Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Modernising Mexican groove
Life, John Clewley, Published on 28/03/2026
» The Mexican Institute of Sound (MIS), founded in 2004 by Mexico City-based DJ and record producer Camilo Lara, is a project to bring together fusions of folk and traditional music with digital production and electronica. MIS started as a side project, based on Lara's own remixing of popular tracks.
A Mediterranean union
Life, John Clewley, Published on 08/11/2025
» In 1993, multi-instrumentalists Fain Sanchez Duenas and Vincent Molino from Spain formed Radio Tarifa with singer/songwriter Benjamin Escoriza and released Rumba Argelina, an album that blended Flamenco, Arab-Andalusian, Arabic, Moorish and Mahgrebi music with that from the Renaissance, Mediterranean and even the Caribbean.
Flamenco fusion
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/12/2024
» Flamenco is one of the musical delights of southern Spain. It developed out of folk traditions of the Gitano subculture of Andalusia and features dramatic guitar, singing and dancing, often supported by some kind of percussion, especially handclaps and castanets.
Echoes of Persia
Life, John Clewley, Published on 22/10/2024
» The santur is an ancient stringed instrument, a dulcimer, with 72 strings that can be dated to 500 BC. Assyrian and Babylonian stone carvings show the instrument back in 669 BC. The instrument spread widely in the Middle East and later further afield where it morphed into the hammered dulcimer, the qanun, cimbalom, Indian santoor and even the Thai classical instrument, the kim.
Stories of migration and hope
Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/09/2023
» In 2016, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto invited musicians, mainly immigrant musicians, to audition for a new global orchestra.
The country king
Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/03/2022
» In July 1973, songwriter and DJ Surin Paksiri organised a pleng luk thung concert at the Ratchadamnoen Boxing Stadium in Bangkok. He wanted to hold the event in a park or at a big cinema, but both of those options were too expensive. He settled on the boxing stadium, and he called the concert "Luk Thung Isan vs. Luk Thung Pak Klang" (Isan Country Music vs. Central Country Music).
Amid chaos, world music still rocks
Life, John Clewley, Published on 19/01/2021
» Riding high at the top of this month's Transglobal World Music Chart is the Isreali-Persian singer, songwriter and social activist Liraz Charhi.
Roots of rumba Congolais
Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/10/2020
» Soul Jazz Records' recent compilation on the early years of Congolese popular music, Congo Revolution - Revolutionary And Evolutionary Sounds From The Two Congos 1955-62, is a must have for fans of African popular music.
Global genius honoured
Life, John Clewley, Published on 14/05/2019
» The summer festival season kicks off in Europe, Japan and North America early next month, with many bands from developing countries joining the festival circuit. There are lots of festivals that celebrate musical diversity, which is, I believe, important in these times of rising intolerance and xenophobia.
Great Little Otis
Life, John Clewley, Published on 02/10/2018
» Otis Rush, the legendary blues guitarist, singer and bandleader, died last week, following a long illness. He was 84 years old. Not as well-known as Chicago blues legends like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howling Wolf, he was, nonetheless, a major player in the development of the Chicago "West Side Sound" and his unique, guitar style influenced rock musicians like Mike Bloomfield, Duane Allman, Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton.