Common Stars by Onom Agemo & Ahmed Ag Kaedy

When the hypnotic groove of Berlin band Onom Agemo & The Disco Jumpers meets the pulsating riffs of Malian guitarist and singer Ahmed Ag Kaedy, new horizons open up. With the album ‘Common Stars’, they continue their fruitful collaboration and for the first time present pieces that were composed in a collective process. The result: six tracks that fuse Sahara rock and psychedelic jazz into a unique sound.
At the centre of ‘Common Stars’ is Ahmed Ag Kaedy's distinctive vocals - always with poetic urgency. His lyrics, deeply rooted in the political and cultural realities of his homeland, deal with freedom, home and the search for identity. They deal with the ongoing conflict of the Tuareg in Mali, who are caught between the desire for cultural self-determination and political tensions with the central government. They also address the threat posed by Islamist groups, which have controlled parts of northern Mali and banned music since 2012. Ahmed Ag Kaedy had to flee his home country due to this repression. With his band Amanar, he shaped modern Tuareg rock and toured internationally. The collaboration with Onom Agemo began after he came to Berlin for the premiere of the film ‘Mali Blues’, in which he is one of the protagonists, and led to joint concerts throughout Europe.

‘Common Stars’ is a musical meeting of cultures that unites sounds from the Sahara to Berlin. Music that creates connections and makes different perspectives audible. The six tracks are characterised by trance-like rhythms, hypnotic bass lines and shimmering saxophone and flute sounds. Pulsating synthesizers, dry-as-dust guitar riffs and improvisational outbursts interweave to create a soundscape that is sometimes driving, sometimes floating and creates a very unique, captivating atmosphere. Ahmed Ag Kaedy describes it aptly: ‘Space jazz meets the rhythm of the camel.’

Led by the restless saxophonist Johannes Schleiermacher, this Berlin-based quintet has been pushing the boundaries of Afro-Funk to its most extreme, incorporating explosive Jazz improvisations, far out Krautrock, bubbly keyboard sounds and Psychedelia to create a spell-binding musical melange completely their own

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