Reviews
Mutende Mizimu: Vimbuza from Mzimba North
Doctor Kanuska leads her ensemble in the traditional vimbuza healing trance dance ritual. As a child she was diagnosed by...
Reviewed by Martin Sinnock in issue: April/2021
Don’t Call Me Baby
Born to Haitian parents in New York and now a proud resident of the Big Easy, McCalla brings a bewildering...
Reviewed by Paul Slade in issue: February/March/2026
Lips of Clay
Nick Janaway and Sarah Owen bring home-built computer tech to the world of I traditional folk. The results are fascinating,...
Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: Apr/May/2013
Osmanity
Like rats jumping a sinking ship, world beat DJs have ditched the Balkans in favour of sounds further afield —...
Reviewed by Robert Rigney in issue: January/2021
Tropikantele
Chilling with a piña colada after a sauna? That might be the vibe as Finland’s national instrument, the kantele, fuses...
Reviewed by Wif Stenger in issue: July/2024
Radio Moskova
How the anguished bass laments, taunted by the merciless, provoking accordion. But they forgive and make up, dancing around each...
Reviewed by Fiona Talkington in issue: Jan/Feb/2012
Music from Romania
These recordings were made by the celebrated musicologist Deben Bhattacharya in 1965, the year Nicolae Ceauşescu came to power. It...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: July/2014
Gypsy Lover
English accordionist and circus performer Faith Elliott loved Balkan music so much that several years ago she landed in Serbia,...
Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: June/2016
Celestun
My Morning Jacket guitarist Carl Broemel and former Band of Horses lead guitarist Tyler Ramsey have apparently long intended to...
Reviewed by Glenn Kimpton in issue: February/March/2026
Trollfageln: The Magic Bird
The nyckelharpa, or keyed fiddle, the instrument which Swedish virtuoso Emilia Amper plays with such ease and command, is fundamentally...
Reviewed by Kim Burton in issue: June/2013
