Tabla de contenidos para April 2024 en Songlines

This year’s Grammys included the first ever category for African music, with the Best African Music Peformance title going to South Africa’s Tyla. Quite understandably, considering all the nominations were from Nigeria and South Africa, and either entirely or largely in English, it has led some to question how representative the awards are. But then, isn’t that a question we should be asking across all of the categories? Do the Grammys measure anything other than success? Are they anything more than a marketing tool and expensive night out for the industry? Are we really expecting its members to trawl through African releases to find those that are groundbreaking or represent the region in some unique or beautiful way, or are they just going to plump for the big hitters on…

Paul Buchanan Mid Air (Newsroom Records, 2012) This is one of those records suggested to me by the algorithm, based on what I was listening to at the time. It was a case of love at first listen. It somehow struck me for its emotional resonance, and it has been a faithful companion due to the peaceful and calm feeling that it brings me. The silence and the space Buchanan creates within each song, as well as his lyrics about love, loss, death, all of it ended up having some influence on my own writing. He co-founded The Blue Nile, but released this solo record in 2012, some years after the band had called it quits. Later, I met Dead Can Dance’s Jules Maxwell, a friend of Buchanan’s, and he…

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 The Joy of Songlines I just thought I would email and let you know that I absolutely love Songlines! Artists and albums and gigs and songs and viewpoints I would not otherwise encounter. I read through and listen all through the month, and then repeat afresh each month. And then a little bit of back tracking. Magical. Thank you to you and your lovely team. Chris Maddocks, Shropshire Canadian Kudos Kudos to the person or persons who put together this 25-year CD. Wonderful choices, great variety in…

Kuljit Bhamra A Tablanaut’s Journey Keda Records Hear the tabla like you’ve never heard it before! This may seem a bold claim for an instrument central to subcontinental music for centuries, and redeployed to acclaim in drum’n’bass, jazz and beyond; but it’s true. Kuljit Bhamra has been part of many of tabla’s explorations. He has recorded the great gurus, composed for stage and screen, and collaborated on some stunningly beautiful jazz records with saxophonist Andy Sheppard. His diverse career has led Bhamra to experiment by supplementing the traditional two-drum tabla set up with four additional drums, and precisely tuning them to create ‘multiphonic tabla.’ This unique array is deployed to tell Bhamra’s life story. His self-taught origins in Southall set him on a ‘Road to Non Gurudom’ (a provocatively unconventional…

Budapest Ritmo WHEN: April 11-13 WHERE: Budapest, Hungary What the festival says: ‘Budapest Ritmo brings roots and rhythms, multiple genres, fusion styles, and unexpected cultural mixes to the heart of Budapest. Global lineup meets local talent, with Ritmo’s range growing each year: a showcase stage, a conference, networking events, screenings and afterparties all geared to inspire and connect. High energy, deep emotions – discover your new favourite sound at Budapest Ritmo!’ What we said: About the 2022 edition: ‘One of the things that marks out Budapest Ritmo is the special collaborations they have created for the festival, like the virtuoso Hungarian violinist Lajkó Félix with Polish string band VOŁOSI, or the Amsterdam Klezmer Band with Hungarian tambura group Söndörgő. These have been very exciting, bringing new and inventive ingredients to…

01 Various Artists Why the Mountains are Black – Primeval Greek Village Music (Third Man Records, 2016) It may seem a non-intuitive step to connect rural folk with free jazz, yet that’s exactly what we have here. This is wild, joyous music, almost ecstatic in approach, and never less than enthralling. To listen to this record is to step back into ancestral history. If that sounds like a grand statement, my only wish is that it inspires you to give this one a spin. 02 Domna Samiou Songs of History and Heroes (Greek Folk Music Association, 2007) Renowned singer and researcher Domna Samiou set out to capture songs whose geneses lie in wars, battles and heroic deaths. The tunes collected date from the 13th century right up to WWII, and the…

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, India to Iraq. Whether this music is defined as traditional, contemporary, folk or fusion, Songlines is the only magazine to truly represent and embrace it. However, Songlines is not just about music, but about how the music fits into the landscape; it’s about politics, history and identity. Delivered in both print and digital formats, Songlines, through its extensive articles and reviews, is your essential and independent guide to a world of music and culture, whether you are starting on your journey of discovery or are already a seasoned fan. @SonglinesMag facebook.com/songlines instagram.com/songlinesmag songlines.co.uk…

“There is no conservatism in African music, people have always been moving around and connecting their own traditions with others,” says Hungarian-Moroccan musician Saïd Tichiti. “I see it as a richness, not a danger.” Nothing embodies this ethos more than the music he’s been making with Chalaban, the ensemble he founded in 1999 in Budapest: across their six albums, the group blend the propulsive, trancey grooves of Gnawa with electric guitars, Afrobeat rhythms and flourishes of Hungarian folk melodies. His new EP Jarama, under the name Saïd Chalaban, similarly leaves space for fusion and experimentation, but delves deeper into the music of the Hassani, the Bedouin Arab tribe who settled in North Africa and the Sahara in the 11th century. Tichiti and his Hungarian bandmates distil the sprawling, hypnotic Hassani…

This is Songlines’ 25th anniversary year and the Songlines Encounters Festival at Kings Place has become a treasured annual event offering a special chance to hear some of the artists we’ve been championing at close quarters. We have a strong range of female vocalists this year, with Asmâa Hamzaoui, Soema Montenegro, Enji and the Regia Ishag-fronted The Scorpios, and more names still to be announced. www.kingsplace.co.uk/sef THURSDAY MAY 16 Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou (Hall One) The daughter of a respected Gnawa maalem (master), Asmâa is the most prominent of very few female Gnawa musicians in Morocco singing and playing the deep gimbri lute. She comes with her female backing group Bnat Timbouktou (Daughters of Timbuktu) who’ve done headline shows at Essaouira’s legendary Gnawa Festival. Be prepared for trance-like sensations.…

We’ve featured the music of OKI several times in these pages (most recently in a live review from Lewes in #192) as a leading musical ambassador of the Indigenous Ainu people in Japan. With his plucked tonkori and yodel-like vocals, he sings of his people’s threatened existence while celebrating their culture. Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives by the Saru River, an exhibition at Japan House in London does the same. Alongside exquisite bark-cloth robes and carved wooden plates, there have been singing and storytelling sessions. The Ainu people live mainly in Hokkaido, Japan’s most northerly island. During the 19th and 20th centuries they were forbidden to speak their language and suffered discrimination and marginalisation. It was only in 1997 that Ainu culture and traditions were recognised in Japanese law. This exhibition…

Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru Souvenirs Mississippi Records The world lost a unique composer with the passing of Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru at the age of 99 last year. Her beguiling piano melodies that mix Ethiopian and European classical and religious music marked her as a true original. Now, Souvenirs shows a different side of her music. This is the first full release of Tsege-Mariam’s vocal music, home recordings of her singing her own songs in Amharic, accompanied by that unmistakable piano. Recorded in Addis Ababa between 1977 and 1985, these are special, emotional recordings – one need only listen to the opener ‘Clouds Moving on the Sky’ to feel it. We also hear some of her most Ethiopian moments here: ‘Ready to Leave’ is a tezeta, a song of wistful yearning and…

Blanca Altable Las Formas del Agua Segell Microscopi Blanca Altable, a Burgos-born violinist and composer, unveils her talent for conjuring vivid imagery on her second solo album, Las Formas del Agua, drawing inspiration from water’s transformative essence, which she describes as an ‘infinite muse.’ Rooted in her homeland tradition and classically trained, Altable deconstructs Castilian music and encapsulates other fiddle techniques, seamlessly transitioning between rhythmic and emotive styles to post-minimalism and the avant-garde. With producer Samuel Peñas, Altable explores sonic possibilities by incorporating effects pedals, a loop station and vocals, alongside guest contributions on bass, percussion and keyboards. The outcome is a sort of electro-acoustic post-folk marked by improvisational development and an intuitive approach. The opening track, ‘My Lion, Mamma Lion’, blends voice and percussion loops, infusing a danceable African…

Osama Abdulrasol (In search of) New Flemish Masters Enkido Records brave and intriguing musician. A multi-instrumentalist born in Iraq and now based in Belgium, he plays an impressive variety of instruments and styles but now concentrates on the qanun and adventurous and grandiose compositions. His aim here is to examine the similarities between Western and Arab musical traditions, and the current state of Flemish music when compared to the Flemish Masters of the 15th century. And he does so mixing European medieval and Arab influences with jazz and electronica, joined by a cast that includes organ and keys, lute, Arabic and Western vocals, and beats from DJ Grasshoppa. The result is a set that is sometimes impressive, sometimes something of an over-ambitious mess. Abdulrasol is a fine qanun player, and…

It’s rare to find a band as intimately connected to a sense of place as Indonesian sextet, LAIR. Hailing from Jatiwanga in the Pantura region on the northern coast of West Java, their identity is deeply enmeshed in local culture, history and even the earth itself. In recognition of Jatiwanga’s former role as South-East Asia’s biggest producer of clay roof tiles, LAIR fashion their own instruments from terracotta. “We’re looking for another form from clay,” says percussionist Kiki Permana, “becoming culture, becoming other forms beyond roof tiles. We make guitars, ceramic xylophones or clay ukulele. The way of playing is the same. The sound has its own different character.” LAIR’s connection to local tradition goes even deeper. The group formed in 2018 after witnessing a performance by guitarist Mama Djana,…

May 2024 (#197) On sale April 5 We’re speaking to Emel Mathlouthi, a singer who became an emblem of the Tunisian Revolution before having to leave the country, and who’s set to release a 100% woman-made album; and we will remain in the Middle East for a deep dive into music scenes in cities such as Cairo, Beirut and Tunis. We will also speak to Somalia’s Sahra Halgan about her new album, have a chat with Dele Sosimi about his time in the bands of Fela and Femi Kuti, and talk to Mexican Institute of Sound about 20 years of putting Mexico on the map. Plus, Pakistan’s Sabri Brothers, US’ Lonnie Holley, Greece’s Marina Satti and exiled Syrian Mohammad Syfkhan, as well as revealing the winners of the Songlines Music…

“I don’t know if joyful is the right word, but I wanted to make an album that didn’t repeat the same formula,” says Ana Tijoux about her latest album, Vida. Her first full-length release in nine years, it’s been hard to predict the direction that the Chilean MC would take after such a lengthy hiatus. Her fifth solo album to date, Vida takes a drastic turn from her most recent standalone songs: 2019’s ‘Cacerolazo’ and 2020’s ‘Antifa Dance’, both defiant protest anthems released in the aftermath of a nationwide uprising against inequality in Chile, which was met with fierce repression from the state. The tracks fit neatly into her two-decade-spanning career of sound-tracking injustice, at first with Chilean hip-hop group Makiza in the 1990s, and then as a solo artist…

Daymé Arocena AlKemi Brownswood Recordings Cuban music contributes to, and absorbs, myriad musics from across Latin America, the Caribbean and the US. It has also long been a meeting point for traditions and technical virtuosity, its historic links to Russia also having a strong impact on its culture. Daymé Arocena is a fascinating one-woman embodiment of the competing, conflated influences. Conservatory-schooled, a touring jazz musician and a restless student of her art, she says music is nothing without feeling; AlKemi, her first album in five years, is a sublime Afro-Cuban experiment and a declaration of emotional intent. ‘Suave y Pegao’ quietly and craftily mixes up jazz, bossa nova and urbano grooves, with reggaeton Rafa Pabön guesting on vocals. Then there’s the smouldering neo-soul of ‘A Fuego Lento’, performed with Dominican…

Shay Hazan Wusul Batov Records With his debut solo album, 2021’s Reclusive Rituals, Tel Aviv-based bassist and composer Shay Hazan revealed a simple idea: harnessing the natural groove of the gimbri to form the louche foundation of laid-back rhythmic workouts that borrowed freely from Gnawa, hip-hop, Afrobeat, dub and nu-jazz. He must have enjoyed the plaudits he received because, for his follow-up, he’s made pretty much the same record again. While the debut was constructed during COVID lockdown, this latest offering features tracks worked out during live performance, brought to life by members of Hazan’s live band. Tenor saxophonist Eyal Netzer and trumpeter Roy Zuzovsky add some neat horn charts but, to these ears, the album suffers from overly-polished production with the rough edges sandblasted out of existence. It sounds…

Michael Volpe grew up in two different musical worlds. Born in London in the 1960s to immigrant parents from southern Italy, in his highly readable new memoir Do I Bark Like a Dog? and its predecessor Noisy at the Wrong Times, he evokes a childhood spent listening equally to the prog-rock of Genesis and Pink Floyd and the traditional folk songs of his Italian heritage by singers such as Roberto Murolo, Sergio Bruni, Renato Carosone and Mario Merola. The former he heard all around him. The latter he heard via his mother’s collection of vinyl records in tattered paper sleeves to which she would sing along, often getting tearful for her homeland. Both “triggered the same visceral emotion” and it launched an “obsession” with music that shaped his sense of…

April 2-6 Music Current Dublin, Ireland musiccurrent.ie April 11-13 Budapest Ritmo Budapest, Hungary budapestritmo.hu/en April 11-14 Fiddle Hell Online Since going online during the pandemic, this fiddle fest has found its home, this year boasting 170 live workshops, 25 concerts and 25 live jam sessions, available to all. fiddlehell.org April 12-14 A Tapestry of Sacred Music Singapore esplanade.com/tapestry April 12-14 & 19-21 Coachella Indio, CA, US coachella.com April 25 – May 1 Costa Festival Ibiza Ibiza, Spain costafestival.co.uk April 26-28 Welcome in Tziganie Seissan, France welcome-in-tziganie.com May 2-5 Shetland Folk Festival Shetland shetlandfolkfestival.com May 3-13 TradFest Edinburgh edinburghtradfest.com May 3 – June 2 Brighton Fringe Brighton brightonfringe.org May 4-26 Brighton Festival Brighton brightonfestival.org May 6-12 Gypsy Jazz Festival of London London futurefable.com/gypsyjazz2024 May 10-26 Norfolk & Norwich Festival Norfolk nnfestival.org.uk…

magsubscriptions.com/music-songlines subscriptions@markallengroup.com +44 (0) 1722 716 997 Your essential guide to the best music from around the world Songlines is the definitive magazine for world music – music that has its roots in all parts of the globe, from Mali to Mexico, India to Iraq. Whether this music is defined as traditional, contemporary, folk or fusion, Songlines is the only publication to truly represent and embrace it. Why should you subscribe? ▸ 10 new issues each year delivered straight to your door ▸ Subscriber-only CD or track downloads with every issue, featuring the best music from around the world ▸ Expert music reviews and global dispatches ▸ Access to every issue in our digital archive and 7,500+ album reviews in our online database From £58 a year Discover the world through…

Now if you were anything like me you may have spent at least some of lockdown shouting into a void, also known as trying to engage with Tories on Twitter about the value of the Arts to the UK. It wasn’t just lockdown, of course. Old Oliver Dowden MP got it in the ear from me about UK artists being able to tour the EU post-Brexit, as did many others in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Then the pandemic happened, and, when asked if he was telling artists to change profession, Rishi Sunak replied, “That is a fresh and new opportunity for people,” adding that it’s “what we should be doing.” According to one government advert, ‘Fatima [a ballerina]’s next job could be in cyber,’ and many…