Reviews
Optimisme
‘Badala’, the opening track on Songhoy Blues’ third album, is rather alarming – which of course was the band’s intention....
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: December/2020
The Don Ca Tai Tu: Chamber Music of the Mekong Delta
In 2013 the southern Vietnamese chamber music genre don ca tai tu was officially recognised as intangible cultural heritage by...
Reviewed by Barley Norton in issue: October/2014
Canta Cartola
Cartola was perhaps the most exhilarating of all samba songwriters. Not the kind of samba like the frantic dance...
Reviewed by GonÇalo Frota in issue: Jan/Feb/2017
Apikorsim/Heretics
From New York, The Klezmatics have been shaking up the klezmer and Yiddish music scene for 30 years now. So...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: December/2016
Bes
Formed in 2012, the trio who make up the Dwarfs found themselves living in the same apartment building in Cairo's...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: June/2016
1973-1980
Born in Guinea-Conakry, singer and percussionist Amara Touré wandered peripatetically across West African music for 20 or so years –...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: Aug/Sep/2015
Delta Estácio Blues
Best known as Metá Metá’s vocalist, Marçal spent four years making this album, a lengthy process in which co-producer Kiko Dinucci...
Reviewed by Russ Slater in issue: March/2022
Oud Vibrations
Ahmed Abdul Malik & Chick Ganimian
At first glance this punning titled reissue of two rare ‘East meets West’ jazz LPs from the late 1950s may...
Reviewed by Bill Badley in issue: Nov/Dec/2012
Manushan
Manushan is named after a legendary mountain in Iran near the Caspian Sea where, according to folklore, nomadic Gypsies from...
Reviewed by Jo Setters in issue: August/2017
The Spirit of the Mountains
Trebunie-Tutki & Quintet Urmuli
The Trebunie-Tutki are Poland's best-known band playing traditional podhale (highland) music, but they are also famed for their reggae fusions...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: March/2017
