Showing 1 - 7 of 7
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 sounds of Africa
Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/05/2023
» The Malian singer/songwriter and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara emerged in 2011 with the EP Kanou and quickly after came her debut and breakthrough release Fatou (Nonesuch, World Circuit). Fatou, which features Diawara's self-penned songs and electric guitar playing (which she claims was a first for a Malian woman) catapulted her to international fame. She has a unique sound, created out of her Southern Malian wassollou roots and Western music she learned growing up in Paris.
Compilation honours legacy of Jamaican giant
Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/09/2022
» A year after the death of legendary Jamaican reggae musician and producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, the good folks at Trojan Records have released the very first posthumous anthology of the influential artist's unparalleled career, King Scratch (Musical Masterpieces From The Upsetter Ark-ive).
Forging his own path
Life, John Clewley, Published on 22/06/2021
» When Ethiopian music maestro Hailu Mergia toured the US with the Ethio jazz and funk Walias Band in the early 1980s, he had no idea he would become a taxi driver in his adopted country.
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.
Look for the light
Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/09/2020
» Record Store Day arrived on Saturday a little more subdued than in previous years. The one-day event, which began in 2008, normally drops on a Saturday in April but with the Covid-19 pandemic the date was delayed; two further dates -- Sept 26 and Oct 24 have been added so that independent record stores can generate some much-needed revenue.
Revolutionary's road
Life, John Clewley, Published on 02/04/2019
» Poet, novelist, piano player. And that was before Gil Scott-Heron had reached 20. He wrote and recorded his best known song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, in 1971, and from then on produced a unique and polemical body of prose, poetry and music that led him to be dubbed the "Father of Political Rap", the originator of "nu soul" and many more titles. He preferred being called a "bluesologist".