Hermon Mehari - Asmara

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 185, March 2023.

Hermon Mehari
Asmara
Kosmos (35 mins)

Jazz trumpeter Hermon Mehari is a Kansas City native based in Paris, but his third album is a reflection of his father’s land of Eritrea. Mehari has only visited the country once when he was five years old, but the memories of that time, and the music and culture of his childhood home, infuse this personal and touching work.

The overwhelming vibe of Asmara is one of freshness. It has something of a spring morning to it. Mehari’s trumpet has such an airy tone that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually a flugelhorn, and his ensemble specialises in beautifully light washes of sound without forfeiting any passion or musicality – piano and vibraphone player Peter Schlamb gives a particularly superlative performance.

The Eritrean influences can be felt throughout, but they’re subtle, like hazy memories conjured from a pentatonic passage within a flowing solo or a slightly staggered Red Sea rhythm guiding a composition. It’s only during the two guest turns by Eritrean singer Faytinga that those vapours coalesce into sweet raindrops of nostalgia. Don’t be mistaken, Asmara is a jazz record to its core, and a very solid one at that: a thoughtful exploration of roots and diaspora identity.

Ten Ethiopian Musicians You Need to Listen to Right Now

First published by Selamta, the Ethiopian Airlines online magazine.



If you’ve never listened to Ethiopian music before, you’re in for a treat! Ethiopia has a huge musical culture, with styles spanning traditional music, song and dance from the country’s 80-plus culture groups; achingly beautiful liturgical song of the Orthodox Church dating back to the 6th century; and popular music from retro jazz grooves to the cheesiest pop singers and the hippest underground scenes. But what sets them apart is a unique musical system – a set of distinctive pentatonic (five-note) scales that makes Ethiopian music absolutely unmistakable. Here are ten must-hear artists to kick-start your journey into the wonderful world of Ethiopian music.

…and to read the full list, including Mahmoud Ahmed (pictured above), head over to the original article at the Selamta website.


Photo: Mahmoud Ahmed performing with Badume´s Band at TFF.Rudolstadt 2010, by Schorle. Used under licence CC BY-SA 2.0.

Debashish Bhattacharya - The Sound of the Soul

First published on The Quietus.

Debashish Bhattacharya
The Sound of the Soul
Abstract Logix (76 mins)

Debashish Bhattacharya was not the first to bring Hindustani classical music to the slide guitar, but he has certainly brought the field its most recent international recognition – helped by successful collaborations with musicians such as John McLaughlin. The Sound of the Soul is Bhattacharya’s first solo release since his 2017 tribute to Hawaiian guitar master Tau Moe; this time he moves back to the classical frame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of his gurus, sarod pioneer Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Here, Bhattacharya plays the chaturangui, an instrument of his own design that looks as beautiful as it sounds. A sort-of mix between a hollow-neck lap steel guitar and a hollow-body Gibson, it has a bunch of sympathetic strings that makes it distinctively Indian in its appearance and in the way each note rings out into the ether.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

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.