13 February 2013, World Cafe

Programme airs on Wed 13 February 2013, 10 - 12pm South African time on Fine Music Radio, 101.3 Fm in the Cape Town area or via live stream http://infant.antfarm.co.za/fmr/fmr-player.asp
FMR's website: http://www.fmr.co.za/

1 Jaojoby – Anareo Vaiavy (Buda Musique)

Eusebe Jaojoby is one of the most popular singers in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands, and he helped invent one of its most popular styles in the 1970s – selegy.  It’s a combination of “antsa” music of NW Madagascar (a lively percussive style based on choral church music (polyharmonic choral over highly syncopated multi-rhythmic percussion, mainly handclaps)), guitar styles that are inspired by traditional valiha and marovany playing from other parts of the island, Congolese rhumba, and Western pop styles.  “Anareo Vaiavy” is off his brand new album, “Mila Anao”.
 

2 Solorazaf – Sool repercussions (Acoustic Music Records)

3 Solorazaf – Fleurs delices (Acoustic Music Records)

Sticking in the NW of Madagascar, Montpellier-born but now Madagascar-based guitar wizard Solo Razafindrakoto (AKA Solorazaf) developed his style by linking refined acoustic folk, jazz and blues guitar styles with traditional music from the Madagascan highlands where he grew up.  He plays this on some very fancy bespoke guitars which include a 7^th string for added bass.  He actually started playing in rock groups and sessioned on many recordings in 60s & 70s, playing guitar, bass and drum.  The two tunes are off his new album “Solonaives/Sculptures with GAD”.
 

4 Christine Salem – Camelia (Cobalt)

Christine Salem and her band Salem Tradition are from Reunion, and play a local style called maloya - rooted in slave music, and until a few years ago, the preserve of men.  Playing a kayambe – a flat box-shaped shaker -  she infuses maloya with rhythms from the African mainland and sings in a bunch of languages – Reunion creole, Malagasy, Comoran and Swahili.  Veteran musician Danyel Waro, also known for expanding maloya and for his secessionist ideas, is her musical hero.   “Camelia” is off her new album, “Salem Tradition”.

5 Mokoomba – Yombe (Igloo)

 The musical press seem to unanimous that Mokoomba produced one of the great albums of 2012.  It’s a band hailing from Victoria Falls in northern Zimbabwe which was formed about 12 years ago, and unlike most Zimbabwean bands with an international profile, sing in Tonga.  In fact, Mokoomba has deliberately set out to make pan-African sounding recordings taking in styles from broader Southern Africa region, the Congo and West Africa, and enlisting the production services of Manu Gallo, the bassist from Zap Mama who hails from Cote D’Ivore.

6 Staff Benda Bilili – Mutu Esalaka (The brains are OK) (Crammed Records)

Staff Benda Bilili from Kinshasa also garnered universal praise for their 2012 album, “Bouger le Monde”. 

7 Caetano Veloso – A Bossa Nova E Foda (Facil Brazil)

Last month we listened to a classic tune by a veteran of Brazillian music.  Here is something off his very latest album, “Abrocaco”, produced by his son, Moreno Veloso, together with Pedro Sa. 

8 Tim Maia – Ela Partiu (Luaka Bop) (Beto Cajueiro/Tim Maia)

Like Caetano Veloso, Tim Maia is one of founding members of the Tropicalia movement, but unlike Veloso, Maia burnt himself out by 55 and died in 1998.  After misspending his late teenage years in the NYC, he return to Rio de Janeiro in mid 60s and started infusing American soul, r’n’b and funk into Brazilian music.  Things really took off for him in the 70s, when he starting channeling the music of Sly and Family Stone and Curtis Mayfield.  From the 2012 retrospective collection “Nobody can live forever: the existential soul of Tim Maia”.

9 Dennis Brown – Blessed are the men (the pill) (Auralux / Essential Records)

I’m pleased to report that the great reggae producer of the 70s, Niney the Observer, is having a revival of sorts thanks to, of all people, PJ Harvey.  More about that story next month.  Dennis Brown was one of a number of the singers he often worked with in 70s and early 80s.  From “Sufferation – The Deep Roots of Niney the Observer”
 

10 Willy Mason – Restless Fugative (Polydor)

Wunderkind Willy Mason, who 8 years ago and barely out of his teens was bringing out indecently mature middle-age albums, has returned after a break of four years with another lovely offering – “Carry On”. 
 

11 Anais Mitchell – He did (Wilderland)

I liked quite a lot of Anais Mitchell’s second album “Young man in America” which came out in 2012.  It was dedicated to her father, and has the theme of children-parent relationships running through it.  This is one is especially fetching.  Ricky Lee Jones eat your heart out.

12 Cahalen Morrison and Eli West – Our lady of the tall trees (Cahalen Morrison and Eli West)

Cahalen Morrison and Eli West put an album of guitar, banjo, mandolin and bouzouki interweavings in 2012 and very fine thing it is too.  “Our lady of the tall trees” was written by Morrison.

13 Ryan Francesconi and Mirabai Peart - Kalamatianos (Bella Union)

Guitarist Ryan Francesconi and violist Mirabai Peart, both of whom play in Joanna Newsome’s backing band, have just brought out an album of tunes inspired by their visit to the island of Lesbos off the coast of Greece, called “Road to Polios”.  It has a Mediterranean feel, although I think this piece starts off with a Scandinavian flourish.

14 Ahmad Zahir – Tu Barayem Moqadasi (Pharaway Sounds)

From pre-revolutionary 1970s Afghanistan, Ahmad Zahir, with one of his psychedelic ballads steeped in Bollywood and production values from a new collection on Pharaway Sounds called “The King of Afghan Pop”. Zahir, who was actually the son of the Minister of Health and royal doctor at the time, sings in Dari and Pashto bases his songs on old Persian poems and ballads. 

15  Googoosh –  Digeh Gereyeh Delo Va Nemikoneh (Finders Keepers)

The legendary singer of pre-revolutionary Iran with tune on the magnificent collection brought out by Finders Keepers called “Googoosh”.




















16 Natasha Atlas – Taalet (Zab Spencer Radio Edit Mix) (Six Degrees Music)

Belgium-born Natacha Atlas put out a lovely album about 2 years ago – “Mounqaliba”.  Something off its remixed version, “Mounqaliba – Rising: The Remixes”. Named to chime with the April Spring in Eqypt in 2011.

17 Hannah James & Sam Sweeney– On yonder hill there sits a hare (Root Beat)

Clog dancer and accordionist Hannah James and fiddle, viola, nyckelharpa and Hardanger fiddle player, Sam Sweeney, with their version of “On yonder hill there sits a hare”. You might remember we listened to Sam Lee’s recent version of the same song a few months ago.  Both James and Sweeney play in a number of other bands, Sweeney playing in the famous English trad band, Bellowhead.  It’s off their second album as a duo, “State and Ancientry”. 

18 Hladowski & Joynes – The pretty ploughboy (Bo’ Weavil)

Paring things down even further, the ultra-stark sounds of singer Stephanie Hlodowski and guitarist Chris Joynes off a new album, “The wild wild berry”.

19 Wu Man and Master Musicians from the Silk Route - Ademler Ulugh (people are glorious) (Smithsonian Folkways)

The pipa is a heavily fretted Chinese lute and Wu Man its most famous player.  She’s teamed up with a bunch of the finest Uyghur, Tajik and Hui traditional players to explore the Central Asian roots of the pipa.  The tune features only the Hui singer, Ma Ersa.  It’s from volume 10 of the Smithsonian Folkway Series, “Music of Central Asia”, called “Borderlands”.
 

20 Geomungo Factory – Movement on silence (Synnara)

The Geomungo is a six string traditional Korean zither, either plucked or struck with a short bamboo stick, apparently dating back to the 4^th centuary. Geomungo Factory are a group of four young Korean musicians on a mission to take the geomungo to new and bracing levels of playing.  “Movement on silence” is from their album “Metamorphesis”.

21 Burnt Friedman – Riku Ro (Nonplace)

Berlin-based experimentalist Burnt Friedman off his new album, “Zokulen”.  On this track he plays with Takeshi Nishimoto who’s on the sarod.

22 Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus _ Prelude & Fugue (Tzadik)               

Fasten your seat for Adachi Tomomi’s punk-style choir and his composition “Prelude & Fugue”.

23 Mari Kvien Brunvoll – Joanna (Jazzland Recordings)

Norwegian singer with many voices.  It’s from a performance recorded at the Clusone Jazz Festival in Italy in 2010, and is off her pretty wonderful new album out on Jazzland Recordings titled with just her name “Mari Kvien Brunvoll”. 

24 Varttina – Tuuterin Tyttaret (The Girls from Tuuteri) (Rockadillo Records)

The great Finnish traditional fusion group, Varttina were 30 years old in 2012, and although they’ve there’ve been a bunch of line up changes over the years, the three piece vocal core of Mari Kaasinen, Susan Aho and Johanna Virtanen has remained intact and firing on all five.  They put out a new album in 2012 called “Utu”. 

25 Elin Furubotn – Stillheten (Ozella)

From Furubotn’s new album “Heilt Nye Vei (Brand New Path)”.

26 Food – Freebonky (Feral Records)

Food is basically Norwegian percussionist Thomas Stronen and English sax player Ian Bellamy. The tune “Freebonky” is off their second album, “Organic and GM Food”, on which they enlisted the help of trumpeter Arve Hendriksen and bassist Mats Eilertsen.

27 Carsten Dahl, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen – Nariman’s Mood  (Storyville)

Tonal jazz by three giants of the Scandinavian jazz scene Carsten Dahl, Arild Anderson and Jon Christensen, off their 2012 album, “Space is the Place”.