Reviews
Obra Viva de Hermeto Pascoal – Vol. 1 Flautas
Aline Gonçalves, Andrea Ernest Dias, Carlos Malta & Eduardo Neves
Hermeto Pascoal (1936–2025) was one of Brazil’s most adventurous and influential musicians. Known as ‘The Sorcerer’, this multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger...
Reviewed by Andy Cumming in issue: May/2026
Lyric
Stelios Petrakis is one of the finest Cretan lyra players in action today, although he’s also playing the lute on...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: May/2026
MandolinMan Plays Bossa Nova
As their name might suggest, the Belgian quartet MandolinMan are all mandolin players. Their first album, Old Tunes, Dusted Down,...
Reviewed by Matt Milton in issue: May/2020
DOST 2
Derya Yıldırım's vocal style may not be to everyone's taste. Compared to Anatolian pop living-legend Selda Bağcan, with whom Yıldırım...
Reviewed by Robert Rigney in issue: December/2022
The Rough Guide To Music Without Frontiers
The compilation market is over-crowded; genuinely valid albums offering anything new are so rare that it is hard to suppress...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: Jan/Feb/2015
Balkan Beats: A Night in Berlin
Of the many Balkan and Gypsy compilation series out there, Robert Soko’s Balkan Beats has always stood out for its...
Reviewed by Lemez Lovas in issue: March/2010
Talûş
Yıldırım is a young Turkish musician specialising in the kamancha (spiked fiddle), called kabak kemane in Anatolia where a dried...
Reviewed by Francesco Martinelli in issue: May/2021
The SLAM! Years (1983-88)
Born in Libya but long based in Egypt, Hamid El Shaeri is a superstar of popular Arabic music. This album...
Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: May/2022
The Next Generation
Groundation are a reggae group who formed at Sonoma State University in 1998. The original members were all studying jazz...
Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: November/2018
Cruzando Borders
The Grammy-winning Los Texmaniacs play music that celebrates the people and places of the Texas-Mexico borderlands: corridos, boleros and less...
Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: October/2018
