Secret Planet, Western Mass

07/10/2024

This Wednesday! OneBeat returns to Northampton with a Fall ensemble — 25 artists from around the world performing original work for you. If you missed them this Spring, you have one more chance!

ℹ : OneBeat 14
🎟️: https://bombyx.live/events/onebeat-14/
Secret 🪐 Member RSVP: www.secretplanet.live/onebeat14

24/09/2024

Full house, happy house last Friday, September 20th for the Valley debut of Etran de L’Aïr 🇳🇪 at the venerable old Grange Hall in Williamsburg. Hailing from Niger, a landlocked country in West Africa occupied mostly by the vast Sahel, the band took the stage in traditional desert garb and went right into it — a tapestry of technically brilliant finger-picked guitar notes and loping bass riding a relentless, driving four or six-beat drum pattern. Each song patiently built on a firm pentatonic groove, and the band’s casual nonchalance through the first few tunes dissolved into big smiles and deeper, longer climaxes as the audience fell into the trance.

We were fortunate to have Valley locals Jeremy Harman, Dave Haughey, and Todd Roach open with their mesmerizing cello project — an anything-but-classical groove-based, experimental ride that unfolded with a song inspired directly by Etran de L’Aïr’s “Toubouk Ine Chihoussay” and closed on a Stevie Wonder cut. , ,

And the night would not have been complete without DJ SHAKI ( ) , up from New Haven, who found the interstitial magic between disparate genres like cumbia rebajada and Balani soundsystems from Mali.

Special thanks to our sponsors for helping us out with production EQ on this one, as well as Collin Black for the impeccable sound mix. Darren Port ( ) came back to photograph again and captured these great shots. High fives to all our volunteers who helped during and after. 🙏

We have a sit-down coming up next, October 9th — OneBeat returns with 25 new fellows from all over the world to debut new work for you at .live . And for the rest of the Fall, we’ll be focused on getting the festival ready for you.

Season Two of Secret Planet is made possible by our members and our local business sponsors: Pioneer Valley Cannabis Co + The Hempest (hyperlocal cannabis for the win!); Already Alive, Narluga Arts, The Davis Financial Group, Living in the Light, Alber Hearing Services, and Broadsight.

Our sponsors (give ‘em some love)

11/09/2024

Good news, bad news. Ready for it? Bad news first.

Millpond.Live would have been this Friday, but it’s not happening this year. 🫤 And that’s a huge bummer for Easthampton and the Valley at large — it's been an absolute highlight for me each year and I'm sad to see it go.

Good news though. The folks at Laudable who saw Millpond through eight amazing seasons are re-opening Gateway City Arts under a new name — De La Luz Soundstage — in collaboration with Lighthouse. I'm throwing a re-opening party with them this Friday. So don’t be sad. Come dance to new beginnings.

(This band La Sonora Mazuren was supposed to play the Millpond stage, originally — like other acts we've brought to Millside Park, they're less known in the US but play larger stages in Europe. This is their US debut tour)

This Friday. $20. Mucho dancing. Jake is deejaying. Nef is making tacos. Lets get it.

🎟️: https://www.secretplanet.live/mazuren

09/09/2024

Typical Sunday in Northampton: Instead of hitting the sack early, we launched Season Two of Secret Planet at the Horse with Mario Galeano’s FRENTE CUMBIERO — the brainy, tropical cumbia experiment from the Bogota altiplano led by Mario’s synth + electronics and driven by percussionist Pedro Ojeda, Sebastían Rozo on the double bell euphonium, and Marco Fajardo on clarinet and saxophones.

It was a trippy, dance-forward musical journey through Bogota’s nu-cumbia underground— the band pulled Colombian roots traditions like cumbia and gaita into futuristic arrangements with insane chops and amazing live video thanks to visual artist Diego Taborda . DJ Bongohead crushed the pre-game with choice vinyl selections.

Big ups to our Secret Planet volunteers and to Darren Port for these awesome snaps. The Iron Horse — you’ve made a beautiful new church for music. Can’t wait to do this again with you.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and making vibes with us. See you THIS FRIDAY at the new De La Luz Soundstage in Holyoke for La Sonora Mazurén and DEEJAY THEORY 🔥

Season Two of Secret Planet is made possible by our members and our local business sponsors: Pioneer Valley Cannabis Co + The Hempest (hyperlocal cannabis for the win!); Already Alive, Narluga Arts, The Davis Financial Group, Living in the Light, Alber Hearing Services, and Broadsight.

Our sponsors (give ‘em some love)

06/09/2024

We’re just TWO DAYS away from the first Secret Planet show of the season w/ FRENTE CUMBIERO . The Colombian Invasion continues with polyrhythmic, multi-horned, synth-crazed, cumbia freak-out vibes. Another bucket-list experience if you’ve been following the nu-cumbia LatAm renaissance over the past 20 years — FRENTE CUMBIERO has never played Western Mass before. They’re coming in from Bogota— first time back in the US in twelve years.

We’ll meet you at the Iron Horse this Sunday! Note the early show!! Doors at 6PM. Co-presented w/ DSP Shows and The Iron Horse . on the 1s and 2s until the band hits. Tag a friend who you know needs to see this.

+++++

“FRENTE” has multiple meanings in Spanish. Is it a resistance movement? A frontier or a borderland? Maybe all of the above. It can also mean “the face of” — as in, the face of cumbia today. Pick your own definition. The fact is, Frente Cumbiero has been a huge player in redefining cumbia in Siglo XXI. The Colombian four-piece is led by Mario Galeano, maybe best known for his 2012 collaboration with Will Holland AKA Quantic, when the two were tasked by the British Council to create a band to represent Colombia in the London Olympics. The band was called Ondatropica, and its members included Michi Sarmiento, Abelardo Carbono, and the Afro-Pacifico legend Nidia Gongora. Woah.

Seasoned with years of touring with Quantic, as well as his other band Los Pirañas (with Eblis Alvarez of the Meridian Brothers), Mario came back to Bogota and reformed Frente as a quartet with a stripped-down powerhouse sound — a raw Colombian stew of synths, horns, and percussion. Trad genres like cumbia, vallenato, porro, caracolito, and gaita are blended with funk, electronica, and jazz. It shouldn’t work. But it does.

It’s tropicanibalismo — the tropical Colombian sound of the coast filtered through the country’s chillier, higher-altitude metropolis of Bogota. It’s creative dance music. It’s the past, present and future of cumbia.

27/08/2024

TEKE::TEKE: NOV 23

Montreal psych septet TEKE::TEKE create a swirling haze of surf, punk, and Japanese art-rock. — this sound is as genre-bent as it gets; the ensemble careens through their set with harmonized electric guitars, trombone, flute, and Maya Kuroki’s vocal explosions in her native tongue. The vibe is at turns rowdy, cinematic, and transcendental even. The project got started as a one-time tribute concert for Japanese surf rock god Takeshi Terauchi, who passed in 2021 — but quickly involved into something far greater than the sum of its parts, with Balkan, afrobeat, and Brazilian tropicalia inspirations.

The festival will take place at the Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield MA on November 22, 23 and 24.
Check out our crazy lineup…
Ticket link in bio.
We still have some weekend passes available, day passes for Saturday are running very, very low..

SON ROMPE PERA * COMBO CHIMBITA
ROGÊ * SLAVIC SOUL PARTY * MIRAMAR
TEKE::TEKE * BULLA EN EL BARRIO * �LOLLISE * SNACKY * MEHRNAM RASTEGARI *
MAMADY & MAMADY * BOMBO BOX * INNOV GNAWA * �K8A * YALLAH YALLAH * GARTH STEVENSON *


.live

25/08/2024

Season Two is coming 🪐 membership is growing — we had to print more tokens 🖤 www.secretplanet.live

14/08/2024

The Gama brothers, who lead the band Son Rompe Pera, have updated the Mexican marimba tradition and seem to have singlehandedly brought it into the 22nd century. Heirs to a craft that goes back a few generations, they were first taught by their father with whom they played on the street for years. After a few detours through punk and rockabilly, they have updated their sound, and now play mostly cumbia and throw what are possibly the best parties in Mexico City.

Their first US appearance was at Barbès in the Woods two years ago — they have since toured the world over, bringing the same kind of frenzy to Coachella or Barbès. They will close the festival on Sunday Nov 24 - and rumor has it they may play a DJ set the night before.

The full line-up for the weekend includes: SON ROMPE PERA * COMBO CHIMBITA * ROGÊ * SLAVIC SOUL PARTY * MIRAMAR
TEKE::TEKE * BULLA EN EL BARRIO * �LOLLISE * SNACKY * MEHRNAM RASTEGARI * MAMADY & MAMADY *BOMBO BOX * INNOV GNAWA * �K8A * YALLAH YALLAH * GARTH STEVENSON * PLUS DJS!

Tickets at www.barbesinthewoods.com . Saturday and Weekend passes already running low 👀 for this very limited capacity fest!


.live

12/07/2024

Tickets now on sale for Etran de L'Aïr at the Williamsburg Grange Hall ✨🎸✨

🎟️: www.secretplanet.live/etran

https://youtu.be/uoz-36PxOj4

Etran de L'Aïr live performance from Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands - playing their composition "Elame Niriyal" (the color silver).Etran de L...

11/07/2024

Season Two is here ✨

🇨🇴 8.01 Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto at the
🇬🇭 8.18 Gyedu-Blay Ambolley at (presented w/ and )
🇨🇴 9.08 Frente Cumbiero at the (presented w/ )
🇨🇴 9.13 La Sonora Mazuren at (TBA) in Holyoke (presented w/ .live )
🇳🇪 9.20 Etran de L’Aïr at the Williamsburg Grange Hall
🌎 10.09 OneBeat 14 at .live

Awesome hangs coming up in our favorite Western Mass venues. 413, Lets get it 🔥 www.secretplanet.live

04/07/2024

Barbès in the Woods 2024 @ Race Brook Lodge Early bird tickets are done — back soon with regular tix and some lineup news ✨