Tracks from Steve Gunn’s 2021 album Other You have been reworked for a new EP, out today.
The five-track Nakama EP sees Gunn collaborate with Mdou Moctar’s Mikey Coltun and Ahmoudou Madassane and Natural Information Society to rework three songs from the album, while Circuit Des Yeux and Bing & Ruth have also remixed two other cuts. Listen to ‘Protection’, as reworked by Gunn, Coltun and Madassane, below.
Speaking about the remix in a statement, Coltun said: "Ahmoudou and I wanted to give ‘Protection’ a Tuareg feel. We knew we wanted to use field recordings from Niger and specifically Tende music, which is the drums and chanting you hear. We used drum machines which is an homage to Abdallah Oumbadougou, the first Niger Tuareg artist to do that in the ’90s."
Of his work with Natural Information Society for the EP, Gunn said: "To give these songs to people that I admire and to see how they would return, knowing that their music is an inspiration to me, was really a cool opportunity. Joshua Abrams’ bass playing, his group Natural Information Society, and his film soundtrack work have been an inspiration to me for some time now. I am grateful that I was able to travel to Chicago and work closely with Josh in his studio on ‘Good Wind’ and ‘On The Way’. Reimagining these songs with Josh, along with Lisa Alvarado’s accompaniment, was a total joy."
Nakama is out now on Matador.
