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.