Do you need a sensitivity to divine forces to be drawn into Nilza Costa’s new album? Not necessarily. But it does require a willingness to listen to music that resists explanation. Nilza Costa is a Brazilian singer and songwriter from Salvador de Bahia, now based in Italy. Her new album revolves around cantigas – sacred songs from the African diaspora – sung in Yoruba, Kimbundu and Brazilian Portuguese. These songs function as direct invocations of the orishas: spiritual entities that, in traditions such as Candomblé and Santería, connect human life with nature, history, and the divine. Rather than presenting this tradition from the outside, the album positions itself within it, as a continuation in sound.
Costa’s voice anchors the album. It carries…
Category: world
Sonico is the only ensemble in the world dedicated to the music of Eduardo Rovira. The bandoneonist was one of the most revolutionary figures in the history of tango. However, the experimental nature of his compositions, his taciturn personality and his early death have largely consigned him to history’s margins.
To commemorate the centenary of his birth and to celebrate a decade of their own existence, the Sonico quintet have recorded a work that recreates two of Rovira’s albums: Sónico and Que lo paren. During six of the eight tracks on the first volume, Lysandre Donoso uses a distortion pedal on his bandoneon, a technique pioneered by the honoree himself. On the second, the delicate ‘Majó majú’ and the impetuous title-track…
Dinamarca has a soft spot for vocalists. In 2019, he invited a host of artists to perform vocals on his LP Sol De Mi Vida, then went on to record a reggaeton EP with Bay Area singer La Favi, a trap single with rising Chilean rapper AKRIILA, and now this hyperpop/reggaeton hybrid with Ángel Ballesteros — lead singer of pop-perreo trio Meth Math. Earlier Dinamarca productions would have spoken to the hard and fast dembow of Meth Math tracks like “Mermelhada” from their last LP Chupetones, which was co-produced by Nick León. But as of 2018, Dinamarca has been kneading out the harder edges of his reggaeton rattle into something generally mellower and happier. His first foray with Meth Math leaned towards trap, while his solo debut album soñao pulled…
Cumbia is the sound of Latin America, with roots going back to the traditional folk sounds of centuries past, yet save for a select few names, some of the style’s greatest innovators remain virtual unknowns outside of their local area, save for the most dedicated of cumbia obsessives. Luckily for the rest of us, some of those obsessives have seen fit to bring Ranil’s output back into focus, with Analog Africa following up on their 2020 compilation, Ranil Y Su Conjunto Tropical, with an equally infectious collection of long-forgotten works from the Peruvian master.
…Galaxia Tropical is more than just a follow-up; it is a final tribute to a musical titan. Label founder Samy Ben Redjeb recounts a serendipitous 2019 trip where a taxi driver…
Unique collection containing authentic rhythms of Haitian Voodoo drumming. Recorded in Port-au-Prince, Haiti by Soul Jazz Records, this album features The Drummers of the Societe Absolument Guinen.
Voodoo is the African religion at the heart of Haitian life. The complex rhythms of the drums are used to bring down African spirits in Voodoo ceremonies. These drums are the link between the music of Africa and the Caribbean. With links to Cuban Santeria, Jamaican and Trinidadian Afro-religions, Voodoo rhythms are the heaviest, most intense of all.
This record, which consists entirely of recordings of voudou drumming made in Port-Au-Prince, is one of a series of Soul Jazz releases exploring…
The Dahlak Band honed their sound as the resident musicians at the Ghion Hotel, a historic building in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa that was first constructed by long-time ruler Emperor Haile Selassie as an intended residence for his son. At the band’s red-hot core was Tilaye Gebre, a heavyweight of Ethio-jazz, whose story intersects with many of the close-knit scene’s key players. As press notes to this new reissue of Tilaye’s Saxophone with the Dahlak Band assert, “Chances are that if you pick up any gem recorded in Addis Ababa during those times, it features Tilaye on saxophone and his arrangements.”
The Selassie era was brought to an end by the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 and the dawning of a new military regime that imposed…
Congolese guitarist Kiala Nzavotunga began his career playing in Le Grand Kalle’s Africa Jazz band, but he became tired of the regime in the DRC and relocated to Nigeria in the ’70s, joining Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 and later forming the African-French Afrobeat group Ghetto Blaster.
The second album with his Afroblaster collective, One Race (Tribute to Hilaire Penda) is dedicated to the titular Cameroonian bassist who inspired and supported countless African artists and musicians worldwide throughout his life. For example, in the ’90s Penda collaborated with Mory Kanté, Tala André Marie, Salif Keita, Kassé Mady Diabaté and Amadou Balaké while based in London. Undoubtedly, Penda also left his mark on Kiala, and this can be heard in the new…
On Mahku, her striking debut for Nils Frahm’s LEITER label, Manizeh Rimer bridges ancient devotion and the smoother edges of contemporary spiritual jazz. Born in Karachi, raised in Switzerland, based in west London – where in 2022 she opened the Love Supreme Projects’ yoga and chanting centre, taglined “ancient practices for current times” – Manizeh brings an open-hearted rigour to the album’s eight chants. Co-produced with the visionary, NYC-based ganavya, who features on three tracks and with whom Manizeh frequently collbaborates when playing in London, this rather stunning debut presents Manizeh’s longtime chanting practice with a tender intimacy, more offering than performance.
The album opens with ‘Ashem Vohu’, a 3,000…
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.
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…