Ak’chamel

*“These ain’t your grandma’s folk troubadours… This is the sound of irrevocable, total fcking ego death.”

The Texan project Ak’chamel is one of those acts whose immersive live performances cannot quite be replicated by listening to an album. Their handcrafted masks and costumes, stage performance and unpredictable use of sound create an intense spectacle that lies somewhere between a concert, a ritual and a hallucination. They are coming to Slovakia for the first time, with a set-list based on their new album Spiritually Unemployed. Demonic psychedelia, ritualistic ethno-folk, dark ambient and disjointed song forms converge on the album with the Middle Eastern instrument the oud, as well as wind instruments, the niner, hand-made violins, damaged tape recordings and field recordings.

Drawing from the dust of the US-Mexican border, abandoned towns and sonic finds, Ak’chamel do not recreate specific folklore, but forge their own, deliberately implausible tradition – the music of a world that is falling apart and forging new myths from its ruins. Music that is as unsettling as it is captivating. Ak’chamel have built a reputation as one of the most intriguing live acts on today’s psychedelic and experimental scene: their performances can be hypnotic, absurd, terrifying and unexpectedly beautiful.

Supported by public funds from the Arts Support Fund and the Bratislava City Foundation.