world music
Kieron Tyler
Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by what was credited as the “Sun Shine Music Shop,” an enterprise which seems to have left no additional imprint. No further “Sun Shine Music Shop” albums are known.In contrast, Ibex Band, the outfit which recorded Stereo Instrumental Music, had a lineage outstripping that of the label which released the album. In 1975, they had issued an album and four related singles where they backed established vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. They also backed Aster Aweke on one of her early albums Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Chapter III: We Return to Light is an unashamedly gentle and soothing escape from a hectic world. The last in a travelogue triptych which has so far incorporated Anoushka Shankar’s influences from living in Europe and then California – this album returns to the source of her music and inspiration.Chapter III, however, is resolutely not buried in the traditional Indian sounds which were first brought to the attention of Western audiences by Anoushka’s father, Ravi. That said, there certainly are some classical Indian raga sounds in the mix with more modern melodies and tones, which rub up Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
The latest in Peter Culshaw’s peripatetic radio shows is a conversation with Joe Boyd whose recent tome, published by Faber, is a magisterial sweep through global and popular music called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain. TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW https://www.mixcloud.com/MusicBoxRadioUK/the-arts-desk-with-joe-boyd-thursday-9th-january-2025/Boyd bridled when called a Zelig because “Zelig was just there and didn’t do anything” whereas he, au contraire, was definitely an active participant. He was at the sound desk when Bob Dylan shocked all by going electric at the Newport Festival in 1965 Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
Once again, Glasgow’s annual winter festival of traditional music from all parts of the world is formed of an astonishingly packed programme of music, dance, trails and poetry in venues throughout the city. This year’s opening weekend saw two distinctly different orchestral concerts, each pushing the boundaries of what an orchestra can be.Returning to the Celtic Connections stage on Friday evening was Orchestral Qawwali Project with their signature blend of Sufi, Indian classical and western classical music. The two soloists – and the driving forces behind the ensemble – were magnetic Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHBlood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)When death metal takes LSD it’s quite a thing. Whether this band have done acid or not, the output of Colorado's Blood Incantation feels that way on their fourth album. Each side is one long suite. “The Stargate” and “The Message”, 20 minutes and 23 minutes respectively, both three-part odysseys that take in Floydian guitar solos, ambient Gregorian-style chanting, Seventies synth-wizarding, lilting reggae rhythms and much else, occasionally and suddenly exploding into galloping guitar squalls underpinned by frenetic blast Read more ...
Tim Cumming
November can be a month to hunker down for the onset of winter and its weather, and where better to do that than in one of the myriad venues across the capital hosting the annual London Jazz Festival and its hundreds of concerts, from cosy clubs like Ronnie Scott’s and Pizza Express Dean Street to the big stages of the Barbican and South Bank.This review focuses on a trio of outliers from across the jazz cosmos – new band No Noise from Korea; the return of the propulsive, cinematic, muscular and sinuous grooves of Neil Cowley Trio, with a new album, Entity, after seven years away, and Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
London-born Akram Khan has come a long way in a 35-year career. He performed as a young teen in Peter Brook’s production of The Mahabharata, then progressed to dance training first in kathak then in contemporary dance. He then created his own company, forging alliances as a choreographer with the unlikeliest forces: English National Ballet, Juliette Binoche and Kylie Minogue. Four years ago he announced his retirement from the stage. Now, at 50, he’s back, unable to resist the siren call of his latest creation, GIGENIS: The Generation of the Earth. The capitalisation is typical Khan: he Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHHannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music)Sometimes a singer comes along who’s not stylistically my thing at all, but their voice has a quality that wrenches, reaches inside, beyond usual taste judgements. For me, a good example would be Kirsty MacColl who, excepting the hits, I came to later in life. There is a similarly direct potency to the voice of Suffolk-raised, London-based singer Hannah Scott. Hers is a crystal-clear instrument, beautiful in the classical sense, words crisply enunciated, but also riven with whatever it is in her life that’s made her who she is. Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Sweet Release opens up a landscape of redemption by riding the rails of a classic blues, the title track talking of messages of peace and songs of sweet release, wrapping itself around a typically lean and potent riff conjured by guitarist Justin Adams.On this sweet release, he’s reunited with singer, tamburello frame drummer and violinist Mauro Durante, leader of the potent southern Italian band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, a band renowned for the furious, transformative music of Pizzica Tarantata, which in folklore has the power to cure the bite of the legendary Taranta through Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The first K-Music festival landed in London for than a decade ago, and has brought an eclectic range of bands and musicians from Korea to the stages of the capital, whether that’s the sorrowful storytelling tradition of Pansori, the sonic attack of bands like Jambinai or Black String, who return this year to King’s Place on 30 October, with the extraordinary sound of the gayageum – part harp, part oud, part theramin – under the hands of band leader Youn Jeong Heo.This year’s festival opens tonight at the Barbican with Lear from the National Changgeuk Company. Changgeu is a form of Korean Read more ...
mark.kidel
We’re in deepest Dorset, on the edge of the village of Cranborne. The sun has just set. A cluster of thatched rooves, ancient looking barns and outhouses.It could be a set for Game of Thrones, a reconstruction of pre-industrial times. Groups of people huddle together, in festive mood. At the heart of this cluster of age-old looking structures, there’s a large round house, with an earth and turf roof, covered in grass and weeds. This is one of the most weird and wonderful performance venues in the UK, as iconic in its small way as the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.Twice a year, the Earth House Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHMike Lindsay Supershapes: Volume 1 (Moshi Moshi)Solo debut from Mike Lindsay, a founder member of tunng and also half of psychedelic duo LUMP. It’s a good thing when music is hard to describe. Opener “Lie Down” sets up the stall, a catchy but weird slice of poet-pop, wherein wonky dance rhythms, abstract jazz, lyrics about mundanity and shouts of the title phrase, including contributions from singer-songwriter Anna B Savage, add up to a wild frolic. With plenty of woodwind, lyrics about toast and Sunday roast, an inability to musically settle down anywhere “normal”, the Read more ...