African music
Songlines Encounters Festival, Kings Place review - mellifluous launch from African stringsSaturday, 02 June 2018
The Songlines Encounters festival is in its eighth year, and opened its doors on Thursday night at Kings Place in London with 3MA, (TroisMa in French), comprising Malian kora player Ballake Sissoko, Moroccan oud player Driss El Maloumi and... Read more... |
Africa: A Journey Into Music, BBC Four review - too little, too late?Saturday, 02 June 2018
BBC Four is the TV music equivalent of those oldsters music mags like Q and Mojo. Have there been five, or is it six, documentaries about Queen on the channel? You can sense the commissioners feeling with this new series they have now done... Read more... |
CD: Baloji - 137 Avenue KaniamaThursday, 22 March 2018
The death of “world music” is a wonderfully reassuring thing. That is to say, with every year that passes, it becomes less and less possible for media and consumers to bracket together music from outside the US and Europe as a single thing, and... Read more... |
CD: Seun Kuti - Black TimesFriday, 09 March 2018
Is it fair to say that Seun Kuti’s fourth album is just more of the same? I believe it is, because more of the same is more or less the point with protest music, particularly if what you’re protesting hasn’t gone away. You have no choice but to keep... Read more... |
CD: Femi Kuti - One People One WorldTuesday, 20 February 2018
A superstar elsewhere in the world, particularly in West Africa, Femi Kuti still lives somewhat unfairly in his dad, Fela Kuti’s shadow in the West. While this might be somewhat inevitable to those with a limited taste for afrobeat grooves, One... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 32: OMD, Twin Peaks, Bicep, Sisters of Mercy and moreMonday, 25 September 2017
September and October see a deluge of new releases. Everybody and their aunt puts out an album as autumn hits, so theartsdesk on Vinyl appears this month (and next) in a slightly expanded edition. As ever, the fare on offer is as diverse as possible... Read more... |
CD: Nick Mulvey - Wake Up NowWednesday, 06 September 2017
Nick Mulvey’s 2014 debut album First Mind may be one of the century’s best so far. Album number two, then, has the critical bar set high. On that opening record, the ex-Portico Quartet singer-songwriter majored in complex-yet-simple songs that wove... Read more... |
CD: Aurelio - DarandiTuesday, 14 February 2017
It's a monstrous cliché – all too often laden with problematically patronising overtones – to describe African, Caribbean, or Afro-Latin music in terms of “sunshine”, with all the carefree holiday brochure imagery that brings. But damn, the music of... Read more... |
CD: Tinariwen - ElwanSunday, 05 February 2017
Tinariwen are one African band you don’t dance to. It’s not that kind of music. They emerged from refugee camps, guerrilla camps and nomadic desert camps through the Eighties and Nineties, and since reaching a global audience via The Festival of The... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cape Town: Summer of nostalgiaSaturday, 17 December 2016
Just 22 years old, South Africa’s national “Day of Reconciliation” on 16 December has shuffled into its perplexed young adulthood. Although commemorative events abound, few people seem to know how to strike the right note for this (just) pre-... Read more... |
Sónar Barcelona 2016Tuesday, 21 June 2016
A few beers down, in the middle of a crowd listening to music you love, you tend not to think of the latest news story as your highest priority. But Britain's relationship to Europe weighs heavy on the mind these days, and when the news of the... Read more... |
CD: Kel Assouf - TikounenWednesday, 04 May 2016
When the Tuareg band Tinariwen first started to come to prominence a decade or so ago, world music purists tried to lay claim that they were purveyors of what they called "desert blues". The reason being, presumably, that the blues in their... Read more... |
