'Kala Djula' - The exciting new release from Toumani and Touré

The news of Toumani Diabaté and Ali Farka Touré’s second collaboration album came as a bit of a surprise. The success of their first partnership; ‘In the Heart of the Moon’, a deeply rich and colourful collection of three-stringed melodies and vocals led to them to win a Grammy award in 2005. However, Tourés tragic death in 2006 from bone cancer led us all to believe that there sadly wouldn’t be any more material from the legendary Malian blues guitarist.

For this new assortment of songs, we have technology to thank. Using computer equipment and pieces of old recordings, World Circuit have managed to revive and create an astonishing collection of music entitled ‘Ali and Toumani’ set for release in February 2010.

The new single ‘Kala Djula’ is no let down. Resonating their previous capabilities for tender compositions, the track features a subtle complexity that gives the instrumental song a certain level of intensity and wistfulness. Nevertheless, the occasional moments of playfulness result in a song that never fails to sound boring.

The only downfall to using old recordings is the fear that the material won’t be entirely different to anything released before; however, this isn’t a problem for ‘Kala Djula’. If you’ve heard their music before, you’ll know exactly what to expect from this track and the upcoming album. Nonetheless, you will see that Diabaté’s kora playing and the way in which the melodies have been clasped together, have combined to produce a piece of music that has been seamlessly developed.

Ben Harper and Relentless7 celebrate National Earth Day

To celebrate National Earth Day, Nat Geo Music Channel have organised a concert and live broadcast from Rome’s infamous Piazza del Polopo, featuring the likes of Ben Harper and Relentless7.

In an effort to promote environmental awareness, Nat Geo Music (which is a division of National Geographic) is encouraging music lovers ‘to do what counts’.

Sydney Suissa, executive Vice President of NGCI has spoken about this new partnership explaining that; “music is an excellent way to connect people to an important issue and inspire them to act. Nat Geo Music Channel is pleased to partner with Ben Harper and Relentless7 to increase understanding about the environmental challenges facing our planet.”

The concert will be aired on the 22nd of April beginning at 8pm in Italy and will be broadcast on the Nat Geo Music Channel and www.natgeotv.com/earthday.

Also playing at this one-off concert is the debut performance from Bibi Tanga and the Selenites, one of the first new artists to come from the Nat Geo Music Record Label. An Italian band famous for its fusion of electronica and rock music will also be performing at the event.

The concerts carbon emissions are to be offset when the organisers will plant 1,000 trees this autumn in Rome’s Riserva della Valle dell’Aniene Park.

For more information on Ben Harper, check out his website at http://www.benharper.com/. For more information on the event or organisers then have a look at http://worldmusicdev.nationalgeographic.com:8080/preview/view/page.basic/about.

The Wonderful World of Aşa

“Life is beautiful, don’t you think so too?”

Last year the stunning velvet-voiced singer Aşa (pronounced Asha) released her sublime self-titled debut album. The charming singer who was born in Paris but raised in Nigeria composed the album in both Yoruba and English, reflecting on both the struggles and benefits of having dual nationality. The question of a double-identity is not only exhibited by Aşa’s soulful and tender lyrics but by the deep juxtaposition of both Western pop and African blues.

“360°” is the opening track on the album and is a breathtaking indication of what is to come with the rest of the beautiful album. Tracks such as ‘No-one Knows’ and ‘Bi’bin Ké’ are wonderfully melodic and yet peaceful all the same. “Jailer”, a single off the album that Aşa released last year is also powerfully rousing, with its focus on slavery and higher authorities, the track results in a delightfully rhythmic and surprisingly catchy tune.

“Fire on the Mountain” and “Iba” allow the listener a brief look at Aşa’s own intriguing identity and strong cultural perspectives, formulating along with the rest of the tracks, what has become for me, one of the most amazing records to be produced from Nigeria in years.

Charitable partnership between Dengue Fever and Wildlife Alliance

With artists and bands all trying to be that much more environmentally friendly (just have a look at Jack Johnson’s huge long list earth preserving actions as an example...) it’s not surprising that Dengue Fever are the latest to jump on the bandwagon and do their bit for the environment.

The superb band from Cambodia have paired up with the non-profit environmental organisation Wildlife Alliance to try and preserve Cambodia’s natural heritage including the preservation of threatened species such as elephants and tigers whilst also creating a ‘community Agricultural Development program’ to try and resolve the problems of deforestation and poaching and its effects on Cambodia’s surroundings.

According to guitarist Zak Holtzman, “we share a common vision... we want to preserve Cambodia’s rich cultural heritage, just like Wildlife Alliance is working to protect Cambodia’s wildlife species and forests.”

The Director of Wildlife Alliance’s U.S. operations, aware of Dengue Fever’s reliance on Cambodian culture, stated that “fans of Dengue Fever are naturally drawn to the artistic history of Cambodia, and we want to inform them how they can be involved in saving the country’s wildlife and forests alongside its cultural treasures.”

The newfound affiliation kicked off this weekend at the State Theatre in Virginia during the bands North American Tour. While the band performed, Wildlife Alliance set up a booth to educate and inform fans about Cambodian conservation.

Wildlife Alliance and Dengue Fever have declared that this partnership will hopefully include ‘benefit concerts, charity remixes, online commercials and cross marketing on social networking sites and websites”.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Dengue Fever, make it a priority to visit their MySpace at www.myspace.com/denguefever to check out their wonderful cross of traditional Cambodian blues and western pop.

The Songlines Music Award Nominees 2009

The Nominations for the Songline Music Awards have just been confirmed in issue #59 of Songlines, for those of you who don’t have the magazine, the nominees are:

Best Artist:

Toumani Diabaté
Lila Downs
Rokia Traoré
Mariza

Best Group:

Amadou & Mariam
Bellowhead
Los Desterrados
The Garifuna Woman’s Project

Cross-Cultural Collaboration:

Ska Cubano
Monkey (Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett)
Jah Wobble & The Chinese Dub Orchestra
Balkan Beat Box

Newcomer:

Dengue Fever
Buika
Dub Colossus
Kiran Ahluwallia

The winners will be selected by the Songlines editorial team and revealed in next months magazine.

World on 3 are also broadcasting a special programme about all the nominations on March 20th. You can listen again on the iplayer up to a week after the show.

The Larmer Tree Festival

Photographer: Damien Rafferty.

I’ve just recently come across a leaflet for a festival that I haven’t heard much about before.

The Larmer Tree Festival is a music and arts festival that is set in the beautiful and idyllic Victorian gardens of Cranborne Chase (on the Wiltshire/Dorset border). It features predominantly a large amount of World Music, Reggae, acoustic-folk, blues and roots and is known for its "stunning location ... and outstanding eclectic line-up."

The festival organisers only release 5,000 tickets maximum to ensure that the festival remains intimate and atmospheric and to make sure that there is minimal environmental damage.

The festival, which is now in its 18th year has had some pretty big names, ranging from Jools Holland and Dengue Fever to Tinariwen, and that was last year alone.

As well as over 80 artists performing at the event, there are also over 150 free workshops and free parking and camping included with the ticket.

For more information on tickets and who’s playing this year, go to http://www.larmertreefestival.co.uk/

Awards for World Music 2009

Around this time last year, the votes were being collected for the annual BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards. The awards, which were then in their seventh year, saw the likes of Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Sa Dingding and Son de la Frontera all winning some of the prestigious awards.



However, BBC Radio 3 have now announced that they are no longer running the awards and the fantastic world music magazine Songlines will be taking over instead.

In a statement on their website, Songlines have stated that ‘As the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music are no longer taking place, we felt it was important to try and continue the momentum that those awards achieved in spreading the word about great musical talent around the world.’

They will now have four categories;

Best Artist
Best Group
Best Cross-Cultural collaboration
Best Newcomer

The artists eligible for these awards will be those who have been reviewed in the Songlines magazine from the middle of 2008 until now.

According to the magazine, the first initial round of voting has finished and a shortlist of artists will be published in issue #59 (April/May 2009) a jury will then select the winners which will be announced in issue #60 (June 2009)

The awards will conclude with a live event at this years WOMAD taking place in Charlton Park July 24th-26th.

The Blood Diamond Soundtrack

I’ve always been a big fan of soundtracks and I’m sure anyone who’s been reading my blog will not be surprised that I’ve fallen in love with the Blood Diamond Soundtrack.

The film itself is a harrowing but superbly told story wrapped around the events of the conflict diamond trade in Sierra Leone in 1999.

As you would expect, the soundtrack varies between a traditional western approach to film scores and an array of African influences. The soundtrack itself was composed by the multi-award winning composer James Newton Howard who is recognisable in many of the soundtracks more fast paced, action packed tracks such as ‘Fall of Freetown’ and ‘Diamond Mine Bombed’. Nevertheless, fitting for the film, the songs can get sadly tiresome and repetitive in the soundtrack.

The true brilliance of the score however, is noted in songs such as ‘London’ and ‘Thought I’d Never Call?’ which are both beautifully written and deeply compelling, particularly when you’ve watched the film and are aware of which scenes they relate to.

With such a culturally significant film, James Newton Howard has featured an outstanding collection of world music artists to compliment the soundtrack, Youssou N’Dour, the legendary Senegalese singer and Djivan Gasparyan the Armenian duduk player both perform on the album to great effect.

‘Ankala’ performed by ‘the Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars’ is a song on the album that stands out completely on its own. The track is devoid of the Newton Howard’s customary Western orchestral theme and features only a completely African sound.

The soundtrack suffers at times from its western input but James Newton Howard’s choice of performers and overall skill at creating an emotional soundtrack means that the score is well worth a listen, particularly for those who haven’t heard much African music before and definitely worthy of the ‘Soundtrack of the year’ Classical BRIT award that it won in 2008.

Mory Kanté & The Beach

A few years ago I read a book called ‘The Beach’ by Alex Garland, after falling head over heels in love with it (and wanting to buy a first class ticket to Thailand to go find this Island) I decided to watch the film. The film, as the saying goes “wasn’t as good as the book”, but was pretty good nevertheless. And since that moment, I have watched the film repeatedly and with the help of an amazing soundtrack, I have fallen in love with two particular scenes and songs.

The first scene was when Richard, Étienne, and Françoise first get their glimpse of “the beach”. While you can see the glorious white sand, the clear blue sea and the rolling green hills in the distance ‘Porcelain’ by Moby is playing in the background. I’ve watched this film so many times now that whenever I hear this song (and I play it also quite a lot) it takes me to this place.

The second scene is when they are celebrating their “Tet Festival” (the anniversary of their arrival on the island) and they are all raving to the remix of ‘Yéké Yéké’ by Mory Kanté. I don’t know what it is about this song, but as soon as I’d heard it, I wanted it and couldn’t stop playing it. I guess this was the same for a lot of people as it was the biggest ever selling African single, selling just over a million copies. Although the remix isn’t what you’d call traditional World Music, it was pretty much my first introduction to the genre, and I haven’t looked back since.

Yesterday, I finally got through the Mory Kanté album that I had been waiting for. The album is called “Sabou” and is an all-acoustic release from 2004. To put it simply, it’s brilliant. The fact that the album is acoustic makes the release seem a lot more traditional than Mory Kanté’s other more western stuff, and the familiar griot roots and fantastic kora playing are still prominent but the balafon, soaring vocals and female choruses make this album not only seem contemporary but homely.

The top 10 World Music Gigs to look out for in 2009

If like me, you love world music but always seem to miss the best gigs and festivals that the genre has to offer, I’ve eagerly trawled the internet to come up with a list of the best World Music gigs to have a look out for this year.

1. Dengue Fever. The Cambodian/Californian six piece are performing a one-off gig at the Scala in London on the 18th June. They’re starting to catch the public eye due to their impressive mix of Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock and are apparently amazing live so make sure to get your tickets, especially when they only cost £13.50. Bargain. (Click on this link to go straight to the tickets page)

2. WOMAD. This is a must for any fan of world music. ‘The World of Music, Arts and Dance’ is an organisation created by the legendary Peter Gabriel in 1980. It was started with the idea in mind that ‘many others would share their enthusiasm for music from other cultures, if only they had the opportunity to listen to some of the global sounds.’ Since then, the organization has grown to produce festivals in over 20 countries, including England when the festival will be on from the 24th to the 26th of July. The line-up is still yet to be announced but you can buy tickets now.

3. Daby Touré – If you’re not too familiar with Daby Touré like me, he’s apparently one of the most sensational guitarists you’ll ever see, so, with a promise like that, you can’t really say no. The Senegalese singer will be performing with Skip “Little Axe” Macdonald at the Jazz Cafe in London on the 18th March. Tickets will cost you £15.

4.Tunng & Tinariwen – This is kind of cheating as I’ve mentioned the collaboration before but it’s definitely not one to be missed. The groups will be playing at several dates around the UK, either check out my post below with the dates or have a gander at the Seetickets website.

5. L'Afrik C'est Chic - Songlines Magazine is celebrating its 10th anniversary over the next few months by hosting a series of concerts, as well as launching a monthly Sunday session at the Jazz Cafe in London - L'Afrik C'est Chic. The series will apparently include Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, Trilok Gurtu, Mor Karbasi and Juldeh Camara. The first night will kick off on the 15th of March.

6. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – the Ngoni player from Mali is playing at The Junction in Cambridge on the 30th of March. It’s a one-off gig, so I recommend trying to get your tickets as soon as possible.

7. Eliades Ochoa - The Cuban guitarist from Buena Vista Social Club is playing a couple of dates around Britain, one in Bristol and one in Edinburgh. The tickets should cost you around £20 each.

8. The Gateway International Roots Music Festival 2009 - This festival in the Brewery Arts Centre in Cumbria, England starts on the Friday the 27th of February and ends on the 14th of March. It features a variety of performers over these dates who specialise in reggae, traditional and contemporary folk, African, dancehall, and dub. Tickets are around £12 to £17 each.

9. The Oxford Folk Festival - In its sixth year already, the tickets, dates and line-up have all been released for this fantastic festival in Oxford. A full weekend ticket will cost you about £58 and the dates have been confirmed as the 20th to the 22nd of March. Artists will include; The Dohl Foundation, Spiers and Boden, Lau and Robert Maseko & The Congo Beat.

10. The Notting Hill Carnival - It seems silly to even mention it, but the UK's biggest and brightest carnival is back in its 44th year drawing crowds of over 500,000 to London's streets. For anyone who hasn't been to the carnival before, you must DEFINITELY go! Oh, and it's free.

Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack

Slumdog Millionaire has already, by far, been one of the biggest and most surprising films of 2009, and it’s only February. Already racking up the awards, including Best Film and Best Picture, the film is expected to earn just over £20 million in the UK box office alone. As the awards suggest, the film is really rather good and well deserved of the hype, but for me, the soundtrack is undoubtedly even better.

Set and filmed in Mumbai and characterised around Bollywood cinema, you expect the soundtrack to be made up of the typical Indian pop music that usually features in this sort of film. However, the writer and producer – A.R. Rahmen, successfully manages to combine traditional Indian music with a much more contemporary style creating a wonderfully up-tempo and ‘pulsey’ score.

The soundtrack also includes some noticeable performances, with a particular focus on the British M.I.A who features on the opening track ‘O…Saya’ and adds her own hit single ‘Paper Planes’ which Danny Boyle, the director, wanted from the start.

Gulzar, a distinguished poet and lyricist in Hindu Cinema also features on the soundtrack in the song ‘Jai Ho’ which also features vocals from Sukhwinder Singh, Tanvi Shah and Mahalakshmi Iyer which has consequently ended up being nominated for Best Song by the Academy Awards.

The soundtrack never fails to sound edgy, epic and utterly compelling and alongside its awards for Best Original Score and Best Music, it manages to demonstrate what a fantastic achievement the whole project has been. I urge anyone hasn’t seen the film or listened to the soundtrack to do it now.

The UK Asian Music Awards

For any fans of Asian music, the 2009 UK Asian Music Awards are heading our way next month.

Some of the awards given will include; Best Album, Best International Artist and Commitment to the Scene, so make sure to get your votes in now.

You can also buy tickets for this event via The UK Asian Music Awards Website to watch for yourself who will win the votes this year.

The awards will be on the 5th of March at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Tunng and Tinariwen Collaboration

For those of you who didn’t manage to catch it or hear about it in the first place, BBC Radio Three this evening recorded an amazing collaboration between the British experimental folk group Tunng and Tinariwen the Algerian African Blues band.


Recorded in the legendary Maida Vale studios last year for the world music ‘Late Junction’ programme, both bands managed to fuse together two entirely different cultures, backgrounds and styles of music to form a sound so smooth that it sounded like they’d been together years.

This show can be listened to (and I highly recommend it) via the BBC Radio Three Iplayer or, if you’d like something a little more personal the two bands have announced that they will be forming an exciting tour together next month.

The announced dates of this tour are:

March
18 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion
19 Leicester De Montford Hall
20 Manchester Academy 3
21 Edinburgh Picturehouse
22 Liverpool Philharmonic
23 Leeds Irish Centre
25 Bath Komedia
26 London Koko
27 Reading Town Hall
28 Birmingham The Rainbow Warehouse

Amadou & Mariam

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto a CD by a musical duo called Amadou & Mariam. This blind couple from Mali who have become superstars in their native Africa and legends in the world Music Genre have released about 8 albums since they met each other at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind in the seventies.

Over the last two years, they have not only played at festivals all over the world, WOMAD, Lollapalooza and Latitude, they have also come 15th on Pitchforks Top 100 Best Tracks of 2008 and have had huge success with their new single “Sabali” which was produced by Damon Albarn.

I have yet to listen to all their albums, but by far the album “Le Meilleur des Années Maliennes” has been an album that I cannot stop myself from listening to. It’s a great album to start with, especially if like me you hadn’t heard much by the couple at all and seem to prefer more traditional African Blues.

However, if you’re looking for a more contemporary record, then “Welcome to Mali”, released last year would be a place to go. It’s a far more up-to-date take on World Music, infusing Trip-Hop, African Blues, Electro and Dancehall in a way that makes the couples music sound far bigger than you would ever expect.