The Music Gallery and Batuki Music Society present:

Laraaji + Diely Mori Tounkara + Friends

Doors: 7pm | Concert: 8pm

Concert: The Music Gallery, 197 John St.

Tickets: $20 regular | $10 member, student | $15 advance at Soundscapes or BUY NOW

The theme of X Avant this year is Transculturalism, and at its heart is a challenge to expectations about culturally defined music.

The universal outlook of New Age music has much in common with the precepts of the much maligned marketing category “World Music”. Unlike World Music, New Age has made a surprising comeback in recent years. One of the central beneficiaries of this resurgence is New York electric zither player Laraaji, best known for recording one of the greatest ambient albums ever, Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance, produced by Brian Eno in 1980. Further Eno-related recordings were collected in one of last year’s celebrated reissues, Celestial Music 1978-2011, which garnered praise in Pitchfork and other notable media.

Laraaji will perform solo, in collaboration with local luminaries Scott Peterson, Colin Fisher and Brandon Valdivia (these latter two being Not The Wind, Not The Flag), and also with the evening’s opening act, Montreal-based kora player Diely Mori Tounkara.

Tounkara, brother of world famous guitarist Djelimady Tounkara of Mali’s legendary Super Rail Band, is a versatile multi-instrumentalist always looking to expand the range of his kora. Tounkara has been based in Montreal since 2007. As a member of the Kabakuwo collective, he won the 2010 Syli D’or of world music, and released the album Malongtin in 2011.

Jaxamuse, who ran the visuals for our show with A Tribe Called Red last year, will provide ethereal projections for this beatific and soulful encounter.