Showing 1 - 10 of 23
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.
The jazzman of Bangkok
Life, John Clewley, Published on 22/04/2025
» The Bamboo Bar at the famous Oriental Hotel was set up in 1953 during a period when the hotel had several owners, including pioneering photographer and social activist Germaine Krull, and the art collector and silk king Jim Thompson. It quickly became one of the Bangkok's top nightclubs, known for its live jazz sessions.
A deep dive into music history
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/01/2025
» In 1965, Joe Boyd was stage manager at the Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan plugged in and went electric, shocking the conservative folk world. And having navigated that seismic shock, he went on to produce Pink Floyd, Nick Drake and Fairport Convention in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bridging cultures
Life, John Clewley, Published on 18/06/2024
» In 2011, Iraqi musician, actor and writer Ahmed Moneka was working as an artist and actor. He studied at Baghdad's Institute of Fine Art and, according to Canada's The Globe And Mail, he was the first black TV presenter in the country. His father, also a well-known comedy actor, was the pioneer. Moneka went into the "family business".
The voice of Zimbabwe
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/05/2024
» Thomas Mapfumo, the Zimbabwean singer, bandleader and songwriter, is one of Africa's most respected musicians known not only for his hypnotic chimerenga music but also for his steadfast support for human rights, political dignity and social justice. Chimerenga is the Shona -- Mapfumo's ethnic group -- word for liberation and is based on the sacred and iconic instrument, the mbira (thumb piano or sanza), which is at the heart of Mapfumo's music.
Cambodian rock via LA
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/11/2023
» Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever has released a new studio album, Ting Mong (Tuk Tuk Records, USA), their first for eight years. The release marks the Cambodian-US band's 20th anniversary since their acclaimed self-titled debut in 2003.
Lift up your voice
Life, John Clewley, Published on 10/10/2023
» South Africa has a long tradition of harmony singing, stretching back to Soloman Linda's famous 1933 song Mbube, which created a genre of its own to isicathamiya folk singing that led to one of the country's most potent popular genres, mbaqanga and on to gospel choirs.
When two worlds collide
Life, John Clewley, Published on 14/03/2023
» In 1978, Lebanese band Ferkat Al Ard released their debut album Oghneya in Beirut. It was a groundbreaking release that brought together Lebanese folk music, Arabic strings, Brazilian bossanova and jazz (mainly fusion) into a gloriously lush sound that requires the listener to reconsider Lebanese music. Brazil in Beirut? How did that happen?
House of the rising Son
Life, John Clewley, Published on 27/09/2022
» Son House is regarded as one of the greats of early blues, along with early recording stars like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. He made 78rpm records in the 1930s but a spell in penitentiary halted his career and by the 1940s he had abandoned recording. It wasn't until 1964 that Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro "rediscovered" him working at a gas station. He was completely unaware of the interest in folk blues at the time (Skip James and Bukka White were already playing crossover folk clubs).
Songs of hope
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/06/2022
» The award-winning Canadian-Czech singer and composer Lenka Lichtenberg was going through her mother's effects in 2016 in Prague when she made a startling discovery. She found two small notebooks that belonged to her artist grandmother, Anna Hana Friesova (1901-1987). Inside each notebook, small enough to fit into a back pocket, were poems written while she was imprisoned in the Terazin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp during WWII.