|
Funky Salvador
 Salvador Santana Band (SSB)
SSB (Tsunami Label Group, 2008) Salvador Santana Band is led by Carlos Santana's son, keyboardist and composer Salvador Santana. The band's debut album shows great promise with a combination of Neosoul, Latin rock, Afrobeat and hip hop. Although Salvador's demo, released last year, showed more instrumental work and even jazz fusions excursions, the SSB album focuses of short songs that are radio friendly. The music really stands out when the band leaves ...
| |
Dynamic Beats and Drones
 Of the latest batch of Sony Sound Series collection of loops and samples, Richard Devine's The Electronic Music Manuscript really stands out. Despite the title, the impressive collection includes not only electronic instruments, but also ethnic instruments, which makes it specially attractive to global electronica musicians, who want to add fabulous loops to their sampling collections. The ethnic instruments include didjeridu, bells, drums, flutes and congas.
Of course, most of the sounds in this two-CD set are electronic in nature. The set features a wide range of inspiring sounds such as prepared piano, strange ambiences, EVP Shortwave recordings, drum loops, strings and pads pads, and lots more.
Richard Devine is renowned musicians, sound researcher and experimentalist, who has remixed artists such as Aphe...
| |
St. Lucian Reggae Artist Taj Weekes Will Release Deidem this Spring
 New York (NY), USA – Reggae artist Taj Weekes will release his much anticipated second album, Deidem (All of Us), set for release through Weekes’ independent label, Jatta Records this spring. Jatta Records will distribute the album nationally through the Independent Distributors Collective and Homegrown Music Network. Jatta has also secured a licensing deal with Spectra Records to release the album to major distribution chains throughout the U.S. and Canada. Overseas, Jatta will release ...
| |
Inexpressively Beautiful Peyote Songs
 Cheevers Toppah and Kevin Yazzie
First Light (Canyon Records, 2008)
Bombarded this week by an onslaught of lawnmowers, weed wackers, leaf blowers, annoying telemarketers and that freaky guy that drives through our neighborhood with the squealing brakes, I got an unexpected respite in the way of Cheevers Toppah’s and Kevin Yazzie’s First Light out on Canyon Records. This collection of harmonized peyote songs sung in Diné and Kiowa smoothed away the rough edges of life and off...
| |
Tales from Darbukistan
 Doumtekestan (Darbuki Kings Records, 2007)
Lawrence Of Suburbia (Darbuki Kings Records, 2008) Two multi-instrumentalists, Robin Adnan Anders and Antonio Albarran, are behind the Darbuki Kings. Inspired by the music of the countries that were part of the ancient Silk Road, the Darbuki Kings combine good humor with folk-inspired instrumental pieces, as well as as modern fusions. The majority of the influences are Middle Eastern, although there are elements of Greek music and Indian dance music.
Robin Adnan Anders (a.k.a. Adnan Darbuki) plays percussion and samples. Antonio Albarran (a.k.a. Antone Darbuki) plays sitar and lauto. Robin is a founding member of the renowned groups Boiled in Lead and 3 Mustaphas 3.
Doumtekestan came out in 2007. Lawrence Of Suburbia was released this year and makes fun o...
| |
World Music Star Lila Downs Confirmed for ¡Globalquerque! 2008
 ¡Globalquerque! 08 will present Lila Downs and her band at this year's festival on Friday September 19th. ¡Globalquerque! New Mexico's 4th Annual Celebration of World Music & Culture takes place September 19 & 20 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the presenting partner, in Albuquerque, NM
Lila Downs gained international attention for her musical role in the award-winning 2002 film Frida, starring Selma Hayek as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Her song “Burn It Blue,” from the film was nominated for Grammy and Academy Awards. In 2005 Lila was awarded a Latin Grammy for her album Una Sangre (One Blood). Many of Downs’ songs carry contemporary messages that...
| |
TransGlobal Underground Absent from Award Winners Concert Schedule
 TransGlobal Underground, winners of the Club Global Category in this year's BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music will not be playing at the Winners' Concert due to take place on July 30th as part of Radio 3's Proms season of concerts broadcast from London's Royal Albert Hall. The announcement has disappointed fans as well as members of the Awards Jury and is in contrast with last year's concert in which the Club Global Category winners, Gotan Project, played a full 40 minute set.
TransGlobal Underground are regarded as pioneers of global dancefloor music, starting in the early days as a club night wi...
| |
Bhakti Invocations
 Aruna Sairam
Divine Inspiration (World Village 468074, 2008)
Aruna Sairam is a renowned Indian singer who specializes in the music of southern India, which is known as Carnatic music. Divine Inspiration features exquisite vocal performances based on sacred music traditions that are found in Hindu temples. Sairam combines poetry, language, and music from various parts of India. She treats the listener to nine songs and invocations from the Bhakti Movement. This movement was started ...
| |
Terakaft Brings Tuareg Desert Blues to International Audiences
 Paris, France - ‘Akh Issudar’ (Tapsit), the latest album from the Tuareg blues group Terakaft, is hitting stores across the world in the next few months. Sharing much with the famous group Tinariwen – including two guitarists – Terakaft’s vocal lines and electric guitar melodies will be instantly recognizable to fans of the genre, even if we can’t quite say what that genre is! Unmistakably founded in the musical traditions of the region but undoubtedly modern in its instrumentation and execution, Terakaft’s songs reflect not only the sounds, but also the history and struggle, of the Tuareg people.
‘Akh Issudar’ was released in France last month, followed by releases in the UK and US in October, as well as a possible Japan release...
| |
Required Reggae Reading
 Roger Steffens and Peter Simon - Reggae Scrapbook (Insight Editions, 2007)
I don’t get hooked on many books, but two that caught my attention and remain favorites are 1977’s Reggae Bloodlines and 1983’s Reggae International, both of which were collaborated upon by writer Stephen Davis and photographer Peter Simon. Simon’s photographs are likewise part of what makes this new examination of reggae as classic as that earlier pair and Davis provides an eloquent introduction, but the bulk of the text this time was penned by Roger Steffens.
Steffens is a Los Angeles-based author, actor and lecturer (his multimedia presentations on ...
|
|
