Wednesday, July 28, 2021
The 10 Best New Albums | August 2021
Outstanding new releases from Jupiter & Okwess, Natalia Lafourcade, John Francis Flynn, Derya Yıldırım and many more. Tracks from all of these albums are included on the free cover-CD with the August 2021 issue of Songlines
01 Jupiter & Okwess – Na KOzonga
(Zamora)
The Congolese beats and the irresistible energy of Kinshasa remain at the core of the sound, heard to particularly fine effect on the title-track (which translates as ‘I’m Going Home’). A spectacular return. Nigel Williamson
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
02 Hamdi Benani, Mehdi Haddab & Speed Caravan – Nuba Nova
(Buda Musique)
The album starts with fairly standard rai fusion, but by the end of the first track it’s already evolved into Maghrebi psytrance led by Haddab’s Frampton-esque oud-vocoder. By then all bets are off. Jim Hickson
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
03 Martin Bruhn – Picaflor
(Shika Shika)
If this album had been credited to Los Hijos de Bruhn you’d be in no doubt that this is the work of a rejuvenated Andean orchestra; in fact, it is the work of one man, recording at home during lockdown. Russ Slater
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
04 Boubacar ‘Badian’ Diabaté – Mande Guitar: African Guitar Series, Vol 1
(Lion Songs Records)
This first release on a new label launched by Banning Eyre, presenter of the Afropop Worldwide radio show and all-round African music maven, is a gem. Nigel Williamson
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
05 Natalia Lafourcade – Un Canto por México, Vol 2
(Sony Mexico)
While she’s too decorous to be a Chavela Vargas, she nonetheless can pack heaps of emotion, as well as virtuosity, into a song, flitting with deceptive ease from sweet to tragic, romantic to resigned – the high notes seem to come as naturally as the soft whispers. Chris Moss
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
06 John Francis Flynn – I Would Not Live Always
(River Lea Recordings)
The three-part song cycle ‘Bring Me Home’ begins with the kind of disconcerting, subliminal electronica you’d find on Throbbing Gristle’s setlist, or in the outer realms of German Krautrock, mixed with powerful vocals and spare acoustic backing. Tim Cumming
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
07 Luciano Biondini & Klaus Falschlunger – Once in a Blue Moon
(ATS-Records)
Austrian sitar player Klaus Falschlunger and Italian accordion player Luciano Biondini have joined forces in this glorious fusion of musical influences to create a wonderfully colourful, warm and immersive album. James Roriston
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
08 Zawierucha – OberTany
(Fundacja Czas Tradycji)
Every one of the ten tracks on this release has its own identity, its own hook and own attractions. And they defiantly resist the temptation to internationalise the music. Simon Broughton
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
09 Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – DOST 1
(Bongo Joe)
Ultimately, one has the feeling of listening to something that could have been cut 50 years ago, and yet in Yıldırım’s hands the material still seems fresh. And it doesn’t bother Yıldırım that her audience is largely incapable of understanding what she is singing about. Robert Rigney
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
10 Katherine Priddy – The Eternal Rocks Beneath
(Navigator Records)
Opening song ‘Indigo’ is an embracing, unshadowed childhood pastoral, her fine, clear and resonant voice and adept acoustic setting steering it into a lush lyricism; it’s that lyrical richness, in word and music, that gives this album its power. Tim Cumming
Read the review in the Songlines Reviews Database
