Showing 41-50 of 55 results
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Fresh sounds
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/03/2017
» Garifuna music, a sublime blend of local indigenous and African music from Honduras and Belize has topped the European Broadcast Union's World Music charts. Led by the late Andy Palacio, a famous "Punta rock" (Belize's most popular music) musician who returned to his roots to resurrect Garifuna culture through music. Aurelio picked up the baton from Palacio and has made his name internationally with a series of delightful albums.
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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.
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Sophomore sensations
Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/11/2016
» Local favourites the Bangkok Paradise Molam International Band (BPIMB) released its second studio album, Planet Lam, on Oct 21. The eagerly awaited follow-up to their popular debut, 21st Century Molam, sees the band further develop their music into a spacier sound.
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Prince Buster tribute: don't call me Scarface
Life, John Clewley, Published on 20/09/2016
» 'Al Capone's guns don't argue" declares the singer, Prince Buster, at the beginning of the classic ska track Al Capone. Then in comes the drums, the choppy guitar on the afterbeat, not the downbeat, punchy brass and the chukka-chukka rhythm vocalised by the band. Welcome to the ever-popular world of ska music, one of Jamaica's most potent musical exports, and the forerunner of rocksteady and classic roots reggae, the latter of which would take the world by storm and elevate Bob Marley to global stardom.
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The wedding singer
Life, John Clewley, Published on 05/07/2016
» One of the most unusual success stories in electronic music of recent times has to be that of Syrian farmer and wedding singer Omar Souleyman, who hails from northeast Syria. Before he left Syria in 2011 due to the civil war, he had been a prolific wedding singer, with hundreds of live cassettes and CDs to his name.
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Summer's here and the time is right
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/06/2016
» The European world-music-festival season is in full swing as bands head to stages across the continent, while at the same time, the festival circuits in North America and Japan are also busy as people take advantage of the long days of summer to get out and enjoy some music.
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All aboard for some big fun
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/06/2016
» One of my favourite times of the year is when the dry season ends and the countryside is transformed into a sea of green. And nowhere is it more fun to be at this time of year than in Isan. I have happy memories of rainy seasons in Buri Ram, where as soon as the rains arrived the village teenagers would take me out at night with a miner's light fixed on my forehead to hunt for tiny frogs.
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Paradise meets with molam beats
Life, John Clewley, Published on 08/12/2015
» It's been a busy year for Bangkok-based molam instrumental band Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band. The band released a debut album, 21st Century Molam, in November 2014 to great acclaim. The album garnered a number of awards, including Album of the Week on BBC Radio 6 and a Best Album Award on Gilles Peterson's radio show on the BBC. In Bangkok, the band was recently awarded Best Instrumental Album at the Khom Chat Leuk Awards.
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New releases for June
Life, John Clewley, Published on 23/06/2015
» Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba continue to dominate the top spot on this month's European Broadcast union Top 10 World Music chart. The Malian, who has brought the ngoni or Malian lute, to global fame, is on a hectic summer touring schedule that sees the band play in European and US festivals. Catch him if you can but if you can't get his new album Ba Power.
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For the love of Y/Our Music
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/07/2015
» I went to the cinema at the weekend. This is not something I do very often these days but then the movie I went to see was being screened at Lido in Siam Square, a place I knew well during my days teaching at Chulalongkorn University. Sadly, Lido is slowly being engulfed by vendors and the new Siam Square of Hello Kitty buildings and boutique shopping facilities.
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