world music

The Best Of The Black President (Deluxe Edition)

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

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! The Musical, this collection includes bonus features of interviews with Fela biographer, Carlos Moore, director, choreographer, and co-writer of the Broadway production, Bill T. Jones, and Fela himself—a collection that would invoke envy from any avid world music fanatic.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938-1997) might have been a doctor, as was the desire of his parents, but instead he heeded his calling to the music world. Fela was born in Nigeria where Highlife music originated. After studying jazz in the United States, he chose to blend those lessons with Highlife music to create a unique and soulful fusion that has influenced people the world over. A part of this tasty concoction that he would later term Afro-Beat, included the philosophy and writings of Black activists and thinkers like Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, and other Black Panther figures. This blend made Fela a formidable opponent of the corruption that was going on in Nigeria. Finding himself the subject of constant backlash in the form of beatings, jailing and harassment did not stop the persistence and determination that Fela maintained in exposing the scandalous behavior of Nigerian leaders. Even the death of his mother as a result of injuries she sustained during one of the many raids to his living quarters did not silence Fela. The constant battle between Fela and the Nigerian government only increased his popularity.

Fela was, indeed, a unique individual; many people who have heard of him are only familiar with the eccentricity he displayed in marrying all of the women in his band, or his declaration to be the next President of Nigeria (1979) under his “Movement of the People” Party. I urge you to study Fela’s music from the approach of an activist and a musician, and/or someone who simply loves music. Fela’s contribution to human rights and music is inseparable and invaluable.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, February 4th 2010

Rocket Science For Dummies

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:55:00 +0000

By Astronauts of Antiquity

RevCon Records

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. This wife and husband duet describes their music as “urban, electro, organica,” and though I fail to understand what this really means, it somehow feels like a good explanation. India’s voice is out of this world and gives these thirteen songs a jazzy effect, while Rhyan’s noticeable expertise on the sitar, guitar, and sarod contribute a world music sensibility.

It took the Nyack, NY-based twosome three years after the release of their first work, AoA 1, to come out with Rocket Science for Dummies. In this second record, it’s easy to tell that much pensive thought went into this satisfying album, which lifts off with the first song. “Everywhere” is a very danceable tune that makes me want to defy gravity. The same goes for “Sweet-tooth” and the title track.

If you’re not already of the opinion that “hare, hare, Krishna, hare” is a sexy chorus, Astronauts of Antiquity will definitely convert you, especially after you hear the “Love is a Mantra” remix. They are accompanied by a DJ and several guest musicians who play various forms of air instruments. Cee Knowledge (of Digable Planets fame) contributes on the groovy “Soup Du Jour.”

If these astronauts are planning an intergalactic tour anytime soon I would put on my jet pack and lovingly follow them anywhere.

Written by: Laura Koffler, March 22nd 2009

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

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:20:00 +0000

Theatre Artaud

San Francisco, California

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. The event covered a wide range of musical and dance styles and traditions, and was truly international with performers from the US, Brazil, Turkey, Bali, and Canada.

The immediacy of the body as an instrument means there is nothing to hide behind, for performers or audience members. The whole event was so visceral. I loved the way it interrupted the tendency of audience members to resign themselves to simply being spectators; the audience became involved, sometimes being called upon to breathe or snap in time, erupting into whoops and thunderous foot-stomping at the end of acts that moved us to really feel ourselves and our connection to our environment.

The soft, watery movements of the Turkish duo Kekeca played out over long cycles that don’t fit into 4/4 or other recognizable time signatures, offering a sinking in rather than a showing. The solid beats and goofy antics of French clowning duo Loop It, who made the kids in the audience shriek with laughter, elicited my delight when showcasing the various sounds made by hitting belly fat (Bongo Jam!). The Hambone tradition was revived and revitalized by Derique McGee. His hands moved so fast they were literally a blur, but never missed a beat. Interweaving melodies, jungle sounds, warrior games, and dazzling visual patterns were highlighted in a piece created specifically for this show by Dewa Putu Berata, a Balinese artist. And these are just some of the possibilities of body-as-instrument.

“How do you figure out that you are good at this?” my girlfriend wondered to me at intermission. My guess is you just start doing it, and you get obsessed. I remember spending hours playing “see-see-oh-playmate” with my sister when we were kids, perfecting our timing, going as fast as possible. I could see myself on this stage if my life had gone in another direction.

The MC, Diane Ferlatte, spoke about her ancestors being brought here from Africa, having everything taken from them—their names, their languages, even their drums. ("They thought they were using them to communicate. And we were!") But they still had their bodies, and they used them to make rhythms. This, she said, is what we have when everything else is taken away.

I was touched by the stunning intimacy of Inuit throat-singers Celine Kalluk and Lucie Idlout, cousins who stood face to face, grasping each other’s elbows and singing into each other’s mouths, using their throats as echo chambers. Their songs reflected sounds from their environment: melting ice on the rivers, a saw cutting down a tree. The songs had no endings; they would go as long as they could, a kind of contest, pushing each other until they would burst into laughter. It made me miss my sister.

I was mesmerized and lulled by tai chi master Dr. Alex Feng, who flowed around the stage in shimmering white fabric that caught the light and deflected sound. I kept waiting for music to come in. I could hear chirpings from backstage, so low I almost believed I was imagining them. Afterward, the MC commented on the need for silence in order to recognize music.

The whole show was great, but the truly spectacular moment of the evening was Barbatuques, a Brazilian ensemble who were making their North American debut. Their beats were powerful, the dancing playful and ecstatic, weaving contemporary and traditional influences. And the singing! Strong voices, more open and immediate than the sound of most trained American singers. Loud, joyful, childlike, and expressive. Music that plays through your whole body. They utilized a jaw harp, rapped in Portuguese, and wore super cute outfits. I went home and looked them up on YouTube, posted about them on Facebook, and watched their video over and over again. But nothing could let me relive the stampeding feet, whoops, and hollers of an audience entranced and engulfed in the power of their presence.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, December 30th 2008

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

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:19:00 +0000

Theatre Artaud

San Francisco, California

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. It’s more than the percussive sounds and melodies made by rhythmic clapping, stomping, chanting, cheek popping, and belly- and chest-slapping that can perfectly mimic any instrument or generate sounds you’ve never heard.

Body music is a collaboration among performers and spectators that takes one of our most basic assets and transforms it into a medium through which we connect, communicate, and create a music of movement.

The nearly week-long International Body Music Festival was the first of its kind, bringing together a variety of body music styles from nine ensembles in settings that were both educational and entertaining. Youth and teacher training workshops filled the days, while concerts featuring throat singers, hambone, Slammin All-Body Band, Balinese Kecak (or monkey chant), and Brazilian body music ensemble Barbatuques took place during the evenings.

The festival’s final concert began with the young woman of Top Notch Steppers, a San Francisco-based drill team. Next, Canadian cousins Celine Kalluk and Lucie Idlout performed the ancient art of Inuit throat singing (katajjaq), whereby the partners use each others’ mouths as resonators to produce guttural vocal sounds through distinctive voice manipulation and breathing techniques. In an intimate nose-to-nose stance, the woman sang in a playful contest to see who could outlast the other. Derique McGee kept the audience laughing with his youthful presentation of clowning and hambone—a style of body music originating from the plantation-era when slaves were banned from using rhythmic instruments.

Truly striking, though, was the brilliant premier of the Barbatuques-Slammin collaboration. Close your eyes and try to imagine the sounds of a tropical rainforest as day breaks—of an orangutan, frog, or rooster. Imagine horns and flutes, the infectious harmonies of a jazz band, and a dance-inducing percussive pulse. Now, imagine all of this accomplished with nothing more than one’s body. In the grand finale, Brazil’s Barbatuques and Oakland’s Slammin All-Body Band transcended barriers of time and space as they moved through a fresh cross-cultural dialogue of diverse body rhythms. The organic, authentic performance pulled from rich musical traditions and transformed spectators into participants.

While the performers departed from expected norms of music creation, I noticed too that the customary categories of distinction (and often oppression), seemed to melt away as well. The first International Body Music Festival opened up an egalitarian space, offering an inspiring exploration into the roots of music and community cohesion.

Written by: Sofia Marin, December 30th 2008

Saint Dymphna

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:53:00 +0000

By Gang Gang Dance

The Social Registry

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. Gang Gang Dance seems more appropriate to dancing on earth, but lunacy and jewelry still correspond. Their first album was God's Money, and based on the strength of Saint Dymphna, I’m actually tempted to track it down despite the fact that I possess neither.

The band includes Lizzi Bougatsos, Brian Degraw, Tim Dewit, and Josh Diamond. They craft world-beat-meets-moog tracks, with recordings veering in between the ethnographic and the experimental. This is destined to be a pick at art opening after parties, but not necessarily in a bad way. The band members say in an interview that two met with one stocking music on shelves and another shoplifting it out of the bin, and that seems as apt a metaphor as any. Moments of musical clarity are stolen between some extensive noodling.

My response to much jazz and experimental music frequently is to think, "Am I actually enjoying this, or am I acting like I am enjoying it because I believe that I should enjoy it as a cultured would-be-avant-garde person? How many other people here are actually enjoying this? How many would rather be listening to Johnny Cash? Are we all just a bunch of pretentious gits?" My own CD collection ranges from Eno to Orbison (okay, an old friend made me a tape of the Orbison), so eclecticism is all well and good, but I was more enamored of the opening tracks than the album’s wind-down. The cover graphic appears to depict Berbers at Mardi Gras. That works, as does a track entitled "Inner Pace." Gang Gang Dance is simultaneously measured and organic. Enjoy them at your own pace.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, November 26th 2008

Momento

admin — Mon, 28 May 2007 18:39:00 +0000

By Bebel Gilberto

Six Degrees

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. Musically complex, fresh and so fitting it’s title, this collection of songs required me to take a Momento to stop, appreciate and listen.

Maybe it’s the fact that I am sitting on a green-checkered blanket in the warm Oakland sunshine, gazing across the softness of sloping green grass at the lake on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe it’s the heat of the sun on my thirsty spring skin that has me flying. No matter which inspired which, Bebel Gilberto’s album has my soul dancing and swaying out across the water into limitless sky. I’m buoyed up by Bebel’s honey-toned voice, rhythms ranging from booty-shaking to a soft and steady heartbeat, achingly sweet acoustic guitar, funky electronic sounds and beautiful instrumentation. The cello on “Close to You,” melts me, the chorus of “Os Nuevos Yorkinos” demands that I get up to dance and sing along and her voice alongside the sax on her beautiful cover of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” turns my knees to rubber.

Reviewing an album of Bebel Gilberto’s is a serious endeavor: to try and meet her half-way; to honor her vision, artistry and herstory; to try and describe the expansiveness of her musical expressions and the way her voice flows easy as a ripple across water, and yet reaches straight into ones gut. Her latest album, Momento, is as well-travelled as she is - recorded in Rio de Janeiro, New York and London with friends, colleagues and producers from all over the world.

As a song-writer and musician, Gilberto comes from a family with an impressive musical genealogy, and has had music in her ears before she even had ears. She’s been singing and songwriting since she was a little girl, and it shows. Her album is a collage of sounds and genres from afro-brazilian rythms and percussion, samba and Brazilian pop, to dance, electronica, acoustic ballads and world music. She released her first album, Tanto Tempo in 2000 (nominated for two Latin Grammy awards) and a second self-titled album in 2004 (nominated for a World Music Grammy). As she releases her third album, the whole world is still eagerly listening.

Take a moment - or put on your headphones and make a moment - to appreciate exactly where you are, and where a visionary artist like Bebel can take you.

Written by: Jessmaya Morales, May 28th 2007

Aman Iman

admin — Fri, 25 May 2007 02:18:00 +0000

By Tinariwen

World Village

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. Although the lyrics are in Tamashek, the English translation included with the CD confirms that much of the songs’ essential meanings are communicated. The group’s vital, driving rhythms ensure that this cry is one of hope, not of desperation.

Tinariwen has mastered mixing commonplace and innovation to avoid one of the shortcomings of much music that is categorized as “world” - that vanilla, please-everyone blandness that ends up putting one to sleep. The group skillfully sets familiar western instruments to a uniquely African rhythm and also have a skill for improvisation on a theme. Especially on track four, “Ahimana,” where Japonias (whose wordcraft is respected throughout Africa) takes the lead, breaking down a traditional folk song and making it his own. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, the group’s most frequent lead singer, often passes the mic to one of the group’s 8+ other members, who constantly improvise, and switch again. That is the beauty of Tinariwen, a band whose music-making mirrors their politics of inclusion and is ultimately the sound of celebration. It's the sound made when family gets together, relaxes its internal defenses and remembers what makes them a family.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, May 24th 2007

Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project

admin — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:45:00 +0000

By Various Artists

Six Degrees

"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. To gain back control over who and what went on labels - not just satisfy the people in accounting - the pair started their own label with their “ears open.”

Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project dovetails the look backward and forward in the progression of music across the globe. The label produces eclectic “genre-bending” records out of their operations base and this small, impactful outlet brings into its fold a cross-cut of a variety of cultures: Indian, Brazilian, Arabic and Latin, to name a few. Encompassing the world of electronica ethnography and revealing that electronic music is culturally various around the world.

Backspin presents a dozen artists recording legendary favorites in new adaptations. This collection of new spins on old favorites - originally by artists like The Police, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd - reflect the diverse perspective that music allows. The release is a cross section of artists recording standards in a new approach from their original casing, with Shrift covering "God Only Knows," New Dehli’s MIDIval PunditZ recreate Led Zeppelin’s “Four Sticks” and The Bombay Dub Orchestra rework the "Get Carter Theme." Artists from all corners of the world transcend geographic borders and touch the human spirit.

Written by: Mary O'Hara, May 17th 2007

Elysium for the Brave/Elysium Remixes

admin — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:41:00 +0000

By Azam Ali

Six Degrees

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. Although Elysium for the Brave is only Azam Ali’s second solo album, the singer has been with world music duo Vas since 1996 and has started Niyaz, a side project whose first album debuted at #1 on the iTunes world music chart. This album has credentials and confidence.

Ali’s voice is simply lovely, especially when paired with Elysium’s richly layered instrumentation and hypnotic beats. The songs, in both English and Farsi, are dark and brooding with Persian, Indian and western influences. Ali sings of wars, internal and external, and the arrangements in her music carry that tension. Despite having all of the right ingredients, Ali’s sophomore effort was disappointing. Most songs on the album leave the listener waiting for a climax that never happens, which is especially frustrating because they are longer than a typical pop song. “From Heaven to Dust” is her shortest song at 4:18; “I am a Stranger in This World” goes on for over 7 minutes. Remixes makes this problem more apparent. Set to overused beats and sliced to its most simplistic, her beautiful but hollow music loses what soul it had. Elysium for the Brave is a showcase for Ali’s voice, and can be enjoyed as simply that, but listeners looking for the emotional intensity it seems to promise will be disappointed.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, May 11th 2007