Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged world music

The Best Of The Black President (Deluxe Edition)

Are you kidding me? What Fela fan does not want a two-disc music compilation along with a bonus DVD of interviews and concert footage? That aforementioned statement wasn’t a question, but I don’t like seeing the green underlining that Microsoft Word displays when it doesn’t agree with what you’ve written, so I oblige. My only complaint is that it doesn’t have more songs, more footage, and more shiny pictures. Those of you who are fans of the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti probably already have these songs in your collection. However, with the recent Broadway show of _Fela!

Rocket Science For Dummies

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that Rocket Science for Dummies is a great album. Astronauts of Antiquity’s singer, India, and guitarist, B. Rhyan, are a musical match made in heaven. They travel further, taking listeners on a well-designed trip of cosmic rhythms. Astronauts of Antiquity’s influence list is long, but they have managed to make an individual, well-crafted sound that, although resembling many, is like none.

1st International Body Music Festival (12/05/2008)

I love step teams, hand-clapping games, and beat-boxing. I even once had a plan to create a band out of fat people playing drumbeats on our stomachs (it was going to be called “Bongo Jam”), but I never thought of this as falling into a specific category of music. Body music, of course. I was lucky enough to attend the opening night performance of the first International Body Music Festival, an extravaganza of performances and workshops, which took place over a weekend in the Bay Area.

1st International Body Music Festival (12/07/2008)

I wasn’t sure what to expect. What is body music anyway? It’s more than music you can see, and dance you can hear.

Saint Dymphna

Saint Dymphna is the patron of those stricken with mental illness or nervous system disorders, epileptics, mental health professionals, happy families, incest victims, and runaways. The saint was martyred by a recently widowed father. He’d made advances at her and she ran away to Belgium with her confessor, the court jester, and his wife. The elderly priest and Dymphna were slaughtered, but they don’t say what happened to the jester. St. Dymphna’s attributes include appearing praying in a cloud surrounded by lunatics wearing golden chains.

Momento

I’m not usually a headphones-in-the-outdoors type of girl, but I knew I had to take this one to the park. For real. This was an album requiring devoted listening.

Aman Iman

In an age of over-produced, mass-marketed tripe, Tinariwen is a beacon shining from the Sahara. Their 2007 Aman Iman relies heavily on the rare sound of raw, straining human voices and features handclaps as primary percussion. Foremost, there is a voice singing against isolation and violence in favor of a solidarity so desperately needed to improve the station of the Touareg people.

Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project

"Everything is closer than you think” is the motto of indie label Six Degrees, moving on the perspective that everyone is connected by six degrees of separation. Now a leader in global pop music, the San Francisco-based company was founded ten years ago by two former Windham Hill employees, Bob Duskis and Pat Berry.

Elysium for the Brave/Elysium Remixes

You know you’ve heard that sexy, haunting voice somewhere before. If you’re no stranger to sci-fi, you may have heard Azam Ali’s vocals on the soundtrack of such movies as Children of Dune, Matrix Revolutions and Earthsea, among others.