Music in the City

Here’s an urban night owl. Hailing from Montreal, global beats DJ Rise Ashen has made a nocturnal soundtrack that seamlessly fuses everything from traditional Inuit throat singing to reggae via Brazilian percussion in a way that seems to be a new trend in hip-hop based music makers. Very much like Mala’s project in Cuba with Gilles Peterson, Rise Ashen keeps the beats minimalist while adding all the right spices provided by a carefully chosen cast of top collaborators. Music in the City displays the rhyming talent of vocalists Meduza Ma’at from the Nomadic Massive, the suave crooner Slim Moore and the Caribbean wit of Kobotown’s Drew Gonsalves.

With this new opus, Rise Ashen confirms his unique place in the Canadian electronic music scene: a travelling soul with wide-open ears, as comfortable with the traditional as with the breakbeats of futuristic urban music.