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

http://www.afropop.org/multi/feature/ID/742

Afropop worldwide goes to Ethiopia...

Oh god I miss Ethiopia so much right now.

Ethiopian singer Gossaye Tesfaye performed in DC December 30th and I missed him. Never did see any reviews of the show either.

I like All the Best, the new Zucchero best-of out soon on Verve, but I'm reviewing it for somebody so I don't want to go into detail about it here. (He's a singer-songwriter star in Italy, if you're unfamiliar. Not to be confused with Eros Ramazzotti!)

I also kind of like the Vampire Weekend album, believe it or not. Does that count as whirled music yet? (I'm reviewing that for somebody too, though.)

I wanna get this compilation Martin Atkins (the PiL/Invisible Records guy) put together, Look Directly At The Sun: China Pop 2007. I think there might be a copy in my office somewhere; I hope so.

x-post

Italy seems to be suddenly getting attention. I had a publicist hyping Vinicio Capossela to me. He's gonna be play for free at the Kennedy Center on January 11th. Was described as an "Eccentric Italian folk artist" and I think someone compared him to Tom Waits also. I have not actually heard him yet though.

Also there's a thread on the late Lucio Battisti. The Water label has reissued some of his stuff

Lucio Battisti

Oh yeah, here's last year's whirled music thread:

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

Because of the curfews imposed in Kenya since the controversial election, the Kenyan members of Extra Golden have been unable to work/perform. The American based members are asking for help. See the link:

http://www.extragolden.com/

Because of the curfews imposed in Kenya since the controversial election, the Kenyan members of Extra Golden have been unable to work/perform. The American based members are asking for help.

BTW, is that new Extra Golden disc good? I'm thinking of getting it.

Not very "world," but once again, we give you Tokyo Jihen (live):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xin8UKLKviw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcVEiBdKqMQ

(Actually, thanks to whoever posted this stuff, and to Milton for pointing it out over on the Shiina Ringo thread.)

From a bit further back (it's bossa nova, and then there's some "ethnic" percussion, so it's okay):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fad4QZ7qY&feature=related

for those who are in NYC there are a few world music events due to APAP, list and links below

Trouble Worldwide: A Boundless World of Music
January 11, 2008, 8 pm
Drom, 85 Avenue A (between 5th/6th St.)

7 pm doors open

8 pm Rana Santacruz Mexico/Brooklyn // Irish Mariachi // The Cure meets a “Tambora” band, Tortilla Bluegrass, The Pogues with Tequila

9 pm Ramiro Musotto Brazil/Argentina // Brazilianberimbau/electronic // A psychedelic trip into the Afro-Brazilian and South American culture

10 pm Rupa and the April Fishes Berkeley/India/France // surreal chanson meets Latin/Gypsy // “AméliemeetsWomen on the Verge of a Nervous BreakdownmeetsLatcho Drom”

11 pm Slavic Soul Party! Brooklyn/Balkans // Balkan brass/funk // All-mobile, earth-shakin’, party-startin’, all-night brass band.

http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/350.cfm

globalFEST 2008
January 13, 2008, 7 pm
Webster Hall, 125 East 11th St, NYC

7:00 pm Chango Spasiuk // Argentina's chamame hero
7:00 pm Samarabalouf // French Gypsy jazz guitarists
7:30 pm Dulsori // Spectacular Korean Drummers
8:10 pm Crooked Still // Newgrass innovators
8:20 pm Pistolera // NYC-meets-Mexico alt-rock folkloristas
8:35 pm Vinicio Capossela // Theatrical Italian underground visionary vocalist
9:20 pm La Cor de la Plana // Marseille’s hand-clappin', foot-stompin' vocalists
9:40 pm Fallou Dieng & Le DLC // Senegalese mbalax rising stars
9:40 pm Little Cow // Budapest's Gypsy-tinged rockers
10:30 pm Puerto Plata // 84-year-old Dominican Son maestro
10:45 pm Toumast // Desert Blues Rockers (Niger)
11:00 pm Nation Beat // Northeastern Brazilian carnival meets American roots

http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/345.cfm

Wow, last year there were four or five groups I wanted to see at Globalfest, and this year there's not a single one. That's not because I'm no longer working for Global Rhythm, either.

Really, I figure you would like Senegalese mbalax and want to see Fallou Dieng & Le DLC. If I was in NYC that's whom I'd see. Puerto Plata, the 84-year-old Dominican Son maestro, and Toumast, Desert Blues Rockers (Niger) kinda look interesting as well. That wacky Caposella guy could be entertaining also.

Is there supposed to be a reissue of the Etoile De Dakar albums coming out soon? I heard some talk about it somewhere. Anyone have any more info?

Prev. published on country thread:

Most country songs on Dust-to-Digital Records's Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics (1918-1955) compilation: Pipe Major Forsyth's "Mallorca" (from Northumbria-England -- East Northumbria High, maybe??) and Patrick J. Touhey's "Drowsy Maggie" (from Ireland), both of which are excellent. Other, less country, favorites of mine include Thewaprasit Ensemble's "Phleeng Khuk Phaat, Part 2" (from Thailand, just a weird repetitive Gamelan-like drone); Gong Belaaloewana Bali's "Kebyar Ding, I" (from Bali, very minimalist, and probably even more Gamelan-like, being from Bali and all); Paul Penjda Ensemble's "Ngo Mebou Melane" (from Cameroun, and super catchy); Hutzl Ukrananian Ensemble's "Welsini Meloydi" (from Hutsul-Ukraine, which may or may not be where Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz's ancestors came from, but this one partakes in an eerie use of space nonetheless); M. Nguyen Van Minh-Con's "Nam Nhi-tu" (from Vietnam with cool plinking sounds); Edwin Fisher's "Handel's Chaconne, Teil I" (from Switzerland/Germany, and all the Handel I need to own probably or maybe not); Sathoukhru Lukkhamkeow's "Nakhone Prayer" (from Laos, great vocal drone); and Sinkou & Kouran Kin's "Songs in Grief" (from Japan, and highly reminiscent of "Don't Kyoko Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand in the Snow" by Yoko Ono, I swear to God.)

I probably spelled lots of those words wrong.

Anyone stumble on this yet?

http://excavatedshellac.wordpress.com/

World music 78s. Totally geeked on shellac

Finally!
December 25, 2007
Here’s to the people at Crammed Discs for their Roots of Rhumba Rock CD set. Not only is it a beautiful collection of Congolese music from 78s on the stunning Loningisa label (something I love to collect!) they also printed this message in the CD’s booklet:

“WARNING: Although the greatest care has been put to the digital transfer of those original 1953-55 Congolese classics, the limitations of the Compact Disc can obviously not do justice to the glorious 78 rpm disc analog sound.”

Wow, somebody really GETS IT!

Yep. Was just looking at that cd set in DC store Melody Records but opted to finally get the Tabu ley Rochereau 2 cd retrospective comp from 2007 that made several critics polls instead.

That Rochereau retrospective is v. good. Heresy, I guess, but I think I like it better than the classic Franco/Rochereau disc, Omona Wapi

Roots of Rhumba Rock is one of the greatest sets ever. Stuff is fire.

The Voice of America's Africa service is now blogging old African music: http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/blog/ Leo Sarkisian has been recording music for them throughout Africa and the Mideast since the '50s and then playing it on his VOA radio show. The blog has some recordings Leo made and some from others. I remember going to see Leo speak at the VOA in DC ten years ago. There were only about 10 of us there but this wonderful, knowledgeable, enthusiatic old guy just kept talking and talking and playing music.

Oh, Pete Margasak's blog tipped me off about the VOA one. Pete's been blogging about African stuff lately--http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/post-no-bills/

Pareles in the NY Times on that Globalfest show

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/arts/music/15webs.html?th&emc=th

Just read on Pete Margasak's Chicago reader blog that Belizean Garifuna singer Andy Palacio just died of a heart attack at age 47.

Unrelated to that, I just saw the "Art of the Tuareg" exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art (It's just there through 1-27). The exhibit is mostly made up of beautifully crafted silver jewelry and leather wallets and stuff, but there's one glass case with old Tuareg instruments, and there's video of a Tuareg band from Niger playing at a wedding. But I forgot to write down their name. Tinariwen's music and Tartit's and some others are also playing in the various rooms.

I see someone started a separate thread re Palacio with a link to the NYT obit:

R.I.P. Andy Palacio

“Sometimes I go out, and I like to dance because in Cambodia I could never go to clubs and dance like that,” Ms. Chhom said.

Zac Holtzman responded, “There’s always a few nights on tour when we go out and do a few clubs and some dancing ——”

Ms. Chhom interrupted emphatically : “I don’t want to talk, I want to dance. And these guys all like to talk. I know it’s the American style, they like to drink and talk and talk, but to those people I just say, ‘Hi, bye, let’s go dance.’ ”

I like her more by the minute. She's quite stunning in this photo too. I wonder if she will end up with a different sort of backing band eventually?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/arts/music/20smit.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=music

Yea, I thought that was interesting also. Dengue Fever are touring the US in February a bit, but no Philly show RS, it appears:

2/27 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
2/28 - Pontiac, MI - Crofoot Ballroom
2/29 - Columbus, OH - Skully's
3/1 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
3/2 - Arden, DE - Arden Gild Hall
3/4 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
3/5 - Brooklyn, NY - Southpaw
3/6 - Princeton, NJ - Terrace F. Club
3/7 - Montreal, QC - La Sala Rossa
3/8 - Toronto, ON - Sneaky Dee's

They were supposed to play in Albuquerque a few months back (as part of the Globalquerque Festival, which is starting to take off), but that fell through. Hopefully they'll make it there eventually. (As for Philly, I still don't go out and do anything any more, so it doesn't matter who plays, though I'm sure I'd drag myself out for Tokyo Jihen, even if it meant pumping myself up with caffeine and pseuodephedrine until I start acting like a speed freak.)

Heads up New Yorkers--

UPCOMING OTHER MUSIC INSTORES
We are pleased to announce a couple of new additions to our ongoing in-store series. Next Wednesday, January 30 at 8PM, we are honored to host a rare solo performance from Toumani Diabate, the Malian Kora prodigy who for more than 20 years has both preserved the traditions of his native music, and pushed the boundaries, most recently appearing on Bjork's latest album. Diabate's solo performances are riveting, and this should be an amazing opportunity to see this legend up close and personal.

I like Diabete with a danceband better-- like his last cd, but solo kora is pretty sublime as well. I wish he'd head down to DC after NYC.

Exactly. I'd go in a second if his symmetric orchestra was with him.

Somali/Ethiopian/Italian singer Saba:

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/Large/71/1005571.jpg

I have to admit, I'm more interested in seeing more revealing photos of her than I am in the sound of her singing, which is a little too American R&B/pop for my taste, judging by the short audio clips I've heard. Here's the title track on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdYiWsmp2eI&feature=related

The next issue of Global Rhythm has Andy Palacio on the cover, with a story about the Garifuna Women's Project. Unfortunately, he died while it was already at the printer.

I'm listening to the Arabesque Music Ensemble (formerly the Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble) play and sing "The Music of the Three Musketeers," who were in fact, songwriters for Umm Kulthum. They composed the music and added poetry from others way back when. The songs were originally recorded in the '30s and '40s. It's not Umm, but it's not bad.

The Arabesque renditions are new, if that was not clear.

Well, it's a bit clipped, but considering it's an Iraqi music video from 1990, on youtube, this is a tolerable copy. I've been trying to find this version of this song on youtube for a while now. It's Saleh Abdel Ghafoor's recording of "Ishlonak," which is an old standard/folk song, but this particular recording caught on pretty big at the time it came out in the 90s (from what I've been told). Probably more easily enjoyed without the video, actually, but anyway, I think this singer is great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HM5tjLz-Gs

And the clapping and the rolling drums and the violin, and everything else is pretty great, except for the chorus, which you kind of just have to make allowances for. (I sort of like it in this song.)

A bunch of his stuff here:

http://www.6arab.net/ViewSingersCats/singers/333.html

(It really makes a difference when you search using actual Arabic script, rather than dodgy transliterations. I've just been cutting and pasting, of course.)

Wait, this is not all him, is it? Maybe.

Speak English, damn it.

HA.

Where can I find more stuff like this?

Ukrainian tribal art drone oddness from Dakha Brakha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RsuhGjb98w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqON3P5mK90&feature=related

More Ukrainian art folk stutter from Propala Gramota:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Gwf-MuawU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtN9jwj1C8c&feature=related

That first one sounds a little like the 00I00 CD I sold off, from last year.

do you know the Iva Bittová / Pavel Fajt albums from the late 80's?

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=12708647

the first two volumes in the 'Secret Museum of Mankind' series (78's of world / ethnic music 1925-1948) & the Les Voix Du Monde global compilation of accapella ritual & prayer recordings are knocking me out right now. not very 2008.

that blog has led me to drop some troubling amounts of money on world music mail order stores. you can't find Sezen Akzu at Amoeba.

Someone posted a comment on an Ethiopian/American website that Ethiopian singer Gossaye Tesfaye is coming back to DC on February 16th but the person did not say where and posted anonymously. I can find anything about it online so I guess I'll have to eat Ethiopian this weekend and hope their are flyers for the show at the restaurant. Pareles gave him a good review in the NY Times when Tesfaye was at SOBs a little while back.

that should read: I cannot find anything about it online...and hope there are flyers

Yep, at the new large Ethiopian grocery/cd store and restaurant near the Falls Church Circuit City there was a poster up for Gossaye Tesfaye, on Feb. 15th at H2O in DC, and in an Ethiopian newspaper an ad for Tsehaye Yohannes on 2-16 at the International Ballroom. The youtube videos for these two are pretty promising. Jon Pareles liked Tesfaye at SOBs in NYC recently.

i like this globe-pop mix. (has there ever been a t/s:world music vs. globe-pop thread? should there be?)

speaking of mixes, i take it you guys are aqauinted with the Voodoo Funk blog? i've never posted on the ILM world threads before but couldn't find mention of it. if you've never seen it, there are some incredibly fine afro-funk mixes on offer. great sound quality too.

my favourite is frank's 'big mama unice's hi-life mix' which is less funk and more high life (as the title would suggest). lovely vocals throughout.

I had never checked out the Voodoo Funk guy's bio before--

In the summer of 2005 I turned the night over to my friend Mark and left Europe to dig up funk records even more obscure and elusive than US Funk 45s: I moved to Guinea on the coast of West Africa where I retired as a DJ and dedicated my entire time to the pursuit of African Funk Records. This blog is about my travels and experiences in a region that despite being plagued by civil wars corrupt governments and other diseases has so much more to offer. Maybe this site will inspire some of You to just go and buy a plane ticket and come to see where we all came from. You might find things more valuable than the rarest records and sometimes you won't even have to dig through dusty boxes to find them.

yeah quite a bio. just read the account of his road trip through benin:

Cotonou seems to be most favorite port for West African automobile importers. Mainly Nigerian companies buy whole ship loads of used cars from early 1970s construction trucks to all sorts of SUVs, 1980's VW Golfs or Mercedes limousines from last year. These cars then get transported in bizarrely huge convoys, driven by rented drivers, -rumor has it most of them on on drugs -across the border to Lagos in Nigeria or up north to Burkina Faso. What we had to face that morning must have been at least a couple of thousand cars. It was surreal.

seems like he's off back to new york in july though :(

Been listening to the Eritrean music posted on BennLoxo in January. Sami Berhane-Gezana's vocals are impressive, and the sorta cheesy keyboard work is hypnotic.

New issue of the Fader magazine (#52) is their Africa issue. Big feature with lots of photos on South Africa's is it alive or dead kwaito scene, plus South African rock/jazzers (I think) BLK JKS, and Esau Mwamwaya and more. I think I should subscribe (its $6 per issue at the newsstand). Last month had a Mexico City rock piece and a nice dc go-go article. Way too many ads and cooler than thou attitude, but they're covering stuff I am not reading or hearing elsewhere.

Is Christgau reading Fader (see him taking Julianne Shepherd to task for her imprecise African music references on that art journalism blog, and he and Will Hermes discussing the state of afropop knowledge among American critics and young hipsters)? Meanwhile Benn Loxo and Awesome Tapes from Africa and others just keep blogging along about stuff that never gets sent to every indie-rock reviewing critic in America.

I recall being less than wowed by NYC based Brazilian guitarist Vinicius Cantuaria on a cd I got years ago but I continue to see his name dropped over the years. Ben Ratliff in the NY Times says of his new cd on Koch that Cantuaria is

making a kind of theoretically perfect modern bossa nova.

A lot of “Cymbals” (Koch), his new album, has a searching, patient temperament that characterizes the new jazz. Many of his collaborators here come from the New York jazz scene: Brad Mehldau, Jenny Scheinman, David Binney and Michael Leonhart. But the rhythm is samba based, and Mr. Cantuaria sings softly, nasally, in the João Gilberto style, reducing his guitar playing to a minimum.

I'm not sure this is for me. The youtube video I saw of Cantuaria with trumpter Leonhart is too low-key bossa as jazz for me, while a separate Cantuaria youtube video I saw is kinda genric folk-rock with a Braziian flavor. I'm still curious and wondering if I'm missing something though.

I am imagining a dembow beat on this first track (just listening to a sample). I guess that proves I have been listening to too much reggaeton (or else it proves the difficulty with which all these rhythms can be cleanly separated from one another).

Cantuaria is very technically adept and a bit too smooth, a fact that even his avant moves (Horse and Fish) and hipster associates can't cover over. I always hold out hope though that sooner or later he will knock one out of the park.

Thanks, I think I will explore elsewhere--finally get some of those 2007 Sublime Frequencies releases and other stuff I've meaning to get.

I saw reggaetoner Don Omar with merengue/bachata singer El Torito opening Friday night and that meant I did not see Ethiopian singer Gossaye Tesfaye, on the same night at H2O in DC, and wonder if the show actually happened. I saw a poster for it in an Ethiopian grocery store, but the event was never previewed anywhere (except by me) and I never found it listed on the club's website or elsewhere. Similarly, I missed last night's Tsehaye Yohannes show at some obscure club that I only saw advertised in an Ethiopian newspaper in an ad in Amharaic (with an album title in English that helped me figure out that it was Yohannes). Those Ethiopiques cds of older sounds from that country are cool and all that but I am also curious about more current sounds from there.

Tesfaye and Yohannes are both over 30 I think, so they're not even the sound of young Ethiopia either (although they're younger than M. Ahmed and other on the Ethiopiques cds)

best Ethiopian album of 2007, according to our guide in Addis, was Alamarrm by Tibebu Workye. Here is a great video of his single -- I know I've already linked to it but it's still dope.

Yea, I love his vocal melody and the way he/his producer/band/whomever transform r'n'b instrumentally

the whole record is great like this, I'll send you some tracks sometime; here are some others:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8A3VmVKOR0 (Emma Ethiopia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMvsyUCaqM (Gena Zare)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLwBWhmBuHU (Mayayae)

Colombian vocalist Petrona Martínez is the heiress to a long tradition of bullerengue—an Afro-Colombian dance rhythm originating in the small towns of Bolívar and Córdoba, originally sung only by pregnant women confined to their homes

The youtube videos of Martinez and her band are pretty impressive. I'm gonna go see her in DC next Tuesday where she/they are doing a free show at the Kennedy Center

This is more general than music, but here's the web page for an interesting looking guide to Cuba (or specifically Havana, I suppose):

http://www.thehmagazine.com/index.htm

That does look interesting.

I was reading a blog the other night that insisted, with little factual support, that the only interesting current Cuban music/art is coming from Cubans in Florida and not Cuba itself. I moved on and didn't save the link.

There is a track on Master of the Kora by Amadu Bansang Jobarteh called "Kelefa Saane."

I think Christgau made reference to NY Times critic Kelefa Sanneh's heritage in a posting or a comment on that Arts Journalism blog regarding the NYT's coverae of Vampire Weekend.

Colombian vocalist Petrona Martínez is the heiress to a long tradition of bullerengue—an Afro-Colombian dance rhythm

Streaming via video live from the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage website tonight from 6 p.m. to 7 Eastern time (and later from the archive) and free for those in the DC area

Bullerengue was later used in champeta

Tibebu Workye = more proof that Ethiopian melismatic singing style goes incredibly well with pitch correction

I mean, it kinda already aspires to the kind of hard, sharp, dead-on shifts pitch-correction software forces.

Oh, and --

I think Christgau made reference to NY Times critic Kelefa Sanneh's heritage in a posting or a comment on that Arts Journalism blog regarding the NYT's coverae of Vampire Weekend.

-- this wasn't Sanneh, it was ...

I think he mentions uh, you, in one spot and Sanneh elsewhere (maybe in a comment to his own posting)

I'll find the link later, gotta go write my Petrona Martinez review.

nabisco, what's your point? what culture's singing DOESN'T go better with pitch correction?

not that you're not right of course -- just saying though.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the greater precision (at least in regard to pitch) required in microtonal singing.

Meanwhile, I discovered that it's "Afro-Colombian week" in Washington D.C. sponsored by the Colombian embassy. Afro-Colombian singing is not so precise. Petrona Martinez played the ambassador's residence, then the Kennedy Center and today on Capitol Hill for the Congressional Black Caucus. Ah life in the nation's capital. Today at 5:00 pm. Concert by Petrona Martinez. With a discussion of the history of Palenque and an exhibition of photographs of Palenque by Ana Mercedes Hoyos I wanna see the photos

Nabisco,

Upthread I was talking about a (seemingly unnecessary) Christgau feb. 8th dis of someone of Senegalese heritage in the comments to his own Vampire Weekend posting on the najb website in regards to a NY Times article by a NY Times style person, not a music critic, in which Christgau wrote, in part: Why is the Times piece dreadful? Because--in what is supposedly the newspaper of record, a newspaper that as it happens employs a higher percentage of music critics with some knowledge of African styles than any other in the land, with its critic of Senegalese heritage less informed than most of his colleagues--it runs a trend piece about a talented young band with no insight whatsoever into the band's music or the way any music reaches a public (that stuff about their blog pull is as received and secondhand as the rest--so snarky and shallow).

http://www.najp.org/articles/2008/02/blood-sucking-geeks.html#more

Yeah, sorry, I hadn't looked through the comments -- I thought you meant the ethnicity-spotting in the main post!

Being surprised that the first-generation (I assume?) critic would be less versed in African stuff than the others is a little backwards, psychologically.

Busy at home with family so I will have to miss the Arabesque Ensemble at Georgetown Gaston Hall tonight (performing music associated with 3 of Egyptian singer Ummm Kulthum’s songwriters on their new cd with a Syrian singer substituting for Umm)

All the convo here about Afro- Colombian music compels me to post a link to a superb blog that I have been devouring the last couple weeks. It is focused on the roots of Afro- Colombian music i.e. cumbia, salsa, and its variants, but is a good place to start if you want to hear where alot of this newer stuff comes from. My apologies since this thread is geared towards newer releases, but figured would be of interest to many on here.

http://africolombia.blogspot.com/

Yea, I recently discovered that one as well. Very nice indeed.

The American guys from Extra Golden are putting out cds (nice, traditional afropop...They're not breaking new ground but this is nicely played and sung stuff):

http://www.kanyokanyo.com/catalog.html

that Songlines magazine online sampler is hard to negotiate

New studio release from Mohamed Abdou, which sounds (judging by these clips) a lot less marred by studio excess than some of his stuff, without being folkloric:

http://msn.mazika.com/en/album_songs.aspx?AlbumID=3220

That's one I might get, if I don't end up living on the street by the end of the year.

I'm quite enjoying Cafe Noir by Papa Noel. It came out in March of last year, but I didn't see any mention of it on the 2007 Whirled Music thread. It's a fusion of African and Latin styles featuring African and Cuban musicians.

AMG description:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:apfyxzt5ldte

That was something I was always thinking about getting because I enjoyed seeing Noel live with singer Sam Mangwana, have liked earlier things that he's been on, and had read about his very impressive background in the Beat magazine and elsewhere. The guy was in Franco's band and with Mangwana and others. At times I think, I have Kekele and Africando cds, do I need more African and Cuban hybrid efforts, but the guy is a legend who still seems to make music that gets favorable attention. I think he was real sick a year or so ago, but may have recovered.

I downloaded about half the tracks off of eMusic, but they also are offering the CD for about $9 w/shipping from half.com, so I went ahead and ordered it.

"Iraqi oud master Rahim Alhaj, perched on the edge of a sofa cushion in his home on a lovely late-January afternoon, is animatedly recounting how he and his Lebanese percussionist, Souhail Kaspar, on their way to a recording session in Maryland for Smithsonian Folkways Records, took a wrong turn and found their rental car surrounded by military Hummers, security ops, and dogs just inside a National Security Agency facility. Allowed to leave after three tense hours, they proceeded directly to the recording studio, two minutes down the road. . . ."--Albuquerque, the Magazine, March 2008.

I would be frightened to accidentally end up on NSA property. Imagine doing so as an Iraqi. Of course, sooner or later he would have had lots of people in the government to vouch for him.

Question for 5ive or maybe RS: what's the best starting place for Graciela Beltran? She's got a zillion albums and just as many best-ofs; which one is the only one I really need?

Hello from reggaeton world (I just like this song and even the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMh438AtzSw

That video is all over mun2, and almost convinced me to buy the album after hearing it about six dozen times over one weekend. I don't think the final sale will ever be made, though.

It's also on the collection Echo Presenta which has a few other decent tracks at least. (I haven't lsitened enough to have it sorted through.)

DOP: "Foly feat. Sibiri Samaké" [Milnor Modern]

I am kind of curious about this record that Phillip Sherburne describes in his Pitchfork techno column as sounding like R. Villalobos remixing Ali Farka Toure. DOP is a Parisian trio who recorded Malian griot Samake in Bamako. Haven't tried to figure out where I can buy this yet (or hear it first).

I was reading in the Washington City Paper music blog about Nigeria Special, a newly issued Soundway comp of 70s bands from that country. I wonder if any of those groups are still active, or if there's a Nigerian oldies circuit? It's great that this old stuff is now getting re-released and gaining more atention, I'm just curious about how things have changed for those artists and their music since that time.

I received the Cafe Noir CD that I ordered about a week and a half ago. This opinion could change with more listens, but my favorite tracks are still the ones I'd downloaded previously (ie., the first half of the CD), but the second half is still quite good - and the whole thing is worth seeking out.

Yea, I should probably get it. Noel's playing is often understated in just the right way.

If you like Senegalese afropop, there's an Orchestra Baobob cd being released in the US now, that was available in the UK last year.

Etran Finatawa and band, from Niger, are touring the US in April as are Meiway and band from the Ivory Coast

In addition to that Soundway 2CD Nigeria Special, there's another one, also from Soundway, called Nigerian Disco Special coming out this week.

Lots of old great stuff to dig through. Plus Awesome Tapes from Africa and that VOA blog keep posting old great stuff. But I still am wondering what African musicians are up to in 2008. I don't want to wait 20 years for the reissues! African Cd releases are not submitted to Metacritic for the cd release list. The one African music forum I used to read is dominated by Congolese folks and mostly just covers the stuff France-based Congolese rumba (still called soukous by some Americans) groups are up to artists have released. But not much on other regions. Once in awhile elsewhere I stumble across youtube videos for current Ethiopian performers who are coming to perform in DC because there are so many Ethiopians living here. Hmmm, there's an African hiphop website, but what else?

I really should proofread before posting. But you get the idea, right?

That first track on Nigeria Special—by The Funkees—is so great. Anyone know any more about them? I did find two lps but they don't sound like that track...

You could try asking at africambiance.org but they are mostly into Congolese music there.

But where would African music be without Paul Simon and U2!!! Coming up in NYC in Brooklyn is:

BAM 2008 Spring Gala
Paul Simon: Under African Skies
Wed, Apr 9

Featuring performances by David Byrne, Kaïssa, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Vusi Mahlasela, Milton Nascimento, Luciana Souza, Cyro Baptista, Paul Simon

Hugh Masekela is no longer able to perform

While on April Fools Day the new cd "In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2" features Grammy Award-winning/nominated African artists as well as top up-and-coming talents including Angelique Kidjo, Les Nubians, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Vieux Farka Touré, Vusi Mahlasela and the Soweto Gospel Choir

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013PVGL8/105-5413515-6294035?ie=UTF8&tag=worldmusicpor-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0013PVGL8

Of the Brazilian folks on the bill above, am I the only person who finds singer Luciana Souza overrated?

I was just listening to Echu Mingua again. It's a great album--except that "Conga Carnival" totally ruins the mood. I am happily listening and then that track comes on and I just feel like: what happened?!

In response to one of my own questions earlier, I see that
worldmusiccentral.org , some volunteers from North Carolina, list some new releases and tour dates...

I received the Cafe Noir CD that I ordered about a week and a half ago. This opinion could change with more listens, but my favorite tracks are still the ones I'd downloaded previously (ie., the first half of the CD), but the second half is still quite good - and the whole thing is worth seeking out.

-- o. nate, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:15 PM

I was reading this weekend about another 2007 Papa Noel cd. Someone on the africa ambience forum liked it better. Naturally, I think it's a harder to find import on an even smaller label.

Reading about Ghanian hiplife in Fader. Need to go look for youtube videos and such.

South African kwaito coverage in Fader, and online attention at dissensus.

I'm waiting for the new Etran Finatawa from Niger (tuareg guitar band)cd to arrive. The group's on a US tour this month.

I got that Etran Finatawa disc in the mail, but haven't had a spare moment to listen to it yet. I liked their last one a lot.

Here's their (short)American tour schedule:

April 18 New York NY - World Music Institute
April 20 Rosendale NY - Rosendale Theater
April 21 Arlington, VA - IOTA Club
April 26 Lafayette LA Festival Int’l. de Louisiane
April 27 Lafayette LA Festival Int’l. de Louisiane
April 29 Santa Monica, CA - Temple Bar
April 30 Chicago IL - Old Town School of Folk Music

Finally got the March issue of the Beat magazine with their best of 2007 critics poll stuff (the magazine is only published 5 times a year now). Mostly what you'd expect, but also some things I'm not familiar with that appear to be worth exploring or at least mentioning here for others to possibly school me on.

The late Andy Palacio won with 12 picks, Ricardo Lemvo and ColombiAfrica--the Mystic Orchestra each had 7 picks; Bassekou Kouyate, Youssou N'Dour, and Gaudi & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan(Dub Qawwali) each had 6 picks; and Tinariwen had 5 picks. If you like Malian music that Kouyate one is very nice.

Artists/cds I'm curious about from some of the critics lists: Krezi Mizik (from Haiti); Sonora Dinamita-'Cumbia Pa Sabor (on Fuentes); Grupo Caribe-"Somos Caribenos"; Ticklah v. Axelrod; Occidental Brothers Dance Band International; Madilu Sound System-"La Bonne Humeur'; and Ciclon -'En Transito' (La Calle)

I don't quite get the massive enthusiasm for Ricardo Lemvo or that ColombiAfrica stuff.

Grupo Caribe is yet another mix of primarily NYC salseros (some of the same names that appear in Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Soneros del Barrio, and 8 y Mas): http://cdbaby.com/cd/grupocaribe4

Sonora Dinamita is a veteran Colombian cumbia band (but at least half of that is obvious by the title of the album and the label on which they apppear).

The other ones I don't know about. (Isn't Ticklah ragga, or does the name just sound that way?)

Have we mentioned the new Dengue Fever album on this thread? It and Boris's Smile are my favorite albums of '08 so far. Of course, we're basically just talking rock with those albums.

As recently linked to on a newsgroup some of you* belong to: Los Van Van (Mayito Rivera on vocals) performing the classic "Somos Cubanos," quite recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1DEnLWd4Nw

(Very good too.)

That's like the one contemporary Cuban song I like!

Speaking of contemporary Cuban, I never did get or hear that Isaac Delgado cd from last year he made after he defected. Also, I wish I could be out in Seattle at the EMP and hear Ned Sublette talk about Cuba and New Orleans. There are some other Latin music panels as well.

Ticklah is reggae dub sorta. Apparently "two songs—“Mi Sonsito” and “Si Hecho Palante”—tackle Eddie Palmieri classics in a ska and reggae setting respectively." Hmmm, maybe this is not such a good idea.

What I've heard of the Dengue Fever does sound like good rock. The Lemvo and the ColombiAfrica both use on some cuts that '80s Congolese soukous/rumba guitar style that many folks love.

Actually, I remember hearing those Ticklah versions before.

(Now that you mention them.)

I took a quick look at the end of the year list in The Beat. There were a few outrageous typos in those lists. You should see what they did to "Wisin & Yandel."

Yea, I saw that. As flawed as the magazine is, I still find information in there that I can't find online(its more useful for African music fans than Latin music fans, although they do touch on items of interest to the latter).

Speaking of typos, Tijana Ilich (whose taste and fact-checking we've criticized in the past) on that about.com Latin music blog thing wrote that Grupo Caribe keep alive the salsa that was made famous in New York in the '70s at the Palladium. I commented, after checking the dates, that the Palladium closed in 1966 and was the home to pre-salsa mambo, etc. She has now changed the posting and acknowled the mistake in the comments. I'm no expert on the subject, but that mistake was pretty glaring and something she could have and should have easily fact-checked beforehand.

Ha. Perhaps I should check my spelling before posting. "acknowledged"

Gonna go see Rob Curto's Sanfona Project tonight in Arlington, near DC--Brazilian forro meets tango and jazz. Liked Curto with Forro for All, we'll see how this is.

This Algerian Muslim and Jewish effort interested me when I first read about it and now a movie doc and an earlier recorded cd are finally due-

Ben Ratliff in the Sunday NY Times:

Abdel Hadi Halo & the El Gusto

Orchestra of Algiers

Connected to “El Gusto,” a documentary film by Safinez Bousbia to be released later this year, this piece of audio vérité documents the reconvening of an old Algerian band that included both Jewish and Muslim musicians. And there’s your movie, of course, but the album stands on its own merits. The music is chaabi, a long-lost alloy of North African, Andalusian and Middle Eastern sources; its high period was in the bars of Algiers after World War II. The orchestra has banjos, lutes, mandolins and violins, playing unison lines; it’s led by a pianist, and it moves along on a bed of percussion, thundering and then turning romantic and vulnerable. This recording, recently released by the British label Honest Jon’s, represents an incomplete version of the band that will be seen in the movie. (It has none of the older Jewish musicians, who relocated to France in 1962, when Algeria became a Muslim-ruled state. In 2006, when this recording was made, they were still afraid to return to Algiers. The orchestra later staged a full reunion, its first gig in more than 45 years, in September in Marseilles, France.) It’s a bewitching record anyway, with gorgeous natural-room sound and powerful, guttural singing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/call-of-a-faraway-casbah-a-remarkable-group-of-jewish-and-muslim-musicians-comes-to-britain-398711.html

Brazilian marching band like zambumba drums rule:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl8c1M07SMc

Also spelled "zabumba"

New Henry Fiol album, available free from his website:

http://www.henryfiol.com/eng/index.html

I haven't actually listened to it yet. For some context:

Fiol developed a sound that married Spanish-derived guajiro(country) styling with urban, black rhythms.

“My music is son montuno,” says Fiol. “I don’t use timbales, just conga and bongo, that’s conjunto. And the conjunto bands base themselves after Sonora Matancera, or Chapottin, or Arsenio Rodriguez. That’s very urban, black Cubano sound. I use an element of that but I use more of that white Spaniard country kind of stuff. That’s where my vocal style comes from. So I’m taking the country music and making it hipper by putting that funky black urban conjunto thing in it.”

http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/archives/Profile10

I'm not honestly a big lover of that conjunto sound, but sometimes I've liked what he does with it.

Downloaded it but have not listened to it yet. I bet, based on what little I know of Puerto Rican/Italian Fiol, that his version of conjunto is different from what I think of when I hear that term.

Rob Curto's Sanfona Project the other night were best when they stuck to playing Brazilian forro dance music (with echoes of zydeco and tex-mex polka). Some of the time though Curto wanted to show off his chops and play forro meets tango meets jazz meets whatever stuff with extended instrumental improv that dragged on too long. The Brazilian vocalist/triangle player was great.

This definitely refers to a Cuban conjunto sound, not the Mexican (or Tex-Mex?) genre called conjunto. Of course, he then puts his own spin on it, but it still holds fairly close to Cuban models.

This looks good: http://dumbdrumguy.blogspot.com/

Zimbabwe top 10 courtesy allafrica.com via The Herald (which they note is published by the government of Zimbabwe; so this may not be too accurate sez me).

Gramma

1. Tongai Moyo - Pinda Panyanga

2. Gift Amuli - By Ginya

3. Nicholas Zakaria - Mbuva Yeupenyu

4. Alick Macheso - Collection

5. Tongai Moyo - Vimbo

6. Olinda Marowa - Nyasha

7. Gift Amuli - Monombozvigona Sei?

8. Mai Chinembiri - Munamato Wangu

9. Njerama Boys - Kambairai

10. Leonard Dembo - Singles Collection

I threw that list out there just to show that there's lots of music released that does not get issued in the US or UK, and that does not get attention in American or UK magazines and websites. Plus, it's interesting in the context of the current Zimbabwean political situation.

Niger desert nomad band Etran Finatawa's latest is more laidback than Tinariwen but still has that cool Tuareg guitar sound. They're gonna be outside of DC on Monday at Iota

Pareles in the NY Times loved Etran Finatawa's US debut show Friday night. I'm looking forward to Monday's show in DC by this Niger Tuareg and Wodaabe tribes band (though I like Tinariwen's desert nomad sound more--vocally and tempo-wise)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/arts/music/21etra.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

I wonder if Unperson saw the NYC show(or shows?)

The Virginia/DC show was nice.

Nah, didn't make it, unfortunately.

Got the Nigeria Rock Special comp on Soundway yesterday (companion to the Nigeria Special 2CD and Nigeria Disco Funk Special single-disc). It has a second track by Ofo The Black Company, and based on the raw, ass-kickingness of "Allah Wakbarr" and this one, I have to track down their only album now.

Etran Finatawa- review of Wash DC area show

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042202996_pf.html

Only a few dates left on their short US tour--Lafayette, Louisiana festival plus Los Angeles and Chicago

Woo hoo! Orchestra Baobob, Salif Keita, and Gilberto Gil touring the US in the summer.

Gil's with a band this time. I think he was solo last year.

Wow together?

Anybody own that Dust To Digital "Victrola Favorites" thing? How do I get the cds out without snapping them in two? Thanks.

I managed to get the discs out OK (pressing down on the weird glutenous spindle as you lift them off using the little tab access might help), but had a really hard time squeezing them back onto those odd spindles so eventually gave up and put them into a little CD sleeve to keep alongside the book.

Just got them out this morning! I found that wiggling the top and the side gradually gets them off, if anyone else has the same trouble. Seems to be a pretty great collection too, what I played of it so far. I'm guessing there could be many more of these kind of comps coming out now people have realised there's this treasure trove of copyright-free material available.

Wow together?

-- Alex in SF, Friday, 25 April 2008 19:47 (Yesterday) Link

No, but Orchestra Baobab in the Dc area Thursday Jone 19th, Salif Keita in DC on June 20th and Gilberto Gil in Dc on June 22nd.

Chicha Libre, the Brooklyn band that does old Peruvian chicha surf music and more, are gonna be in DC on June 19th as well. I missed 'em last night down here.

Gotta find some new cds of new 2008 released music to talk about (Etran Finatawa is like so last week dude, I sez to myself). '70s Nigerian reissues (on that other thread)and older 78 rpm collections are cool, but I like new things too. I'm just kinda talking to myself here--if you wanna just listen to old stuff, do what you want.

I've been reading front of the paper articles about African countries with information that may impact music from there. A Washington Post article about Tuaregs being left out of the mini-financial boom for uranium mining in the Sahara region of Niger (and the violence between the government and certain Tuareg groups in that area). Plus a W. Post article on the Congo and the pros and cons of new roads to rural areas.

My review of a new compilation of Ghanaian "hiplife" (basically, a combination of highlife, dancehall, hip-hop and other stuff) is on the Voice website, but not in the print edition for space reasons. Read it here.

Out Here really does good stuff don't they?

Last month's Fader had a big article on hiplife plus some reviews of it I think by that awesome tapes from Africa blog guy

Gotta find some new cds of new 2008 released music to talk about (Etran Finatawa is like so last week dude, I sez to myself). '70s Nigerian reissues (on that other thread)and older 78 rpm collections are cool, but I like new things too.

How's that new Chicha Libre disc? The comp that provides some of the source material -- The Roots of Chicha -- looks promising, too.

The Chicha Libre disc is uneven---I like the Peruvian inspired chicha stuff--cumbia meets surf rock; but there's also loungey kitschy songs that are less thrilling. The Roots of Chicha comp is worthwhile.

I interviewed Miles Cleret (the guy behind the Nigeria Special compilations) last week. The resulting piece will run in the Cleveland Scene sometime in June; I'll post a link then.

Last night on Afro-Pop Worldwide, they featured music from Sierra Leone. I wasn't that taken with most of it, but the cuts from Daddy Saj (who they didn't talk about much) were great, definitely someone I'm going to look into. The rhythms were very close to, say, merengue, or something Afro-Latin like that, but distinct. But it would easily sit alongside merengue or some reggaeton (as well as a whole bunch of African music, of course). One album of his that the tracks came from was Densay Densay (which I mis-heard as "Dancing Dancing," but I found it eventually, just as I found out that the artist's name wasn't "Daddy Sage"). Somebody here must know about this person.

(The big guy next to me is listening to "Dancing Queen." Library internet computers are more fun from the user end than the provider end.)

(Like, if I were working here, I'd be pissed at how loud that guy's headphones are, but just sitting next to him I don't actually care. If anything, it's entertaining to hear what he is listening to.)

Yea, I can see that

Just started reading the Benn Loxo blog visit to Syria posts...

http://bennloxo.com/

While Pete Margasak is blogging about an Iranian/Persian singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian,who was just in Chicago Saturday night.

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/post-no-bills/

Getting excited about all the big names touring the US (or at least coming my way in DC this summer/NYC is getting even more): Gilberto Gil w/ a band; Orchestra Baobab; Salif Keita; music from Bhutan for free at the Smithsonian Folklife Fest (Whatever that sounds like); numerous soca performers for DC Carnival

David Rudder is gonna be in town the same night as Salif Keita. I've seen 'em both twice, but would like to see them both again.

Tried the new upscale in appearance Ethiopian restaurant, Meaza, not far from me and they had live music and dance going on Sunday at dinner time. Interesting traditional instruments ( one guy used a bow on his stringed instrument, hard to describe the others, will research later) plus one guy then used a synth drum pad thing. One of the dancers sang some of the time, as did the musicians.

I still have not researched the names of those Ethiopian instruments.

Anybody hear the new Orchestra Baobab cd? Are they just re-doing their '70s repetoire?

On Scott S.'s Why ILM is boring these days thread, a bunch of folks said they avoid the Rolling threads. Oh well. We need some new folks here, maybe UK folks who contribute to or read fRoots to post stuff about international music in the UK (or cds available there)

I need to buy some new sounds myself

I wrote this longish blog post about the imagery/cover art on some recent compilations, specifically Nigeria Rock Special and African Scream Contest, how it reflects (or doesn't) the music within, and how it sells that music to its target audience, whoever that target audience might be. Would be interested in other thread denizens' thoughts (or anyone's, really).

Got to admit I pretty much ignore the cover art on most of these things so I can't speak to that part of it, but the African Scream Contest title is def. very misleading.

Youssou N'Dour and his band live are far from genteel, no matter what some of his cds sound like or how you and Miles Cleret view him. With some smart marketing, you could sell he and his band's polyrhythms to dancerock, retro post punk revivalist bands and their fans.

That's not a real heartfelt shot at N'Dour; I saw him open for Peter Gabriel back in '87 and he was good (though not nearly as good as Robert Christgau, among others, has said he is). But he is exactly the kind of performer the old-line world music audience worships, while they turn their noses up at the seeming "vulgarity" of stuff like Nigeria Rock Special.

To be fair N'Dour, his international material has been pretty watered down. The original Etoile De Dakar stuff and even a lot of the later solo things are at least as rockin' as anything on most of these comps.

But he is exactly the kind of performer the old-line world music audience worships, while they turn their noses up at the seeming "vulgarity" of stuff like Nigeria Rock Special.

Who are these strawmen turning up their noses? I haven't heard NPR deride these cds. I haven't heard Banning Eyre or anyone else associated with Afropop Worldwide (who love Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour) attack them. More likely they just haven't heard of them (just like the indie-rockers who love the retro-soul of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have likely not heard of any of the southern chitlin circuit soul on labels like Ecko, or maybe not even the npr brand of critic soul like Bettye Lavette). And besides, you went to see Peter Gabriel (doesn't that make you one of those 'world music' people! Ha, I'm kinda kidding). So, is it really true that "The traditional "world music" audience isn't interested in a compilation of '70s Afro-psych-rock." I am not so sure. Plus, both audiences are so small it strikes me as silly to waste your time attacking one such audience, but maybe it works as a marketing tool, just like the covers of those rockabilly reissues you mentioned in your blog post.

Meanwhile, I struggle to get any type of international music previews in my local alt-weekly whether marketed to either that stereotypical tofu-eating audience you sneer at, or young beer-swilling indie-rock hipsters. And besides, the vulgar stuff, that you admit isn't actually as screamingly wild as it is marketed, is nothing but a bunch of oldies. Hey, I like oldies too, but when are fans of these cds gonna get into circa 2008 Africa music? In 2038?

x:post: Anybody hear the new Orchestra Baobab cd? Are they just re-doing their '70s repetoire?

they didn't re-do anything for their last record, which is safe to call "classic".
i'm feeling tired/bold enough to add that from The Indestructible Beat of Soweto through Tabu Ley Rochereau Christgau has NEVER let *me* down re:music from the Dark Continent; and he gave the new OB a "A"

>when are fans of these cds gonna get into circa 2008 Africa music?

Fair point, which I made in my recent Voice review of that hiplife compilation, linked upthread. (That's been reprinted in at least one other New Times paper, btw. Spreadin' the word, plantin' seeds...)

There are too many typical beer-swilling tofu-eating hipster wannabe skinhead middle aged rock critics on this thread. (That reminds me. I was on the bus yesterday and I saw this guy with an Iron Maiden baseball cap with lots of metal spikes sticking out of it, and this older man sat near him and said: "I thought those were coming out of your head!")

Does anybody like Daddy Saj? Again, if I were buying CDs, I would buy some of his, but I am not splurging on anything currently, except ayurvedic vegetarian food.

Still waiting for the Yoruba "Super Stupid."

http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/motherpage/covers.html

covers of P-Funk "Super Stupid" but yeah Phil and James a Yoruba one has still yet to arrive.

Daddy Saj, from Sierra Leone, is more the slick rap/r'n'b equivalent of uh, Deej or someone else on the r'n'b or ringtone rap thread could tell ya

Slick but in a good way

Gonna go see Salif Keita (again) Friday night and be mesmerized by his voice. Even if he sings over that Weather Report like muzak he sometimes likes backing him, his voice should be stunning enough to ignore the background. I may have to miss Orchestra Baobab Thursday night as my kid might have a baseball playoff game at the same time.

Missed Baobab for my kid's ballgame (and the game after that). They got a good review in the paper. Saw Salif Keita---his voice is still great. I could do without some of the midtempo numbers, but the upbeat polyrhythmic ones-propelled by congas, drum set, another percussionist, tradtional stringed instrument, guitar & bass--could wow even African reissue cd buyers who snear at tofu and npr. He played guitar himself a few times. He's not doing anything new or innovative these days, but his classic approach is good enough for me. I did not like when he took a breather and his guitarist went into George Benson mode, but I was fine when he took a rest and let his two women dancers take the mic. Salif spoke in French and his native tongue as there were lots of Malians there, plus DC State Department and Peace Corps types with language skills. Various Malians (and others) showered Salif with dollar bills. By evening's end the stage was filled with folks from the crowd dancing---neither the ones dressed in Malian garb or the hipster African-American ones or the aging hippy white-American ones could dance as well as Keita's two dancers. But hey, they were having fun and livelier than your standard arms-crossed, stiff-bodied DC indie-rock crowd. I kept my less-than-perfect dancing to in front of my auditorium seat.

this sounds cool -- anyone heard it?

Drag City is pleased to reintroduce the sound of Suarasama to the world. Fajar Di Atas Awan was first released by Radio France Internationale (RFI) in 1998, and the title track appeared on a Smithsonian Folkways compilation in 2000. This release is the first U.S. issue of the entire album and its first-ever release on LP anywhere.

Suarasama is a group of many members, mostly ethnomusicological musicians. Founded in 1995 by Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, they are based in Medan City, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Suarasama plays contemporary music, exploring conceptually or instrumentally the sounds of African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Sufi Pakistan, Eastern European and Southeast Asian and particularly Sumantran traditions. Arranging this diversity of sounds and instrumentation, Suarasama come up with more than the sum of their parts; music that mitigates the absurd generalization in the name “world music” with an organic approach.

This organic quality is deeply compelling; the quiet beauty and simple intensity of Fajar Di Atas Awan express the album’s title (“Dawn Over the Clouds”) with a clarity that belies the complexity of the group’s compositional methods. Faith is a theme of the lyrics, which even when not translated or understood, convey their essences with a meditative, prayerful approach, often using multi-part harmonies that indicate at (and create in the listener) higher ecstasies.

Following a century of multi-cultural consolidation resulting in countries comprised of a multitude of different tribes, a group like Suarasama is inevitable; rather than isolating their Sumatran identity within the larger mosaic of Indonesia, they explore the meeting points of their music with the sounds of neighbor cultures, finding a harmony in the confusion. They’re not the first – we’re reminded of Sandy Bull, John Fahey, the Radha Krisna Temple, the collaborations of Ravi Shankar and Andre Previn, even our own Ghost and Six Organs of Admittance.

The world grows closer and smaller, but no less wonderful and exciting; the sound of its people and the impulses within them still an exotic treasure. As walls come down and our neighbors come closer, Suarasama seeks to bring us the song inside us all.

i found the suarasama to be sublime. very holistic, in that it takes from sources (n. africa, sub-sahara, indonesia, sufi, etc.) yet sounds wholly its own thing. don''t find the above names (bull, fahey, 6O) to be very helpful at the end of the day. they do sound as if they might run a pretty swell commune/ yoga meditation center though.

Hassan Hakmoun is coming to Albuquerque in July. I'll probably miss it, because broke (or at any rate, I'll be on a tight budget still), but I could go for a good gnawa concert right now. He seems to play here fairly often. I bet he likes this city.

Afropop Worldwide last night (I've become a regular listener because it comes on right after the salsa show on KUNM on Friday nights):

Feature on recent Colombian and Cuban music.

They were talking about a new, distinct Bogotá salsa sound, as represented most famously by La 33. I don't think La 33 are doing anything that sounds all that distinctive. I'm glad there are new salsa bands cropping up in Bogota, and other Colombian cities not normally associated with the genre, but I am still waiting to hear the results. There was another band (maybe from Bogota, maybe not) that was borrowing a little from timba, specifically borrowing that annoying drum kit thwack in a place in the rhythm where I don't feel it. And then they played some other things which were okay, but not all that exciting, like Mojarra Electrica (who I might get around to checking out further, eventually).

On to Cuba. Why did he play two cuts from the new Manolito album when he only had a half hour in which to cover recent Cuban music? At least he played the one song I kind of like from the album ("La Habana Me Llama"). But just for educational purposes, it would have been nice to hear something from the new Pupy project, or even any of the current timba hotshots. Then he played some Cuban bossa nova. Then he played some mediocre Cuban reggaeton. I thought the overall effect was to leave one unimpressed with the current state of Cuban music. Maybe others reacted differently. But there was definitely no "wow" there. I can't imagine being unfamiliar with this stuff and going, "wow, those Cubans really are onto some interesting new things these days!"

I need to start listening to that show online again, since it is no longer on any area public radio station. As you seem to be suggesting, it's kind of hit or miss sometimes.

I find the host incredibly annoying, but if I'm feeling patient, it's a place to sometimes hear new things.

Here's a link to my Cleveland Scene piece about Miles Cleret, Soundway Records and the Nigeria Special compilations. I don't think I should have to mention that the line about Vampire Weekend was inserted after I turned in the piece.

Inserted by your editor?

You New Yorkers should go see this free gig:

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
Afrika Bambaataa
Love Trio with U-Roy


Sunday, July 06, 2008
From 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Central Park SummerStage

Anybody see Seun Kuti in NYC today? I'm gonna see him in DC Monday night.

Today I saw some wild stuff from Bhutan at the Smithsonian Folklife Fest down near the US Capitol and Washington Monument in DC. A few guys blowing on long didgeradoo like horns, others playing bugle/trumpet like horns, a keyboardist and a guy on a cymbal.

I also saw some traditional Bhutanese singing that sounded kinda like traditional Chinese music a bit. I also saw a Texas conjunto band and a big mariachi ensemble (Texas was the other theme location honored).

I missed elsewhere in DC today the huge Ethiopian block party that was scheduled to coincide with an Ethiopian soccer tournament at RFK stadium.

>Inserted by your editor?

Yes.

Good ol' editors...

Seun Kuti has been touring all over Europe and North America. Not the same as a Fela reissue cd, I know.

Artists similar to Fela Kuti...

Just playing Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues for the first time now.

It is making me very, VERY happy. Are the other two Nigeria Special comps (the rock one and the disco one) as good?

Nigeria Special / Nigeria Disco Funk Special

Just got the latest Soundway comp in the mail: Sir Victor Uwaifo, Guitar-Boy Superstar 1970-76. Nineteen tracks, 74 minutes or so. Awesome.

Just listened to a few minutes of a rocking Ethiopian band that came on shortly after midnight at Dukem on U Street in DC (where I had gone to eat). They were more energetic and uptempo than most of the Ethipian combos I've seen. They were very loud and it was late, so me and my friends did not stick around long but what I heard sounded great. DC has such a large Ethiopian population that there may be countless groups like this playing weekend nights around the area.

On my drive home from the Ethiopian restaurant the dj on WPFW has been playing lots of Congolese music (and some other stuff) without ever announcing what he is playing. It all sounds wonderful...

So I called the dj when I got home and he was playing someone from the Ivory Coast but I could not understand the dj's accent in pronouncing the name. Awww man.

moving to this thread instead of that African one that i revived to say:

i saw fallou dieng the other night and it was kind of boring.

maybe it would have been less boring if i was more familiar with the vocabulary of that kind of music (or maybe not).

Yea. Afropop.org said Dieng was a rising star of traditional Senegalese mbalax music and that he had an exciting female dancer in his group. I don't remember if I have heard him. Hardcore Senegalese mbalax rat-a-tat drum polyrhythms can be kinda like trance techno in a way with the repetition being dull if you're not into it.

that was the best part...the underlying rhythms (bass, drumset, guitar) were super simple, then there were three drummers in the front firing off these unison phrases. when i walked away i could still hear those high-pitched drums four blocks off, and nothing else.

I love the staccatto banging of sticks on those Senegalese hand-held drums, although I like 'em best when they're balanced by a great voice (like Youssou N'Dour live). When I saw Senegalese singer Thione Seck, his voice was too low in the mix and all you could hear was those hand-held drums, the congas and the trap drum (plus a little bit of the bass and guitar).

i guess this has been around a little while, but i just came across it: sexy moroccan bubblegum.

(i guess that should say, sexy moroccan reggaeton bubblegum...)

her newest video is pretty nice too.

Major Bollywood production to film in New Mexico.

LIVE & DIRECT FROM
THE CONGO VIA PARIS
BILL CLINTON KALONJI
JDT MULOPWE

FORMERLY OF
WENGE MUSICA at Zanzibar Saturday July 26th

"Bill Clinton Kalonji" is my favorite artist name right now...

R.I.P. Wendo Kolosoy the “father of Congolese rumba.” Had his first hit in 1948, “Marie Louise.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4445583.ece

For those not into reissues of 78s, dead Congolese rumba musicians,living Senegalese mbalax musicians, or international hiphop, there's international electro danceclub stylings...(it's all related, really)

"global Ghettotech" ....discussion and podcasts

http://www.slangtang.com/

http://www.fatplanet.com.au/blog/#

From the wayne and wax blog comments by 'Birdseed' re Stu ending the fatplanet blog-

He is the only one in the nuelectronicworld etc. etc. blogging crowd who’s mixing it up with traditional worldbeat and world music, instead of pretending that there’s a huge, paradigm-shifting difference between MIA and Ali Farka Touré.

biography of Bill Clinton Kalonji

Former member of famous Congolese band "Wenge
Musica Maison Mère", Didier Kalonji was born in Kinshasa on july 4 1979.

He began his musical career with a local band named "ABC". After being working with several congolese bands, he joined the famous "Wenge Musica Maison Mère" in 1997. Working with Werrason, he will enjoy a lot of success with memorable concerts in France (Olympia, Zenith, Bercy, ...etc.).

In 2004, he left "Wenge Musica Maison Mère" and founded "Marquis de Maison Mère" which didn't last more than a year.
Then, he founded "Marquis de Samouraïs".

Bill Clinton is one of (if not) the best showmen in the Congolese music industry today.

from afromontreal.com

Alas, I was at the beach and missed he and his band's DC show.

I half-followed the big debate on "global ghettotech" on the /rupture and Shadetek blog-ee thing-y. I found the whole thing kind of wearying after a while.

Yep.

Meanwhile Matt "Benn Loxo" is out of Africa and over in China. For now he's managing to blog (although China is blocking access to various sites including myspace and amnesty international)

http://bennloxo.com/

http://bennloxo.com/

the ghettotech debate seems sort of necessary in an eat-yr-spinach way but also so beside the point in a lot of other ways. it's just the latest iteration of the paul simon/david byrne/peter gabriel debates from 20-plus years ago, or the chess brothers debates from 40 years ago, or whatever. exploiters or exporters, john hammond vs. alan lomax. it seems like a useful discussion to always have going on somewhere, but also sort of abstracted from how things really work. it makes me think of timbaland on bhangra: ''I don't really try to figure out the difference between what y'all call bhangra or ragas or whatever. I just have known for a long time that Indian music is dope."

And while one should do the right thing no matter what, the number of folks engaged in non-English 'international' music of any kind from either a dj, musician, writer, blogger, or consumer angle seems miniscule here in America to me (compared to American Idol/Disney pop and mainstream radio sounds, or website and newspaper loved indie-rock). Requiring total hardcore engagement with multiple languages and cultures will limit the already miniscule status of 'international' music in America even more.

yeah it's an absurdly ascetic approach, and taken literally it would have the effect of fencing things off rather than making them more accessible. plus as somebody pointed out in a post on one of those boards, it's not like kids digging american hip-hop in congo or pakistan or wherever necessarily understand the lyrics or context of the music. one of music's huge advantages as a cross-cultural vessel is that you don't need to speak the language because there are so many other things to grab hold of -- rhythm, melody, vocal tones and inflections. and i don't think the ghettotech naysayers are as fun-hating as they can sound, they're just being cautious about interrogating their own engagement with the music etc. and that's admirable up to a point. but it also tends to impose an artificial frame on the way people relate to music.

Every X # of years there is another being autheticity debate and it always gets really heated and people's feelings get hurt. And it's always the dudes who are the most rule-bound about the whole thing (hi Shadetek) that always come off the worst.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/theater/06fela.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Fela! the off-Broadway musical opening in NYC right after Labor Day

Etran Finatawa at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Oct. 8 !!

Cool. Cheikh Lo (from Senegal) with Vieuw Farka Toure (Mali) and Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley from James Brown's band are playing with some others on an African tribute to James Brown tour that's in DC tonight, and was just in NYC, Philly and Boston.

So while wandering around on U st in DC I see flyers in an Ethiopian restaurant window for Helen Meles at an Embasssy Suites Hotel in DC and another flyer for Gosfaye Tesfaye appearing last night at Eden's Lounge in Baltimore.

Just looked up Meles. She's an Eritrean singer who is very popular there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFtj-LifCno&feature=related

She apparently was in the DC area a few weeks back for the 34th annual Eritrean fest in the DC/Md area and I think she's coming back on the 30th.

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/06899829819733639677/state/com.google/broadcast

on the dhol

Should have used the more direct youtube url.

Cheikh Lo was good the other night, although he and V. Farka Toure were not onstage very much.

If only some Brits would talk about the Notting Hill Carnival here.

I am amused by the extreme Fairouz love on display in this new Natacha Atlas release. Maybe I will like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Hina-Natacha-Atlas-Mazeeka-Ensemble/dp/B00166BL6O

Better (myspace): http://www.myspace.com/natachaatlasofficial

I kinda like her version of "I Put a Spell on You"

Already past without my mentioning it here, Albuquerque's annual Gloablquerque took place this past Friday and Saturday. I did not attend ($), but I listened to some of it on the radio. I was intrigued by the way Savina Yannatou's singing sometimes reminded me of Diamanda Galas's. Some of the vocal technique was really that far out, but apparently it derives from traditional sources, which makes me wonder if there are more traditional Greek/Balkan/Middle Eastern/whatever precedents for some of Galas's sounds. It turns out that I had heard a Savina Yannatou CD a long while back, but that was all more subdued material, from what I remember.

Most of what I heard didn't wow me a whole lot. Vieux Farka Toure sounded pretty good and definitely won the crowd over in a big way.

I like Savina Yannatou but not Diamanda. Interesting idea on the precedents for Galas' vocals. I think Yannatou has a new cd.

I'm listening to Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko "Africa to Appalachia." Stone's a Canadian banjo player who went over to Mali. Sissoko's a great kora player. I like when Stone tries to fit in with the Malian sound more then when he's upfront twangin' away Appalachian style.

I'm also listening to Concha Buika, a kinda mellow Spanish singing Equatorial Guinea born, Mallorca-raised vocalist of "copla, an old-fashioned Spanish song style, flamenco, jazz, Cuban music, soul and blues"

that seun kuti album is great

yep (although he sometimes tries too hard to be his dad)

I like Savina Yannatou but not Diamanda.

Well, Diamanda Galas is best appreciated in live performance. I would suspend judgment unless you've seen her live. I don't play the recordings I have by her very often, but I would definitely make it a priority to go see her perform live if she came to town (in an alternate universe in which I had money for such things, anyway). The power of her voice works better live (like, say, Dimi Mint Abba's). I think you sort of need a lot of literal space to contain it. Given some general comments you've made about what you like and don't like, I'm not surprised you wouldn't like her in recorded form, but I'd be sort of surprised if you didn't appreciate her live, very theatrical, performances.

Yannatou's new one is on ECM which makes me think there won't be much of the extreme vocalizations I was talking about.

I just recently heard Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka for the first time and just want to say I think it's great. It has far less overdubbing and studio manipulation than I'd somehow been led to believe from descriptions, and the use of effects on it is fine with me.

x-post. Diamanda is too experimental for me. I'm kinda wimpy that way.

http://vibesdafrique.proboards83.com/index.cgi?board=1

An African music chatboard where Congolese music rules. For years I've noticed that on several chatboards (where African emigres) post and in a column or 2 of the Beat magazine, Congolese sounds are considered the greatest African contribution, meanwhile most Anglos who loved Congolese soukous in the 80s have moved on because the music is rarely marketed to 'hipsters' in the US or UK now (although admittedly some blame the music and say that it's not what it once was).

Discovered on that site that JB Mpiana & Wenga BCBG are going to be touring the US in November. Dismiss their Congolese rumba if you want as the same ol' same ol' (or ignore it because Sublime Frequencies is not putting out their music on vinyl in the UK and US), but I find it as relevant as those Nigerian reissues folks get excited about on other threads here. Grumble grumble....

Soundroots.org loves these new cds. I've never heard 'em. Have you?

1. Nation Beat: Legends of the Preacher
2. Funkadesi: Yo Baba
3. Mounira Mitchala: Talou Lena
4. Afrissippi: Alliance
5. various artists: The Rough Guide to Romanian Gypsies
6. Neco Novellas: New Dawn/ Ku Khata
7. Delhi 2 Dublin: Delhi 2 Dublin
8. DeLeon: DeLeon
9. Sidestepper: Buena Vibra Sound System
10. Niyaz: Nine Heavens

Saw the Song and Dance Ensemble of West Africa Saturday night. They're a 16 piece group from Mali led by a one-time percussionist from Mali's great Super Rail Band. They didn't break any new ground but delivered solid traditional Malian sounds--impressive kora and ngoni players, powerful female vocals, and great balafon musicians.

I missed Alick Macheso's DC stop on his first ever US tour. He is a Zimbabwaean musician and brought most of his band here--I read that the US embassy in Zimbabwe decided that he could bring 10 people and not 11, and so they denied his rhythm guitarist's visa application.

Magic System from the Ivory Coast were also just in town, and alas I missed their gig also. Both Magic System and Macheso were just in the NYC area as well.

hey sk, you heard the new sublime freq LP yet? not quite up to the level of the first two, but better than the shadow music of thailand. also not world music, but you gotta check out that bongo joe LP.

No, on all fronts. I've got some catching up to do.

Was just checking out the current Congolese hearthrob/dancer/singer rumba and r'n'b guy Fally Ipupa

and Zimbabwean guitarist Alick Macheso

Oops. Not sure what happened there.

He's got that infectious Zimbabwean guitar rhythm down--kinda reminds me of Congolese rumba. Here he and his band are showing off their dancers.

"hey sk, you heard the new sublime freq LP yet?"

The proto-rai one? I am very excited about that.

it's good!

x-post. Proto-rai. I will have to check that out.

No newspaper reviews of Alick Macheso's US concert tour yet.

Meanwhile Pashtun musician Harood Bacha has fled from the Taliban in Pakistan and gone to NYC

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/arts/music/13bach.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

excerpt:
October 13, 2008
U.S. Refuge for Singer Fleeing the Taliban
By BEN SISARIO
The threats started about a year ago, telling Haroon Bacha to stop singing or else.

“There were letters, there were phone calls, there were text messages,” Mr. Bacha said, sitting upright on a floor in Brooklyn, surrounded by smoke from Pakistani cigarettes. “They used to come very frequently back home, just telling me to stop music, or else I would be killed and my family would be. ...”

He trailed off, tears welling in his eyes. Mr. Bacha, 36, is a Pashtun, the Muslim ethnic group of the mountainous northwest of Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan, and at home he is a star, with dozens of albums, slick videos and regular television appearances. In a sweet high baritone, he sings of peace, tolerance and resistance to war. Those liberal themes have endeared him to his war-weary Pashtun fans, he says, but made him a target of the local Taliban, which has been waging an escalating campaign against music and popular culture, calling it un-Islamic.

Two months ago Mr. Bacha escaped from his home near Peshawar, in Pakistan, and came to New York, leaving behind his wife, two young children and an extended family. If he goes back, he said, he will be killed. With a sharply reduced audience in the United States, Mr. Bacha faces an uncertain career, but on Saturday he sang at a small but lively benefit concert in Queens, organized by the Pashtun immigrants who have adopted him and held at an unlikely place: the Forest Hills Jewish Center.

“Anybody who is hated by the Taliban is starting out with a check in my column,” said Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik, the leader of the center, a Conservative synagogue. Rabbi Skolnik said that an initial phone call from one of the organizers had “raised a red flag,” but that after the groups were vetted to make sure none of the money raised would go to terrorist groups, he was happy to rent the space.

x-post....Oh this one:

1970's Algerian Proto-Rai Underground
Label: SUBLIME FREQUENCIES
Format: LP
Price: $22.00
Catalog #: SF 045LP

This LP is limited to a one-time pressing of 1500 copies on 180 gram vinyl and comes in a full-color deluxe gatefold jacket with photos of the musicians and informative liner notes by the man who compiled it, Hicham Chadly.

In the early 1970s, a new group of singers and musicians were operating on the northwest coast, and what they pioneered was a sound that eventually reached worldwide status by the end of the decade; however, their names are relatively unknown to this day outside Algeria. This crucial and defining period of the development of Raï is criminally ignored and overlooked by Algerian music historians and Raï fans. Due to censorship and government-controlled music diffusion, this scene and lyrical style was forced underground and banned from broadcasts, yet slowly built a small following around the seaside cabarets of Wahran (Oran). This period witnessed the rise of artists such as Groupe El Azhar ("The Flowers" group) and Messaoud Bellemou, who can comfortably be considered the godfather of the modern Raï sound. His group, L'Orchestre Bellemou, rewrote a heritage of centuries by using modern instruments and especially the trumpet, which became, during the 1970s, the backbone of the Wahrani genre. Reinterpreting the gasba melodies on trumpet

The Song and Dance Ensemble of West Africa had a great kora player Saturday night, and Malian kora player Manse Sissoko sounded sublime last night with Canadian banjoist Jayme Stone and a guitarist and drummer. Sissoko used those 21 fishing lines, the cow skin covered gourd bottom, and the teak wood poles to create melody and rhythm. He sings well too. I'm not a fan of Stone and the guitarist's jazzy newgrass but as long as they stuck to Malian arrangements (all but 1 song) they sounded fine. I like the "Africa to Appalachia' cd Sissoko and Stone did.

This group highlighted in the NY Times sounds worth checking out--in NYC/Brooklyn on Wednesdays...

excerpt--

By BEN RATLIFF
Published: October 9, 2008
The music of the Mandingo Ambassadors has been structured to make you feel good. It puts dazzling vocal and guitar patterns over a rhythm section that is like a perfect system: a locked drum groove, much of it played on high-hat cymbal and drum rims; soft bass lines that fall short or start late, or leave gaps in a run of notes; fingerpicked rhythm guitar notes like clear fizz. In the small, square backroom of Barbès on Wednesday — as it will be next Wednesday and for Wednesdays to come — the music sounded loud and light and unfailingly right.

The boss of the band is the lead guitarist Mamady Kouyaté, who got his start among the Guinean dance bands of the 1970s. Many of those groups, transferring traditional Manding folkloric music from ancient instruments like balofon and kora to electric guitars and modern rhythm sections, were state-supported; this was an innovation developed under Sékou Touré, president of the newly independent nation. Here and now, the band is financed mostly by a tip jar. But it is growing its own constituency, both among its audience and its performers.

Its charismatic singer is the young Ismael Kouyaté, also from Guinea, who until recently was performing in “Fela!,” the Off Broadway musical directed by Bill T. Jones; he is two generations younger than the elder Kouyaté. (They both come from the Kouyaté family of griots, the oral historians and praise singers of West African culture.) The band started playing at Barbès in Park Slope, Brooklyn, regularly in July, and until last week Ismael Kouyaté took the subway there after his show in Midtown ended, arriving in time for a second set.

“Fela!” closed on Sunday, and Wednesday was the first time he could perform the entire Barbès gig. Through the cool, midtempo-to-fast songs, he sang in the Mandinka language, as well as bits of French and English. He danced — both alone and with members of the audience — and was constantly improvising, rushing ahead conversationally then forcing out a hoarse, detailed cry, weaving microtonally between notes.

http://www.zimdaily.com/news/macheso27.6447.html

An important story about Zimbabwean musician Alick Macheso (now on his first US tour)

ZimDaily can exclusively reveal that two women engaged in a fierce cat fight for the award winning musician whose shows in Harare have been sold out nonstop and whose music is still rocking the club scene in Harare

Just read something about the Magic System (Ivory Coast) gig at Fur in DC (actually more photos than text). The little I've heard from these guys sounds good--kinda Congolese rumba meets Caribbean soca. I will have to investigate them more fully.

I wish I had made it up to NYC to see that "Fela" show before it closed.

Global Rhythms magazine top 10 (appears to be only stuff released in the USA...although Essay is a German indie label)

1.Various Artists
Calypsoul 70
Strut

2.Rokia Traoré
Tchamantché
Nonesuch

3.Kasai Allstars
In The 7th Moon...Crammed
Discs/Congotronics

4.Natacha Atlas & The Mazeeka Ensemble
Ana Hina
World Village

5. Terakaft
Akh Issudar
World Village

6. Anna Ternheim
Halfway To Five Points
Decca

7. Suarasama
Fajar Di Atwas Awan
Drag City

8. Xavier Rudd
Dark Shades Of Blue
Anti-

9. Ólafur Arnalds
Eulogy For Evolution
Erased Tapes

10. Boom Pam
Puerto Rican Nights
Essay Recordings

"Living the Hiplife" (Ghanaian
> > music movie doc) at 2 p.m.Saturday today for free at the > Smithsonian Museum of
> > African Art >

Highlife plus hiphop

2.Rokia Traoré
Tchamantché
Nonesuch

This is such a fantastic album.

I've seen her live and heard previous cds but not that one. I will have to get it. I've read some who criticize her music as too art-school or something because she's the child of a diplomat and incorporates certain Western influences, but I like it for what it is.

"Living the Hiplife" was a great music and information packed one hour documentary on Ghanaian hiplife. The director, Professor Jesse Shipley worked with the godfather of hiplife rapper Reggie Rockstone Ossei to make the doc. Great footage on the beach, in cabs, clubs and studios plus historic footage putting the music in context.

S/D African hip-hop

According to Professor Shipley most Ghanains are into either hiplife or gospel (that is often infused with hiplife) with a smaller percentage still into guitar-led highlife. He noted that when the military took over Ghana awhile back and instituted curfews and other restrictive laws, live music disapeared from everywhere but churches, but now with more open rule live music in a secular context is coming back a bit---although due to years of being banned plus interest in hiphop, a recent generation grew up without the option of playing instruments or hearing live music with instruments.

Andalousies Atlantiques Festival in Essaouira, Morocco, Oct. 30-Nov. 1: Tribute to Judaeo-Arab singers Sami El Maghribi and Lili Boniche
I just received this announcement. I encourage anyone who reads this blog to both circulate this information and to try their best to go. I attended last year's festival, and it was splendid, both as a musical event, and as a tribute to the critical importance of Jews to modern Arab musical culture. Among last year's featured performers were the great Moroccan Jewish singer Haim Louk and the Algerian-Jewish pianist and vocalist Maurice El Medioni. Medioni will be there again this year, with the El Gusto Orchestra, a chaabi ensemble led by Abdel Hadi Halo. And other huge stars, the Judaeo-Arab singers Luc Perez and Luc Cherki, and Jil Jilala! I've posted a few photos from last year's event, which can be accessed here. Sept. 7th posting on this blog
http://swedenburg.blogspot.com/2008/09/andalousies-atlantiques-festival-in.html

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

http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/blog/

So Boom Pam are apparently a Tel Aviv band that mixes and surf and spaghetti western sounds

and Ólafur Arnalds is an Icelandic classical musician with a touch of electronica

That Sublime Frequencies Algerian Proto-Rai Underground album is awesome.

$twenty some dollars awesome? You and Pete seem to think so. Maybe cheapskate me should fork out the bucks before the thing is sold out. Gawd, I hate these limited release vinyl only things. I wanna buy it for ten bucks from Itunes.

On the other hand live shows can be even more expensive-$50 for JB Mpiana & his Wenga BCBG big band November 8th in NYC at Irving Plaza/Filmore and the same on Nov. 14th at the Hampton Conference Cneter in Capitol Heights, MD outside DC

That is state of the art Congolese rumba

Ah no probably not $20-25 awesome, but definitely download now and buy CD for $14 awesome.

Cool

Do the limited vinyl things for SF get valuable once the run is sold out?

Maybe Pete would know? Do SF and Mississippi do limited vinyl runs because that's the cheapest (if it is, I have no idea) or because they are stereotypical record-collecting fanatics, or anal audio purists or some other reason?

Oh I'm sure on both their ends it's a money thing.

The "whirled" thing seems to keep folks away from this thread it seems (see the various other recent new threads where more people talk international music). I think people are afraid someone will take away their "hipster" i.d. cards and their pictures will be placed on Putumayo's website, if they post on this thread.

this is absolutely gorgeous.

I mostly only know modern bachata ala Aventura, but have been curious about the roots.

on a different front, New Yorkers can see go see an act I plugged upthread--

From Zimbabwe via South Africa ... Live for the first time in the U.S.

ALICK MACHESO & ORCHESTRA MBERIKWAZVO

Sunday October 26th at 8 pm

Creole Restaurant (Louisiana cuisine)
2167 Third Ave. at 118th St., NYC 10035
(three blocks from the 116th St. stop of the 6 train

here's another blog for you all (mine)
http://monrakplengthai.blogspot.com/

Very nice--I knew of the awesome tapes from Africa blog and you are doing awesome tapes from Thailand

5 p.m. Sunday October 26- "Slingshot Hip Hop" (E Street Cinema), followed by DAM, Palestinian rappers, in concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Hard Rock Cafe. Interesting location--DC tourist hangout

Palestinian rap movie doc and live appearance in DC

Friday night a highly touted Indian movie doc was in town at the Freer. Famous art-film director Kumar Shahani's "The Khayal Saga" that supposedly "weaves together the many legends and stories surrounding the vocal tradition of the khayal, a major element of Indian classical music."

Zimbabwe's Alick Macheso has gotten virtually no attention on his US tour in Google News or Google Blogs. If only he was a no longer recording Nigerian or was touring with David Byrne or a Swedish blonde or Sir Alan Bishop or something he'd get some attention. Even afropop worldwide is writing about Chiwoniso instead (not that she's not interesting). I guess his cds and vinyl are not easily available. Macheso's in NYC tonight.

Fri 10 Oct. Zanzibar On The Waterfront Washington, DC;Sat 11 Oct. Nyathi Lounge Jersey City, NJ; Sun 12 Oct. The Regent Theatre Boston, MA; Fri 17 Oct. The Atrium Atlanta, GA; Sat 18 Oct. Carribean Village Indianapolis, IN; Fri 24 Oct. Michaul's Live Cajun Music Restaurant New Orleans, LA;Sat 25 Oct. Murphy's Place Dallas, TX;Sun 26 Oct. Creole Restaurant New York New York Big City of Dreams

Anybody see Macheso or JB Mpiana & his Wenga BCBG big band ?

http://www.metamute.org/en/content/i_like_listening_to_awesome_tapes_from_africa

Andy Moor from the Ex talking about whirled music--Ethiopian, Konono, and awesome tapes

Googling Macheso and Mpiana I have not seen any coverage of their US tours. Too bad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/arts/music/11mpia.html

My man Jon Caramanica knows there's more to African music than just Nigerian reissues, even if he refers to Mpiana's music as soukous (according to folks on African music chatboards and in the Beat magazine, that term only applies to '80s streamlined Congo sounds)

Here's an excerpt:

Mr. Mpiana is a star of the modern branch of soukous known as ndombolo, one of the genre’s more spirited, dance-friendly wings. This was his first New York appearance with this band, which he has been fronting for a decade. The dozen-plus band members and singer-dancers who joined him were all wearing matching T-shirts that read, “Peace Grows” (though paradoxically one of the singer-dancers, also wore a rhinestone-studded pistol-shaped belt buckle).

The virtuoso outfit played songs that were long and intricate, with high-pitched, tightly packed guitar melodies, elaborate drumming and a wall of vocals that drove the music even when Mr. Mpiana stepped away from the action to catch his breath, as he did regularly.

That Buika cd is still sounding nice--flamenco-fado-Afropop ballads

Maybe Pete would know? Do SF and Mississippi do limited vinyl runs because that's the cheapest (if it is, I have no idea) or because they are stereotypical record-collecting fanatics, or anal audio purists or some other reason?

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 13:39 (4 weeks ago)

whoops missed this!

last weekend, my friend in NC got one of the original music LPs (nairobi sound) that has a few of the songs from lipa kodi ya and love is love, and we were thinking that same question. i mean, it's not like MS is like the nonesuch explorer series or something, where the goal is really purely about public exposure, cause a) there are already comps with some of this stuff on them, and b) there's these limited-editions and special first-printing covers, etc. maybe MS started small to serve a small audience with a particular aesthetic, but these guys are too savvy to think there wouldnt grow to be a large audience for their well-curated releases. so i guess that leaves me with the idea that theyre smart guys who like good music, and basically wanna print/sell just enough records to keep the label going, but few enough to stay under the radar, maintaining the specialness and intimacy of their operation, and also possibly avoiding legal issues from rights-holders? also possibly creating high demand in the secondary market? in any case, its my favorite new label, and theyve done a good job on me.

in other news, three new MS releases this week!

the rats - s/t (fred/toody cole's pre-dead moon new wave band!)
v/a - oh graveyard, you cant hold me always (late 60's gospel)
why are we building such a big ship (new recording from new orleans, not sure if a comp or what?)

this sounds cool (Ibimeni: Garifuna Traditional Music from Guatemala): http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4687

i checked out that why are we building such a big ship band on myspace and they are lame

thats the band name??? oh brother

heres the original music comp that i like so much...

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-1446131-1220345047.jpeg

ok heres the link i guess the pic wont work

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-1446131-1220345047.jpeg

Ha, the link isn't working either. Nairobi Sound (Before Benga ) Vol 2 on cd is going for $42 from amazon

'50s Kenyan music huh. I have an Original Music cassette lying around somewhere.

http://www.amazon.com/Vol-2-Nairobi-Sound-Before-Benga/dp/B000000NT9

I mean '60s Kenyan music.

Africa Dances I think is the one I have. I wonder what John Storm Roberts, the guy behind Original Music, is doing now?

OMCD021; OMA110 (lp)
Kenya dry (Before benga vol. 1)
Note : contents of lp differ from that of cd.

OMCD022; OMA101C (k7)
The Nairobi sound (Before benga vol. 2)
Note : contents of cassette differ from that of cd.

Apparently volume 1 (in any version) is more folkloric than volume 2.

Here are all the Original Music releases plus a list of Roberts' books:

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/stepcla/music/orimus.txt

NAIROBI SOUND is the album i love (and tried to link to)! it does exist on LP, though that list doesn't mention it. maybe i should chill about needing things on LP.

Trying to get it in any format sounds tough-- This is from Aquarius

V/A Nairobi Sound: Before Benga 2 (Original Music) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here resides the electic half of the "Before Benga" recordings. Unlike Ghana's high life, Kenya's Benga did not exist expressly for dance; Instead it focused more on lyrics. Most of the musicians heard here were certainly not superstars and could not even afford their own instruments. Because of this most wrote their songs while jamming in studios located conveniently enough in the back rooms of record shops.

NYC gets all the showcases:

globalFEST 2009 at NYC’s Webster Hall, January 11, 2009

Line-up to feature Calypso Rose, Chicha Libre, Femi Kuti & the Positive Force, Hot 8 Brass Band, Kailash Kher’s Kailasa, L&O, La Troba Kung-fú, Marcio Local, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, Shanbehzadeh Ensemble, Tanya Tagaq, and Watcha Clan.

90s Turkish dance pop rules!

Tarkan - "Kiss Kiss" (that Turkish pop song with the kissy kissy) - C/D?

Got to get the new Amadou & Mariam cd. Just an import here in the US. Wonder if I can find it as a legit download somewhere, otherwise it's 20 some Americun bucks from one of the Amazon US sellers

Here they are recently with Johnny Marr--

So can someone tell me more about "Africa Express" (not the old movie) which I think is a UK tv show and musical tour that Damon Alborn set up where he brought black (grime rapper Kano) and white Uk musicians and Flea to Lagos, Nigeria and elsewhere to perform with various African musicians. Baaba Maal and others are shown in this clip. Yea, yea, I know it's sad that it takes a guy from Blur to get Baaba Maal and Fela's danceclub on tv, but it could take centuries to change that philosophy so take what you get

http://www.shotandcut.co.uk/africaexpress/#/artists/

http://www.victorianhorror.com/search/label/africa%20express

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/worldmusic

What some Brits are reading

i got these guys album its pretty cool

They'ye great. I love that Malian Saharan desert stuff.

yeah i like the mali guitar style. also interested in this label operated locally out of b-more
http://www.dragcity.com/catalog/catyaala.html

Another chicha reissue (this time focused on a single group):

http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/23386.10?PgdKbKZp;;388

That Barbes guy who is puting this stuff out deserves credit for doing his homework--traveling all over and finding the stuff, etc. And hopefully this one's as listenable as the comp

There's a new album by Lebanese singer Ghada Shbeir, Syriac Chants. This is very traditional music, but not something all that readily available on CD (at least from what I've seen), and relatively accessible. Maybe too subdued for some tastes. From what little I've heard of this, it's mostly a cappella. If you like those a cappella segments Fairouz goes into sometimes, this is presumably the roots version of that. Also, reminds me of some old Marcel Khalife songs, and again, I assume he is drawing on this tradition. Anyway, she's an exceptional singer and she's covering areas of Arabic classical music that are under-recorded.

http://www.rashid.com/search_result.asp

(And I didn't even know she had recorded that collection of Sayed Darwish songs!)

http://www.afropop.org/multi/feature/ID/855/STOCKING%20STUFFERS:%20Afropop%20Worldwides%20Top%20Ten%20Releases%20for%202008

afropop.org (Banning Eyre & others)

Chiwoniso, "Rebel Woman" (Cumbancha) (Zimbabwe)
Aterciopelados “Rio” (Nacional) (Columbia)
Toumani Diabaté “The Mandé Variations” (Nonesuch) (Mali)
Seprewa Kasa “Seprewa Kasa” (Riverboat) (Ghana)
Seun Kuti “Seun Kuti & Egypt 80” (Disorient) (Nigeria)
Emmanuel Jal “WARchild” (Sonic360) (Sudan)
Orchestra Baobab “Made in Dakar” (Nonesuch) (Senegal)
Mayra Andrade “Navega” (Nacional/Sterns Arc Ltd) (Cape Verde)
Buena Vista Social Club "Buena Vista Social Club At Carnegie Hall(2 CD) [LIVE] " (Nonesuch) (Cuba)
Kasai Allstars "Congotronics 3" (Crammed Discs) (Congo

They also list some additional recommendations. They say their top 10 consists only of US releases.

Yeah, I heard their show about their top picks. I think I liked the tracks from Kasai Allstars and Buena Vista Social Club the best. I wasn't really into most of it.

Lots of it is acoustic oriented except for the Jal rap record. I've like a youtube or 2 of Chiwoniso, a Zimbabwean woman singer with a band. Toumani Diabate is an amazing kora player but I like him better with a band than solo.

love Seun Kuti but Akoya Afrobeat tipped it this year. Aterciopelados is always pretty Latin alternapop. Kasai All-Stars and Emanuel Jal for me from that list but only one was top ten for me.

i wasnt initially blown away by that sub freq proto-rai LP, but all of sudden this morning it sounds totally great!

Cool Group Inerane video:

very nice

:)

Sublime F. has it out now on cd. I have not seen that SF dvd that they're in--

Group Inerane was also featured in the Sublime Frequencies DVD “ Niger : Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel ”. Recorded by Hisham Mayet. This CD comes with an 8-page insert which includes great photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet.

Anyone heard this:

http://www.honestjons.com/label.php?pid=33279&LabelID=14815

Nope. Too much stuff to hear. I think someone might have written about it on another thread.

That video is pretty rad. Do you think Group Inerane would play at my house?

Sure. The Group Inerane House Tour 2009. On another subject--

I love Toumani Diabete's kora playing but I an not wowed by my first listen to his solo instrumental album "The Mande Variations" that just made Jon Pareles top 10 albums of 2008 in the NY Times.

Nate Chinen went with West African guitarist Lionel Louke's jazz album Karibu. No other African choices in the NY Times. Chinen and Ben Ratliff listed some international jazz.

Over at slate.com (and on NPR) Christgau has listed a Franco compilation as his #1 cd of the year. My nitpicky comment--on NPR Christgau referred to it as a "soukous" album but according to the Congolese emigres on other chatboards and some other music critics I've read, "soukous" just refers to '80s Congolese music by the likes of Diblo Dibala and Loketo that is super fast and eliminates the beginning and end slower portions that exist in Congolese rumba. Franco is Congolese rumba not soukous (despite the very close similarity in sound).

Christgau also listed Amazonees, a longtime Guinean women group.