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Review of Que Beleza

Que Beleza

Os Ipanemas

Far Out FAR0151CD

Rating: ★★★★

Another summer, another Ipanemas album, and if the British weather stays anything like as sweet as Que Beleza sounds, a...

Reviewed by Brendon Griffin in issue: Aug/Sep/2010

Review of Em Africa ao Vivo

Em Africa ao Vivo

Mart’na’lia

Discmedi Blu/Biscoito Fino

Rating: ★★

Despite a career stretching back to the mid-80s, this is among the first of singer-songwriter and percussionist Mart’na’lia’s albums to...

Reviewed by Brendon Griffin in issue: Jan/Feb/2012

Review of The Karindula Sessions: Tradi-Modern Sounds From Southeast Congo

The Karindula Sessions: Tradi-Modern Sounds From Southeast Congo

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Crammed Discs

Rating: ★★★★

A giant banjo, made out of an oil barrel, a goat skin, four strings and an empty bag of powdered...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: Apr/May/2011

Review of Bermuda: Gombay & Calypso 1953-1960

Bermuda: Gombay & Calypso 1953-1960

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Frémeaux et Associés

Rating: ★★

This double CD follows other Frémeaux recordings of 50s Caribbean popular music. But whereas the previous compilations Jamaica Mento and...

Reviewed by Charles De Ledesma in issue: March/2013

Review of The Beginners Guide to Timba

The Beginners Guide to Timba

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Nascente

Rating: ★★★★

Not one, not two but three CDs destined to send lovers of timba – that hard-edged derivative of Cuban salsa...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: October/2011

Review of The Road Never Travelled

The Road Never Travelled

Tzimmes

Big Tzimmes Productions

Rating: ★★★

Tzimmes translates in Yiddish a ‘big fuss.’ It’s also an Eastern European Jewish dish: a sweet, honeyed mix of root...

Reviewed by Celeste Cantor-Stephens in issue: December/2021

Review of Penya

Penya

Penya

Top of the World

Liminal Records

Rating: ★★★★

Genre-massaging London trio Penya have been making waves for a while now, most especially in the youthful, club-leaning universe populated...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: June/2021

Review of Albala

Albala

Samba Touré

Top of the World

Glitterbeat

Rating: ★★★★

Like his compatriot Bassekou Kouyaté, it has taken Samba Touré a while to emerge as a star of Malian music....

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: July/2013

Review of Escenas de la Ciudad

Escenas de la Ciudad

Aníbal Arias

Winter & Winter 9101602

Rating: ★★★★

I first saw – sorry, heard – an audio film in a small village in the Pyrenees. It was about...

Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: March/2010

Review of Cigala & Tango

Cigala & Tango

Diego El Cigala

Edge Music/Universal

Rating: ★★

Tango and flamenco have elemental, thematic, tonal and rhythmic differences due to their entirely separate, and exceptional, cultural histories. On...

Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: Jan/Feb/2012

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