Another whirled, another whirled, another whirled world music thread 2007

I was impressed with some old Xavier Cugat mambo music on vinyl being played on WPFW Friday night that I liked. I just figured Cugat was real loungy, but some of the cuts played had zip and soul to 'em.

I need to listen more to a Sarah Tavares cd I was sent. She's a Cape Verdian Portueguese vocalist who is starting a US tour this month.

As for Sarah Tavares who I mentioned upthread a little, well she has her moments but her Balance cd is a bit inconsistent. Sometimes she comes across in a light soft way like a Brazilian chanteuse, other times her voice is sultry and kinda pop, and on a few cuts she's either folky or using a nearly spoken-word approach. She's playing for free Tuesday night 1-23 at the Kennedy Center in DC at 6. I might give her a shot live if i can get off work early.

The K. Ctr. had Marcel Khalife for free on his Caress tour. That was a nice show. Have you ever seen him live, RS?

:( I really like Soro. I like Moffou too actually.

-- the table is the table (meltingglacier...), January 6th, 2007. (treesessplode) (later) (link)

dude is fuckin awesome.

Phazm – Antebellum Death ‘N Roll (Osmose Productions)
(Various) – What’s Happening In Pernambuca: New Sounds From The Brazilian Northeast (Luaka Bop)
Melechesh – Emissaries (Osmose Productions)

Phazm are post-Noir Desir decadent French perv-metal. Melechesh are middle-eastern-inflected Jerusalem death metal. The Luaka Bop comp is post-Chico Science Brazilian mangue-beat rock en portuguese.

Also spent too much time already trying to get into Kassin+2's Futurama, also on Luaka Bop and also from Brazil, but within only one track, the seemingly Jorge Ben-inspired "Ponto Final," that would've been good enough to fit on that Pernambuca comp. There are a couple other sambas with nice relaxing melodies I guess, but mainly they strike me as a fairly timid art band, pretty mediocre. I noticed a few days ago on some other ILM thread that some indie rocker named the album (or some other album by them?) #3 in his 2006 top 10, weird. Apparently people compare them to Os Mutantes and stuff like that, but to be honest Os Mutantes have never killed me.

i'll probably still enjoy the show, i'm sure.

I liked the Sara Tavares record okay; her voice reminded me of Natalia Lafourcade's. I haven't listened to that Pernambuco record yet, but I need to. I wasn't as impressed by Phazm as other people around here have been - I liked the Death Breath album a lot more.

I don't know, I guess the ending is a little unusual.

but as always ymmv.

I know. I don't hear this stuff as that incredibly strange either. (Not that I would necessarily like it more if it were avant-garde and strange.) But you did say ymmv.

Looks like this came out in 2005, so much for whirled 2007.

I wouldn't say that. This thread is pretty open-ended (not least because I don't want to have to get into an argument over what counts as "world music," partly because I don't care and partly because I wouldn't want to try to argue it around here). I was actually trying to come up with a substitute for "world music" in the thread title, but I gave up and thought if I went silly, that would make it easier to get away with using the term.

For the record I like the "whirled" thread title.

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000HT2J94.01._SS400_SCLZZZZZZZ_V59714698_.jpg

Al Tarab (Muscat Oud Festival)

which I'm hoping is going to be a sort of oud holy grail. It comes with a rather thick booklet.

Dear friends in the media,

Tinariwen, the poet guitarists from the southern Sahara, are organizing a number of press trips to their home in the Southern Sahara in January 2007. These trips are destined to give the media an extra special insight into desert life and music. The trips are orientated around two very important cultural events: The Festival in the Desert in Essakane, from January 11-13, and the Camel Fair in Tessalit, from January 17-19. The Festival in the Desert already has a global reputation that speaks for itself. Tessalit is an oasis near the Algerian border where most of the founding members of Tinariwen originally come from. Apart from these events, journalists will be able to spend time with Tinariwen, speak to individual musicians, and meet various cultural and political leaders who can explain the background to the group in detail. From the attached day by day schedule:
• These trips will involve quite a bit of time driving on ‘pistes’, which can be bumpy and uncomfortable.
• Accommodation will either be in traditional Touareg tents, in local homes or under the stars. However the space, the peace and the excellent desert skills of Tinariwen, make sleeping the bush almost luxurious. Trip no 4 will involve some nights of hotel in Tamanrasset.
• Tinariwen will be performing at the Festival in the Desert and at the Camel Fair in Tessalit.
• DESPITE ALL EFFORTS, THE DESERT CAN BE AN UNCERTAIN PLACE. The itineraries given above are a guide, but are subject to change without notice. We will make every effort to stick to them, but cannot be held responsible if something outside our control forces us to change plans.

I guess anyone can cast votes.

>> ...kind of reminds me of the old prog. band Caravan...

I had never heard of them, but this intrigued me to click the link, and damned if they DON'T sound like some crazy cross between Hermeto Pascoal and Hatfield and the North. This is why I love ILX!

http://www.rhythmsdelmundo.com/

I have a feeling it will just be boring though.

So, is anybody gonna be at Globalfest at Webster Hall tomorrow night? The bill's actually better than last year's - Lenine, Lila Downs, Sara Tavares, Boom Pam, Dengue Fever, Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, Les Primitifs Du Futur, Le Trio Joubran, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Julia Sarr and Patrice Larose, Babylon Circus, and Lucia Pulido and Palenque. I'd like to see at least a few minutes of about half of those. I'm obliged to be there out of professional responsibility, but there's enough entertainment potential on the bill that I actually don't totally mind missing the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

xxpost

New Yolanda Perez album Te Sigo Amando is her most straight banda record, with the least hippity-hoppy parts, and so far seems her dullest album so far. Sounds like a maturity move or something. She was already heading this direction on her previous album, in a way, but this time she seems to have jumped the shark. None of it sounds bad per say, but not a single song has jumped out and got me excited yet either. (As tubas go, I probably prefer "Keep On Coming" on the otherwise generally useless new Ying Yang Twins album, in which the tuba sounds may or may not be made by actual tubas. The rest of the CD is a good argument against marijuana use, though. Or collard green use, as the Ying Yangs are calling it now.)

I think M. Matos put one of those Syllart comps on his best-of list for the year. They do look tempting.

Phil & Matt
A couple of those Globalfest acts are coming down to DC -Sara Tavares and Boom Pam are both doing free 6 p.m. shows at the Kennedy Center (your tax dollars and a contribution from Target at work!). Haven't decided whether I'll hurry out of work in Virginia and get in town to see 'em.

And Joe Zawinul's "revisit"-ation ("for the first time") of "Weather Report classics" on his new 2-CD Brown Street features some intriguing salsa interpolations in the title track and "Carnavalito" and maybe "Black Market", but not enough of them, and they're not compelling enough to get me interested in the rest of the album, which is generally pleasant nonetheless, and does make me think I should investigate Weather Report sometime. (I never have before.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/arts/music/23glob.html

I think I missed Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, one of the groups he wrote about, when they came to DC one year. They intrigue me.

I saw Sarah Tavares in DC last night (whom Pareles briefly mentions). She's Cape Verdian but grew up in Portugal. She was backed by a drummer who sometimes used brushes jazz-style, an electric guitarist, and a bass player. They were all sitting (except for the encore) and sometimes when she strummed her acoustic guitar they sounded too American-bland folky. However in a fair amount of the set she sang gorgeous Portuguese or Criolla melodies, chirped like a bird, and added some oomph to her voice.

It's also chock full of stuff that most reggae fans already have. :(

Irie Reggae: Best Of Dancehall (Time/Life '06): 0 duplications
Rasta Jamz (Razor & Tie '03): O duplications
Reggae Floorfillers (Music Club '03): 0
Roots Of Reggae: Rocksteady (Rhino, '96): 0
Roots Of Reggae: Ska (Rhino, '96): 0
Run It Red: Mick Hucknall Selects From 10 Years Of Blood And Fire Classics (Blood and Fire '05): 0
Select Cuts From Blood and Fire (Blood and Fire '00): 0, unless a Transglobal Underground dub of "Fisherman" counts
Select Cuts From Blood and Fire: Chapter Two (Blood and Fire '01): 0
Souled On Reggae (Music Club, '99): 0
Studio One Disco Mix (Soul Jazz, '04): 0
Sudio One: Nice Up The Dance (Heartbeat, '01): 0
This Is Crucial Reggae: DJs (Trojan, '05): 0
This Is Crucial Reggae: Rocksteady (Trojan, '05): 0

So yeah, unless I misplaced something, the new compilation doesn't seem redundant at all in my house.

(Matt, you should check out the articles I cut-n-pasted for clues on the way politics plays out in Cuban music in the US, if you are still interested.)

Ha Aqablu Bukra http://www.emusic.com/album/10607/10607239.html
Nagh el borda http://www.emusic.com/album/10978/10978902.html
Oulida Elhoura (la naissance du Prophète) http://www.emusic.com/album/10978/10978906.html

so along the same lines, if i was gonna really actually BUY an album (i.e. not emusic), what would be the best introduction and/or overview? i've looked at her discography before and it's kind of incomprehensible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTWAOkCwAQg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBzx_PCdEFI

Also, we should put together an ilx whirled contingent and go to the Festival in the Desert next year.

Maybe you didn't know that this is Moreno Veloso's democratically named trio? So there's star power, which might explain the enthusiasm. First album was by Moreno + 2 and was fab, the second (which came out a few years ago) by Domenico + 2 and was pretty uneven, some fun tracks and a few colossal duds; sorry to hear the new one is producing snores, I was looking forward to it. These guys have played on a few recent Caetano Veloso albums as well.

I don't know which Caetano Veloso greatest hits you had, but I think it's unfair to call him "detached and clinical." Sure, he's an intellectual, but much of his stuff is warm and passionate--if there's something about his voice that rubs you wrong I suppose that would do it. A Arte de is a terrific greatest hits (only goes up to the early 70s I think), hard to imagine someone just shrugging their shoulders after hearing it. I heard the new one and my reaction was that yes, he's trying to rock out, and it wasn't that great an idea. Might be some good tracks in there hidden by the surrounding mediocrity.

it is definitely more nervy, simple, and dry--a really basic guitar effect constitutes an elaborate arrangement. the way i hear it, that makes less competition for his voice and, when they're there, his tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hArUiFv2FaY

He [Caetano] has always tended to strike me as detached and clininal, and coldly academic.

his [Arto Lindsay's] subsequent solo LPs sounded increasingly cold and academic and detached and timid and tepid

Afropop.com-Afropop's 2007 Spring HOT PICKS!(I wonder who Juju Duarte is?)

Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca, “Isabella” (Congo)
Spanish Harlem Orchestra, “United We Swing” (U.S.A.)
Lura, “M’bem Di Fora” (Cape Verde)
Vusi Mahlasela, “Guiding Star” (South Africa)
Angelique Kidjo, “Djin Djin” (Benin)
Various Artists, “Bokoor Beats” (Nigeria)
Juju Duarte, “Da Rua Dos Ossos” (Brazil)

That Spanish Harlem Orchestra is mediocre, at best. There is no oomph to their salsa. Ironically, I don't feel any swing in most of those songs. I don't know what's going on in New York, but I think something has been lost. "Hardcore salseros" put down the commercial salsa of Puerto Rico and Colombia, but overall, those remain the most reliable sources for the music. (Some of the good stuff is commercially oriented, some of it is a bit more underground.) I might be willing to let SHO slide more, if they didn't go around acting as if they are the ambassadors of salsa, not to mention going under the ridiculous slogan: "the best band in the world." It's just embarrassing.

Someone's busy marketing SHO (as I think you mentioned)to the hip gringos. In the Fall Arts schedule for the University of Maryland that just came in the mail, I see that SHO are gonna be there. They haven't had a salsa-related show since I saw Larry Harlow there 2 or 3 years ago.

I have rekindled my obsession with Japanese singer UA. She's sort of Björk + Yoko + gamelan + free jazz; I first heard her when Fluxblog posted a song from her 2004 CD Sun, and immediately headed to Kinokuniya (Japanese book/CD/DVD store in Rockefeller Center) to buy that disc and its predecessor, 2002's Dorobou. This weekend I was back in that neighborhood, and grabbed a 2CD 2003 live album, Sora No Koya (which unsurprisingly features a lot of Dorobou songs) and her 2005 studio disc, Breathe, on which she sings the first song - and maybe more, but I haven't listened to the whole thing yet - in English. Decent English, too; doesn't sound like she learned the lyrics phonetically, word-by-word, the way J-pop singers sometimes do. I recommend her stuff highly. I think there might be a new album this year - she's just put out a new single in Japan.

Shiina Ringo owns my J-pop heart, but I've heard good things about UA.

From Japan to Africa...

Me quizzing Matt of the now Paris-based Benn Loxo du Tacu blog:

curm Says:
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:44 am
Are there any young guitar-playing highlife (or some more modern variation) bands from Ghana or is this just a great approach from the past?

Matt Yanchyshyn Says:
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Good question. To be honest I don’t know much about contemporary Ghana, but I doubt it. I imagine it’s like old-style Congolese rumba or afrolatin Senegalese music- something your grandparents listened to.

If someone knows more, I’m happy to be wrong on this one…

Matt

http://bennloxo.com/

Meanwhile in Nigeria:

Nigeria: Musicians Mourn Osadebe

Daily Champion (Lagos)

Posted to the web 16 May 2007

Alphonsus Nweze
Onitsha

The demise of high life maestro, Chief Stephen Osadebe in far away United States of America has thrown musicians and ardent followers of his music into mourning mood, with the chairman Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN), Anambra State chapter, Chief Morocco Maduka describing it a as shocking and sad.

Chief Maduka said the Anambra musicians were pained at the death of Chief Osadebe, who he said was a musical legend and a trail-blazer whose shoes will be difficult to step into.

"We have lost our father, I am not myself since I heard about his death. Osadebe was a pace-setter, a trial-blazer whose music spanned over decades. He raised the standard of high life music in Nigeria to what it is today. He took music to a greater height especially among the Igbo" said Chief Maduka.

Chief Maduka who himself is the leader of the Prince Morocco Maduka and His Minstrels, said that the death of Osadebe was confirmed on Monday by Osadebe's son, Obiajulu.

Following the death of Osadebe, Maduka said the Anambra musicians held a meeting in Onitsha yesterday to formally brief musicians in the state and inform the National Secretariat of PMAN as well as prepare for the burial anytime the family fixes a date.

Maduka said that Chief Osadebe will ever be remembered by his colleagues, musicians and ardent listeners of his music as one person who have made success out of music unlike his predecessors who were regarded as "failures".

He then called on Anambra State government to use this opportunity not only to immortalize the king of high life but also participate effectively in his burial programmes.

Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe who hails from Atani in Ogbaru local government area of Anambra State died on May 11 2007 at the age of 71. He was the leader of Sound Makers International Band, a group he used to propagate the gospel of high life. Some of his hits included Iline n' Agadi Nwanyi (vegetable and old woman), Makojo (No matter how bad), Osondi Owendi (Some rejoice, some cry), Onuigbo, Ogazi and a host of others.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705160715.html

the sound of young Ghana is hiplife music

http://www.ghanamusic.com/modules/soapbox/article.php?articleID=205

There's more about highlife and hiplife at the benn loxo blog

'Tis wot I'mmma a-listenin' today:

The Shin (Georgia, as in Caucasus) (tho' actually residing in Germany, most of them) - CD EgAri, 2006 JARO
Niyaz - Niyaz, 2005 Six Degrees
Dona Rosa - Segredos (fado, 'tis is), 2002 JARO

-- Are they "teh world!"? Are they "teh children!"? Aah, I dunno.

B-b-b-but!t!t!! - They be rather good. Mostly-ish.

Anyone heard the new Pharaoh's Daughter album? It's quite good. Better than the debut, even.

On the other 'rolling' threads more folks seem to discuss the same songs and albums, but on this one that happens less so because we're all mostly interested in different uh 'whirled' stuff...So, I have not heard the new Pharoah's Daughter...

I dug out the one cd by the late Chief Stephen Osadebe I have and listened to it as my tribute to his passing (to be honest I had not played it in years but recalled liking it). I love those old Ghanian big-band highlife efforts with the guitar grooves that just roll on. I need to play it some more.

Well... I recommend it. Lemmi try to describe it. She (Basya Schechter) sings in Hebrew, Aramaic and Ladino over mostly Middle Eastern influenced music. And it's quite gorgeous.

Archival Cuban music footage on youtube:

PART 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDytmMp--vo
PART 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4hPaEtdPW8
PART 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_qZbkHZkU
PART 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uiMJXwHq8I
PART 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EeDUg8sZtE
PART 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQtijrYrr7U
PART 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdBySafop7E
PART 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWmxFruCDo
PART 9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2lO-aSHeY

You will have to cut and paste, 'cause I can't be arsed to turn those into links.

Oh, I guess we have that feature back, never mind.

Cool. Just checked out one so far. Does older Cuban historic stuff interest you more than more recent Cuban music?

I'm just posting them for their rarity and potential interest to others.

I actually think George Wassouf sounds okay here, but maybe I'm just being nostalgic tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQYEyRAalSg

One of the Egyptian songs Rachid Taha coverd on his last album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owhNLJy4-1w

Thanks for those clips Rockist, they have made my night here at work. This guy is the real deal. Any recs for a beginner in this area ?

I was looking for clips of Samira Toufic, but all I found was this (gay?) comedian in drag doing an impersonation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CcHnjQ9lI

Recommendations? I usually recommend the more canonical stuff, because that tends to be what I prefer, really, but some of that took a while for me to get into. Also, as far as the George Wassouf things I have, the best stuff is on cassette and I'm not sure if it's all made it onto CD, etc. Maybe I will come back later and post some recommendations.

I'm not really big on Warda any more, but this is one of my favorite Warda songs (although not necessarily this particular recording--I can't tell for sure, since it's starting in the middle sort of):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_m0d7rjXk0

The live version I like doesn't seem to be available on CD, at least not from online distributors I've checked.

(Damn, they just edited out a great instrumental passage.)

I guess I should be putting these on one of my Arabic music threads.

Gracias. For now I'm bookmarking those youtube clips.

I'm going to respond to your request for recommendations, on the Arabic music thread. Also, check your e-mail in about a half hour.

In relation to my discussion many posts above and at Matt's Benn loxo blog, here's an excerpt from an A. Gurz piece RS posted on the reggaeton, salsa thread and my respond on that thread:

A Gurza excerpt: "That musical indifference is killing salsa as an art form, at least in the U.S. It was great to see so many young and sexy people still coming from all across the world for the congress. But what's going to happen when the great salsa bands of the Ponceña's brilliant generation begin to die off, with few young groups to take their place?"

The great salsa bands are dying off, as are the great african bands, but I do not blame hardcore dancers like Gurza does for the status of the genre's vitality as an art form. I blame/attribute technological changes, musical changes, lack of access to old-school instruments and training, socio-economic and political issues, and globalism.

http://magicofjuju.blogspot.com/index.html

middle-eastern, asian, african and more on this blog

The Studio One 12's collection on that blog is awesome.

I only glanced at that posting on the blog, intending to come back to it. I guess I need to get to it pronto.

I hope some of the folks appearing at the Montreal Jazz & Whirled Fest (or whatever it is called ) come down my way (see excerpts from press release below):

This year, festival-goers will be treated to the Seun Kuti: Afrobeat party with over 20 musicians and dancers (Tuesday, July 3, 9:30 p.m.). The Festival dedicates this event to Fela Kuti, who passed away ten years ago. ... the Festival ... brings the curtain down with a great closing party: an Arabian Night with Rachid Taha and special guests (Sunday, July 8, 9 p.m.). This series of free mega-concerts will kick-off with a rhythmic and colourful concert blowout, Brazilian carnival bash with Carlinhos Brown (Thursday, June 28, 9 p.m.).

Consider Montreal's Lorraine Klaasen, performing with musicians from her native South Africa and recipient of a SOBA (Sounds of Blackness Award) in April for her 20-year career; Forro in the Dark, firing vintage Brazilian sounds through the prism of today's New York; Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective, from Belize, whose leader is considered a master of punta rock, the Afro-Amerindian dance music of the Garifuna people, whose culture is faced with extinction; and Mahmoud Ahmed, one of Ethiopia's greatest legends, whose powerful, spellbinding voice and dizzying eskita dance promise a unique and thrilling evening

Central Park in NY gets lots of acts too

Reading the dancehall thread discussion of the various Ragga Ragga Ragga compilations has me wishing there were labels in every country compiling collections of singles/songs (although I know that most places don't have as many records/songs issued as Jamaica) and making 'em more easily available to all around the world. Yea, it would not be as cool and obscure as that Awesome Tapes from Africa blogger guy getting a bootleg from a friend visiting Ghana or the Congo, but for the rest of us busy diletantes without lots of time to dig for stuff it would be nice (and nice for the artists).

Meanwhile the latest issue of the Beat magazine is out with lots of coverage of great old folks and their latest cds or retrospectives: Papa Noel, 30th aniversary reissue of Culture's 2 7s Clash, the Colombia Disco Fuentes comp; and of course Bob Marley. There's a bit of coverage of younger Congolese and Jamaican performers as well...

Jason Cherkis and Brent Burton from the Washington City Paper have a couple of interesting articles out about the Yalla Yalla label, a subset of Drag City run by Jack Carneal that is taking a Sublime Frequencies type approach to rural Malian music.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1775

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1734

The mp3s of the Yaala Yaala stuff I heard reminded me of the lesser-known traditional Malian musicians the Smithsonian Folklife Festival folks brought to the national mall in DC a few years ago. So to my ears, it's not quite as different sounding as it is to folks who have only heard a well-recorded Ali Farka Toure cd. I still decided to order a compilation from Drag City. Yea, it's good the guy is gonna give back some of the profits he makes to rural Malian musicians, and I understand he says some of the musicians would not give him their names (but all of them not doing so on the compilation? I find that hard to believe).

some bloggers have been on this Yaala Yaala stuff since May.

from the rolling metal thread (let's start a fight!):

"Bondallica" by Bonde Do Role = Brazilian favela booty beats + heavy metal guitars (maybe a first?)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:03 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Note to other thread denizens: being first could mean that other folks had the idea and rejected it because, you know, it's a bad idea. (Bonde Do Role is a bad idea, period. Do not believe the hype. They suck, suck, suck. Hipster art students are no smarter for coming out of Brazilian art school.)

-- unperson, Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:15 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

-----------------------------------------------------Phil, where exactly do you hear "hipster art student" in their sound? I'm really curious. (I was kind of skeptical, but I haven't paid enough attention to their bio to know what kind of students they are. And besides, hipster art students have made plenty of fine music over the years.) Anyway, they sound perfectly catchy to me -- I also really like the song where they say "Afrika Bambaataa" over and over again (that'd be "Gasolina," though not the Daddy Yankee one) and the one with the spy movie guitar riff that's called "James Bonde" (though people who have no interest in Brazilian booty-funk pop, appropriated by white Brazilian suburban kids or otherwise, should feel free to steer clear.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:27 AM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

(Actually I may be totally wrong about the "white" and "suburban" adjectives. Maybe I read that somewhere? Going by only the photo on the CD cover, it's pretty hard to tell, one way or the other. I assume class and race come into their equation somehow -- i.e., they didn't invent favela booty beats -- just not sure how they make the music worse. It's not like the music sounds reigned in. Just the opposite; it sounds totally effervescent.)

I have not heard 'em yet just know that Diplo discovered them and they're getting mentioned on MTV. I just checked their myspace site and they do appear to be (oh no!) white art-rock students(cutesy clever mixing of favela beats, pop, metal guitars) which does not make them automatically lousy (although it is unfortunate that middle-class white kids using favela beats get more media attention and marketing than poor favela kids). I see that Jess Harvell reviewed them favorably for Pitchfork though they got only a 6.5:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/43370-with-lasers

Chuck, maybe you should have found one of those baile funk threads to post the 'Bonde de Role' thing on. Most current readers of ILX only seem to want to read international threads that have "sublime Frequencies" in the thread title or have some other au courant dance or hiphop rooted style in the title. Oh well. But it's also the weekend so maybe on Monday someone else will pick up on this. Or maybe Bode de Role just isn't worth chatting about!

i haz not heard them, I am too busy listening to smoothed-out yet awesome brazilian jazz: mario adnet's "jobim jazz" is great, and his sister muiza's album "sings moacir santos" is even better.

more metal thread Bonde De Rolle wranglin':

I know their background because we ran an article on them because my co-editor is enraptured by them. (Our tastes don't cross hardly at all; he loves all the Pitchfork-friendly indie/hipster/all-genres-in-the-big-blender-in-the-sky world music stuff, especially when it's made by sexxxy college kidz. Me, I like Latin music, and metal with ethnic instruments, and furrowed-brow electronic experiments by people from foreign countries, and crazed reissues.)

-- unperson, Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:46 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

....lots of metal (from Pig Destroyer to most "metal with ethnic instruments" obviously -- hey, have you checked out that cdbaby band from Iran I linked to above yet?) does basically sound like a hipster art project these days, so I'll be damned if I can tell how that's even an issue. "Furrowed-brow electronic experiments by people from foreign countries" would seem to fit into this category too, generally. Just because the artsters are young and cute doesn't mean they're necessarily worse than if they're old and ugly, for crissakes. (And hell, "all-genres-in-the-big-blender-in-the-sky world music" would include plenty of rock en espanol stuff you like, wouldn't it? And "Tieta" by Bonde De Rolle -- which, a few years ago, would have just been called rock en espanol -- is livelier and less drowned in artsy detachment than anything I've heard by Cafe Tacuba since their debut. But whatever.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, June 17, 2007 4:34 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Said Iranian metalers:

And oh yeah, just remembered these guys -- hard distorted instrumental prog-metal from Iran, of all places. Not gonna claim I can tell all the songs apart yet (instrumentals are like that), but tracks like "Excuse (Who Endures)" and "Route (Who Dazzles)" and especically "Splendour of Death (Who Resurrects)" do give the prog a definite rhythmic shape -- Jazz-fusion-like, I guess. New agey spy-movie rumbles like "Jocker (Who Wanders)" don't grab me as much, but I bet they contain at least as much Middle Eastern influence as the new Nile album will:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/arashk

-- xhuxk, Sunday, June 3, 2007 2:18 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

Wound up with mixed feelings about that Abrahadabra album of instrumental prog-metal by that Iranian band Arashk. They're good when their groove and guitars move closer to dancey pyschedelic rock in "Excuse" and "Splendour" (both of which also come with actual tunes attached), and the drums underneath manage a good Killing Joke/jazz-fusion rumble, but too often the seem too noodly and lose the plot. Who knows, maybe fans of '80s King Crimson stuff would like them more than I do; there are probably other old prog and fusion antecendents I'm totally missing, too. Album would be better with vocals to grab on to (as long as they didn't suck).

-- xhuxk, Friday, June 8, 2007 1:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

I'm missing Bollywood composer A.R. Rahman at the Patriot Center outside DC tonight. Gonna see Manu Chao next weekend, and maybe see the DC Caribbean Carnival and a related soca show.

Iranian instrumental prog-metal...My loss I guess, but I don't even listen to American prog-metal, with or without vocals.

But Chuck probably doesn't care about some of the stuff I like. I'm gonna go see Manu Chao this weekend and try to see the DC Caribbean Carnival parade Saturday afternoon with the awesome costumes and booming soca sound systems. There's so much international music in DC this weekend that interests me:

DJ Rekha (Bhangra) with Haale at Black Cat

"Til Morning Come", DC Carnival Fete, Featuring
Iwer George, Bunji Garlin, Talpree, Biggie Irie, Fay Ann
Crosovah, Backed By XChange Band. Plus MC Wassy
@ The Galleria, 21 & M Streets NW Washington DC—an awesome soca bill
for DC Carnival Weekend

Cesaria Evora (Cape Verde), Seu Jorge (Brazil) at Wolf Trap

Ahwach Troup (Berber folk from Morocco)at Kenn Ctr Millennium Stage
6pm Free www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium

Machel Montano @ The Broadwater Estate, 4205 Chain Highway (Rte 301)
Upper Marlboro, MD Great soca, r'n'b and more performer and band
klimaxxent.com

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires at Zanzibar On the Waterfront SW
(veteran Jamaica soca band)

Elephant Man at the Crossroads

Baltimore City Latino Fest with Larry Harlow & the Latin Legends

Ivy Queen is coming too, but I'm not that crazy about her reggaeton sound (her voice kinda bugs me sometimes).

Colombian accordion-led vallenato music July 6th in Maryland outside DC-Jorge Celedon, Jimmy Zambrano and band...SOme of their videos on youtube are sappy while others rock

"Tieta" by Bonde De Rolle -- which, a few years ago, would have just been called rock en espanol -- is livelier and less drowned in artsy detachment than anything I've heard by Cafe Tacuba since their debut.

So I realized that the reason said song sounds "rock en espanol" to me is because it appropriates what I take (maybe wrongly) to be African highlife-style guitars, in the way Maldita Vecindad (and probably Chico Science, Desorden Publico, etc.) used to do sometimes. Anyway, it's one of my favorite tracks. The James Bond track turns out to be way too kitsch, though; the Afrika Bambaataa "Gasolina" sorta leans in that direction too. But I love the "Planet Rock" synths in "Quero Te Amar," and somehow, the gang shouts make "Office Boy" just cute enough, with what's her name's off-key vocal. There are crazy, energetic beats and hooks all over this album. I can see why an idea that basically adds up to "CSS doing rio baile funk" might irk indie-rock haters (a group that frequently includes me), but in general the music sounds way more fun in reality than on paper.

I missed all the good live music Friday night in the DC area. Gonna see Bebel Gilberto and Manu Chao Saturday night though.

If I want to see Bebel though I have to get there early and then endure several Thievery Corporation associated djs and Theivery themselves before Chao. Maybe they'll all be good. I wonder about the gig location--I'm guessing there's no way they'll all fill big outdoor pavilion with lawn shed Merriwether Post Pavilion. I think Chao played smaller locations in Chicago and Detroit (though he also did the Coachella and Bonnaroo festivals and is gonna do Lollapalooza in Chicago)

Thievery Corporation isn't so bad, although seeing them live could be snooze-inducing.

(They seem more like something to listen to when you are hybernating at home.)

Live they supposedly bring extra musicians with them so that may keep things interesting.

Mexican mariachi singer and actor Antonio Aguilar, who recorded more than 150 albums and began his acting career during Mexico's "Golden Era" of cinema, has died in Mexico City. He was 88.

Aguilar died late Tuesday after a long fight with pneumonia, Medica Sur hospital spokeswoman Shere Sanchez said.

Born in the northern state of Zacatecas, Aguilar recorded with his traditional mariachi group for 50 years and sold more than 25 million records. His hit songs include "Triste Recuerdo," "Albur de Amor," "Gabino Barrera" and "Puno de Tierra."

He appeared in 167 films, including "The Undefeated" starring John Wayne.

In 2000, he got a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Aguilar's son, singer Pepe Aguilar, is also one of Mexico's best-known performers and has been nominated for a Latin Grammy six times.

The elder Aguilar was the first Mexican artist to mix concerts with rodeos in shows that featured his actress-singer wife, Flor Silvestre, his two children and dancing horses. In the 1970s, he took his show to major cities in the United States and Latin America.

"Antonio was the one to open doors for us in the United States and in Latin America with his great show," said ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez.

"I love to be in the USA," he told hundreds of fans who gathered for the occasion. "This is one of the most important episodes of my life. I never expected this."

Associated Press article from Wednesday June 20th

I have seen Thievery many times and live they are completely different animal than what you hear on record. They actually play a decent live show, not ecstatic, but competent and non snooze inducing. BTW Rockist I have really been enjoying that mix you sent me and plan on sending you more reflections on it later. Shame about Aguilar, he was a great singer, up there with Javier Soliz and Jose Alfredo Jimenez.

I'll post more about the show later. I don't know much about Mexican mariachi singers, but Aguilar's passing surely seemed like big news(at least on the Spanish tv channel and among recent immigrant workers).

Thievery's live show seemed livelier than what I've heard from on cd. They kept bringing out different vocalists for different songs--a Brazilian woman, Jamaican dancehall toasters, and Indian woman, etc. Some of the songs were good but other times it just seemed too worldbeat cliched--stick a disco-like beat under a sitar to make it more palatable. I loved those various rap songs a few years ago that sampled bhangra beats, but Thievery's approach to incorporating ethnic styles is not always so successful to me. Most folks there enjoyed it though.

http://myspace.com/vampireweekend

Preppie Afro-Pop and Other Odd Blends
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/arts/music/18vamp.html?ref=music"> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/arts/music/18vamp.html?ref=music
By KELEFA SANNEH

...The band members all attended Columbia (online they claim to be specialists in “Upper West Side Soweto,” among other styles), and something about their preppie, polyrhythmic sound feels fresh and funny and, weirdly, inevitable. Instead of borrowing from early Talking Heads albums (the way Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and many other bands have done), they’re borrowing from Afro-pop, just as Talking Heads did on later albums. In retrospect it’s a brilliantly well-timed approach.
...Even without an album Vampire Weekend has made one of the year’s most impressive debuts.

Sorry Kelefa, but sounding this much like Paul Simon circa Graceland
does not wow me (I like the song title "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" though). Although ever since that Talking Head late period album recorded in Paris (Naked?) I have always hoped to hear rock musicians incorporate African guitar stylings.

There's an old soukous song called "Kwassa Kwassa" that I love.

I bought that Yaala Yaala/Drag City cd of Malian music that's like a Sublime Frequency effort. The music sounds good so far though the recording quality is bad and there's little to no information on who you are listening to. I've seen some reviews suggest that this Yaala Yaala label stuff is somehow more raw and visceral than the Malian music most Westerners are exposed to--but as I mentioned upthread--it doesn't sound that different to me than the sounds I heard at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the national mall in DC a few years back when Mali was a featured country.

Speaking of the Folklife Festival--it starts this year on Wednesday with three regions highlighted--Ireland; the Mekong River countries; and "The Roots of Virginia" (that is everything from banjo and old-timey folk to African sounds)

The Yaala Yaala stuff sounds good to me -- the kinda crappy sound quality becomes less noticeable the more you listen. But I agree, it'd be nice to have at least a little more information on the performers, songs, etc. Like the Dagouda Dembele one is a 40+ minute story (with musical backing) but I have no idea what the story is about. Sweet riff, though.

Currently listening to: Kenge Kenge, Introducing Kenge Kenge. This is what I hoped Konono No. 1 would be. Fantastic, stomping stuff from Kenya.

I like Kenyan Benga music (the little I have heard). I will have to look for this.

I'm reviewing Kenge Kenge at the moment; I like it in little doses but the album is not varied enough for me to take in at one sitting.

I'm gonna throw that mini-review in with a mess of other albums likely including Budos Band, Bokoor Beats, the Anoushka Shankar / Karsh Kale album, the Rough Guide to Vietnam and possibly a couple of others. Maybe I'll throw in Collie Buddz if I'm in a bad mood.

I want the Bokoor Beats one

The Anoushka/Karsh thing is weirder than I expected. I like a lot of it. Not the parts with Sting, of course.

from rolling country:

Playing new Gogol Bordello now; sounds really good, and I was under the impression that they'd started to spin their wheels. Maybe not, or maybe they're just spinning them so fast and drunkenly that I don't mind. Favorites so far include "Wonderlust Kids," "Alcohol," "American Wedding" (Eugene Hutz seems perplexed by crazy American tradition of having to get up so early to prepare) and twirling dervish East-European instrumental "Super Taranta!" I'm still waiting for a Borat collaboration, however.

...Ha, Eugene Hutz and his handlebar mustache singing about "My Strange Uncles From Abroad" on now, neato!

I'm listening to Dobet Gnahore from the Ivory Coast. She's got an impressive voice--lots of range--but the songwriting and rhythms on Na Afriki do not always do her vocals justice. Some of the songs work while others are too artsy-African-folky without distinctive enough melodies or rhythms.

I still need to check out the Sounds from the Mekong, and the African roots of Virginia music at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the national mall through Sunday. I'm less interested in the traditional Northern Ireland music though if you like such styles it's an impressive roster.

Unperson, did you see Seun Kuti and the Africa 70 band in NY? This son of Fela got a rave review in Chicago by Pete Margasak on his blog. Seun only did a 5 city US tour and just has a 12" single available in the US apparently. The Chicago writer/blogger said Seun is more afrobeat than Femi (and he likes him better than Femi).

I didn't go, but I think one of my writers might have gone. I'm gonna e-mail the label, see if somebody'll burn me a CD-R of the 12". I'm not surprised Seun is "more Afrobeat than Femi," given that he's basically doing a Frank Sinatra, Jr. thing by fronting Egypt 80.

Saturday for free in DC:

Flower Lantern Troupe (Yunnan, China)

Cambodian Music- Ting Mong masked dance procession; chapei epic singing; wedding music ensemble

Yunnan performing artists- Pumi singer, Dai gourd pipe artists; Tibetan and Lisu ensemble

Kylin (lion) performance with drumming (Vietnam)

Pong Lang music ensemble (Northeast Thailand)

The 8th Annual Latin Alternative Music Conference returns to New York City, taking place July 10-14, 2007. As in past years, LAMC features panels and exhibitions, concerts, parties and art highlighting the best of Latin Alternative.
July 10 - 14, 2007 New York, NY No registration slots left but there are a couple free shows: a Central Park Summer Stage concert on Saturday, July 14th with Mexican rockers Café Tacuba, The Bronx’s bilingual trip-hop/funk collective Pacha Massive, and up-and-coming Puerto Rican rapper La Sista. LAMC’s annual concert at Celebrate Brooklyn on Friday, July 13th in Prospect Park will feature Zoé, Chetes and The Pinker Tones.

More from country thread:

New Gogol Bordello album just sounds better and better -- possibly even their best ever, and I've been listening to them since the beginning, when they were on Rubric Records or whatever it was called and Eugene Hutz was cosack-dance deejaying until the wee wee hours at the Bulgarian Bar 416 B.C. on the corner of Broadway and Canal every Saturday night. Or maybe I just never listened close enough the songwriting on their earlier albums? More likely, he's either his writing or the way he puts songs together or both have gotten more coherent -- I just don't remember ever connecting with so many of his words before, and it doesn't seem like it's because he's wimping out singer-songerwriter stylesky or anything. First line of opening song starts "there were never any good old days," and the rest fulfills the promise and the Ukraine-rock stomp rarely lets up: song about woman wanting to be a model ("Zina-Marina"), song about not reading the bible ("Super Theory of Super Everything"), more or less self-explanatory "Harem in Tuscan," "Forces of Victory" which appears to be Gogol Bordello's idea of mythic pomp-and-circumstance viking-style metal, "Your Country" which gets its funk from "Tramped Under Foot" by Led Zeppelin and tells how your country will go down the tubes like all the other countries (sounded excellent on 4th of July!), "American Wedding" which turns out not to be about getting up early to prepare as suggested above but it's 1 a.m. and people are still on the dancefloor staring at their shoes even though they have to get up early the next morning and "she has a boyfriend" though Hutz never says who "she" is (the bride? one of the bridesmaids) and either way it's just a notch or two lower on the wedding-song ladder than "You Never Can Tell" by Chuck Berry or "I Knew the Bride" by Nick Lowe. And otherwise the more I listen, the more I'm hearing.

-- xhuxk, Saturday, July 7, 2007 4:22 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Lotsa typos as usual in my previous (Bin Laden, Tuscany, listen close enough TO , extra he's, etc.)

Anyway, I'm not saying there are no comparative slow spots (not necessarily tempo-wise -- "Alcohol" is slow and good) on the new Gogol, and remember I can tend toward hyperbole in such raves, so caveat emptor as usual. But I can't think of a previous Bordello LP (not even the Tamir Muskat J.U.F. dub one, though perhaps I should go back and check that out again) that had a shot at my top ten, and right now this new collection of back-in-the-U.S.S.R. two-beat oompah-rock fiddler-on-the-rye Balkan-beat gypsy-punk tanz party muzik sure does. Honestly, this is how Tom Waits would sound if he was any good. Also better than any Legendary Shack Shakers album I've ever heard, for what that's worth. Also, I left out that there are lyrics about pickled herring and "scarecrows in hometowns."

-- xhuxk, Saturday, July 7, 2007 7:14 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Don Allred on same thread:

so Jewish Ukraine Gypsybillies are true Rolling Country you betsky
-- dow, Wednesday, July 4, 2007 9:47 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

"Jewish etc": that is, Gogol Bordello, to those who haven't checked 'em out--do so!
-- dow, Wednesday, July 4, 2007 9:51 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

Gogol made my Top Tens a couple times, but Tamil Muskat Vs. J.U.F. was half brilliant, half slack (the drummer suddenly remembered he was from a band called Big Lazy). Can def see how Eugene's J.U.F. subsets made for reportedly killer "interludes" in the midst of Gogol gigs, and this is still an EPworth of greatness. --
dow, Saturday, July 7, 2007 7:59 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Some interesting stuff here http://www.deenport.com/subsections/__mp3/index.php

Cool. In other parts of the world...

The Cambodian Ray Charles rules. Kong Nay's name is spelled multiple different ways in English but his Cambodain lute playing and singing wowed me live over the weekend. The Vietnamese barrel drummers were great too.

'Sounds of the Mekong,' With a Lot to See

Monday, July 9, 2007; C08 Washington Post Style section

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival's Saturday night concert at the Nine Dragons Stage was billed as "Sounds of the Mekong," but dance played nearly as much of a role as the music. The show, a two-hour sampler of Asian rural traditions, challenged Western sensibilities at times, but also offered exhilarating, universally pleasing sequences.

The Flower Lantern Troupe, a company of women and men from China's southwest Yunnan region, opened the evening moving like Chinese square dancers, yet ended their number with the eight women dancers standing on benches spinning yellow cloth suns like a Cirque de Soleil act. Gongs, cymbals, and conga-like drums announced the appearance of the Cambodian Ting Mong procession -- dancers inside large puppet-head "scarecrows."

Blind musician Kong Nay is called the Cambodian Ray Charles because of his wrap-around shades, but this impressive lute player has more in common musically with Southern blues guitarists than pianists. Nay alternated speedy fingerwork with gruff-voiced vocals.

Yunnan gourd flute master Gen Dequan offered stretched tones and an unusual compositional meter. Other artists offered non-Western styles with vocals alone. Rongba Xinna, a cowboy-hatted Pumi Chinese vocalist, displayed her booming "calling out over the mountain range" voice while dramatically twirling her skirt. Shangri-La, a quartet made up of two Tibetan and two Lisu Chinese musicians, belted loud Asian barbershop-style harmonies with choreographed boot-stomping dance moves.

The Pong Lang Music Ensemble, made up of Thai college students, is expert at rural Thai music. Using a curved xylophone with tree log keys, bamboo mouth organs, a Thai lute, cymbals, and a conga-like drum, the group created a rhythmic backdrop for dancers with intricate hand movements, as well as a frenetic pantomimed kickboxing match.

The evening ended energetically with Vietnamese Kylin dancing and drumming. Two mythical tigerlike creatures, similar to those seen in Chinese New Year parades, prowled up and down the aisles and did gymnastic feats onstage. The dancers then joined the drummers for a powerful display of precision percussion, using clanging cymbals and massive three-foot-high and -wide drums hit with thick wooden sticks.

So is it true Gogol Bordello backed Madonna on a version of "La Isla Bonita" at that Live Earth thing?

yup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV3An4Y_xYE

I'm curious who was at the Live Earth show in South African and the ones in various non-English language countries(Brazil, China, Japan). On the Live Earth thread someone else and me raved about a Soweto drum and gospel group (whom Bravo briefly showed), and I saw a photo at the NY Times arts beat blog site of Baaba Maal at the South African one. Jon Pareles of the NY Times was not too crazy about what he saw or heard on cable or broadband from the China or Japan shows.

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc.
Too late to see the Gogols with Madonna

I was at the gym yesterday and heard the Beyonce/Shakira collaboration "Beautiful Liar." A bigger dose of Arabic music (toward the end) than anything I'm aware of that's been on the charts for a while. (Safe prediction: this song will be very big in the Middle East.) It's not bad, although I just don't care for Shakira's vocal mannerisms.

(Okay, looks like this is not so new, but at least it's 2007, which is not bad for me. Usually it would take me a couple years to hear something like this for the first time.)

I always forget that Shakira is part Lebanese.

Anybody know much about Moroccan oud player Haj Youness?

bump

Anybody have some 2007 African, Caribbean, Latin, or Brazilian recommendations for me?

Alright, I'm gonna check out some samples from stuff recommended in the new Beat Magazine and decide from there---Ricardo Lemvo, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International(Chicago based band), Authenticite-the Syliphone Years 1965-1980(Stern's)[saw this music from Guinea collection on a recent visit to NYC at Other Music but did not buy it], Jose Conde y Ola Fresca, Andy Palacio, Soca Gold 2007, and Bokoor Beats

Any thoughts?

Gnawa Home Songs got a good write up in Songlines. It brings together a gnawa super-group, but strips away the usual clattery percussion (which is great live, but tends to overwhelm recordings). Also, the songs apparently aren't allowed to sprawl as they would at an actual live event, which probably makes sense for a recording. I love this stuff live (well, Hassan Hakmoun, the only example I've seen), but it usually doesn't come across well in recorded form, so making some adjustments for a CD seems smart.

(Check out the Apple computer logo in the background.)

the carlinhos brown record is lush but kind of boring, i have to say

Check out the self-titled Kenge Kenge CD on World Music Network. They're from Kenya, and they play something benga-ish but entirely acoustic and more primitive, all drums and flutes and violins. Great, great stuff.

curmudgeon seen this? http://www.alihassanonline.com/english/index.php?pid=musicen

No, I had not. That's cool.

http://www.alihassanonline.com/molsystemadmin/audiovideo/audio/03-torath_iraqi_goby.mp3

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6959927.stm

Congolese mourn their Rumba king

"His voice, composition of songs, sense of humour and main ideas of songs can tell how much we will miss him."
- Mpoyi Katayi, Madilu fan in Canada

BBC News - Africa
Last Updated: Thursday, 23 August 2007

Thousands of fans have taken to the streets of the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital to mourn Madilu System, known as "Congo's King of Rumba".

Police controlled the crowds as they accompanied the singer's coffin from Kinshasa's main stadium, where it had lain for three days, to the cemetery.

Madilu played with the famous TP OK Jazz band led by the late Franco Luambo Makiadi in the 1980s.

Congolese music is world renowned and has an important place in life there.

Since his death at the age of 57, the country's radio stations have been playing Madilu's music for hours on end in tribute to him.

'Congo's greatest composer'

The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Kinshasa says many thousands turned out to pay their respects at the stadium in one of the country's best attended funerals in many years.

"Since you are gone, we do not live, we do not eat," sang some leading Congolese musicians as they surrounded Madilu's coffin.

He says the old, young, star musicians and minsters all attended.

"I've been attending Madilu's funeral for two days while the body was exposed. I don't know when there will be another Madilu," one woman said as the coffin was moved from the stadium to its last resting place.

The rich and famous were allowed into the cemetery; the fans were kept at a distance from where they tried to get a glimpse of the ceremony, our correspondent says.

Madilu, born Jean De Dieu Bilau, died in a Kinshasa hospital on 11 August; he had suffered from diabetes.

His other nicknames were Ramses II and the Grand Ninja.

Music critics say he will be most remembered for his duets with Franco. After Franco's death, he sang alone and continued to tour with band members.

Lubangi Muniania, head of music label Tabilulu Productions, says Madilu was arguably one of the best composers in DR Congo.

"To most fans of TP OK Jazz, Madilu had a particular way of singing, his system - no wonder he became System," he wrote in tribute to the singer.

http://bennloxo.com/archives/2007/08/14/adieu-madilu/

I feel like a link to my newly-made blog could be relevant here:

I half-jokingly described tonight to a friend as "refried post-colonialism meets DIY ethnomusicology" While that's fairly accurate, I would hope it's not THAT pretentious.

Check it out, and let me know if you have any links to share!

http://endofworldmusic.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od2hMI3Mm2w&mode=related&search=

Aww man, I'm gonna miss the awesome 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Ethiopian Millennium show at the DC Armory Saturday night with supposedly 25 performers including headliner Mahmoud Ahmed. This show has been only promoted and mentioned in the local Ethiopian community basically (I put a mention of it on dcist.com , my yahoo calendar, and here on ilx).

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba - Segu Blue

heard this in a soul food place, my friend thought it was Amadou & Miriam but it obviously wasn't the last one and it didn't sound like what I'd heard of their earlier stuff because it was more spare & folky, no traditional drum kit, but their harmonies do sound similar. Album is 100% solid all the way through and completely recommended to anyone who liked the Amadou & Miriam record and wishes they could hear more in that style without all the techno / drum loop trappings, Bassekou can play

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=25184
http://www.myspace.com/bassekoukouyate

Results of Don Omar/Hakim collaboration starting to emerge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QziZD7Fwyc

Also don't miss this fun Ethiopian Gurageton video nabisco linked to on the Ethiopiques thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZjrxUpxfE

Okay, this is serious. One of my favorite singers, Salah Abdelghafor clips finally showing up on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNvsffNGFyw&mode=related&search=

(He is included in that Sublime Frequencies compilation.)

Oh, and they now have a complete copy of Kazem el Saher singing "Slemtak Beed Allah," which I still walk around whistling (as best I can) from time to time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EN-Th_4g5E&mode=related&search=

One of Warda's finer songs (care of Baligh Hamdi). This sounds really really close to the version I have on cassette, but I'm not sure it's exactly the same yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5xm50cQbV4

(plus this is just an excerpt)

(The Arab recordings that are easily available is just the tip of the iceberg. I know very well that there are thousands of live recordings out there that aren't available as official releases, and some of them are inevitably better than what is officially available.)

Okay, I'm obviously having a youtube night.

It turns out there are loads of Samira Toufic/Tewfic videos, but I need to look for them under Samira Tawfiq/Tawfik.

I get really excited about these things, because this is music I've mentioned here periodically for years, but haven't been able to produce many examples of, since everything I have is on cassette and I haven't had a working tape recorder for a while (and don't have the set up to digitize it).

This is a song I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GpIuhVxE_s&mode=related&search=

(the studio version has really cool edits though and I wish they'd reissue that album, whatever the hell it is.)

I've been looking for this. It's by Azar Habib, and it's a strangely compelling campy psychedelic song (we're talking about the first song here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL8zr-n09hI

(This is the one that made one of my friends say "This is what Bongwater should sound like.")

Except this is the whole thing and the cassette copy I have cuts off abruptly, which boths adds and takes away something.

Who is a better chabi singer than Hakim? Answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPaKKs5WTVE

More Asmahan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5l2pszFFQ

In terms of voice, I think she might have been the best of that whole generation, including Oum Kalthoum. (I like how I pretend I deserve to have an opinion about all of this.) I guess this should all be on my Arabic thread, sorry.

A live performance of a song from the Marcel Khalife album At The Border

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKrJATY6dPE

I don't totally love the way it's done here (which reminds me a lot of late Fairouz), but it's a great song and Omaima el Khalil has a terrific voice.

(What I don't like are aspects of the arrangement, not anything about her singing, or his oud playing, really.)

New York World Festival - Sounds of the Mediterranean
Hassan Hakmoun
Orchestre de Tanger
Amalia Papastefanou
Chris Tiktapanides
Dimonis d'Albopas

Sunday, September 16, 2007
From 1:30 PM to 7:00 PM
Central Park SummerStage

Did any of you New Yorkers see this show? I wish these folks had come my way.

Maybe not

New Taraf de Haïdouks, Maskarada, adaptations of gypsy-classical stuff like Bartok and Khachaturian and Albeniz, is really good. Better: the Columbiafrica -- The Mystic Orchestra record we were talking about on that other thread.

Lebanese Musician Khalife Jerked Around by Venue

Many moons ago, we posted a track from Lebanese oud player Marcel Khalifé. Khalifé seems like a good dude: in addition to really wailin' on the oud, he's a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "Artist for Peace". Not even Bono can say the same.

Khalifé has a sizable number of North American tour dates ahead of him over the next few months at places like the Kennedy Center and Boston's Berklee College of Music's Performance Hall. In other words, Khalifé ain't no dimestore oud player, and venues who regularly host Lebanese classical music ought to be honored by his interest.

That's not the case for San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Theatre at the Salvation Army's Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, who have forced Khalifé to look elsewhere for a place to play in the area. It's not so much that the Kroc Theatre folks don't like the cut of Khalifé's jib: rather, they feel the show would be "divisive" and "unbalanced" without an Israeli performer taking the stage the same night, according to a press release issued by Khalifé's camp.

It's tough to tell if this is political correctness run amok (soon to come at the Kroc: all Swiss music, all the time!) or-- Khalifé being Arab and this being a Christian-run venue in George Bush's America-- something potentially more sinister. A quick glance at the Kroc Center's schedule of events finds several Christmas events on the docket with nary a Jewish/Islamic/Buddhist/snakehandling/what-have-you alternative offered. Long live hypocrisy.

Kudos to the Birch North Park Theater for stepping in and giving Khalifé a gig in San Diego. The full tour roster is available after the jump.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/45767-lebanese-musician-khalife-jerked-around-by-venue

Khalife is a Christian, incidentally. Also, he's mellowed politically over the years, possibly excessively. But his music was banned by the Israelis in the occupied territories at one point (and may still be, for all I know)..

For someone who puts out so much boring music, he sure is controversial.

http://www.muziq.net/newjukebox/juke.php?TrackID=2948 Allan Faqeer (sindhi folk/sufi) with (pop singer) Shyhaki - one of the most popular Pakistani songs of the eighties

kamal - 18 - sohail - zaffa shin niglele shin niglele- farewell with sidi muhammad rasheed.mp3 - 3.31MB Shami wedding song - farewell teasing of the bridegroom

this is available on deenport as a part of a huge zip file

Okay you nutballs, please to listen to Aleks Syntek and his new album Lección de Vuelo and then report back to this thread about how freakin' great it is. Because it is. (He is a techno-obsessed Mexico City pop songwriter and wow does he know how to push them buttons.)

xhuxk, if you still check this thread, I think you would like this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr1mYLEpXvI

(How come you never the salsa thread? It's not just salsa and it's not just me any more.)

I've been idly liking Syntek's stuff for a few years now. Don't pay enough attention to know how many albums he has or anything, but every time I see one of his videos on mun2 I seem to enjoy it.

Yea, Syntek makes pleasant pop-rock en espanol.

Congolese singer King Kester Emeneya is supposedly on a US tour now but I can't find much more than badly translated French excerpts online. He supposedly played Los Angeles September 22, and is playing Seatle on September 30th. NYC and DC October shows are to be announced. Anybody have more details or see him perform already? One site listed the DC show on Ocotber 5th, another October 19th. Does any of this make business sense? I remember in the '80s when Congolese rumba/soukous bands regularly came through and did fairly well-publicized gigs. Not anymore.

Ah, dissed by faint praise ("pleasant"). It's a very good album though, pretty experimental for pop-rock.

Best Indian soundtracks of the year so far: Namastey London (Himesh Reshammiya), Om Shanti Om (Vishal-Shekhar, lyrics by Javed Akhtar).

Best Indian double-disc hit-remix compilation so far: Everybody on Dance Floor 4.0.

sublime frequencies

I like the Morroco one a lot
and the Lhasa one is decent

xpost: Actually I have heard that the soundtrack to Life in a...Metro is actually pretty rock-oriented, haven't heard it yet. Also curious about the following soundtracks (and movies): The Train, Dharm, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

But ain't no one here gonna listen to no Indian soundtracks, are they?

>But ain't no one here gonna listen to no Indian soundtracks, are they?

I own two (Taal and one other, can't remember the title) that I bought on cassette like a decade ago, and they were great, but I bought those based on a show on one of my local cable channels that ran clips from movies like they were music videos. It's off the air, so I've got no clue what I'd like from new Bollywood movies, and I have neither the time nor the money for independent investigation, even though the CDs are cheap.

I'm not interested in filmi music, but I am eyeing this Indian recording (I think the actual title is Gurbani Keertan):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/nkvirdee

And though I wouldn't call it "world music," it is Japanese, so I will mention here, as well as everywhere else, the new Tokyo Jihen album, Variety, which is pretty good. And it's out there, for those of you who downlowd. There are a bunch of people on ILM (and that means you, Dimension 5ive, among others, though I'm probably wrong since I don't get the sense that either one of us really understand's the other's taste) I am convinced would like Tokyo Jihen if they just had exposure to them. I'm still digesting the new album, but we've been talking about it on the Shiina Ringo thread. It's pop prog jrock, or something of that sort.

A couple videos (not necessarily my favorite songs on the album, especially the second one):

OSCA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH-X2c5l-TQ

Killer Tune [I don't like this one as much]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cPnNY8Ybhs

(This thread: everyone at cross-purposes, all the time.)

(I'm not entirely thrilled with her singing on either of those two tracks, but listening to the album now, and they seem the exceptions rather than the rule, for that pushing to breaking point singing, which I'm afraid I have to call over-singing, or something like that. I'd prefer if she'd work more with her lower register, which generally sounds good to me.)

(Although it has its moments.)

This thread: everyone at cross-purposes, all the time.)

We never all seem to be listening to the same music. It's a big world after all. But that's ok. I try to find time later to check out others faves.

Re that Congolese music I was hyping(King Kester), I think there was a thread several years ago where several folks just said rumba schmumba, soukous whatever, it all sounds the same and hasn't changed since the '80s. That seems to be the reaction of anglo biz and media folks as well--Congolese stuff does not get released in the US or UK it seems while Malian and Senegalese stuff does. But if you go to african ambience or other african music chat boards, the fanatics love Congolese stuff. Oh well.

Actually I think Tokyo Jihen might be a group that we can all agree on. I think Dimension 5ive and Unperson will dig their art-rock and prog tendencies as well as their pop proclivities, while I like their pop and punk aspects, and well, RS has been the one encouraging us to check them out. Add in the folks who post on the Shiina Ringo thread, figure out a way to get 'em in front of the Pitchforkers and amerricun indie-rockers who like Battles and ya got something--it may be a small world after all(I've been reading too much publicist pr or something....Meanwhile the folks in Burma are getting killed or denied rights but there's nothing we can do about that on this here thread I don't think)

Okay, I'm in. I love "OSCA." Does Tokyo Jihen actually have an album out?

Three albums out, but they have a new one, Variety. It's only available as a Japanese import though.

Currently main page feature here: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/

Well if I ever get 25 bucks that I can spend without my wife kicking my ass for it, I'll order that disc. I feel vindicated for all my P5 love; this is like stripped-down Konishi mega-pop, and Shiina Ringo really seems like Maki Nomiya except more rock-n-roll. Other Japanese pop stuff I love: Namie Amuro, L <-> R, Buffalo Daughter, Cornelius (kinda), Shonen Knife, Nobuzaku Takemura, Boredoms when they are in pop-punk deconstruction mode. Probably some others that I can't remember.

But my sainted Pizzicato Five beats basically every band in the world ever, to my ears. I know I'm at cross-purposes saying that, no one agrees with me on that around here or in the world. Maybe this will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqFy8QZC_us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVPcZY8EfFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D4ueFzla04

I think Pizzicato Five is often stereotyped as twee j-pop, and they did that a couple of times. But that's not their whole thing, and their last four albums were like ripping the history of pop music in half and putting it back together with techno. And Konishi-san continually revisited his songs, remaking them in different ways. Here are two very different versions of "The Night Is Still Young":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkqEJ4zrmB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JymRTfZCZoI

And now I will stop. Don't wanna be at cross purposes or anything....

x-post (The battle of the youtube links!)

Shiina Ringo is really all over the map, if you backtrack and listen to things from her solo career before Tokyo Jihen (or for that matter, some of the live recordings she's done in the past year or so). More from youtube:

[PG-13] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIg0bgzQs30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG3hVYGjjGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDCjYWowHg
[Her official goodbye to her solo career/collage of previous videos]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57yxmj0Y4Fs
[Recent re-invention of one of her oldest songs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrB6wimjeqo

Okay, now I will watch one Pizzicato Five video, and the only reason I am just watching one is I have to go buy lunch and AJAX and clean my bathroom, etc.

You have to check out this psych-pop Lebanese song (from the 70s? probably): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL8zr-n09hI

I like some of this Pizzicato Five stuff, and definitely like the singing. (I know I've heard them before, but I don't remember exactly what I heard.)

See I like that Lebanese song too; maybe we're not so far apart after all.

Okay here is a Himesh Reshamiyya song, remixed by a bhangra group; he is one of the top and most controversial composers in Bollywood right now, and this is from his self-starring movie of this year, Aap Ka Surroor. This version is on Everybody on Dance Floor 4.0. (The actress in this clip is Deepika Padukone, who is also in Om Shanti Om and is just sickeningly beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuOShyK5x4M

And this is one of the corny made-up fan videos focusing on Shekhar (one of the composers of Om Shanti Om), but the song "Ajab Si" is really ace, so forget about the images and just be blown away by the song's beauty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZQCXtpwpvs

Okay, just one more thing here. I LOVE Indian movie and music criticism. Here is an excellent example of a Planet Bollywood review of the soundtrack for an upcoming movie, I want to write all my reviews like this: http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayReview.php?id=092607030939

The actress in this clip is Deepika Padukone, who is also in Om Shanti Om and is just sickeningly beautiful.

You got that right. I was going to say, she is mind-bogglingly good looking in every respect.

Is this compilation available (in the US) yet or do you just have a review copy?

OK, just so that it's clear we're not all at cross-purposes, I love Bollywood films and (a little less) soundtracks, too, although the only soundtrack I actually own is Kal Ho Naa Ho. I do have a fair number of DVDs, and some of them are actually legal. And someone gave me the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack, which almost counts, but I never listen to it.

I haven't been watching a lot of new Bollywood this year, though. Too much going on, and it's a pain to drive to the theaters that show them, and my wife doesn't appreciate them much (she basically hates anything with subtitles).

No review copies anywhere that I can tell -- I get everything fresh off the boat at my local Indian grocery store, and the most I've ever paid is $9.99 for a CD or a double-CD set.

The same grocery often hosts one-time-only screenings of brand-new films. If they show Om Shanti Om anytime this fall, I'm so there -- all the clips show Shah Rukh Khan dancing in 70s garb, and then shirtless.

SRK is in about 500 movies, and he's kind of a running joke in our house when we see these movies because he only has about three facial expressions...but they're all really endearing.

My all-time fave rave Indian movie is Lagaan, which not only stars the great(er) Aamir Khan but also features the lushest Bollywood score of my lifetime by the amazing A.R. Rahman.

This song takes place in the movie during a severe drought...wait for the payoff!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diRLmaC2vZo

Shah Rukh Khan is a classic star. He doesn't act, per se, he just is with tremendous charisma. I agree Aamir Khan is a better actor, but he takes himself very seriously, and he doesn't have SRK's non-masculine qualities.

I don't love love love the Lagaan music. Like the movie, it tends to be very ponderous. The "opening" (i.e., 20 minutes into the movie) number that you linked is pretty good, and I like the song where Aamir is getting everyone to join his cricket team, and the militaristic "Chali chalo" one, but I never feel like listening to them as music.

Have you ever seen/heard Dil Se? The opening A.R. Rahman song in that is stunning (and on film involves SRK dancing on top of a moving train). (It's a super-serious movie, too, involving a semi-sympathetic portrait of suicide bombers. From the mid-90s.)

Never heard Dil Se, sounds good. My favorite Rahman score is probably either Bose, the Forgotten Hero or Kisna: The Warrior Poet. I think he's an orchestral genius, but I have never listened to any of his "pop" albums and have no real need to.

Great SRK movies with Kajol, the actress who matches most perfectly with him: Kabhi Khushi Kahbie Gham (video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTtUg9p-ayk ) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5RNp1N7A9Q ).

You would like "Metro" (no video to go with it though):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOQvRFt2Eho

Hint of "Genius of Love" a the beginning, and then lots of genius of the 70s floating through it.

>Deepika Padukone

returns from Google Images...

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Other great movies I have seen: Dil To Pagal Hai & Devdas. And if any of you horny bastards wanna see another new flavor of the month, google Priyanka Chopra.

My poor old heart can't take this.

haha, and none of them are even Aishwarya Rai, THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL.

I'm cleaning my bathroom, so it has to be reggaeton playing to help me get it done. Noche de Entierro is so great, simple but great.

(I do take a lot of breaks when I clean my bathroom.)

I'm thinking about going to the big annual reggaeton concert at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night (sponsored by the radio station La Kalle): Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderón, Calle 13 and Ivy Queen will all be present, plus Rakim y Ken-Y who I don't really like.

that'd be awesome dude

hey i'm sorely tempted to get calle 13, talk me out of it

No way. You should get it.

Devandra Banhart in the Sunday NY Times offering his playlist of what he's listening to now. Is he right about the following person. I don't know Mateo's music:

Eduardo Mateo is considered the Bob Dylan or Caetano Veloso of Uruguay. “Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame” (Lion Productions) is the most modern-sounding thing on the planet. The songs sound almost like a new type of folk, like the acoustic version of bands popular now like the Shins or Death Cab for Cutie. It’s reminiscent even of acoustic Sleater-Kinney tunes.

xhuxk, if you still check this thread, I think you would like [Randy & De La Ghetto - Sensacion Del Bloque]

Well, I like the video, at least. Especially when they start popping and locking. And the high-register samba-like singing of the kid with the cornrows is very pretty. Beyond that...eh, not a lot. Don't dislike it, but it doesn't do much for me.

Otherwise, I keep glancing at this thread, but I can't keep up! (Which I'm sure is how some people feel about my Rolling Country thread posts, so...)

(I've never really connected at all with Pizzicato 5 or Calle 13 either, for whatever that's worth. Though definitely not for the same reason, I'm sure.)

This thread is hard to keep up with because it's so scattered. Rolling Country is hard to keep up with because it's so dense and goes so deep into a specific genre. (At least it seems like you go into it pretty deeply to me, but I don't know enough about country to say how far into it you are digging. But at 1400 posts or whatever. . .)

well it's hardly fair, whole world vs one country

Mateo's solo stuff is okay, but very dated; acid folk at its hippie-dippiest. No surprise why Banhart likes it. Mateo was in a band called El Kinto that was a lot better; they've got a single-disc compilation on the same label that released the solo album. Check that out instead.

This looks great, though it doesn't seem like it's going to be as psychedelic as one could hope for:

Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru

It's really good. I've had a copy for a few weeks. You can hear samples of four tracks here.

Calle 13: Residente o Visitante is still my favorite of all the new records I've heard in 2007 (which, granted, are many fewer than some of you hear). I think they're comparable to OutKast before Andre Benjamin's ego sucked all the air out of the room. In some ways, better. Residente has this whole self-conscious intellectual thing going on, but not a self-important self-conscious intellectual thing. Which is pretty thrilling if you are a self-conscious intellectual who happens to like hip-hop and understands Spanish (or most of it). Visitante does a superb job with the music, too.

Here is a video link to Los Destellos a seminal group of that Peruvian cumbia scene mentioned upthread. Really great stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIk3R14ArO8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epopmatters%2Ecom%2Fpm%2Fmusic%2Freviews%2F47802%2Fvarious%2Dthe%2Droots%2Dof%2Dchicha%2F

I love how the black and white video of Los Destellos focusses on their dancer in her sequinned bathing suit looking outfit. She's shaking what her mama gave to the nice polyrhytmic percussion and twangy stringwork.

Arabic song for kids - hamamah.mp3 - 2.09MB

Here's a thing I wrote about the crappy set-in-Africa horror movie Primeval, and the music I wound up downloading as a result of sitting through the thing.

So downloading's the only way to find that Nigerian afrobeat comp.

Probably, yeah - downloading or eBay or GEMM. Amazon.co.uk (which I'm not above ordering from even though I live in the U.S.) didn't have it anymore.

Oh god so many lately -- Bronco's new record is kinda good, but the new Banda Numero 1 de Jerez is intensely awesome, super-fast banda speed-horns raging all over the place.

Like the Karsh Kale / Anoushka Shankar collaboration, despite its sometime-somnambulism and the presence of Sting on one cut.

Budos Band II is everything H in Addis said it would be: fun instrumental music that combines Afrobeat with Ethiopian jazz styles.

Shantel's Disko Partizani is fun and frothy but has lots of great EE horn toughness folded into its party vibe.

The live Konono No. 1 "mini-LP" (56 minutes!) is pretty good if you like them, and I do, but probably boring if you don't.

Really like this one jazz album by Iraqi trumpeter who I think has the last name AlSaffir, can't remember exact name of dude though. I'll be back in a bit.

Will have to check out Banda Numero 1 de Jerez. I'm gonna go see Jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater with her band and guest Malian musicians Sunday night at the Kennedy Center. Her cd with Malians is uneven. Some glorious Malian instrumental moments and gorgeous vocals(Malian women and Dee Dee), but othertimes Bridgewater just seems to force her standard jazz vocal technique over Malian rhythms or over quasi-African meets jazz changes in a manner that does not work. Real nice article in Downbeat where the writer(forgot his name, sorry) went to Mali with her.

I actually really like the Dee Dee album -- I don't mind the jazz / African tension there, and the ping-ponging of styles breaks things up for me. But y'know mileage may vary etc.

You might find the Banda No. 1 de Jerez thing kinda slight (as well as tiny at only about 28 minutes!) -- my real banda crushes remain Banda el Recodo (who do thrash-banda right, even now that they are pretty poppy) and Yolanda Perez, whose album of this year is sounding better to me than it did when it came out. I still think she has it in her to combine her love of Mexican regional music with her love for r&b and hip-hop, but this year's record was a conscious retreat to solidify her base (and, I've heard, partially due to the scandal that she had a baby out of wedlock with an African-American guy, oh the horror).

I haven't heard much from Brazil this year, bumming about it.

I think Brazilian singer Maria Rita(the late Elis Regina's daughter, famous dad too)has a new cd out. I liked her previous pretty ballad-heavy bossa/samba/mpb efforts but have not gotten the new one.

Has anyone here heard the new Youssou N'dour record yet? It’s titled Rokku Mi Rokka: Give and Take, and is being previewed/recommended by Christgau at the NPR site: http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/archives/20071012/

Note: If you don't feel like listening to the entire podcast, just go to the very end--it's the final record under discussion.

Amazon release date: Oct. 30.

I have not heard it yet. I see he is touring the US again. His Kennedy Centers shows in DC are always big events--Senegalese folks all dressed up, plus everyone else. I've always liked him live more than on disc (call it rockist thinking, but he generally sticks to a more traditional approach).

Yeah, best live band on the planet, according to Xgau. I'd love to see a live DVD of him with his band. Otherwise, I'll have to stick to the records.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/arts/music/14kun.html?pagewanted=1&ref=arts

Nice Josh Kun interview/feature in the Sunday NY Times on Cafe Tacuba and their new cd SiNo. It supposely has a classic rock feel.

“Classic rock is by far the biggest influence on the new songs,” said Joselo Rangel, the lead guitarist. “Yet we know that by running it through the filter of four Mexicans who are all around 40 years old and who’ve spent 18 years playing everything from sones huastecos to technopunk, the result would be something pretty original.”

Can't believe it's been 20 years since I saw Youssou live (he opened for Peter Gabriel). I remember him being quite good. Not the best live band on the planet by any stretch of the imagination, though.

I've heard six songs from the new Tacvba, and am hoping to get a copy of the full album in the mail this coming week. I have a big article on them in the next issue of Global Rhythm. The six songs I've heard don't sound "classic rock" to me; they mix psychedelia (though not as cheesily as on Cuatro Caminos, which I like more now than I did when it came out but it's still my least favorite of their albums) with some stuff that sounds like prime New Order. Also, the fact that everybody sings is very interesting in practice. Surprised the hell out of me the first time I heard Joselo take a lead vocal on a Tacvba song, though his second solo album (never heard the first one) was quite enjoyable.

Sorry Dimension 5 but I found the Dee Dee Bridgewater with Malian musicians show at the Kennedy Center frustratingly uneven. The poor kora player sat there doing little all night. Dee Dee seemed more interested in talking about her newfound knowledge about "griots" than in letting the griots onstage do their thing. She did "Afro Blue" and "Compared to What," afrojazz hybrids from the past, but only brought up a wonderful Malian woman singer twice(and she was no Oumou Sangare) and a male Malian singer twice as well, in the over 2 hour show. Plus she has a bubbly soul meets jazz meets broadway persona that kinda grated on me. Fans of oldstyle afrojazz seemed to love the show--those of us who have seen all the Malians who came to DC for the Smithsonian Folklife Fest several years ago, or at other times were left feeling disapointed.

So did I ever mention that this Algerian rai guys living in Switzerland and collaborating with Bill Lasell CD is definitely one of my favorite whirledbeat records of the year? Okay, well I am now:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/maghrebika

Bill LasWell, I mean

My initial listens to samples on the link sound promising. I'm kinda skeptical of most of Laswell's work from the last 10 years or so that I've heard (formulaic glossy dub elements) but this sounds like it might be better than that. He worked with an Ethiopian woman singer a few years back on something I liked.

I got that in the mail awhile ago but never listened to it.

The Ethiopian woman singer you're talking about, Gigi, is his wife. Her album from last year was quite good.

I'm kinda skeptical of most of Laswell's work from the last 10 years or so that I've heard (formulaic glossy dub elements)

Ha ha, for whatever it's worth, I'm kind of skeptical of everything he's done in the last 25 years -- has he made much music worth caring about since, say, Material's One Down in 1982, really? (Well, Orgasmatron I suppose. And probably some other things I've forgetting.) But yeah, I'm fairly convinced he's been a big ole' artsy farsty bore twiddling his thumbs for decades. Somehow he managed not to wreck this album, though. And I even get the idea he adds something to it.

(**I'm clearly forgetting Last Exit, for one thing, duh. But anyway, his dub mode never clicked with me.)

I actually had an argument with H about Gigi's latest album; I like it a lot, he thought it was her weakest yet, and (coincidentally??) her least Ethiopian-sounding record. I'm on record as being a Laswell skeptic.

We are all in agreement.

So Will Hermes has an article in the NY Times on indie-rock band that incorporate international sounds(many have been mentioned above I think--Beirut, Vampire Weekend, Extra Golden, various Balkan influenced groups) There's a separate thread for it

bands

World Beat Indie Rock Renaissance Sez New York Times!

Looking forward to this Deevani solo album, though I have a feeling it will take a while to come out, considering how busy she is:

Besides the upcoming "Bhangratón," Deevani is also producing her own album, which she says will come out by the end of this year - if her mom duties allow it.

For her new album, Deevani says she will sing in at least four languages. "I already have some songs in Arabic, light and fun, just so nobody can resist the impulse to get up and dance," she says.

"And this time, I'm also going to incorporate Dominican bachatas, merengue and perico ripiao, all mixed with bhangra. There are going to be songs that everybody will love to listen and also dance to."

http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2007/03/14/2007-03-14_dominican_delhi_.html

Oh wow, she's Luny's sister (of Luny Tunes fame)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlNoVfkOhUA

Tito El Bambino, Beenie Man, and Deevani

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/10/14/pop_goes_the_world/

And there's plenty to choose from, including such recent compilations as "The Roots of Chicha," "Brazil 70: After Tropicalia," "¡Gózalo! Bugalu Tropical," "Thai Pop Spectacular," "Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes," "Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan, Vol. 2," "Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay," and "Sí, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba."

African music - including the crystalline pop of "Authenticité: The Syliphone Years," "Bokoor Beats," and "Belle Epoque 1: Soundiata" - is still a staple of compilations this year, but its ubiquity has been supplanted by other, less-familiar destinations.

I wanna check out some of those. The Thai Pop one is a Sublime Frequencies release I think.

http://www.alahazrat.net/naats/s_f_soharwardi/rm/lam_yati_naziro_kafi.rm

New issue of The Beat Magazine out. Despite its flaws, I like it better than Global Rhythms. Maybe that's just because columnist Martin Sinnock writes about African stuff I don't hear about elsewhere, plus some of the other columnists (the Haitian and soca guy, etc.) Yea, I know it is not pop enough for some and does not cover Spanish-language sounds well enough either, but its reggae and Afropop coverage may be better than other publications out there.

I checked out the newest issue of The Beat, Global Rhythm, and Songlines today. As usual, Songlines is the most useful to me, although this is a better than average issue of The Beat, possibly because it seemed more up-to-date with releases than it often is (but maybe I'm just falling behind). Sinnock is big on Zanzibara 3, the latest in that series. He reviewed it in Songlines as well as mentioning it in his column in The Beat. I think it would have too much African sweetness to it for my taste (judging by the clips I listened to, and the fact that a lot of it is similar to Congolese rumba if I understand correctly). I find the appearance of Gogol Bordello almost nauseating.

I have no strong feelings one way or the other really about Gogol Bordello (although I am not actually too crazy about Eastern European sounds)why do you find them "almost nauseating."

Just a gut level reaction to their aping for the camera, acting wild men, etc.

A mainstream (US release) compilation by the Greek singer Glykeria is welcome, but I've heard a lot of great songs by her that don't appear here and I wonder how good a selection it really is. Still, at least it is:

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=743037189125&itm=1

havent heard of glykeria, too busy listening to new Juanes, which is dope, and more Indian soundtracks

also what is wrong with congolese rumba and/or african sweetness?

Sounds good to me.

also what is wrong with congolese rumba and/or african sweetness?

I am just not into it. I'm skeptical that I could meaningfully analyze it farther than that. A lot of African popular music is really really sweet to my ears, too sweet for me, or sweet in a way I don't like.

I'm not putting it down, but I was listening to clips from some stuff like that today and it drove home how much it is N/A for me.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/1777552960_cd76e97a35.jpg?v=0

can't believe it took this long to look at this thread. I will try to participate, however meagerly, in 2008.

here, I'll play stupid catchup, or try to:

I can't even look at photos of Deepika Pedukone. that's just staggering.

following Chuck et al's Maghrebika recommend, I searched for her on eMusic. Came across a comp (http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Hotel-Marrakesh-Deluxe-MP3-Download/11068250.html) that had this wonderful reader comment: "I especially liked Sahara by Alpha X. Her voice is so lovely and she also sings in 2 languages (including English) which is a thoughtful touch." thoughtful! I love that. Midwestern good manners prevailing yet again.

Calle 13 sounds really good at 2:30 a.m.

Matos you better not go to Bollywood.com then because Deepika's the new spokesmodel for like every single product and all of her photo shoots are featured there and she is also a classically trained dancer and starring in about 77 new movies and OH MY GOD I LOVE HER etc.

By the way, Indian-soundtrack-wise, I think I would rank the Om Shanti Om soundtrack as my favorite record of the year in any genre right now, and this is in a year with Vusi Mahlasela and Ike Reilly Assassination and the best unreleased revolutionary teenpop album of all time (Fefe Dobson). I literally cannot stop listening to this in the office or in the car or while making dinner or while taking long walks; when I pick the car pool kids up from Hebrew school, they start chanting "OM SHANTI OM! OM SHANTI OM!" Makes for some weirdness but it's all bueno.

This movie and "Saarwiya" are both scheduled to debut on Nov 9 in India, and they are the top two most anticipated films of the year -- the Saarwiya soundtrack isnt as flashy, perhaps, but the flamenco guitar and unexpected chordal shifts on the title track hit hard, and the qawwali break on some other song always gets me ululating right along with 'em.

Hm. Maybe I should start investigating this stuff. Jab We Met is playing at the Eagle right now, maybe I'll check it out.

That's supposed to be a pretty good one! I have to rely on infrequent hush-hush local screenings that only Indian people know about. Apparently Saarwiya is being produced by Sony and is getting the biggest int'l roll-out in Bollywood history, so maybe it'll play at our Sundance theater or something.

Sunday November 4th---The National Folklore Dance Troop of Egypt & Umm Kulthoum Orchestra at the University of Maryland, College Park Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu

I think I may take my boy to Tinariwen with Vieux Farka Toure but not the above (Sunday night homework and stuff). I have not found time to research the above (yet). Caetano Veloso is gonna be in DC Sunday night also.

Umm Kulthoum Orchestra

But no Umm Kulthoum. :(

I'd rather watch her videos on youtube, I think, as I was just doing on my lunch break.

<a href="http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7492557&cart=624831337&BAB=M>;Wu Fei - Distant Youth (with Fred Frith)</a>. Could be the Chinese classical/chill-out free improv (actually I'm not sure there's much improv here) CD of the year.

More here: http://www.myspace.com/feifeifei

This is good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQF11B0XcG4

That The Roots of Chica: Pyschedelic Cumbias From Peru reissue that Rockist Scientist mentioned upthread is indeed pretty awesome, and, as he predicted, not especially pyschedelic, despite some occasional, say, proto-psych organ parts. Favorite songs so far are by Los Destellos (extremely funky drum parts in "A Patricia"), Juaneco Y Su Combo (Chakachas "Jungle Fever"-style girl sex gasps in "Vacilanda Con Ayahuesca"), Los Hijos Del Sol (totally silly, with oi oi oi gang shouts in one song and hey hey hey gang shouts in another song), Los Miros (almost a polka), Los Diablos Rojos (crazy laughing guy). Guitars in some of the songs sound very African to me, but maybe that's just a cumbia thing. I am fairly cumbia illiterate, as it were.

Also really loving Parole Italiane, which is a decade-old (released 1997) compilation of Italian hip-hop on Trikont Records out of Germany. Favorite track is probably "Fight the Faida" by Frankie Hi NRG -- just sounds really tough, and namedrops Sodom and Gomorrah, and samples Sly Stone, and has goofy boinging sounds in its beat. There's also a real middle eastern bent (in "Spigoli Di Luce" by AK-47) and/or reggae dancehall bent (in "Cierco Tempo" by 99 Posse) to a lot of it, but I get the idea that's pretty common in romance-language Euro-rap (i.e., French stuff I've heard). (Cover actually says "Hip-hop/ Ragga / Rap," and after all this time I'm still not entirely clear on what exactly "ragga" is, but I'm pretty sure reggae is an element of its recipe.)

There is a really nice record in my possession by drummer Sean Noonan and his group Brewed by Noon. It is called Stories to Tell and has a great West African/Celtic vibe and some shredding work from Marc Ribot all over it.

I don't know that album, but I do know and like the self-titled album on Xcellar Records, which does not seem to feature Marc Ribot on it, and which I've always thought of as some kind of world-harmelodic fusion type thing, maybe along the lines of certain records that Ronald Shannon Jackson made in the late '80s, though I'm guessing Art Ensemble of Chicago feature somewhere in there influence-wise as well. Its cdbaby page says it came out in 2005, and compares it to "Prime Time joined by Fela Kuti and Bill Frisell, then remixed by Bill Laswell," so either I'm not far off or I fell for their hype:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/brewed

xhuxk, belated apologies for going off at you on one of those P&J poll threads (I can't find it now). I really was: sleep-deprive, over-caffeinated, angry about things happening at work, and fighting off a sinus infection, at the time. (And if you don't know the thread I'm talking about, it may be just as well.)

No problem, Rockist -- I've definitely had my post-insamniac too-much-coffee buried-by-work nasal-congested moments of my own this year. So I relate!

Btw that Parole Italiane Italo-rap comp actually starts with a brief track of what I assume is traditional Middle Eastern music of some sort, listed as "Zezi (trad.)" on the cover. Which reminds me that Continental European (and maybe to some extent British too) hip-hop is largely supposed to be the province of immigrants, or so I think I've read somewhere once. "Devo Avere Una Casa..." by Assalti Frontali is another good track--rock guitars!

Hmmm: http://www.watchtower.org/ao/rq/article_03.htm

Did a little mini e-mail interview with Vieux Farka Toure and am excited about seeing him along with Tinariwen live in DC Thursday (same time as the Latin Grammys on tv). I love hearing Malian style guitar, kora, and ngoni. VF Toure is not yet making anyone forget his dad (a few cuts on the cd feature both of them recorded shortly before Ali Farka died from cancer) but the cd is nice enough mostly traditional stuff(I like the dub reggae influenced cut alot).

This probably doesn't belong on this thread (given that it's an all English-language album), but has anybody here heard Look Directly Into the Sun: China Pop 2007? It's a surprisingly western sounding post-punk collection of eighteen Beijing(?)-based bands—not exactly Wanna Buy a Bridge great, but pretty interesting nonetheless.

A couple of Chinese postpunk bands put out records in the US this year: Rebuilding The Rights Of Statues (great) and Lonely China Day (just okay).

This guy from Baltimore who has been collecting old 78s of music from around the world is doing a quick tour in support of the dust to digital cd he compiled. I haven't heard it yet. He's gonna be in Nov 18 2007 8:00P at
Harvest Records Asheville, North Carolina
Nov 19 2007 7:00P
George Washington University - Marvin Center Washington
Nov 21 2007 8:00P
Big Jar Books Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nov 23 2007 8:00P
Twisted Village Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nov 24 2007 8:00P
Time-Lag Portland
Nov 25 2007 8:00P
51 3rd St Troy, New York
Nov 26 2007 7:30P
Eat Records Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York

Ian Nagoski lecture and sound presentation: "The Black Mirror: Ethnic Music on 78rpm recordings, 1918-1955"

Ian will be playing selections from his forthcoming compilation CD "The Black Mirror" to be released on the Dust to Digital label. Great unheard sounds and lost history revealed! More info below!

78 enthusiast and owner of the True Vine Record Shop in Baltimore, Maryland, Ian Nagoski will be playing and talking about music from all over the world from the first half of the 20th century to celebrate the release of a collection entitled "The Black Mirror".To be issued on November 20th by the esteemed Dust to Digital label, Mr. Nagoski's collection of 78 recordings come from around the world, have never before been reissued,and span the years 1918-1955. Please join us and hear long forgotten music from Syria, Bali, Scotland, Thailand, Ukraine, China, Camaroon, India, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Japan, Poland, Greece, Java, Portugal, Laos, Sweden and Burma.

http://www.dust-digital.com
http://www.myspace.com/theblackmirror

yeah, there's going to be a box on DTD coming out in January compiled by the Climax Golden Twins w/a bunch of global (particularly Asian) stuff on it as well. looking forward to that; the stuff I've heard from it is pretty awesome.

New Rahim AlHaj CD (with blurb from Bill Frisell):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/rahimalhaj5

This sounds (based on audio clips) like it's going to be extremely good.

I would order this immediately if I weren't back to not buying anything extraneous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLK20PXpRE

I like this song.

I like this song.

I'm sorry.

Keep your pity.

I just figured that Anthony Hamiilton's "Can't Let Go" is the song it sounds like.

Actually it sounds like something Robin Thicke would do.

100% Romantico! But yea it's r'n'b flavored.

I'm listening to Cafe Tacuba whom I saw last night, the Roots of Chica: Pyschedelic Cumbias From Peru, and Youssou N'Dour (whom I am seeing tomorrow night).

I know I'm a little late to this party, but this stuff killed me this year:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xTXzQ9UDOM0

Os Mutantes live album is freakin' excellent. Also loving the Calle 13, but that's on another thread.

Onda Tropical has this link to this page that has a reggae cover of Eddie Palmieri's "Mi Sonsito": http://www.myspace.com/ticklah

Cool. Unperson Phil should definately check out Palmieri live if he has not yet done so. I think he'd like him.

Youssou N'Dour and band were fantastic Monday night and I'm liking most of his new cd. Live he did not do any of his crossover songs, just wailed up and down the scales in Wolof and sometimes in French. His percussionists were marvelous as well. Senegalese rhythms are not as straightforward as some from Congo to my ears, but they reward listeners once you get into them.

Got the new Soundway 2CD comp Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-76 in today's mail. Looking forward to blaring that over the next four days off work.

I posted this to the cumbia thread, but didn't get any response, so I'm posting again. It's a cumbia mix in a sort of "chopped and screwed" style that dates back to the 60's. Anyway, it's pitched down. It has its moments:

http://www.wordthecat.com/images/sonido_martines_-_las_Rebajadas_van_a_brooklin.mp3

(You may have to cut and paste that, the board doesn't seem to like that url.)

I think I read that this DJ also had a hand in that Roots of Chicha compilation.

I had to cut and paste it so I could hear it. I like the twangy roots feel of the music, but not the half-speed chopped and screwed vocals

Yeah, been living all this stuff and hedza have been recognizing for a bit now.

Diplo mix of all cumbia :
http://maddecent.com/blog/?p=198

Quantic Mix of cumbia :
http://www.waxpoetics.com/quanticmix.mp3

haha. been digging this stuff, not living it, although i wouldn't mind one of the chicas on those record sleeves !

I like the Afrosound cover of "Soul Makossa" on the Wax Poetics Quantic mix. Es platanos as someone blogged.

I like the twangy roots feel of the music, but not the half-speed chopped and screwed vocals

I'm afraid I have to agree with you about the vocals.

Seen that Dee Dee Bridgewater goes to Mali cd Red Earth on a couple of best of polls---Great concept, but I was not wowed by the cd or the live show.

I like the Malians but Bridgewater is not my fave jazzy vocalist

Excerpts from a DJ Neva e-mail thing I get:

Dear friends and colleagues,

Henrietta (Weiss) Yurchenco - considered by many to be the "mother" of American ethnomusicologists - passed away last night.

I met Henrietta in 1975, my second semester at City College of NY, when I signed up for one of her classes in the music department. She immediately became my mentor and role model, and I can say without hesitation that because of her I became an ethnomusicologist and radio producer and cultural activist.

For more than 15 years I worked alongside Henrietta as her confidant, editor, research assistant and field recording engineer on trips to Colombia, Mexico and Spain. I also had the most special honor of co-writing the first draft of her memoirs, "Around the World in 80 Years" (Music Research Institute), as well as numerous scholarly articles and research papers.

When we celebrated her 91st birthday last March, we all felt certain Henrietta would make it to at least 100. But during the year, her health began to decline and then became much worse in the past few weeks.

I invite you to meet her through her work: http://www.henriettayurchenco.com/. Peace, love and blessings to all,
Neva

"DJ Neva" E. Wartell

Does anyone know more about what's going on with the murder of all these Mexican singers? It sounds like somehow different singers have become associated with different organized crime groups, and then end up being targeted by other crime families as symbols of their enemies. Or something like that. (I posted another article before on the Grammys thread, I think it was.)

2 more grupera singers slain in Mexico

By Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 4, 2007

MEXICO CITY -- Authorities recovered the strangled body of a popular grupera singer Monday, just two days after the slaying of another grupera singer in her hospital bed, officials said.

Sergio Gomez, lead singer for the group K-Paz de la Sierra, had been kidnapped in the southern state of Michoacan late Saturday and had been missing for two days before officials found his body. Zayda Peña was killed in her hospital bed in the border city of Matamoros on Saturday, hours after surviving an assault.

At least seven other performers of the grupera genre, a form of folk music that blends norteno and tropical rhythms, have been killed over the last 18 months. Some groups in the genre sing songs associated with drug-trafficking, but Gomez and Peña are better known as singers of romantic ballads.

Peña, 28, headed the group Zayda y Los Culpables (Zayda and the Guilty Ones). She was first shot Friday night in a Matamoros hotel, along with two other people: a friend and the hotel manager. The others died at the scene.

With a gunshot wound to the back, Peña was taken to a hospital. She underwent surgery, then was taken to a room in the intensive-care unit. An assailant entered the room and shot her twice in the face, killing her, according to news reports.

Gomez had just performed with his group in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, when he disappeared. The day before, he had received phone calls warning him not to appear at the concert, according to news reports. Gomez redoubled his security and performed anyway.

After leaving the concert, Gomez was kidnapped along with two businessmen who were later released.

Mexico's business, political and cultural elite have long been targeted by kidnappers, mainly for financial gain. Among the most notable were the 2002 kidnappings of two sisters of the actress Thalia: Both were released after a ransom was paid. In 2005, Soccer coach Ruben Omar Romano was kidnapped but rescued by police. And just last month, several Mexican federal senators received phone calls saying their relatives had been kidnapped.

Gomez's body was found on a highway some six miles outside Morelia, authorities said Monday. He had been strangled, and there were several burn marks on his body. His family and associates apparently had not received any demand for ransom.

The motive for Peña's killing had not been determined, authorities said.

One of her biggest hits was the song "Tiro de Gracia" (Coup de Grace"). Some media outlets suggested Monday that the song referred to an execution, although its lyrics describe nothing more violent than a failed relationship.

Still, the public manner of Peña's death -- reminiscent of many other assassinations in recent years -- suggested that organized crime might be involved.

The most notable killing of a musician attributed to organized crime was the November 2006 assassination in Reynosa of Valentin Elizalde, known as the Golden Rooster. Elizalde sang narcocorrido ballads that were often taken up as anthems by the so-called Sinaloa Cartel of drug traffickers and its leader, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Trigo Figueroa, a singer, also was killed after a concert in Reynosa in August 2006. In December 2006, Javier Morales Gomez of the band Los Implacables del Norte was shot to death in a Michoacan park.

And in February, gunmen shot to death four members of the musical group Banda Fugaz after they performed in Michoacan.

hec✧✧✧.to✧✧✧@lati✧✧✧.c✧✧

Cecilia Sanchez of the Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

This was the other article (which I found by accident while searching for reggateon news):

Murdered singers among Grammy noms
BY JOSE MORENO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, December 7th 2007, 4:00 AM

The late Sergio Gómez, lead singer of the norteño band K-Paz de la Sierra.
Two Mexican singers killed over the last year — including one this week — are among the nominees for the Grammy Awards announced yesterday.

Sergio Gómez, the lead singer of the top-selling group K-Paz de la Sierra, was tortured and strangled Sunday in Morelia, a city in the western state of Michoacan.

His “Conquistando Corazones” (Conquering Hearts) got a nod for Best Banda Album. Valentín Elizalde, who was murdered in November of last year, was nominated in the same category for “Lobo Domesticado.” (Domesticated Wolf).

Both deaths are part of a recent wave of organized crime violence terrorizing entertainers in Mexico.

Although not known for songs glamorizing the drug business, Gómez had reportedly received death threats by drug cartels urging him not to appear in Michoacan, a hot bed of the drug trade.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Puerto Rican reggaetón star Daddy Yankee who played with K-Paz last July in Mexico City. “It hurt me so much.”

“I immediately prayed for his him, his family and the people of Mexico,” added Yankee who was nominated yesterday for Best Urban Album.

Gómez’s manager, who is also named Sergio Gómez, said the singer had no ties to drug gangs.

The murders has singers worrying that they may become targets by becoming identified with one or another of Mexico’s warring drug gangs.

“What can I say? We are dismayed about this. I mean, we are all in the same boat,” said Javier Díaz, representative of Los Tucanes del Norte, a popular group that often poses with assault rifles to promote its songs and violence-filled videos.

After leaving the concert Sunday, Gómez was intercepted by 10 Chevrolet Suburbans. His body turned up on a rural roadside with signs of strangulation and severe bruising on the thorax and abdomen as well as burns on the legs.

Hundreds of people mourned Gómez Tuesday in his native Ciudad Hidalgo. About 200 more also gathered in Mexico City, where Gómez’s body was transported Tuesday night. People sang the group’s best-known songs and some cried holding flowers and photographs.

Another lesser-known singer, Zayda Pena, 28, was shot in a hospital in Matamoros Saturday, while recovering from a gunshot wound she received a day earlier.

Like Gómez, Pena had no known drug associations.

While Gómez was famous for his up-tempo “Pasito Duranguense” rhythm and Pena wrote more in the ballad-like “grupero” style, both essentially sang songs whose themes went little beyond love.

Earlier slayings involved musicians who sang about the criminal underworld. Elizalde, who was killed after performing across the border from McAllen, Texas, became popular with “To My Enemies,” a song frequently seen as a drug lord’s anthem.

Many musicians are now worried that becoming associated with a drug gang may be as easy as waiting for someone to use their song as the soundtrack to a homemade video.

“More than anything else, the point is that musicians make music, they don’t belong to any group,” said Diaz, the representatives of Los Tucanes. “Nobody has the right to take anybody else’s life.”

With Carlos Rodriguez Martorell, Associated Press

It sounds like somehow different singers have become associated with different organized crime groups, and then end up being targeted by other crime families as symbols of their enemies. Or something like that.

Actually, I'm not sure where I got that, maybe mis-rememmbering some things from the first article. Given organized crime is involved, I'm sure there could be lots of different explanations.

I always meant to read that Elijah Wald book "Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas." It might better explain what is going on.

This Shadia Best Of (which I think I mentioned before) definitely has some of the songs I know from a cassette or two of her work. Her stuff is a bit shlocky I suppose, and I can no longer listen to a lot of this type of Arabic popular music with the really thick violins coming in every few seconds, but I do like some of these songs enough to want this. It's good for certain moods. I think some of the songs themselves are actually pretty strong, especially melodically, and sometimes in their percussive passages.

http://www.maqam.com/shadia_arabicmusic1.html#Samples

And I do think she has a pretty good voice, although her damsel in distress mask (that's what it sounds like to me) is a little over the top sometimes.

I like some of the shlock too, like the electric keyboard on El Hob El Hakiki (on vol. 2: http://www.maqam.com/shadia_arabicmusic2.html#Samples), but I still have to be in the right mood for that sort of marginally psychedelic Egyptian cocktail music.

But yeah, these are cool and worth getting, and some of these songs have little pockets where percussion kicks in and they change direction in odd ways.

Front page of the Washington Post story-"The Savage Silencing of Mexico's Musicians"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/25/AR2007122501437.html

Thanks for pointing that out. It provides a lot more context.

This probably doesn't belong on this thread (given that it's an all English-language album), but has anybody here heard Look Directly Into the Sun: China Pop 2007? It's a surprisingly western sounding post-punk collection of eighteen Beijing(?)-based bands

So, has anyone heard it? I really like Carsick Cars and they're on it.

There's a copy at my office, because the upcoming issue of Global Rhythm (I no longer work there obviously, but the current editor is just one cubicle away) is all-China, and includes an interview with Martin Atkins about that disc and the DVD he released of his trip over there.

I got a pretty interesting thing in the mail the other day: Karl Hector & The Malcouns, Sahara Swing. It's a mix of jazz and North African/Egyptian rhythms and instruments, on Stone's Throw for some reason. I'm gonna be writing it up for The Wire.

Picked up two CDs at Target today before seeing Hellboy II (which sucked): Graciela Beltran's Una Reina En Hollywood (live with a full mariachi orchestra, plus six studio tracks also w/orchestra) and Julieta Venegas' MTV Unplugged, which features appearances by Mala Rodríguez, Marisa Monte, Gustavo Santaolalla, Juan Son, Jaques Morelenbaum, and Natalia Lafourcade playing all kinds of instruments in the large backing band (and she apparently did a lot of the arranging, too). I thought Natalia Lafourcade's two albums were great; I hope she puts something else out soon.

Rolling Sublime Whirled Music 2008 (a catch-all thread when you can't find another one that works)