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Review of Songs For Workers

Songs For Workers

Tian Qiyi featuring Jah Wobble

Top of the World

Jah Wobble Records

Rating: ★★★★★

Ridiculously talented brothers John and Charlie Wardle return to further enhance the meeting point between Chinese and Western music. Charlie...

Reviewed by Chris Wheatley in issue: October/2025

Review of The Strange One

The Strange One

MNGWA

MNGWA

Rating: ★★★★

A fiery fuzz guitar solo, reggaeton bridge, vocals switching between Spanish and English, searing violins and a constant hip-hop/cumbia beat...

Reviewed by Russ Slater in issue: March/2020

Review of Going for Broke

Going for Broke

Good Habits

Good Habits

Rating: ★★★★

Good Habits are a duo from Manchester Bonnie Schwarz (vocals/cello) and Pete Shaw (accordion/cajón). By a quirk of fate, they...

Reviewed by Tony Gillam in issue: December/2020

Review of Lament for Syria

Lament for Syria

Sufi – Jan Ibro Khelil

Top of the World

Etnisk Musikklubb

Rating: ★★★★

A former teacher and journalist in his native Syria, Jan Ibro Khelil fled to Norway in 2010 and was granted...

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: October/2016

Review of For the Olives

For the Olives

Trendafilka

Trendafilka

Rating: ★★★★

With For the Olives, New Orleans-based Trendafilka extends the legacy of Eastern European polyphonic singing into the 21st century. An...

Reviewed by Doug Deloach in issue: May/2025

Review of Lullaby for Naila

Lullaby for Naila

London Lucumi Choir

London Lucumi Choir

Rating: ★★★★

How right-on do you like your music? The London Lucumi Choir is a community choir that doesn’t select through auditions....

Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: Aug/Sep/2016

Review of LIVE – Olympiahalle München

LIVE – Olympiahalle München

LaBrassBanda

Trikont

Rating: ★

LaBrassBanda hail from Bavaria, and this homecoming concert found them playing to 12,000 fans. You read that correctly: not 1,200...

Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: Jan/Feb/2013

Review of Shivelight

Shivelight

Mishaped Pearls

Misshapen Records

Rating: ★★★

‘Shivelight’ is the light that dances and dapples through a canopy of trees; something that captures the essence of the...

Reviewed by Nathaniel Handy in issue: July/2018

Review of The Best of Kathryn Tickell

The Best of Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell

Park Records PRKCD107

Rating: ★★★★

Kathryn Tickell started playing the Northumbrian smallpipes when she was nine. These are bellows blown with, unlike other bagpipes, a...

Reviewed by Julian May in issue: June/2010

Review of Kalba

Kalba

Isaac Birituro & The Rail Abandon

Wah Wah 45s

Rating: ★★★

Recorded in a church in north Ghana, this charity-driven collaboration between Ghanaian xylophonist Isaac Birituro and British producer and singer-songwriter...

Reviewed by Lucy Hallam in issue: October/2019

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