3 April 2013, World Cafe

1 Lucas Santtana – Musico (Mais Um Discos)Album: O Deus Que Devasta Mas Tambem Cura

Lucas Santtana, third generation post-Tropicalia Brazillian musical renaissance man, draws heavily on the legacy of the greats like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.  In fact he’s played in both of their bands at some point.  He started life as a flautist, but rapidly moved in composition, production and singing bringing all kinds funk, trip-hop and African influences to the already overflowing Tropicalia kitchen sink. 

 

2 Criolo – Linha De Frente (Sterns)

Album: No Na Orelha (Knot in the ear)

Some one else who’s played with Caetano Veloso is the latest Brazillian flavour of month, the rapper Criolo, who’s built an international name for himself last year during his world tour.  Criolo is far more than rapper – like Lucas Santtana, he takes in more or less the whole of Brazillian pop music.  His roots in the favelas of Sao Paulo give his music a gritty edge, but as Veloso say “He has not turned himself into a bullet-proof tank to answer injustice.  On the contrary, he exposes his sensibilities”. 

3 Marcos Valle – Garra (Light in the Attic)

Album: Garra

The wacky music of Marcos Valle, with the title track from a 1971 album - a tune he wrote with his brother, Paulo Sergio Valle.  Like nearly all this stuff, it follows closely in the tradition of Tropicalia, especially in its coded critique of the political situation in Brazil at the time – a military dictatorship.  “Garra” is apparently about urban alienation and ambition. Valle calls his music “samba-pop-bossa-jazz” and bunch of his albums have just been re-issued on Light in the Attic.

4 Wganda Kenya – Shakolaode (Analog Africa)

Diablos del Ritmo 1960-1985: The Colombian Melting Pot

Heading north to that other great Latin American melting pop: Columbia.  Afro-Caribbean Afrobeat anyone? 

5 Meridian Brothers – Guaracha UFO (No Estamos Solos …) (Soundway)

Album: Desesperanza

The Meridian Brothers hailing from Bogota are basically one guy, Eblis Alvarez, who does everything. He’s also part of the 50 person strong mega-collective we’ve listened to quite a few times here, “Ondatropica”. “Desesperanza” means “hopelessness”.

6 Atoms for Peace – Stuck together pieces (XL)

Album: Amok

Didn’t think Thom Yorke would get a look in on this show, but here he is with Brazillian percussionist Mauro Refosco, bassist Flea, drummer Joey Waronker and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich playing some kind of post-everything genre. 

7 Abdou Diop – Maaja (Sterns)

Album: Nootee

Abdou Diop is from the Casamance region in the south of Senegal, a far more rural area than the north around Dakar.  His music is pretty different from the predominant Mbalax.  For one thing Diop sings in Pulaar, rather than Wolof.

8 Royal Band de Thies – Righie Righie (Teranga Beat)

Album: Kadior Demb

Speaking of Mbalax, here’s something from close to its dawning.  From 2012 re-issue of 1979 album in its full double gatefold glory. 

9 Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou – Gendamou Na Wili We Gnannin (Strut)

Album: The Kings of Benin Urban Groove 1972-80

Sticking in the vein of heavily latin influenced African sounds, the totally wonderful Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou with their amalgam of Afro-cuban and afrobeat from sometime in the mid-70s.  We’re honouring Orchestre Poly-Rythmo’s long time leader, saxophonist Melome Clement who died at the age of 67 in December 2012. 

10 Alhousseini Anivolla – Attarech (Riverboat)

Album: Anewal/The Walking Man

You might have seen the guitarist from Niger band Etran Finatawa, Alhousseini Anivolla, play in Cape Town a few years ago.  He released a solo album in 2012. Attarech is a stripped down piece he wrote as soundtrack for doccie about a road trip around remote parts of Niger he took with two of his fellow band members to play music to school pupils. 

11 Mariem Hassan – Addumua (Nubenegra)
Album: El Aaiun Egdat

Mariem Hassan off her 2012 album, “El Aaiun Egdat” – El Aaiun is Western Sahara’s largest city and egdat means “on fire”.  The title neatly captures the tenor of most of the album.  Hassan spent much of her life in a Saharawi refugee camp in the Algerian desert.  She now lives in Spain, and she’s touring recent to support the development of a music industry in those refugee camps.

12 Fotheringay – Gypsy Davy (Universal)
Album: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music

The distinctive voice of Sandy Denny is at the centre of Fotheringay’s version of this trad tune.  It’s culled from a collection called “Electric Eden:  Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music” which is a CD tie with Rob Young’s book of the same title which came out in 2010 – a bulky meditation on the possible meanings of the English folk revival in its various guises.

13 Carthy Hardy Farrell Young – 100 years (HEM)

Album: Laylam

A supergroup of sorts, four fiddler-vocalists in their own rights: Eliza Carthy, Bella Hardy, Lucy Farrell and Kate Young.  They’re playing mostly traditional tunes. 

14 Richard Thompson – The Snow Goose (Proper)

Album: Electric

From his 22^nd release, not counting the records he made with Fairport Convention.  The only acoustic tune on the album with guitar and touch of hurdy-gurdy and backing singing of Alison Krause: “The Snow Goose”.

15 Martha Tilston – Let Them Glow (Squiggly)

Album: Machines of Love and Grace

I don’t really know the music of Martha Tiltson, but liked this dub infused closer to her latest album called “Machines of Love and Grace”.  The tune is called “Let them glow.”

16 Page One – Nuff bread on our table (Carib Gems Music)

Album: Observation of Life Dub

I’ve been featuring the music of veteran dub producer Niney over the last few month.  That was him again in the guise of Page One & the Observers, with a lovely crisp tune he calls “Nuff bread on our table” from the LP “Observation of Life Dub”.

17 The Heptones – Party Time (Extended Jamaican Mix) (Trojan)

Disco Devil: The Jamaican Discomixes

Another mainstay of this show is Lee Perry.  Last year Trojan put out a collection of his extended disco mixes from the late 70s called “Disco Devil: The Jamaican Discomixes”.  A classic tune from the Heptones.

18 La Caravane Passe – Rom A Babylone (XIII Bis Records)

Album: Gypsy for a day

Parisian group La Caravane Passe with “Rom A Babylone”  more a trashy Balkanology type thing than reggae, I’ll give you, but the lyrics tie in.  La Caravane Passe was formed by Toma Feterman, about 12 years ago.  He sings and plays banjo and trumpet.

19 Lo’Jo – Zetwal (World Village)

Album: Cinema el Mundo

Having a similar kind of feel to La Caravane Passe, but with a much wider palette and membership, are veterans of the French scene.  Their 2012 album is a wonderful thing. Some of the things I really like about it are the layered production and arrangements.

20 Molla Mamad Jan – Pouran (Pharaway Sounds)

Album: Zendooni: Funk, Psychedelia & Pop from the Iranian Pre-Revolution Generation

Poppy psychedelia, or perhaps its more Bollywood, filtered through traditional Khorasan and Turkmen music. 

21 Erkin Koray – Dusunus (Sublime Frequencies)

Album: Mechul: Singles & Rarities

Erkin Koray is one of the greats of Turkish rock music.  He’s been going from a pretty long time – since the 50s – often not exactly with the approval of authorities or even the public.  “Dusunus” was reissued on a collection of his singles and rarities by Sublime Frequencies.

22 Bimbo – Borondong Garing (Sham Palace)
Album: Indonesia Pop Nostalgia: Pan-Indonesian Pop, Folk, Instrumentals and Children’s Songs 1970s-1980s

From Indonesia, the tune is from a collection sourced from cassette recordings of 70s and 80s.  

23 Nicolas Rapac – La Fuerza Del Sentimiento (No Format)
Album: Black Box

Nicolas Rapac is a French jazz guitarist known for taking rootsy vocal tracks, often by well known singers, and slicing and dicing them and adding exotic fusionist, often trip-hoppy settings. This is one with Peruvian Guillermo Arevalo Valera on vocals.  .

24 Monoswezi – Kalahari (Riverboat)

Album: The Village

A Zimbabwean, Mozambiquan and Norwegian collaboration.  Key players are Hope Masike sings and who plays the mbira, and reeds player Hallvard Godal often writes the tune as on “Kalahari”. 

6 March 2013, World Cafe

1 Jimi Tenor and Kabukabu – Curtain of Steel (Kindred Spirits)
Album: Mystery of Aether

Finnish multi-instrumentalist Jimi Tenor sounding like some 70s movie soundtrack ala Quincy Jones.  Listen out for his hand-made percussion instruments he created for this record.

2 Googoosh – Mano Tou (Finders Keepers)

Album: Googoosh

Talking about Quincy Jones and even John Barry infused pop music, pre-revolutionary Iran was a hot bed of this sort of thing, often buoyed up on middle eastern style strings and most sublime singing.  The wonderful, legendary Iranian pop star  on a collection brought out a fantastic label specializing in retrospectives often from the 70s.

3 Azila – Setareh (Light in the Attic – Pharaway Sounds)

Album: Zendooni: Funk, Psychedelia & Pop from the Iranian Pre-Revolution Generation

Pharaway Sounds is another respective, crate digging label, and they’re putting out some magnificent collections of stuff from pre-revolutionary 70s Iran and Afghanistan - restored from 45s and cassette recordings in the complete absence of the master tapes. 

4 Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra – March of the Idiots (First World Records)

Album: Towards other worlds

Sticking with big brass arrangements, but this time inspired explicitly by Fela Kuti and Tony Allen’s style of Afrobeat.  Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra hails from Leeds in the UK.

5 Samuel Yirga – Abet Abet (Punt Mix) (Real World)

Album: Guzo

 The young Ethiopian keyboardist from Dub Colossus on first proper solo album. 

6 uKanDanz – Mela mela (EthioSonic/Buda Musique)

Album: Yetchalal

Despite their cheesy name, the Lyon-based French Ethiojazz revival band sure know a thing or two by infusing classic Ethiopian tunes with rock n roll fury.  That was the old tune, Mela Mela, written and made famous by that huge star of Ethiopian music, Mahmoud Ahmed.  Ukandanz are a four-piece plus singer Asnaqe Gebreyes from Addis.

7 Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – Me Fatigue Pas (Out Here)

Album: Jama Ko

The traditional Malian lute, the ngoni, over the last few years has moved from an accompanying instrument to a solo instrument, thanks largely to the playing and composing of Bassekou Kouyate.  Kouyate and his band, Ngoni Ba, have just released a seriously fabulous new album “Jama Ko” which means “big gathering of people” and in part is an angry and defiant call to resist the occupation of the north by radical Islamists and introduction of sheria law.  “Me Fatigue Pas” is a plea for the return of the tolerant Mali of the past – let’s hope the return to normality in the North can be sustained and the social fabric restored. 

8 Makan Badje Tounkara – Togna (Buda Musique)

Album: Sodjan

Makan Badje Tounkara is another great Malian lute or ngoni player, although he plays more stately music, perhaps more anchored in tradition.  Tounkara has, over the years, played with a lot of the greats of Malian music, including Kandia Kouyate and composer and band leader Sorry Bamba. “Togna” is off his new solo album, only his second one.

 9 Ba Cissoko – N’goni Ba (Cristal Records)

Album: Nimissa

We normally associate Ba Cissoko, from Guinea, with the electrified kora, but recently he added an ngoni to his bag of tricks –  it’s a “kamala ngoni”, which is smaller and tuned higher than the traditional ngoni and in fact was only invented in the 1960s.  Cissoko plays an 8 string version, but they go up to 12 strings.  His tune “Ngoni Ba” obviously references his name, Ba, but could be some kind of tribute to Bassekou Kouyate’s backing band.  Incidently, Namissa, is a real beaut – obtain forthwith.

10 Lau – Save the Bees (Reveal Records)

Album: Race the Loser

Kris Drever on guitar, Aidan O’Rourke on fiddle and Martin Green on accordion on their much lauded 2012 album.  They’re aided and abetted by the famous American producer, Tucker Martine, known for his with work with REM.  Tucker brings some electronica to the party – but on the whole it’s more folk than tronica. 

11 Sam Lee – The Ballad of George Collins (The Nest collective)
Album: Ground of its own

Until a few years ago Lee was a wilderness survival teacher, artist and unorthodox morris dancer.  He brought out a truly fantastic record out last year, that I raved about before.  This is a somewhat wayward arrangement of the obscure trad tune. 

12 PJ Harvey – Written of the Forehead (Universal/Island)

Album: Let England Shake
Last month I gave the great 70s reggae producer, Niney the Observer, a spin and mentioned that English indie star, PJ Harvey, is probably mainly responsible for his current career revival and his recent tour of the UK.  She uses samples of one of his most well known tunes, “Blood & Fire” as the basis of “Written on the forehead”.   

13 Niney featuring The Soul Syndicate – Blood Dub

Album: Present Dub

Classic tune which Steve Barrow ripped off to name his fine reggae re-issue label, which while still out there seems to have gone into some kind of dormancy.

14 Prince Fatty – And the Beat Goes On (Mr Bongo)
Album: Prince Fatty versus the Drum Gambler

Lightening the load drastically, the fun sounds of Prince Fatty together with Hollie Cook.

15 Horace Andy – Skylarking (Oliver Frost – Eva B’s Dub Version) (Echo Beach)

Album: Broken Beats

Veteran roots reggae singer-songwriter Horace Andy rerecorded a bunch of his legendary 70s songs for remixing in various kinds of dub-hop, dub-step and electro styles under auspices of the label Echo Beach.  Andy is no stranger to this sort of the thing having been an integral part of Massive Attack for quite a few years – you might have even seen him play in CT a bit more than 10 years ago. 

16 Mala – Ghost (Brownswood)
Album: Mala in Cuba

An early mover and shaker on the Acid Jazz scene in the late 90s, Gilles Peterson has gone onto be a BBC presenter and general curator of all things jazzy and dancy.  One of his projects is the Brownswood label – which sent the dubstep producer Mala off to Cuba to see what he could do.  The result is “Mala in Cuba”, and it’s basically more dubstep than Cuban … a lost opportunity some say. 

17 Calixto Ochoa y Los Papaupos  -- Lumbalu (Anolog Africa)

Album: Diablos del Ritmo 1960-1985: The Colombian Melting Pot

Staying on the Caribbean coast, the ridiculously good, crate digging re-issue label, Analog African, has put out a collection of obscure gems from the Colombia’s Caribbean coast, in fact mainly from around the city of Barranquilla. 

18 Jorge Ben – Hermes Trismegisto Escreveu (Universal) (Jorge Ben)

Album: Africa/Brasil

Post-Tropicalia, samba musician Jorge Ben off his totally classic record  released in 1976 after Ben have visited West Africa.  He met Fela Kuti, but the funk of Parliament is also major influence.

19 Bob Brozman – Banm Kalou Banm (Ruf Records)

Album: Fire in the mind

Changing continent, but not feel – player and collector of big old slide and resonator guitars, Bob Brozman, has a new album out. He does a wonderful song by Danyel Waro from Reunion on the album called “Banm Kolou Banm” sang in creole.  Music of the Indian Ocean islands often feel very Caribbean to me … not sure what it is about it.  Brozman is assisted by Jim Norris on drums.

20 Nathan Bowles – Cindy (Soft Abuse)
Album: A Bottle, A Buckeye

5 string, hollow-back banjo player with a traditional Appalachian tune off his album of solo banjer pieces.

21 Hot 8 Brass Band – Bingo Bango (Tru Thoughts)
Album: The Life and Times of ….

From Appalachia to the Gulf of Mexico, here is the one of the great preservers of NO marching music off their pretty marvelous 2012 album with their version of a Basement Jaxx tune.

22 Dr John – Ice Age (Nonesuch)

Album: Locked Down

That stalwart of NOLA musicproduced one of the best LPs of last year, “Locked Down”.  Many people think that “Ice Age” has a West African feel – CIA conspiracy theories have never sounded so seductive.

23 Aaron Neville – Work with Me Annie (Blue Note) (Hank Ballard) (Federal)
Album: My True Story

Aaron Neville, one of the Neville Brothers, is also synonymous with NOLA music, but one of the loves of his youth was do wop music. Blue Note has recently put out an album of his versions of do wop classics produced by Keith Richards and Don Was.  Neville’s version of Hank Ballard’s 1954 tune “Work with me Annie” – which the Federal Communications Commission originally tried to restrict because it thought it to sexually explicit.  It went to number 1 in the R&B charts and stayed there for seven weeks anyway.  Incidently, Richards is on guitar.

24 Illaiyaraaja - Ponnana Neram (feat S Janaki) (Finders Keepers)

Album: Solla Solla

Kollywood is the Tamil-language film capital Kodambakkam in the South of India.  Its music is given far less airplay than Bollywood music, even though it’s home of legendary composer AR Rahman.  However, probably more radical and everything but the kitchen sinkish than Rahman is Illaiyaraaja.  Illaiyaraaja got going in 1970s and has scored over 950 movies.  Finders Keepers have brought out a bunch of collections of his stuff.  The song features the wonderful playback singer S Janaki.

 
















25 KS Chithra – Oru Pooncholai (feat SP Balasubramaniyam) (Finders Keepers)

Album: K S Chithra

From a different collection of Kollywood music on Finders Keepers, this one under the name of most prolific playback singers, K S Chitra, here she is with, S P Balasubramaniyam, a legendary Kollywood singer with the raga-like “Oru Pooncholai”.

26 Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory – Particle (Rough Trade)
Album: Elements of Sound

Techno producer Hendrik Weber first collaborated with campanologists, the Bell Labatoratory, at the Oya Festival in Oslo in 2011.  For this studio outing they are calling themselves “Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory”.  The Bell Lab play a bell carillon – a  three ton instrument consisting of 50 bronze bells.

27 Giovanni Di Domenico, Arve Henriksen, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto – Charivari (and/OAR)

Album: Distare Sananti

 From another of Norweigian trumpeter, Ave Hendriksen’s projects – the 2012 album on and/OAR with keyboardist Giovanni di Domenico and percussionist and drummer Tatsuhiso Yamamoto, called “Distare Sananti”.  As he does often, he’s exploring fourth world sounds – a kind of floating, ambient global fusion set in motion by Miles Davis, and Jon Hassel and Brian Eno. 

28 1982 & BJ Cole – 03-43 (Hubro Music)

Album: 1982 & BJ Cole

The incredibly beautiful sound of the Norweigan folk-jazz improv group 1982 teaming up with the great English pedal steel player, BJ Cole.