1 February 2012, World Cafe

1 Baloji – La Petite Espece (Bumbafu Version) (Crammed)

The Congo-born, Belgium-based rapper, Baloji, from the album “Kinshasa Succursale” - which was recorded in Kinshasa with local musicians. The album was the response to a challenge from his estranged mother to reflect on his roots and the state of the country of his birth. It was essentially recorded in two parts – a full album in 2008 called “Hotel Impala”, and then the extra layers and ironic barbs recorded and added in 2011 to form “Succursale”. You have to love that retro funk feel and the especially Afrobeat brass arrangements here.

“Kinshasa Succursale” is out on Crammed and distributed in SA by Sheer Music.

2 Amadou Ballake et les 5 Consuls – Baden Djougou (Analog Africa)

2011 saw the release of a couple of collections of vintage 70s Afro-funk, rock and jazz by Analog Africa. “Bambara Mystic Soul” brings together some classic tracks from Burkina Faso recorded between 1974 and 1979. There is nothing particularly distictive about the music from Burkina in that period – it’s a mixture of Ivorian, Congolese, Beninese and Malian music – but there were some fine musicians around back then. Perhaps the most famous was Amadou Ballake who cut his teeth playing in Mali and Guinea. You can hear that very clearly on his song “Baden Djougou”.

3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Zoma (Mental Groove)

This totally wonderful Swiss band has a retro-futuristic take on Ethiojazz. They only do reinterpretations of classic tracks. “Zoma” is by Martha Ashagani. Their debut LP, “Mercato”, came out in 2011 and it’s seriously good.

4 Asselefetch Ashin and Getenesh Kebret – Metche New (L’Arome Productions)

In December, we listened to the Paris-based Ethiojazz band Akele Wube with their version of “Metche New”. This is an older version from 1976.

5 Samuel Yirga – The Blues for Wollo (Habasha Mix) (Real World Music Ltd)

2011 was a good year for 25 year old Ethiopian pianist and composer, Samuel Yirga, who plays with Dub Colossus. He played a prominent role on Dub Colossus’s release, and released an EP on Real World and a live album on the “Society of Sound Music” series brought out by a partnership of hi-fi company B&W and Real World called “The Habasha Sessions”. This is a track from “The Habasha Sessions”. Yirga’s backstory is fantastic. He only started playing an instrument, let alone taking formal lessons, at the age of 16 having won a place in the prestigious Yared School of Music in Addis by tapping rhythms out with a coin on the top of a piano. His exploration expands the very important place given to Cuban music in Ethiojazz by its founding father, Malutu Astatke.

6 Evarist and Party – Nambanda (Dust to Digital)

In 2011, an incredible reissue label that I’ve just discovered – Dust-to-Digital – put out a fascinating and disparate 4 CD collection culled from 78s from across the whole of the African continent, called “Opika Pende”. I’ll tell you more about this collection in later months, but here is a taster from Northwestern Tanzania – Evarist and Party with “Nambanda”.


7 African Head Charge – Run Come See (On-U Sound)

The rootsy, mystical vocals of Bonjo I A Binghi Noah of African Head Charge. I’ve been going on about British dub label On-U Sound recently – for me they’re the last bastion of old style rootsy dub and 2011 was their 30th anniversary – so forgive me for belabouring the point. “Run Come See” is from an AHC best of collection called “Shrunken Head”.


8 Lee Perry – God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)

On-U Sound’s 30th anniversary did see some kind of revitalization for them - they put out some lovely new releases last year, including a collection of radical jungle-ist and dubstep remixes of Lee Scratch Perry tunes called “On-U Sound presents Nu Sound and Version”.

9 Buraka Som Sistema – Tira o pe (Enchufada)

Buraka Som Sistema is a sound system from Portugal. They produce an electro version of something called “kuduro”. Kuduro was originally forged in Angola in the 80s by sampling Caribbean and Angolan carnival music like zouk, soca and semba and sticking it to a fast 4/4 beat. Buraka Som Sistema’s 2011 album is called “Komba” which in Angola is a two week long wake for the dead.


10 Abelardo Carbano – La Negra Kulengue (Soundway)

Developing in the Colombian coastal cities of Cartegena and Barranquilla in the 70s and taking its inspiration from the psychedelic Afro, Latin and Caribbean music being pumped out of sound systems on the street - champeta is another kind of Afro-Caribbean music. This is from a Soundway collection “Palenque Palenque” which came out about 2 or 3 years ago.

11 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte (Soundway)

From Colombia, this time from the 1960s when big band cumbia was all the rage. It’s culled from the collection “Cartagena! Curro Fuentes and the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962 to 72”

12 Los Alegres De Valle – Samaria (Soundway)

A fine example of old style cumbia from a 2 CD collection Soundway put out in 2011 “The original sound of cumbia: The history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph 1948 – 79”. There’ll be more from that collection in later shows. Will Holland, who put the collection together, went to great pains to make it definitive, taking 5 years and making numerous fieldtrips into the countryside and small towns looking for old 78s, 45s and LPs.

13 Los Mirlos – Sonido Amazonico (Barbes Records)

Cumbia also took root in Peru, but unlike in Colombia it was more resilient, forming the bedrock for chicha, a fusion of cumbia and psychedelia that arose in slums created by the mass urbanization of people from the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Forest. Here is Los Mirlos with “Sonido Amazonico”.

14 Omar Souleyman – Baghdad Araby (Sublime Frequencies)

Syrian singer Omar Souleyman purveys a style called dakbe but reinforces it with Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi folk traditions. In his band are keyboardist Razid Sa’id and electric sazist – if that’s a word – Ali Shaker. Unknown outside Syria before 2007, he worked parties and weddings and released hundreds of live recordings on cassette. Sublime Frequencies collected these and released some of the highlights and before long he was touring around Europe and North America. In 2011 Sublime Frequencies put out a collection from those concerts, “Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts”.

14 Hakim – Ya Mazago (The Lion of Egypt)

Still in the Arab world but heading to Egypt - sha’abi is a kind of dance music created by the Baladi, a caste of traders and craftspeople including musicians and dancers, who originally came from rural villagers. Hakim is evidently the king of modern sha’abi and “Ya Mazago” is the title of his 2011 release. It means “his mood”. In-your-face, unrelenting, synth driven dance music.

15 Anda Union – Derlcha (Hohhot)

One the great releases of 2011 was by Anda Union, from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. They’re a 10-piece with a more acoustic sound than Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, who got some heavy rotation on this show in 2010. As you would have heard, Anda Union are big on the vocal arrangements too.

16 Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Philosopher (Yat Kha Records)

Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha are from nearby Tuva and this is from their 2010 album “Poets and Lighthouses”.

17 Banda Olifante – Los Peces (Felmay)

Brass bands or banda became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals, and also bringing the music of opera houses and symphony halls into the countryside. This music has recently been revived, often by jazz musicians who have added just about every style. "Los Peces" is a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America. The melody has definite Arabic qualities, and Olifante's rendition brings the song closer to klezmer.

18 Boban Markovic Orchestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia – James Bond Theme (Asphalt Tango)

As part of a publicity stunt put together by the label Asphalt Tango, two of the greatest working brass bands of East Europe, Serbia’s Boban Markovic Orchestra, and Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia had a face off near, possibly inside, Count Dracula’s castle. The stunt was called “Balkan Brass Battle”, and this is one of the results in which they combine forces for a full frontal assault.

19 June Tabor and Oysterband – Son David (Topic)

From June Tabor’s great 2011 album, “Ragged Kingdom”, that she made together with Oysterband.


20 Shirley Collins – Turpin Hero (Topic)

Two songs recorded in the late 50s by two early folk revivalists – one English and one American.

Shirley Collins was one of the first revivalists of the English 60s scene. “Turpin Hero” is from her first LP, “Sweet England”, which came out in 1959 and was co-produced by none other than Alan Lomax. Despite the legend, the real Dick Turpin apparently robbed just about anyone, no matter how rich or poor they were, and never made the famous horseback ride to York.

21 John Jacob Niles – The Lass from the Low Country

The great collector, composer and singer, John Jacob Niles, who was born in 1892 and died in 1980, with the trad song “The Lass from the Low Country”. Niles claims to have collected it in North Carolina, but some people think Niles liberally rewrote some of it. I definitely think Tim Buckley took more than a few pointers from Niles.

22 Jimmy MacBeath – Hey Barra Gadgie (Drag City)

Alan Lomax was living in London when he produced Collins’ album, in fact he had been living there since the early 50s. And while there he went up to Scotland and produced a huge number of fantastic field recordings. In 2011 Scottish singer songwriter and revivalist, Alastair Roberts, compiled some of these into a collection called “Whaur the Pig Gaed on the Spree” to mark the 60th anniversary of when the recordings were first started. Jimmy MacBeath’s famous recording, “Hey Barra Gadgie”, is sung in Thieves’ or Rogues’ cant, a secret language or cryptolect thought to have come from Romany.

23 The Waterboys – The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Puck/Proper)

The Waterboys’ astonishing interpretation of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by the legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats from the Waterboys’ latest, “An appointment with Mr Yeats”.

24 Hiss Golden Messenger – Jesus shot me through the head (Paradise of Bachelors)

Here are three gospel tracks – one new and startling in its imagery and two much older, but no less riveting.

Hiss Golden Messenger, which is the stage name for MC Taylor, had a good 2011, producing two quite different albums, the John Martyn influenced jazz-folk-soul album, “From Country Hai East Cotton”, and “Poor Moon”, which is in a kind of Americana vein. He’s pretty deft at the confessional gospel-blues.

25 Rev Lonnie Farris – Peace in the Valley (Tompkins Square)

Rev Lonnie Farris’ pedal steel driven version of the gospel song, “Peace in the Valley”, written by Georgia-born, Thomas A Dorsey in 1937. It’s from a collection of obscure small label, often self-released 45s, “This may be my last time singing: Raw African American Gospel on 45rpm 1957 – 1982”, brought out by Tompkins Square in 2011.

27 Rev Roger L Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock – Get Back Satan (Tompkins Square)

From a similar earlier gospel collection on Tompkins Square called “Fire in my bones”.