kwaNTU feels less like an album and more like an encounter. It brings together Madala Kunene, a significant figure within the Zulu guitar tradition, and Sibusile Xaba, one of South Africa’s most visionary contemporary guitar voices, in a meeting shaped by trust, listening and shared history. There’s a quiet confidence to the music — unhurried, grounded and deeply attentive — as the two guitars speak to one another rather than compete. Kunene’s playing carries the weight of experience and lineage; Xaba responds with openness and warmth, and together they share a mutual sense of spiritual inquiry. The album breathes, allowing space for nuance, silences and gentle shifts in mood. True to its name, kwaNTU centres life force over spectacle.
Category: world
Syd dePalma’s Paris is dreamlike. Echoes abound, sculpting recognizable rock, folk, and pop stylings into imaginative new shapes. As he plays with light and shadow, the borders between fantasy and reality blur. The familiar soars. An eerie melancholy fills even the most straightforward of dePalma’s melodies, a desperation buried deep in the foundation of every line he sings. The lyrics are uncanny, the sounds constantly shifting. Only two years out from debut, El Lugar de Arder, Paris is a ferocious next step for dePalma, one that radiates surreal energy.
Vivid imagery abounds: of body parts, desire, tears, the sky, the ground, the city, the country. As lead singer on almost all tracks, dePalma makes for a compelling guide to his uncanny world.
The latest album from Hungarian tambura band Söndörgő isn’t triple X-rated, but it does mark their 30th anniversary. Their name may be hard to pronounce, but their music is easy to listen to.
The unusual standout track here is their arrangement of the first of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’. It’s a wonderful demonstration of the delicacy and virtuosity of the instruments and players, in this case Áron Eredics and his brother Salamon on alto tambura. It’s rather reminiscent of those beautiful Bach arrangements by Chris Thile on the mandolin, alongside Yo-Yo Ma on the cello and Edgar Meyer playing double bass. Indeed, the tambura is remarkably like the mandolin in sound and extremely nimble. The instrument is associated with the South Slav communities…
It would be difficult to overstate the righteousness of David Zé’s heart. Raised in Angola while the Southern African country was still a colonial outpost of Portugal, regionally he’s considered an icon of resistance who used music as a weapon for liberation and reform. Zè was assassinated in 1977, two years after Portugal’s withdrawal, but in a nation still fractured and unstable. Speculation continues to swirl that governmental fear of his influential voice led to the killing; author and African studies professor Marissa Jean Moorman points out that while there are no definitive accounts of their deaths, the murders of Zé, and fellow musicians Urbano de Castro and Artur Nunes, were part of a “purge.”
Raised by parents who belonged to a Methodist…
The second volume in the WaJazz Japanese Jazz Spectacle series, selected by Yusuke Ogawa.
“Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa continues the WaJazz exploration with another essential collection of music that contains something uniquely Japanese — focusing this time on the King Records catalog. Featuring timeless music by Isao Suzuki, Toshiaki Yokota, Akira Miyazawa, Takeru Muraoka, Yasuaki Shimizu, Masahiko Togashi, George Otsuka, and more.
“It is my great pleasure to introduce you to the second volume of the “Japanese Jazz Spectacle” series. Following the first compilation which focused on recordings from the Nippon Columbia catalog, this time we are digging into the King Records archives.
On their fourth album Yatta!, the celebrated Dutch quartet YĪN YĪN extends, bends, and ignites a joyous mix of disco, funk, surf, psychedelia, and Southeast Asian motifs. UNCUT magazine previously dubbed their highly addictive sound “cosmic disco”—a fitting starting point—but as Yatta! proves, the band’s sonic footprint is an ever-evolving kaleidoscope of sounds, textures, and beats.
As with their breakthrough album Mount Matsu (2024), their devotion to getting the dance floor moving remains front and center. That impulse, already strong, has intensified — Yatta! lifting it to an ecstatic next level.
The result? An album that reveals a band whose groove just keeps getting deeper.
Is Abel Selaocoe the most exciting musician in the world right now? Adding to the growing case is his third album, which presents his 2023 cello concerto, recorded live in London this year with the Aurora Orchestra. Here the prodigious Selaocoe, classically trained in Soweto and Manchester, interweaves South African ancestral and hymnal traditions with Western classical music, to inimitable effect.
Opening with a cascade of percussion, the first three movements are propelled by rhythm and energy, enhanced by regular collaborator Bernhard Schimpelsberger. It’s richly varied, with angular strings, guttural throat-singing, explosions of brass, and even a vocal percussion battle. He makes sparing use of the orchestra,…
New York klezmer band The Klezmatics are celebrating their 40th anniversary and that includes a (first-time) vinyl release of absolutely their best album, Rhythm & Jews, originally issued in 1991. Full of energy and innovation, it simultaneously holds a respect for the traditions alongside a fearless attitude towards breaking them. The punning name of the album is also symptomatic of the ensemble’s irreverent approach. The vinyl version has only 10 out of 15 tracks with a few alternative takes, although nothing profoundly different.
The opening ‘Fun tashlikh’ starts with percussion, and Nubian percussionist Mahmoud Fadl gives it an Arabic flavour, immediately subverting stereotypes. Then there’s David Krakauer’s…
When quintet Imarhan emerged onto the world stage with their first City Slang release ten years ago, they stood out for their keen melodic sensibilities within the international tishoumaren scene. Hailing from the southern Algerian oasis city of Tamanrasset, they offer a distinct iteration of what has been referred to as desert blues, in which they adorn the melancholy core of the genre with often intricate lines and flourishes that recall popular styles of the Arab Maghreb.
Their fourth album, Essam (“lightning”), takes their flair for the luscious even further, as producer Emile Papandreou (of the eccentric French electropop duo UTO) extends the group’s sound with ethereal modular synthesizers. As always, Imarhan proves to be exceptional at balancing…
…author of the immersive Manu Chao biography, Clandestino, roving world music journalist, composer and “nomad pianist” Peter Culshaw released his previous set, Music from the Temple of Light, in 2023.
Surrender to Love is spun from the same threads that were woven through that Temple of Light – mixing an ambient piano as a grounding for the music, with a range of Eastern and Middle Eastern instruments and voices, and a ruling spirit and approach that’s drawn from the Sufi wing of spirituality – a music and practice associated with Islam, but one that perhaps predates it, stretching away into older, even prehistoric means of devotion and surrender.
The authority in these Sufi-inflected pieces is…
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…
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…