African music
Thomas H. Green
Welcome to the biggest plastic reviews party on earth. Now that vinyl is steadily successful as niche musical medium, some have rightly been considering its environmental impact. Perhaps the best overview is given by Kyle Devine’s feature in the Guardian, which is well worth checking (please come back if you do!). So, yes, record companies big and small should be looking to ecologically sound options to reduce the damage wrought by our love of music in this retro medium. They should, then we can continue to enjoy these warm, boomin’ sounds. Collected below is a multitude of music and a vast Read more ...
mark.kidel
Alabama-born Lonnie Holley, the seventh son of 27 children, more or less abandoned as a child, comes from a tradition of African-American visionaries who reach back through the generations to a culture of great aesthetic and ethical sophistication, one which the slaves’ horrific voyage across the Atlantic wasn’t able to obliterate. He is so much himself, that any comparison risks reducing his extraordinary qualities to something so much less than their true worth.On this rare solo appearance, he played grand piano and Nord digital keyboard – and sang. The songs evolve quite naturally from Read more ...
Katie Colombus
The first time I heard Madonna, I was 8 years old at a school disco. Horrified parents, who came to pick us up as we jumped up and down yelling along to “Like A Virgin” in a fluorescent flurry of topknots, puffer skirts and lace gloves, subsequently lodged a formal complaint (it was a Catholic junior school) and thus, the spirit of Madonna, was borne into my story. Since those days of stonewash and crimping only one thing has remained consistent in my life – Madge’s persistent ability to re-invent herself. Now, 30 years later, I am bearing witness to a conglomeration of her identities, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Britain is unpleasant to look at right now, ugly and foolish, so why not lock down with some tuneage. Below is the best plastic that’s hit theartsdesk on Vinyl over the last month, all genres, all the time. Watch out for the forthcoming Christmas Special where we’ll endeavour to find the seasonal good cheer we’re not currently feeling.VINYL OF THE MONTHKimyan Law Yonda (Blu Mar Ten Music)It’s true to say that theartsdesk on Vinyl prizes originality over familiarity. One of our mottos is that comfort is the enemy of creativity. Kimyan Law – AKA Nico Mpunga – is the Vienna-based son of a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s reckoned that this time next year vinyl sales will have overtaken CDs. It’s still a small market and anyone who thinks vinyl will one day replace streaming is living on Planet Lah-lah. There’s so much coming out even theartsdesk on Vinyl cannot review it all, but what we can do is devote 7500 words to what grabs our attention. We are not limited by genre or by new vs reissue. We eat it all up and want more. So check below for the juice on what’s out there. Dive on.VINYL OF THE MONTHMambo Noir Trio Mambo Noir Trio (Oona)If you see the name Matti Bye on anything, check it out. His 2017 Read more ...
mark.kidel
Rachid Taha, sadly felled by a heart attack just over a year ago, has come back from the dead! He could not sound more lively than on this vibrant posthumous offering, definitely not something cooked up from tasty leftovers, but a well thought-through album, which, in his usual vein, draws together the sounds of the Maghreb and rock’n’roll.At his very best (and he could be erratic) Taha, born in Algeria, having lived the difficult childhood and adolescence of an Arab immigré in Lyon, was a volcano of energy, pacing around the stage with fury and joy. Inevitably, only a fraction of this can Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Tinariwen’s music has always been evocative of West African deserts with their mellow blues-like guitars and shuffling groove. Initially recording everything in Mali until it was invaded by religious fanatics who deemed playing music forbidden, Tinariwen have had to lay down their last few discs away from home. Amadjar, however, sees the band return to West Africa to team up with griotte singer, Noura Mint Seymali and her guitarist husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly. Recorded in two weeks, in a large tent outside Nouakchott in Mauritania, Amadjar is soaked in nomadic grooves with a dromedary’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Welcome to the latest edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl, the monthly online musical resource that knows no genre boundaries as it treks through every release on plastic that it can find. This time round we’ve everything from death metal to obscure jazz to electropop, sounds for almost every musical taste. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHDona Onete Rebujo (Maid Um)Known as the “Grande Dame of Amazonian song” Dona Onete, now 80, only recorded her first album at 73. She’s now a sensation in her home country of Brazil. She’s seen as representing the country’s minority peoples and is as much a folk Read more ...
mark.kidel
Damon Albarn isn’t just a national treasure but an international one. He seems to spread his reach so widely, with a mix of curiosity and boundless energy, a great deal of discernment and a vision as different as possible from the narrow-minded attitudes that feed the Brexit frenzy.Having worked creative magic in Mali, with a range of exciting collaborations and recordings at Bamako’s Bogolan studios and elsewhere, and paid homage to various traditions on his label Honest Jon’s, Albarn has taken his ever-renewing project Africa Express into the creative maelstrom that is South Africa. He is Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Madonna is the queen of reinvention and Madame X, her 14th studio album, marks another new brilliant, bonkers chapter in her 37-year career. The 13-track CD (15 on the deluxe version) was inspired by a recent spell living in Lisbon, where she clearly imbibed the Portuguese diaspora's music. Madame X is stuffed with influences, with African drumbeats and Latin grooves to New York club sounds and big ballads, taking in a bit of Cape Verde batuque and Puerto Rican reggaeton too.It's a mixed bag: there are some bangers including “Come Alive”, which is made for live performance and will fill the Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Rokia Traoré’s passage through this year’s Brighton Festival has been central, binding it to her Malian identity in a series of gigs. This hands-on Guest Director’s pulsing Afro-rock Opening Night was followed by the first Dream Mandé show’s recasting of traditional sounds. A Malian Dance Night added FGM protest, Seventies s.f.-soundtracked myth and cheeky wit from young choreographers. But this show is surely Traoré’s cornerstone, supporting all the rest, as she takes on the role of griot to recast Mali as democracy’s secret rock.The griot’s role at the root of West African culture, orally Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Much of Rokia Traoré’s set on Saturday night comprised folk songs about Mali’s warrior kings, connecting with her country’s fabulously wealthy, proudly powerful past. They suit this diplomat’s daughter’s regal stature, which she has put at the service of a nation still enviably rich in musical resources, but battered by civil war, poverty and terrorist attack.Traoré has also helped give this year’s Brighton Festival an Afrocentric perspective, ignoring the comfortingly familiar in favour of often black British or African artists. Her commitment as Guest Director extends to three headline gigs Read more ...