World Music
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Alhousseini Anivolla: Anewal/The Walking Man (World Music Network/Southbound)
26 May 2013 | <1 min read
With a terrific new album from Etran Finatawa out (The Sahara Sessions), Anivolla -- one of their key guitarists -- deserves serious attention for this solo collection on which, aside from a guest singer and a percussion player on one song, he plays everything. The result won't surprise those who follow Sahara blues, because this is typically mesmerising, but his brusque vocals... > Read more
Attarech
Debashish Bhattacharya and Friends: Beyond the Ragasphere (Riverboat/Southbound)
20 May 2013 | <1 min read
The great Indian slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya has appeared at Elsewhere before because he not only makes hypnotic music, but that he also connects with an interesting tradition which goes back many deacdes . . . and to Hawaii. Here -- in a disheartingly dull cover which gives no hint of its exotic contents -- he invites in some of his many international friends and fellow... > Read more
Reflections Remain
Various Artists: The Rough Guide to Senegal (Rough Guide/Southbund)
7 May 2013 | <1 min read
When the Rough Guide series started there were some rather uneven, not so say dodgy, collections released but -- perhaps as the series gained traction and licensing became easier and more attractive to labels given RG's reach -- the quality has improved considerably. The series is considerably more consistent that the Putamayo version which too frequenrtly errs to the lightweight (and the... > Read more
Sister Fa
Maria Ana Bobone: Fado and Piano (Arc Music)
4 Apr 2013 | <1 min read
Quite why this fado singer and pianist would break the elegant and stately mood of her otherwise acoustic album with a live electronica piece which seems to channel the spirit of Clannad/Enya is beyond comprehension. Just to prove she could do it? To show she is also "contemporary"? The track -- the traditional Senhora do Almorto -- is a rude intrusion on an otherwise... > Read more
Melancholia
Custodio Castelo: InVentus (Arc Music)
31 Mar 2013 | <1 min read
Custodio Castelo offers romantic guitars from Portugal . . . but on this outing is heading elsewhere. His 2011 album The Art of Portuguese Fado Guitar was a delight by this master of the instrument (and lute-like 12-string) because he also stretched into stately tango. Longtime accompanist to fado singer Cristina Branco, Castelo here again takes inspiration from places (Paris),... > Read more
In-quietude
Various Artists: Saoco! (Vampi Soul/Southbound)
28 Mar 2013 | <1 min read
Subtitled “The bomba and plena explosion in Puerto Rico 1954-66”, this double disc ensures your library of bomba and plena just got a shelf-filler. For most of us, myself included, this was not an explosion heard round the world but the excellent liner notes – with terrific reproductions of album covers and band shots – fill in the technical details while neatly... > Read more
Sacude Zapato Viejo
WOMAD TARANAKI CONSIDERED (2013): Some thoughts from the frontline
19 Mar 2013 | 5 min read
Although no one doubted the need for rain . . . but on the final day of Womad? And just two days after a drought has been declared? This rare occurrence – only the second in the festival's local history – hardly dampened Womad spirits although there was a small attrition of audience numbers. Few festivals – of whatever musical persuasion – could claim an... > Read more
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni ba: Jama ko (Out Here/Southbound)
14 Mar 2013 | 1 min read
It has been five years since this superb ngoni player (a lute/banjo-like instrument) from Mali delivered his beautiful Segu Blue album. Formerly a member of the late Ali Farka Toure's inner circle, Kouyate has continued to deliver beguiling albums in recent years, but few were made under circumstances as tough as those for this one. On their first day in the studio in Bamako, Mali's... > Read more
Poye 2
Salif Keita: Tale (Carte!l)
13 Mar 2013 | <1 min read
The great Salif Keita has explored just about every kind of musical association but this one seems an interesting, if not always succesful, swerve. Producer Philippe Cohen Solal of Gotan Project has matched him with Roots Manuva, Bobby McFerrin and Esperanza Spalding for an album which is a high-tech production (with strings in a couple of places) aimed at dancefloors. Now,... > Read more
Samfi
Nidi D'Arac: Taranta Container (Galileo/Southbound)
12 Mar 2013 | <1 min read
The bio of this Italian group who appeared at Womad says they come from "the beautiful city of Lecce" in the far south. Well, as one who has been to Lecce I might debate some of its particular charms (the suburbs are awful, the churches without peer however) but let's leave that aside. What Nidi D'Arac do is an enjoyable implosion of traditional music and acoustic... > Read more
Ipocharia (DJ Click remix)
ELSEWHERE'S FAMOUS WOMAD QUESTIONNAIRE: Nicky Bomba of the Melbourne Ska Orcheatra (Aust)
10 Mar 2013 | 2 min read
The goodtime sound of ska got a whole lot stranger when the Melbourne Ska Orchestra formed after a one-off event in 2003. The idea was to get a world-record number of horn players together in St Kilda's Gershwin Room and from that event the MSO was formed by bandleader Nicky Bomba. "I’ve always thought ska was one of the most universal forms of music,” says Bomba,... > Read more
Goran Bregovic: Champagne for Gypsies (Cartel!)
5 Mar 2013 | <1 min read
If everything on this album were as flat-tack as the boisterous opener with guests the Gypsy Kings, then you'd be breathless well before the midpoint. And, just a guess here, when Bregovic and His Wedding and Funeral Orchestra play at the Taranaki Womad later this month there will be that kind of furious energy on display. The well-known Bella Ciao here -- which will doubtless be in their... > Read more
Presidente
POTTED PROFILE: Allo Alaev of the Alaev Family (Tajikastan/Israel)
4 Mar 2013 | 2 min read
The grand patriarch of the Aleav Family out of Tajikistan, Allo Alaev, here answers a fast 15 questions which gives a little insight into how world music artists coming to Womad later this month come from a very different musical background. No X-Factor or Idol competitions for these people, no glossy magazine photoshoot on the basis of one hit single. These are people for whom music is not... > Read more
NURU KANE PROFILED (2013): A colourful tapestry of sound
27 Feb 2013 | 1 min read
One of problems world music artists suffer is some preciousness in their audience which would preserve them in amber like an anthropological specimen. They want an artist to remain true to some perception of “authentic”. But musicians, being the troublesome creatures they are, largely ignore such constraints and move on, assimilating influences, and extending the boundaries... > Read more
Afrika
WOMAD ARTIST 2013; ABIGAIL WASHBURN INTERVIEWED: From Middle America to Middle Kingdom
25 Feb 2013 | 12 min read | 2
Abigail Washburn was always going to work in China, but along the way she changed the how and the why of it. She started out aiming to be lawyer working in Chinese-US relations and maybe even a career diplomat, but these days – having picked up banjo and immersing herself in old time Americana music – she travels to China as a musician. And one fluent in Chinese, who sings... > Read more
Various Artists: Womad; The World's Festival (Carte!l)
17 Feb 2013 | 1 min read | 2
At a recent lecture-cum-talk to music-performance students about "world music" and what a sippery creature it is, I was asked what the common thread or identifying feature it might be. Aside from the obvious answer (none) I just said without much thought "rhythm . . . and beat" and then stumbled into the idea that much Western pop etc (outside of r'n'b) which they were... > Read more
Sugar Bee
WOMAD ARTIST 2013; MARTIN PERNA OF ANTIBALAS INTERVIEWED (USA/Africa)
11 Feb 2013 | 8 min read | 1
They might have come thundering out of Williamsburg, a suburb on New York City, but the big ensemble Antibalas have a mainline connection to the sounds of Afrobeat (particular that of it's inventor Fela Anikulapo Kuti), James Brown-influenced funky soul grooves and driving criss-cross rhythms. Founded in a warehouse, the band drew its members from a bunch of Afrobeat and Latin music... > Read more
The Ratcatcher
Samuel Yirga; Guzo (Real World/Southbound)
4 Feb 2013 | <1 min read
With the Ethiopiques reissue series, the rediscovery of Mulatu Astatke, groups like Dub Colossus and Syriana, and singer Mahmoud Ahmed, the music of Ethipia has certainly garnered attention in recent years. This album by a gifted young and classically trained Ethiopian pianist/composer has more than enough rhythmic and melodic elements from his homeland to place in under world music,... > Read more
Abet Abet
Tim Maia: Nobody Can Live Forever; The Existential Soul of Tim Maia (Luaka Bop)
27 Jan 2013 | <1 min read
Although obviously a hard guy to live with, Tim Maia – who died in '98 aged 55 – was a larger than life character in Brazilian music. He was a man of excesses and some of his song titles hint at his philosophy (Let's Have a Ball Tonight, I Don't Care, You Don't Know What I Know). There was a musical about his life and he certainly had stories to tell. At 17 he illegally... > Read more
O Caminho Do Bem
WOMAD ARTIST 2013; AMIN ALAEV OF THE ALAEV FAMILY INTERVIEWED (Tajikistan)
25 Jan 2013 | 4 min read
Interviewing world music artists is often interesting, sometimes fun and frequently frustrating. Speaking to Amin Alaev of the Alaev Family – who play the Taranaki Womad – is all three. First of all he's in a phone shop because his mobile is going to die on him any minute, and second he speaks little English beyond a few polite sentences so we go through the group's... > Read more