Flamingods

Emerging as an innovative tribal pop and experimental worldbeat collective with origins spanning England and Bahrain, Flamingods fuse traditional African and Middle Eastern music with psych-folk and prog in a style that echoes the Avalanches, Konono Nº1, Animal Collective, and Goat. In 2010 Kamal Rasool, Sam Rowe, Charles Prest, Karthik Poduval, and Craig Doporto formed the group in Bahrain and delivered several EPs prior to their first album, Sun, which surfaced in 2013 on the English indie label Art Is Hard. Adjustments to U.K. visa regulations compelled Rasool to return to Bahrain soon after completing university, so the five members shifted to remote collaboration by sharing samples and audio fragments over the Internet. Those exchanges produced their second album, Hyperborea, issued in 2014 by the Welsh imprint Shape. The band signed with British-based Soundway Records in 2016 and began developing a new LP. The resulting conceptual release, Majesty, which follows protagonist Yuka on his path toward enlightenment, appeared the next year. In 2017 they joined Moshi Moshi Records and issued the EP Kewali, then promptly followed it with a remix album of Majesty featuring Ibibio Sound Machine, Meridian Brothers, and ex-Oasis member Andy Bell. May 2019 brought the group’s fourth full-length album, Levitation, inspired by the disco, funk, and psychedelic music that surfaced across the Middle East and South Asia in the ’70s.