World Village records

The New York Times live review! “The Tunisian singer...

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:06:21 -0400

“The Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi, a gentle firebrand whose song “Kelmti Horra” (“My Word Is Free”) became an anthem of the Arab Spring, made an enthralling New York debut at the French Institute Alliance Française on Wednesday night. In Arabic she sang, “We are free men who are not afraid/We are the secrets that never die/And we are the voice of those who resist.”

Ms. Mathlouthi is a 21st-century performer, versed in Western rock and dance music and touching on styles around the Mediterranean…

These musicians summoned the momentum of flamenco or created eerie electric-guitar drones and effects. (Her percussionist and violinist could not get visas.) She performed barefoot, sometimes using pedals to add effects to her voice or make loops of her vocals and guitar…

Each [song] was a musical narrative, unfolding in multiple sections, moving between delicacy and fierce tenacity, mourning and defiance.”

Rave review for Emel Mathlouthi’s SOLD-OUT concert...

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:09:00 -0400

Rave review for Emel Mathlouthi’s SOLD-OUT concert yesterday in New York Music Daily!

The “stripped-down, intimate format did nothing to diminish the volcanic intensity and raw power of her symphonic, revolutionary Middle Eastern art-rock anthems…

Mathlouthi is an astonishingly powerful, individualistic singer, maintaining an almost otherworldly clarity from the depths to the heights of what could be a four-octave range, whether with a ghostly whisper or a gale-force wail. Few other singers in the world have so much raw power at their disposal. With that kind of voice, Mathlouthi can afford to be straightforward, and she usually is, although the two most exhilarating moments of the concert were when she hit a rapidfire, serpentine Middle Eastern glissando, and when she went to the absolute top of her register during a riveting, angst-fueled rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah that put to shame any other version including the original…

As the show went on, Mathlouthi mimicked oud voicings on her guitar via a series of nimble pull-offs, used a series of loop effects to sing Bjork possibly better than Bjork does herself, brought to mind Randi Russo or early PJ Harvey…”

Get Kelmti Horra on iTunes!

“there are so many choice cuts to rave about but you can’t...

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:10:08 -0400

“there are so many choice cuts to rave about but you can’t go far wrong with Deux bâtons and La Marseillaise en créole…Even without the lyrical knowledge this is the sort of music that inspires revolution against everything that has come to represent the materialistic and mainstream” - Folk Radio UK on Lo’Jo’s Cinema el Mundo

Lo’Jo tours the UK next week!

(via Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers – Border-Free |...

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:48:06 -0400

(via Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers – Border-Free | Disc of The Day - Latin Jazz Network)

“His achingly elegiac music—from the classic “Caridad Amaro” and the absolutely inimitable music of “Bebo” culminates in the breathtakingly exquisite “Pilar,” a tribute to the lonely stoicism of his mother—is quite beyond beautiful. It is a matchless document to the genius of Mr. Valdés that seems to be absolutely timeless. The sensational harmonics of “Pilar” are graced, in no small measure, by the superb arco work of the young bassist Ángel Gastón Joya Perellada. His outstanding composure, wonderful sense of harmony and complete and rapturous embrace of the melancholic beauty of the song is unprecedented. But the bassist also solos with complete command of structure, melodicism and harmonic brilliance on other charts too, throughout the album. His rhapsodic solo on “Caridad Amaro” is quite unforgettable.”

indiaaee: From the album ‘Imidiwan : Companions’ Imidiwan:...

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:20:07 -0400

indiaaee:

From the album ‘Imidiwan : Companions’

Imidiwan: Companions, is the band’s fourth CD release and it possesses all the elements that have made them so magnetic to western ears: raw simplicity, melodic beauty, songs ranging from the epic and universal to the intimate and personal.

The album opens with Imidiwan Afrik Tendam, a kind of hymn to the band’s friends,
companions and fellow-travellers, who have suffered and triumphed with Tinariwen on their epic journey. The legendary poet Japonais makes a scintillating rootsy contribution with the song Tamodjerazt Assis which broils with a sense of pain and regret. Intidao, a regular touring member of the band, makes his CD debut as composer and lead singer on the song Imazaghen N’ Adagh. And Ibrahim sings one of the most famous Tinariwen songs ever, Chegret, in which he asks his fellow Touareg some hard questions about the desert and its problems.

The thirty-year musical and social history of Tinariwen is a fascinating and inspiring tale. Initially a loose collection of displaced Touareg musicians centred around Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who, although born in Mali, grew up in the refugee camps near the Malian border in Algeria and later around the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset following the suppression of the Touareg people by the new independent Malian government in the early 1960’s.

Coming together in the late 1970’s with a shared passion for everything from traditional Touareg music & poetry to western rock and pop artists such as Hendrix, Santana, Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin, the collective steadily built their reputation in and around the Sahara desert.

Following spells as part of a ‘desert army’ put together by Ghadaffi and later the MPA (Mouvement Populaire de l’Azawad – a rebel Touareg movement) during which other like minded musicians became involved, the group headed back to Tessalit in Mali in the late 1980’s.

Continuing to perform, by the end of the 1990’s Tinariwen’s reputation had begun to spread beyond their Saharan stronghold – in 1999 the band played a few gigs in France and in 2001 they played at the first ‘Festival in the Desert’ in Mali where they were heralded as the stars of the show and arguably, at this point, set out on the path that would see them celebrated in Europe as one of the most instantly recognizable and loved bands from Africa.

Success came swiftly after this point - by the end of 2001 the band had performed at WOMAD and the South Bank in London and released their ‘debut’ album The Radio Tisdas Sessions, a much feted record that effortlessly crossed over to those with previous little interest in African music courtesy of its guitar licks, grimy desert sound, arcane rhythms and wild rebel iconography.

In the past eight years the band have continued their steady ascent playing over 700 concerts in Europe as well as releasing a further two albums, Amassakoul in 2004 and Aman Iman in 2007. Along the way they have picked up a number of awards (BBC Award for World Music in 2005 and the prestigious Praetorius Music Prize in Germany in 2008) and a raft of ‘legendary’ fans including the likes of Robert Plant, Carlos Santana, Brian Eno, Thom Yorke, TV on the Radio and Bono & the Edge.

Music and the Culture Wars in Mali

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:19:43 -0400

somersaultmag:

By Corinne Grinapol, who is a writer born, raised, and currently living in Brooklyn. She tweets at @corinneavital.

This is from Somersault’s spring music issue. You can read it, along with other essays, in a lovely pdf magazine here!

Around the turn of the 12th Century, a group of nomads belonging to the Imakcharen Tuareg tribe were roaming with their camels through the southern fringe of the Sahara desert in West Africa. When they reached the Niger River—in the semi-arid land at the intersection of the Sahara and Savannah now called the Sahel— they stopped, setting up a camp so their animals could graze. The Tuaregs would return to their home in the north, but not before leaving the place in the care of an old woman named Buktu. The site would eventually become a permanent city, and to this day, the city still bears the old woman’s name: the place of Buktu, or Timbuktu. This, at least, is one of Timbuktu’s creation myths.

The geographical reach of the Tuareg’s land extended well past Timbuktu, and today the Tuareg are spread across Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria and Burkina Faso. With many Tuareg maintaining their nomadic lifestyle through to the modern era, certain sites in the Sahel serve as annual gathering points for the Tuareg to reconnect, share and exchange news, gossip and ideas. The soundtracks to these meetings are the live musical performances that are a part of Tuareg life. In 2001 the Tuareg opened this tradition to the rest of the world, hosting the first annual Festival au Désert in Tin Essako, a small village in Mali’s northeastern Kidal region.

The festival’s name sounds romantic, but it’s quite literal. In Essakane, the small village west of Timbuktu that has been the festival’s permanent home since 2003, the festival stage stands in a clearing of flat sand, surrounded by the soft rolls of the Sahara’s sand dunes. Westerners mingle with indigo-veiled Tuareg men and visitors from around the rest of the region—onstage and off. Both Bono and Manu Chao have performed in the lineup, which is mostly made up of more local acts from Mali, Senegal, Niger, and Mauritania. Some of Mali’s most legendary performers, including the late bluesman Ali Farka Touré and Khaira Arby, nicknamed the Queen of Desert Blues, have taken to this desert stage.

Around 2007, the festival began to attract visitors of an entirely different sort. Residents began to notice Islamists from outside Mali’s borders on the fringes of the festival. At first they were silent onlookers, then slowly began to voice their disapproval of the revelry and the Western visitors the festival attracted. These Islamists were more specifically Salafists, followers of a severe interpretation of Islam, who seek to return the entire Islamic world to their vision of a puritanical version of the religion, one they believe existed during the Prophet Mohammed’s time, supposedly before scholarship, diversification of the religion and the spread and interaction of Islam with other cultures.

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musicalamplitude: Mamadou Diabaté - Tunga

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:16:50 -0400

musicalamplitude:

Mamadou Diabaté - Tunga

gyrkinlens: Tuvan throat singing is one of the coolest fucking...

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:40:45 -0400

gyrkinlens:

Tuvan throat singing is one of the coolest fucking things I’ve ever heard in my life.

“The Arab Revolution is alive, young, electronic and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:38:05 -0400

“The Arab Revolution is alive, young, electronic and feminist… Emel Mathlouthi can be considered the unofficial highlight of the night. Her music and performances were refreshingly wild, impetuous and untamed and swung evenly in electronic harmony.” - Hoqook.com

Mathlouthi performs tonight at FIAF / French Institute Alliance Française!

The Arab Spring isn‘t dead. It is young, electronic, feminist and even a bit islamic.

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:18:58 -0400

hoqookenglish:

Emel Mathlouthi and Dina El Wadidi reinvent Arabic Music Classics in the historic Kasr Al-Nil Theater in Downtown Cairo. Between confessional fragmentation, social conflicts and political Limbo, a young and alternative vanguard announces itself and faces rusty, old structures.

Read More

whereimgoingtheresnoone: EMEL IS IN NEW YORK tonight someone take me i want to see her live sfm US...

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:18:35 -0400

whereimgoingtheresnoone:

EMEL IS IN NEW YORK tonight someone take me i want to see her live sfm

US TOO. We’re in L.A……

johnnykskim: Chuho Valdes & The Afro-Cuban messegers -...

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:17:02 -0400

johnnykskim:

Chuho Valdes & The Afro-Cuban messegers - Santa Cruz (Border free, 2013)

johnnykskim: Chucho Valdes & The Afro-Cuban Messegers -...

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:16:30 -0400

johnnykskim:

Chucho Valdes & The Afro-Cuban Messegers - Pilar (Border Free, 2013)

Available in the U.S. on July 9! On Jazz Village.

Audio

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:10:23 -0400

Lo’Jo’s UK tour starts on Tuesday in Manchester and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:58:01 -0400

Lo’Jo’s UK tour starts on Tuesday in Manchester and Wednesday in London as well! (hmm, tough choice.)

May 28 - Band on the Wall in Manchester
May 29 - Rich Mix in London
May 30 - Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham-by-sea
May 31 - Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan
June 1 - Wychwood Tackle in Cheltenham
June 2 - DanceEast in Ipswich

Terakaft tours the UK starting next Tuesday! May 28 - Ruby...

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:37:00 -0400

Terakaft tours the UK starting next Tuesday!

May 28 - Ruby Lounge in Manchester
May 29 - Electrowerkz in London
May 31 - Hay-on-Wye Festival
June 28 - Glastonbury Festival

Londoners, Kayhan Kalhor performs with Brooklyn Rider at the...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:24:04 -0400

Londoners, Kayhan Kalhor performs with Brooklyn Rider at the Barbican Centre on June 1st!

Their stunning collaboration Silent City is “a hypnotic work” (New York Times), and was a Best of 2008 in Village Voice, Emusic, Time Out New York and more.

Harold López-Nussa featured on Latin Jazz Network for his Jazz...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:18:55 -0400

Harold López-Nussa featured on Latin Jazz Network for his Jazz Standard concert in NYC on June 18.

Lopez-Nussa’s full schedule includes San Francisco, Baltimore and Cambridge!

(via Jazz, Israeli style, sweeps into Chicago -...

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:14:26 -0400

(via Jazz, Israeli style, sweeps into Chicago - chicagotribune.com)

“…The band struck hard from the outset in Hekselman’s “March of the Sad,” from his newly released album “This Just In.” As soloist, Hekselman crafted beautifully sculpted phrases with nary an extraneous note or gesture. As bandleader, he encouraged free-wheeling interchange, bassist Martin and drummer Davis pushing and pulling the music in directions that suited them. The intimacy with which these three players shared a rhythmic pulse would have been impressive even if you didn’t know that Davis was filling in for Gilmore.

It takes a brave soul to play as softly, simply and gently as Hekselman did in a samba by Brazilian guitarist-composer Baden Powell (could the Green Mill bar-tenders please cut back on the ka-ching of cash registers when the music is at a whisper?). Here Hekselman spun sinuous phrases, with bassist Martin offering plush counterpoint down low in his instrument and drummer Davis producing soft, shimmering colors with mallets. Pure poetry…

Not as intense as John Scofield or as harmonically innovative as Kurt Rosenwinkel (who is?), Hekselman nevertheless stands as an increasingly noteworthy figure in jazz guitar…

The Gilad Hekselman Trio plays 7 p.m. Tuesday at Anshe Emet Synagogue, 3751 N. Broadway; $10; 773-281-1423 or ansheemet.org.”

EMEL MATHLOUTHI On tour 2013 (by Emel Mathlouthi)

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:05:58 -0400

EMEL MATHLOUTHI On tour 2013 (by Emel Mathlouthi)