World Music

THREE WOMAD ACTS FOR 2019 ANNOUNCED

27 Sep 2018 | 1 min read

Womad announcements have sometimes started with a whimper when a couple of acts are announced then delivered the big bang at the official announcement of the complete line-up. This time the first cabs off the rank for next year's annual festival in Taranaki offer pretty big bangs in their own right. Angelique Kidjo from Benin is a major attraction in any context but right now the... > Read more

Mehdi Rostami and Adib Rostami: Melodic Circles (ARC Music)

3 Sep 2018 | <1 min read

Subtitled “Urban Classical Music from Iran”, this album by the Rostami cousins captures both the magic and complexity of this largely improvised music on the four-stringed setar (Mehdi) and the single tombak goblet drums (Adib). Those who have listened to Indian music will feel quite at home here (think setar/sitar, tombak/tabla if it helps) because there is a bloodline which... > Read more

Circle Two; Mystic Dance

Fatoumata Diawara: Fenfo (Wagram)

6 Aug 2018 | <1 min read | 1

The album title here might be a joke, it means “something to say”. But this outing by one of Mali's finest singers and songwriters comes a full seven years after her stunning debut Fatou which was in our best of that year's list. Admittedly she has been busy recording with other artists (among them David Crosby, Herbie Hancock and Snarky Puppy, which is indicative of her range)... > Read more

Ravi Shankar: The Rough Guide to Ravi Shankar (Rough Guide/Southbound)

27 Jul 2018 | <1 min read

As the pre-eminent Indian classical composer/sitar player of his generation and that country's most internationally acknowledged musician, the late Ravi Shankar – who died in 2012 – not only popularised Indian classical ragas and the sitar but was one of the great proponents of expanding musical boundaries through his work with Yehudi Menuhin, Western jazz musicians, Philip Glass,... > Read more

Bangla Kirtan

ELSEWHERE WORLD SERVICE: A quick overview of recent world music releases

11 Jun 2018 | 3 min read

Here's a frequent flyer/transit lounge/vicarious listening music column for those at home who want to get their musical passport stamped. Elsewhere has so many CDs and downloads commanding and demanding attention that we run occasional columns which scoop up releases by international artists (IN BRIEF), in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks out New Zealand artists.... > Read more

Various Artists: Musical Explorer Series; Deben Bhattacharya, Waves of Joy (ARC Music CD/DVD)

3 Jun 2018 | <1 min read

Elsewhere has happily been down this path previously but we acknowledge these Indian music collections of field recordings with an archival film are not for everybody. As we mentioned before, Deben Bhattacharya was a music producer (over 100 albums apparently across a few continents) who did field recordings and made films, the one on this collection of Baul singers being 30 minutes of the... > Read more

Ke Banalo Emon, by Nikhil Das Baul

NANO STERN INTERVIEWED AT WOMAD (2018): His machine kills ignorance

27 Mar 2018 | 11 min read

Towards the end of his sometimes incendiary, frequently danceable and always enjoyable afternoon set at Womad, the Chilean singer/guitarist – and mean fiddler – Nano Stern took time out to tell a story to the huge crowd before him. He spoke of his architect father asking him when he was a teenager what he wanted to do in life, and he replying that he wanted to be a singer.... > Read more

Carnavalito del Ciempies/Dance of the Centipedes

WOMAD TARANAKI PHOTO ESSAY (2018): The world of music, arts and images

26 Mar 2018 | 3 min read

Because a Womad festival is about different people, faces, costumes and art from around the world, it is a colourful event and lends itself to a simple photo essay to give the flavour of the three day event. We don't claim these images to be professional, glossy, ripe for framing or any such thing. But we hope they can convey something of the artists in performance and the people who... > Read more

VICTORIA HANNA INTERVIEWED AT WOMAD (2018): Songs and psalms from the ancient to the future

25 Mar 2018 | 6 min read

On You Tube you can easily find a short video of Israeli singer Victoria Hanna conducting what is called a cymatic experiment with her voice. She did it at home by using a microphone to sing into a scattering of sand, and as she sings pure notes the sand rearranges itself into pleasing geometric shapes. For Hanna – who grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish home in Jerusalem... > Read more

Aleph-Bet

DAYME AROCENA INTERVIEWED AT WOMAD (2018): Cuba getting its jazz-funk improv on

25 Mar 2018 | 5 min read

When Dayme Arocena from Cuba took the stage for his first of two shows at Womad she came on like petite powerhouse, her dusty black skin wrapped in pure white, and her band immediately hitting some hard rocking jazz-funk. Anyone expecting laidback Cuban folk was put on notice. This was going to be loud, seriously grounded Afro-Cuban music with large dollops of soul and jazz... > Read more

Drama, by Dayme Arocena

JOJO ABOT INTERVIEWED AT WOMAD (2018): The colour and the shapes

23 Mar 2018 | 4 min read

Odd though it is to say this, but when sitting and talking with Ghanaian-born global citizen and singer/dancer/multi-media artist Jojo Abot, it's not her waist-length multi-coloured dreadlocks braided with bright ribbons or equally striking clothing which takes your attention. It is her dancing eyes – oil-dark pupils in pools of bright white – and her constantly moving... > Read more

To Li

THE DAY LINE-UP FOR WOMAD 2018: The world on your doorstep

13 Mar 2018 | <1 min read

As in previous years, the line-up and running times for the forthcoming Womad festival in March in Taranaki has been announced. Elsewhere has been posting interviews with a number of the artists appearing (see here) and will continue to profile others in the coming weeks. Meantime though you can plan ahead -- be there Friday for Aldous Harding, Maisey Rika and the Miltones... > Read more

Various Artists: Womad, Australia and New Zealand 2018 Compilation (Womad)

4 Mar 2018 | 1 min read

This 15-track collection of diverse world music artists is a tasty amuse-orielle, not just for those going to this year's festival in Taranaki (details below) but for those who still wonder what all the fuss is about. The fuss is about the unexpected, where acts from various corners of the globe bring their traditional music or a contemporary take on it. Sometimes the latter comes... > Read more

Jojo Abot (Ghana/USA), Gods Among Men

ELSEWHERE WORLD SERVICE: A quick overview of recent world music releases

15 Feb 2018 | 3 min read

Here's a frequent flyer/transit lounge/vicarious listening music column for those at home who want to get their musical passport stamped. Elsewhere has so many CDs and downloads commanding and demanding attention that we run occasional columns which scoop up releases by international artists (IN BRIEF), in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks out New Zealand... > Read more

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Victoria Hanna

12 Feb 2018 | 1 min read

The annual Womad festival in Taranaki brings diverse artists not just from all over the world but through many genres, from raw folk to spiritual songs, from cultural dance music to electronica. Victoria Hanna, raised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish household in Jerusalem, touches on nearly all of those in her set. She found a way to express herself and overcome her stutter when she... > Read more

Aleph-Bet/Hosha'ana

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Nano Stern

6 Dec 2017 | 3 min read

Singer/guitarist/composer Nano Stern from Chile was born into a family of musicians and activists, and – after learning violin as a child – became part of the underground punk rock scene in Santiago and began his musical travels (literally, he lived in Cologne and Amsterdam after quitting his music composition course at university) and followed them up with classical and jazz... > Read more

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Ghada Shbeir

20 Nov 2017 | 2 min read

The arc around the Mediterranean we loosely refer to as “the Middle East” boasts some astonishing voices, not the least that of Lebanese singer Ghada Shbeir whose yearning sound conveys the passions and tragedies of that region. School in many Arabic traditions as well as the sounds of Andalusian-Arabic songs and ancient chants, she brings a formidable personal history to... > Read more

Ya Nadimi

Trio-Da-Kali and Kronos Quartet: Ladilikan (World Circuit)

13 Nov 2017 | 1 min read

Everybody's favourite hipster string quartet, Kronos – once referred to as the Talking Heads of the classical world – here further their many explorations into world music (previous encounters with Chinese, Eastern European and Indian musicians, and Tanya Tagaq, among others) with more African adventures, here with an acclaimed trio from Mali. Trio-Da-Kali are rightly... > Read more

Kene Bo

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Kiya Tabassian of Constantinople

13 Nov 2017 | 1 min read

For nearly twenty years the ensemble Constantinople -- with memebers from Canada and Senegal -- have explored musical diversity through the lens of ‘East meets West’,an ever changing melting pot, much like the city after which they are named. Their inspiration for their Jardins Migrateurs performance is a poetic meeting between strings and voice, with griot Ablaye Cissoko adding... > Read more

Poisson au fond de l'ocean

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Bubba from My Bubba

12 Nov 2017 | 2 min read

Now don't be put off by the name which conjures up Anika Moa's recent albums for wee ones, My Bubba from Sweden/Iceland's most recent single Gone was recorded by Jack White in his Third Man Studios in Nashville and it's a ghostly alt.country affair. The My Bubba duo are My Larsdotter (vocals and Norwegian lap-harp-playing) with guitarist/ singer and banjo player Guðbjörg... > Read more