2 December 2015, World Cafe

1 Lau – First Homecoming (Reveal Records)

Album: The Bell That Never Rang

The Scottish trio Lau with a killer arrangement of their own tune from their 2015 album.  Guitar playing, singing and great deal of the songwriting is by Kris Drever, and on fiddle is Aidan O’Rourke …. Joan Wasser or Joan as Police Women is on production. 

2 Joan as Police Women – Flushed Chest (Reveal Records)

Album: Real Life

A sample of one of Joan Wasser greatest songs … sort of regally paced jazzy-soul that is restrained but emotionally charged at the same time.

3 Kate in the Kettle – Fairy Fiddler (Kate in the Kettle)

Album: Swimmings of the Head

At the centre of Kate in the Kettle is Kate Young on fiddle and singing.  She’s aided by a bunch of great musicians including lat-mandola lute player Swede Marit Falt.  The first part of the tune is from a poem by Victorian feminist Nora Hopper and then there’s the polska “Sab Jon’s Polska”, which is probably Swedish and some high pitch vocal stuff known as “cow-calling” in Sweden

4 Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen – Whitby Lad (Botany Bay) (Navigator Records)

Album: Bottle

The great English fiddle player Eliza Carthy together with American banjo player and guitarist Tim Eriksen doing the traditional tune “Whitby Lad” also called “Botany Bay”, after the settlement that existed before Sydney.  The song is some kind of combination of a poacher song and transportation song – a song about being transported to Australia.

5 Adam Holmes and The Embers – Aviemore (Gogar Records)

Album: Heirs and Graces

A young Scottish singer songwriter, who actually started out as a fiddler – seeing as we seem to having some kind of a fiddle fest here.  Kris Drever is in the mix again. 

Two global electro dance tracks if you like…

6 Branko – Paris-Marselha (Enchufada)

Album: Atlas

Branko is Lisbon-based Joao Barbosa and this is from his album with made 20 collaborators from the around the world 

6 Owiny Sigoma Band – Luo Land (Brownswood Recordings)

Album: Nyanza

An intergenerational teaming of British electro musicians and two Kenyans from the Luo region in Western Kenyan where they recorded their new album – it’s their third one.  There’s a chorus of fishermen’s children in here.

Doing quite a lot of this show in twos – here’re two rock songs from the north of Mali … 

7 Songhoy Blues – Irganda (Transgressive)

Album: Music in Exile

Songhoy Blues are a four-piece who all come from Timbuktu but formed in Bamako, about a year or two ago after the radical Islamist incursion in Northern Mali. 

8 Tamikrest – Tamiditin (Glitterbeat Records)

Album: Taksera

Tamikrest is one of the greats of Tuareg rock.  Taksera – Tamashek for “a celebration with music” – is from a live album recorded in 2014 in Germany

And here are two kora tunes – one from Mali, the other from Senegal… 

9 Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal – Super etoile (No Format)

Album: Musique de Nuit

Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal recorded their new album in Bamako in only two sessions, one on the roof top of Sissoko’s house.  “Super Etoile” is tribute to Youssou N’Dour.  The sabar rhythms are from the Senegambia region, from whence hails one half of Ballake Sissoko’s family.

10 Seckou Keita – Future Strings in E (Arc)

Album: 22 Strings

Seckou Keita has a new album out called “22 strings”, although a kora usually has 21 strings.  According to legend the first kora was handed down by the gods in Gabou, Keita’s home town in eastern Senegal, and had 22 strings.  Gabou still has 22 string koras.  No idea what kind of kora Keita is playing here. 

Right, so here is another pair of tunes - recent ones from Brazil, but greatly infused with the spirit and sound late 60s and early 70s era MPB – musica popular brasileira…

11 Russo Passapusso – Matuto (Oloko Records)

Album: Paraiso da Miragem

Russo Passapusso is a native of the Bahia state, and heavily into the samba from that area as you’ll hear on this tune.

12 Tulipa – Megalomania (Mais Un Discos)

Album: Role: New Sounds of Brazil

Tulipa from Sao Paulo getting really poppy with her song “Megalomania”. 

13 Chouk Bwa Libete – Pawol jatibwa (Buda Musique)

Album: Se nou ki la

From Gonaives village in Haiti is a slice of ethnography. Xavier Yerles more or less stuck a pair of stereo mics into the straw hut of Charles Sime who makes drums and holds workshop to keep the vodou tradition alive – one that apparently links back to Dahomey, on the west coast of Africa.

14 Angelique Kidjo – Orisha (429 Records)

Album: Eve

Sticking in the regions of Caribbean and Dahomey - Angelique Kidjo is from Benin (in the area where Dahomey used to be) and this is her take on Afro-Cuban funk.  “Orisha” is named after a manifestation of the Yoruba god that is pretty well known across the Caribbean.  There’s women’s choir from Benin in the mix there – one of eight Kidjo recorded a few years ago. 

15 Romperayo – La linerna del repele (Discrepant)

Album: Ramperayo

We haven’t heard psychedelic electro cumbia from Colombia for a while.  But never fear – came across a new bunch the other day.  Some of the usual suspects are involved like Eblis Alvarez of the Meridian Brothers, and Pedro Ojeda, who is behind Romperayo is also in Ondatropica. 

 

2015 marks the 10^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina – a great excuse to play some music from New Orleans, not that we need an excuse… 

16 Aurora Nealand & the Red Roses – Ferry Man (Rounder)

Album: Treme: Music from the HBO Original Series Season 2

17 Allen Toussaint – Southern Nights (Reprise)

Album: Southern Nights

One of the absolute greats of New Orleans music was Allen Toussaint.  He died a few weeks ago in Madrid – so I guess this New Orleans special is also a commemoration for him.  In 1975 he put out a sort of concept album called Southern Nights, a pretty great affair. 

18 The Deslondes – Heavenly Home (New West)

Album: The Deslondes

A roots folk country band straight out of New Orleans. You have to love the piano foundation in there.

19 Dave Rawlings Machine – Bodysnatchers (Acony)

Album: Nashville Obsolete

Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch’s musical sidekick, has a rare new album – only the second under his own name, with Gillian in there playing the vocal role he normally plays – very subtle harmonies glued seamlessly to the lead.  “Bodysnatchers”, as one review puts it, is “an odd and atmospheric telling of sinister visitors to Mississippi River towns”.

Two tracks from the wonderful British dub label – On U Sound…

20 Doctor Pablo & the Dub Syndicate – North of the River Thames (On-U Sound)

Album: North of the Rive Thames

Dr Pablo & The Dub Syndicate with North of the River Thames – which name-checks in code Augustus Pablo classic album East of the River Nile.  Dr Pablo is Pete Stoud, obviously a major fan of Augustus Pablo, and also one heck of a melodica player.  Adrian Sherwood is at a production helm, as in all On-U Sound releases.

21 New Age Steppers – Revelation (A Forster) (On-U Sound)

Album: Love Forever

Something recent by the New Age Steppers, who were mainly active in the 80s, recorded just before lead singer Ari Up’s death in 2010. 

22 Kardes Turkuler – Oi Oi! (Iki Ayak Horon) (Kalan)

Album: Cocuk Hakli

Kardes Turkuler, which translates as ”Ballads of Fraternity” even though are plenty of women in the collective, come out performances of the Folk Club at the Bogazici University in Istanbul in 90s. They’re very into exploring and celebrating the diversity of Turkish culture. For instance, they sing Anatolian folk songs in Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Armenian.  From an album that may be of children’s songs, and definitely is about promoting children’s rights – called Cocuk Hakli means Childrens Rights.

23 Elina Duni Quartet – Taksirat (ECM)

Album: Dallendyshe

Swiss Albanian singer Elina Duni with drummer Norbet Pfammatter on the song with a title that translates asThe Mishap.

Two tunes from Norway, now…

24 Geir Sundstol – Punsj (Hubro)

Album: Furulund

Geir Sunstol is a much used session musician in Norway – he has credits everywhere.  He’s just released his first solo album on which plays nearly everything - drawing on his vast collection of weird and wonderful instruments. 

25 Nils Okland Band –  Mali (ECM)

Album: Kjolvtn

Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Nils Okland and his incredible band.   

26 Stavros Gasparatos – 3C (Ad Noiseam)

Album: Expanded Piano

Stavros Gasparatos plays a prepared piano – but instead of using bits of metal, cardboard and other foreign objects, he uses an array of contact mics to find micro resonances inside the piano, and which in turn digitally trigger other sounds.

7 October 2015, World Cafe

1 Canzoniere Gracanico Salentino – Tienime tata (Ponderosa music & art)

Album: Quaranta

Canzaniere Grecaonico Salentino from southern Italy has been going for 40 years.  They came out of the pizzaca taranta or tanrantella revival in Puglia region the 70s started by leftist writers.  What interest would leftists have?  Pizzaca was a cure for tarantismo –which was supposedly caused by tarantula bites and struck down farm workers.  60s anthropologist Ernesto de Martino put tarantismo down to a crisis of agency stemming from the sufferers’ lack of power.  Canzaniere performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival at end July – and there’s more about some of the musicians who played at the festival later in the playlist. 

2 Mbongwana Star – Shegue (World Circuit)

Album: From Kinshasa

Mbongwana Star, a new band from the DRC, has really come up something good – raved on about it last month. 

3 Pat Thomas – Odoo Be Ba (Strut)

Album: Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band

A great veteran of Ghanian highlife, singer Pat Thomas, who started out in the 60s, off a brand new record with a cracking backing band that includes another veteran of West African music, Afrobeat drumming pioneer and general amazing musician Nigerian Tony Allen.    

4 Toto La Momposina (Real World)

Album: Tombolero

Another great veteran, this time of the vast music scene on the Caribbean coastline of Colombia: Toto La Momposina turns 76 this year.  John Hollis, her producer in the 90s has been going through outtakes and stripping things down and removing the gloss.  Always good, I think.  “El Pescador” is a cumbia about returning fishermen.

5 Bomba Estereo – Soy Yo (Sony)

Album: Amanecer

One of the two core members of Bomba Estereo, singer Liliana Saument, is from Santa Marta near city of Baranquilla on the Caribbean coast of Colombia – to continue the linkages there – sonic and natal, I guess.   

6 Novalima – Quebranto (Redeye Music Distribution / Wonderwheel Recordings)

Album: Planetario

Novalima from Peru also play a kind folk-tronica – more on the folk side than the tronica.  On “Quebranto” they take the 50s recording of Rosita Guzman and backed by guitarist Carlos Hayre and buoy it up with added cajon and electro dubbery.

7 Kelly Thoma – Flutter (Seistron)

Album: Anamkhara

The Cretan lyra, a three stringed pear-shaped bowed instrument, has quite a pedigree – going to back to the Byzantine lyra, the ancestor of most European bowed instruments.  It’s still played in Crete and surrounding the islands, and Kelly Thoma is a young player and composer who is taking the instrument into new dimensions.  The tune “Flutter” is from 2009. 

8 Olivia Chaney – There’s not a swain (Nonesuch)

Album: The Longest River

Olivia Chaney’s wonderful arrangement of Henry Purcell and Anthony Henley’s song from 1693 “There’s not a swain”.  Olivia Chaney also played the Cambridge Folk Festival this year.

9 Rura – Allegory (Greentrax Recordings)

Album: Break it up

Rura are from West Scotland with their soulful version of the Kris Drever song “Allegory” which they played quite a few times on the various stages at the Cambridge Folk Festival.  There were quite a big contingent of Scottish bands at the Festival, all wonderful, but I’ve not been able to track down any recordings to play here.  Will carry on looking. 

10 The Unthanks – Magpie (Rabble Rouser)

Album: Mount the air

Quite a highlight of the festival was The Unthanks doing their massive and pretty moving arrangements from their latest record “Mount the air” – mostly drawn from Northumbrian songs.  They had impressive string quartet on stage.  Anyway, they played the trad song “Magpie” - stripped down, chilling and eerie.

11 Martin Simpson, Nancy Kerr, Andy Cutting – Fair Rosamund (Topic)

Album: Murmurs

Sticking with the creepy and disturbing I guess.  Simpson says in the notes of the album “Young Clifford’s admiration for his sister is clearly incestuous, and the sense of covert activity on the part of the King is plain nasty.  Rosamund, the daughter of Walter Lord Clifford, became concubine to King Henry the second, and was reputedly poisoned by Queen Eleanor”.  Simpson says the version is based on fragment recorded by Hedy West in 1965.

12 Bella Hardy – Good Man’s Wife (Noe)

Album: Battleplan

Bella Hardy also played at Cambridge.  She often does rewrites of old ballads, putting the women characters more at the centre or exploring their feelings and motives more closely.  “Good Man’s Wife” is her reworking of Raggle Taggle Gypies, one of the highlights of her Cambridge set.

13 Peggy Seeger – Do you believe in me (Signet Music)

Album: Everything changes

14 Chris Smither – Origin of the species (True North Records)

Album: Leave the light on

There were quite a few American musicians and bands at Cambridge this year (which I guess is the same for most years).  Among them were two veterans of folk-revival scene if you like.  Peggy Seeger, and probably not as well known, Chris Smither – both fantastic song writers.  Two songs about the strange beliefs held by people, and the more believable reliability of mothers and natural processes.

15 Punch Brothers – Passepied (Debussy) (Nonesuch)

Album: The Phosphorescent Blues

Prog-grass is the label that been applied to Punch Brothers.  Used to be called new grass back in the 70s and 80s – blue grass cut with just about anything else and played with vituousity often at breakneck speeds.  Mandolin genius (he got the McArthur award, so the title is official) Chris Thile is at the centre of the band, and in full eccentric, clownish cry at Cambridge.  This is one of the things they played. 

16 The Stray Birds – Black Hills (Yep Roc Records)

Album: Best Medicine

The Stray Birds from Lancester, Pennsylvania, really brought the place down with their great playing and singing, and heartfelt but witty stage banter, and their swooning at all the audience admiration for them.  “Black Hills” is about the Wounded Knee Massacre of Lakota people in South Dekota at the hands of the US Calvary in 1890. 

Most of the musicians at the Festival were from Britain, Ireland or the US, but there were a few from other places.  There was the Quebecoise band De Temps Antan and a klezmer band from the Netherlands, the Amsterdam Klezmer Band who mix up klezmer, Balkan brass and reggae in a way that sounds like nature always intended the mix.

17 De Temps Antan – Jolie et maquillee (L-A be)

Album: Ce Monde Ici-bas

18  Amsterdam Klezmer Band (remixed by Dunkelbunt) (Chat Chepeau Records)

Album: Morgenlandfahrt

  

A pretty interventionist remix of Amsterdam Klezmer Band by DJ Dunkelbunt, who played in Cape Town in July at the Nu World Festival.

19 Nneka – Book of Job (Bushqueen)

Album: My Fairy Tales

Nigerian singer Nneka produces some lovely poppy reggae on her new album her fifth since she started recording in 2005. 

20  Quantic feat Shinehead – Spark it (Tru-thoughts)

Album: Single

Sticking with recent sounds from poppier side of reggae, Quantic’s revival of dance hall raga-muffin, with Shinehead an old ragamuffin star toasting away.

21 Red Earth and Rust – Missing (Red Earth and Rust)

Album: The Mercy of Wild Things

Cape Town-based Red Earth and Rust released their third album earlier this year called “The mercy of wild things”.  As usual Jacques Coetzee and Barbara Fairhead come up with some fabulous songs, which they’ve worked up with some of Cape Town’s best musicians – too many mention.  But let’s mention bass player Brydon Bolton and drummer Ross Campell – because of their stuff as Benquela.  And let’s mention guitarist and producer Jonny Blundell and violinist Rayelle Goodman.

21 Jimmie Rodgers – Waiting for a train

Album: The Essential Jimmie Rodgers

22 Chemutoi Ketenya & Girls – Chemirocha

There was fantastic story the other day on NPR about a recording that SA ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracy made in 1950s of girls from the Kipsigis tribe in Kenya.  They were singing a song inspired by country music pioneer Jimmy Rodgers that the Kipsigis had heard from British missionaries during WW2.  The International Library of African Music, that Tracy set up in the 50s in Grahamstown, recently decided to take the music back to the people who sung it and managed to find two of the original singers.

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/28/417462792/in-a-kenyan-village-a-65-year-old-recording-comes-home

23 Quoc Hung – The Wind Blows It Away (Glitterbeat)

Album: Hanoi Masters: War is a wound, Peace is a scar

Quoc Hung from Vietman playing a k’ni or mouth violin.

24 Tafo Brothers & Nahid Akhtar – Tere Saath Mulaqaat Ek Raat Ki (Finders Keepers Records)

Album: Disco Dildar

One of the great groups behind the soundtracks of Pakistani film industry in the 70s and 80s – the Tafo Brothers with playback singer extradanaire Nahid Akhtar. 

25 Red Baraat - Bhangale (featuring Steve Marion) (Sinj Records)

Album: Gaadi of Truth

Red Baarat is a US based band started by dhol drum player Sunny Jam to combine Indian wedding music with New Orleans brass music.  Something definitely in the banghra tradition – Bhangale. 

26 Sky Cope – Blue Planet (Sky Cope)

Album: Flow State

Sky Cope is a young musician from Cape Town.  He’s just releasd his second album.  “Flow State”. 

27 Hauschka – North Brother Island (Temporary Residence)

Album: A NDO C Y

German composer Hauschka from his new album, a collection of songs he composed while putting together his 2014 record Abandoned City.  A bunch of letters are dropped to come with the title.

2 September 2015, World Cafe

1 Mbongwana Star – Kimpala (World Circuit)

Album: From Kinshasa

Mbongwana Star from the DRC come out of the ashes of Staff Benda Bilili – a wonderful band we’ve heard quite a lot on this show in the past and who imploded in 2013.  Coco Ngabali and Theo Nsituvuidi have teamed up with Dublin-born, Paris-based producer and drummer Liam Farrell to come up with something spacey, dubby and fuzzy – a far cry from Staff Benda Bilili’s more verite sound.  “From Kinshasa” is Mbongwana Star’s debut album, which I’m sure will prove to be one of the great releases of 2015.

2 Verckys et l’Orchestre Veve – Nakobala yo denise (Analog Africa)

Album: Congolese Funk, Afrobeat & Psychedelic Rumba 1969-1978

Verckys or wizard guitarist and sax player, producer and much more George Mateta Kiamuanga was one of the absolute greats of Congolese rhumba. His stage name, Verkys, is a corruption of the US R&B sax player King Curtis adopted after his misheard it. He started out in Franco’s band, but in late 60s went off on his own and in 1970 started his own label “les Editions Veve”, got into production work and built his own state of the art studio.

3 Kekele – Ba Kristo (Sterns Africa)

Album: Kinavana

Another band from the Congo, the quintet Kekele from their 2006 album, very much in the old school of Congolese Rhumba.  Kekele based all the songs on the album on songs by the late Cuban songwriter, singer and guitarist Guilolermo Portabales, who was born in 1911 and died in 1970, but have rewritten all the lyrics and changed the arrangements. 

4 Tal National – Farila (Fat Cat)

Album: Zoy Zoy

Tal National is one of the new up and coming bands from Niger.  We’ve listen to bunch of the other here over the last few years – like Bombino and Etran Finatawa – both Tuareg bands.  Tal National sing in Hausa and Zarma, and in stark contrast to the spaciousness of Bombino and Etran, have constructed a fast and furious wall of sound loaded with a maze of jagged interlocking riffs, and gear shifts. 

5 Terakraft – Tafouk Tele (Outhere)

Album: Alone

Terakaft is an offshoot of Tinariwen and have just released their fifth album, which for me is an absolute winner.  The production is deftly handled by Justin Adams, who we have featured many times here. 

6 Maurice Louca - Al-Mashoub (Idiot)  (xxx)

Album: Salute the Parrot

Egyptian musician and composer Maurice Louca clearly has a thing for instigating a clash between the warm, orchestral old and the harsh new.  And he does this to compelling effect on his new album “Salute the Parrot” – the parrot in the title apparently referring to repetition in his music, which clearly he loves. 

7 Mahmoud Fadl feat Salwa Abou Griesha – We daret el ayram (Piranha) “Mohamed Abdel Wahab”

Album: Umm Kalthum 7000

The Egyptian percussionist, composer and band leader, Mahoud Fadl, created a fabulous tribute to Umm Kalthum in 2001 called “Umm Kalthum 7000”.  He re-orchestrated some songs from her late career, when apparently her powers were waning, and brought in Salwa Abou Greisha to take Kalthum parts.  “We daret el ayram” translates as “And the days have gone by …”

8 Bio Ritmo – Codeina (Vampisoul)

Album: Puerta de Sur

Bio Ritmo are from Brazil, have been going for more than 20 years and normally do wide screen, big band salsa, which is pretty great is has to be said -  but I was  totally blown away when I heard “Codeina” which they describe as “bolero meets 1960s Egyptian-classical”.  It’s from their 2014 outing.

9 Morena Veloso – Verso Simples (Luaka Bop)

Album: Coisa Boa

Basically a lovely tune from Veloso’s 2014 album.

10 Buena Vista Social Club – Black Chicken 37 (World Circuit)

Album: Lost and found

The label World Circuit has recently released a bunch of outtakes and live recordings made of the Buena Vista Social Club and some solo outings of members of the BVS recorded around 1997.  “Black Chicken 37” is a nice little studio recorded instrumental with bassist Cachaito Lopez.    

11 Dayme Arocena – El Ruso (Brownswood)

Album: Nueva Era

Dayme Arocena is a 22 year old singer, composer, arranger and choir director from Havana, who has just released her debut album on Gilles Peterson’s label Brownswood, called Nueva Era, with Peterson mainly at the production healm, although Arocena produced “El Ruso”.  “El Ruso” is about her mother being forced to learn Russian in Soviet-supported Cuba in the 80s.

12 Aurelio – Milaguru (Realworld)

Album: Landini

Aurelio Martinez released a seriously great album in 2014 called “Landini” or “Landing” named after the Honduran shoreline where Martinez used to hang out as a youth to listen to fishermen singing paranda songs into the night.   

13 Los Gaiteros De San Jacinto – Un Dub De Sangra Pura (Khaliphonic)

Album: Dub De Gaita

A wonderful collaboration of the Los Gaiteros De San Jacinto or the Bagpipers of San Jacinto from San Jacinto on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, a group that has been active since the 1940s and the great British dub producer Adrian Sherwood and some of his crew.  It’s from seems to be an EP.

14 Tuff Scout All Stars – Dub It Inna Long Acre (Tuff Scout)

Album: Inna London Dub

Here’s something from a small indie reggae label based in Camden, London, Tuff Scout.  The Tuff Scout All Stars I guess are Tuff Scout’s house band. 

15 Busy Signal – Well prepared (Turf Music)

Album: Single

New Jamaican dancehall courtesy of Busy Signal (Glendale Goshia Gordon to his mother) and Lorde (that wunderkind of New Zealand pop), whose backing track and melody for her hit Royals Busy Signal appropriates). 

16 Eska – Heroes and Villains (Earthling/Naim Edge)

Album: ESKA

Speaking of wunderkinde, Zimbabwean born Eska Mtungwazi, besides having a maths degree from LSE, and conservatory training on violin, is a multi-instrumentalist on all kinds of keyboards and string instruments, a backing singer of note for stars like Tony Allen, Baba Maal and Bobby McFerrin, and on her debut solo album, ESKA, a great songwriter.  Witness her take on classic 70s reggae. 

17 Paul De Jong – Auction Block (Temporary Residence)

Album: IF

Cellist Paul De Jong ex of the duo The Books has not abandoned his former outfit’s collage-pop absurdity as you would have heard on this tune from De Jong’s new album.

18 Le Vent du Nord – Pauvre enfant (Borealis Records)

Album: Tetu

From Quebecois band Le Vent de Nord’s (The North Wind) new album “Tetu” (Determined or Hard-headed) – you can hear the fiddle and accordion interplay of Cajun music coming through on this tune – but which way did things flow? 

19 Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys – La Danse De Mardi Gras

Album: Voyageurs

Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys from southern Lousianna have a new album out – their 14^th after 27 years of existence.   “Le Danse de Mardi” is an old tune by Dewey Balfa Gras” and one of their signature tunes.  Balfa was one of Steve Riley’s mentors.  Apparently the cloppy hoof sounds effects on the intro and outro come Nathan Abshire’s old recordings, sampled and slowed down.

20 This is the kit – Vitamins (Brassland)

Album: Bashed Out

“This is the kit” is a band name I find hard to get my head around – but their music is fantastic.  Basically “This is the kit” is vehicle for Kate Stables and their new album is produced by Aaron Dessner of rock miserablists The National is mainly about the simple pleasures in life like, on the tune “Vitamins”, eating fresh greens.

22 Dakhabrakha – Karpatskyi Rap (Self released)

Album: Light

DakhaBrahka from Kiev have been going since 2004 starting out as a theatrical project.  Using Ukrainian vocal traditions as a jumping off point, they are quite happy to take things in all kind of adventurous directions backed by cello, concertina and percussion.  Karpatskyi Rap is from their 2010 outing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsNKSbTNd5I&feature=youtu.be

Free music from their website

http://www.dakhabrakha.com.ua/eng/music

23 Olga Bell – Perm Krai (New Amsterdam)

Album: Krai

Singer, keyboardist and composer Russian born Olga Bell is most famously a member of rock experimentalists Dirty Projectors from NYC, but in 2014 released a tribute to obscure, forgotten small towns in Russia called “Krai” which translates as “edge” or “limit”.

24 Vis Vitalis – I’ll be gone (Music for Sale Records)

Album: Vis Vitalis sings songs of Tom Waits

Russian based musician Vis Vitalis seems to often come up with stuff that crosses over between rap, funk and punk, but in 2015 released an album of Russian versions of Tom Waits.  Place, liquor and drug names etc have been changed to Russian equivalents - so California becomes Crimea; Bourbon, Vodka, downtown trains minibuses.  This is his version of “I’ll be gone” originally from Franks Wild Years which came out in 1987.

25 Mahsa Vahdat – Wind in tresses (KKV)

Album: Traces of an old vineyard

From a sublime new album by the Iranian singer-songwriter in which she has turned into songs poems by classical Iranian poets Khayyam, Hafez and Rumi.  The album was recorded in Oslo and accompanying her are Tord Gustavsen on various keyboards, Shervin Mohajer on the kamancheh (a Persian stick fiddle) and Ali Rahimi on percussion.  “Wind in tresses” is her version of the Hafez poem, “Zolf Bar Baad”.

1 July 2015, World Cafe

1 Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – Borongoli ma Kununban (Glitterbeat/Shellshock)

Album: Ba Power

Over the last 8 years and the course of 4 internationally released albums, innumerable concert and TV appearances, Bassekou Kouyate has made the ngoni, a traditional banjo-like lute, the trendiest instrument in Mali – thanks to its relatively simple design, every would-be rock star on the street in Bamako is toting one.  To his core sound which includes the formidable vocals of his wife Amy Saacko, Kouyate has added to his line up a range of different types of ngoni now wielded by his sons, multiplied the electric pick-ups and effects pedals attached to them, brought in a bunch of Malian luminaries and, on his 2015 album, some real Western rock types – albeit obscure ones who like to play with non-rock musicians.  Dave Smith, Robert Plant’s drummer and Chris Eckman, from the Walkabouts, on keyboard play on this tune. 

2 BKO Quintet – Strange Wassolon (Buda Musique)

Album: Bamako Today

Continueing in West Africa with a bunch of new gritty power-releases, often with the ngoni to the fore.

BKO Quintet combines percussion and vocal traditions of two the main cultures in Mali – the Mandinka jelis and the Bambara hunter or donso culture.  Two types of ngoni vie for ear space – the jeli ngoni and the donso ngoni on this tune.

3 Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band – Waso (Sublime Frequencies)

Album: Juguya

Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band are from Burkina Faso, and their front man, Mamadou Sanou, is also an ngoni player – in this case a donso ngoni.  A rare studio affair from the cult label Sublime Frequencies.

4 Fofoulah – Make Good (Soumala) (Glitterbeat)

Album: Fofoulah

Another project by Robert Plant’s drummer Dave Smith  - with his band Outhouse Ruhabi and members of another London-based band Loop Collective and some wonderful West Africa collaborators.  It draws its inspiration from the Sabar style of drumming from Gambia and Senegal.  On the tune “Make Good” is singer Batch Gueye and Sabar drummer Kaw Secka both from Senegal.

5 Sonzeira - Nana (Sunlightsquare Remix) (Talkin’ Loud/Virgin EMI) (Brownswood Recordings)

Album: Sonzeira: Brasil Bam Bam Bam

The Afro-Brazillian Candomble-infused sounds of Nana Vasconcelos given the heavy production treatment by DJ Gilles Peterson on a massive project he pulled off last year in Brazil called Sonzeira out on the old Acid Jazz and Hiphop label “Talkin’ Loud”. 

6 Criolo – Fermento Pra Massa (Sterns)

Album: Convoque  Seu Buda

Criolo AKA Kleber Gomes is one of Brazil biggest and best stars at the moment.  He was brought up in the favelas outside Sao Paulo and he combines rap with a bunch of older Brazilian styles – in fine ironic form and sounding like a Gilberto Gil from the BMP period in the 70s he frets about not being able to the bakery in a bus strike as the city is forced to take a chaotic holiday. 

7 Lito Barrientos y su Orquesta – Cumbia en do menor

Album: Very very well

One of the most famous cumbias of all time by the trombone player and band leader Rafael “Lito” Barrientos and his orchestra.  Lito was from El Salvador, rather than Columbia and in 2007, a year before he died, was named “hijo meritisimo San Salvador”  - most meritorious son of El Salvador.

8 Quique Escamilla – Huapango del Tequila (Lulaworld Records)

Album: 500 Years of Nights

Heading about 300 kms West of El Salvador to Mexican State of Chiapas – well sort of – native to Chiapas and imbued with the spirit of the Zapatista rebellion, Quique Escamilla now lives in Toronto.  Here’s his song about growing agave and drinking tequila off his 2014 album.

9 Lila Downs – Mano Negra (Paul Cohen/Lila Downs) (Sony Music Latin)

Album: Balas y Chocolate

Lila Downs’ wonderful amalgam of cumbia, mariachi and klezmer which contrasts Mexico’s violence with its beautiful landscapes.  It comes off her terrific new album which she devised with Paul Cohen, her life partner and longtime musical collaborator. 

You may have been in the thrall of murder ballads – you know the drill – dispassionate tellings (with their roots in traditional ballads) of the murder of a women in a lonely place, often a river bank, by the murderer, a man.  Pretty Polly is famous one  …

10 The Stanley Brothers – Pretty Polly (Columbia/Legacy)

Album: The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers

11 Bela Flack & Abigail Washburn – Pretty Polly (Rounder)

Album: Bela Flack & Abigail Washburn

And here are more updated murder ballads – one rock, one country …

12 Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Down by the river (Reprise)

Album: Everybody knows this is nowhere

13 Johnny Cash – Delia’s Gone (American Recordings)

Album: American Recordings

Somehow all that death and dispassion marks authenticity which somehow excuses the violence.  Well Alynda Lee Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff in her wonderful song is having none of this …

14 Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Body Electric (ATO)

Album: Small Town Heroes

15 Sam Lee – Bonny Bunch of Roses (The Nest Collective)

Album: The Fade in Time

Sam Lee’s incredible version of this ballad first published in 1881.  It’s in the form of a conversation between Napoleon’s son and his mother, which humanizes Napoleon, and thus became popular in Irish circles, given that Napoleon was seen as a hero because of his opposition to England.  Sam Lee, who’s aided by some members of the latterday Penguin Café Orchestra, has built his version on a Serbian 78.

16 Duke Garwood – Hawaiian Death Song (Heavenly)

Album: Heavy Love

Duke Garwood was born in Kent.  On this tune he draws on his experience of working with Tinariwen and Master Musicians of Jajouka and invoking the desert in his blues.

17 Goran Kajfes Subtropic Arkestra – Dokuz Seki/Esmerim (Headspin Recordings)

Album: The Reason Why Vol 2

 Swedish trumpeter Goran Kajfes and his Subtropic Arkestra with their blowout redition of two Turkish rock & pop tunes from the 1970s – drummer Okay Temiz’s jazz fusion “Dokuz Seki” and “Beyaz Kelebekler” (White Butterflies) pop schlock “Esmerim”.

18 Herczku Agnes – Gyimesi Karszilamasz (Fono)

Album: Bandazom

Agnes Herczku is one of Hungary’s most highly rated folk singers (sounding a lot like Marta Sebestyen) and her new record made with her partner, Bulgarian born multi instrumentalist Nikola Parov, is fastastic.  “Gyimesi Karszilamasz” combines a fiddle style from the Carpathian region with a Turkish rhythm.  

19 Elina Duni Quartet – Nene moj (ECM)

Album: Dallendyshe

Elina Duni, born in Albania but living in Switzerland, and her trio which includes that fabulous Swiss pianist, Chris Vallon.  In this traditional Albanian tune meaning O mother in which the singer laments having to leave her mother to go far away because of a marriage she has arranged. “Dellendyshe” translates as “The Swallow”.

20 Monsieur Doumani – The Popeyes (Monsieur Doumani Records)

Album: Sikoses

A few years ago we listened to the Monsieur Doumani’s quirky, eclectic updating of Greek Cypriot folk styles.  They’re back with a new record, which is about the financial crisis – “Sikoses” being the Cypriot term for the last day of feasting before Lent. 

21 Xylouris White – Psarandonis Syrto (Other Music)

Album: Goats

George Xylouris, lute player and son of the famed singer and lyra player Psarantonis Xylouris, from Crete, and drummer Jim White (from the Dirty Three) have moved in the same circles in Melbourne for years, so their formal collaboration was just a matter of time.  A syrto is type of Cretan dance.    

22 Dengue Fever – Deepest Lake on the Planet (Tuk Tuk Records)

Album: The Deepest Lake

LA based band Dengue Fever started out as a Cambodian rock cover band in 2001.  They’re on album 6 now, they’re writing their own song and they have a great Combodian singer, Chhom Nimol, on board. 

23 Kim Doo Soo – River Crossing (Rhythm on Rec)

Album: Dance of Hunchback

A great singer songwriter from South Korean with a very melancholic disposition, and penchant for lush, almost Nick Drake arrangements.  His wonderful backing ensemble seem to be Czech. 

24 Xuan Hoach – Gratitude Xam Thap An (Glitterbeat)

Album: Hanoi Masters: War is a wound, peace is a scar

A fascinating new project by the increasingly great German label Glitterbeat.  Producer Ian Brenner got the Vietnamese zither player Vanessa or Van Ahn Vo in as musical director to a bunch of Vietnamese war veterans who play new adaptations of traditional songs, and contemporary war songs to mark the 40^th anniversary to the end of the war. 

25 Anders Jormin, Lena Willemark and Karin Nakagawa – Hirajoshi (ECM)

Album: Trees of Light

The koto player Karin Nakagawa together with Norweigan bass player Anders Jormin and Swedith fiddle player and singer Lena Willemark with a tune by Jormin from an album just out on ECM. 

26 Oyonn Groven Myhren – Hermod Unge Og Gygri (Sterns Music)

Album: Gullveven: Mellomalderballadar

A Norweigan traditional ballad sung by Oyonn Groven Myhren who accompanies herself on harp.