Return of the World Music Thread: 2012

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.

Also that Zaki Ibrahim video is great.

Zaki Abraham was on my list to check out, but have not done so yet.

Looking forward to veteran Benin afro-funk band Orchestre Poly-Rythmo in DC Tuesday night (more Northeast USA gigs this week are happening also I think)

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

― curmudgeon, Thursday, July 5, 2012 2:15 PM

Speaking of comparisons, some of her vocals here remind me of Ofra Haza:

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

I really love the trippy part of that first Sa Dingding video where she is waving her hands in front of her face. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. It could even tempt me to become "spiritual."

I have a hunch there is something sociopolitically important about a major Chinese pop star paying tribute to Tibetans and Chinese ethnic minorities. This has to be coming from somewhere.

This has to be coming from somewhere.

Pretty safe to say about anything except maybe in the stranger realms of quantum physics, which is where waving your hands in front of your face comes back in.

Yes!

has anyone mentioned the malawi mouse boys album, He is #1? i thought i got it from this thread but i don't see a mention. it's great tho + def worth checking out. beautiful singing.

Don't know that. Thanks. I'm exciting about seeing Orchestre Poly-Rythmo tonight

To live outside of time is to be free. Have a nice day!

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo were wonderful live last night--they have such a range--an Afro-Cuban type number, songs with lots of Congolese soukous/rumba guitar, Southern African vocal melodies and harmonies; French influences; Fela-esque and native Benin polyrythmic percussion. But they do it so well it does not sound like oh, a Africa's greatest hits from everywhere cover band(not sure if those exist but ya know what I mean). For those of you who only care about their old material, they did some of it. Yes, only 4 of the 10 members onstage were originals from 1969 or whenever, but hey, that sounded good (3 original members have passed away).

Jihadists' Fierce Justice Drives Thousands to Flee Mali
By ADAM NOSSITER
Refugees described witnessing repeated whippings, beatings and other punishments in the streets, ostensibly for having violated strict Islamic law.

From the NY Times

I still need to check out Mordy's suggestion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/20/malawi-mouse-boys-he-1-review