Return of the World Music Thread: 2012

Wow, only knew Bebey for his guitar-based work.

Strange, wonderful, unexpected stuff; I kept drawing parallels between Bebey and Shuggie Otis.

Hey New Yorkers, look what's happening tonight:

Saturday June 2, at PS 145, W 105th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus.
Doors at 4pm. Music all day--great locally based West AFrican musicians.
The Sway Machinery hits at about 8pm. Khaira closes out the show at about 9:30pm.
$20 tickets--all proceeds go to medical relief for isolated and desperate north Mali communities.

Meanwhile back in Northern Mali, things are not so good:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/world/africa/in-timbuktu-mali-rebels-and-islamists-impose-harsh-rule.html?_r=1&hp

The situation is said to be especially troubling for women in Timbuktu. “Women are living in terrible fear,” said Baba Aicha Kalil, a well-known civic activist who is still living in the town, which once had a population of more than 50,000 but has experienced a significant exodus since the rebels moved in.

“They want to put a veil on everything,” Mrs. Kalil said, reached over a crackly telephone line from Timbuktu, which is about 440 miles northeast of Bamako, at the edge of the Sahara. “They are everywhere, everywhere with their guns.”

All of northern Mali, an area the size of France, has been in the hands of a loose coalition of Islamists and nomadic Tuareg rebels since late March, when resistance by the Malian Army collapsed after a coup d’état by junior military officers in the capital.

Since the takeover, however, the Islamists of Ansar Dine, supported by Al Qaeda, have gained the upper hand over the Tuaregs, and they are aggressively promoting their brand of Islamic law, or Shariah.

Black billboards with Koranic inscriptions have replaced advertisements, residents said. Leading figures in the regional Qaeda affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have also been spotted there.

If Khaira Arby decides to move to Brooklyn, I hope she finds a band other than the Sway Machinery (and if her current Malian guitarist stays with her, that he stop doing his current axe moves)

Dengue Fever with Omar Souleyman is a bill that makes little sense except in "world music" terms. I am going to see them tomorrow night in Washington DC

Discussion of the ethics and quality of the latest Mississippi Records box set re-release(various John Storm Roberts compiled efforts and other stuff...But no liner notes or credits given)

The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records

A Bola remix collection is out on the Awesome tapes from Africa label now, and I forgot to check out the original release that Rob praised upthread back in April. Will check 'em both out this weekend, I promise. Seeing Omar Souleyman tonight, and the Clean tomorrow night.

So behind in my cd, spotify and online listening. Azonto, old and very old F. Bebey, tracking down Storm Roberts comps, soca hits...

Enjoyed Dengue Fever last night (friend who had seen 'em before though was disapointed--said they were missing a multi-instrumentalist member guy and had less energy, plus crowd was smaller) and Omar Souleyman and his talented keyboardist

baseball game, art exhibit, party, bike riding were all fun, but I still haven't caught up on some listening I want to do.

Tinariwen are touring North America now btw.

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/obituaries/obituary-jan-fairley-writer-broadcaster-lecturer-1-2348562

Liked that Bolo video for a song from his album on Awesome tapes that Robe mentioned upthread. A bit more folkloric than I expected (he's strumming some kind of stringed instrument) but the album and the remixes are less so. He's from Ghana.

The 3 song Khaira Arby effort ain't bad--but I still liked her better when she had backing vocalists to engage in call and response with. Guitarist tries to show off some but he's not that annoying (and sometimes sounds good)

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/128191
Os Mutantes, MAKU Sound System, DOM, Citay
$25 - The Well in Brooklyn NY at July 28, 2012
Doors: 4:00 pm / Show: 5:00 pm (event ends at 10:00 pm)

^only US Os Mutantes show this summer; please note I am doing PR for this so FLACK FLACK FLACK indeed but $25 for Os Mutantes in NYC strikes me as a helluva value

I have missed their DC shows in the past for some reason or another. How many original members do they have, I wonder?

How many original members do they have, I wonder?

One - Sergio Dias. I interviewed him in 2009 when their last album came out.

I've enjoyed some old-school soul acts with only one original member, so I will give these folks the benefit of the doubt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQSM1qwNI3U

I'm not sure I like this whole thing, but some of the vocals are pretty interesting, and she sounds like some kind of genius. (I throw that word around a lot, but it's fun to throw it around.) From Wikipedia:

Born to a family of wage-earning class in Inner Mongolia, China [2] inheriting Han Chinese ancestry from her father and Mongolian ancestry from her mother, Sa Dingding was influenced by the music of the ethnic minorities while living with her grandmother in Inner Mongolia until age 6.[2] She also became interested in Buddhism and taught herself Tibetan and Sanskrit. Later on, she moved to Beijing to study music at the PLA Academy of Arts.

I wonder if Bjork has heard her

xposting The two times I've seen Os Mutantes in recent years. they were highly enjoyable.

I heard an earlier album by Sa Dingding that I liked at the time but haven't returned to since.

So does anyone have any thought on Gepe, an Andean Chilean indie-folk-rocker?

And speaking of Chile, i need to listen to all of Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux's new album.

Both are coming to W. DC in July and maybe to your hood also.

Tijoux is dope.

Ooh I love Ana Tijoux!

Montreal dj Poirier & Montreal rapper Boogat in W. DC tonight. Boogat's rapping in Spanish rather than French these days, over Poirier's electro-dancehall-soca-uk whatever hybrid beats

x-post--

I like Chilean Gepe when he's very pop and when he does ballads, but some of his indie-pop(either with strummed guitars or laptop beats) is kinda generic (although the Spanish lyrics are a bit different)

Poirier and Boogat like Schlachthofbronx from Munich mixes.

Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, a group born during the West African advent of funk and soul in the 1960s and 70s.

Looking forward to seeing these old-timers

yah me too

3 original members have passed away but that still leaves some original guys plus new folks.

I am also excited by Janka Nabay (Bubu dance music from Sierra Leone)
who will be with his Bubu Gang at tiny Comet Ping Pong in W. DC. Friday July 6

love that nabay album - was playing it today in the car. great for the heat.

An Letah

Been listening to Nabay and Orchestre Poly-Rythmo this morning. Wow to both.

Love how Poly-Rythmo meld Congolese rumba, James Brown, Benin percussion and more into a danceable combination.

http://www.afropop.org/wp/3616/tinariwens-abdallah-ag-alhousseini-talks-about-mali/

More on Mali:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/timbuktus-cultural-heritage-sites-are-under-attack/2012/07/05/gJQAMujPQW_story.html?wprss=rss_editorials

So Janka Nabay is just gonna play solo in W. DC at Comet tonight over pre-recorded tracks.

I wanted to see the Bubu Gang with him.

Covering some of the same ground as other folks pieces on Janka, but not bad for an email interview

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/07/06/janka-nabay-talks-bubu-music-bamboo-instruments-and-john-f-kennedy/

He was fun although it was a tad repetitious (and old-school me would rather have heard him with a band than recorded tracks)

The Very Best's MTMTMK (out next Tues on Moshi Moshi/Cooperative Music) is currently premiering over at NPR's First Listen;

I like this Malawian/European hybrid group but haven't heard the new one yet

Very Best's debut was one of our fave albums and we still play it in the car all the time. really excited for the follow-up, cause the mixtapes (mother, or something?) were not so fab.

I liked the first mixtape

pagodge, forro, ache, batucada

forro, tango and Chilean rap coming to the W. DC area. Varied South American sounds

Tango reference is to a movie doc on Argentinian woman singer La Gata (who was recently living in Miami). She and the movie will be at Artisphere Saturday July 14. Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux has a new cd out and is touring the US. Quarteto Olinda, a brazilian forro group that uses a fiddle rather than an accordion is in the US too

Was underwhelmed by the new Ana Tijoux album. Too many just ok duets and too smooth and polished (and not in an endearing way). I liked her first one.

http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2012/06/28/hectic-city-15-paths-to-graceland/

In case you missed this elsewhere, here's the soundcloud stream of the South African songs that inspired Paul Simon's Graceland

This whole Sa Dingding album is pretty good. I'm still ambivalent. I'm not into some of the production choices. Definitely not into some of the for me verboten big bombastic synth string moments, but there's a lot of other stuff happening that I do like.

And Bjork just has her own individual way of singing, but it's not clear to me she has much technical control. Sa Dinging obviously does. But Bjork comparisons pretty much always annoy me, because I don't like her very much.

curmudgeon, have you checked out Canadian (with South African roots) Zaki Ibrahim who Tim F has been pushing? I think you might like her. I'm still sorting through her album, but overall I like it. (See her thread here for links.)

Okay, here, I'll make it easy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtZd2uimcuI

Incidentally I decided to just pretend that my earlier-in-the-thread thread title meltdown never took place. I never saw how anyone responded. I think I was in a much weirder mental place during the first few months of this year than I realized. Like kind of overreacting to things and looking for conflict without realizing how stressed out I must have been. I'm not entirely sure.