Aynur - WOMEX 21 Artist Award

First published in the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2021 delegate guide.



As both a Kurd and an Alevi, Aynur Doğan’s cultural heritage has always been subject to discriminatory laws and public persecution, whether in the small mountain town of Çemişgezek where she grew up, or the metropolis of Istanbul. With her music, however, singer and bağlama player Doğan – now usually known simply as Aynur – creates space for her identities and for those that share them.

At its core, Aynur’s music is based on Kurdish folk songs. Her voice – in turns bold and powerful or delicate, almost fragile – always holds the 300-year-old melodies in tender embrace. She carries these songs as a caretaker and a friend. She preserves the Kurdish and Alevi songs against those that would have them silenced, but at the same time, those songs give her the strength to continue as a commanding voice in support of those cultures.

Tradition doesn’t restrict Aynur’s music, though. Her own style blends the Anatolian and the Western, and collaborations with world-class musicians from many fields (including Yo-Yo Ma, Kayhan Kalhor, Mercan Dede and Javier Limón) have led to a passionate, international fanbase. Her accessible music allows her to spread her words far and wide.

Her popularity and outspoken nature have made Aynur the target of right-wing and anti-Kurd groups in Turkey. Her shows became marred by disruptions, leading her to move her base to Amsterdam in 2012. This has not dampened her fire: the most recent of her seven albums, 2020’s Hedûr, went to #1 on the world music charts and has led to a concert in Carnegie Hall (understandably postponed for now).

It is for her long-term dedication to the preservation and innovation of Kurdish and Alevi culture and for maintaining the highest artistic integrity even in the face of political pressure that Aynur is a very worthy recipient of the WOMEX 21 Artist Award.


Photo: Aynur receives the WOMEX 21 Artist Award, by Eric van Nieuwland.

Global Music Match - WOMEX 21 Professional Excellence Award

First published in the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2021 delegate guide.



The past year-and-a-half has been one of the most drastic and challenging periods of change in the history of the international music industry. Almost at once, and with very little warning, a world’s worth of live music disappeared, and musicians and audiences alike scrambled to find new ways of reaching each other without leaving their homes.

But adversity leads to innovation, and that’s where Global Music Match comes in. The heart of the premise is simple: folk- and roots-based musicians uplifting and promoting each other, mobilising each other’s audiences and creating new professional networks.

Each cycle of GMM takes place over twelve weeks. Teams are formed six artists, each from a different country or region, and each gets their own two-week spotlight across the whole team’s social media channels. These spotlights are a flurry of activity including interviews, live sets, unreleased material and exclusive – entirely digital – collaborations. After two editions, 172 artists and many thousands of fans have participated and benefitted from this mutual support network, with the help of music export offices from 17 countries and regions from around the world.

The exciting part of GMM is that it is not just a temporary quick-fix. It’s a new form of music export and cultural exchange, and one that is not necessarily anchored to the current situation. It is a real and effective way for artists to expand their audience in terms of numbers, as well as into new territories, opening up the possibility for new touring avenues post-pandemic.

For creating, at such short notice, a new and innovative platform that has already seen long-lasting and tangible benefits, and for being a source of optimism and comfort to musicians in a time of great struggle, we are delighted that Global Music Match will receive the WOMEX 21 Professional Excellence Award.


Photo: Just some of the hundreds of members of Global Music Match, by Eric van Nieuwland.

Introducing Dongyang Gozupa

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 172, November 2021.



At its best, the power trio is one of music’s most elegant and well-balanced ensembles. Each aspect of the trio leans on the others while pulling equal weight, filling the sonic space without any extraneous elements. Seoul-based Dongyang Gozupa are a perfect example – even if their set-up turns the standard power trio on its head.

Dongyang Gozupa are Jang Dohyuk on a personalised drum-and-percussion kit, Ham Minhwi on bass guitar and Yun Eunhwa on yanggeum, the Korean hammered zither. Importantly, the group doesn’t orbit around a singer. This removes the focal point of the listener’s attention, and serves to highlight the equal importance of each musician. Their full message is delivered through instrumental sound. “When one conveys an emotion, such as loneliness, joy, love, or even rage, there are times when one cannot express that emotion in a word or phrase,” they state. “Through our performances, we try to create an emotional narrative that connects with as many people as possible.”

While they paint with emotions, their musical style itself defies easy explanation. They don’t anchor their music around any particular genre, but draw from many streams. For Jang, genres aren’t the point: “Rather than wanting to create something that the world has never heard before, we just want to create something fun which incorporates the tastes and references of each band member.” This includes elements of prog-rock and gugak (traditional Korean music) with hints of metal and industrial, all tinged with the avant-garde, making a sound that can be dark and dissonant while retaining a certain playfulness: it avoids any over-seriousness and makes dancing inevitable.

It’s those spicy dissonances that give Dongyang Gozupa their signature sound. Those moments of discomfort are not something they shy away from, but rather embrace as a fundamental part of the sonic environment, a necessary tension to balance the consonance. “Personally, I don’t think that dissonance is something wrong,” says Ham. “This all-or-nothing, right-or-wrong thinking makes creative vision very narrow. It’s the same with dissonance. If a note does not fit in a particular place, repeating that note can create a special kind of psychedelic effect.” And that can take a piece to a different place entirely.

The group’s identity and philosophy can be seen in microcosm in Yun’s yanggeum; it is rooted in tradition without being bound to it. Her instrument was specially-made – it literally has her name on it: “I wanted to express myself with a yanggeum that was a little more spectacular and dynamic.” To that end, hers has many more strings than smaller gugak version, giving her access to a much wider range of both tone and style. Yun also plays with two sticks instead of the traditional one, and uses a variety of effects pedals to alter the sound when appropriate. Spectacular and dynamic – adjectives that extend to the whole group.

The past decade has seen a truly electrifying new wave of artists using Korean folk and classical music to discover new directions and meanings in sound – think Jambinai, Black String – and Dongyang Gozupa can surely claim their place among them: a perfectly-weighted power trio with an intricately balanced sound.


Photo: Yun Eunhwa, Jang Dohyuk and Ham Minhwi of Dongyang Gozupa.

Tommy Khosla - Vignettes

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 172, November 2021.

Tommy Khosla
Vignettes
Vadi Records (40 mins)

Vignettes is a series a small windows into the life, history and identity of its creator, London-based sitar player and producer Tommy Khosla. It is an exploration on the themes of mixed heritage (Khosla has roots in India, France and the UK) and neurodiversity that is filled with equal parts nostalgia and curiosity.

Across a collage of 18 very short tracks, most drifting in at around the one- or two-minute mark, sitar leads the way through lo-fi hip-hop beats, synths that blur between ambient and chillwave, and cameos from instruments such as shakuhachi and cellotar, all played by Khosla themself. Melodies also drift by the way of Hindustani classical music and English folk (with echoes of Sheema Mukherjee with the Imagined Village on tracks such as ‘Flora’). The use of sitar in these contexts has the risk of coming across as very corny, but such pitfalls are avoided with Khosla’s obvious skill at their instrument and their adventurous composition.

It all feels deeply personal, inspired by Khosla’s grandparents’ slideshows of their travels in north India, and littered with frequent snippets of family reminiscences and field recordings. Vignettes has been three years in the making, and is an accomplished debut for Khosla, with an impressive vision and maturity that belies their 22 years.

Les Filles de Illighadad - At Pioneer Works

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 172, November 2021.

Les Filles de Illighadad
At Pioneer Works
Sahel Sounds (46 mins)

Unique among the thriving Tuareg guitar band scene, three of the four members of Les Filles de Illighadad are women – hence their name – and they bring the traditional women’s tende music into play as well as the standard assouf style. After two successful albums on Sahel Sounds, their third is a live offering via the Brooklyn arts space Pioneer Works.

As for their sound, you know it, you love it: it's that Tuareg guitar groove! Les Filles are a small ensemble, with three electric guitars and calabash percussion; their lack of bass gives an unusual, but not unpleasant, soundscape that is expansive without feeling particularly dense. Their music is very self-assured – no effects on the clean electric guitars, no solos except those that develop naturally from the repeating patterns, and none of the bombast that characterises some other Tuareg rock groups. Once they hit the rhythm and the occasional brain-melting blues note, they don’t need fireworks because they have the whole force of the desert behind them, and the audience responds in turn.

At Pioneer Works is a solid set of superior grooves played with stylish confidence, even if it’s not necessarily the most exciting album you’ll ever hear.

Nabra & Ligeti Quartet - Sounds of Sudan

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 172, November 2021.

Nabra & Ligeti Quartet
Sounds of Sudan
Nabra (38 mins)

Bristol-based oud players Ali Elmubarak and Knud Stüwe came together as Nabra in 2015 to explore a shared love of Sudanese music. The duo’s debut album sees them teaming up with the Ligeti string quartet to give a new twist to classic Sudanese pop.

Sudanese music is always a treat – inherently African and unmistakeably Arabic, full of pentatonic groove and dancing rhythms – and this set of seven folk-leaning pop songs from Sudan’s ‘golden era’ shows it well. The Ligeti Quartet’s strings bring a lightness that complements the earthy ouds and add a distinct classical flavour while maintaining the playful nature of the songs.

The string arrangements are clearly – and admittedly – inspired by the Kronos Quartet, and are most effective during the more poetic and lyrical pieces, where their parts can swell and swirl around the melodies of Elmubarak’s voice. When the pieces skew towards the dancier side of things, however, the quartet can struggle a little to find space among the rhythm. Strings are great for subtlety and emotion but sometimes what you really need is the nice, heavy boom of the sadly absent tar (frame drum).

Sounds of Sudan is a solid debut and interesting collaboration – definitely one to keep on your radar.

Batch Gueye - Moytou

A version of this review was first published in Songlines Magazine issue 172, November 2021.

Batch Gueye
Moytou
Batch Gueye (44 mins)

It’s a bad portent for an album when, about 12 seconds into the first song, there’s a clear and audible ‘watermark’ for a beat-making website, indicating the use of unlicensed beats on the track. But that’s how Moytou starts. Even leaving aside questions of legality, using someone’s musical work like that without licensing, permission or even a credit is so unethical, unprofessional and – for the listener – deeply weird. It definitely leaves a sour taste, but let’s listen to the rest… it doesn’t get much better, really.

UK-based Senegalese dancer-turned-singer Batch Gueye had a very promising first album, Ndiarigne, back in 2015, and has been a key element of the forward-thinking Afro-futurist jazz group Fofoulah. His solo work has gone downhill since then, though, and Moytou feels like a shadow of what he is capable of. Where that first album managed to alternate between hard-hitting and raw, and delicate and emotional, here, the moods seem to have smoothed out into a middle-of-the-road mbalax-lite.

Gueye is at his best when he surrounds his soulful, high-pitched Wolof vocals around the polyrhythms of sabar and tama drums and guitars, but too often here he falls back on an over-reliance on uninteresting synths, pads and beats. There are some good ideas and impressive singing, but the whole thing is poorly executed, uninspiring and lacking in the fun energy that should be coursing through it all. The track ‘Waye Wi’ stands out as a high point, and gives a glimpse at the quality that could reasonably be expected throughout.

Moytou is a missed opportunity from Gueye – some shining moments amid a generally disappointing album with little to set it apart from the crowd… not to mention some dodgy artistic ethics. Bring the old Batch back!