Tinariwen - Kel Tinariwen

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 184, January/February 2023.

Tinariwen
Kel Tinariwen
Wedge (36 mins)

You know Tinariwen. Hypnotic Tuareg assouf music from bluesy electric guitars, slithering out of amps encrusted with Saharan sand, and accompanied by a gravelly chorus, ululations, djembé and handclaps. Kel Tinariwen isn’t that – at least, not quite. The group were already veterans of their own style by the time of their first international release in 2001, with several tapes floating around Sahelian markets before that. This was their first, recorded in Abidjan in 1991, and now finally dug from the archives and masterfully restored.

Kel Tinariwen is clearly a pop record. Each song is filled with programmed drums, keyboards of the cheesiest variety (including synthesized sitar, choir and xylophone) and very 80s reverb. The bare-bones aesthetic of assouf is replaced with reggae lilts and Latin rhythms. However, aside from an uncharacteristic guitar-less opener (with slightly questionable vocals from producer Keltoum Sennhauser), the classic Tinariwen sound remains unmistakeable, with haunting melodies and some excellent guitar moments.

I can’t argue that these tracks are as musically scintillating as the band’s later recordings, but as a cultural artefact, this album is certainly a fascinating and curious document. And with at least one other Tinariwen ‘pop’ tape bouncing around the internet, perhaps there are more discoveries to be made from this legendary band.

Lady Aicha & Pisco Crane's Original Fulu Miziki Band of Kinshasa - N'Djila wa Mudjimu

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 183, December 2022.

Lady Aicha & Pisco Crane's Original Fulu Miziki Band of Kinshasa
N'Djila wa Mudjimu
Nyege Nyege Tapes (37 mins)

This is the DIY eco-punk essence, Congo-style. Everything about Fulu Miziki has been repurposed from material rescued from the junkpile, from their instruments to their extravagant costumes that look like uniquely Congolese cyberpunk body armour with surreal masks. Almost all the instruments are percussion, alongside a one or two self-invented string-things and rough synths. Melodies emerge from the natural pitches of drums, bells, cymbals and improvised noise-makers colliding in expert polyrhythm, with the bass coming from horns and thumped tubes. Shouted lyrics get the heart-rate up to the frenetic pace required by the beats, while improvised electronics and subtle production dirty everything up through layers of distortion that only add to the hyper energy.

Fulu Miziki’s music has echoes from all the great Congolese groups over the past few decades – Konono No. 1, Staff Benda Bilili, Jupiter & Okwess International – but within that, they bring something new, an anarchic, slightly menacing but ultimately very fun cacophony that sounds futuristic while remaining squarely on the ground.

Since recording this album, Fulu Miziki have splintered into two separate groups – hence the mouthful of a band name on this release – but N'Djila wa Mudjimu still serves as a snapshot of the group’s original line-up, repertoire and ethos.

Ami Dang - The Living World’s Demands

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 183, December 2022.

Ami Dang
The Living World’s Demands
Phantom Limb (43 mins)

As a first-generation Punjabi-American from Baltimore, Ami Dang uses sitar, voice and electronics to carve a complex identity from sound. She deals with weighty topics through her music and lyrics; on her third album these include abuse, trauma, the fight for abortion rights, suicidal ideation, the pandemic, religion and capitalism, as well as brighter concepts of meditation, joy and peace.

The music itself is made of light dance pop and deeper ambient electronica, with inflections of Hindustani classical in the shape of sitar cascades and English and Punjabi-language singing enlightened with ornamental gamakas. While Dang’s lyrics deal with the pertinent themes of today, her music often harks to the past, whether it’s to 70s psychedelic rock or 2000s Indian-flavour teen pop: sometimes it comes across as classy and retro, sometimes as cheesy and dated. The album’s most interesting and intriguing moments come when the ambient side is allowed to flow most freely, such as in the tracks ‘Bālnā’, ‘Circuit’ and ‘Become’.

It feels as if Dang’s aim with this album is to be at once poppy, experimental and personally political – it’s a tricky combination, and some of those intersections end up a little jarring, with the generally light tone belying its important messages.

Ivo Papasov - WOMEX 22 Artist Award

First published in the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2022 delegate guide.



A large man grasps a fragile-looking stick of a clarinet and raises it to his mouth: a rapid-fire of wild runs, tricky turnarounds, leaps, squeaks and lightning-fast trills bursts forth. Ivo Papasov has been at the top of his field for the best part of 50 years – it’s just that people haven’t always realised it.

Hailing from the Turkish-speaking Roma population of Bulgaria’s Thrace region, Papasov plays Bulgarian wedding music, which he has evolved into a unique personal style with international influence from Turkish, Greek, Balkan and Roma music, as well as from jazz and off-kilter rock. His extreme virtuosity and expert command of his instrument quickly secured Papasov and his Trakija Band as the most-wanted wedding entertainers in 1970s Bulgaria. By taking an unorthodox approach to the tradition, he revolutionised it.

It wasn’t always easy: he faced persecution during the Communist crack-down on Turkish culture (even landing him a short spell in jail), and after the regime fell, wedding audiences abandoned his style for Westernised pop. A disillusioned Papasov even stopped playing altogether for a while. But genius is hard to dampen, and a resurgence in the last 20 years has seen Papasov and his band once again touring internationally, releasing critically-acclaimed albums and gathering awards as they explode their way through mind-bending time signatures at breakneck speed. It’s a wonder his clarinet doesn’t burst into flames.

It is for his resilience in remaining the epitome of his style through thick and thin; for his dedication to the advancement of Thracian and Turkish-Roma music in Bulgaria; and for his sheer, passion-filled mastery of the clarinet, that Ivo Papasov is the recipient of the WOMEX 22 Artist Award.

Francis Gay - WOMEX 22 Professional Excellence Award

First published in the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2022 delegate guide.



At the very core of music are the musicians. Every other aspect of our industry is about lifting up those musicians, and Francis Gay has achieved this more than most. Over the past 40 years, Gay has been involved in basically every part of the European world music industry.

He’s probably best known for his work in radio, revolutionising Germany’s Cosmo Radio (formerly Funkhaus Europa) as its head of music while hosting his own internationally-renowned shows Selektor and 5Planeten. He’s also a journalist and writer, a DJ, a promoter of concerts and clubs, a festival director and curator, a record producer, a finder of elusive musicians and an all-around expert on the musical here-and-now. He raises artists up every step of the way, bringing attention to special sounds that would otherwise remain unheard. He doesn’t guard his expertise jealously, either: he’s a familiar face at industry events all over the world, spreading his knowledge far and wide and always mentoring the younger generation of professionals. He’s even been ever-present at WOMEX since he spoke and DJed at the inaugural event in 1994.

It is undeniable that without him, the shape of music in Europe would look – and sound – very different. It is for his passionate and tireless commitment to the worldwide musical community; for introducing the world’s best music to many, many ears; and for keeping musicians at the core, that Francis Gay is the recipient of the WOMEX 22 Award for Professional Excellence.


Photo: Francis Gay recieves his WOMEX 22 Award, by Yannis Psathas.

Introducing Nyati Mayi & the Astral Synth Transmitters

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 182, November 2022.

Nyati Mayi is a singer and lulanga (trough zither) player with roots in DR Congo. His band the Astral Synth Transmitters is actually just one man – DJ soFa, aka Christophe Hammes, a producer, synthesist and crate-digger. They’re both members of the Brussels music scene, but their musical adventure together started out of the blue: “Nyati always sends spontaneous recordings of himself to his friends over text messages,” says Hammes. “During lockdown one morning, I turned on my phone and the recording he’d sent did me a lot of good. I walked directly from my bed to the studio next door, cut up the stuff and added synths and rhythm and sent it back. Three days later he came to my place and we started jamming.”

That was the start of a period of intense, unplanned collaboration. A spark of inspiration would become a loop over which Mayi improvised melodies and rhythms; the next day Hammes added his own synth ideas before remixing the lot into a cohesive whole – and then it’s onto the next song. “I'm very impatient, I never re-record or change much from what has been recorded. It's all about the magic of the moment.” Those 2020 sessions eventually crystallised into a debut album, Lulanga Tales, released in September 2022.

Although the duo have access to vast soundworlds of acoustic and electronic timbres, their music is pensive, even sparse. The signature twang and thrum of the lulanga is layered with complementary synth sounds and simple percussion, but the pulse is rarely defined with a strong beat. Mayi’s often wordless vocals are confident but gentle, teasing jazzy lines through the dubwise earthiness. The listener is given time and space to pause and ponder; it is, in a word, fascinating.

The music’s Congolese roots ring clear throughout, embodied in the lulanga. Although Mayi started off in the hip-hop scene, everything changed during a visit to his ancestral village of Nyangezi. “Twelve years ago when I visited my family there for the first time, I was talking about this instrument because I knew that my grandmother and grand-uncle played it,” he recalls. “20 minutes later, a guy from the village brought me the lulanga and just gave it to me. It was a new instrument to explore in my own way. For sure I didn’t play in the traditional Congo way, but with time, this lulanga has given me the opportunity to explore more and more.”

Mayi’s explorations have continued with his work with Hammes. They’re both musicians that create their own identities, and now they are discovering new styles together. For Hammes, it’s a source of admiration: “Nyati has a unique style that even transcends music. I believe that for certain people, not being part of the system helps to develop a stronger personal style; in my opinion a personal style is the highest achievement in music.” Remix-collabs between African tradi-modern and European electronic music are nothing particularly new, but Nyati Mayi and the Astral Synth Transmitters see and do things differently. With their in-the-moment process of improvised creation, their music leaves a lot to think about. Impressive work when there’s only two of them.


Photo: Nyati Mayi and his lulanga.

Amaliya Group - Viyezgo: Vimbuza from Mzimba South

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 182, November 2022.

Amaliya Group
Viyezgo: Vimbuza from Mzimba South
1000Hz Records (38 mins)

Vimbuza is a ceremony of the Tumbuka people of Malawi, where people become healed through trance and the possession of spirits and ancestors. The vimbuza is facilitated, of course, by music and dance – and ritual leader Amaliya Kabila and her group are known as its most frenetic, agile practitioners.

When this album starts, you’re immediately there. No build-up. We’re right in the middle of the event, blood already pumping, drums already thumping and with the spirits of the elders being introduced to those present. Here, there are 21 people creating noise and passion and buzz: three drummers lead the rhythms bolstered by all manner of percussion while the rest of the participants sing and shout and chat and dance.

This music is not made for records, and the vimbuza ceremony is not for alteration by producers – everything here is the real deal, including the spirit possessions of Kabila and her students. The recordings are good, but we can only guess what the atmosphere would have been like in person. Although we only get the smallest glimpse into an all-night ritual, there is a visceral, solemn joyousness to the occasion. It sounds as if electricity is in the air.

Persian Classical Music: A Brief Overview

Co-written by Edoardo Marcarini and Jim Hickson.
First published in Tonality Magazine no. 7, 2022.



The music of Iran boasts an incredible richness of style: an eclectic yet contemplative classical tradition, an extraordinary variety of folk forms, a superb tradition of popular music and plenty of hybrid styles born from national and transnational musical encounters. Of these, Iranian art music – also known as Persian classical music – is the most well-known in the West, with the tradition’s most renowned masters regularly performing in Europe and North America. The sounds of this style are beautiful, elaborate and mesmeric, but with unique characteristics that can mystify foreign audiences, for whom the music’s subtlest majesty remains obscure. By gaining an understanding and familiarity with its core elements, a listener can better appreciate this fine art.

Building blocks: Gushes, Dastgāhs and Radifs

The splendour of Iranian music is found in the delicate balance between the simplicity of its skeletal melodies and the precise craftsmanship of its intricate ornamentation. Glissandos, trills, accents and near-imperceptible manipulations of pitch are masterfully combined with variation in dynamics, tempo and intensity to bring great variety even to the most basic of melodies. Together with an iconic use of quarter-tones, the expert embellishments give the music its distinctive character. These individual moments are encapsulated within layers of structure from which is built a repertoire that can be developed in so many ways as to be essentially infinite

The smallest structures are the gushes. A gushe is a prototypical melody or a melodic fragment that has developed from oral traditions of folk and court music, and there are over 300 recognised gushes within the classical canon. In performance, the melodies act as the starting point for extensive improvisation and reinterpretation, expanding as the musician explores each fragment further. When chained together, gushes encompass and modulate between various modes and scales, creating a larger, flowing melodic shape that builds to a climax.

The gushes are grouped into larger structures called dastgāhs. Dastgāhs are often compared to Western modes or Arabic maqams, and while this is partially true, the system of dastgāh is far more complex. They are built from the modular melodic fragments of the gushes; the mode of a dastgāh changes as it progresses, as certain gushes may be based on entirely different modes. Each dastgāh has a principle gushe – a darāmad – that is seen to define or embody that dastgāh. A live performance usually features a single dastgāh, within which gushes can be placed in various arrangements or even omitted entirely, although the darāmad remains the first performed. In modern times, there are generally considered to be twelve principle dastgāhs.

On top of dastgāhs are composed radifs. A radif is a model repertoire, a large collection of gushes that span many, or even all, dastgāhs, usually composed with a particular instrument in mind. Radifs have been collected and composed since the late 19th century and transmitted through scholarly tradition. Although the overall structure of a radif is composed, its performance is by no means fixed. While some musicians may favour a performance that adheres closely to the material as it has been passed down, radifs (much like gushes) are more often improvised upon to create something unique to each performer, and each performance.

Poetry and pieces

Within these structures lies an essential part of Persian classical music: poetry. From the gushes and dastgāhs can flourish pieces based on classical poetry; in vocal music these poems are sung in Farsi, and in instrumental performance, melodies are played that evoke specific poems. The most important of this type of piece is the avāz. The avāz does not feature a regular beat or pulse, but this absence grants the performer freedom to interpret and embellish the melody and to improvise around the mode. The choice of poem within a performance affects the significance and emotional charge of the piece, and impacts its rhythmic structure: the notes of the melody have proportional lengths that are related to metre in Persian prosody. While artistic performers are expected to avoid following the prosodic metre precisely, the rhythms that flow forth still describe the poetic Farsi syllables of the original text. There are many different poems that can be drawn upon when performing avāz, from the works of the great classical poets such as Rumi and Hafez, to contemporary works written for the purpose of musical performance.

Though avāz is arguably the most important piece in a classical concert, metric pieces are also performed within a suite. The concert usually begins with a pishdarāmad, a composed rhythmic piece intended to be played by an ensemble. Vocal compositions are called tasnif and are typically performed in a slow tempo. Chahārmezrābs are composed pieces for solo performance, often in a 6/8 metre. These showcase the technical proficiency of the musicians and are therefore played as fast as possible, further emphasising their rhythmic qualities in contrast with the freedom of avāz. The concert often ends with a reng, a fast-paced dance piece, also in 6/8.

A history of turmoil

While the grand tradition of Persian classical music is built upon many centuries of modal music, the concepts of dastgāh and radif are more modern. The oldest radifs still played today are by brothers Mirza Abdollah and Mirza Hossein-Qoli, who composed and collected them in the second half of the 19th century. The radifs are believed to have been arranged as pedagogical tools, overarching canons to aid both in the teaching of aspiring musicians and the promotion of the art form in a time when it seemed to be foundering. Radif first started to emerge within Iran at a critical time in the country’s musical evolution.

At that time, French musicians were invited to Iran to teach European theories of harmony and orchestral arrangement, with a particular focus on music for military formations. The introduction of these new, foreign styles was met with enthusiasm by local musicians and the middle class, and a fashion for large orchestras and rich harmony incentivised many composers to create hybrid styles of music combining Persian and Western elements. This aesthetic shift towards Western music brought with it the opening of dedicated music schools, and threatened the continuation of Iran’s own endemic musical culture.

It was at this point that Ali-Naqi Vaziri began his fundamental work in the development of traditional music. He founded the what would become the Tehran Conservatory of Music in 1923, wrote books on Persian music theory and published the first collection of Persian music transcribed in Western notation. However, despite Vaziri’s pioneering work, the traditional classical style almost disappeared in the 1950s due to the rising popularity of musighi-e pap (Western influenced pop music) and the on-going Westernisation of the country as a whole. Many credit the preservation of Persian classical music to the efforts of Dariush Safvat and Nur-Ali Borumand in their creation of the Centre for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music in 1968. Borumand, in particular, stressed the importance of radif in classical performance, becoming known for his strict, note-for-note performances of many famous radifs. Borumand also directly taught many of the current masters of classical music as well as many Western scholars, ensuring that his own techniques and musical philosophies have become mainstream.

Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979 saw all music banned throughout the country. Restrictions eased two years later, with Iranian classical music allowed to re-emerge partly due to the religious nature of its poetry. In recent years musicians are rethinking their approach to the style and experimenting with the radif in ways never before seen. Nevertheless, amid this renaissance, a total ban on public performance for solo female singers remains to this day, stifling the musical creativity, innovation and public voice of a huge portion of the population.

Musicians and their tools

With so much of the magic of Persian classical music arising from improvisation, it is the musicians themselves that provide the true genius spark to the music. As sung poetry holds such an important place within the tradition, it is understandable that the voice is considered one of the most important instruments, and brings with it techniques that set singers apart from other musicians. The vocal vibrato known as tahrir stands out: it is performed by cracking one’s voice to embellish notes of a melody line with the grace note above, similar to a very subtle yodel. The technique is very distinctive, extremely difficult to perform, and enhances the emotional resonance of the singer’s repertoire. Notable classical singers include Mohammad Reza Shajarian and his son Homayoun, Shahram Nazeri, Alireza Ghorbani, Parisā and Qamar.

Vocal music is usually accompanied by a small ensemble, and many instrumentalists perform as soloists themselves, translating the flows of classical music and poetry through their instruments. Perhaps the most emblematic musical instrument is the tār, a plucked, hourglass-shaped lute with five strings set in three courses. Many of the most revered musicians in Persian classical music perform on tār, including the Mirza brothers, Darvish Khan, Morteza Neidavoud, Darious Tala’I and Hossein Alizādeh. Many tār players also play the setār, a smaller pear-shaped lute closely related to long-necked lutes of the Central Asia, whose players include Abdollah Saba, Ahmad Ebadi and Mohammad Reza Lotfi. There is also the barbat, a short-necked lute similar to the Arabic oud that has gained significant popularity in recent years with performers such as Negar Bouban and Yasamin Shahhosseini

Two other string instruments have a very close relationship within classical music. The kamancheh is a bowed spiked lute that descends from the Greek lyra. Its tone is deep and airy, and this mellow sound pairs well with the bright and percussive timbre of the santur, a trapezoidal hammered dulcimer with 72 strings. The pairing of these instruments can be heard to great effect on the album I Will Not Stand Alone featuring the masters Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh and Ali Bahrami Fard on bass santur. Another popular melody instrument is the ney, a bamboo flute that is found across the Middle East and North Africa; Hassan Kassai is widely considered the best Persian ney player.

Despite the prevalence of free-metred avāz in classical performance, percussion is vital to Iranian musical life. The main percussion is the tombak, a goblet-shaped drum played by many instrumentalists and singers. Percussionists have historically held a lower status among musicians, but in recent years many players have taken the tombak to a whole new level. Work by the Chemirani Trio (Jamshid Chemirani and his sons Keyvan and Bijan) and Mohammad Reza Mortazavi have staked a claim for the tombak as a solo instrument in its own right, alongside the daf frame drum.

Looking wider and to the future

After rescuing a living classical tradition from many years of turmoil, Iranian musicians are once again beginning to look outside the country for inspiration and collaboration. Kayhan Kalhor is perhaps the most prolific of these, his graceful kamancheh enlightening music of many foreign spheres: Western classical music with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet and Brooklyn Rider; Hindustani classical music with sitarist Shujaat Khan in their ensemble Ghazal; pan-Asian music with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble; Turkish music with Erdal Erzincan; and an intriguing mix of jazz, European baroque and Persian music with the Rembrandt Trio. Hossein Alizadeh has also collaborated with the Rembrandt Trio, as well as with Armenian duduk player Djivan Gasparyan. Influence has also flowed the other way, with composers in the Western classical idiom, such as Golfam Khayam, introducing Persian stylistic features in their compositions, reframing and reclaiming the dialogue between East and West from the Orientalist composers of the past.

Persian classical music exists in a lineage that can be traced back many centuries, but its structure of gushes, dastgāhs and radifs – and its many pieces based on poetry and other themes – allows the flexibility to improvise and reinterpret the music to an endless degree. And so the classical tradition today is as exciting and modern as it always has been, and its musicians are always looking forward and sideways to enhance this music and their craft in ways that embody its ancient and revered values. Within its complexity lies beauty, and there has never been a better time to experience this wonderful, entrancing and intricate music.


Images, from top: An Iranian musicial group from the Qajar era, by Kamal-ol-Molk (1886); an unidentified painting including Iranian musicians; Kayhan Kalhor, by Mohammad Delkesh (cropped); used under licence CC BY 4.0.

Super Parquet - Couteau / Haute Forme

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 181, October 2022.

Super Parquet
Couteau / Haute Forme
Airfono (66 mins)

Super Parquet command the confluence of Auvergnat folk, art and club music, creating their own unique soundflow. This follow-up to their 2019 debut is actually two complementary albums in one. The first part, Couteau, continues where they left off, with acoustic timbres of cabrette (bagpipes), boîte à bourdon (drone hurdy-gurdy) and banjo clashing with astringent electronics and effects, building up short ostinati into overwhelming textures with agonising dissonances and distortions, with traditional song cutting through here and there. It’s ever-evolving, ever-building and absolutely brilliant. It feels somewhat like a mirror-image of ambient music: its construction and impact are very similar, but its sound is anything but relaxing.

The relationship with ambient music gets much closer on Haute Forme. It takes the shape of a single 38-minute piece (split into two by the limitations of vinyl), starting with pumping, phasing cardiorhythms and screeching proto-melodies that eventually mellow into a wide-open soundscape. With another transformation, it becomes a bourrée macabre before this too dissolves into unstoppable, suffocating repetition until there is nothing but pulse and drone. Then silence.

For this double-album, the ideal listening experience is one of sensory overload and deprivation: play as loud as possible in a pitch-black environment. The constant looping can be brain-jamming. It fills the skull – Super Parquet’s music almost physically demands one’s full attention.

Rabii Harnoune & VB Kühl - Gnawa Electric Laune II

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 181, October 2022.

Rabii Harnoune & VB Kühl
Gnawa Electric Laune II
Tru Thoughts (58 mins)

As you might guess, this album is the sequel to the first collaboration between Moroccan Gnawa musician Harnoune and German producer Kühl, which came out in 2020. With two years to percolate their ideas, the approach seems to be ‘more of the same, but bigger’. Each of the 12 tracks has many layers of sound that give it a luscious atmosphere, like a jungle where different voices, synths, basses, beats, percussions, riffs and assorted beeps and bloops loom out from the denseness the closer you listen.

While Harnoune’s Gnawa roots usually provide some element of a baseline throughout with some combination of guimbri (bass lute), qaraqab (metal castanets) and singing, Kühl’s production builds from those foundations to take in all sorts of electronic dance influences. There’s a more jazzy edge this time around, whether it’s within the chilled lo-fi vibes of ‘Jilani’ or the get-up-and-dance remix-feel of ‘Aisha’. There are also calmer moments where Harnoune sings in a more classical Arabic style such as on ‘Gihaorba’, which provides a nice contrast.

As with the previous album, this project doesn’t come close to the intensity of the Gnawa lila ceremony, but it’s still plenty of fun for a light-hearted listen with a Moroccan flavour.

Johnny Kalsi and Hoghead, WOMAD Reading 2006

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 180, August/September 2022 as my contribution to the article 'Four Decades of WOMAD'

After years of extolling the festival’s virtues, we’d brought our mate Hoghead down for his first WOMAD at Reading in 2006. Hog is a rocker with a great love for anything guitar-based, but this was a completely different musical world for him.

That year, WOMAD staples and masters of bhangra-fusion The Dhol Foundation were a last-minute replacement for a band that couldn’t make it. While I was down the front, Hog hung back, never one for dancing. But I’d occasionally look back over to see him, mouth agape, gently shaking his head – the energy from the five huge Punjabi drums on stage clearly working their magic. After the set, the stage’s MC, the gentleman Neil Sparkes, let us slip backstage and we ended up getting a fantastic photo with TDF frontman Johnny Kalsi – with Hoghead grinning like a wally in his Motörhead t-shirt. We were all in a daze afterwards, our conversation mostly consisting of “wow!” and “corr!”. It was a magical gig.

What an honour it is to watch a mind get blown, experiencing intoxicating music that was otherwise completely new to them – and it’s something that happens all the time at WOMAD.


Photo: (l-r) the writer, the writer's dad Paul, Johnny Kalsi, Hoghead, backstage at the Village Stage, WOMAD Reading 2006.

Avalanche Kaito - Avalanche Kaito

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 180, August/September 2022.

Avalanche Kaito
Avalanche Kaito
Glitterbeat Records (41 mins)

When the first track opens with ominous flat thrums of a bass guitar that make way for dissonant synth tones, distorted noise and crackling percussion ostinatos, you know you’re not in for your usual album of West African griot music. Avalanche Kaito is the meeting of Burkinabé singer and multi-instrumentalist Kaito Winse and a duo from Belgian noise punk group Le Jour du Seigneur. The small set-up allows for intimate collaboration and a focussed sound – it feels as if you’re sharing a tiny, loud room with the trio.

Winse’s tambin (Fula flute), tama (talking drum) and mouth bow (as well as his ancient sung, spoken or shouted proverbs) are always the star of the show, with the Belgians’ harsh synths and driving beats aiding in the groove – albeit usually an unexpected one, full of alien harmonies and strange modulations. Like all the best punk, Avalanche Kaito’s music is confrontational and abrasive, but also playful and with a great sense of fun. While it lacks the overwhelming intensity of similar projects such as Ifriqiyya Electrique, this debut album certainly has proper party-mode chops. It just happens that the party in question is in a warped, alternate-reality Afropean noise dungeon.

Various Artists - Music from Saharan WhatsApp

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 180, August/September 2022.

Various Artists
Music from Saharan WhatsApp
Sahel Sounds (45 mins)

Sahel Sounds’ ground-breaking 2011 compilation Music from Saharan Cellphones opened the world’s ears to the massive network of democratic digital distribution flowing underneath the popular musical culture of Africa’s Sahel region. A decade later, technology has moved on and so have Sahelian music fans. Over the course of 2020, the label released 11 EPs of music sourced from Whatsapp. Each EP was available for one month only, with all profits going straight to the musicians – Music from Saharan WhatsApp showcases the best of that bunch.

The result is a snapshot of a wide range of tradi-pop styles from across Niger, Mali and Mauritania. All sorts are represented here – traditional lutes are plucked alongside microtonal electric guitars, djembé and calabash beat alongside drum machines. There’s raw Songhai and Tuareg rock, Mauritanian wzn wedding music, Nigerien synth-folk, and even the first Wodaabe guitar band.

All tracks were recorded directly into phones in a variety of locations and scenarios, and the sound is understandably lo-fi. While this adds charm to most tracks, some suffer from it, the digital artefacts and overzealously-applied automatic noise-cancelling getting in the way of the music itself. As with its spiritual predecessor, this compilation gives a great window into the Sahelian music scene as it exists on the ground – but be prepared for some variable sound quality.

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Jazz Cafe, Camden, London

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.



Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Jazz Cafe, Camden, London
17th May 2022

It’s a logical double bill: celebrated Italian pizzica group Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and CGS leader and violinist Mauro Durante’s duo with global blues guitar explorer Justin Adams – a newer but nevertheless heralded formation. Both outfits were on top form.

The duo were up first. The contrast between silky, elegant folk violin and gritty rock-inflected electric guitar (echoed in Mauro’s clear voice and Justin’s growl) creates the friction that allows the unlikely fusion to spark. The two meet in sparse, contemplative atmospheres with deep emotional resonances. Mauro’s turn on the tamburello (tambourine) called to mind the bendir of Justin’s work with Maghrebi music, and showed the profound musical intelligence and artistic respect at play.

CGS upped the ante by several levels. As the group opened with solo zampogna (bagpipes) and four booming tamburellos, the audience’s swaying quickly made way for large pockets of spontaneous Italic choreography. CGS do have beautiful and intense songs, sung with full-chested passion and bringing to mind medieval cities and pan-Mediterranean cultural connections… but the fireworks really come when all seven members of the group – tamburello, accordion, violin, voice, whistles, bouzouki and dance – thrash out frenetic, extended, heart-pounding pizzicas, whipping the crowd into a rhythm frenzy of sweat and limbs reminiscent of many a mystical ecstatic trance.

The joy and relief of the return of live music is still palpable and acts like a halo around artists and audience alike, filling souls and moving bodies. It was the warmest day of the year so far outside, and inside the Jazz Cafe, it was positively sweltering.


Photo: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, by Vincenzo de Pinto.

Vieux Farka Touré - Les Racines

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

Vieux Farka Touré
Les Racines
World Circuit Records (47 mins)

As the son of one of the world’s greatest ever musicians, it’s understandable that Vieux Farka Touré has spent his career making increasingly adventurous albums and collaborations to step out of his father Ali’s shadow. He accomplished that – now he returns to the source. The results are simply outstanding.

The direction of Les Racines (The Roots) is clear from its first few seconds. Twanging Saharan guitar, earthy ngoni, calabash and karinyan (iron scraper) keeping a grooving 6/8 time over one delicious chord – we’re back in deep Songhai territory, and this is Songhai blues at its finest. There are some big-name Malian guests – Amadou Bagayoko on guitar, Cheick Tidiane Seck on organ and Madou Sidiki Diabaté on kora – but there are no frills here. It’s all in service to the roots and it all gravitates around the heady riffs and solos of Vieux’s guitar, spiralling into the past while roaring resolutely in the present.

Vieux has embraced his role as Ali’s musical heir while retaining his own voice – in doing so he’s created a classic. This is an album that may well compel you to scrunch up your face and let forth a guttural blues howl in public – don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Noori and his Dorpa Band - Beja Power! Electric Soul and Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

Noori and his Dorpa Band
Beja Power! Electric Soul and Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast
Ostinato Records (41 mins)

A unique instrument is always eye-catching, and Noori’s incredible self-made (literal) fusion of an electric guitar and a tambour lyre certainly grabs the attention. The music he makes with it is even more impressive.

Noori and his band (tenor sax, rhythm guitar, bass and percussion) are Beja, an oppressed minority group from the coastal region of eastern Sudan. Their self-appointed task is to keep the culture of the Beja alive, but their music is no museum-piece. The album’s six instrumental tracks bring to mind raw blues and smoky jazz in equal amounts. The choppy guitar and swirls of saxophone are filled with loping Saharan rhythms and a pentatonic feel that could only be from the Horn of Africa, marking it squarely in the same family as Ethiopian and Somali music. At points it really does sound like a laid-back meeting between Tinariwen and Mulatu Astatke. It all feels like an intimate jam – structured but loose, with space for each musician to stretch out and make the sound their own. The approach creates understated music, in a way that only emphasises its cool.

Beja Power! is a wonderful album by a unique group, showcasing the riches of an underrepresented culture with an effortlessly hip sound – powerful indeed.

África Negra - Antologia, Vol. 1

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

África Negra
Antologia, Vol. 1
Bongo Joe Records (76 mins)

When it comes to vintage dance music from the tiny Atlantic African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, it would appear that Bongo Joe Records, with compiler DJ Tom B, have struck upon a rich seam. With this third such album in as many years, they turn their attention to the one of the country’s most successful dance bands, África Negra.

The group first got together in the early 70s (when their country was still part of Portugal’s colonial empire) and they’re still going, having survived schisms and splits along the way. Their style is known to fans as mama djumba: it has all the loveliest elements of Congolese rumba and soukous with the subtlest of Lusophone flavours and hints of highlife. It serves to highlight São Tomé’s position as a midpoint between Central and West Africa, embodied in the sparkling guitars and heavenly vocal harmonies.

This first volume of África Negra’s Antologia presents music from their 15 studio albums of the 80s and 90s, and a volume of unreleased material is expected soon, along with a European tour. If you’re looking for classy dance grooves with elegance and heat, this collection might well be your sound of the summer.

My Instrument: Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe and their Embaire

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 178, June 2022.



There’s a worn-out cliché of a proverb that says ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ In the Ugandan kingdom of Busoga, it takes a village to play a xylophone. The instrument is the embaire, and the village of Nakibembe is world-renowned for its musicians’ prowess.

The embaire is huge. It is three metres long, and its 21 keys are played by six musicians, who sit three per side. Each musician plays a relatively simple repeating pattern across three or four keys, but multiplied six-fold they create an intense battery of ever-evolving interlocking sonic shapes. From this dense tangle of sound, distinct melodies, basslines and drum rhythms emerge, each musician’s abstract part combining into an entrancing whole. “It’s a bit like jazz,” explains Nassar Kinobi, the singer and bass-keys-specialist in the Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe. “Everyone is playing a different thing, but there is always a connection between them. And there are things we can’t explain, it’s like magic. When we start playing, there is momentum. Anything can change and become a perfect part of a pattern, even if it’s an accident!”

The instrument itself is a feat of carpentry. The keys of the embaire are made from the wood of the omusambya (Markhamia lutea or Nile tulip), and its beaters are made from the wood of the nzo (Teclea nobilis). The omusambya wood is carefully hewn with a special axe-chisel called the eyiga; the tuning is incredibly precise – each small chip of a giant key is an irreparable alteration – and measured entirely by ear.

When played in the villages of Busoga, the keys are laid on banana stems and placed over a 50cm-deep pit dug into the ground. This trough provides a booming resonance that enhances the instrument’s bass keys, connecting the embaire to the land of its ancestors in a very literal way. It also makes it a challenge to set up on a stage – the concept of transporting a hole is a bit of an ontological head-scratcher. But with multiple international appearances under their belt, the Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe have found a way around that challenge. Each time they travel abroad, a specially-built box is commissioned to stand in for the earthen pit. The original keys from Nakibembe are then placed upon the new resonator, creating a hybrid instrument: half-Soga, half-international.



The Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe don’t just carry the name of their village out of sentimentality; the group is interwoven with the community itself. They are more than six musicians. In fact, they’re more like a football team. They have their ‘starting line-up,’ who are usually the ones who tour abroad, but there are many other players in the troupe who can sub in whenever necessary – the village even has a youth ensemble for the trainees.

Arising in the 1970s, the giant 21-keyed version of the embaire is a fairly modern innovation on an ancient instrument, but it’s already a valuable tradition in Nakibembe. “It’s become something big, and we want to keep it going,” says Rashidi Ngobi. Affectionately referred to as ‘the old man’ by the rest of the musicians, Ngobi is the troupe’s elder, and the one who holds the embaire’s history. “If we teach people, and then they teach people, then it lives on because our ancestors did the same thing. My job is to inspire the young generation and to make sure that I leave something for them. When they have children, they should teach them the same thing and keep the legacy going.”

Behind the intricate melodies and rhythms interlaced into a complex cacophony lies a simple truth: “The embaire was created to help take away sorrow, to bring joy, and to make people forget their suffering. Its history is about people coming together and creating something for a cause,” says Ngobi. With an instrument this big, it really does take a village to play the embaire.


Photos, from top: Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe live at CTM Festival 2020, by Stefanie Kulisch; the keys of the Nakibembe embaire.

Pongo - Sakidila

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 178, June 2022.

Pongo
Sakidila
Virgin Records (40 mins)

Angolan-born, Lisbon-based singer and rapper Pongo already gained notoriety within the field of forward-thinking kuduro for her collaborations with Buraka Som Sistema stretching back to 2008. After a series of singles, EPs and high-energy live shows, her debut album is finally here.

Sadilika starts more on the laid-back side. The heavy beats of the kuduro club make way for classy R&B and chilled influences from Brazil and the Caribbean. This section is definitely the most pop-oriented, and while it’s pretty much inoffensive, Pongo really comes into her own half-way through the album when she turns up the heat.

The highlights come from this second half, starting with the track ‘Começa’ – the beats are harder, the bass is darker and the vocals delivered with a little bit more poison. Influences from hip-hop, amapiano and even soukous give each track an interesting, individual identity and the delightful rework of Pongo’s first hit with Buraka Som Sistema, ‘Wegue Wegue’, shows 14 additional years of musical maturity.

Pongo uses this debut to explore her musical range, but it’s the moments where the energy matches her frenetic live performances that show you what she’s truly capable of.

Sigurd Hole - Roraima

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 178, June 2022.

Sigurd Hole
Roraima
Elvesang (78 mins)

Sigurd Hole’s previous album was a solo double bass exploration into the environment and atmospheres of his native Norway. Now in a seven-piece among some of the biggest names in Norwegian jazz, Hole studies similar themes, albeit a little further from home.

Roraima is an instrumental telling of the creation myth of the indigenous Yanomami people of the northern Amazon, and a musical echo of the dense but calm soundscapes of the rainforest. Hole and his musicians play alongside and converse with field recordings of the Amazon and its people, while taking influence from jazz, folk, minimalism and subtle flavours from India and Armenia. It’s an intriguing concept and execution – Nordic jazz is very rooted in its landscape and the juxtaposition between Norwegian and Amazonian provides an interesting dissonance.

In creating the intricately-constructed atmospherics and mimesis, Roraima is Hole’s plea to reorient our culture and society around the environment and its needs, a return to a philosophy central to many indigenous beliefs. But with its structure directly inspired by Yanomami religion, it is disappointing to see an apparent lack of Yanomami contributors, either as participants or consultants. While Roraima is certainly admirable in its message and music, it raises the question – whose story is this to tell?

Cabralista Collectives: Dispatch from Porto, Portugal

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 177, May 2022.



Two artists performing in the same city, on the same night, in different venues, making very different music but with the same totemic figure in their hearts.

Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu were both in Porto in October, invited in front of the assembled world music industry as part of WOMEX 21. Bandé-Gamboa is a project fusing Cape Verdean funaná and Bissau-Guinean gumbé in a modern take on the classic dance-band format; Scúru Fitchádu also uses funaná, but takes it into the loud, aggressive and hyperactive world of punk, metal and electronica. Both hold a common core – the work of Amílcar Cabral.

Cabral was one of the great African revolutionaries, an anti-colonial thinker and a noted poet. In organising against the colonial power of Portugal, his dream was to unite Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde into one nation of differing but complementary halves. He was assassinated in 1973, but the independence movement he spearheaded continued in earnest. Within three years, both countries had won their freedom from Portugal – albeit as two separate, independent nations. Cabral remains a crucial figure and cultural touchstone within those countries and across the continent.

Scúru Fitchádu is the solo project of Marcus Veiga. Born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean and Angolan parents, Veiga grew up hearing the wisdom of Cabral. “The entire narrative involving Cabral was recurrent whenever there was talk of the colonial war and independence,” he says. “As a teenager, I didn't pay much attention, but when I started to wake up to conscious hip-hop and punk, I started to research revolutionary movements. It was from there that everything became clearer: Amílcar Cabral was a major figure in the struggle for the independence of the African people. He played an important role in ending the colonial power.” It was those awakenings that allowed Veiga to explore his own roots, musically and politically. Funaná is party music – based around fast-paced accordion and iron scraper – but it’s also a symbol of resistance. It reflects the blues of everyday people and was banned under colonial rule. With Veiga’s unique mix of powerful, punky, political party music, it was unquestionable that Cabralista philosophies would be at the centre: “The whole combative attitude directly draws on the liberation movements of Amílcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon and the Black Panther Party. I was born and live in the country that colonised, humiliated, kidnapped, raped and murdered my ancestors. I always try to establish a parallel between African guerrilla decolonisation movements and the present day, by writing verses or using samples that elaborate ideas of physical and mental colonial liberation. Here lies my manifesto. It opened doors for the way I make my art, and gave me ethical principles for how I live my life. Similar to so many others who have Cabral as a reference, we find guidelines for good conduct in his work as a strategist, writer and poet.”



Cabral’s post-colonial vision also inspired the founding of Bandé-Gamboa. The project started as an album by two all-star bands: one from Guinea-Bissau on Side A, one from Cape Verde on Side B – a reflection of Cabral’s ambition of the two countries united. The album was released in 2020, and the project has since evolved further, joining the two bands into one for live performances. Bandé-Gamboa was the brainchild of Portuguese producer Francisco ‘Fininho’ Sousa, who explains how the figure of Cabral is central to his work: “Cabral did not intend to dilute Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau into one identity; he celebrated the diversity and difference between the countries. We do the same. This project aims to respect the culture, but refuses to look at culture as static. It always evolves. That’s where Cabral comes in. He said that revolution was a cultural act. We place the future of the music in the hands of the most talented musicians, exactly where it should be.”

Fundamental to both Veiga’s and Sousa’s musical messages is the erasure of African struggles within the histories and education of Europeans. Scúru Fitchádu and Bandé-Gamboa are taking over where schools in Portugal are failing, by bringing Cabral and his teachings to wider attention, and with it broader topics of African liberation and anti-colonialism. “The narrative that was given to me in schoolbooks showed the Portuguese Empire as a sophisticated and benevolent coloniser of the wild, limited, disposable Africans,” says Veiga. “That story is still told in schoolbooks and Portuguese civil society today.” And Sousa notes that that vitriol extends to Cabral himself: “The difference between what I had been told his ideas were – shallow revolutionary rants – and what they turned out to be – beautifully written, innovative, deep humanist ideas – is a measure of the cultural bubble us Europeans live in. We are born in an epistemic prison. In many ways, he liberated me.”

Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu make very different music, but bring their audiences into the same anti-colonial collective. On a Saturday night in October, Porto – once one of the most important cities of the Portuguese Empire – was rocking to the message of the hero Amílcar Cabral.


Photos: Scúru Fitchádu live at WOMEX 21, by Yannis Psathas; Bandé-Gamboa, by Patricia Pascal.

DJ Kainga - OO MP3

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 176, April 2022.

DJ Kainga
OO MP3
1000HZ Records (40 mins)

Polish label 1000HZ have spent the last few years quietly putting out records of incredibly interesting music from Malawi, and this second album in their Digital Indigenous series continues that trend.

DJ Kainga makes what he calls ‘Lomwe beat,’ electro music as it has evolved from the streets of Zomba, with the sonic imprint of the city and its Lomwe people. This is all synth, all the time: apart from the occasional song, it’s all made on what sounds like your standard, slightly tinny Casio in a manner that makes it feel like a cousin to Tanzanian mchiriku or South African Shangaan electro. Simple, cheerful melodies and layered over Lomwe rhythms (adapted into keyboard presets) and reggaeish chord stabs. It’s all so relentlessly optimistic, I dare you not to have a big smile on your face within a minute of the first track.

It makes a change to hear music clearly made for the local market and all the aesthetic choices that come with that – even when it does mean autotune-saturated chipmunkesque vocals on the two songs. This is a set of cheery club music with a unique sound and very little pretention. How refreshing!

A Personal Jazz Mystery Solved

First published on the British Library Sound and Vision blog.



I’m a jazz nut. My mental soundtrack is often filled with anonymous changes and walking bass solos. But there is one particular song that has been buzzing around my head for years and years – about a decade, in fact. That song is the version of ‘Popity Pop’, recorded by vocalese trio Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, on their album High Flying from 1961. Specifically, Jon Hendricks’ break-down at about 2 min. 16 sec.:



That break-down is so unexpected, so sweet and so touching; it’s an inspired moment and a great contrast to the frenetic energy of the rest of the song. I couldn’t help but become intrigued by it. It was obviously a quotation from another piece of music… but which one? I had no idea. I asked around, and no-one else seemed to have an idea either. Google was no help. I was certain that the answer must be out there. Where was it?

To read the full blog post and to find out the unexpected place I found my answer, head over to the British Library Sound and Vision blog.

Shay Hazan - Reclusive Rituals

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 175, March 2022.

Shay Hazan
Reclusive Rituals
Batov Records (24 mins)

In his first album for Batov Records, Tel Aviv-based jazz bassist Shay Hazan takes his sound in a different direction. Turning his fingerwork to the Moroccan Gnawa guimbri (bass lute) and pointing his headspace towards an ultra-cool instrumental funk, Hazan set out to create an album ‘in order to satisfy the inner urge for simple grooves.’ And groovy it is.

An obvious referent here comes in the shape of jazz’s hip Gen Z sibling, lo-fi hip-hop: wavy, nostalgic synths, wonky J Dilla-inspired beats and even a vinyl crackle are washed over the whole album. Together with sparse, layered rhythms and delay-drenched trumpet, it exudes that laid-back, go-with-the-flow vibe. Different ingredients are added here and there, with Afrobeat, Saharan rock and more straight-ahead jazz all stirring in comfortably into the mix (albeit with curiously little Gnawa thrown in, considering the distinctive presence of the guimbri).

It’s a bit of a shame that this album is so short. The eight tracks come to just under 25 minutes in total, and when it comes to an end, it just feels a bit unresolved. What is here, though, is a lovely little exploration into a juicy, chilled-out groove.

Gonora Sounds - Hard Times Never Kill

First published on The Quietus.

Gonora Sounds
Hard Times Never Kill
The Vital Record / Dust to Digital (54 mins)

There’s a good chance you’ve already seen Daniel Gonora and his son Isaac play before. A video of them busking in Harare has been bouncing around social media since about 2016, usually without credit. Surrounded by an attentive crowd, Daniel, sitting low and with eyes closed from blindness, plays an intricate piece on an electric guitar through a strained amplifier while Isaac, then only twelve years old, shows his energetic mastery of the groove on a beat-up drum set, all rounded off by the infectious refrain of “Go bhora!”. That video blew up, racking up over ten million views. Now, six years later and with a full band and a real drum kit, Gonora Sounds – as they are known – have their first album of spicy and sunny sungura music.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.