Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2019 Thread Once Known as World Music

Audio Inferno, linked in the article, has a lot of videos, album reviews, and news stories about African bands.

This video - "Mama" by Dark Suburb featuring Wiyaala (who has stuff out on her own) is pretty good in an Evanescence-y kind of way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58mDulytA0M

Clay seems to be only on YouTube, not on Spotify or Bandcamp

clay's 'the one' reminds me of jewel!

France-based Congolese singer Dadju is on a 3 city US tour- Dallas on 24th, DC on 26th, NY on the 30 th

He’s French of Congolese origin, actually. He’s the younger brother of rapper Maître Gims.

That’s how I should have phrased it, thanks. Saw a video clip of his DC show singing nicely over tracks .

new bassekou kouyate out this week. also new a-wa track ("mudbira") which is fantastic, and sofia rei just made the first album for the new masada cycle "beriah" and it's pretty cool as well

75-year-old, Ustad Saami risks his life daily in Pakistan to keep alive his microtonal, pre-Islamic, multilingual (Farsi, Sanskrit, Hindi, the ancient and dead language of Vedic, gibberish, Arabic, and Urdu) music. Handed down by his ancestors for over a thousand years, he is the only practitioner of Surti left in the world and when he passes, this music will die with him as well. Extremists resent his work as they do anything else pre-dating Muhammad.

http://glitterbeat.com/artists/ustad-saami/

This is some beautiful and hypnotic work.

i had heard about the new album but i was too busy meditating over the meaning (and my opinion of) the title that i hadn't gotten around to listen to it until your recommendation - which i'm so glad you made, really cool stuff! hypnotic is right.

hoo boy the write-up on that is terrible (e.g., "In the land where Osama Bin last hid, Master Ustad Naseeruddin Saami has spent his entire life mastering the nuances of every given note."). But the music is immense (and totally new to me), thanks for posting that

love this track: https://dexterstory.bandcamp.com/track/shuruba-song-feat-hamelmal-abate
and this one: https://open.spotify.com/track/1VCBrYw70cUQRrvd7ybgP4?si=esGXOvbRR0WE_1bOA5Ud8Q (kel assouf - tamatant)
also this album https://nicolacruz.bandcamp.com/album/siku

https://mauricelouca.bandcamp.com/album/elephantine

Egyptian experimental bandleader/composer/musician Maurice Louca's new album with 12-piece ensemble is quite lovely. posted this elsewhere but realised this is probably the right place to park this one.

new mdou moctor single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA2zshM6A8g

Mdou is still busy touring too—US and Europe

I was just in Mexico and didn’t hear anyone playing his music there. But I did hear folkloric Mexican sounds, banda, duranguese, pop, 50s style rock but in Spanish. Also live we saw Puerto Rican salsa romantica singer Victor Manuelle do a late night show in Mexico City. There were some impressive dancing couples in the crowd

https://sahelsounds.com/2019/01/hama-houmeissa/

I'm not as wowed by Hama's laptop fruityloops programming takes on Niger / Tuareg traditional music as some folks like Wayne Marshall are. But I've only heard 2 cuts

i really liked his 2015 album Torodi so i'll be checking this new one out w/ anticipation

X-post- The one Louca composition I heard sounded kinda jazzy. He addressed his relationship to jazz and other genres here I see:
http://downbeat.com/news/detail/maurice-louca-elephantine-northern-spy

i didn't love the new hama :/

I still need to catch up on those other things you posted- Dexter Story etc.

Love the dexter story and I loved their last album so I’m looking forward to this one

I've been watching some of the Kennedy Center's live video stream of Tcheka, a Cape Verdean singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist @ Kennedy Ctr. Mill. Stage. Beautiful vocal melodies and nice rhythmic string accompaniment. Sounds a bit Brazilian or Angolan

He was at Lincoln Center in NY (also for free) the night before.

Kel Assouf's Black Tenere is out today. A lot of this Touareg desert blues stuff is nice, but too reined-in and pretty. This dude plays desert RAWK, though. His guitar tone will take your face off like a sandstorm, and there’s some guitar-organ jam action so heavy I keep expecting to hear Ian Gillan come in on vocals. Definitely recommended.

i haven't gotten to this yet (also came out this week) but it has tracks w/ tony allen and mulatu astatke: https://nubiyantwist.bandcamp.com/album/jungle-run

ooooh!
i just saw that Mulatu Astatke is playing in a local PLANT CONSERVATORY in May but 1) tickets are $47 and 2) I have class that night and I would take my students but 1)

maybe you can get a discount if you tell them it's for students??

I bumped the Astatke thread to ask this, but have any of you seen him live? He's playing in Montreal (though not in a plant conservatory, damn that sounds amazing), but yeah it's pretty pricey and I'm wondering if it's worth it.

i have! i think it was 2 years ago at the world music festival in chicago. it will be pricey and/but you will enjoy it.

idk about discounts -- haggling is not my forte. in the past i have taken them to events that are free (world music fest) or already offer discounted tickets for students (spektral quartet)

thanks LL! the venue is walking distance from my apt so I'm pretty excited

Astatke is playing NYC May 17 & 18, hope he comes down to DC too.

Yea Kel Assouf's Black Tenere rocks

well, some of it

I could do without some of the jam like stuff on it

few albums i'm checking out this week:

Cochemea - All My Relations: digging this, electrosax afrojazz
Eitan Katz - Ashrecha: musician friend keeps bumping this, charedi folk, not sure it's so unique but if you don't know this genre at all it has some nice moments
Saba Alizadeh - Scattered Memories: experimental music w/ persian instruments / electronic / field recording sounds
Constantinople, Ablaye Cissoko - Traversées: light kora + sitar music, mandinka + persian fusion

the assouf is okay - tho a little monotonous to me as a whole (i prefer it a track here and there outside the album) and like a lot of other stuff (that i do enjoy!)

Baaba Maal got an Oscar for best original score for Black Panther

Yemen Blues playing World Cafe Live tmmrw night trying to decide if i want to go..

Banning Eyre Guide to Zimbabwe music from 70s to present. The emphasis is on guitar bands but he acknowledges rap and dancehall near the end. Bhundu Boys, Thomas Mapfumo, Mokoomba are all here.

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2019/02/zimbabwe-music-history

Liking the new Kronos Quartet with Iranian vocalists Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat album Placeless. Melancholy and powerful delivery of the vocals over the strings

https://kronosquartet.org/news/article/kronos-quartet-mahsa-and-marjan-vahdat-placeless

new sahel sounds release: https://amanardekidal.bandcamp.com/album/akaline-kidal

X-post - Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat was great live backed by Kronos Q. Kronos on their own turned some of their Muslim countries repertoire for the night into standard classical music ( they sounded more interesting when they reached beyond that).

African Film Fest in suburbs of DC

WAHENGA (The Ancestors)
Saturday, Mar. 9, 12:45 p.m.
AFI Silver Theatre
8633 Colesville Rd.
Silver Spring, MD
http://afi.com/silver/

U.S. Premiere

WAHENGA follows John Kitime, a Tanzanian musician now in his 60s, as he sets out on a mission to put together an all-star band from the old days to revive the classic sound of Zilipendwa music. Along the way, he meets the people who played key roles in the music scene of Tanzania during the struggle for independence and the nation's formative years under the first president, Julius K. Nyerere. As Kitime plays with the band, spends time with musicians and digitizes reel-to-reel tapes from the 1960s and '70s, he reveals a fascinating and little-known story about the power of music to bring together a people and a nation. Official Selection, 2018 Zanzibar and Film Africa film festivals. (Note adapted from The Tanzania Heritage Project.)

DIR/SCR/PROD Rebecca Corey, Amil Shivji. Tanzania, 2018, color, 93 min. In Swahili with English subtitles

X-post- that Ahmed Ag Kaedy - Akaline Kidal on Sahel Sounds is solo Tuareg guitar. Nice enough

Was working and missed that Tanzania movie. Also missed the screening of “The Burial of Kojo,” directed by NY-based Ghanaian rapper Blitz the Ambassador. This latter one will be on Netflix starting March 31

Saw an Instagram story video clip of Congolese band Kokoko at S x SW and I was impressed. They use junkyard made instruments, a megaphone, and a laptop and wear matching yellow factory overall suits ( kind of Devo like)
Their US dates included 1 NY one a few days back, and now some shows out west. I hope they’ll come to DC next time they tour US

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7QwjURBSIPA

Yeah I like their new album

Listening to Kokoko on Spotify now & less excited, although some cuts are nice Afro-funk

Mokoomba from Zimbabwe are a great live band and are coming back to the US in April. Mdou Moctor and band are doing gigs out in the western us now I think. Worth seeing too

Oh, saw Habib Koite, Malian singer/guitarist with percussionist Mama Kone do a mostly relaxed gig with pleasant but rhythmic open-tuned guitar playing. A few songs were more upbeat. Some nice stories in between re the tour-- being in more snow than they had ever seen in St. Paul, a barbecue for them in a San Francisco park (with great tasting meat although Habib's doctor tells him to eat less of that). Masterful ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and others were suposed to be playing with them plus 2 others, but they couldn't get their visas approved.

New Africa Express EP is out now: https://open.spotify.com/album/6IAEqJEVmwBN7m6OkQQaEr?si=s9D9eQi_RraMtmp52QobcQ

Kinda liked Kidjo’s Talking Heads covers but was less wowed on my one listen to her Celia Cruz ones.

Liked the Blick Bassy and Dexter Story ones

El Wali is ok Saharan desert music on my first listen

Tanya Tagaq’s screeching out there Throat singer vocals are too avante for me

lol i love them

I wish she was weirder. I only like the chanting/grunting/screeching. Anytime there's actual words, I lose interest.

It's decidedly not my thing either, but I'm glad it exists

Kongo dia Ntotila are more my thing. Not great, but enjoyable enough Congo rumba made funkier by folks now living in the UK

Listening to the new El Wali album now and not really liking it. Too much chintzy keyboard, and the vocals are too shrill and...quiet storm-ish? It sounds like a watered-down, Putumayo version of Saharan desert blues to me.

You should gives Les Filles a listen. Mordy & I both like them.

The Pat Thomas Ghanaian highlife album is a tad repetitive, but it’s still pretty good old-school dance music. I think he and his band came through DC some years back and I can imagine him packing a dancefloor

I tried Les Filles. They're pretty good, but I think I like Tartit (who also put out an album this year) better. And as female singers in this style go, Mariem Hassan remains the queen for all time, even in death.

Salif Keita’s voice sounds exquisitely powerful on his latest album Un Autre Blanc . He has supposedly said this will be has last album ever.

Not all of Keita’s songs and backing instrumentation work, but his voice is potent throughout

The Wuta Mayi album is classic Congolese rumba with a touch of 20th & 21st centuries romantica aspects. I approve.

Bassekou Kouyate and his current band are more mellow than he & his earlier band were in the past, but they have enough rhythm and groove to make it still work

There’s a Les Filles interview in the new Maggot Brain magazine ( got it for Chanukah last night)

https://www.jonathanbogart.net/blog/100-songs-2019

Bogart likes afropop, Latinx reggaeton, Brazilian pop, Asian pop, and some US & UK r'n'b/rap/pop. He's got Youtube and Spotify list links. Here are his top 10 of his 100 selections

1. Seyi Shay ft. Runtown, “Gimme Love”

2. Bad Bunny ft. Tainy, “Callaíta”

3. Titica ft. Laton Cordeiro, “Giro Na Bicicleta”

4. Lady Zamar, “This Is Love”

5. Tomasa del Real, “Contigo”

Started a new 2020 thread:

Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2020 Thread (Often African bands)

Started listening to 2019 Omar Souleyman-Shlon album yesterday and like it— Syrian wedding music goes electro, as you may recall from his earliest releases