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.