World Music
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El Naan: Codigo de Barros (ARC)
30 Nov 2015 | <1 min read
While the elements of melody and rhythm might be ancient, and the lyrics (outlined in English in the booklet) contain timeless stories of a world being rapidly left behind, this is no journey into the past. It may have old bones but the heart is strong and contemporary. With tough and passioned voices, traditional instruments in the same space as electric guitar and tenor sax, these... > Read more
La Atalaya/The Watchtower
GLOBAL RADIO: A round-up of recent world music releases
9 Nov 2015 | 3 min read
Because Elsewhere is one of the few mainstream websites which has no problem writing about world music in the same space as pop, rock, jazz, reggae and whatever, we have been increasingly inundated with world music albums for review. From "elsewhere" as you might expect. So this occasional column -- in the manner of Short Cuts about New Zealand pop/rock etc releases and In Brief... > Read more
Farinya Manji by Miria (from Lost in Mali)
TARANAKI WOMAD 2016: THE ARTISTS' LINE-UP
21 Oct 2015 | 1 min read
Regular Elsewhere followers will know how keen we are on world music -- we dedicate a whole area of the site to coverage -- which means Womad is always high on our agenda. In the past we have always given a very through overview of the acts coming to a Womad (and of course done interviews in advance and over the weekend of music, see here for past interviews) . . . but this year we... > Read more
Hymn to Saint Demitrios by Savina Yannatou (Greece)
Te Vaka: Amataga/The Beginning (Border)
12 Oct 2015 | 1 min read
Now billed in small print as Opetaia's Te Vaka – after their leader, singer and songwriter Opetaia Foa'i – this expat pan-Pacific group with roots in Tuvalu, Samoa, Tokelau and the Cook Islands emerged here 20 years ago. But for the past decade have been based in Australia while taking their gently hypnotic and often socially aware music to world music and cultural... > Read more
Tike Te Galu
Bayarbaatar Davaasuren: The Art of Mongolian Khoomii (Arc Music)
12 Oct 2015 | <1 min read
When I first witnessed a Mongolian throat singer some 30 years ago – and I did weirdly feel I was a witness at something beyond my comprehension – I asked someone where the feedback was coming from. Quite how a singer whose vocal range seemed to be in the lower register also managed that high whistling overtone sound remained a pleasant enigma. This unedited recording by... > Read more
Tungalag Buyant
GLOBAL RADIO: A round-up of recent world music releases
28 Sep 2015 | 3 min read
Because Elsewhere is one of the few mainstream websites which has no problem writing about world music in the same space as pop, rock, jazz, reggae and whatever, we have been increasingly inundated with world music albums for review. From "elsewhere" as you might expect. So this occasional column -- in the manner of Short Cuts about New Zealand pop/rock etc releases and In Brief... > Read more
Hayat by Kiran Ahluwalia
Terakaft: Alone (Out Here)
14 Sep 2015 | 1 min read
Old hands -- greybeards we might say -- in the genre that we loosely call "world music" have long ago given up trying to anticipate where the next great sounds might come from and, as we have mentioned previously, so should rock seers. Not one of them would have predicted Memphis, Liverpool or Trenchtown, to name just a few. And just when you think a genre might have run its... > Read more
Anabayou/Awkward (solo version)
GLOBAL RADIO: A round-up of recent world music releases
4 Sep 2015 | 2 min read
Because Elsewhere is one of the few mainstream websites which has no problem writing about world music in the same space as pop, rock, jazz, reggae and whatever, we have been increasingly inundated with world music albums for review. From "elsewhere" as you might expect. So this occasional column -- in the manner of Short Cuts about New Zealand pop/rock etc releases and In Brief... > Read more
Serpente by Marina Wisnik (from the album Vas)
Shankar Tucker: Filament (shankartucker.com)
24 Aug 2015 | <1 min read
The idea of an East-West crossover between Indian music and whatever else is out there in the European traditions (jazz, classical, rock, pop, hip-hop, you name it) is so familiar it hardly needs further exploration. Whether it be Joe Harriott, John Coltrane, or the whole raga-rock of the Sixties (and that ignores the five decade between John McLaughlin with Shakti and the 21st... > Read more
Dhuan Dhuan/Lost in Smoke
Various Artists: The Rough Guide to the Music of Palestine (Rough Guide)
24 Aug 2015 | <1 min read
The appearance of the Rough Guides in New Zealand and even other territories can be problematic. This one came out last year but if the few international reviews are anything to go by -- and its arrival only recently on Elsewhere's doorstep -- then it rose without a trace, as they say. But it is also in the nature of certain genres (most things outside of pop and rock in this... > Read more
Doq
Seckou Keita: 22 Strings (MWLDAN/Ode)
17 Aug 2015 | <1 min read | 1
The title of this exceptional album by the gifted kora player Seckou Keita refers to the fact that the 21-string kora originally had one extra string . . . but that was removed centuries ago out of respect when the griot and kora master Jali Mady died. Here Keita -- who has clearly earned the right, his other albums have been wonderful -- returns to the original instrument for these... > Read more
If Only I Knew
Modou Toure and Ramon Goose: The West African Blues Project (Arc Music)
10 Aug 2015 | <1 min read | 1
The idea of a connection between West Africa and the blues is hardly new. As far back as the Thirties scholars were exploring the songlines and in his seminal The Story of The Blues book (and accompanying record) in the early Sixties Paul Oliver clearly established the aural link. It's a path back and forth which the likes of Eric Bibb, Keb M'o, Baaba Maal and many others have... > Read more
Satan
Mbongwana Star: From Kinshasa (World Circuit)
27 Jul 2015 | <1 min read
Just as Memphis, Liverpool, Jamaica, Iceland and Sweden were not in the sightlines of pop music before great artists emerged from there, it's a fair bet 10 years ago no one would have put money on Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then the Congotronics collections introduced us to the likes of Konono No1, Kisanzi Congo and others working with cheap electronic equipment and... > Read more
Suzanna
Tal National: Zoy Zoy (Fat Cat/Southbound)
20 Jul 2015 | <1 min read | 1
For more than a decade this boisterous and irrepressible band from Niger played their lengthy sets (sometimes up to five hours) well away from the eyes and ears of the world beyond their national borders. Until the Kaani album a couple of years back when it was impossible not to be swept up by their energy and melting pot of various musical styles from the region. Among their number --... > Read more
Farila
Ahmed Mukhtar: Babylonian Fingers (Arc Music)
26 Jun 2015 | <1 min read | 1
Interesting that the actual album title Babylonian Fingers takes considerable second place to the banner "Music from Iraq". In truth though, that geographical specificity might actually work better as hook, given how little most people know about the sounds from that region . . . other than maybe what they've heard in movies while the bombs go off and another group of American... > Read more
Alleys of the Old City
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba: Ba Power (Glitterbeat)
22 Jun 2015 | <1 min read
Because, in the Bambara language of Mali, the word “ba” means great or strong, some have suggested the title of this swirling, rock-influenced album alludes to the Stooges' Raw Power. Maybe that's not such a stretch because here Kouyate – briefly signed to a SubPop spin-off label – plugs in his ngoni (a small, simple lute), hooks up wah-wah and distortion... > Read more
Siran Fa
Various Artists The Rough Guide to Rare Latin Grooves (Rough Guide)
22 Jun 2015 | 2 min read
For a very short while I played DJ in a fashionable bar for a few hours a night, about once a fortnight -- or a month -- or something like that. You can guess from my lack of enthusiastic recall I found it a desultory and pointless experience: standing in a corner playing records to a bunch of people who just wanted to drink and talk loudly at each other. I spent everything I was paid... > Read more
Denisth
Ceumar: Silencio (Arc Music)
21 Jun 2015 | <1 min read
Brazilian singer-songwriter Ceumar recorded these 13 songs live in a Sao Paulo studio with a small acoustic group of players who are entirely empathetic. There is a gentle and sensitive melodicism at work by all here, and Ceumar's intuitive jazz sensibilities are to the fore also. Playing nylon string guitar alongside the cello, acoustic bass, mandolin and so on, she weaves her... > Read more
Penhor
Ustad Dildar Hussain Khan: Sur Sangeet (Kanaga)
1 Jun 2015 | 1 min read
At any Womad one of the most transcendental and transporting musical events is when singers of the Sufi qawwali tradition appear. Usually fronting a large group of supportive singers and percussion players, the main vocalist is capable of tremedous flights of impassioned, yearning spiritual intensity. It must be hard not to be moved by it. At recent performances too you find people seem... > Read more
Sar Tajen Ke Taj
Arinushka: Old Faith (ARC Music)
25 May 2015 | 1 min read
Years ago I was given a birthday card which read, "If you didn't know your age, how old would you be?" Let's flip that a little and ask about this fascinating album, "If you didn't know where this music came from, where might you guess?" I didn't know. I just put it in the player with barely a glance at the cover and pottered about as it started to play. The... > Read more