Kaang is the new band i created with Hlasko, Singer and composer of Johannesburg. We already worked together on my first album, ha was the voice of my track "Neo".

-> Discover the first single of Kaang, just here :

The meeting between Hlasko and Labelle

I discovered Hlasko music on the web in Jannuary 2013. A few emails later, we met up during Labelle’s tour in South Africa. In one day we recorded three improvised tracks whose titles “Néo” and “Lait sacré” appeared on my album “Ensemble”.

The Birth of Kaang

After this lightning experience, we decided to go further and create together a band. The idea is to dig into the myth, legends and music from our country (The music, language and poetry from Lesotho, the musics and cultural diversity of the Réunion Island).

It is in this deep research in our origins and cultures, the Kaang concept emerged.

We share the same passion for Bushmen's music and culture, the ancient ethnic group from South Africa

Kaang is in the creator of all things in Bushmen mythology. Animal, minéral or Vegetal, there is no hierarchy for Kaang, he can take all forms of life.

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The artistic proposal

The travel, the wiseness, the transe, the projection, the mystic are the tackled issue.

Hlasko use in his text a particular writing method. he identifies with things, animals or elements and lets them express themselves like a inside narrator.

We also decide to invite Hasawa who take part in my first album, for one track to write and perform his deep and soft fon'ker.

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Hlasko

Born in Johannesburg of a Lesotho mother, Hlasko started composing electronic music in 2010 when he got his first computer. Being the grandson of a South African jazz pianist, he also grew up listening to his mum’s Pink Floyd albums and is fascinated by movie soundtracks and British progressive rock.

Hlasko started relatively recently to compose music but has been writing texts for a long time: his diary, in Sesotho (the language of Lesotho) and then poetry, in English. Only when he started writing songs, he let himself write poetry in Sesotho. Nourished by his knowledge of ancient poems he uses this pictorial language to share the animist aspects of his culture and in his texts the connection between nature and technology, rain, travels granting a large space for mysticism.

-> Hlasko music : https://soundcloud.com/neo1290596

Labelle

Labelle grew up in Rennes, France, among a big brother crazy about techno, a mother who was a Jean-Michel Jarre fan and a father from Reunion Island who initiated him to the rhythms from his homeland. He started his musical adventure by DJing. At 14, he played Detroit techno. Quickly he turned to tribal techno, attracted by the complexity of rhythms and a call to trance, close to the paternal maloya.

From the start of his career he has conceptualized his dj sets. When he played at 18 at the springboard for young talents at Astropolis festival, his set already contained all the premises of his future compositions as he mixed electro, sounds of waves and a Danyel Waro track. Often traveling to Reunion Island, Labelle always wanted to link his two cultures, and enrich his creative universe by meeting new people.

He holds a masters degree in musicology and often shares his knowledge through conferences and master-classes. He founded the collective of artists “Eumolpe” to be able to exchange and experiment with other artists. In 2010 he was programmed at the festival Transmusicales. While performing a set in l’UBU in Rennes, between Dj Bone from Detroit and the ethnomusicologue and DJ Brian Shimkovitz, he was scouted by Jean-Louis Brossard the festival’s programmer who had a “coup-de-coeur” for him.

Two years later he played in Reunion Island and settled there. Other encounters nourished his creative work, especially meeting visual artists such as Kid Kréol and Boogie, or the poet Hasawa who are all influenced by Creole traditions.

His first album, “Ensemble”, qualified as ethno-futuristic mixes maloya (traditional music inherited from slavery) and electro. The album is acclaimed by French critics (Les Inrocks, Libération ) and receives two “Voix de l’Océan Indien” awards (best electro artist and best video) in 2014.

-> Labelle's music : www.labelle.re

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The record, one EP of 6 tracks

This first record of Kaang is an EP formed of 6 tracks who are already written, recorded and mastered.

The EP will be pressed on vinyl. There will be a CD on each Vinyl.

The release date is planned on the 25th of May.

The team around the project.

The awesome team of my first album "Ensemble" is coming back for this exciting project.

Eumolpe Records (Record Label)

Boogie Drugstore (Press Agency)

Squeezer (Vinyl pressing)

La Baleine/LELP (Physical distributor)

Idol/LELP (Digital distributor)

PixelDealer, Kid Kreol & Boogie (Photos, illustrations, Movie-clip)

Wopé - Isabelle Kichenin (texts and biography)