This is Portuguese singer Lina_’s second album in a matter of months. And it is not a bad call. After a slightly disappointing collaboration with Dead Can Dance’s Jules Maxwell, which followed successful previous collaborations with Raül Refree and Justin Adams, her new partnership with Spanish pianist Marco Mezquida is a relief. Not that working with Maxwell was a failure, but it felt like Lina_ had fallen into the trap of a mandatory unexpected move with each new record.
O Fado is a sort of cautious step back. Relying solely on voice and piano, no other electronic or out-of-the-box gimmicks involved, Lina_ finds herself on solid ground again. Mezquida proves to be a consistent partner in crime when the two of them venture into fado atmospheres…
Category: world
Looking for a guaranteed smash hit for your next world music dance party?
Look no further than Acide Balkanique, the second album by Bucharest-based multi-instrumentalist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici and electronics wizard Alin Zãbrãuțeanu, a duo who do their genre-melding under the moniker Balkan Taksim. Acide Balkanique is a collection of eight trippy tracks slathered in psych-rock reverb and dark ambient space effects, pulsing with techno energy and carrying melancholic melodies drawn from Carpathian/Balkan folk music.
The all-instrumental ‘ORHIDEJA’ (Orchid) blossoms with a traditional desert-style beat rendered on frame drums in support of a Farfisa-sounding organ, fuzzy electro-saz and…
Príncipe have been championing the music coming out of Lisbon’s suburbs for the better half of two decades. The dominating style has been batida, a mashup of two Angolan rhythms — kuduro and kizomba — bound together by whatever sonic glue a producer sees fit. Following the success of batida’s first wave, an increasing number of producers have begun experimenting with this style of music; despite the label’s best efforts, it’s becoming nearly impossible for them to house this ever-expanding pool of talent.
Não Estragou Nada is Príncipe’s third compilation and, at 37 tracks long, its greatest. It features music spanning two generations of producers: 19-year-old wonderkid Helviofox shares the roster with OG batida and kuduro producer…
This is a very unusual Australian album, featuring the spoken and singing voices of Warlpiri elders Wantarri ‘Wanta’ Jampijinpa Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu and his father Jerry Jangala Patrick, who hail from the Aboriginal desert community of Lajamanu. They are backed by electronic composer-producer Marc ‘Monkey’ Peckham.
Together they have created Crown and Country, an immersive sound-and-film project that translates their shared intergenerational cultural knowledge of country, history, language, spirituality, and even Indigenous astronomy, utilising a fascinating contemporary format.
Wanta’s flair for storytelling centres the narrative, a product of his central role as a fully initiated elder in the traditional law and culture…
…Sevdah – or sevdalinka, as Slavs tend to add an affectionate diminutive to anything they love – is the deep and distinctive music of Bosnia and Herzegovina, often full of lost love, nostalgia and longing. The name comes from the same Arabic root as saudade in Portuguese, which characterises both fado in Portugal and morna in Cape Verde. On the notes to their new album, Radio Sevdah, Divanhana describe sevdah melodies as “soft as moonlight and as powerful as the ocean’s tide.” Divanhana perform some traditional sevdah songs, in contemporary arrangements, but are more focused on composing new songs.
The Bosnian band launch a radio station in the form of an album, encompassing ‘jingles’ and spoken-word interludes between new…
TAKAAT began (and still operate) as the rhythm section to Mdou Moctar, the breakout Nigerien rock band named for its charismatic frontman.
This puts Ahmoudou Madassane (guitar/vocals), bassist Mikey Coltun (the sole American in the group), and drummer Souleymane Ibrahim in the same realm as Calexico. That indie band started out as part of alt-country weirdos Giant Sand, but TAKAAT aren’t seeking to branch out from or expand the sound of their parent outfit. They might have more in common with one of Bob Weir’s non-Dead outfits. Like Weir, Madassane has had to invent his own method of playing rhythm guitar to accommodate a brilliant, dynamic leader–and when that leader’s not in the picture, there’s a lot of space left to fill.
Tucked into the Caribbean Sea are the islands of Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Saint Lucia. Guadeloupe is an overseas department of France, while Dominica and Saint Lucia are independent nations. All three boast volcanic beaches, high mountain peaks, and lush tropical landscapes — coral reefs, palm trees, and sapphire blue waves make them instantly mesmerizing. The island’s cultural histories, shaped by the displacement of native Arawak peoples, centuries of colonial conflict between Spain, France, and Britain, and the enslavement of West Africans, continue to shape their musical output. Today, modern mixtapes (largely circulating on YouTube) pulse with intercontinental influences such as Angolan kuduro, Portugal’s batida, and trap, to name a few.
Sikh founder Guru Nanak’s retinue included a Muslim rabab (Afghan lute) player. Inspired by this, Sangat makes a pitch for music as a force for coexistence, between religions and beyond.
Sonny Singh’s bright trumpet melodies combine with the earthy twang of Qais Essar’s rabab to lend their explorations of Islamic and Sikh musical traditions an indie-folk flavour.
‘Lal Meri Pat’s exaltation of a 12th-century Sufi mystic evokes Sufjan Stevens through its pure-toned brass.
With similar verve, ‘Khabaram Raseeda Imshab’ deploys neo-soul stylings in support of a 14th-century ghazal. There is a freshness and confidence in this fusion of musical and poetic traditions with modern musical modes.
…Tsapiky! is named for a musical style that’s been popular in recent decades in the Africa-facing southern corner of Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean. It’s the preferred soundtrack for extended celebrations that people there throw around transitional events.
If you’re getting married or buried, it’s common to have a band hoist some loudspeakers onto the roof of your truck and get the outdoor party rolling. Heard for the first time, it sounds a bit like Congolese soukous being played through a megaphone. It has that style’s open-ended dance grooves and sprightly melodies, but it’s decidedly lower budget. A typical tsapiky band will have a drum kit, a bassist laying down bulbous, intermittent pulses and an electric…
As opening statements go, you can’t get much more gloriously emphatic than ‘Diyanye Ko’ which kicks off the fourth album from California-based African psych-rockers Orchestra Gold.
The hypnotic Bambara vocals of Mariam Diakite soar dramatically, Erich Huffaker peels off cosmic guitar licks like a cross between Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen and Mali’s Lobi Traoré. The saxophones of Patrick Cress and Luis Andrade surge with an unquenchable funk and the rhythm section grooves like a steamy night in Bamako. There’s no let-up in the intensity on the other eight tracks, either, ranging from the trance-like rhythms of ‘Baye Ass N’Diaye’ and ‘Abarika Kanuna’ to the heavy psyched-up blues pounding of ‘Djama Ko’. Like Cheikh Lô, Diakite is…
Across the world, cassette tapes have often carried far more than music, serving as tools of defiance, memory, and belonging. In Somalia and Somaliland, songs recorded on battered tapes crossed seas and borders, keeping scattered communities connected through poetry and melody. In Palestine, revolutionary anthems slipped through checkpoints and broadcast the sound of resistance where radio could not reach. In Afghanistan, banned voices lived on in bootleg cassettes passed hand to hand, their melodies vehemently resisting the silence imposed upon them.
In Iran, too, the cassette has been used as both a weapon and a refuge: First used by Khomeini to spread his revolutionary sermons, it was reclaimed by Iranian pop artists fighting to…
If you’re worried that you’re a latecomer to the work of uncategorizable Chicago musician Ben LaMar Gay, take solace in the certainty that you’re not alone. Gay’s new album, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, supposedly draws from seven of his previous records, with curious names like Grapes, Benjamim e Edinho, and Confetti in the Sky Like Fireworks. But when you start googling, not one of these albums surface. In this age of Bandcamp and Soundcloud, the cornetist, composer, and vocalist recorded seven albums in seven years but never let anyone outside of his inner circle hear them. Instead, he worked with jazz and experimental artists like Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, Nicole Mitchell, Jaimie Branch and Bitchin Bajas while…
Originally formed in 1983 as a duo, Australian band Not Drowning, Waving was created by classically-trained keyboardist-composer-producer David Bridie and guitarist John Phillips.
Quickly growing to a sextet, the group’s moody art-school ambience developed a niche national following, with their ’80s albums all receiving high praise. But after travelling to Papua New Guinea in 1989 and meeting PNG star George Telek, NDW changed direction, with 1990’s excellent collaboration Tabaran seeing them becoming part of the then-new genre of ‘World’ music, where the exciting live combination of NDW and Telek – along with percussion-driven PNG/Pacific musicians – proved extremely popular, gaining them many international listeners.
Traditional South Asian music blurs the lines between composition and improvisation. The Persian dastgah is a looser structure than ragas in the Hindustani or Carnatic lineage.
Where the Rain Is Stored, a new album from a quartet of Toronto-based musicians, is a natural step from those styles to an even freer, more contemporary form of improvisation.
The foursome consists of three members with ties to Iran and a fourth to India.
Vocalist Neda Mohamadpour is trained in the Persian classical style, and her improv stays largely inside those lines. The chordal instrument here is a setar (four-stringed lute), played by Mehdi Rostami. Isa Farah, on cello, alternates between melodic counterpoint and bass figures.
Egyptian-born oud player and composer Mustafa Said is one of the most illustrious names in Arabic music today. Born blind, he learned music through Braille. He’s led the Asil Ensemble since 2003, a fine band of traditional players on various sizes of oud, qanun zither, nai flute, tanbur, violin, viola, cello and various percussion. Said was awarded an Aga Khan Music Award in 2019.
This is his first album since then, although his fifth with the group. It opens with a short solo performance of sung Sufi poetry, written by Maymunah al-Asheqah, an 11th-century female poet who is said to have been able to walk on water. It’s followed by a substantial instrumental suite for the whole orchestra in ‘Maqam Segah’, gradually increasing in tempo and…
Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo.
However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records.
Bandonegro is a Polish tango quartet. Over the course of their 15-year career, they have developed a style that, inspired by the legacy of Astor Piazzolla, combines elements of jazz and classical music. This formula has already won over audiences in Germany, Austria, France, Denmark, Switzerland and Japan.
This album, the group’s sixth, was recorded in Buenos Aires. The birthplace of tango, with its vibrant concert and dance hall scene, provided an unbeatable setting for its recording. Of the ten pieces included, nine were composed by double bassist Marcin Antkowiak.
Tanuevo (the title a play on the tango nuevo genre) features prominent musicians from the Argentine jazz circuit: guitarist Lucio Balduini…
It is now 16 years since the unique voice and performances of UK-based Sudanese-Italian singer Amira Kheir first emerged onto an international stage, and 14 since the release of her debut album View from Somewhere.
Seven years after album Mystic Dance, Kheir returns with a fourth album that celebrates everything vibrant and vital about Sudan. The lyrics on Black Diamonds – in Arabic, English and Italian – explore loss, yearning, the fragile sparkle of love, and offer a poignant, though unspoken, reflection on the ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Kheir’s own compositions frame carefully selected classic songs by Sudanese greats, plus a cover of Italian group Matia Bazar’s ‘Ti Sento’, rendered in a classy ’90s-style jazz-soul,…