First of all – if you're in Bergen, remember to drop by at Vamoose this Thursday (28 February), where we will be playing all of the following recommendations and more of your favorite world and otherworldly music!
http://www.srib.no/
This Sunday, Geir and Ketil being away for the great By:Larm music festival in Oslo, Audinho had the Studentradioen i Bergen playground all to himself. He chose to present some highlights from the world music year 2007, presenting music from seven highly recommended albums. If you're to buy only seven 2007 world music records this year (but why?!), these are most certainly among your safest choices!
1. Mexican Institute of Sound: Para No Vivir Desesperado
Album: "Piñata" (Cooking Vinyl/Bonnier Amigo, available for download at www.calabashmusic.com)
México City is the centre of the world, at least when you see it from there. The artist formerly known (and still is, I guess) as Instituto Mexicano del Sonido, is one of the finest proofs of this – a great electronic music combo fusing hard funky beats with all that the Latin American world of music has to offer. Likely to render Latin music uncurably unintelligible to your "Bésame Mucho" digging grandmother in Kalfaret.
http://www.institutomexicanodelsonido.com/
2. Tinariwen: Assouf
Album: "Aman Iman: Water Is Life" (Independiente/Indie Distribution, available for download at www.calabashmusic.com)
Tinariwen was formed in a training camp in Muammar al-Qhaddafi's Libya in the eighties, the integrants training for warfare in their Tuareg people's uprising in Mali. Since then, happily they've resorted to Fela Kuti's prophecy that "Music Is The Weapon". They are said to be the first Tuareg band to use electric guitars in their line-up, and the result is kind of an electrified mali blues, a must for anyone even remotely attracted to the musical universe of Ali Farka Touré.
http://www.tinariwen.com/
3. Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective: Amuyengu (In Times to Come)
Album: "Wátina" (Stone Tree Records, available for download at www.calabashmusic.com)
Tragically, Belize's greatest popstar Andy Palacio died 24 January this year from a stroke to the brain and a subsequent heart attack. Last year, he released his magnum opus, the album "Wátina" [I Called Out]. In my humble opinion, this is one of the most magnificent albums of 2007, regardless of genre and origin. Palacio's fame will undoubtedly continue to rise after his untimely death, and one might only hope that posthumously his musical and socio-political legacy might bring the unique Garifuna culture into the limelight it deserves.
http://www.myspace.com/andypalacio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garifuna
4. Frédéric Galliano presents Kuduro Sound System feat. Gata Agressiva: Kuduro Pra Qui e Pra La
Album: "Frédéric Galliano presents Kuduro Sound System" (Nocturne, available for download at www.calabashmusic.com)
Kuduro is claimed to be the first truly African genre of electronic music. With the growing popularity of the genre in Europe – primarily the Lisbon variety of the genre epitomized by the magnificent Buraka Som Sistema – French DJ and producer Frédéric Galliano decided to travel to the source in Luanda, Angola to record with several local MC's. The result is an album of smashing beats and vocal performances that, though the Angolan Portuguese lyrics would be unintelligible to most of you, will still make your spine shiver.
(By the way, Buraka Som Sistema are coming to The Fix at Bergenfest 30 April – you wouldn't want to miss it!)
http://www.myspace.com/fredericgalliano
http://www.fatplanet.com.au/blog/2007/01/04/frederic-galliano-presents-kuduro-sound-system-franceangola/
http://www.myspace.com/burakasomsistema
5. Maria Rita: Num Corpo Só
Album: "Samba Meu" (WEA International)
Maria Rita, daughter of late bossanova/MPB legend Elis Regina, continues the Mission:Impossible of competing with her mother's claims to fame. Her third album is pure samba magic, with that typical just-a-little-too-perfect Carioca production. Not much of the edge of her whisky-flavoured mother here, still she's not the "Norah Jones of Brazil" that Amazon.com has her. This samba is the real stuff.
http://www.maria-rita.com/
6. Tape Five: Soulsalicious
Album: "Bossa For a Coup" (Chin Chin Records)
Not really world music, this one. Rather, it's sophisticated electronixotica from all of us who miss those bittersweet days by the poolside in the 60's, sipping campari beneath plastic yuca palms listening to the latest Tom Jobim albums. Those were the days, my friend.
http://www.tapefive.com/
Kontentum: taken from the Combo Tango album "Milonga del Angel".
Alongside Barrio's debut album "Ciudad sin Tiempo", this is arguably the finest piece of world music hailing from the capital of Western Norway last year.
Excerpts from the album at http://www.combotango.com/
Peace & Love
