Beirut Groove Collective X Awesome Tapes

BEIRUT GROOVE COLLECTIVE X AWESOME TAPES

A very special debut coming up. Now in its 17th year, the soul-fuelled cult club night The Beirut Groove Collective, championing obscure and underground records from the SWANA region and around the world, play at the Fox for the first time, alongside very special guest Awesome Tapes from Africa – a record label and music blog dedicated to bringing diverse African music to a global audience.

AWESOME TAPES
Since 2006, Brian Shimkovitz’s Awesome Tapes From Africa blog has been shedding light on obscure and wonderful sounds from across the continent. As a DJ he brings the blog to life with 2-3 hour sets blending folkloric pop, left-field dancefloor gems and hip-hop bangers. Traveling from club to festival to DIY space, Awesome Tapes DJ sets celebrate the music and musicians whose cassettes Shimkovitz has collected over the years. In 2011, ATFA developed into a critically acclaimed label, re-releasing records by African artists including Ata Kak, Dur-Dur Band, Hailu Mergia and Penny Penny. His DJ sets on twin tape decks explore deep, regional sounds using analog-anchored agility not heard or seen anywhere else.

BEIRUT GROOVE COLLECTIVE
17 years long-running cult club-night with obscure & underground soul-fuelled clubbing records from the SWANA region and around the world The Beirut Groove Collective is a London-based crew of vinyl DJs, crate diggers, music obsessives and artists. For over 15 years, the BGC has thrown its cult clubnight, the BGC All-Nighter in Beirut and now London, showcasing obscure and underground clubbing records from the 1960s to the early 1980s from the Middle East, Africa and around the world. The club night has built an international reputation for its distinctive sound and attracted some of the world’s leading DJs, turntablists, crate diggers and record collectors. The collective plays an eclectic mix of Lebanese ‘60s Garage and Beat, Bellydance Psych, Arabic Disco, Latin Tarab, Armenian estradayin, Ethiopian and Sudanese Jazz, Rare Soul and Funk, Psychedelia and much more.

The New York Times included the BGC club nights in their list of the “Top 15” parties around the world, and they’ve been featured everywhere from The Guardian and Monocle Magazine to ARTE, the BBC, Time Out London and Vice Magazine.