Tonga Boys - Vindodo

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 147, May 2019.

Tonga Boys
Vindodo
1000HZ (42 mins)

The first thing you’ll notice about this album is its packaging – no jewel case here! Instead, the CD comes in a sealed plastic pouch not unlike a tobacco packet, with some gnarly graphic design that would look perfectly at home in the cassette stalls in Mzuzu, Malawi.

Tonga Boys are indeed a group from Malawi, and Vindodo was made in collaboration with a trio of Polish producers. Their sound is quite akin to Congotronics: there’s a proper DIY atmosphere, all slightly distorted drums, percussion and looping, call-and-response vocals. The production is subtle – a synth drum here and there, the occasional drone, some echo. It’s tasteful and usually effective, but I feel like the album wouldn’t suffer incredibly without it.

The DIY-iness goes deep; these are obviously home recordings. That roughness can be aesthetically appropriate, but there’s a risk of it just sounding bad. Luckily, Vindodo manages to stay on the right side of that line…mostly. The ear gets used to it, and I warmed to the album the more I listened.

Everything about this album is rough and ready, but if you’re prepared and in the mood for a repetitive and darkly hypnotic listen, this is an interesting one to try.

Various Artists - Les Bushinengé: Nèg Mawon de Guyane

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 147, May 2019.

Various Artists
Les Bushinengé: Nèg Mawon de Guyane
Buda Musique (73 mins)

The Bushinengé people from French Guiana and Suriname are descended from escaped slaves who fled to the Amazon and intermarried with the local Amerindian population. As a result, their culture mixes influences from all over Africa and the Amazon basin.

For the Bushinengé, music and dance are two halves of the same thing, and you’ll never find one without the other. It’s all meant to bring people closer together and as a result, it has a real community feel. It also means that every element of the music is geared towards getting you off your bum. It’s almost exclusively based around percussion and song, which is sung with a really distinctive vocal style that uses wide, heavy vibrato. A West African influence is particularly noticeable, especially with patterns played on beer bottles that sound so reminiscent of those in Ghanaian music.

This album is the latest addition to the wonderful Musique du Monde album series. It was recorded across French Guiana, capturing all sorts of performance styles and contexts, from live shows to living rooms and everything in between. It’s a great musical overview from a region we rarely hear, and from a people we hear even less.

The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra - Naming & Blaming

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 147, May 2019.

The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra
Naming & Blaming
Hope Street Recordings (39 mins)

This is the second album from the Melbourne-based Public Opinion Afro Orchestra and it is unabashedly Afrobeat. The group take many cues from the 70s style, from the instrumentation to the groove to the long-form structure of the pieces. Of course it's political too, full of pointed criticisms of Western foreign policy and imperialism as well as Australia’s colonial past and neo-colonial present.

The thing with Afrobeat is that it hasn't yet stepped out of Fela Kuti's shadow; it may never be possible. For modern bands, comparisons are unavoidable, and who can compare to Fela? That’s why the stand-out points of this album are when the group break from tradition. Whether it’s the dubby trombone solo on ‘No Passport’ or the straight-up jazz sax of the title track, it’s these little bits of difference that really stand out. Most of all, it’s the contributions of the rapper MC One Sixth that make the sound fresh – the rhythms and riffs of Afrobeat are perfect vehicles for rap, and One Six’s lyricism fits well with the themes of the style.

With Naming & Blaming, the POAO capture that classic Afrobeat sound, while mixing things up just enough to not be just another Fela clone project.

Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa - Poetic Trance

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 147, May 2019.

Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa
Poetic Trance
Blue Line Productions (51 mins)

Aziz Sahmaoui, Moroccan co-founder of the legendary Orchestre National de Barbès, is back for a third album with his group University of Gnawa; together they explore the historic connections between the Gnawa of Morocco and the Mandé world to the south using music as their magnifying glass.

Aside from Sahmaoui himself providing lead vocals, ngoni and mandola, the core of the band are three Senegalese musicians, Alune Wade on bass, Hervé Samb on guitar and Cheikh Diallo on kora and keys. All three also sing, and so the Senegalese – and especially Wolof – sound is incredibly pervasive throughout. The Senegalese and North African elements are tumbled together with rock and reggae, making the end result rather poppy, actually.

Despite what the band name would suggest, though, there’s less Gnawa on the album than you’d expect. It’s a shame, because the strongest tracks on the album are the ones where it is brought to the fore, such as in ‘Soudani ya Yémma’ and ‘Sotanbi.’ It’s on these tracks that the album’s stated brief of ‘exposing universal truths’ of the connections between North and West Africa seems closest to being realised. Elsewhere, it just feels neither here nor there.

Arrested, Disappeared, Murdered? The Plight of Uyghur Musicians

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 146, April 2019.



There is a crisis in East Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang, an autonomous region of northwest China. For many years, Uyghur people of the region have spoken of the persecution taking place at the hands of the Chinese government; it is a persecution that has increased dramatically in the last 18 months. Culturally and ethnically Turkic, majority Muslim and with their own language (using the Arabic script), Uyghur life is culturally aligned with Central Asia and markedly different to the Chinese mainstream.

Under the guise of combatting Islamic extremism, the Uyghur way of life has come under systemic oppression and repression enforced by heavy surveillance and restrictions on movement, expression and association. Over one million people – mostly Uyghurs, but also Kazakhs, Mongols and other minority ethnic groups – are thought to have been imprisoned in euphemistically-named ‘re-education camps.’ These moves have been seen by the international community as a stepping-up of the long-brewing cultural purge of the Uyghur from the Han-majority Chinese government.

As is often the case in these sorts of situations, it is culture bearers that have incurred a particular wrath, with many prominent writers, academics, musicians, comedians, actors, poets and sportspeople confirmed as detained; some simply disappeared. Popular figures in Uyghur music such as pop stars Ablajan Awut Ayup and Zahirshah Ablimit and the folk and classical dutar (long-necked lute) player Abdurehim Heyit have all been detained within the past 18 months. As of writing, reports are just coming out that Heyit has been beaten to death in custody, although this is refuted by the Chinese government.

One of the most prominent arrests has been that of Sanubar Tursun. The classical singer is well-known for her contributions to the Aga Khan Music Initiative and her collaborations with Chinese musician Wu Man as part of the Master Musicians from the Silk Road ensemble. She has performed concerts around the world and was scheduled to complete a tour of France in February this year. She has not been heard from since November. Sources close to Tursun have stated that she was arrested and imprisoned for five years, but Chinese officials have refused to confirm the singer’s charge or even her whereabouts. An open letter, with over 120 signatories, reads ‘The case of Sanubar Tursun reminds us how powerful, but also exposed, fragile and vulnerable the voice of an artist is. This is unfortunately one example amongst many in the tragedy that is unfolding in the Uyghur region, and that now disrupts the French and international art scene, as well as the life of its audience who were looking forward to meet Sanubar Tursun in February.’

The plight of the Uyghur people and the attempted eradication of their culture by the Chinese authorities is cause for international concern; the stories of internationally-recognised figures such as Tursun help to spread the word far and wide. The world music community surely has their role to play.


Photo: Sanubar Tursun and ensemble

Obituary: Ayub Ogada (1956-2019)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 146, April 2019.



A giant of Kenyan music has passed away. Ayub Ogada died on February 1 at his home in Kisumu, after an illness. He was a master of the nyatiti, an eight-stringed lyre of the Luo people, on which he accompanied his beautiful voice. Ogada, under his birth name Job Seda, had a massive impact on the Kenyan music scene through the bands he founded, Black Savage and the African Heritage Band, whose influences are still felt in the country today. International audiences will probably be most familiar with his 1993 album En Mana Kuoyo, released on Real World Records, containing a quiet, intimate version of his most well-known song, the haunting lullaby ‘Kothbiro’. He was first noticed by Real World busking on the London Underground, but went on to perform around the world and collaborate with artists such as Peter Gabriel, Geoffrey Oryema, Afro Celt Sound System, Susheela Raman and even Gary Barlow; most recently, his work was sampled by Kanye West. In his tribute to Ogada, Gabriel said: “In the early days of WOMAD and Real World Records, many people weren’t interested to listen to music from other cultures and whenever I was trying to convince them, I would play Ayub singing ‘Kothbiro’ and invariably win them round.”


Photo: Ayub Ogada, by Andrew Catlin.

Obituary: Adel Salameh (1966-2019)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 146, April 2019.

The Palestinian oud player Adel Salameh died on January 23. Born in Nablus and growing up in the nearby city of Tulkarm, Salameh first learnt the oud in informal, social settings, but took it to the next level by studying music at university, first in Jordan and then Iraq. After settling in Europe in 1990, he became instrumental in the promotion of the oud across the continent.

He was particularly known for his international collaborations, including the celebrated duet with Indian sarod player Krishnamurti Sridhar (released as the album The Arab Path to India on WOMAD Select in 1996), and performing with jazz, flamenco and North African musicians. He was passionate about promoting the oud to as many listeners and would-be performers as possible, teaching classes all across Europe and even organising an intensive week-long ‘oud camps’ in Switzerland. Long-time readers of Songlines will be familiar with Salameh from a Tools of the Trade feature in #5, which examined the history and construction of the oud, as well as his own close personal relationship with the instrument.


Photo: Adel Salameh, by Laure Abouaf.