Reviews
Once Upon a Time in Senegal: The Birth of Mbalax 1979-1981
Youssou N’Dour is Africa’s biggest star and the mbalax sound he helped shape remains Senegal’s musical heartbeat 30 years after...
Reviewed by Katharina Lobeck Kane in issue: Aug/Sep/2010
L'Amazone: Le Chant des Fleuves
The Amazon has been imagined as a tree, its trunk passing from Brazil through Colombia and into Peru, with branches...
Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: April/2020
Balkan Brass Battle
Any visitor to the Guča festival will have witnessed the raucous spectacle of two sweat-soaked brass bands angrily trying to...
Reviewed by Joe Walker in issue: Aug/Sep/2011
Who Are We?
Born in the largely Algerian neighbourhood of Barbès in Paris, the quintet Al-Qasar mixes hypnotic North African trance grooves and...
Reviewed by Daniel Spicer in issue: November/2022
Kadior Demb
Thiès, Senegal’s third largest city, is a sleepy town at a major railway junction and home to one of the...
Reviewed by Mark Hudson in issue: Jan/Feb/2013
Crooked Tree
Want to know what 21st-century bluegrass sounds like? Crooked Tree, Molly Tuttle’s first purely bluegrass recording, is the answer. Recorded...
Reviewed by Doug Deloach in issue: May/2022
Toumani & Sidiki
Toumani Diabaté & Sidiki Diabaté
The kora is an age-old instrument, rich in history, yet its promotion as a solo instrument is relatively recent. This...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: June/2014
Nagez Rameurs
Québécois music is fed by rich waters – French, Irish, Scottish, Breton and Maritime traditions are all integral to its...
Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: Aug/Sep/2011
Japanistan
This recording by Paris-based instrumentalist Kengo Saito appears to occupy a niche of one, being a cross-section of music from...
Reviewed by Charlie Cawood in issue: Aug/Sep/2016
Z’amalgame
In name, Z’amalgame suggests a coming-together, a melding of components and forces into a new, fortified whole. This Réunionese album,...
Reviewed by Celeste Cantor-Stephens in issue: February/March/2025
