Reviews

Hand to Play

Olav Mjelva & Eli West

The Seattle-based guitarist and singer Eli West is well-known for his old-time Americana duo with fellow singer Cahalen Morrison. West's...

Reviewed by Matt Milton in issue: July/2019

Sing For Me

Cherif Mbaw

From Ziguinchor, southern Senegal, the musical heartland of the country, Cherif Mbaw’s second international release brings little of his musical...

Reviewed by Rose Skelton in issue: October/2010

Break It Up

Rura

Rura are one of the most promising and interesting young bands to emerge recently and this, their debut album, establishes...

Reviewed by Billy Rough in issue: Aug/Sep/2012

Ocupai

Bixiga 70

In 2011, Afrobeat chronicler Dr Carlos Moore predicted that Brazil would be ‘the next Afrobeat world capital.’ Exaggerated though it...

Reviewed by Alex Robinson in issue: Aug/Sep/2014

Vagabonde

Mar Seek

Hasn’t the world now heard every possible permutation of the nexus of bands that revolutionised Senegalese music in the 1970s,...

Reviewed by Mark Hudson in issue: March/2014

Alcance

Nikos Tsiachris

As flamenco continues to expand its appeal across the globe, one familiar disappointment is to hear foreign guitarists who have...

Reviewed by Jo Setters in issue: August/2017

Nádúr

Clannad

Nádúr delivers the first new material from Clannad in a decade and a half and arrives as the Irish icons...

Reviewed by Michael Quinn in issue: Jan/Feb/2014

Shadows

O’Hooley & Tidow

It's been a productive few years for the acclaimed and distinctive English art-folk duo of Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow....

Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: October/2016

Cicada Ball

The Boxcar Boys

The Boxcar Boys aren’t all that they seem. They aren’t all boys, for one thing: two of the sextet are...

Reviewed by Tim Woodall in issue: April/2016

Awal Mara

Hassan Erraji

Having made his first instrument as a boy from a tin can and old bicycle brake cables, the blind Moroccan...

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: October/2010