Showing 31-40 of 65 results
-
How world music fared in 2016
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/01/2017
» The Merriam Webster dictionary named "surreal" as its word of the year for 2016. It's a relatively new word that was only included for the first time in 1967, which was around the time "psychedelia" emerged as a style of rock music; think of Jimmy Hendrix's guitar pyrotechnics from the time as an example. Psychedelic rock took off and rapidly split into subgenres like psychedelic soul and the whole Funkadelic/Parliament movement that brought psych guitars to the funk groove.
-
A world-music classic returns
Life, John Clewley, Published on 24/05/2016
» The Malian singer Oumou Sangare burst onto the West African music scene when she released her first album, Moussolou, on cassette in 1990. I was living in Tokyo at the time and African friends told me about a new singer rapidly rising to fame on the back of an album that had already sold a quarter of a million copies. A kind soul bought me the cassette from a trip to Mali so that I could review it for the Japanese newspaper I was writing for. I still have the original.
-
Sounds of the Hmong
Life, John Clewley, Published on 18/04/2017
» Chiang Mai archivist and musician Victoria Vorreiter published a book on tribal music, Songs Of Memory: Traditional Music Of The Golden Triangle, in 2009. Since then she has been busy travelling, researching and recording music from the tribal peoples of the mountains, and for the past six years her focus has been on Hmong music, mainly from tribal groups living in Thailand and Laos.
-
Latest sounds from Kinshasa's streets
Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/12/2015
» One of great musical success stories of recent years was the emergence of Staff Benda Bilili, a band of paraplegic musicians, from the streets of Kinshasa. The band's irresistible mix of Congolese popular music with R&B played on home-made instruments and with DIY electronics resulted in two amazing studio albums -- Tres Tres Fort (Crammed Discs) released in 2009 and Bouger Le Monde (Crammed) released in 2012 -- a TV documentary and several international tours.
-
Around the world
Life, John Clewley, Published on 29/09/2015
» This month's European Broadcast Union World Charts is topped by a reissue of an album -- La Candela Viva -- that was recorded by the legendary Colombian singer and dancer Toto La Momposina in sessions at the Real World Studios in the UK way back in 1991 and 1992. Reissue would be perhaps the wrong word really because the producers of the new release, Tambolero, have gone deep into the original sessions and then added new vocals, some from Toto's granddaughters, and instrumentation, giving the original music more texture.
-
Soundway does it again
Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/06/2015
» Miles Cleret, owner of the UK-based Soundway label, was in town on May 29 to spin a set of dancefloor sizzlers at Studio Lam on Sukhumvit 51. Cleret, who was last in Bangkok two years ago, has been living with his family in Bali for the past few years and is preparing to return to the UK. He told World Beat there were a number of new Soundway records in the pipeline, and gave me a copy of his latest release Highlife On The Move – Selected Nigerian & Ghanaian Recordings From London & Lagos 1954-66, which is a must for fans of African pop music.
-
Titbits from the Top 20
Life, John Clewley, Published on 17/02/2015
» This month's World Music Top 20 Chart of the year from the European Broadcast Union features some very interesting music, mainly from Africa, Europe (especially Spain) and Brazil. The February chart was taken from 45 radio DJs from 25 countries across Europe and the Top 20 was selected from 155 nominated recordings; there is no equivalent chart for Asia.
-
Spectacular molam show socks it to the city-slickers
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/10/2014
» A lively crowd gathered last Saturday night on a vacant plot of land near Wat Payayang, just down from the Urupong intersection in central Bangkok, to enjoy a colourful show by the Khon Kaen-based molam troupe Prathom Banthoengsin. It's not often we get this kind of show right in the centre of town — the last one I went to was the Banyen Rakkan/Nok Noi Uraiporn joint concert a couple of years ago at the National Stadium — so I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
-
And ya don't stop!
Life, John Clewley, Published on 16/08/2023
» On Aug 11, New York City celebrated the 50th anniversary the birth of hip-hop with exhibitions, concerts and street art across the five boroughs.
-
Let the good times roll
Life, John Clewley, Published on 06/06/2023
» Last month, one of the great explorers and producers of American vernacular music, Chris Strachwitz, passed away. He was 91 years old. He was the founder and co-owner (with Tom Diamant) of Arhoolie Records which since its first release in 1960, Texas Sharecropper And Songster by Texan bluesman Mance Lipscomb, has put out an astonishing 44,000 records.
Your recent history
-
Recently searched
-
Recently viewed links
Did you find what you were looking for? Have you got some comments for us?
