8 Tracks: Of Rainmaking Rituals With Dual Shaman

 
Music

Having amassed an impressive back-catalogue over the last decade, Romanian duo Dual Shaman returned last week with their debut album proper. Marking the inaugural release on new label Drastic Arts, Expiati draws from techno, electro, acid and UK hardcore, with one eye on the past and both feet planted in the future.

The two brothers have put together this fascinating 8 Tracks playlist for us, centered around invocations of rain. Presented in chronological order, start the swirling timeline below…


Expiati is out now via Drastic Arts, buy it here.

Surorile Osoianu - Paparuda

It’s safe to say that rainmaking is one of humanity’s oldest rituals, spanning from Africa to Asia and North America. The Paparuda is performed in Romania and the Balkans by young girls wearing leaves and small vines as makeshift clothing, who sing and dance in the hopes of ending the dreaded droughts.

  • Surorile Osoianu - Paparuda

    It’s safe to say that rainmaking is one of humanity’s oldest rituals, spanning from Africa to Asia and North America. The Paparuda is performed in Romania and the Balkans by young girls wearing leaves and small vines as makeshift clothing, who sing and dance in the hopes of ending the dreaded droughts.

  • Frédéric Chopin - Raindrop Prelude, Op 28, No. 15

    Chopin wrote this piece while a heavy storm was unfolding outside the Valldemossa monastery, where he and some of his friends were residing. While his friends were away, he started playing the piano and entered a dream-like state, imagining he was slowly drowning in a lake.

  • Hugh Le Caine - Dripsody

    Le Caine was one of the most important engineers in electronic music to date. His inventions include the first VCO analog synth, the multitrack recorder, the touch sensitive organ, the sequencer, and many more. He did not consider himself a composer per se, but his ‘Dripsody’, created in 1955 using a single recording of a drop of water hitting a bucket (and then mangling the sounds via tape manipulation) still stands as one of the most popular musique concrete compositions.

  • Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain

    Steve Reich’s recording of Brother Walter, a Pentecostal preacher, emphasizes the innate rhythm that human language possesses. It’s also a great example of how technology can create great results from actually not doing its job properly, as Reich initially wanted the same phrase to be aligned with itself at the halfway point by using two tape recorders, but one tape gradually started trailing behind due to minute differences in the machines, the length of the spliced tape loops and playback speed, inadvertently creating what’s now known as the phase shifting effect.

  • Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain

    Rain can slowly instil a sense of torpidness and serenity. Linda Perhacs’ 1970 folk piece does exactly that.

  • Vangelis - Tears In Rain

    At a loss for words here, sorry.

  • Cocteau Twins - Throughout The Dark Months Of April And May

    To me, most Cocteau Twins songs sound like invocations of rain. Guthrie’s lush reverberant guitars and Liz Fraser’s angelic voice are a match made way up there in the clouds.

  • Kerri Chandler - Rain

    This classic cut is actually the first track that popped into my head when making this list, rain! And those chords are delicious AF, rain!

  • Bicep - Rain

    Bonus cut!