chOOn!! w/ Radio is a Foreign Country

This month, we are delighted to share a guest mix from Radio is a Foreign Country - a non-profit radio platform and mixtape series, showcasing distant sonic environments and radio culture. Their guest mix highlights a burgeoning micro-genre called Wisisi from West Papua, germinated not in the island’s clubs but in the bedrooms and back pockets of local teenagers, who upload their tracks to YouTube, share them through Facebook and Whatsapp, and use their phones to shoot dance videos in their school uniform. In many ways its recent incarnation bears resemblance to digital updates of traditional music happening the world over, like Shangaan electro in South Africa, Omar Souleyman’s trance-like take on Syrian dabke, and Egypt’s electro chaabi. RIAFC’s guest mix should serve as a necessary starting point - an essential primer to this previously marginal scene.