Reviews

The Kankobela of the Batonga Vol 1

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Once fishermen and farmers on the rich alluvial banks of the Zambezi, the Batonga were driven at gun¬point from their...

Reviewed by Tom Bullough in issue: March/2010

Taiwan Pulsation

Ten Drum

Ten Drum is a young Taiwanese percussion group. At first you might compare the troupe to the taiko ensembles of...

Reviewed by Barak Schmool in issue: October/2011

Too Long in This Condition

Alasdair Roberts & Friends

Supposedly Alasdair Roberts is a human male born in the 1970s, raised in central Scotland and a resident of Glasgow...

Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: October/2010

Awakening

Spiritual

Listening to ‘Black Man Story’, the opening track, is like stepping back to the 1970s, so evocative are the vocal...

Reviewed by Russ Slater in issue: June/2017

Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu (1972-1991)

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Imagine Somalia without suicide bombers and the murderous, al-Qaeda-linked militants of al-Shabaab. Picture instead Mogadishu as a part city in...

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: March/2020

Distancer

Hiatus

British-Iranian musician Hiatus (Cyrus Shahrad) began the musical exploration of his heritage in 2005, aft er discovering his father’s record...

Reviewed by Tom Newell in issue: July/2021

Joy

AKA Trio

Three continents, one album, ten mellifluous performances. Those are the basic figures of AKA Trio; Italy's Antonio Forcione, Senegal's Seckou...

Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: June/2019

Ghoraba2

Ghoraba2

Rap music is, at present, the world’s musical lingua franca – it is the medium youth across the globe choose...

Reviewed by Garth Cartwright in issue: March/2022

Unsongs

Moddi

The 29-year-old Norwegian singer-songwriter Moddi who, like a Scandinavian Billy Bragg, combines his music with left-wing political activism, hit upon...

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: November/2016

Land of Gold

Anoushka Shankar

Land of Gold is a very personal response to the growing migration and refugee crisis. Across ten tracks, it follows...

Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: June/2016