world music
Reissue CDs Weekly: My Bloody Valentine, Loose Tubes, Fela KutiSunday, 13 May 2012
My Bloody Valentine: Isn’t Anything, Loveless, EPs 1988-1991Kieron TylerEach of these three CDs is essential. My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless were era-defining albums that time has done nothing to tarnish. The EPs they... Read more... |
dÉbruit, Auntie Flo at The Boiler RoomThursday, 10 May 2012
Club culture has always had a tension between democratisation (“come one, come all!”) and exclusivity (the thrill of being in the know about the newest or most underground thing). The best clubs have always been the ones that find ways of short-... Read more... |
UK Festivals Guide 2012Thursday, 05 April 2012
The Queen's given everyone an extra bank holiday, so while you rest up over the Easter holidays, start planning your next downtime with theartsdesk's definitive clickable festival guide for the summer. We have headline listings and links for all the... Read more... |
CD: Amadou & Mariam - FolilaTuesday, 03 April 2012
With the subject of the legitimacy of the label “world music” having just had another airing in The Guardian, it seems fitting that Mali’s favourite musical couple should be releasing their least “world music” album to date. For essentially, ... Read more... |
Classic Albums: Peter Gabriel - So, BBC FourSaturday, 24 March 2012
In the early Eighties Peter Gabriel was the ne plus ultra of arty, experimental margin-hangers, breaking cover occasionally with an improbable hit single before “retreating back into the bushes with my normal crowd”. His fifth studio album, So,... Read more... |
Peter Gabriel announces WOMAD’s 15th season in SicilyThursday, 09 February 2012
Peter Gabriel announced WOMAD’s 2012 festival in Sicily this afternoon. It’s a year of anniversaries for the annual showcase of world music, with 2012 also marking the 30th year for Britain’s big brother festival. On a wintry afternoon, sharply... Read more... |
2011: King Lear, Breaking Bad and Afro-FuturismThursday, 29 December 2011
The Mayans say 2012 is The End, so this may be the very last round-up of the year. I saw possibly the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen – a chamber version of King Lear at the Donmar Theatre directed by Michael Grandage with Derek Jacobi as the mad... Read more... |
2011: Ladies With Ukuleles and Blockbusters With BiteThursday, 29 December 2011
2011 was an excellent year for highly original music from female musicians, two of whom brandished ukuleles yet found quite different ways of using them.New England’s Merrel Garbus (otherwise known as Tune-Yards) put her foot down on the effects... Read more... |
Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex, Rich MixSunday, 11 December 2011
“It’s cultural imperialism,” a middle-aged gentleman felt compelled to say to me, presumably because I was the bloke with the notebook. “Then all pop music is cultural imperialism,” is what I should have fired back at him, had I not been so immersed... Read more... |
Imagine: The Lost Music of Rajasthan, BBC OneWednesday, 07 December 2011
That Alan Yentob gets around. I’ve run into him backstage during Jay Z's set at Glastonbury and in a jazz club in Poland, and here we found him in Rajasthan fronting a fascinating and well-shot programme, albeit workmanlike rather than really... Read more... |
Anoushka Shankar, Colston Hall, BristolSunday, 04 December 2011
In the age of Skype and no-frills budget travel, frontiers barely exist – at least if you’re not an immigrant or refugee. World music is as much about boundary-breaking and fusion these days as it is about discovering the unsullied treasures of what... Read more... |
CD: Baloji - Kinshasa SuccursaleFriday, 02 December 2011
Some critics have lazily compared Baloji to Somali rapper K’nann: both are African rappers who had lucky childhood escapes from countries about to descend into war and chaos, but beyond that they seem to have quite different approaches to what they... Read more... |
