionally as Mdou Moctar (also M.dou Mouktar), is a Nigerien guitarist, singer and songwriter who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. His music first gained attention through a ...

, Greg Saunier of

Deerhoof Deerhoof is an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. It consists of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised noise punk band ...

, and Curt Sydnor", and the legendary (and occasionally "exiled") Israeli punk band Monotonix.

References

External links

Official Website

Discogs

Secretly Distribution
{{Authority control Israeli independent record labels American independent record labels Indie rock record labels Experimental music record labels Musical collectives Pow woW songs

History

See also

References

External links