Table of contents for May 2024 in Songlines

On the eve of this year’s WOMADelaide Palestinian rap group 47Soul revealed that they’d had their invitation to perform at the festival postponed until 2025 with the festival director Ian Scobie saying that it was because the group could not ‘be presented safely’, saying that when they made the decision they were unsure if 47Soul could be ‘a cohesive part of the discussion [on] the unfolding situation in the Middle East.’ In their statement 47Soul said that the decision ‘feeds into the narrative of Palestinians being an inherent source of danger to others’ and that it ‘stops short of including Palestinians at a time when amplifying Palestinian voices could not be more critical.’ This last point was felt at the event, reviewed on p76, where we have the curious situation…

Abbey Lincoln Abbey is Blue (Riverside, 1959) Abbey is one of the most important voices in jazz. She’s not as popular as Ella [Fitzgerald] but she has that very strong characteristic and sharp colour in her voice. This album is beautiful, it’s very melancholic, it’s not going to cheer you up, it’s not swinging, you can feel that ache, that pain, in songs such as ‘Lonely House’ and ‘Brother, Where Are You?’ You have to stay and listen to it. She’s also a very strong lyricist and wrote so many poems. She has a strong perspective. It was so new to me when I first heard [it], especially in terms of the jazz voicing, how she phrases and pronounces the words. And sometimes she doesn’t sound beautiful, but it doesn’t…

The Afghan Youth Orchestra made it for a South Asian Sounds concert at London’s Southbank Centre plus dates in Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham by the skin of their teeth. Part of the Afghan National Institute of Music (ANIM), they are currently based in Braga, Portugal where they’ve been given asylum since 2021. Their UK visas were turned down just days before the concert. After spending seven months and over €12,000 on biometrics and visas for the tour, Jay Visvadeva, artistic director of Sama Arts UK, who organised the visit, called the Home Office decision “callous and inhumane.” After a vigorous social media campaign, media stories and political pressure, the Home Office saw sense and overturned their decision several hours later. However, by that time the flights had been cancelled and…

Rohingya Refugees Once I Had a Home Hardly a ‘small’ country, Bangladesh has the eighth largest population in the world and is one of the most densely populated. It’s estimated that as many as three million people died during their battle for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Known for its humidity, the nation has never recorded a temperature below freezing. In 1982, the Rohingya people were made stateless on the land they’ve lived on for thousands of years and became ‘unlisted’ as one of the Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) government’s 135 ‘national races.’ Today, the Myanmar military rulers refuse the use of the term Rohingya, instead referring to the Rohingya as illegal immigrants. The Myanmar military aggressions have officially been declared a genocide and experts state that the Rohingya…

BrhyM Deep Sea Vents Zappo Productions / Thirty Tigers Deep Sea Vents is a self-consciously quirky, sometimes witty and occasionally beguiling ten-track album of songs by Bruce Hornsby in collaboration with the New York-based, post-classical chamber sextet, yMusic, which was co-founded in 2008 by Rob Moose. A multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer, conductor and orchestrator, Moose has worked with everyone from Taylor Swift and The Decemberists to Joshua Bell and Jay-Z. For Deep Sea Vents, Hornsby and yMusic (performing under the collective moniker BrhyM) have cast a loose-knit net of ruminations on the many permutations of water: ocean, rivulet, pirate preying ground. The album opener, ‘Wild Whaling Life’, comes out swinging with an acoustic bass groove around which strings, horns and winds dart like a school of fish in the open sea.…

SAICOBAB NRTYA Thrill Jockey NRTYA is an easy record to celebrate but a difficult one to enjoy. The album fully realises its mission of drawing upon ancient traditions to make futuristic music. Yoshida Daikiti’s sitar inspires a suite of punk-raga workouts which are enlivened by Motoyuki Hamamoto’s gamelan-influenced percussion and rooted by Akita Goldman’s bass. The X factor comes from Yoshimi, an artist and multi-instrumentalist with an uncompromisingly cool CV that includes her role as longtime drummer for Japanese rock band Boredoms and a collaboration with Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. Yoshimi’s vocal contributions are in-your-face, breathlessly following Daikiti’s rapid-fire sitar riffs and morphing into computer voice stabs that form part of the percussive palette. ‘Social This Dance’ establishes a demented jig through a duet between Daikiti’s sitar and a mysterious…

‘Sean O’Duibhir a Ghleanna’ (John O’Dwyer of the Glen) is an early Irish rebel song which has its origins in 17th-century history. The Sean O’Duibhir of the title is believed to be ‘the third son of Dermot O’Dwyer of Clonyharp Castle.’ The O’Duibhir clan was one of many which fought and lost against Cromwell’s annexation of lands in 1649-1653. These conflicts are at the heart of many versions of the song and, although Sean is said to have died in 1629, before the confiscations, his memory lived and lives on in this tune lamenting the loss of the old order. The glen of the title is thought to be the Glen of Aherlow. The Bunting Collection (1796), compiled by folk collector and musician Edward Bunting, contains the oldest known record…

AO Music Otherness Abbeywood Records Imagine yourself watching a performance where musicians perform a kaleidoscope celebrating world traditions, including multi-lingual voices, sometimes mysteriously inserting newly formed words made from different phonetics, and you might now have a picture of AO Music’s seventh studio album, Otherness. Rich harmonies provided by soft synth sounds overlaid with choruses of voices and instruments from across the globe throughout the album merge to provide a truly East-meets-West effect. Predominant South Asian sounds, with a bansuri featured in the title-track, join tabla, harmonium and improvised vocals from Varijashree Venugopal in a warm embrace of India. In contrast, tracks like ‘All is You’ open out with water sounds and layers of vocals that instantly transport you to China and South-East Asia. Lyrics such as ‘the world lives…

Africa Festival WHEN: May 30 – June 2 WHERE: Würzburg, Germany What the festival says: ‘The International Africa Festival has been existing since 1989 and is the largest and oldest festival for African music and culture in Europe. More than 7,630 musicians and artists from 56 countries of Africa and the Caribbean have performed in Würzburg so far and about 2,675 000 visitors have heard, seen and tasted the cultural wealth of the African continent.’ What we said: ‘With a great location next to the Main river in Würzberg, Africa Festival brings together a solid line-up of Africa’s finest. Würzberg, a historic Bavarian city famous for its wines, architecture and culture, proves a perfect environment for a festival that also includes films, exhibitions, awards and a lively children’s programme. Who’s…

Social media. If there were any positives to come out of the pandemic, one of them must surely have been the ways that independent musicians have taken control of their own houses. Largely we, as a cottage industry, have decided to stop waiting for a mythical label to point the giant lottery finger at us and bestow buckets of cash and cachet for us to serve our art and our dreams. During lockdown, I joined Clubhouse, as did many sitting with their cats on their knees, looking through the hopeful window to the world that is the internet. Through algorithms directed by choosing your interests when you sign up, I met The Songwriting Academy, and surfed various rooms offering advice on how to manage social media, maximise my potential and…

Mateusz Dobrowolski A performer and teacher of the Eastern European frame drum, Mateusz travels from his home in Warsaw, Poland, to Ukraine, to experience the fractious cultural life of Kyiv during wartime (p71). Jameela Siddiqi Jameela is an award-winning broadcaster, novelist, journalist and educator of Indian classical music, dance and poetry. She has reviewed for Songlines since the first issue. She profiles the Sabri Brothers on p68. Oli Warwick A freelance music journalist exploring leftfield music from across the world for more than 15 years, Oli surveys the vibrant experimental scenes emanating from the Middle East and North Africa on p28. Songlines was launched in 1999 and is the definitive magazine for world music – music that has its roots in all parts of the globe, from Mali to Mexico,…

June 2024 (#198) On sale May 10 We hear from exciting names in English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh folk music, including Laura Cannell, Daisy Rickman, Landless, Malin Lewis, Goblin Band and Angharad Jenkins. Guatemalan singer Sara Curruchich talks about taking her Indigenous culture to the world; we have Ana Lua Caiano, a new voice in Portuguese music, and Sarāb, uniting contemporary jazz with Middle Eastern traditions. Screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce reveals the music that has shaped him for our My World interview, Finnish harmonica quartet Sväng get a Beginner’s Guide, and we hear from Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai about his extraordinary 1972 debut album. Plus, our extensive UK Festival Guide.…

Emel Mathlouthi (aka EMEL) never wanted to call herself a feminist. Then she realised that she’d been one all along. “I thought, hang on, it’s not even a big deal. Women should be feminists by default, especially with everything that is going so wrong in the world right now. We need to flush these toxic patriarchal systems from everyone’s bodies.” The Tunisian singer, composer and arranger has been making moves to do exactly that, both by challenging the norms of the male-dominated music industry and by writing protest songs that encourage a new way of being. Her guitar-led tune ‘Ya Tounes Ya Meskina’ (Poor Tunisia) and the formerly banned folk-hymnal ‘Kelmti Horra’ (My Word is Free) – which she sang to protestors on the Avenue Habib Bourguiba during Tunisia’s Arab…

Pamela Badjogo YIÊH Raphia Gabon-born singer Pamela Badjogo honed her chops as a backing vocalist for Grammy-winning powerhouse diva Angélique Kidjo, then went on to feature in line-ups including Alba Griot Ensemble and – with the likes of Kidjo, Oumou Sangaré and Kandia Kouyaté – the consciousness-raising collective that is Les Amazones d’Afrique. Like most of the artists that have moved through the latter, the France-based Badjogo is a force in her own right, and has flexed her penchant for mixing Afro pop, Bantu-style highlife and Afrobeat with effervescent synths and female-empowerment lyrics across solo albums Mes Couleurs (2016) and Kaba (2021). And while Badjogo’s agency is such that Kwame Yeboah, music director of Ghanaian icons Pat Thomas & Ebo Taylor, has once again lent his services to this appealing,…

She won last year’s BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year award at Celtic Connections, and Amy Laurenson’s Strands (Amy Laurenson★★★) draws the strings on melodies from ‘Shetland, Scandinavia, Mainland Scotland and Ireland.’ It’s a set of tunes that combines piano, guitar, double bass and bodhrán, alongside piano and guitar duos and solo piano pieces. She’s a brilliant player, inventive and finding the pulse across a range of improvisations, as her music tells a story of sorts, beginning in her native Shetland, and encompassing contemporary and classical inflections rising out of those trad roots. Check out ‘Da Trowie Burn’ for some stunning solo work. Mike McGoldrick produces uilleann piper Leonard Barry’s Littoral (Leonard Barry★★★), his third solo album, its title (meaning ‘on the shore’) a nod to the…

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Until six years ago, men and women weren’t even allowed to attend concerts together in Saudi Arabia, but here was Chaka Khan singing ‘I’m Every Woman’ and telling her mixed audience to “get on up.” There have been pop shows in the Kingdom before but this was a government-funded festival at a venue where the audience were supposed to remain seated. How should they react? They didn’t just start dancing but rushed to the foot of the stage. “Things have really changed,” said Mazen Lawand, guitarist with the Saudi Arabian ‘alternative fusion’ band Garwasha. The first Riyadh International Jazz festival, which took place February 7-9 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was an intriguing affair. The Mayadeen exhibition hall, out in the ancient Diriyah region, had been transformed into a plush 1,800-seat…

It’s summer 2017. Marina Satti’s second single ‘Mantissa’ has become a radio hit in Greece and Bulgaria. Kelly Fanarioti of HuffPost is interviewing Marina in her birth town of Athens, where the track’s already viral video was made. Fanarioti parrots the frequent request from Satti’s fanbase that she appearpear on Eurovision: “For me, it is still the beginning of my career,” she replies, “Of course, it can be done in the future only if I had the right team and we had something great to suggest.” Fast forward to autumn 2023 and Greece’s national broadcasting corporation ERT has decided to nominate Satti to perform at the forthcoming contest without any national competition held. Why is that not a surprise? First: Marina’s music. It’s undoubtedly modern, but also based on a…

Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you! Write to: Email: letters@songlines.co.uk Songlines, Mark Allen Group, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road London, SE24 0PB, UK We reserve the right to edit correspondence WEBSITE songlines.co.uk GIG GUIDE songlines.co.uk/gig-guide X @SonglinesMag FACEBOOK facebook.com/songlines INSTAGRAM @SonglinesMag Celebrating Past and Future Congrats to the superb Songlines team for putting together an informative and action-packed issue [#195] that both pays tribute to the many fine artists who have graced its pages over the last 25 years as well as illuminating the next generation of sounds and voices (and perhaps the first issue to mention IPA?). Here’s to another 25 years of discovering the world through music. Mark Gorney, Berkeley, CA No to the Negative! Russ Slater Johnson in his editorial in issue 196 ponders whether…

Helma Dream (Emel Mathlouthi, 2007) Self-released CD of demos and live recordings, including many of the songs that she would become known for. On the album are ‘Kelmti Horra’ and ‘Naci en Palestina’, an adaptation of the Spanish-language ‘Naci en Alamo’ to pay homage to Palestinians and their struggle. Kelmti Horra (World Village, 2012) With stunning versions of ‘Kelmti Horra’, ‘Ma Lkit’ and ‘Dhalem’, it’s a fine studio debut with an extended palette: chanson-esque chamber strings alongside bendir and daf drums, moving choirs and dashes of electronics. The 2022 reissue comes with her emotional live rendition of ‘Kelmti Horra’ from the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Ensen (Partisan Records, 2017) A clear move away from protest songs as EMEL begins to defy easy categorisation and create a pan-global sound. She…

Sexteto Caracas Ritmo y Sabor de Fiesta Con El… El Palmas Music An exuberant slice of ‘salsa con guitarra eléctrica’ from late 60s Venezuela. The happy-clappy boogaloo of opener, ‘Solo Para Ti’, defines this entire timbales-powered party album. Salsa Suprema En la Conquista del Mundo Latino El Palmas A bigger, horn-driven outfit – what distinguishes this 1979 album are the impassioned vocals of Larry Francia. A Venezuelan Héctor Lavoe, perhaps, who poignantly died last year, two days after signing with El Palmas. Ghetto Brothers Power-Fuerza Vampisoul From the Bronx’s vibrant Puerto Rican community, Ghetto Brothers’ 1972 release fuses Joe Bataan, Sly Stone and The Rascals in a raw, funky mix of scratchy guitar, catchy bass lines, busy percussion and endearing vocals. The eight tracks were recorded in one day and…

TOP FOLK Julie Abbé Out of the Ashes Julie Abbé Folk, blues, swing, world music and jazz combine to weave their trade winds across UK-based French singer Julie Abbé’s fine second album. It’s eclectic, beautifully performed, with a fine-sounding band that includes guitar, double bass, sax, clarinet and piano, as well as multi-instrumentalist Paul Johnson delivering the exquisite tones of the bansuri flute, the Catalan gralla, Balkan kaval flute, and duduk. He’s prominent on the stand-out ‘Mélusine’ (a folkloric Lamia/mermaid figure), featuring the tones and drones of gralla, kaval and bansuri alongside Sam Quintana’s double bass. Abbé’s voice is a smoky delight, singing in French and English, and as well as the ‘Mélusine’, we encounter ‘Medusa’, wreathed in the soft airs of Johnson’s bansuri and featuring Ewan Bleach’s clarinet combined…

Ramzi Aburedwan & Dal’Ouna Ensemble Oyoun Al Kalam Riverboat Records Originally recorded in 2007, Oyoun Al Kalam, by multi-instrumentalist Ramzi Aburedwan & Dal’Ouna Ensemble finally gets a digital release 17 years later. This album of poetic songs and instrumentals from the Middle East region is made up of original compositions and was the first of the group’s four records. It features soaring vocals by ‘Oday Al-Khatib and Noura Madi, both young refugee students of the Al-Kamanjati music school that Ramzi founded.’ Though it is a traditional album in terms of instrumentation, it also very much feels contemporary, because music as good as this will always have a timeless quality. The opening track, ‘Idha Al Shamsi’ sets the tone of intricate oud playing that really showcases Aburedwan’s mastery of the instrument. ‘Tayara’…

“I try to talk to the whole level of humanity. I try to sing for the whole level of humanity.” Those are the words of internationally renowned visionary artist, musician and educator Lonnie Holley. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1950, the seventh of 27 children, Holley spent a significant portion of his life trying to ‘sneak off the slave ship,’ to borrow a line from a song on his 2019 album, MITH. As a child, he was raised in foster homes where he was tormented by alcoholic caretakers. As a teenager, he was sent to a notorious state juvenile work farm (whose horrific legacy was told in the 2023 podcast Unreformed: the Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children) where he was brutalised and tortured before being rescued…

“It’s so good you woke up. Hurry, there I will be a serious strike on the city, we have less than 30 minutes to be at the metro.” It’s 6am on Tuesday, January 23, 2024. We spend the next three hours at the Zhytomyrska tube station in the western part of Right-bank Kyiv, drinking herbal tea, listening to metro trains passing by and looking at the Telegram chatroom app which is providing official updates on the situation. And we exchange onlinen messages with neighbours and friends from the city who decided to stay in their homes. “Oh, there’s a dud missile in our neighbourhood,” my friend finds out. “Look, the cars are burning from the shot-down remnants of a combat missile, there’s a video,” they add. On that morning, throughout…

May 2-5 Shetland Folk Festival Shetland shetlandfolkfestival.com May 3-13 Edinburgh TradFest Edinburgh edinburghtradfest.com May 4-26 Brighton Festival Brighton brightonfestival.org May 10-26 Norfolk & Norwich Festival Norfolk nnfestival.org.uk May 15-18 The Great Escape Brighton greatescapefestival.com May 15-22 Afro-Pfingsten Winterthur, Switzerland afro-pfingsten.ch May 17-19 Festival des Musiciens du Monde Montreal, Canada centredesmusiciensdumonde.com May 17-26 The Bath Festival Bath, Somerset bathfestivals.org.uk/the-bath-festival May 18-20 Music Meeting Festival Nijmegen, The Netherlands musicmeeting.nl May 23-26 Druga Godba Ljubljana & Maribor, Slovenia drugagodba.si/en/festival May 23-26 Orkney Folk Festival Orkney orkneyfolkfestival.com May 25 – June 3 Fleadh Nua Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland fleadhnua.com May 30 – June 3 Fire in the Mountain Near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion A folk culture haven between the Cambrian mountains and Cardigan bay. Sam Lee, Cerys Hafana, Sam Amidon and more confirmed for 2024. fireinthemountain.co.uk…

01 Clementina de Jesus, Doca & Geraldo Filme O Canto dos Escravos (Estúdio Eldorado, 1982) Samba de partido alto singer Clementina de Jesus was only discovered in the 60s when she was already in her 60s herself, but she instantly blazed a trail for Afro-Brazilian music from Rio de Janeiro. She performed with Pixinguinha, Milton Nascimento, Naná Vasconcelos and cut the defining ‘Marinheiro Só’. This collection of slave songs from Minas Gerais, in which she shares vocal duties with Doca and Geraldo Filme, is one of many career highlights. 02 Serena Assumpção Ascensão (Selo Sesc, 2016) The title’s ascensão (ascension) refers to every life’s journey, ascending from the visible to the invisible realm. Based on the cosmogony and ceremonies of Nagos (Brazilian Yorubans), the songs pair popular music with the…