Reviews
Cancionera
We know Natalia Lafourcade can turn on the intimacy and intensity. On 2024’s Live at Carnegie Hall, she managed to...
Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: June/2025
The Harry Smith B-Sides
Harry Smith’s legendary six-LP series, Anthology of American Folk Music, surely stands as the most influential collection of early 20th...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: December/2020
Luci e Guai
Raised in Lyon with the tunes his Sicilian grandmother sang to him, Julien Lesuisse set out in search of his...
Reviewed by Robert Rigney in issue: June/2021
Sankofa
Thandiswa Mazwai burst onto the global music scene as the charismatic frontwoman of Bongo Maffin, pioneers of South African kwaito,...
Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: August/2024
En Kötü Iyi Olur
Turkish trio Lalalar are a pretty convincing example of how oppression can cause unruly bursts of refusenik artistic expression. The...
Reviewed by Daniel Spicer in issue: November/2023
Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings
Basho was an unconventional and singular 12-string guitarist, an outsider whose music remains uniquely beguiling. Often dubbed the ‘Father of...
Reviewed by Chris Wheatley in issue: February/March/2025
The Voice of the People: The Barley Mow
Topic Records released the Voice of the People series – 20 CDs and about 500 recordings of traditional songs and...
Reviewed by Julian May in issue: Aug/Sep/2014
Wa Maret El Ayam /Hakam Aleena El Hawa
The cultural legacy Oum Kalthoum holds in Egypt and the wider Arab world is impossible to overstate. Beloved by heads...
Reviewed by Charlie Cawood in issue: July/2023
Aïta: Chikhates & Chioukhs of the Aïta
One day they'll build a statue to honour Brahim El Mazned. The discreet producer has forged a 30-year career devoted...
Reviewed by Daniel Brown in issue: Aug/Sep/2018
A Thousand Pokes
‘Pokes’ were typos to 14th-century scribes, and it's the rough music of a mistaken world, poked through with holes, that's...
Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: November/2024
