Alan Bishop (Sublime Frequencies) – Interview

Andreana Slavcheva spoke with Alan Bishop, founder of the world music label Sublime Frequencies about his collective work, experiences abroad and the art of making music by Group Doueh from Northern Sahara.


The geographic focus of your musical interest is on Northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Where does this interest hail from? Why exactly those places?

Your previous work as Sun City Girls is being described as a crucial part of the cassette underground of the 80s and the 90s. Now as you try to popularize the overlooked and forgotten sounds of far places (from an western perspective), the releases of your label Sublime Frequencies are still quite limited. What’s the reason?

Your current European tour is obviously very successful. How do you see the future development of popularity for this kind of music in the western countries?

How do the local musicians react to your interest in their work?

What do you have in mind for your next projects? Where do your aspirations direct to in this respect?

We asked Alan some questions about Group Doueh. The long time Alan shared with them together touring through Europe might put him in position to answer some question on behalf the band from Northern Africa.

Does Group Doueh see themselves as a modern band or rather as a traditional group?

How did the influences of psychedelic rock that we could hear out of their music result? Was it a conscious process or did it just happen?

How do you think that it is for them to perform as a family?

What do you think where they get the inspiration from? What are their songs about?

How do Sublime Frequencies contribute to their development?

And how is this experience for them? Group Doueh is on European tour for the first time.

I think, the audience would be really happy to see them again. Thank you very much for the conversation.

The interview was conducted during Club Transmediale Structures Node 1 event in Berlin in June 2009.