The Tuvan throat singers Alash will perform “Jingle Bells” and other holiday favorites with Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, to promote the Flecktones' Grammy-winning CD Jingle All the Way. The buzzy sounds of throat singing provide a surprise element in several songs, including the traditional Tuvan song “Dyngyldai” ingeniously interwoven with the English Christmas carol “What Child Is This?”
 
 Alash recorded with the Flecktones while touring the United States in 2007, and last December they joined the Flecktones in several American cities to publicize the album's release. The Flecktones are long-time fans of Tuvan throat singing. Two of their earlier albums, Outbound and Live at the Quick, feature the celebrated xöömeizhi (throat singer) Kongar-ool Ondar, the original mentor and artistic director of Alash.

The acclaimed Indian singer Kailash Kher is back in North America with his band Kailasa to share their trademark blend of mystical Sufi soul and Indian folk roots blended with contemporary pop, rock, reggae and funk grooves. Kailash Kher & Kailasa will be touring November 8-13.

Read a review of Kailash Kher's latest recording: A Passage From India.

Tour schedule:

Rupa & The April Fishes will be touring North America and Europe in the next weeks. Rupa & The April Fishes are specialists in crossing borders and building bridges musically, and that is exactly what they do on their newly released  album Este Mundo. The messages on Este Mundo come from the real life experiences and travels of the band and lead singer Rupa, who is a practicing physician by day in a San Francisco hospital.

The record addresses many issues including life, love, art, death and the real and artificial divisions that keep us apart. By mixing musical elements of Gypsy swing, Colombian cumbia, French chanson and Indian ragas the band achieves a sound that effortlessly blurs the boundaries of genre and geography. According to lead singer Rupa, “este mundo is a collection of sounds and songs highlighting life's accidental beauty and surging joy as well as their inexorable partner: human suffering.”

Canadian Afrobeat group Mr. Something Something will be performing for American audiences in October, including a stop at The Shrine in New York City. The band's highly energized, political, funny and unpredictable live shows have earned the band an extremely loyal following and a reputation among audiences and critics alike as an act not to be missed.

Since 2003, Mr. Something Something have been exploring new musical territory with their unique mix of pop, jazz and West African rhythms. On Shine Your Face, the band's fourth album, the Toronto-based collective of dancefloor activists look for new ways to fuse the modality and improvisations of jazz with danceable poly-rhythms, strong melodies and intelligent lyrics, all in order to make dancers think and thinkers dance.
 

Renowned slide guitar master Debashish Bhattacharya will be touring the United States and Canada in September and October of 2009. Debashish Bhattacharya will be promoting his latest recording,  O Shakuntala!

The new recording is based on Abhigyana Shakuntalam (The Recognition of Shakuntala), an epic love story written by the great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. The music traces the legend of King Dushyanta and the beautiful Shakuntala. In the tale, they fall in love and marry but an evil sage curses Shakuntala, keeping them apart. Fortunately, the spell is finally broken and they are happily reunited for all eternity.

New Zealand reggae, pop and funk band The Black Seeds will be presenting their first North American album, Solid Ground (Easy Star Records) on their first U.S. tour. Solid Ground (Easy Star Records) will be released exclusively on iTunes September 15th and everywhere else September 29th.

“It’s all about the island sound,” laughs The Black Seeds’ guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Barnaby Weir. “Speed ukulele, church choirs, the rhythm of the Samoan log drum. After all, if you live on the island, are you going to put on AC/DC?”

“New Zealand reggae is not strictly reggae. We have our own sounds. It’s been a small but influential scene for a long time, and as a teen, I remember going to hear big sound systems,” Weir recalls. “We’ve been playing parties for something like fifteen years. But the scene now has hit a popular phase. It’s almost a trend in a way. Being from an underground band, I’ve watched it really come into its own over the last five years.”

She'koyokh Klezmer Ensemble have announced 3 new concert dates in London and the South East in September 2009, starting with the Klezmer in the Park festival on the sixth.

She’koyokh, who released their debut album, “Sandanski’s Chicken” on ARC Music in January 2008, have established quite a name for themselves on the live circuit with their raucous and lively performances.

Details of the 3 performances are as follows:

Orchestra of Tetouan will perform Sunday, September 20 at 8pm at International House in Chicago. Orchestra of Tetouan was founded in Tetuan, Morocco in 1944 by the city's leading musicians, including Larbi al-Gazi, Ahmed Berradi, etc.

In 1956, when Morocco became independent, Larbi Temsamani reorganized the orchestra to include Abdessadek Cheqara and other emerging musicians. Temsamani used Daqqa and Ihkam, the new directoral method at that time. Accordingly, the Orchestra became very famous in the 1960's and 1970's under the direction of Temsamani and with Cheqara presenting his artistry of viola and the popular Chaabi songs. The orchestra was shown nationwide on TV as well as in national and international music festivals.