The Friday Dispatch
Win VIP tickets for every All Points East show + Mustafa, Stewart Lee, Khruangbin & Vieux Farka Touré, 86TVs and Kamal Kelia.
The secret life of Mustafa
For this week’s, digital cover Sudanese-Canadian artist Mustafa shares his journey from poet to songwriter, and the story behind his first body of work with the like of Clairo, Rosalía, JID, Nicholas Jaar and Aaron Dessner helping out.
Poetry wasn’t just a passion or a vessel for Mustafa to express himself, it was an artform that was considered acceptable. Growing up in a conservative Muslim family, his parents didn’t listen to music or believe in the use of musical instruments. “My dad was vehemently against me being a musician, and I knew that already so I didn't even bother,” he says. “I think doing poetry for all those years was the closest way for me to express myself without having to have the daunting discourse around music's impermissibility in Islam. I do love Islam and I consider myself to have a deep connection with the faith. I found an alternative, minority opinion about music being permissible, just depending on what you choose to discuss in the music. I knew that in my heart I never discussed things that were in vain, and that I wanted to try to alter people positively with the music. But even still my parents until this day are against the use of music, and I understand. That’s the thing they grew up in. I’m met with a lot of that criticism by the larger conservative Muslim community in the world, so I’m always dealing with that kind of resistance.”
Loaded with personal sentiment, close collaborators, realised truths and heavy memories, 27-year-old Mustafa’s debut album Dunya is a record that deserves to be handled with care. What was once a tightly kept secret is now being released into the world, to be held, interpreted and valued by unknown minds. For Mustafa, it means his connection with his music is constantly in flux. “When something is out in the world and I don't have responsibility to continue to corner it, I think in that moment, I'll be able to know my relationship with it again,” he says. “In the midst of this release, and these kinds of conversations, it just makes me feel so transitional. Eventually when it finds its space in the world, then I'll know what it is to me again.”
Read the full feature by Jen Long over on Best Fit.
86TVs late life special
When The Macabees said farewell with a run of emotionally-charged headline shows at Alexandra Palace in 2017, they left both loose strings and broken hearts. But now, 86TVs is rising from the ashes of the beloved band, a group forging an unexpected path with a carefree camaraderie.
Comprised of Felix, Hugo, and Will White — with Jamie Morrison on drums — the group started as simply a pass-time between brothers indulging in the catharsis and simple joy of creating. Quickly, though, the project took on a deeper meaning. “The band ended up becoming the thing that we were going back to in our spare time without telling anyone,” Felix says. “There was a similarity there to being a teenager where you start a band and you're almost a bit embarrassed to tell anyone. You do it completely in your spare time. That was one of the endearing aspects. It ended up being something we were doing because we wanted to, because there was almost a genetic pull to doing it while our lives were taking us elsewhere. That was a healthy foundation to make music on because we knew the music we made was for music’s sake”.
Originally, the brothers felt the music they were creating could become an instrumental score, voice-less and atmospheric. Their intentions began to shift once Jamie joined them on drums. “Jamie was the final piece in the puzzle,” says Will. “He definitely brought an element to the band of just live power that we didn’t have before. That just turned us into a band that was like, we could be outward-reaching, filling rooms. Jamie’s a massive part of that.”
It wasn’t just Jamie who pushed the brothers to add vocals to the music they were writing. There was another big name drop in their process: Johnny Marr. After The Maccabees had announced their split, Felix bumped into Marr at an NME Awards, and was inspired to confide in him. At the time, the band was something of a secret project, quietly evolving in the background. “Set The Boy Free had come out just as The Maccabees were ending. I love Johnny anyway, but I really loved reading that book because it's obviously about reinvention and there's a humility to Johnny and the way he goes about it all. I was really struck by the tone of the book, him resetting himself, forgetting about the past and working on something new despite what the perception might be and whether it’d be more successful or not,” he says. “I sent him loads of the instrumental music at the time which I hadn’t sent to anyone. I was very bold to send that to Johnny Marr. I was looking for some sort of North Star guidance, but he emailed back the next day saying, ‘I've listened to it all multiple times and I think that you guys should sing on this yourselves.’ We didn’t take it as a light bulb moment, but years later that is what ended up happening.”
Stewart Lee on Bob Dylan
“She’s Your Lover Now” is an amusing song about an unpleasant, spiteful man being sarcastic and rude to the people that he's in a room with. Unlike most Dylan songs, there are only about three versions. This is the longest one, but it just runs out. They lose their thread and it stops. It's all the more beautiful, in a way, because we don't quite know what might have been.
It turned up on one of these bootleg sets. Inexplicably, Dylan almost passed me by. I was about thirty before I got into him. I must admit I thought he was a man with an annoying voice, and I preferred it when other people like The Byrds or The Dream Syndicate covered his songs.
Then, due to a series of domestic failures, I had a period when I wasn't living anywhere. I had to sleep on the floor of the comedian Simon Munnery, in a flat about 500 yards from here, back when Stoke Newington was a bit more rough and ready. Simon Munnery would not let me sleep. He liked to keep me awake by playing music at me – usually the Clash.
But one night he played this song over and over again for about four hours, because he was convinced it was the height of Dylan's genius, and he wanted me to appreciate that. Maybe it was the psychological bombardment, but in the end I accepted the song was an act of genius, and after that I became one of Those People. I've got every Dylan thing I can find on that shelf over there.
I love the fact that Dylan’s songs change and become unrecognisable. He goes through different phases and confounds audience expectation. I think he's ridiculous but also brilliant. Everything I like most, I've been ground down by. The best things are hard won, aren't they? When I film my stand-up, I don't like having too many reaction shots – I try to make the audience think about what they're seeing. But we don't really do stuff like that anymore. Netflix even tell editors to make two-screen television, the idea being that the viewer is watching a programme while also on their phone.
I saw a film recently, American Star, about a hitman stuck on the Canary Islands without knowing why. There are loads of long shots and no voiceovers explaining anything. It makes you work, and I think a lot of the music I like does the same. It gets you over a period of time and its brilliance is gradually revealed to you. But platforms like Netflix assume you don't have time to actually sit and watch something properly, that you'll always be doing other stuff.
I can't stand being what Mark E. Smith would have described as a "look back bore", but you used to buy an album because you'd heard a couple of songs, and when you listened to the whole record, you'd realise the part you thought you didn't like was actually the best bit. That happens less now because we're cherry-picking songs.
Do you remember buying anything because of a review, and thinking about what it might sound like? I once read a two star NME review of the second American Music Club album. They said it was an awful dirge, filled with American country rock and alternative rock clichés by an introspective, self-indulgent man. I thought that sounded great and immediately went out and bought it.
As told to Orla Foster
Win VIP tickets to every single All Points East show
This year's All Points East is probably the strongest line-up the event has put together in its six-year history. With nods to the past, present and future of visionary, envelope-pushing sounds, it's a canon moment for music fans – curated with a deft hand and set in the indie heartland of London.
All Points East runs over the weekends of August 16-18 and 23-25 at London’s Victoria Park and among the crowning glories of the five-day event are three artists who have shaped the last 40 years of alternative music: LCD Soundsystem, (marking their return to the festival after playing at its inaugural event), the Pixies, and Death Cab for Cutie, whose frontman Ben Gibbard is something of a spiritual godfather to Best Fit.
Elsewhere, Kaytranda and Tems head up the opening night – joined by Thundercat and Victoria Monét – while Loyle Carner plays one of his biggest shows to date, with rep legends Nas and André 3000 along for the ride.
Every sell-out gig you missed this past year is also safely covered too: Mitski's big day at All Points East sees Ethel Cain returning after her amazing Roundhouse shows, while every blog kid’s favourite Jai Paul joins Floating Points, and Jockstrap to play ahead of LCD Soundsystem.
The closing night’s Death Cab/Postal Service double headliner is an indie spectacular: Phoenix! Gossip! The Decemberists! Teenage Fanlcub! Yo La Tango! Dig into the undercard and there’s even more new-favourite-band joy, with Best Fit tips Wisp, Nia Smith, Towa Bird, Wednesday, Macy and Molly Payton among an actual embarrassment of riches.
There are still some tickets left for the shows and you can pick them up at the All Points East website.
We've also joined forces with the event to give away pair of VIP tickets for every single show to one lucky reader.
Block out your August weekends and enter the competition now!
Something Old, Something New
Every week, one of our writers or editors share their recommendations of two records they love - one from the past, one from the present. This week, editor Ciara Bains reflects on Kamal Kelia’s Muslims and Christians (2018) and Khruangbin & Vieux Farka Touré’s Ali (2022).
The first in Berlin-based label Habibi Funk’s series of releases covering the Sudanese jazz scene, Muslims and Christians is a time capsule of an album.
Decades ago, Sudanese radio stations weren’t allowed to play recordings produced by labels on air, so often had their own studios to record musicians. It was unusual for artists to receive copies of their sessions for fear of independent release. Fortunately, Kamal Keila - a prominent name on the Sudanese jazz scene that was a vital part of the country’s musical culture from the mid-60s until the Islamist revolution in the late-80s - managed to hold onto a couple of reels from his session.
The reels offered five of the same tracks, recorded in both English and Sudanese (singing in English allowed for greater freedom from censorship at the time; former president Omar al-Bashir took over the country in a military coup a few years before the songs were recorded). Lyrically, Keila explores the cause of fighting for unity, the country’s political climate, peace between Muslims and Christians and the fate of war orphans amidst a sonic blend of African jazz, American soul and blues.
Recorded in 1992 although featuring songs written predominantly in the 70s, by the time Habibi Funk contacted Keila about putting out Muslims and Christians, he’d been in retirement for over two decades. Following its 2018 release on the label, Keila’s career was met with newfound international recognition, even garnering the attention of electronic powerhouse Disclosure, who sampled Keila’s vocals for their single “Where Do You Come From”.
It’s a hot, glowing summer afternoon. Delicate brush-stroke clouds are floating in the distant blue as a thick, warm breeze sweeps me away into thoughts of sun-soaked cities afar. There’s no better album, in my opinion, to soundtrack lazy hours like this than Khruangbin and Vieux Farka Touré’s Ali.
Flowing unhurriedly through its tracklist, the artistic union use dub, hazy psychedelia and funk to cover eight Ali Farka Touré originals, offering worldly interpretations of the Malian legend’s classics. Whether it’s the distant, flurried guitar riffs weaving their way through the soundscape of “Savanne” or the languorous vocal calls of “Ali Habba Abada”, every time I listen to Ali, I seem to get lost in the hash-hazy world Khruangbin and Vieux live recorded the album in (in under a week); a welcome escape at any time.
Ali pays homage to AFT but its songs exist completely in their own sphere, repurposed with experimental modernity and completely new life. It’s an impressively globally spanning sound for a collaboration reportedly locked in over fish and chips at a London pub.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Ok Cowgirl, Gurriers, Lindsay Reamer, Jasmine Jethwa and coverstar Casper Grey.