Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2021 Thread (Often African bands)

Great find!

BC, on the off chance you are unfamiliar with Wang Li, I think you would dig him! Here's a fun duet project with Wu Wei:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_gl7IKjc_w

...but I am playing the Wang Li x Wu Wei album now...

#onethread

(so far it’s very different from what JiC posted, bar a few wilder episodes, but I’m enjoying it all the same)

? maybe i'm misunderstanding your post but that's not wang li in the chinese opera video, different artists altogether.
Just thought if you like one you might like the other.

I got that! it’s just that beside the fact that they’re both Chinese musicians they don’t seem to have all that much in common (talking about the album here)

I do like it, like I said, so it’s all good and xiexie!

(but what does JiC have to say about all this?)

(currently digging “Sun and Snow” off that Overtones album)

the similarities in my mind were the mouth reed stuff

Wang Li is worth exploring; all his albums are great.

I honestly don't know much about Chinese opera, let alone this approach to it. It's definitely wild, though, since the clips are sometimes like watching an avant band like, say, the Ex but hearing totally different sounds come out.

I just learned about this South Korean band Jambinai:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1k7CDVWVk

I've seen them described as post rock, which makes sense, but I also think it sometimes sounds weirdly like Nine Inch Nails.

nice piece on Ballaké Sissoko here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/07/ballake-sissoko-picking-up-the-pieces-after-us-customs-broke-his-kora

great pandemic profile of a wonderful musician practicing and parenting

RIP Gash Ayele Mamo, Ethiopian mandolin player and songwriter who played a big role in classic Ethiopiques music

Vieux Farka Toure stream concert April 15 . Tickets start at $7
https://sessionslive.com/VFT/tickets?fbclid=IwAR1zTC1eaUapuWPRXd9IWud6KpIahoi6KEh29prjhvIpDkUawAcZkmrZ6q4&ad_id=23847191289370755&publisher_id=Facebook_Mobile_Feed

Anybody see "The Mali Cuba Connection"

In the midst of the Cold War, ten young promising musicians from Mali are sent to Cuba to study music and strengthen cultural links between the two socialist countries. Combining Malian and Afro-Cuban influences, they develop a revolutionary new sound and become the iconic ensemble ‘Las Maravillas de Mali’. New Year’s Eve 2000. Richard Minier, a French music producer meets a former member of the band in Bamako and decides to bring the band back together

https://afivsr.eventive.org/films/the-mali-cuba-connection-606a3bc9eaf9ff005cebd6ff

or Zanka Contact ? Am curious about both of these movies

Re Zanka --

"A car crash throws together a has-been rocker who has just returned to Casablanca and a streetwise con-artist, who get lulled into the shenanigans of the city’s music underworld."‘For three days after the Bataclan, I thought I was dead,” says Ismaël el Iraki, whose debut feature, Zanka Contact, is a Wild at Heart-type love story starring Ahmed Hammoud & Moroccan music star Khansa Batma w/ debts to Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone.

Leaning towards seeing both of those movies

The Zanka Contact reviews on letterboxd are pretty withering but I am curious.

I read reviews elsewhere and the best I saw was “a mess but a fun one”.

Jambinai is cool!

[googles Jambinai]

Korean avant-rock. Does sound cool. Adds it to list to listen to later

hehe, a video was posted upthread, sounds like a studio take but looks live

many xps but sissoko's new album "Djourou" is pretty great

Yep Ballake Sissoko’s kora playing is heavenly. I really like the cuts with vocals on them best , I must admit though

mainly been listening to the stunning new Arooj Afab album Vulture Prince today

^the two tracks that are up on Bandcamp are gorgeous

An old friend used to recite the Rumi poem she sings on "Last Night" a lot; he was also the reason I got super into reggae, so the lightly skanking rhythm on that is perfect to me

listening to this now, spellbinding

it's really wonderful, big thanks to calzino

she is instantly super high up on my list of concerts I would like to see

yes that's spectacular, thanks for the tip

I like Aftab’s vocals plus the strings and arrangements. Pitchfork has given it a good review and it’s a best of album there ( singer lives in Brooklyn too!)

happy to be introduced to Arooj Aftab, I love this album. that Pitchfork review is very detailed and knowledgeable. this quote may be obvious, but I think it's worth highlighting:

Educated at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Aftab has as much of a claim to the Western traditions of jazz and experimental electronica as to the folk and classical music of her native homeland. She mixes and matches these traditions not with the awkward, respectful hesitancy of an outsider, but with the casual intimacy of an initiate.

"Saans Lo", one of the highlights for me, brought to mind Nina Simone's version of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes".

rob made a thread:

Arooj Aftab

I posted in the Ethiopiques thread about the death of pioneering Ethiopian record producer and label owner Amha Eshete. After he later fled Ethiopia he came to Washington DC and started the Blue Nile and Ibex clubs and continued to work with Ethiopian musicians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xJETByzg7A

DC based Ethiopian singer/ guitarist Kumera Zekarias discovered Colombian music in DC and heard some similarities to Ethiopian music. He eventually went to Colombia and recorded with some Afro-Colombian musicians. He has now released a 4 song ep Biyya Chonta on Spotify and Bandcamp.

I like the Kumera Zekarias ep and video, and interviewed him about the project

https://medium.com/seventhirty-dc/on-biyya-chonta-kumera-zekarias-creates-a-heady-blend-of-ethiopian-and-colombian-grooves-353a460a9beb

Zekarias’s buzzing guitar work stands out as well. He says that a friend has jokingly told him that he “can’t speak Amharic that well, but your guitar does.”

Zekarias speaks some Amharic, Oromo, Spanish, & English. That’s from my latest article -

He organically blends that guitar sound well with Afro-Colombian tinted vocals support and the marimba & hand hit drum percussion

Banning Eyre of Afropop.Org is starting his own label Lion Songs Records and the first release on the label, Boubabcar "Badian" Diabaté's Mande Guitar (African Guitar Series Vol I, drops June 4).

Anyone has checked out Duda Beat - Te amo lá fora ? It's an exceedingly pleasant and smooth glossy mix of pop, r&b, Brazilian genres, and more. It has a certain vintage quality. Kali Uchis and Javiera Mena are my closest reference since I'm not so familiar with the scene in Brazil. Anyway, let's start with the closer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qNnmmfdhY
Duda Beat - Tocar Você

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkv-w5QJPC0
Duda Beat - Meu Pisêro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS92p-sUDq4
Duda Beat - 50 Meninas

Since I'm at it, I also quite liked Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés - Clamor which is also pop but more rooted in classically trained folklore. The electronic touches are well blended and the album is consistent.

Nice. May want to xpost to Modern Brazil - s/d

Nice vocals

I need to check out Khaira Arby New York live 2010

Arby was a powerful voiced Malian singer who died young at 58 in 2018. Now this live recording has come out

Angélique Kidjo has a new album coming out next month; Burna Boy is on one track. She dedicated her 2020 Grammy win to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpwUq-tZfmE

Also seeing reviews of new Mdou Moctar album

The Moctar w/ his touring band album "Afrique Victime" is his first on Matador

it's a really good album this, some absolutely sick guitar playing and the songs are growing on me.

Listening for first time this morning. Sounds good. The one white guy in the group Mikey Coltun is from DC. Coltun’s dad is a guitarist who runs an international music club/ restaurant in DC. Dad has played with a DC based Malian musician for some time

A fantastic South African record — Philip Tabane's The Indigenous Afro-Jazz Sounds Of..., from 1969 — is being reissued on LP only (boo, hiss) next month. Bandcamp link

It's a duo disc, just guitar and percussion for most of it, but Tabane occasionally plays flute and the percussionist, Gabriel "Sonnyboy" Thobejane, plays thumb piano. Tabane's guitar style is somewhere between Grant Green and John Lee Hooker, really raw-sounding but technically quite skilled. If you can find a digital version, or own a turntable, snap this one up.

That'll be this? https://open.spotify.com/album/4BPFOWZvn6eKmZOGk3oJKZ?si=6em_cftNSMGut_ajvMwm8Q
sounds good indeed

India Covid relief benefit stream

Live Performances By:
Terry Riley
Kala Ramnath & Abhijit Banerjee
George Brooks & Utsav Lal
Chuck Johnson
Saturday, June 5
4pm PST / 7pm EST

https://grayarea.org/event/music-for-india/

This is fantastic Afro/Cuban/Funk/Jazz based out of Cologne

Mutio Kaballa Power Ensemble - Mamari

https://muitokaballa.bandcamp.com/album/mamari

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973428817/new-compilation-of-old-tunes-is-an-alternate-history-of-the-worlds-music

More on Excavated Shellac collection

x-post- Mutio Kaballa Power Ensemble have a little afrobeat as well as the jazz