Reviews

De Kaboul à Bamako

VARIOUS ARTISTS

This is a compilation of somewhat random tracks from across the Middle East and Africa that have been packaged as...

Reviewed by Robin Denselow in issue: April/2020

VLADIMIR

VLADIMIR

When thinking about the Balkans, the Jewish are rarely the first of its peoples to come to mind. Indeed, they...

Reviewed by Kim Burton in issue: May/2022

Bako

Kouame Sereba & Erik Wolle

In case we don’t know quite what to call this, those kind folks over at Norway’s EM Label have come...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: March/2011

Picaflor

Martin Bruhn

If this album had been credited to Los Hijos de Bruhn you’d be in no doubt that this is the...

Reviewed by Russ Slater in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Silentski

Naragonia

This is the eighth album from the Belgian balfolk duo formed during the Andanças Festival in Portugal in 2003. It...

Reviewed by Nathaniel Handy in issue: April/2021

UNITE: A Gathering of Strangers

Various Artists

Hamid Man Tu and Tim Whelan of Transglobal Underground have fashioned an ambitious pan-European project around the banner of UNITE...

Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: July/2010

FunFara

Banda Osiris

This highly skilled Piedmont wind instrument ensemble got started in 1980, favouring theatricality and comicality in their music shows. Now,...

Reviewed by Ciro De Rosa in issue: April/2019

Buenos Hermanos

Ibrahim Ferrer

There was the Buena Vista Social Club, of course. And then there was Ibrahim Ferrer, its unofficial frontman. Born at...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: May/2020

Souffles des Steppes

Henri Tournier & Enkhjargal Dandarvaanchig

Souffles des Steppes (Breath of the Steppes) is the follow-up to the excellent 2015 album Souffles du Monde, on which...

Reviewed by Merlyn Driver in issue: October/2017

Svalan

Maria Kalaniemi & Eero Grundström

Maria Kalaniemi's latest release Svalan (Swallow) shows her throwing caution to the wind, heading into the countryside of her childhood,...

Reviewed by Fiona Talkington in issue: July/2017