The Poland-based 1000HZ Records is a venture dedicated to enabling otherwise overlooked artists from across the globe to finance and promote their work. “It all started in Malawi”, recalls Piotr Dang Cichocki, who runs the label alongside Polish Vietnamese visual artist Dang Thuy Duong. “It developed”, he continues, “from my double occupation: anthropologist and musician.” It was while undertaking fieldwork in the landlocked, southeast African country that Piotr “recorded beautiful and strange music.” Speaking of the genesis, he adds: “I realised that I could not do anything with it but to publish with my own means.”

1000HZ is a nonprofit, with between 70% and 85% of revenue going directly to their artists. Piotr’s initial idea was to help the Malawian musicians to set up individual Bandcamp accounts. “But soon it appeared impossible,” he explains, “because there is a problem with the registration of PayPal in Malawi – lack of postal codes, permanent places of residence and bank accounts not integrated into international banking.” Some of the musicians Piotr recorded faced additional challenges. “For example,” he says, “the music and dance style, vimbuza, because it has many connections with the spiritual practice of ancestors, is not welcomed by the Christian media, who dominate the market.”

The label runs three sub-series. In Piotr’s own words: “Digital Indigenous, which represents new digital music from around the globe, with a focus on music from small recording studios – producers who apply or deconstruct the vernacular music, mostly for local audiences. Then there is Sacral Grooves, which showcases music addressed to the spirits of the ancestors or other deities. Modernizations is more about publishing the historical from the late 20th century to show how certain styles of music, like Polish Belarusian folk or Malawian gospel, were redefined by the pioneering use of electric or electronic instruments. So, we reissue works of pioneers like Dubiny from Białowieża/Hajnówka or [the] Katawa Singers from Mzuzu, Malawi.”

From this, 1000HZ are expanding. “We are not into a certain style,” says Piotr, “but we are interested mostly in what is not present in the global classification of genres. We like to promote things that are locally produced, but also genres that do not fit into the ‘world music’ idiom.” Over the next few months, Digital Indigenous will release music from Indonesia, Vietnam, Malawi and Tanzania, including Tonga Boys – “they play a hybrid genre somewhere between the village acoustic music of [the] Malawian north and urban popular music”, says Piotr, “Afro pop but played with homemade instruments with a trance-like character.” There will also be albums from Kukaya (a vimbuza orchestra) and Owls Are Not – “a group of Polish and Malawian musicians that blend African and European approaches to pop.” The label is also helping to organise a first European tour for Indonesian producer and gamelan musician Bagus Shidqi, who specialises in jathilan, a folk art and traditional ‘horse dance’. The intriguing music of all three series can be found via Bandcamp.

Essential records

Lulenga Aliyuyo Uyoo

(Digital Indigenous)

Tanzanian Bonnie Lulenga casts hypnotic, echoing song spells over pulsing percussion, using self-manufactured drums, whistles and strings.

Amaliya Group Viyezgo. Vimbuza from Mzimba South

(Sacral Grooves)

Malawian percussionists and singers whip up an intoxicating dose of healing music which penetrates to the soul.

Katawa Singers Ufulu 1991–1997

(Modernizations)

Vibrant Afro-grooves intertwine with beeps, bleeps and fuzzing drums for a revitalising drenching of electronic gospel.