New Kingston Kingston City (Easy Star Records, 2015) Modern reggae New Kingston delivers a tasty mix of roots reggae, pop, soul, dub and a little…
New Kingston’s Instantly Accessible Reggae
Category: Album reviews
Stunning Mix of Vietnamese Traditional Sounds and Classical Music
Tri Nguyen et le quatuor ‘Ilios Consonnances (Lunelios Tous LNL 888 1001, 2013) Vietnamese composer, pianist and dan tranh player Tri Nguyen bridges two beautiful…
Banda Magda’s Global Music Mix
Banda Magda Yerakina (groundUP Music, 2014) New York-based world music band Banda Magda has attracted a lot of attention lately with its brilliant pan-global mix.…
Dazzling Live Recording by Pablo Menéndez & Mezcla
Pablo Menéndez & Mezcla Pure Mezcla – Direct from Cuba Live at Yoshi’s Oakland (Tilford Productions TP114, 2014) This superb album captures live a performance…
Breaking Boundaries with Funk
The Afrorockerz – The Afrorockerz (Buda Musique, 2015) One of the hottest bands jumping into the world music scene in France is Paris-based The…
The Captivating Real and Imagined Path of Flamenco
Raúl Rodríguez Razón de Son (Fol Musica, 2014) We expect a lot out of music. We expect it to entertain us, to dazzle us, to…
Splendid Ambient World Music
Drum Dynasty Mystic Sunrise / Dark Continent (Katavi, 2009) Drum Dynasty takes you to a world where world music, global electronica, new age and ambient…
So Many Ways to Get Your African Groove On
A jazz musician friend of mine once told me that he didn’t like African music because he found it unsophisticated. From that statement, I could…
Lo’Jo’s Swirl of Exoticism
Lo’Jo 310 Lunes (World Village, 2014) The World Village release 310 Lunes by Lo’Jo is a carnival of sound with all the swirl of exoticism,…
Acoustic Jeli Beauty from Kassé Mady Diabaté
Kassé Mady Diabaté Kiriké (Six Degrees/ No Format!, 2015) Malian jeli (griot) artist Kassé Mady Diabaté has one of the finest voices in West Africa.…