World Music

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DENGUE FEVER INTERVIEWED (2008): Taking it all back to Cambodia

31 Jan 2011  |  3 min read

When Pol Pot’s murderous thugs drove people out of Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and into the countryside in the mid 70s, it was the beginning of the end. Figures vary but some say around two million people -- a quarter of the population -- were killed or died as the Khmer Rouge reconfigured the country based on an agrarian society and a rejection of western ideas. Even before... > Read more

Dengue Fever: Oceans of Venus (from the album Venus on Earth, 2007)

Femi Kuti: Africa for Africa (Wrasse)

24 Jan 2011  |  <1 min read

In 1970 George Melly wrote Revolt into Style, a witty and sometimes scathing look at how the revolutionary, anti-establishment figures in pop art and culture had been assimilated into the mainstream as just another fashion/style accessory. You'd wonder what Melly might make of Nigerian firebrand musician and lightning-rod political figure Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938-97) now the subject... > Read more

Femi Kuti: Cant Buy Me

NITIN SAWHNEY INTERVIEWED (2007): Orchestrating A Throw of Dice

24 Jan 2011  |  4 min read  |  1

Ask British-Indian musician and composer Nitin Sawhney what he’s currently working on and five minutes later he is still telling you. Then adding, “Oh and also . . .” Sawney has the kind of schedule that doesn’t allow much time for sleep and even locating him has been difficult. Finally, after numerous attempts, there he is on his cellphone rushing off to somewhere.... > Read more

Souad Massi: O Houria/Liberty (Wrasse/Shock)

17 Jan 2011  |  1 min read

It has been far too long since this Paris-based Algerian singer has graced the pages of Elsewhere -- her Mesk Elil of 2007 contained the sublime psychedelic track Tell Me Why (here) among other delights, and her double acoustic "best of" album of 2009 (although it didn't get a mention here) has been a personal favourite for a long time. Massi has always been a little hard to... > Read more

Enta Ouzahrek

BILL SEVESI INTERVIEWED: Light of the Pacific

14 Jan 2011  |  6 min read

Bill Sevesi says he speaks three languages, but he actually speaks four. The three he will admit to are Tongan (he was born in Nuku'alofa almost 88 years ago), English which he learned when he came to Auckland at age 9, and Italian, picked up during World War II. "I found out that making love to Italian girls was better than fighting Germans," he says with a wicked glint in his... > Read more

Bill Sevesi: Oneroa

Various: Bar Mexico. Classic and New Mexican Flavours (Demon)

29 Nov 2010  |  1 min read

Elsewhere claims absolutely no expertise (or even much prior knowledge) in Mexican music other than what has been picked up on the long journey of life, time in the Tex-Mex territory and an open mind to the likes of Mexican Institute of Sound, Lila Downs and so on. Oh, and having seen the film La Bamba, of course. So we take this as we find it: and we find two 15-song discs neatly... > Read more

Sonidero Nacional: Grande de Cadera

The Creole Choir of Cuba: Tande-la (Real World/Southbound)

28 Nov 2010  |  <1 min read

Already tipped to be one of the highlights at next year's New Zealand Womad in Taranaki, this choir of Haitian ancestry certainly sing up a powerful sentiment (see clip). But this isn't an easy album: Cuban creole (a meltdown of French, various words and phrases from African languages and some other seasoning thrown in) means whatever they are singing isn't going to easily understood. If... > Read more

The Creole Choir of Cuba: Lumane Casimir

Tom Ze: Estudando a Bossa; Nordeste Plaza (Luaka Bop)

7 Nov 2010  |  1 min read

Tom Ze was one of the stars of Brazil's Tropicalia movement in the late Sixties and his edgy music and approaches to song structure and instrumentation was collected by David Byrne for the Best of Tom Ze album on Byrne's Luaka Bop label in 1990. It was quite exceptional (Ze used household appliances like a blender and vacuum cleaners to get certain sounds), and lead to a subsequent volume... > Read more

Tom Ze and David Byrne: Outra Insensatez, Poe

Various Artists: Next Stop Soweto Vol 3; Giants, Ministers and Makers (Strut)

7 Nov 2010  |  <1 min read

Subtitled "Jazz in South Africa 1963-1984" this is the third volume in the excellent Strut excavation of crucial SA music which has previously picked up Township jive music and mad funk/psychedelic sounds. This collection is the least of three: the improvisations often sound constrained, in other places where the players let go they invite comparisons with their American peers... > Read more

Allen Kwela Octet: Question Mark

SHANGHAI LOUNGE DIVAS: The old world into the new

23 Oct 2010  |  1 min read  |  1

Shanghai has always been China's hotspot, the most cosmopolitan of cities in that vast and diverse country. In the Twenties and Thirties the place was awash with jazz, blues and international pop thanks to the international community, and that rubbed alongside the local folk, Mandarin pop and opera. At one time there were 30 radio stations in Shanghai and nightclubs were everywhere. The... > Read more

The Wandering Songstress (2003 remix)

Cheikh Lo: Jamm (World Circuit)

11 Oct 2010  |  <1 min read

This inventive singer, writer and arranger from Senegal hasn't appeared at Elsewhere since is wonderful Lamp Fall on '06 at which time I observed he was like a Paul Simon from an alternative universe: he assimilates and explores musical styles and genres to create something his own. This even better album -- cleanly produced by Nick Gold and Lo, and only Lo's fourth in 16 years -- is all of... > Read more

Cheikh Lo: Il N'est Jamais Trop Tard

Various Artists: Anywhere on the Road (Warners)

11 Oct 2010  |  <1 min read  |  1

As many Elsewhere readers would be aware, the late English radio DJ Charlie Gillett hosted important weekly radio shows over the decades which pulled music from around the planet: World Music from Elsewhere in other words? This double disc collection -- ideal for a long drive or a late afternoon I have to say -- picks up a considerable number of artists who have appeared at Elsewhere, among... > Read more

Kottarashky: Manda (Bulgaria)

NELLY OMAR: The restless soul of Argentina

11 Oct 2010  |  2 min read

Sometimes it is possible to feel some sympathy for the aging Rolling Stones, and not because they are aging -- but because that has become an issue. It must be extremely tedious for Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood to see in just about every article written their ages added up to some collective number, as if that had something to do with their ability to make music. In many cultures... > Read more

Nelly Omar: Veijo Jardin

Natacha Atlas: Mounqaliba/In a State of Reversal (World Village)

10 Oct 2010  |  <1 min read

This great interpreter of Arabic music has made a number of appearances at Elsewhere for her sinuous voice and often remarkable songs. She could hold her own with TransGobal Undergrounds in the electronica-beat-driven world music end of the spectrum but her more traditional albums were much more persuasive. This time out she goes for a broad conceptual piece with a large Turkish ensemble... > Read more

Natacha Atlas: Batkallim

Various Artists: Cumbia Beat Vol 1 (Vampi Soul/Southbound)

4 Oct 2010  |  <1 min read  |  1

This double-disc -- with fat multilingual booklet and period photos of bands and chintzy album covers -- pulls together 25 intrumental tracks from the Sixties and Seventies by Peruvian guitar pop bands who bring traditional percussion backbeats to their slightlydelic pop and proto-rock. There is cool guitar jangle and sharp playing (think Telstar with funky congas) and you'll perhaps want to... > Read more

Los Sander's de Nana: El Tramboyito (1972)

HUONG THANH AND NGUYEN LE: Fragile Beauty reviewed (2008)

4 Oct 2010  |  2 min read

These days world music compilations are pretty thick on the ground -- largely because they have been thrown there by disillusioned buyers who thought they might be getting a decent collection but discovered some lazily cobbled-together Thailand-lite or Indo-groove tracks which commit that most grave of sins: they are boring. The high profile Putumayo label has been churning out such... > Read more

Huong Than and Nguyen Le: Rowing the Sampan

Various Artists: Rhythms del Mundo, Revival (Ape)

3 Oct 2010  |  1 min read  |  1

After the Buena Vista Social Club alerted the planet to great old, and largely forgotten, musicians in Cuba – and of course the beguiling rhythms of that small island – it was open season on catalogue exploitation for major record companies, many of whom suddenly discovered they had Cuban bands on their books from decades before the American cultural boycott. Rubbish... > Read more

Wyclef Jean: Stayin' Alive

Nour Eddine: Morocco; Traditional Songs and Music (Arc)

3 Oct 2010  |  <1 min read

The propulsive, rhythmic music of the Gnawa in North Africa has been surreptitiously infiltrating Western ears through the likes of Bill Laswell and his world music meltdowns with jazz and de facto "rock" musicians on the Axiom label. Here the oud, guitar and percussion player Nour Eddine -- with some young musicians from the Maghreb -- offers music from rituals designed to... > Read more

Nour Eddine: J'bel

1 GIANT LEAP'S DUNCAN BRIDGEMAN INTERVIEWED (2008): Into the great wide open

20 Sep 2010  |  11 min read  |  1

A few drinks and late afternoon pre-dinner nibbles in an Auckland bar with London-based, world music-inclusive musician Duncan Bridgeman of 1 Giant Leap means a free ranging conversation: American politics; how the Western world unforgivably medicates its young (especially teenage boys); Maori moko; 70s prog-rock (he likes the voice of Yes frontman Jon Anderson, and that lapse in taste... > Read more

1 Giant Leap: How Can I Be a Better Friend to You?

Various Artists: The Rough Guide to Desert Blues (Rough Guide/Southbound)

19 Sep 2010  |  <1 min read  |  1

Elsewhere has long advanced the case for the thrilling music which comes out of the sub-Sahara and is driven by barbed-wire guitars and passionate vocals. This collection pulls together all the big names so merely listing them with the internal link to their albums at Elsewhere (which have sample tracks) should do the business. Here is your journey into a music which will just drag you... > Read more

Malouma: Yarab