world music
Kieron Tyler
Music from Sudan is overshadowed by the country’s recent history. At the end of June 1989, Colonel Omar al-Bashir assumed control and it became a one-party state. Shariah law was introduced. Osama Bin Laden was resident in capital city Khartoum from 1991 to 1996. Tension between the mostly Muslim north and mostly Christian south undermined any facade of stability al-Bashir sought to impose. The south was declared independent in 2011. Conflict in Darfur, in the west of the country, left 300,000 people dead and led to just over 3 million displaced people.These are, of course, headlines. True Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Essaouira, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, is the place of winds. Day or night, hot or cold, year in, year out, the “Alizee” blows, and it blows. In the local folklore it is not from the ocean but a grumbling resident of the medina – perhaps protesting the town’s rapid recent expansion, its port’s modernisation and the loss of legendary Chez Sam, the restaurant once beloved by an Othello-filming Orson Welles.But for the 21st edition of the Gnawa Festival in Essaouria the Alizee drew breath and slept, if fitfully, through four days and nights of intense trance music featuring the ghimbri bass Read more ...
mark.kidel
Hot in the burning footsteps of Bargou 08, last year’s subtle but daring mix of traditional Tunisian sounds and electronic beats and textures, Sofyann Ben Youssef launches a new project under the name of AMMAR 808, Maghreb United. There is a great deal more fire and confidence in this new album, which plunges deeper into the rich sonic universe of the Maghreb while taking a few more risks with the contemporary electronic and rock elements that are deftly combined to create a beguiling whole.Traditional popular music from the Maghreb works with distortion – the snare on the bendir frame drum, Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The Songlines Encounters festival is in its eighth year, and opened its doors on Thursday night at Kings Place in London with 3MA, (TroisMa in French), comprising Malian kora player Ballake Sissoko, Moroccan oud player Driss El Maloumi and Madagascan valihah player (that’s a member of the zither family) Rajery. Between them they share a few strings and 3MA expertly and deftly used them to conjure up a pungent pan-African world of complementary musical flavours, extending from north to west Africa, with each member taking solo turns, as well as merging together as one to create some marvellous Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
BBC Four is the TV music equivalent of those oldsters music mags like Q and Mojo. Have there been five, or is it six, documentaries about Queen on the channel? You can sense the commissioners feeling with this new series they have now done their bit for African music for the next few years. In general, the BBC, unlike counterparts in places like France, have been ridiculously Anglocentric in their music coverage – like having a cooking channel that leaves out Indian, Chinese and Japanese food.The main difficulty, in the first episode, is that the idea of “doing” Nigerian music in an hour Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Here to be Heard, made by US film-maker and punk rocker William E Badgley, has such a juicy, pertinent story to tell that it never palls. Over 84 minutes, contemporary interviews and old footage build a two act drama that reveals The Slits to be one of the most underrated bands of their era. Alongside bemusement at music that was ahead of its time, this is mostly down to the fact they’re women. “The reason there are hardly any girl rock’n’roll stars,” says front-woman Ari Up in a decades old interview, “is because most girls are not strong enough in their own minds.” Facing the raw sexism of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
African Scream Contest 2 opens with a burst of distorted guitar suggesting a parallel-world response to The Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”. Then, the song beds in and a James Brown groove plays off against spindly lead-guitar lines also evoking California in the psychedelic era: the extemporisation of Jefferson Airplane. At 3.06, the vocalist and percussionist are left to get on with it for 30 seconds. Next, a wheezy organ comes to the fore and injects some “Light my Fire” vamps.The track is “A Min We Vo Nou” by Les Sympathics de Porto-Novo. Recorded in 1973 or 1974 in Lagos, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There have been reports that as many as 50% of vinyl-buyers don’t actually listen to it. They keep records as a token of affection for the artist in question. This seems curious but, then again, most young people don’t own turntables and the idea is anathema to the way they consume music. However, while there’s a healthy market in reissues and older artists, the most cutting edge music imaginable is appearing on plastic. Check out our Vinyl of the Month! All musical life is reviewed below. You won’t find a more thorough and expansive set of monthly record reviews: theartsdesk on Vinyl is a Read more ...
joe.muggs
The death of “world music” is a wonderfully reassuring thing. That is to say, with every year that passes, it becomes less and less possible for media and consumers to bracket together music from outside the US and Europe as a single thing, and easier and easier for us to understand specific talents and currents within global culture for what they are. Obviously the fact I need to even say this means there's a good way to go. But talents like Baloji, the Congolese-born, Belgian-raised singer-songwriter, are blasting away the simplistic distinctions.As this album kicks off, the cascading Read more ...
howard.male
Is it fair to say that Seun Kuti’s fourth album is just more of the same? I believe it is, because more of the same is more or less the point with protest music, particularly if what you’re protesting hasn’t gone away. You have no choice but to keep singing that same tune (sometimes literally). So what we have here are variations on the theme of struggle and liberation – corrupt politicians, the unjust jailing of the poor, police and army brutality, the promise of jobs as more factories close, and the need for education so that the young are intellectually armed for an uprising. Oh and, to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What is music? When pondering archive releases, compilations and reissues the question doesn’t come up. Knowledge of context and history means there’s never a need to muse on this fundamental issue. A package, say, dedicated to Northern Soul says what it is and the prime considerations are how well it has been executed and defining its place in the relevant narrative. The same applies to anything previously covered in this column.However, the release of the Voyager Golden Record raises this concern. Twenty-seven pieces of music are collected, ranging from a Navajo Chant to part of Beethoven’s Read more ...
Barney Harsent
A little over two years ago, The Arts Desk reviewed Hipnotik Tradisi, Black Merlin’s extraordinary first offering for Island of the Gods’ Island Explorer series. The idea is simple. Take an artist, invite them to Bali, let them soak up (and, crucially, record) the sounds, and see what happens when they process the results in a studio setting. As a business model for commercial growth, it’s unlikely to win The Apprentice, but as a clarion call to auteurs, it’s almost irresistible.There’s a danger though, of course. The first hint of clumsy execution and this could look very like a land grab – Read more ...