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5
Album Review

Bokante: History

Read "History" reviewed by Chris May


Snarky Puppy leader Michael League does not like the band being called a jazz ensemble. He describes it as a “a pop band that improvises a lot, without vocals." But anyone listening to jazz through the aural equivalent of a wide-angle lens would likely keep Snarky Puppy in the picture. League's spin-off group Bokante improvises little and has vocals front and centre. The connection with jazz is more tenuous. Bokante could be called a “world music" group ...

28
Album Review

Spiro: Repeater

Read "Repeater" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Repeater is an idiosyncratic vinyl only retrospective by the acclaimed quartet Spiro that collects highlights of the band's four albums that were recorded between 1997 and 2015.The British quartet's unrelenting passion for following its muse has served it well as the group's fearless explorations have yielded an ever-expanding audience and over the years Spiro has crisscrossed the universes of folk/world and classical music. Stretching the boundaries and crisscrossing universes is now a regular practice for a number of groups but ...

4
Album Review

Youssou N'Dour: Fatteliku

Read "Fatteliku" reviewed by James Nadal


The mysterious rhythms and melodies which constitute the music of Africa, has been, and continues to be, a vital source of influence and inspiration to the rest of the world. Though African artists have always been active and recognized in their homelands, it was through the phenomenon of what is termed “world music" in the 1980's, that African music reached a global audience. In the forefront of this movement was Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, who transformed the native resonances of ...

12
Album Review

Spiro: Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow

Read "Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Spiro is a strange, indefinable, delightful band of merry musicians which have developed a style so spare, so unaffected, and so melodic that you'd swear you'd heard all the tunes before. Drawing on classical music, folk traditions of Britain, Spiro is unlike anything else on record. Its music may be rooted in the sounds of English folk traditions, but its music is more than that as it brims with modern ideas. Adventurous and open minded, the band is thoroughly a ...

15
Album Review

Spiro: Pole Star

Read "Pole Star" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Acoustic music has never sounded as joyful and fun as Spiro's, the instrumental quartet from Bristol. The band, which line-up, has remained unchanged for 20 years, received a wider attention and critical acclaim when it released the outstanding and enchanting records such as Lightbox (Real World Records, 2009) and Kaleidophonica (Real World Records, 2012). Spiro has been crafting its own brand of folk/acoustic music and the way it imbues tradition with unbridled zest, it can surely convert the least folk-friendly ...

19
Extended Analysis

Various Artists: Real World 25

Read "Various Artists: Real World 25" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Probably there is no other popular artist in this shrinking world that has promoted various musics and cultures outside the Western world than singer Peter Gabriel. In the beginning, his solo records were influenced more and more by African music, especially its rhythms until those influences became an important and dominant trademark on his records. Then, in 1982, he got involved in World of Music and Dance festival (or WOMAD), a platform for cross-pollination of world music, which recently celebrated ...

9
Extended Analysis

Peter Gabriel: And I'll Scratch Yours

Read "Peter Gabriel: And I'll Scratch Yours" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Peter Gabriel is surely one of the most unpredictable artists today. His career path has proven to be of a mercurial kind with him taking the road less travelled as Gabriel has more often than not sought unusual experiences as a source for his intensively felt music. Long an inventive musical conceptualist he has always sought challenge on all fronts--musically, visually, technologically and emotionally. His bold and innovative career choices have made him a step ahead of the curve as ...

5
Album Review

Jocelyn Pook: Untold Things

Read "Untold Things" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Composer Jocelyn Pook is one of the great treasures of the music world. The breadth and depth of influences and instrumentation incorporated into her work is almost unprecedented. Known primarily for her groundbreaking and imaginative soundtrack work for films and TV--seamlessly weaving into her work aspects of classical, world, electronic and early music in order to create a singular vision--she has forged a unique musical language where her compositions sound at once ancient and modern. Works such as The Merchant ...

3
Album Review

The Creole Choir of Cuba: Santiman

Read "Santiman" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


The music of Cuba is its most characteristic contribution that the world is familiar with. If there is one word that can be used for describing its musical legacy, that would definitely be diversity. The island has gone through numerous epochs and European and African influences have blended into distinguishable mixes that have determined its cultural richness and broad heritage. And with the thawing of the Cold War and the popularity of the Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban music has ...

132
Extended Analysis

Portico Quartet

Read "Portico Quartet" reviewed by John Kelman


Change is inevitable, but when a group loses one of its founders and biggest conceptual fundamentals, can it really survive the loss? When Britain's Portico Quartet announced the departure of co-founder Nick Mulvey, whose hang (a UFO-shaped instrument that sounds somewhere between steel pans and gamelan gongs) was one of its most defining characteristics, the group's future certainly seemed in peril. Hard enough to replace any instrumentalist who's been so much a part of a group's musical lexicon, but just ...


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