Monday, February 27, 2006

Powerspot 01 March 06



On the show tonight you either heard or you missed the following.

Karsh Kale- CD Redesign-Realiize Remixed -Saajana (Ming & FS Mix) (Six Degrees Records 657036-10742-7


About This CD
A cutting edge cast of electronica's finest contribute remixes of tracks from Karsh Kale's stunning debut, Realize. Featuring new mixes from Bill Laswell, DJ Spooky, Banco de Gaia, Ming & FS and others.

Before currency was used in trade of services and products, humans relied on bartering to attain the necessities of life. This practice extended to art; often a bard would live within a castle in exchange of words or song. From this theory Redesign: Realize Remixed was born. By now a classic in club culture, Karsh Kale's Realize is a cornerstone in the fusion of South Asian music and modern electronica. Weaving richly textured tabla beats among thumping dancefloor rhythms, Realize is as close to organic technology as one can produce. It's only appropriate that Kale would invite a group of peers and friends to offer their interpretations of these songs on Redesign.

Eleven versions of eight tracks span the breadth of this momentous disc. What's as interesting as the music, as is often the case, is the story behind it. Namely that unlike many remix albums, each musician or producer is also receiving a remix by Kale of their work: The story of barter, updated to modernity. Bill Laswell, who has remixed more songs than just about any musician alive (including recent works by Bob Marley, Miles Davis, and Carlos Santana) splices up "Empty Hands," Realize's opening song. Kale has performed with Laswell on numerous occasions, including alongside Ethiopian soulstress Gigi, Herbie Hancock, Jah Wobble, dj Cheb i Sabbah, and the epic Tabla Beat Science featuring Zakir Hussain and Ustad Sultan Khan. Kale is currently working on a Tabla Beat remix for an upcoming Axiom compilation, Laswell's own label.

Ba Cissoko- CD Electric Griot Land-Ma Grande Mer (Djeli) / On Veut Se Marier / Allah Lake (ABC 5101124392)

"The Ba Cissoko quartet is one of those rare groups adored by their entire country. Young people love them for their tradition-breaking approach to the kora, and old people love them for continuing the art of that instrument, rather than indulging in rap or other such frivolities" -- Katharina Lobeck, Songlines.
The group features two kora players: one acoustic and one re-enforced with a rack of special effects. If Eric Clapton played kora, this is surely what he would sound like.


Named after the band's leader and kora player, their debut album, 'Sabolan' is probably one of the most eagerly awaited African albums in recent memory.
Cissoko is the nephew of the great kora maestro M?Bady Kouyaté® The band's repertoire consists of selected pieces from the age-old Mandingo epic and chronicle-songs in Sussu or Peulh, all boosted by an urban, groovy, caustic sound. Ba Cissoko are trail-blazers similar to Mory Kanté in his younger years. Band members include Sekou Kouyaté¬ also on kora, bass player Kourou Kouyaté ¨both sons of the same M?Bady Kouyaté© and percussionist Ibrahima Bah. Sekou Kouyat駳 electrically enhanced kora creates a totally new sound, which has earned him the nickname "Jimmy Hendrix Africain."


Guinean kora master Ba Cissoko and his troupe are all musicians with feet firmly grounded in age-old traditions and eyes steadfastly fixed on new musical horizons. Cissoko was born in 1967 in Guinea Bissau to the famous musician Kandara Cissoko , one of the founders of the Ballet Djoliba, a Guinean dance troupe who put the music of their country on the world map. After moving across the border to Guinea Conakry in 1989, Cissoko began to hone his kora playing skills with M'bady Kouyaté, partriach of the Kouyaté clan, and one of the great griots of west Africa's Manding culture. Cissoko found a natural affinity and empathy who two of M'Bady 's sons, Kourou and Sékou, who now play bass, kora and electric kora in his group. It was this trio who blew up a storm at the international MASA trade fair in Abidjan , Ivory Coast , in 1998, and later came to France to work with the famed Congolese producer Ray Lema . Now supplemented by the vibrant young talent of percussionist, Ibrahim Bah, a Conakry street child barely out of his teens who spent his youth playing djembe on the beaches of the capital city, Cissoko and band blend together the ancient and delicately entrancing sound of the kora with a well built reggae rock foundation. Their sound is a solid as the roots of one of west Africa's huge baobab trees, and as fresh a sea breeze which wafts ashore from the Atlantic to clear out the polluted arteries of downtown Conakry . Courtesy of Andy Morgan, July 2004

You can read about Ba Cissoko here: http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_7402.asp BA CISSOKO AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES Thursday Feb 23 Kalgoorlie, gig in St. Barbars Square, Hannon St. Sat Feb 25 Albany Vancouver Arts Centre Tues Feb 28 Port Hedland Centenary Park Wed March 1 Newman Capricorn OvalFri March 3 Perth Becks VarandahSat March 4 Joondalup Joondalup SquareWed March 8 Cairns Tanks Arts CentreThurs March 9 Brisbane Judith Wright Centre Sat March 11 & Sun 12 Adelaide WOMADelaide, Botanic ParkMon March 13 Sydney The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Ballake Sissoka- CD Tomora-Tomora
Ballaké is one of the best kora players of the new generation. An obvious virtuosity mixed with a clear rhythmic demand from his trio, made up of two young n’goni and balafon improvisers. A master virtue and serenity serving his duos with Toumani Diabaté and the well remembered project with the bluesman Taj Mahal.

Karsh Kale- CD Redesign-Realiize Remixed -Distance (Banco de Gaia Mix) (Six Degrees Records 657036-10742-7

Various Artists- Latina Cafe Vol 2 (WAGRAM Records)
French compilation for the Paris hotspot. Featuring 30 Latin flavored tracks from such artists as Tito Nieves, Carlinhos Brown, Celina Gonzales, Pink Martini, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, Willy DeVille, Jose Padilla, Jazzanova, Frankie Valentine, Bustle & Out Up, Everything But The Girl & Mondo Grosso. Wagram Electronic release. 2001. Double digipak.

Up Bustle & Out-Dance of Caravan Summer: From Andalousia to Bristol-Summer on the Sweet (WAGRAM Records)
Willy DeVille - Hey Joe
Lenine - Rede
Buscemi-Ramiro's Theme
Carla Alexandar- É Assim


DJ Dolores- CD Contraditorio- A Danca Da Moda / Catimbo / Adorela

DJ Dolores (aka Helder Aragão de Melo) burst onto the global club scene a couple of years ago with his explosive and highly original mixture of traditional sounds from the brazilian northeast with dancefloor-friendly electronics and elements of rock & dub. Drawing his inspiration from urban and rural musical styles traditionally shunned by the establishment but favoured by the working classes (dance rhythms such as maracatú, song forms such as emboladas), DJ Dolores blends them with loops, breakbeats, street sounds & live instrumentation to create a unique musical cocktail which is culturally & politically meaningful, yet first and foremost irresistibly festive!

(From BBC 3)
It may seem incongruous, but one of the leading champions of traditional rural music from Brazil's Northeast doesn't think of himself as a musician. "I'm a producer and a DJ," explains DJ Dolores, a.k.a. Helder Aragão de Melo. Nor is he a woman, as his playful stage name initially led many of his fans to believe. "Brazil is a very macho place, so it's a kind of provocation," he says with a chuckle.
He began DJing in 1989 in his hometown of Recife - 'the Venice Of Brazil' - and soon made a name for himself on the local 'mangue beat' scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lenine and Mundo Livre. By 1997 he was making his own music, grateful of the new technology which made this possible for a 'non-musician'.
In 2002, after three independent releases (which included music for theatre and film) Stern's licensed the Contraditorio? album he'd recorded with his group Orchestra Santa Massa. It combines local ingredients such as rural maracatú, the rap-like embolada style of vocals, the côco beat and the unique rabeca fiddle with live trombone and guitar, drum 'n' bass grooves, samples and assorted electronica. He cites hip hop, house music and avant-garde electronic composer Edgar Varèse as formative influences. And when the Belgian label Crammed Discs asked him to remix a song by Taraf de Haïdouks for their recent Electric Gypsyland compilation, he jumped at the chance, being a major fan of Balkan music.
He's currently working on a new album, tentatively titled Aparelhagem - a Brazilian term for a sound system. This will focus on the little known music of Belém in Brazil's isolated Northern State of Pará - the city's sound systems and the quirky Caribbean flavoured guitarrada style.
When not triggering samples and spinning discs live with his band, he still DJs as a solo artist, though he predicts he will soon ditch all his gear in favour of just one item: "Now I'm in love with a lap top. A small lap top."
Jon Lusk, November 2003

Nitin Sawhney- CD All Mixed Up-
Lately-Natasha Experience Mix
The Immigrant-KV5 Mix

Amazon.co.uk Review
A defining moment in any songwriter's career is when established artists will line up to remix their songs in an album of tribute. All Mixed Up is that momentous occasion in Nitin Sawhney's astounding career as a writer/producer/DJ. Sawhney has been scaling the decks of success since releasing his inaugural album Spirit Dance. He followed this up with the introspective Migration and then removed religious barriers on Displacing the Priest. But it is from his most recent releases the Mercury Prize-nominated Beyond Skin, the globally influenced Prophesy, and the life-struggle inspired Human that the collaborators on All Mixed Up draw from.

It is the sheer quality of the artists remixing Sawhney's work that makes this album so fabulous. The likes of Quantic, Freeform Five, MJ Cole, and London Elektricity among others are huge artists in their own right. But merged into a fusion of club-mix reworking of some of Nitin Sawhney's most popular tracks these artists add yet another level of intricate detail to Sawhney's complex mélange of sounds. Like an Asian quilt, Sawhney's music is colourful, interwoven complexity that tells a story about the most human elements of existence. And as if one album of aural pleasure isn't enough the man himself walks up to the decks on the bonus disc and mixes 24 minutes of his own brilliance. --Jarrod Rendle

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The thoughts of Chairman Chris Pt 2

1. Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?
2. Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough?
3. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
4. Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?
5. Why do they use sterilised needles for death by lethal injection?
6. Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
7. Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a gun at him?
8. Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
9. Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"?
10. What is the speed of darkness?
11. Are there specially reserved parking spaces for "normal" people at the Special Olympics?
12. If you send someone 'Styrofoam', how do you pack it?
13. If the temperature is zero outside today and it's going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?
14. If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
15. If it's true that we are here to help others, what are the others doing here?
16. Do married people live longer than single ones or does it only seem like it?
17. If someone with a split personality threates to commit suicide, is it a hostage situation?
18. Can you cry under water?
19. What level of importance must a person have, before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
20. If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
21. Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
22. How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on bigger suitcases?
23. Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up, like, every two hours?
24. If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
25. Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Monday, February 20, 2006

Playlist 22 February 2006











On the show tomorrow night, musical mystery and sounds to delight and entice one and all. Come in, come all into the musical carnivale that is Powerspot.


1. Nitin Sawhney- Heer- CD Human
2 Nitin Sawhney- Raag- CD Human
3. Bombay Dub Orchestra-Compassion
4. Bombay Dub Orchestra-Rare Earth
5. Bombay Dub Orchestra-Mumtaz
6. *State of Bengal vs Paban Das Baul- Kali- CD Tana Tani
7. Susheela Rahman- Sharayana- CD Music for Crocodiles
8. Steve Tibbetts Choying Drolma-Padmakara
9. Steve Tibbetts Choying Drolma-Song of Realization
10. Ashok Roy-Rag Mishra Pilu - Alap
11. L. Subramaniam-Vatapi- CD Free Your MInd
12. Fuji Dub-Fuji Dr Ewon (Triple Earth Remix)- CD Lagos Brooklyn Brixton
13. Fuji Dub- Fuji Fe Full (Godwin Logie Remix)
14. Nadya and 101 candles orkestra- CD Crazy Moon
15. Waiting for Guiness- CD The Show


Bombay Dub Orchestra

The Bombay Dub Orchestra is the brainchild of two English musicians, Andrew T. Mackay and Garry Hughes, who wanted to do something that hadn't been tried before: to make the ultimate chill-out album, using an Indian orchestra and soloists. Combining electronic sessions recorded in the UK with orchestral sessions in Bombay India the duo have recorded with the cream of Bombay's Indian classical musicians - including leading players of the sitar, tabla, bansuri (wooden flute) and some memorable vocal performers.

Welcome to a world of cinematic lushness, orchestral delights, global voices, rhythms, vintage synthesizers and electronic bleeps. This is Bombay Dub Orchestra – the remarkable debut album from the U.K.-based duo of Garry Hughes (Björk, Sly & Robbie) and Andrew T. Mackay (VAST, Annie Leibovitz). Bombay Dub Orchestra is music that will stroke the senses and enamour the soul, with its uniquely brilliant crossover of orchestral arrangements, modern, lush beats and synthesizers and a heavy slant to the music of India.

That territory has been mapped by bands like Röyksopp, Air and Zero 7, but no one had dragged a 28-piece Indian string section into the arena before. And while the name "Bombay Dub Orchestra" conjures up visions of the garish pop of Bollywood's song-and-dance numbers, or the reverb-drenched, proto-psychedelic sounds of Jamaican dub, this music creates and sustains a very different mood.

It all began some seven years ago when producer Garry Hughes and string arranger/composer Andrew T. Mackay, went to India to record some of that city's top session players for a project by the London based Indian duo Spellbound.

"I produced and Andrew arranged," Hughes recalls. "It was a fantastic experience recording these guys, and on the plane coming home we thought how great it would be to make an orchestral chill-out record with these players."

This was easier said than done, since both Mackay and Hughes had other irons in the fire. Andrew T. Mackay, who is classically trained and is a descendant of one Luciano Francesco Paggi, "the Italian flautist, painter and revolutionary," has a busy career writing music for films, television, and artists as diverse as photographers Annie Liebovitz & Herb Ritts and the late actor Peter Cushing as well as arranging string orchestras for the likes of L.A. rockers VAST and '80s legends ABC. Garry Hughes, who claims to be a direct descendant of "a long line of horse thieves," had gigs as a keyboardist and producer with artists like Björk, Sly and Robbie, Garbage, The Pink Floyd Orchestral Project, and The Art of Noise. When they finally had a chance to work on their long-delayed idea, the goal, according to Hughes, was simple: "to explore music that no one else had so far done."

Mid-tempo trip-hop propels a rich tapestry of orchestral strings in "Compassion," with occasional wisps of Indian and Western instruments and subtle hints of '60s cinema. The slow groove on "Dust" fits neatly beneath the lyrical flow of the strings and dreamy keyboards. By the time you reach "The Greater Silence" later on the disc, the ambient dreamscapes have completely taken over. This is a pure, floating soundscape from an orchestra. In classic "dub" style Hughes and Mackay have also generously provided a second CD of remixed "versions" of the original music tracks. These mixes take the material into new sonic realms, traveling from upbeat dancefloor fillers to ambient tone poems, which strip the material down to orchestral textures.

The majority of the music was written in the U.K., in Hughes' countryside studio and Mackay's West London studio. Mackay and Hughes then worked on the intricate, cinematic arrangements 'faking' them up with digital samples. They ended up with a pretty fair approximation of what their Bombay Dub Orchestra would sound like. But there was no chance that the two producers would be satisfied with that. "I love samples and use them a lot," Hughes says, "but some things you have to do with real players." Mackay added " There are some truly amazing orchestral sample libraries out there but there is nothing like the real thing, especially with the wonderful Indian musical intonations!"

In March 2005, Mackay and Hughes finally returned to Bombay and began putting the final elements of their long-awaited debut album together. "During that week, we recorded a 28-piece string section (12 violins, 8 violas and 8 cellos) on 10 different tracks. We recorded the orchestra several times to achieve the multilayered arrangements that we had scored."

That was during the day; in the evenings, they recorded the best of Bombay's Indian classical musicians - including leading players of the sitar, sarangi, tabla, bansuri (wooden flute) and some memorable vocal performances. As Hughes explains, "the great thing about Indian classical music is that it's all about improvisation. With Western classical musicians, it's sometimes hard to give them a melody and say, run with it. But with these players, we'd give them the written parts or melody and in some cases the vaguest sketch of a melody and hit the 'record' button."

The results were exactly what the producers wanted. And beyond this, some of the sessions inspired Mackay & Hughes to rescore and arrange several of the tracks. The vocals on "Feel," by Rakesh Pandit, a young Bombay-based singer brought in by engineering legend Daman Sood, were a complete surprise: he eventually leaves the melody completely and begins improvising in a beautifully energetic yet still somber way. The song would later have to be rebuilt when Mackay and Hughes got the sessions back to England, but it was worth the effort. "It was the most exciting week I've ever spent in a studio," Hughes states. "Then we took the whole lot home, and we spent some time extending the intro, outro and middle section to accommodate Rakesh's inspiring vocal performance."

What they made of it is a surprisingly varied group of pieces, given the overall mood of the album. "The Berber of Seville," for example, features not only a wacky pun in its title, but some killer North African singing by Khalid Kharchaf (who really is a Berber singer from Morocco via London's Portobello Road). "To The Shore" has a simple but appealing flute melody, supported by a striking orchestration of dulcimer, choir, strings and piano, all driven forward by steady percussion. And then there's "Beauty and the East." This epic mix of Indian instruments with electronica is one of the pieces that was further worked on in Hughes' studio out of the sessions recorded in Bombay and additional soloists recorded in London. Sitar, voice, tabla, bansuri, santoor and violin appear in rapid succession, over shifting electronic drones and a sturdy, rocking tabla and rhythm track. A sitar melody alternates with strings over redoubled percussion; the opening theme returns, and a solo Indian-style violin floats over a rich layer of drones.

Bombay Dub Orchestra also includes a few pieces that share in the album's more stark classical mood but which offer a surprising contrast in sound. "Sonata" is, as the name implies, a piece in more of a Western classical mode, featuring Andrew T. Mackay's piano. Even more striking is "Remembrance," a lovely, sparse piano solo, in a style that recalls the likes of Debussy, Fauré or Satie. The connection to the rest of the project may not be immediately obvious, Hughes says, but it's there: "My home is opposite an old church. Andrew went over one Sunday - it was Remembrance Day here (the U.K. equivalent of Memorial Day) and the pastor's theme was remembering the troops. He said that a lot of those people came from places like India and Africa and it was important to remember this when topics like immigration and racism come up. Andrew came back and wrote this piece." Violins followed by violas glide in at the end of the track seemingly from somewhere 'over the Himalayas' and then vanish as quickly as they appeared leaving the gentle yet poignant piano bare and fragile.

Garry Hughes is no stranger to Six Degrees fans: he has worked on recordings by Euphoria, Bobi Céspedes, and Continuo, among others. So while he didn't have a contract when he and Andrew T. Mackay were putting the Bombay Dub Orchestra together, he says "I did have Six Degrees in the back of my mind." He also says the experience of working with the musicians in Bombay was so rewarding that they're eager to do it again. The first sessions were filmed, so a visual document of the project may be in the works, and as for a potential follow-up, Mackay simply says, "much more of the album will be written in India and we certainly aim to get out there much earlier in the process."




Nadia's 101 candle orkestra- CD Crazy Moon

Fuji Dub-CD Lagos-Brooklyn-Brixton
Fuji -- Ferocious Urban Jungle Intensity -- a music named (so the story goes) by it's first master, Alhaji Dr. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, when he saw a postcard of Mount Fuji in an airport transit lounge and felt it graphically represented the essaential peace lying at the heart of the music. 'Were' -- a music expressing Islamic faith that helps act as a wake-up call to morning prayer for Yoruba Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. The roots of 'Fuji'.

'Fuji Dub' -- Five tracks from a Fuji master recorded in Brooklyn, U.S. remixed in Brixton, U.K.

The idea behind this was that I was fed up with all the various dance albums which used African or Arabic samples as a bit of exotic fluff on the top of a purely conventional (and boring) four-on-the-floor dance beat. Why not do it the other way round? Use an African music as the meat beat and studio dub techniques as the exotic bit. Nice idea in theory - not so easy in practice. Not least of which is that Fuji music (heavy duty Nigerian urban percussion) races along, whereas reggae gently lopes. Oh well, fun to do and has achieved cult status in certain quarters.

And who is the artist who wishes to remain anonymous? Simple - he even gets a name check within the first 30 seconds of the first song. He was fine for the remixing to be done, he was just concerned that it might confuse his audience as it's remixes of existing releases so him remaining anonymous was part of the deal. -- Iain Scott


State of Bengal vs Paban Das Baul- CD Tana Tani

Welcome to the place where words fail and music speaks.

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.

Steve Tibbetts & Choying Drolma- CD SELWA-Padmakara / Song of Realization


Choying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts


In 1997, Choying Drolma and Steve Tibbetts (a guitarist from Minnesota) created an international stir with a remarkable album of Tibetan Buddhist chants paired with atmospheric soundscapes of guitar and percussion. The guitarist was Steve Tibbetts, and while he'd built up a bit of a reputation through his critically-acclaimed albums for ECM Records, he created something profound, and profoundly different, in his collaboration with the Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. Rather than a slick piece of Western dance music with appropriated Eastern melodies, this was a carefully produced, deeply felt sonic environment built around and in response to an ancient practice of visualization and meditation. The Tibbetts/Drolma album was unlike anything else that was happening at the time, and it's taken seven years for anyone to follow in their footsteps. Finally, in their Six Degrees Records debut, Steve Tibbetts and Choying Drolma have released a new recording, called Selwa, which expands on the work they began in that first groundbreaking album.

Choying Drolma practices a form of Vajrayana Buddhism that involves cutting through the various physical and spiritual obstacles to enlightenment (the title means "cutting"), and that practice can take the form of a fairly vigorous meditation, often undertaken in provocative settings like graveyards. Tibbetts approaches this sort of source material with an uncommon humility and a healthy amount of respect. On Selwa, Tibbetts establishes his panorama of sound early on, with the moody, nocturnal instrumentation of "Palden Rangjung." Its flowing ambient acoustic guitar, drones, effects, and slow, almost tribal hand drumming echo the dark vision of Drolma's supplication:

Powerful blood drinker, glorious vitality In the land of Yama, you are Ekajati Fire eater, blood wearer, wearing the naga emblems Kali, the Blood Dripper, I praise you.

On a somewhat lighter note, Choying Drolma's singing on the track "Vakritunda" reflects both the sounds of devotional Hindu bhajans and contemporary Hindi pop music. "Vakritunda" is a piece with slightly more Western-sounding percussion and an example of the tasty, guerrilla guitar solos that sneak into much of Steve Tibbetts' work.

Perhaps the centerpiece of the album is "Song of Realization," an epic blend of multiple voices, hand drums, acoustic and electric guitars, and other less easily identified sounds. It is at once a transcendent and grounded work - again, because it follows the text of the aspiration prayer:

I do not recognize this earth as earth It is an assembly hall adorned by flowers. I do not recognize me to be me I am the supreme victor, the wish-fulfilling jewel.

The new album was built around recordings made by Tibbetts and his longtime percussionist Marc Anderson in Boudhanath, a Tibetan enclave in the Himalayan country of Nepal. There, not far from a school for nuns that Choying Drolma has founded, they recorded her chants, often feeding a drone into her headphones to set the pitch before letting the tape roll. "It seemed like she was singing with four lungs," Tibbetts recalls. "Some of her takes left Marc and I somewhat stunned. She'd finish the song. I'd quickly save the recording file on the laptop. Choying would say "Tik chha?" meaning, "it's okay?" and Marc and I would slowly nod." Back in Minnesota, Tibbetts and Anderson wove together tapestries of acoustic and electric guitars, shifting drones, and subtle hand percussion. They enlisted the support of Lee Townsend, who has produced most of Bill Frisell's recordings, and created an organic blend of ancient and modern, Eastern and Western.

Guitar aficionados have been following Steve Tibbetts' since 1977 as he has steadily gone about making himself one of the more inventive musicians on the American music scene. To a wider audience, however, Tibbetts remains a mystery. His albums reflect his own interest in everything from 1970s progressive rock (King Crimson, Eno, etc.) to ambient electronica, to world music. But the two collaborations with Choying Drolma occupy a special place in Tibbetts' music.

Choying Drolma is a fascinating character herself. She told an interviewer "Even before I was a nun I always had this thought, this question, wondering why, if boys can do something, why can't girls? That kind of attitude continued with me even in the nunnery. I would see lots of male teachers come and teach. All males. Why is it only monks that go on to become teachers, to get these chances? The Tibetan word for "woman" translates as "low birth." I hated that." She decided she wanted to change the traditional lot of women in Tibetan society, and given her notoriety since 1997, Choying has found the opportunity to do just that. "That's what I want to do with the school I've started, the Arya Tara school. I want nuns to learn many things and know why they are doing what they are doing, what the benefit is in it. Not just in practicing Tibetan Buddhism, but in learning math, English, learning basic medicine. If they're doing something, they must know why they are doing it."

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Selwa is that the musicians know "why they are doing it." On the surface, it seems a bizarre collaboration: Why would a pair of American musicians want to spend the time and effort to learn these chants and create a sonic environment that brings them to the West? Again, the answer lies in the text of one of the aspiration prayers. The concluding lines of "Song of Realization" read:

If you understand this song, it will be molasses for your ears. If you cannot understand it, you have no connection with this song.

Selwa is about understanding - not a literal understanding of the Tibetan meditations themselves, but an understanding of the practice of undermining the machinery of conceptualization; creating a space of non-thought, clarity, compassion, and bliss. Selwa offers an unexpected connection to a tradition that's over a thousand years old.

L.Subramaniam-CD Free Your Mind -Vatapi

Over an hour of musics in which L. Subramaniam punctuates his long phrases with ascending accents, a graland of notes that never lose their sense of interpretation. Recorded live at Indian Instute of Science in Bengalore and released in 2002

L. Subramaniam has been proclaim "Chakravarti" the emperor of violinists by his peer at the age of 15. The trio he created with his two brother, also violonits, became a legendary band in India. Since, he lead his career promoting carnatic music and playing as well with indian master as with international stars ( Herbie Hancok, George Harisson, Stanley Clarke, Larry Coryell). He is also a composer and had wrote down a very eclectic work: concertos, pieces for symphony orchestras, new rags and motion picture soundtracks.

Susheela Rahman- CD Music for Crocodiles-
Susheela Raman, Music for Crocodiles

The Australia-raised Asian singer marries East to West

Peter Culshaw
Sunday October 16, 2005

If you were a singer born in England to south Indian parents and raised in Australia, what would you sound like? Susheela Rahman has been struggling to find her true voice since her experimental, jazzy debut album Salt Rain (which was nominated for 2001's Mercury Prize). With her third album she really has arrived, alchemically melding East and West, her voice more mature, confident and richer. Paradoxically, the album is at once more Indian and more English. Among its many highlights are a heart-wrenching tribute to a friend who committed suicide, and a hypnotic funk reworking of 18th century Tamil holy texts.

As an artist, Raman continues to develop and explore issues of identity with new sounds that celebrate multiplicity. She draws her collaborators from across Europe, Asia, and Africa: Cameroonian bassist Hilaire Penda, Guinea-Bissau born percussionist Djanuno Dabo, American drummer Marque Gilmore, British-Asian tabla player Aref Durvesh, and of course British guitarist and producer Sam Mills are at the heart of this album as they were on Salt Rain. Paradoxically, Music for Crocodiles is both more English and more Indian than either Salt Rain or Love Trap. More than half the songs are in English (her first language) and Raman emerges as a formidable songwriter (listen to What Silence Said and The Same Song). And where on the previous albums there were musicians from everywhere playing Indian songs, here we have musicians from India playing songs in English. A new dimension came from recording in India, as well as in the UK and France. The Indian presence adds joy, light, and depth to the record. tric East African groove and Raman's blues based vocal could be from Addis Ababa, Mumbai, or Chicago. Incidentally the amazing Hammond organ is played by Malian Chek Tdjen Seck, the musical godfather of Paris. Light Years recorded in Madras, is a South Indian melody transmuted here into a sublime English love song. Meanwhile is Raman's melody, sung in English but based on the rare South Indian raga, Kanyakangi, which infuses its sultry, seductive atmosphere. For the first time, Susheela also sings in French on L'ame Volatile. The album was produced by Sam Mills and engineered by Stuart Bruce in the same room at Real World studios as Salt Rain. With much of the same band on the album it was a flashback to recording Ganapati. The buzz and feeling really reminded the whole team of Salt Rain. Everybody had that same feeling of excitement and revelation. Raman and producer Sam Mills put everything they had into this record. They took several months off to prepare for the studio and make sure they had the material they wanted and it's paid off: The buzz the record has created is like Salt Rain too - Raman and Mills have had a hard time keeping hold of their listening copies as people eagerly requested the album. Now we can all hear it.
As an artist, Raman continues to develop and explore issues of identity with new sounds that celebrate multiplicity. She draws her collaborators from across Europe, Asia, and Africa: Cameroonian bassist Hilaire Penda, Guinea-Bissau born percussionist Djanuno Dabo, American drummer Marque Gilmore, British-Asian tabla player Aref Durvesh, and of course British guitarist and producer Sam Mills are at the heart of this album as they were on Salt Rain. Paradoxically, Music for Crocodiles is both more English and more Indian than either Salt Rain or Love Trap. More than half the songs are in English (her first language) and Raman emerges as a formidable songwriter (listen to What Silence Said and The Same Song). And where on the previous albums there were musicians from everywhere playing Indian songs, here we have musicians from India playing songs in English. A new dimension came from recording in India, as well as in the UK and France. The Indian presence adds joy, light, and depth to the record. tric East African groove and Raman's blues based vocal could be from Addis Ababa, Mumbai, or Chicago. Incidentally the amazing Hammond organ is played by Malian Chek Tdjen Seck, the musical godfather of Paris. Light Years recorded in Madras, is a South Indian melody transmuted here into a sublime English love song. Meanwhile is Raman's melody, sung in English but based on the rare South Indian raga, Kanyakangi, which infuses its sultry, seductive atmosphere. For the first time, Susheela also sings in French on L'ame Volatile.

Nitin Sawhney-CD Human- Track Heer / Raag

Ashok Roy- CD Master of the Sarod

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Powerspot Playlist 15 February 06

Here's what's playing on the show tonight,

Bobby Singh- Bol- CD Random Factors
Shukar Collective- Malademna / Happiness
Konono No 1- Unguidi
Joseph Tawadros & Bobby Singh- CD Rouhani
Souad Massi- Bel El Madhi- CD Deb
Niyaz- Dhabaa- CD Niyaz
Nadya's 101 Candles Orkestra- CD Crazy Moon
Ulhas Kashalkar - Rag Hindol- CD Rasa Raag Ragas from Natya Sastra
(2 double passes to win to the show on Sunday night)

Speaking with Zulya in relation to her upcoming show at Winebanc (Sydney) tomorrow night.
Selected tracks off Elusive, Aloukie and The Waltz of Emptiness

Monday, February 06, 2006

Powerspot Playlist 8 February 06








OK Here's what's playing tonight on the show.

Natacha Atlas- CD Gedida

Amazon.com The swirl of Egyptian strings, hip-hop beats, love, and politics can make strange bedfellows, but once again Natasha Atlas, chanteuse and belly dancer, makes sense of it all. Singing in several languages (including French on the opener "Mon Amie la Rose") she delivers 11 exotic worldbeat tracks full of exuberance, reflection, and yearning that are at once compassionate and militant, her Arabic roots sharing center stage with her club experiences with the likes of Transglobal Underground. Funky beats, kanoun, oud, string sections, and percussion jostle for attention in the background as Atlas's serpentine vocals entwine the listener in tales of passion, injustice, and the mysteries of life. Recorded both in London and Cairo, Gedida is a truly cosmopolitan melting pot for the '90s, ranging from hip dance-floor grooves to traditional Egyptian orchestral arrangements, and Atlas, equally at home in both, is fast proving herself one of the most intriguing and original artists blending international cultures into a common musical language. --Derek Rath

Rachid Taha- CD Tekitoi- Tekitoi / H'Asbu Hum

French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha's view of world events is not one that's shared by many people. He was quoted recently by BBC's 'The World' as saying, "When I hear George Bush, and when I hear Osama bin Laden, I hear two bedouin nomads. The only difference he says, is that one of them is from the desert of Texas and drives an SUV, and the other is from the desert of Saudi Arabia and rides a dromedary." Taha says Bush and bin Laden come from similar well-heeled backgrounds. And both, he says, use a similar fundamentalist rhetoric

Rachid Taha / Cheb Khaled / Faudel- CD 123 Soleils- Khalliouni Khalliounni

Amazon.com The swirl of Egyptian strings, hip-hop beats, love, and politics can make strange bedfellows, but once again Natasha Atlas, chanteuse and belly dancer, makes sense of it all. Singing in several languages (including French on the opener "Mon Amie la Rose") she delivers 11 exotic worldbeat tracks full of exuberance, reflection, and yearning that are at once compassionate and militant, her Arabic roots sharing center stage with her club experiences with the likes of Transglobal Underground. Funky beats, kanoun, oud, string sections, and percussion jostle for attention in the background as Atlas's serpentine vocals entwine the listener in tales of passion, injustice, and the mysteries of life. Recorded both in London and Cairo, Gedida is a truly cosmopolitan melting pot for the '90s, ranging from hip dance-floor grooves to traditional Egyptian orchestral arrangements, and Atlas, equally at home in both, is fast proving herself one of the most intriguing and original artists blending international cultures into a common musical language. --Derek Rath

Garbarek / Brahem / Hussain- CD Madar- Jaw

Tabla Beat Science- CD Live in San Francisco at Stern Grove - Mengedegna

Featuring master percussionist Zakir Hussain, with Ustad Sultan Khan (sarangi and vocals) Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw (vocals) Bill Laswell (bass) Karsh Kale (drums, tabla) DJ Disk (turntables) Midival Punditz (electronics) Fabian Alsultany (synthesizers) Unpredictability is often the soul of a live performance, especially when it arises from an entirely new fusion of genres and cultures. So it happened that on August 12, 2001, in this same spirit of the unexpected, a group of high-caliber musicians under the name Tabla Beat Science convened outdoors among the towering eucalyptus trees of Stern Grove in San Francisco. Melding traditional Indian rhythms, African vocal styles, modern electronics, low-end dub bass and DJ breakbeats into a two-hour sonic experience, the music of Tabla Beat Science left an indelible mark on the thousands of people who were there to witness it. Live in San Francisco at Stern Grove (Axiom/Palm) recaptures the electricity of that day, and continues in what has become a tradition of monumental live recordings that bear the ineffable stamp of a Bay Area event, from Carlos Santana's Live at the Fillmore to Miles Davis' Black Beauty and beyond. ?I was definitely trying to emulate that sound, especially Miles' live sound from the early '70s, and to make it even larger," says bassist/producer Bill Laswell about the mixing process. "What's crucial is having that energy in the original performance, where you know everyone is feeling it on stage. If you don't have that, no matter how many times you mix it or how you manipulate the tape later on, it will never sound right. We were all pretty relaxed - we actually had a day to rehearse a few ideas, which is a rarity - and we had the right energy and the right atmosphere. We didn't edit or overdub anything in the studio; everything you hear is as it was played." Tabla Beat Science began as a collaborative studio project between Indian-born tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell, and has since grown to embrace a loose configuration of artists and a sub-culture of its own. The Tala Matrix CD, released on Axiom/Palm in September 2000, features "tablatronics" pioneer Talvin Singh (whose solo debut OK had won the UK's prestigious Mercury Prize the previous year), as well as impeccably recorded performances from vocalist and sarangi master Sultan Khan, Bombay percussionist and jazz veteran Trilok Gurtu, and Brooklyn-based drummer and producer Karsh Kale. The record drew praise from press and audiences alike, prompting The New York Times to rave, ì´¨e music is too aggressive to be ambient and too abstract for the dance floor; ití©¯ a genuine fusion that pours energy into the air, pauses to meditate and then rushes forward again. Live in San Francisco at Stern Grove reunites four of the core contributors to Tala Matrix and develops several pieces from that record into fully expanded live dub excursions, taking a cue from the Jamaican "dub style" that has had such a profound influence on rhythm sections today. The frenetic cut-time beats of drum-n-bass represent the modern offshoot of that style, and this is where the artistry of Zakir Hussain's tabla comes into full effect. From the long meditative duet with Sultan Khan called "Taaruf" that opens the set, he segues with a flurry into "Sacred Channel," an aggressive re-working of the Tala Matrix track "Secret Channel". Suddenly, hypnotic waves of pulsating low-end dub - connected by a seamless exchange of hyper-accelerated chops between Hussain, Laswell and Karsh Kale - take the sound of the tabla from the ancient past into an electric future. The worlds of East Africa and the Asian subcontinent merge with surprising harmony in "NafekeÒ¬" the signature song of Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw. Singing in her native Amharic tongue from Ethiopia, Gigi renders the vocal melody with jubilation, and is joined on the microphone by an inspired Sultan Khan, his voice as hauntingly beautiful as that of his multi-stringed sarangi. Khan Sahib (as he is known among friends and admirers in Mumbai, India) later takes the vocal spotlight for himself in "Magnetic Dub," a version of another Tala Matrix track that brings a lilting sarangi line together with undulating bass to close the first set on a euphoric high. The second set offers a taste of breakbeat culture as DJ Disk steps out on "Tala Matrix". Known in the Bay Area for his collaborations with Q-Bert and Mixmaster Mike, and as a founding member of the now-legendary Invisibl Skratch Picklz turntablist crew, Disk cuts his way into a raga of his own, with Hussain following his every move on various percussive instruments and Laswell and Kale coming in with a pulsating backbeat. The progressive electronic thread is then taken up by the Delhi-based production duo Midival Punditz, whose Bollywood-sounding drum loops and string orchestrations weave their way through "Trajic". By the time Gigi takes the stage again on "Mengedegna," everyone - musicians and audience alike - seems to sense that something completely new is being created here. And when the bhangra-tinged "Devotional Dub" draws the audience into its own rhythmic accompaniment, the music floating on a chorus of handclaps, it's clear that whatever may have been unplanned about this performance has somehow solidified into the feeling of freedom and soul that a truly live event brings.

Talvin Singh- CD Ha- Silver Flowers

Bedouin Ascent- V/A Arabian Travels Vol 2- Ganga Dev

Jalillah's Raks Sharki 6-CD In A Beirut Mood- Rakset Banat Baladi (Dance of The Country Girls) (www.calabashmusic.com)

In A Beirut Mood
Raks Sharki literally means Oriental Dance, what Americans know as "belly dance", a misnomer carried on down from colonial days in the Middle East. Since the 1960s, "belly dance" has become tremendously popular in the U.S. with schools, workshops, festivals, new "tribal" offshoots, and performance gatherings. This phenomenon has been well covered by social scholars who also examine, for instance, the search for cultural identity among white salsa dancers and those of American bands playing Balkan music. While still in high school Jalilah, a woman of German and Mexican descent raised in California, was attracted to the sound of the mizmar (the double-reed instrument). That launched a lifelong career devoted to the study and practice of Raks Sharki involving research and much foreign travel, performance, and teaching others what she has learned. During this process, Jalilah gathered a band of musicians around her to perform while she danced. Is she popular? While it might be considered somewhat unusual for a dancer to put out a record, this is her second collaboration with Lebanese composer Ihsan Al-Mounzer and the sixth full-length album of the music created for her dance productions.
First off, this is the music of Raks Sharki, not the music of the form commercialized as nightclub "belly dance". The long running opening piece is traditional to the dance performance, an introduction of the dancer to the audience. "Tales of the Sahara" caps out at 11 minutes, and exhibits many of the motifs expected of most opening dance numbers, which means heavy on the strings, expansive instrumentation which brings in elements of popular tunes, and unusually energetic to entice the interest of the crowd. These long presentations are also designed to show off a little bit of what the dancer can do, and so the music is broken into distinct movements. A third of the way through, there's a particularly charming and mesmerizing interlude that mimics the sway of camels walking and the tinkle of their bells. Then the mizmar drops in with a hypnotic riff (the "snake charmer" sound popularized in film) and you'll keep an eye on the lid of that basket in the corner in spite of yourself. Soon, the rhythm excites into a hip-shaking shimmying mode. These long musical introductions also acquaint the musicians to the audience, so each instrument is allowed a prolonged phrase for accent -- which means an oud break as well as a tabla solo. The dramatic "Tales of the Sahara" was actually composed for a theatre play (starring the late Lebanese dancer Dani Boustros), but the structure naturally lends itself to being incorporated into dance performance.
What's so endearing about In a Beirut Mood is that the music selection, rather than the nightclubby coin-jingling or the glitz and flash fare popularized throughout the U.S., honors the traditional forms that are still popular everywhere in Lebanon and Egypt. The drums and flutes (tabla, mizmar, and ney) are each accorded its own track, again to introduce the musicians and sound of their instruments. "Beirut Rhythms", is devoted to showing the percussive skills of drummer Bassem Yazbek. Just hearing this long rhythmic groove, one which likely took years of time-consuming and devoted practice to carry off effectively, brings a completely different image of Beirut to mind other than the bullet riddled buildings once so popular on American news broadcasts. The high-pitched mizmar sounds a bit lonely on "Mizmar Jabali", as if it is calling for other instruments to come play with it (which they soon do -- who can ignore the mizmar for long?). Then the slow slap of tabla before a long soulful breathy excursion into the sounds of the nay on "Ali's Nay". Traditionally, this wood flute is associated with the fluid snake-like movements in dance.
When everybody gets together on the next track, it's party time. "Lebanese Bouquet", which contains the traditional folklore that might be found at a Lebanese wedding, is announced by the wail of the mizmar, a sound that always gets attention. Violins, drums, the sparkling rattle of finger cymbals, and voices sliding together in song soon unite before an oud adds accent to the vocal chorus. The song slips through four distinct movements, some so irresistibly happy and appealing that you'll imagine the dancers as they spin. All the melodies were re-arranged by Ihsan Al-Mounzer so they can be danced to Raks Sharki style, and his are very complex arrangements.
"Rakset Banat Baladi" ("Dance of the Country Girls") is described as a "conversation between the accordion and tabla". The accordion hits minor and modal notes and ascends in stuttered climb in an undeniably Arabic sounding progression. This piece starts out slow and stately for the Egyptian baladi dance, then after six minutes the rhythm really picks up pace for the concluding two minutes. The opportunity to dance in another style is soon offered with "Kanoun Mood", played entirely by the kanoun -- a metal stringed instrument that sometimes sounds like a zither, other times like a dulcimer. The sustain and echo of the instrument and the long sounding brushes of the strings seems the perfect accompaniment for dancing in the kanoun style, which has many trembling and quivering movements.
Everybody gets down for "Al-Houriyah" ("The Fairy"), a 14-minute extravaganza that tells about those beautiful heavenly beings that live in Paradise. There is fascinating use of accordion here, as all the other pieces that feature Mohammed Haidar's playing on this record. His work, though often in ensemble setting, is so stand out it can't be ignored. Which makes me realize that I've never before been so conscious of accordion associated with the music of Raks Sharki.
Aside from the call for prayer from minarets and the sound of the oud growing more popular in the '60s, the most distinctly and recognizably "Arab sounding" music to the American ear is that made for Raks Sharki. The music on In a Beirut Mood is quite fantastic, providing a good cross section of styles and a learning experience that eases recognition of individual idiom. More than that, it's a lot of fun. If there's only one record devoted to Raks Sharki music in your collection, you'll be happy with this, but it will always make you want to see Jalilah dance. — 9 March 2004

Kim Sanders with Peter Kennard- CD Trance'n'Dancin-Soporific Taksim / Bebek

Zulya- CD Aloukie-

Artist of the Year 2001 (Australian World Music Awards) World Music Artist of the Year 2002 (Australian LIVE Music Awards) Album of the year 2000 for Aloukie (Australian World Music Awards) World Music Album of the Year 2003 nomination for elusive (Australian Record Industry Awards, ARIA) Multi award-winning ZULYA KAMALOVA is the leading proponent of Tatar music in Australia as well as one of the most versatile and accomplished vocalists on the world music scene today. A native of Volga-Kama region of Central Russia, ZULYA began performing Russian and Tatar songs at the age of 9. Later she studied music and languages at university level. Inspired by the diversity of cultures, she made a dramatic decision to settle in Australia in 1991 and began to not only share her traditional music with Australians, but to explore the musical and linguistic riches of the multitude of cultures living side by side in Australia. As a result, ZULYA has developed a totally original approach as an affirmation of her unique identity - an affirmation that takes her Tatar and Russian background to totally new places and in completely new ways. After a recent tour of Europe and a prolonged stay in Moscow, ZULYA is at the edge of an exciting new stage in her already illustrious career. ZULYA's first release in Australia, Journey of Voice (1997), a unique collection that ranges from sweet Russian lullabies to French cabaret to Brazilian Bossa Nova to South African township jazz and more, received accolades for its versatility, passion and the "achingly beautiful" tone of her voice. In the following years, Australian audiences have been able to witness the continuing rise of this unique musical treasure. ZULYA's later albums, Aloukie (1999) and elusive (2002) have recently been released in Europe and have been awarded and nominated for various awards - the World Music Album of the Year 2000 at the Australian World Music Awards (Aloukie) and ARIA 2003 (elusive). These albums feature traditional and original songs in her distinctive Tatar style but with unusual instrumentation (kora, oud, bouzouki, litungu, jaw harp, kalimba, tuba, flugelhorn, saxillo, tabla, ghatam, violin, accordion and others) presenting the traditional music from a new perspective. Several tracks from these albums have been included in various compilations such as Putumayo's "Music from the Tea Lands" and "Dreamland" along with many others. ZULYA's work has been repeatedly featured on national radio and television to high acclaim, and she was also awarded "Female Artist of the Year" at the World Music Awards (2001) and Best World Music Artist by Australian Live Music Awards (2002). ZULYA has been described as "a remarkable singer, who is not merely versatile..." by Doug Spencer of ABC Radio National.

She has worked with Bob Brozman, Nikola Parov, Slava Grigoryan, 'Sirocco', Llew Kiek and Epizo Bangoura among others. ZULYA continues to dazzle audiences with her multi-cultural proficiency and passion for music and song and during the last few years has performed at many major venues and festivals in Europe, Russia, Tatarstan and of course in Australia including The Moods (Zurich, Switzerland), Kulturbrauerai (Berlin, Germany), Savoy Teatteri (Helsinki, Finland), Szene Wien (Vienna, Austria), Cafe de Overkant (Netherlands), Kulturfabrik (Luxemburg), Red Square (Moscow, Russia), Piramida (Kazan, Tatarstan), Living Water festival (Altai Mountains, Russia), Red Club (St.Petersburg, Russia) and WOMADELAIDE (SA), Sydney Opera House - Festival of Asian Music and Dance (NSW), The Basement (NSW), The Boite Winter Festival (Vic), National Folk Festival (ACT), "10 Days on the Island" Arts festival (Tas), Woodford Folk Festival (Qld), Brunswick Music Festival (Vic), Brisbane Biennial Festival of Music (Qld), Apollo Bay Music Festival (Vic), Kulcha (WA), Musician in Residence Program, Aboriginal communities (N.T) etc. With her outstanding new band, The Children of the Underground (Anthony Schulz - accordion, Lucas Michailidis - electric guitar, Andrew Tanner - double bass, Justin Marshall - drums), ZULYA has just recorded her long-awaited Russian album, The Waltz of Emptiness (and Other Songs on Russian Themes).

Steve Tibbetts & Choying rolma- CD Selwa- Palden Rangjung / Mandala Offering

In 1997, Choying Drolma and Steve Tibbetts (a guitarist from Minnesota) created an international stir with a remarkable album of Tibetan Buddhist chants paired with atmospheric soundscapes of guitar and percussion. The guitarist was Steve Tibbetts, and while he'd built up a bit of a reputation through his critically-acclaimed albums for ECM Records, he created something profound, and profoundly different, in his collaboration with the Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. Rather than a slick piece of Western dance music with appropriated Eastern melodies, this was a carefully produced, deeply felt sonic environment built around and in response to an ancient practice of visualization and meditation. The Tibbetts/Drolma album was unlike anything else that was happening at the time, and it's taken seven years for anyone to follow in their footsteps. Finally, in their Six Degrees Records debut, Steve Tibbetts and Choying Drolma have released a new recording, called Selwa, which expands on the work they began in that first groundbreaking album. Choying Drolma practices a form of Vajrayana Buddhism that involves cutting through the various physical and spiritual obstacles to enlightenment (the title means "cutting"), and that practice can take the form of a fairly vigorous meditation, often undertaken in provocative settings like graveyards. Tibbetts approaches this sort of source material with an uncommon humility and a healthy amount of respect. On Selwa, Tibbetts establishes his panorama of sound early on, with the moody, nocturnal instrumentation of "Palden Rangjung." Its flowing ambient acoustic guitar, drones, effects, and slow, almost tribal hand drumming echo the dark vision of Drolma's supplication: Powerful blood drinker, glorious vitality In the land of Yama, you are Ekajati Fire eater, blood wearer, wearing the naga emblems Kali, the Blood Dripper, I praise you. On a somewhat lighter note, Choying Drolma's singing on the track "Vakritunda" reflects both the sounds of devotional Hindu bhajans and contemporary Hindi pop music. "Vakritunda" is a piece with slightly more Western-sounding percussion and an example of the tasty, guerrilla guitar solos that sneak into much of Steve Tibbetts' work. Perhaps the centerpiece of the album is "Song of Realization," an epic blend of multiple voices, hand drums, acoustic and electric guitars, and other less easily identified sounds. It is at once a transcendent and grounded work - again, because it follows the text of the aspiration prayer: I do not recognize this earth as earth It is an assembly hall adorned by flowers. I do not recognize me to be me I am the supreme victor, the wish-fulfilling jewel. The new album was built around recordings made by Tibbetts and his longtime percussionist Marc Anderson in Boudhanath, a Tibetan enclave in the Himalayan country of Nepal. There, not far from a school for nuns that Choying Drolma has founded, they recorded her chants, often feeding a drone into her headphones to set the pitch before letting the tape roll. "It seemed like she was singing with four lungs," Tibbetts recalls. "Some of her takes left Marc and I somewhat stunned. She'd finish the song. I'd quickly save the recording file on the laptop. Choying would say "Tik chha?" meaning, "it's okay?" and Marc and I would slowly nod." Back in Minnesota, Tibbetts and Anderson wove together tapestries of acoustic and electric guitars, shifting drones, and subtle hand percussion. They enlisted the support of Lee Townsend, who has produced most of Bill Frisell's recordings, and created an organic blend of ancient and modern, Eastern and Western. Guitar aficionados have been following Steve Tibbetts' since 1977 as he has steadily gone about making himself one of the more inventive musicians on the American music scene. To a wider audience, however, Tibbetts remains a mystery. His albums reflect his own interest in everything from 1970s progressive rock (King Crimson, Eno, etc.) to ambient electronica, to world music. But the two collaborations with Choying Drolma occupy a special place in Tibbetts' music. Choying Drolma is a fascinating character herself. She told an interviewer "Even before I was a nun I always had this thought, this question, wondering why, if boys can do something, why can't girls? That kind of attitude continued with me even in the nunnery. I would see lots of male teachers come and teach. All males. Why is it only monks that go on to become teachers, to get these chances? The Tibetan word for "woman" translates as "low birth." I hated that." She decided she wanted to change the traditional lot of women in Tibetan society, and given her notoriety since 1997, Choying has found the opportunity to do just that. "That's what I want to do with the school I've started, the Arya Tara school. I want nuns to learn many things and know why they are doing what they are doing, what the benefit is in it. Not just in practicing Tibetan Buddhism, but in learning math, English, learning basic medicine. If they're doing something, they must know why they are doing it." Perhaps the most impressive thing about Selwa is that the musicians know "why they are doing it." On the surface, it seems a bizarre collaboration: Why would a pair of American musicians want to spend the time and effort to learn these chants and create a sonic environment that brings them to the West? Again, the answer lies in the text of one of the aspiration prayers. The concluding lines of "Song of Realization" read: If you understand this song, it will be molasses for your ears. If you cannot understand it, you have no connection with this song. Selwa is about understanding - not a literal understanding of the Tibetan meditations themselves, but an understanding of the practice of undermining the machinery of conceptualization; creating a space of non-thought, clarity, compassion, and bliss. Selwa offers an unexpected connection to a tradition that's over a thousand years old.

Joseph Tawadros- CD Storyteller


HOW TO RECRUIT THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB

Put about 100 bricks in no particular order in a closed room with an openwindow.Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door.Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze thesituation.
If they are counting the bricks.Put them in the accounts department.
If they are recounting themPut them in auditing.
If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks.Put them in engineering.
If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order.Put them in planning.
If they are throwing the bricks at each other.Put them in operations.
If they are sleeping.Put them in reception
If they have broken the bricks into pieces.Put them in information technology.
If they are sitting idle.Put them in human resources
If they say they have tried different combinations, yet not a brick hasbeen moved.Put them in sales.
If they have already left for the day.Put them in marketing.
If they are staring out of the window.Put them on strategic planning.
And then last but not leastIf they are talking to each other and not a single brick has been moved.Congratulate them and put them in top management

Friday, February 03, 2006

Powerspot is looking for sponsors

Powerspot is looking for sponsors who may be interested in getting their message across to a ready to listen audience. If you are interested in targetting a new audience via radio please get in touch with 2SER's marketing department on 02 9514 9514.

What a friend we have in cheeses

No doubt she finished it all off with a diet coke....Read on.

February 2, 2006 - 1:30PM

A 45-kilogram woman ate 26 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes today at a New York restaurant, winning the World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship.

Sonya Thomas won $8,000 for the contest at the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Times Square but said she was disappointed in her performance.

"I could have done better," she said, adding that she was aiming for 30 sandwiches.

Thomas said she had to catch a train shortly after the contest to make her shift at a Burger King on Andrews Air Force Base in Virginia, where she is a manager.

She said she has a naturally big stomach capacity and heavily soaked her sandwiches in water to make them easier to swallow. She said to train she drinks large amounts of water to expand her stomach capacity and practices relaxing her throat.

Thomas, whose normal weight is about 45 kilograms, estimated she gained 4.5 kilograms during today's contest.

It was a close win. Her nearest competitor, Joey Chestnut, ate 25 1/2 sandwiches.

On the eating contest circuit, Thomas is known as the "Black Widow," apparently because she has defeated so many larger men.

She holds numerous world eating records, including 46 dozen oysters in 10 minutes, five kilograms of cheesecake in nine minutes, 48 chicken tacos in 11 minutes, 37 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes and 56 hamburgers in 8 minutes.

The event was organised by GoldenPalace.com, an internet casino and poker room.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Zulya Kamalova Tour Dates

Here our upcoming gigs in Albury-Wodonga, Canberra and Sydney
this will be our last tour interstate for while. Please read on.

10 Feb, Wodonga,
the JAZZ basement, 8 pm, 51 Elgin Boulevard,
jaztek@bigpond.com

Canberra Multicultural Festival, ACT
http://www.multiculturalfestival.com.au/australianworldmusic.htm
12 Feb, 9 pm, Tilley's Devine cafe, Wattle St, Lyneham
plus Sydney Balalaika Ensemble

16 Feb, Sydney,
The Wine Banq, 8.30 pm, 53 Martin Pl, T. 02 9222 1919
bookings@winebanq.com.au


We'll be launching yet another edition of The Waltz of Emptiness (and
other songs on Russian Themes)including the bonus DVD Live at Bennetts
Lane and a new music animation video! The Waltz of Emptiness received
rave reviews in Europe (including 4,5 stars from German Rolling
Stone!) and stayed in the top 20 of the European World Music charts for
4 months, a feat no other Australian album in this genre ever acheived!


Regards, Zulya and the Children of the Underground

more info
www.zulya.com