3 August 2011, World Cafe

1 Erick Manana – Zanamalala (Une voix…une guitare…)

The guitar and voice of Bordeaux-based Madagascan Erick Manana from his album “Une voix … une guitare”. Like probably all the Madagascan musicians we’ve featured on this show, Manana is interested in preserving the gutsy integrity of the rural music of Madagascar -- but he is also keen on cutting it with all kinds of Western folk music. He uses open tunings like the ba-gasy tuning – something indigenous to Madagascar.

2 Mahaleo – Vaonala (Playa Sound collection Africa)

Erick Manana, who we just heard, has been on the scene for around 30 years and played in many bands including the longstanding, well-known band Mahaleo – sometimes brilliantly blending pop with traditional Madagascan. Formed in the early 70s, the band members have gone on to become doctors, sociologists and government officials. Here is something quite lovely off their 1976 album “Madagascar” called “Vaonala”.

3 NY Malagasy Orchestra – Mila omby (Cinq Planetes)

Cutting-edge Antandroy music – music from the cattle farming territory of the southernmost part of Madagascar. The singing from this area often emulates cattle wheezing and bellowing and the calls of cattle herders. The NY Malagasy Orchestra is pretty large - almost a Madagascan supergroup - under the direction of valiha star-player, Justin Vali. They are evidently a touring show and their tie-in album is called “Masoala” which came out last year on the wonderful French label, Cinq Planetes.

4 Damily – Talilio (Phantom Sound and Vision)

Tsapiky (pronounced “tsapeek”) is another popular brand of music from south Madagascar, in fact the Tulear area – and it’s pretty frantic. There are apparently loads of informal, pick up bands in the Tulear area. Damily, named after its founder, is probably the most well known Tsapiky band. This song comes from their 2008 album, “Ravinahitsy”.

5 Gege Mahafay Monja – Manontolo tromba (Cinq Planetes)

Sticking to the south of Madagascar, the incredible marovany player Gege Mahafay Monja. His mother, a healer, taught him to play. She used to take him to “tromba” – the general name for divinations, treatment sessions and exorcisms. The tune is from another Cinq Planetes release – Monja’s 2005 album called “Marovany”.

6 Babata – Soma motomay (instrumental) (Long Distance)

The west coast of Madagascar is the most remote part of the island, large parts of which are only accessiblle by boat. Josephin Herisson, or Babata as he’s known on stage, is a fisherman, diver and musician who has traveled up and down that coast. He plays the mandaliny, a small 4 string guitar related to the ukulele, which is usually homemade in Madagascar and has strings made from anything going. It’s usually subjected to many idiosyncratic styles of playing.

7 Eliza Carthy – War (Hem Hem)

Besides being a wonderful fiddler and interpreter of traditional English music, Eliza Carthy also writes her own songs, and her new album of original songs, “Neptune”, is probably her best so far of this kind. In “War” she flits across a bunch of styles in her best Yorkshire accent.

8 Bella Hardy – The Herring Girl (Navigator)

Another traditionalist who’s had a good go at writing her own stuff is Bella Hardy (also a fiddle player – but from Derbyshire). Her latest album, “Songs Lost & Stolen”, is also a collection of her own songs, like Carthy’s.

9 Dolina Maclennan – Fil Uo Ro Hu-O (Topic)

Dolina Maclennan is from the island of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland. This song was recorded in the 60s, but was passed down through generations of her family. It’s a waulking song – a song to accompany the communal multi-stage work of shrinking tweed. Each stage is done to a specific rhythm and has different accompanying songs. It’s off a 1965 collection on Topic Records called “Bonny Lass Come O’er the Burn”.

10 Jeannie Robertson – My rovin’ eye

Jeannie Robertson lived much of her life in Aberdeen. This version of the traditional song “My rovin’ eye” was recorded in the 50s by Alan Lomax. She’s widely recognized as one of the greatest Scottish ballad singers and well known for giving performances of the full epic songs.

11 Tud – Heuliad dansou plinn (Plinn ton simpl) (Celtic America Llc)

Sticking to places that made up the old Celtic world, Tud is a super slick, super dextrous modern Breton folk band.

12 Soig Siberil & Nolwen Korbell – Padal (Coop Breizh)

Breton guitarist Soig Siberal and singer Nolwen Korbell with a song off their 2007 album called “Red”.

13 Amador Garcia - El Ramo (Saga)

The Spanish province of Zamora in the Castilla and Leon region in Western Spain near the Portuguese border has a fabulous music tradition, well explored by the Spanish label, Saga, which made field recordings in the 1980s (Zamora Musica Tradicional Vol 1). Here are two of those recordings – the first is “El Ramo” by Amador Garcia on flauta and snare drum.

14 Marina Martin and Abel Martin - Arbolito Florido (Saga)

The second is “Arbolito Florido” with Marina Martin singing and on tambourine, and Abel Martin on castanets.

15 Maleem Mahmoud Ghania & Pharoah Sanders – Moussa Berkiyo-Koubaliy Beriah La’foh (Axiom)

The Moroccan master guimbri player Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, whose father was actually an immigrant from Guinea, and his troop with American tenor sax player Pharoah Sanders.

I don’t know whether it’s my imagination but I’m hearing resonances of gnawa music in that peasant music from west central Spain, or maybe it’s the other way around. This despite the fact that gnawa music was only supposed to have started with the movement of the Fulani slaves from the Mali-Guinea region into Morocco in the 16th century, way after the Moors were expelled from Spain. But gnawa and whatever Moorish music found its way into Spain may have similar roots in that as early as the 700s the cultures of the Ghanaian Empire and the Berbers began to blend in Mauritania. In 1000 Mauritania broke away from the Ghanaian Empire and its people, known as Al-Moravids, began to push north into Morocco and Spain.

16 Radio Morocco – The Medina Sound (Sublime Frequencies)

Staying in Morocco … one of the many things that the visionary label Sublime Frequencies does is country-based radio collages - mixes of recorded radio transmissions made in a particular country. They started doing this in 1983 in Morocco. “The Medina Sound” off their CD “Radio Morocco” comes from a range of stations across Morocco.

17 Dimi Mint Abba – Song 4 (World Circuit)

Dimi Mint Abba, a veteran of the Mauritanian music scene, died tragically in early June this year. “Song 4” is from a World Circuit collection released in 2006 to mark its 20th anniversary, called “World Circuit Presents…”.

18 Bombino – Tigrawahi Tikma (Bring us together) (Cumbancha)

The Touareg are found in Eastern Mali, Western Niger, Algeria and Western Libya and form part of the Berber people. The musician Bombino, named for his early musical ability, comes from the city of Agadez in the centre of Niger. He was forced to leave in 2007 after two of his band members were killed in the violence following a Touareg uprising. The album he released earlier this year on Cumbancha, called “Agadez,” was part of his contribution to the post-rebellion restoration of the city which he returned to in 2010.

19 Dub Colossus – Feqer Aydelem Wey (Real World)

Dub Colossus, bass player and producer Nick Page’s collective of Ethiopian and English musicians with a somewhat dub-infused Ethio-jazz tune, off their latest album “Addis through the looking glass.”

20 King Tubby – Roots Dub (Jigsaw Music)

King Tubby’s warmly echoey dub version of some vintage reggae jazz by the Skatalites released in 1976. The album is “Herb Dub-Collie Dub”.

2I Dunkelbunt – Smile on your face (Brian May Remix) (PID)

I don’t normally go for modern electro-dub, but that tune by Austrian DJ and producer, Dunkelbunt, aka Ulf Lindemann, is suitably rootsy, and the Klezmer and Balkan fusions work very nicely even though they are just a little too smooth.

22 Lee Perry – Scratch The Dub Organiser (Clocktower)

If you need an antidote to Dunkelbunt, Lee Perry is probably perfect. The tune comes off a really great, rather mysterious collection called “Chapter 1: The Upsetters” which is a collection of previously unreleased stuff from 1970 to 76 brought out by Clocktower – originally a New York based reggae label, now based in Canada.

23 Nguyen Le – Mina Zuki (ACT)

Nguyen Le is a French guitarist of Vietnamese ancestry. On “Mina Zuki” he plays with Mieko Miyazaki on koto, Pradhu Edouard on tabla and percussion and the great veteran bansuri player, Hariprasad Chaurasia, doing what I suppose can be called global fusion – and giving it a good name.

24 Huun Huur-Tu – Agitator (Shanachie)

From South Asia and the Far East to Central Asia … Tuvan group Huun Huur Tu put out their second album recorded in New York and Moscow, “The Orphan’s Lament”, in 1994, and from that here is “Agitator”.

25 Hosoo – Zombon Tuuraitai (Own production)

Hosoo is from the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia.

26 Svang – Tajukankaan Polkka (Comatoscene Polka) (Aito Records)

Does ensemble harmonica sound like a “naff” proposition, a heavy, fat slice of novelty kitsch? Then you haven’t heard the Finnish harmonica quartet, Svang, letting rip on the chromatic, diatonic, chord and bass harmonicas.

27 Chateau neuf spelemannslag – Halling after Thorvald Tronsgard (Grappa)

Chateau Neuf Spelemannslag are a large band from Norway who like to cross Norwegian folk tunes with all kinds of things – jazz, swing, Manhattan Transfer type vocals, funk. A “halling” is a kind of rural Norwegian dance usually done by men and is pretty acrobatic and competitive.

28 Hardellin, Hallberg, Hertzberg, Stabi – Tar du e’ dellboska (Westpark Access)

Hardellin, Hallberg, Hertzberg, Stabi are a Swedish collective of established singers, each of whom also plays with their own bands, including Ditt Ditt Darium, who we’ve heard on this show before. “Tar du e’ dellboska” is off their album “Love Letters and Russian Satellites”.

29 Nils Okland – Biberslatt (Rune Gramofon)

Nils Okland, a Norwegian hardanger fiddle player, is equally at home playing early music, folk and improv music, and often plays all three at the same time. The hardanger fiddle is similar to a normal fiddle except for the 4 or 5 sympathetic strings that run under the regular four strings over the body. The oldest one we know about dates from 1650. On “Biberslatt”, Okland plays with Ole Henrik Moe on a fiddle, or flat fiddle as it’s sometimes called in Norway.

30 Trygve Seim/Andreas Utnem - 312 (ECM)

An arrangement by sax player, Tygve Seim, and pianist, Andreas Utnem, of the traditional Norwegian tune from the town Aseral, from their 2010 ECM release, “Purcor: Songs for Saxophone and Piano”.