A scene from a party hosted by Moonshine Collective.
Photo by Jack Empire
I spoke with Pierre Kwenders about his excellent new album MAKANDA at the End of Space, the Beginning of Time a few months back. Our conversation eventually shifted to Moonshine Collective, a Montreal-based group co-founded by Kwenders and his manager Coltan Kalongo. The Collective throws parties based on the lunar cycle – attendees must text a special number to get the location – and also drops records on their own label with an ear for underrepresented sounds in Canadian music. "It's about having this ability to put out and do things that represent us without having any restrictions," Kwenders told me in September.
Today, The FADER is premiering SMS: LOCATION Vol.1, the first mixtape from Moonshine. Every song is a banger, all the more impressive for how nimbly the tape jumps between genres. Personal highlights include: the ethereal deep house/R&B Jaymie Silk's "Wallz Down", Oonga's baile funk-powered stomper "Wabinaha," and Pierre Kwenders's ABAKOS project returning with the pan-African electronica of "Morning Glory."
Coltan Kalongo told The FADER how the tape came together. "The whole thing is really the result of a conversation we had in Seattle about a year ago during a studio session. Fly Guy Dai [a.k.a. Tendai Maraire of Shabazz Palaces] was talking about the importance and power of the collective — a part of that conversation can be heard on what is now actually track 6 on the tape. A few months later we started exchanging music and visuals and before we knew it we were recording one take vocal parts over beats that had been sitting on Oonga and Jaymie Silk’s computers. Moonshine’s liberating energy is the spirit and the principle that really guided the conception of the tape."
Listen to SMS: LOCATION Vol. 1 below. And if you want to download it? Text 514-612-4859 to get a link.
