Aloka — Mixtape 003

Curated by Graham Slick

About the Mixtape

Mixtape 003 travels wide. Where 001 reached toward stillness and 002 went deep into Indian devotion, this one circles the globe — and somehow it all lands in the same place.

It opens with Wah!, one of the first women to bring kirtan to the West, and moves through Krishna Das and Bhagavan Das before leaving the subcontinent entirely. Geoffrey Oryema — the late Ugandan musician who fled Idi Amin's regime hidden in the trunk of a car, later produced by Brian Eno — brings his aching "Makambo" from his landmark 1990 album Exile. Baka Beyond weave Celtic folk with rhythms rooted in the music of the Baka people of the Cameroon rainforest. Ablaye Cissoko, a Senegalese griot and one of the world's great kora players, pairs with German trumpeter Volker Goetze for the quietly stunning "Sira." Shimshai and Susana, who split their time between Northern California and Southern Oregon, bring ceremonial medicine music in the indigenous American tradition. Stevin McNamara's raga-based guitar piece "Moon Magic (Chandra)" drifts through like a slow exhale. And Suara Parahiangan closes things out with the deep percussion and vocal traditions of West Java.

About Graham

Graham Slick is the founder of Aloka Sound Bath House — Willamette Week's pick for Best Sound Bath Experience in their 2025 Best of Portland issue. His practice has roots in ceremony — he's participated in plant medicine and indigenous traditions, plays frame drum alongside his collection of world instruments, and brings ceremonial elements into his sound work. This playlist lives close to that part of his practice.