world music
Les Triaboliques, The LexingtonWednesday, 04 May 2011
London-based trio Les Triaboliques should perhaps be grateful that Wikipedia hasn’t included them in their entry on supergroups. There you will find a comprehensive list of so-called supergroups with leadenly histrionic names like Isles and Glaciers... Read more... |
CD: African Head Charge - Voodoo of the GodsentFriday, 22 April 2011
For 30 years African Head Charge have been ploughing their unique sonic furrow, wandering hazy-dazed around the outer borders of experimental dub and super-mellow sounds. When they first appeared in 1981 on Adrian Sherwood's groundbreaking On-U... Read more... |
Freaked-out Brazilian musical treasures rediscoveredMonday, 18 April 2011
Sometimes it seems as though every bit of music from the past has been disinterred, no matter how obscure or outré it is. But, of course, surprises keep on coming and the Psychedelic Pernambuco compilation is a reminder that great stuff still lurks... Read more... |
The Mexican Institute of Sound, KOKOMonday, 18 April 2011
The downside of this job is that because new CDs are dropping through the letterbox every day, a lot of stuff inevitably gets consigned to the archives and forgotten about, when it really shouldn’t be. So when I heard that The Mexican Institute of... Read more... |
Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, Royal Festival HallThursday, 14 April 2011
Given that Seun Kuti and Egypt 80’s new album nearly blew my speaker covers off with its focused punch and irrepressible energy, the band really shouldn’t have had a problem making an impression on Tuesday night’s lacklustre Later… with Jools... Read more... |
Opinion: Time to say goodbye to the label 'World Music'Sunday, 03 April 2011
Although the phrase “world music” was first coined by American ethnomusicologist Robert Brown in the 1960s, it didn’t become a brand, as it were, until 1987, when a bunch of London-based DJs, musicians and record company folk (including the late... Read more... |
Baaba Maal, St George's BristolTuesday, 22 March 2011
Concerts are not what they used to be: in an attempt to break the mould of conventional performance styles, promoters and artists are increasingly turning to explanatory introductions, visual aids and other means of drawing the audience in, as if... Read more... |
Watcha Clan, Rich MixWednesday, 16 March 2011
Why do bands still insist on dabbling in drum’n’bass? It was always an absurd, overwrought style, even when it first assaulted our eardrums in the mid-1990s. It’s more like a technological malfunction of the drum machine than a natural, felt groove... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Kinshasa: The Making of Benda Bilili!Sunday, 13 March 2011
Benda Bilili! is in some ways very Hollywood – the story of a dream of stardom which comes true despite incredible odds. On the other hand, the subject matter of a group of homeless paraplegic musicians in a band called Staff Benda Bilili (which... Read more... |
Benda Bilili!Saturday, 12 March 2011
On first hearing about Staff Benda Bilili - a Congolese band partly made up of paraplegics – I felt a little uneasy at the prospect of reviewing them. The last thing that one wants as a (hopefully) trusted critic is to feel compromised by an... Read more... |
Youssou N'Dour, BarbicanThursday, 10 March 2011
Old joke: when is N’Dour not N’Dour? When he’s Frank Sinatra. The comparisons of the Chairman of the Board with Senegal’s biggest star may seem a bit far-fetched, but I wondered as I watched him whether there’s a current European or American star... Read more... |
Deolinda, Jazz CaféWednesday, 09 March 2011
Sometimes it’s worth remembering that what is world music to one music lover is pop music to another. Portuguese four-piece Deolinda’s first album, Canção ao lado, spent nearly two years at the top of the charts at home, so there are an awful... Read more... |
