Reviews
Havana Club Rumba Sessions
Gilles Peterson's Havana Cultura Band
Beginning with the evocative, unaccompanied beat of the wooden clavé, the base of all rumba – an elemental Cuban genre...
Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: May/2016
Ela Ela
This is a Franco-Malagasy fusion led by Berikely who sings and plays the kabossy (an acoustic box guitar with four...
Reviewed by Martin Sinnock in issue: November/2022
Con Todo el Mundo
Take the surf versions of Middle Eastern folk tunes ‘Misirlou’ and ‘Hava Nagila’. Blend them with dub, 1960s Iranian pop...
Reviewed by Wif Stenger in issue: June/2018
Devil’s Tale
Adrian Raso & Fanfare Ciocarlia
You don’t expect an album from Fanfare Ciocarlia, the Balkans’ most fiery brass band, to open with reverb-drenched electric guitar,...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: March/2014
Sin Rumba No Hay Son
Septeto Nacional Ignacio Pineiro
Does any other country of musicians celebrate the history of their music and its incredible creativity quite like the Cubans...
Reviewed by Jan Fairley in issue: Nov/Dec/2010
Welcome to the Family
Bosnian guitarist Igor Sekulović grew up in Banja Luka, loving the sevdah music his mother and aunts sang. He ended...
Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: Aug/Sept/2013
Bahto Delo Delo
Marin ‘Tsagoi’ Sandu is an accordionist and singer from that heartland of Romanian Gypsy music, Clejani. Indeed he's the son...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: March/2015
Temperamento: Traditional Songs from Spain
Vigüela is a Toledo-based outfit of singers, guitarists and players of castanets, tambourines, shearing scissors, cowbells, sieves, the lute-like bandurria,...
Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: Aug/Sep/2016
Kaladounia
In Brussels, Rebel Up! is a promoter, record label and DJ team, as well as being general champions of global...
Reviewed by Martin Longley in issue: January/2021
Koum Tara: Chaâbi, Jazz and Strings
Disregard the rather bland title: this album is a luminous jewel. It's an uncommon mixture, to say the least, based...
Reviewed by Jo Setters in issue: May/2018
