Humaniteeling #1: Ashraf Sharif Khan and Viktor Marek + Preach

Ashraf Sharif Khan and Viktor Marek are twins from different continents separated at birth. They were brought together again by the big music satellite during one its rare orbits around the earth, in order to teach us humans an extraplanetary hip swing.

The two brothers achieve this in live performance using beats, bass and sitar, leaving behind them crowds of terrestrials with gaping mouths and gaping holes in their dancing shoes.

Their ‘Sufi Dub Brothers’ album testifies to this meteoric rise, and brings together nearly all the song material produced by this musical sensation.

A hard-to-classify ‘sufistep’ lying somewhere between hip-hop, acid, electronic and dub (Viktor Marek) meets a masterful sitar performance (Ashraf Sharif Khan).

For over 10 years, both spent many hours in Hamburg’s Ebbe Road Studios seeking the right sound universe for this album. It was a long journey, but ultimately they transformed South Asian classical music into Western club music – and not the other way around. Except, that is, in the song ‘Maschinenland’ (‘Machine Land’), which is meant to be understood as an affectionate greeting to the post-punk world of the 80s. The song, originally by the group Abwärts (‘Downward’), can now finally be performed in Islamabad as well.

As far back as the early 2000s, Marek and his trio released 8Doogymoto on Mathew Herbert’s soundslike label and toured the world with it. Until now, Victor Marek has never come as close to his musical essence as he has in his work with Ashraf Sharif Khan. In his free time, Victor Mark is co-manager of the Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg.

The evening’s opening act, however, belongs to Preach. She is from Hamburg as well and recently released her first album too, Likör (‘Liquor’). She wants us to tell everyone about it. Except for our parents. LOL. This is because her R&B music is so catchy and her lyrics are so racy. Deutschlandfunk describes her sex-celebratory lyrics as ‘steamy-happy’. Choosing their words carefully, they chose her as ‘Newcomer of the Week’. However, the (ironically) self-proclaimed ‘earworm queen’ has now arrived, and plans to take up residence in our heads. Preach is co-founder of the intersectional queer-feminist collective ‘One Mother’ and we’re looking forward to opening the Humaniteeling concert series with her!

Price: €15