Various Artists- CD: The Rough Guide To Arabesque
Beyrouth Ecœurée - Clotaire K
Dourbiha - Momo
Since its experimental beginnings in the early 1990s, Arabesque's blend of traditional musical roots and modern electronically generated rhythms has taken the world by storm. From the groundbreaking beats of those early days to the cutting edge Dar sounds of today, the artists featured on this album hail from Marrakech, London, Montpellier, Beirut, New York, Paris and Berlin, neatly illustrating the global scope of the Arabesque phenomenon. This Rough Guide offers a wide-ranging introduction to the infectious appeal of modern Arabic electronica.
Emmanuel Jal and Abdel Gadir Salim, CD: Ceasefire
Cesaria Evora- CD: Best of
Cesaria Evora, born in 1941 in the port town of Mindelo on the Cape Verde island of Sao Vicente, is known as the barefoot diva because of her propensity to appear on stage in her bare feet in support of the disadvantaged women and children of her country.
Long known as the queen of the morna, a soulful genre sung in Creole-Portuguese, she mixes her sentimental folk tunes filled with longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordian, and clarinet. Evora's Cape Verdean blues often speak of the country's long and bitter history of isolation and slave trade, as well as emigration: almost two-thirds of the million Cape Verdeans alive live abroad.
"Morna is like the blues because it is a way to express life's suffering in music."Evora's voice, a finely-tuned, melancholy instrument with a touch of hoarseness, highlights her emotional phrasing by accenting a word or phrase. Even audiences who do not understand her language are held spell-bound by the emotions evident in her performances.
Now 54, and a grandmother (though never married), Evora is gladdened by her current worldwide popularity,
"... in all those years when I sang in bars and in front of strangers I sometimes had an idea I might someday be successful outside my country. The thought never stayed with me for very long, but here I am."
Jah Wobble- CD: Mu
Reviewed by Wolfgang Steuer
On first listen to Jah Wobble’s album MU I was blown away! There was the expected dub, but there also was Jazz (I thought initially I heard some Miles Davis) and Indian Music (I thought a slice of a bollywood movie) and Jethro Tull flutes. So I expected to read a lot about samples in the liner notes, and found a host of people mentioned that had created these wonderful sounds. To name but a few it was Harry Beckett on trumpet I had mistaken as Miles Davis and Clive Bell whose flute amazed on Samsara all over the groove-meisters work which ties this very ambitious piece of work together. Chris Cookson’s guitar on New Mexico Dub reminds me of the surf guitar histrionics last heard on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. By last track Into The Light Jean-Pierre Rasle’s pipes with Satomi Takada’s spoken words, you will understand my enthusiasm in this work.In Jah Wobble’s own words though he also credits Mark Angelo (co-producer and mixer of this and many of his previous albums), stating that “he is the most under appreciated and unacknowledged ‘back room boy’ in the game that I know of”. The album started live as a joint project of an ‘universal dub’ in 5.1 sound. This was abandoned very early on due to the technical difficulties this created. We are left with a super stereo sound that places voices and instruments all over the place, enveloping the listener.Mu the title as explained in the liner notes refers to an old Zen Koan. The beautiful cover work is inspired by this, and, as Jah Wobble admits, “hitting that low E on the Bass…THAT’S MU!
Various Artists- CD Congotronics No 2 Buzz 'N' Rumble From The Urb'N' Jungle
Konono No1 - Live From Couleur Café
By Chris May
Earlier this year, the Congolese trance band known as Konono No. 1—a Mad Maxian agglomeration featuring ingenious and massive DIY amplification, electronically distorted, outsize likembe thumb pianos, and drum and percussion instruments made from recycled industrial scrap—burst out of Kinshasa to shock and awe the European music scene with Congotronics. It wasn't a jazz album by any means, but it was sufficiently creative, dangerous, and uncompromising to appeal to the experimental margins of the jazz, world, rock, and dance music scenes.
There's more of the mesmerising same, served up with a little more variety, on this excellent second volume in the series, subtitled Buzz 'n' Rumble From The Urb 'n' Jungle, featuring Konono alongside six other Kinshasa trance bands. Masanka Sankayi + Kasai Allstars open the album in bass-heavy, throbbing, neo-Konono style with “Wa Muluendu,” and Konono itself shuts things down, more or less apocalyptically, with “T.P. Couleur Cafe.”
In between these two monumental slabs of sound are seven tracks of a relatively (repeat: relatively) more subtle nature. Most of the bands have percussion and likembe sections in their back line, and these are variously augmented by up-front bells, balafons, berimbaus, accordions (a retained Europeanism dating back to the colonial era), slit drums, and rumba-meets-something-like-thrash metal electric guitars.
Compared to the smooth, lyrical grooves of the classic Congolese rumba style spawned by Joseph “Le Grand Kalle” Kabasele in the '50s and honed by Luambe “Franco” Makiadi in the '60s, today's Kinshasa trance bands might seem like rough trade coming out of nowhere. In fact, they are simply the latest and most extreme manifestation of a back-to-the-tribal-roots, post-colonial, punk-rumba, roughing-up tradition that started with Zaiko Langa Langa in the '70s and grew more pronounced with Choc Stars and others in the '80s. Konono and its brother/sister bands are an integral part of the dirt-poor Kinshasa suburbs where they find their audience, more or less recently arrived tribal people from the bush and forest, and they serve to keep traditional tribal cultures—and the human spirit—alive in the most desperate circumstances.
As an added bonus, Congotronics 2 includes a 45-minute DVD showing some of the featured bands in rehearsal. The handheld camera sound quality is poor, but the visuals bring the music to vivid contextual life. The dancing—all the groups include dancers—is a thing of wonder in itself. Basokin are fronted by three dancers whose stately yet astonishingly trippy choreography (and makeup) is inspired, quite probably, by divine intervention. Seeing is believing.
"This is one of the wildest records of the year.Forget all your preconceptions about African music - Congotronics 2 is a whole new strain of pop" (The Observer, UK)"Every rock fan and musician should hear this album as a timely reminder of what their perpetually derivative genre used to be about. This is rock sucked back to the continent of its birth to be granted a glorious resurrection" (Word, UK)
... AND CONGOTRONICS 1 (KONONO No.1)
"So what do [Konono No.1] sound like ? A cargo cult built around a Steve Reich recording and a fuzzbox. The late work of Jimmy Page, had he bought Kurtz's mansion instead of Crowley's. [...] Afro-soul, had Jaki Liebezeit from Can produced in Nigeria rather than Ginger Baker [...] King Leopold's worst nightmare (and the reason he never visited "his" Congo). A New Orleans funeral for Patrice Lumumba. An African funeral for New Orleans [...] You get the idea. (Damon Krukowsky, Boston Phoenix, USA)
"Not only the finest African album of the year, but also the most exciting electronic dance record, this remarkable hybrid of homespun percussion, euphoric whistling and thrillingly overamplified electric thumb pianos is guaranteed to get any party starting" (Ben Thompson, Sunday Telegraph, UK)
State of Bengal Vs Paban das Baul, Tana Tani
(Realworld)
Moner Manush
Tal Rosh
These two WOMAD regulars are arriving from opposite camps, one being electronically geared for the UK dancefloor, the other steeped in ancient folk traditions.
Paban is a member of Bengal's Baul sect, itinerant minstrels whose religious ideas centre around the nameless, sexless nature of God, and the importance of the body as a conduit for spiritual matter. This seems vaguely akin to Sufi beliefs in its visceral nature. Paban was initiated at the age of 14, singing his songs across India's rail lines. He's accustomed to fusion work, having already collaborated with guitarist Sam Mills on the Real Sugar album, for Real World in 1997.
This time, Paban's meeting has taken his music in an even more extreme direction, with Sam Zaman (State Of Bengal) providing club beats, heady production and an uncompromising dialogue with the old ways. The two musicians were introduced at a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan tribute, shortly after the Qawwali singer's passing. Zaman was already accustomed to spinning Paban's first Real World disc during his DJ sets. Sessions started at Sam's home studio in Upton Park, east London, then continued in what was then Paban's Paris residence.
Paban Das Baul's central contribution to each song is an emotive vocal line, with his specialised Baul instrumentation taking on a decorative role. It's Zaman's gigantic rhythm tracks that form much of the musical muscle, taking a drum 'n' bass format as their starting point, even though this is frequently settled down into a calmer manifestation.
Guest players include Marque Gilmore (specialising in real-drumkit breakbeats) and Asian Dub Foundation's bassist Dr. Das. Zaman encouraged Paban to write his own words, determined to stretch him into unfamiliar positions. Paban's extended technique allows his voice to soar majestically, his lines usually remaining tranquil, even if his musical backing is becoming agitated.
On certain tracks, the Baul element is intensified, with "Ram Rahim" featuring the wobbly khomuk drum, whilst "Padma Nodi" clatters with the banjoesque dotara. The most forceful confrontation happens during "Dohai Allah", which is heavy on the acoustic percussion, yet still pumped up by weighty breakbeats. The majority of the songs maintain their linear flow, underlining a developing musical theme rather than shunting into differing areas.
Reviewer: Martin Longley
Tana Tani' plunges Paban into the dub-heavy melee of the British Asian breakbeat scene, where his ecstatic, smoky vocals soar over juddering beats and squelchy basslines, and his urgent and hypnotic rhythms mutate into frenetic drum 'n' bass breaks.
The collaboration began in Zaman's home studio in Upton Park, east London in December 2002 and continued to grow at Paban's Paris home. During the sessions Zaman began working around Paban's strong, timeless melodies and haunting lyrics, building up each song organically. Often Zaman's syncopated beats were unfamiliar to Paban, and essentially they had to learn each other's music. Both Zaman and Mimlu Sen (Paban's partner and collaborator) made suggestions, and Paban experimented by fitting more familiar rhythmic patterns like the dhrupada of the jhaptal into Zaman's syncopations.
'You can take a Baul to a track,' explains Mimlu Sen, 'but you can't make him synch unless the approach is organic and interior.'
Reviewer: Evening Standard UK
This is described as a folk culture over 500 years old meeting this digital soundscapes of the 21st century. The versus of the title suggests some sort of contest, but if the British Asian music scene has proved anything, it is that the subcontinent's rich and ancient cultures are ripe and durable enought for fusing. State of Bengal (aka Sam Zaman) is a leading DJ and producer in the Asian club scene, and Paban Das Baul is a singer from Bengal's mystical sect of wandering minstrels, the Bauls. While the album's shape and character comes from Zaman, it's felicitous details come from Paban's incantatory vocals and the traditional Baul instruments used on many of the tracks. The title track translates as "pushing and pulling", which could be a metaphor for the whole project. A fine release from the label that pioneered the historic Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan fusions a decade ago.
Reviewer: Songlines Magazine 'Top Of The World' UK
Asian Fusion Disc of the Year So Far
The result of this cultural meshing of streetwise dance production and ancient folk culture is remarkably cohesive, which bears testimony to Zaman's sympathetic production and Paban Das Baul's willingness to embrace Westernised dance sounds.....The album features Asian Dub Foundation's Aniruddha Das on bass, and renowned jazz drummer Marque Gilmour, who replicates drum'n'bass skittering hi-hats and kick-drum patterns to startling effect. The result is extremely funky... and deeply soulful, with Paban's soul-searching voice sounding marvellous throughout. The Asian-fusion disc of the year so far.Rating (out of 5):
Reviewer: Mojo UK
State of Bengal Vs Paban Das Baul
Sometimes getting spiritual while melting your brain appeals. When London's State of Bengal last passed this way, there was a short but memorable collaboration with Ananda Shankar, the psychedelia-minded sitarist. This time, they've teamed up with a leading light of Bengal's Bauls, a musical gypsy caste of minstrels, ascetics and devotees of tantric sex, to go to places others have ventured (Temple of Sound and Rizwan-Muazzam, Massive Attack's remix of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) and update them for 2004.
Reviewer: ethnotechno.com internet
State of Bengal Vs Paban Das Baul - Tana Tani
Tana Tani - meaning "push and pull", a metaphor for many things, as we shall see - is a brilliant serenade to what's quickly becoming known as Asian Chill... The very opener is destined for fame, certain to be picked up by more chill-out comps than Thievery Corporation and Groove Armada combined: "Moner Manush," the very definition of lie-back-relax-and-immerse-submerge-yourself-into-your-self-and-the-Self-we'll-take-care-of-everything. From there, it only gets better. "Kali," the black goddess, sees beautiful light as Zaman and Baul once again push/pull meaning into metaphor. The following tribute, "Radha Krishna," is a midtempo mindswirl, and by the time they reach the title track, you've been fully stretched, sedated and surrendering. Even when Zaman programs d-'n-b, as in "Tana Tani," "Ram Rahim" and "Al Keuto Sap," he allows spaciousness to exist. Much like the Baul practice of Aarope Sadhana - the yoga of breathing - Zaman lets his beats out for fresh air. He even steps aside, on occasion, and lets tradition be kept: the heartwrenching "Padma Nodi" and "Kon Ek Pakhi," a minimalist dream. The album's opus, in this journalist's ear, may very well be "Medina," with sounds mimicking the Australian digeridoo and Brazilian berimbau, laid atop an absolutely unbeatable (slightly) broken beat. Paban's voice continues its sensual voyage from headspace to heartspace, and you give in. There is no choice, really. Tana Tani is seductive, reels you in with delicate claws and rips away fragments of your being. When you recover, you realize it was excess dissolved, and you emerge with clarity, focused, inspired and content.
Real World Records
State of Bengal All Rights Reserved 1987-2004 ©
Peter Dickson & Juan Martinez- CD Falsettas
At the age of six he started exploring rhytm. And now at 39, his concerts in Australia and Europe are a rage. Peter Dickson, born in Bangalore is all set to take the city by storm.
Peter always had the urge to create rhythms and fuse music. In his childhood days, he would spend hours playing on buckets with knitting needles to old jazz records. The result surprisingly was good! Peter now resides in Sydney and makes music for a living. His passion is now his profession and has taken him to the top of Australian charts.
"Rhythm to me is the soul of all life. From the first heartbeat of a baby to life around, everything moves to a rhythm. People respond to powerful rhythm and my strength is rhythm", Peter explains. "I try to tailor in soulful melody with rhythm".
Peter's music is a rare Indian rhythm structure that is merged with native Latin grooves and further enhanced with the art of Flamenco. This unique style has it's roots in Indian traditional music. Peter writes Western music notations and harmony, and adapts them to suit Indian percussion instruments. "It has a very Indian feeling to a Western melodic and harmonic structure", he says.
Peter attributes the deep emotional expression that oozes out of his music to his roots that are in Bangalore. "Musicians here play from the heart because it is a reflection of our constant exposure to life in all its dimensions. You see and feel pain, pleasure, success, depression and the entire spectrum of experience vividly. This sort of exposure is not common in the West. It encourages soulful expression and music", he elaborates.
He has nine albums and over a hundred compositions so far. His concerts typically begin with his guitar renditions accompanied by tabla and ghatam support. After a night raag sort of beginning, he moves into a whole range of Latin and jazz styles wit Indian percussion fused in to create melodies that blend the rhythms of the east and west. "My music gives Western audiences a feel of Indian rhythms in a music environment that is familiar to them", he says.
A good fourteen years after his first album, Peter is looking for a market at home. "My albums have done well abroad and I want to bring my music here, where it all started", he smiles. He is now in Bangalore to launch his albums in India and open up possibilities for concerts here.
So how does it feel coming back? "It's a walk down memory lane and an inspiration", he says. "The immense pace of development I see here inspires me and I want to be part of it". He plans to bring his entire troupe here shortly. "I work with some of the best players in the world and it will be a treat for the music lovers here", he says. He has performed with greats like Martin Taylor. Peter feels people here are very music literate and will follow the textures of fusion easily.
The man with a flair for fusion that Bangalore exported is back to share his creations that have captured the hearts of Australian and European audiences.
Marcel Khalife- CD Caress
Marcel Khalifé was born in 1950 in Amchit, Mount-Lebanon. He studied the oud (the Arabic lute) at the Beirut National conservatory, and, ever since, has been injecting a new life into the oud.From 1970 to 1975, Marcel Khalifé taught at the conservatory and other local institutions. During that same period, he toured the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States giving solo performances on the oud.Oud playing was traditionally constrained by the strict techniques that governed its playing. Highly talented and skillful musicians such as Marcel Khalifé were, however, able to free the instrument from those constraints and thus greatly expanding its possibilities.In 1972, Marcel Khalifé created a musical group in his native village with the goal of reviving its musical heritage and the Arabic chorale. The first performances took place in Lebanon. 1976 saw the birth of Al Mayadeen Ensemble. Enriched by the previous ensemble’s musical experiences, Al Mayadeen’s notoriety went well beyond Lebanon. Accompanied by his musical ensemble, Marcel Khalifé began a lifelong far-reaching musical journey, performing in Arab countries, Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, Australia, and Japan.Marcel Khalifé has been invited several times to festivals of international fame such as: Baalbeck, Beit Eddine (Lebanon), Carthage, El Hammamat (Tunisia), Timgad (Algeria), Jarash (Jordan), Arles (France), Krems, Linz (Austria), Bremen (Germany), ReOrient (Sweden), Pavia (Italy), World Music Festival in San Francisco, New York, Cleveland (the USA).He has performed in such prestigious halls as the "Palace of Arts" in Montreal, "Symphony Space" and "Merkin Concert" in New York, "Berklee Theatre" and "New England Conservatory" in Boston, "Royal Festival Hall", and "Queen Elizabeth Hall" in London,"UNESCO Palace" of Beirut, Cairo Opera House (Egypt), "Reciprocity","House of the Cultures of the World" and "UNESCO Hall" in Paris, "Central Dionysia" in Rome, "Yerba Buena" in San Francisco,"Sõdra Teatern" in Stokholm.Since 1974, Marcel Khalifé has been composing music for dance which gave rise to a new genre of dance, the popular Eastern ballet (Caracalla, Sarab Ensemble, Rimah, Popular Art Ensemble)Marcel Khalifé has also been composing soundracks for film, documentary and fiction, produced by Maroun Baghdadi and Oussama Mouhamad among others.Marcel Khalifé has also composed several purely instrumental works like The Symphony of Return, Chants of the East, Concerto Al Andalus "Suite for Oud and Orchestra" "Mouda'aba" (Caress), Diwan Al Oud, "Jadal" Oud duo, Oud Quartet, "Al Samaa" in the traditional Arabic forms andTaqasim, duo for oud and double bass.Marcel Khalifé’s compositions has been performed by several orchestras, notably the Kiev Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of Boulogne Billancourt Orchestra, The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the city of Tunis, and the "Absolute Ensemble".Since 1982, Marcel Khalifé has been writing books on musicthat reflect his avant garde compositions and the maturity of his experience.His challenges, however, are not only musical in character. Interpreter of music and oud performer, he is also a composer who is deeply attached to the text on which he relies. In his association with great contemporary Arab poets, particularly Palestinian poet par excellence, Mahmoud Darwish, he seeks to renew the character of the Arabic song, to break its stereotypes, and to advance the culture of the society that surrounds it.His lyrical recordings adds up to about 20 albums, the likes Promises of the storm, Ahmad Al Arabi, Weddings, Peace Be With you, Ode To A Homeland, Arabic Coffeepot, The Children and Body(Al Jassad,) to name a few.On his journey, Marcel Khalifé invents and creates original music, a novel world of sounds, freed of all pre-established rules. This language elevates him to the level of an ambassador of his own culture and to the vanguard of Near Eastern music in search of innovators.
Rokia Traore- Bowmboi
Rokia TraoreBowmboi(Label Bleu)
On paper Rokia Traore is a bit of a radical. She's one of Mali's leading new singers, although she's not a traditional griot musician. She tries new ideas, combining traditional instruments that aren't usually brought together, and on this album works with the classical musicians, the Kronos Quartet. To my untrained ear her experiments are entirely successful.
The daughter of a Malian' diplomat she built her career in France before returning to Mali and is only now becoming a star there. On this, her third album, she sounds right at the heart of the traditions of West African music.
Rokia's vocal style is very much her own. She doesn't have the high pitched, keening, attack of Oumou Sangare, or the rougher, deeper tang of Kandia Kouyate, both of them great female artists from Mali. Her voice is quavery and bird-like, soft, fragile and attractive. Curiously, it reminds me a little of Ethiopian and even Asian vocal styles. But it has an inner power, and on the faster paced songs she sings with impressive authority. "Mariama", is a passionate, intense duet with male griot singer Ousame Sacko, and one of the album's highlights.
The gentleness of Rokia's voice means this album is a reflective, subtle experience even on the faster songs like "Sara" or "Kote Don". And the two collaborations with The Kronos Quartet work extremely well. The strings lay down a pulsing layer of shifting tones and Rokia murmurs and declaims over them, and on the lovely "Manian" there's a little vocal part that sounds like Laurie Anderson's "O Superman". These tracks don't feel like experiments at all; they sound like something that could have been created in West Africa anytime in the last thousand years.
This is an album full of contemplative and meditative pleasures. If you love Malian music you will probably already have heard of Rokia. If you haven't Bowmboi is certainly worth adding to your collection.
Reviewer: Nick Reynolds
