Finally, the two titans of East European Gypsy music go head to head in a Balkan brass encounter of epic proportions. Following the tradition of brass battles from Serbia’s legendary Guca Brass Festival to New Orleans’ mean streets, the Balkan Brass Battle showcases the wit, passion and musical genius of Europe’s Romany Gypsy people.
Initially the vinyl-oriented 45RPM Electric Cowbell record label politely shunned any concern that their singles be made available digitally until our family members and friends without turntables began asking how they were going to get a chance to hear the songs. This formatting issue, coupled with the label’s intrinsic desire to promote and disseminate the bands and their music to a wider audience, has been resolved by offering digital album version-also available as CD-of the label’s first year of singles. 101 Things To Do In Bongolia is a sonic brochure of Electric Cowbell’s first batch of singles from 2010-2011 with the addition of some bonus tracks and remixes from the label’s current releases.
HAMMOCK HOUSE – “AFRICA CARIBE” OUT Now. Amongst dance music fans Joaquin “Joe” Claussell needs no introduction. Anyone […]
It’s fitting that Red Hot + Rio 2 would pay tribute to Brazil’s Tropicália movement since both exhibit a desire to act on social-political issues through music. Red Hot + Rio 2 is the natural successor to the 1996 original Bossa Nova inspired Red Hot + Rio.
Owing its roots to musical tolerance and innovation, the arrival of Tropicália on the scene began in the 1960s. Despite its success, the movement lasted few years, its influence on Brazilian music was broad and far-reaching.
Politically engaged lyrics and artistic forms of activism drove much of the movement following the coup of 1964. Its initial leaders, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, were incarcerated by the military government over the political content of their work. Their 1968 collaboration album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis is largely considered the musical manifesto of the movement. The two, along with other artists commonly associated with the movement, experimented with unusual time signatures and other means of unorthodox song structures.
After two months, Veloso and Gil were released and exiled to London by the military government, where they lived until 1972. “Others in the Tropicalismo movement were less fortunate; several underwent torture or were forced into ‘psychiatric care’. Not unlike what those living with AIDS today face daily in countries where violence and ostracization are part of the culture.
Red Hot + Rio 2, a pays tribute to late 60’s Brazilian Tropicália movement with over 30 original collaborations between Brazil’s legendary musicians and today’s international indie artists including John Legend, Os Mutantes, Devendra Banhart, Caetano Veloso, Dirty Projectors, Seu Jorge, Beck, Bebel Gilberto, José Gonzalez, Beirut, Tom Zé, Of Montreal, Marisa Monte Gogol Bordello, DJ Dolores, Aloe Blacc, Angelique Kidjo, Rita Lee, Madlib, Money Mark, Céu, Apollo Nove, Mayra Andrade, Trio Mocotó, Tha Boogie, Alice Smith, Carlinhos Brown, Los Van Van, Brazilian Girls, Marcos Valle, St. Vincent, Neon Indian, Forró In The Dark, Mia Doi Todd, Javelin, and many more.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_gwMUZrixo] Summer 2011 sees the release of the long awaited exciting new album project from Bah Samba titled […]
After winning a Grammy Award in 2011 and backing the Tony Award winning broadway show “Fela!” with their […]
The endlessly inventive musical creator known as Dego will release his own solo debut “A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?” this summer in 2011. Having recorded several seminal albums with his previous musical collectives 4hero, 2000black, Silhouette Brown and under the moniker, Mr. GoodGood, “A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?” marks Dego’s continuing musical evolution, integrating his past as an avatar of electronica, jazz, dub and soul, while blazing a new path forward beyond convention and expectation.
Youssou Ndour’s journey to Kingston began with the music pulsing from the Dakar market stalls of his childhood. It began during long hours of listening to reggae LPs from his uncle’s record store. It continued decades later, long after Ndour became one of the world’s best known and best loved African singers, as circumstances conspired and he found himself at Tuff Gong studios, walking in Bob Marley’s footsteps and jamming with Marley’s musical friends.
Dakar-Kingston (Emarcy Records; June 7, 2011) maps this road, turning Ndour classics and several new originals into reggae anthems, reflecting reggae’s deep impact on West African music and culture. Guided by veteran reggae producer and former Marley collaborator Tyrone Downie, Ndour finds the sunny and urgent, the laid-back and the hard-grooving sides of Jamaican music, supported by a multigenerational crew of Jamaican and African reggae voices.
Ndour, a pioneering performer whose strikingly expressive voice transformed both the mbalax music of his native Senegal and Western pop, is an experienced traveler. He has effortlessly climbed charts in North America and Europe thanks to duets with Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry, and Sting. He has traced the roots of his griot (traditional oral historian) heritage, and explored his Muslim faith and its sonic impact by collaborating with Egyptian musicians, winning a Grammy® for his efforts.
Arby mesmerized audiences at this year’s SXSW in showcases for NPR, The Fader Fort, National Geographic Music, All Music is World Music (The World on WGBH Boston and KUT Austin) in standout performances at a festival known for once-in-a-lifetime shows. This intensity comes as much from her home as it does her unique spirit. Born in a village not far from the famed city of Timbuktu , Arby is firmly planted in the desert sand. Her creativity flows in part from the people of her home region of Northern Mali-the young musicians in her band all hail from Timbuktu-and from their past and present struggles. As Arby puts it, “Trab is our land, our home, Timbuktu. Its history, its mystery, everything…”
“There’s a clave hidden in Scottish music, if you look for it,” explains piano player, arranger, and composer Neil Pearlman. It’s a secret place where Robert Burns does the boogie woogie. And where salsa brass and Tower of Power bass sneak into the frenetic triplets of island dances.
Pearlman has found this sweet spot. The young freethinker of a musician unleashes Scotland’s unexpected grooves and Cape Breton’s unique piano style on Coffee and the Mojo Hat (Paddledoo Music; June 5, 2011). Doffing his plaid cap for “mojo,” Pearlman gently but firmly expands on tradition, honing high-precision technique and finding uncharted rhythmic affinities.
The possibilities of the piano—Pearlman’s chosen instrument since he was four—were limited by what Pearlman humorously calls “the boom-chuck” style of most accompaniment for traditional tunes. But not on Cape Breton, Canada’s Celtic roots hotspot, with its thriving music scene and a piano style all its own.
Inspired by stride and boogie woogie, Cape Breton piano players held their own with the region’s acclaimed fiddlers at community dances. They broke out the broken octaves, setting the right hand free to hit all the burls—the traditional, fast-paced triplets—that make Scottish tunes sparkle. Pearlman fell in love with the approach, which he taught himself in his early teens by watching Cape Breton performers.
On Boubacar Traoré’s first studio album in six years, the kindly, gritty voice of the veteran Malian bluesman intertwines with wonderfully idiosyncratic, cascading guitar. Wistful and pensive, Traoré exhorts, gives thanks, and reflects on love, history, and duty, with a deceptive simplicity and a deep, subtle knowledge of Mandingo tradition and West African vintage pop.
A legend in Mali since his groundbreaking hits of the 1960s, Traoré—possibly the eldest internationally-touring guitarist from Mali—has been around. He knows exactly what he wants. He insisted that if he was going to do a studio album, he had to have his longtime friend, the nimble French harmonica player Vincent Bucher, play with him. Bucher’s rich, pure tone moves in and out of Traoré’s succinct phrases and unexpected rhythms effortlessly on tracks like “Mondeou.”
Traoré doesn’t fuss with his music in the studio: He’s known for whipping out one or two stunning takes and then heading back to the farm. Recorded live at Studio Moffou, the cozy recording venue designed by Malian star Salif Keita specifically for acoustic African projects, Mali Denhou beautifully presents the spirit of an African blues master, in the way vintage jazz and blues recordings captured the masters of the Mississippi Delta.
John C. Tripp Design’s photostream on Flickr.
Music Selection by John C. Tripp, Editor of MundoVibe [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/15026304″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ] Track Listing: Eddie […]
Traveling down Linden Blvd towards JFK Airport, Vieux Farka Touré had a realization. Having just left The Bunker recording studio in Brooklyn, he was discussing the sessions with his manager, Eric Herman. A newly constructed song, played in part by his father— the great Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré—came on over the car stereo, and Vieux said, “This is what we call ‘the secret of the blues.” The two friends laughed, though it quickly dawned on him that his off-the-cuff remark was a perfect summation of his third album.
The Secret (Six Degrees Records) was born.
Frank Yamma – Countryman (Wantok Music) The world has experienced ethnic music from the land down under for […]
