world music
Tinariwen, KokoThursday, 27 October 2011
An aura of mystique surrounds Tinariwen. The members of this group’s shifting line-up are from the Tuareg people, nomadic Berbers of the North African desert regions, and several have taken part in armed Tuareg rebellions in the past. This air of... Read more... |
Interview: Tinariwen, Poets in New YorkThursday, 27 October 2011
All was quiet in room 509 when I turned up with my bottle of Jura whisky. Tinariwen’s sound engineer, Jaja, was watching a vampire movie on TV. Elaga, their rhythm guitarist, was sitting at a small, darkly varnished table eating pasta from a... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Zanzibar: The Sounds of WisdomSunday, 16 October 2011
“When I first came to Zanzibar I was expecting there to be a lot of local music in local cafés and bars on the radio. In reality it was the Spice Girls or "Barbie Girl". It was so disappointing, the state of the local music scene. Everyone was... Read more... |
Fatoumata Diawara, Jazz CaféFriday, 14 October 2011
When I first saw this Malian singer-songwriter a few months ago at a showcase gig in a grimly carpeted basement bar in Clerkenwell it was hard to imagine a less appropriate space for such a regally beautiful woman to be found in. Yet within a couple... Read more... |
CD: Björk - BiophiliaThursday, 13 October 2011
An album that encompasses pan-global collaborations, iPad/Phone apps, internet jiggery-pokery, art installations, live multimedia shows and even a tuning system, with the “Ultimate Edition” of the album coming complete with a set of tuning forks to... Read more... |
Interview: Peter GabrielThursday, 13 October 2011
One of the problems with Peter Gabriel’s back catalogue for me, I tell him, as he is reclining in an office at EMI in London, is the sounds - some of them really are very dated. Gabriel would often pioneer a sound like the reverse-gated drum sound... Read more... |
Zun Zun Egui: New Indie Band of the Year?Wednesday, 05 October 2011
In the generation of twentysomething rock musicians bottle-fed on world music, the Bristol band Zun Zun Egui really stand out. They make some of the most exciting music to have emerged in the last 12 months.The Afro-tinged sophistication of Vampire... Read more... |
Imperial Tiger Orchestra, Boston DomeMonday, 03 October 2011
There’s more than one way to reinterpret or simply embrace the extraordinary wealth of Ethiopian music that Francis Falceto has given us with the still growing Ethiopiques CD series of 1970s Ethio-jazz (as the style has been inadequately labelled).... Read more... |
Ecstatic Journey, BarbicanThursday, 29 September 2011
The final night of the Barbican’s adventurous if slightly awkwardly named Transcender season was a Sufi safari, with a tapas selection of four very different artists from assorted Islamic countries giving a taste of their music.First up, making... Read more... |
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, BarbicanSunday, 25 September 2011
Some countries have a particular talent for choral music. Georgia, for example, has wonderful choirs, as does South Africa and, it seems, Bulgaria. Unfortunately, due to the expense of touring, we hardly get to see them. So when Le Mystère de Voix... Read more... |
Orchestre National de Barbès, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 19 September 2011
I love the fact that under the “genre” tab on their Facebook page, Orchestre National de Barbès have opted for “Other” from the dropdown menu. Obviously in Facebookland “Other” simply means not rock, soul, hi-hop, jazz, reggae, classical etc.... Read more... |
CD: Fatoumata Diawara - FatouWednesday, 14 September 2011
Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara produces guitar riffs that are like quiet musical mantras from which songs seem to blossom like exquisite orchids. Or at least that’s the effect achieved by a combination of the songs themselves and the... Read more... |
