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Given the well-known music of Rio's Carnaval and its massive samba affairs, Bahia is the next logical step for music producers to take for a compilation of Brazilian music. Bahia is widely (and rightly) regarded as a focal point for Brazilian music, spawning much of the Tropicalia movement, MPB, and the Afro-Brazilian traditions, as well as much of modern samba. Here, the old and new are both represented, as they are on much of the Rough Guide line. Old members of the Tropicalia movement are present in Tom Ze and Gilberto Gil (though Gil is a guest on a Monica Millet and Momile track). Mid-generation performers such as Carlinhos Brown and Ze Paulo bridge the gaps between old and new. Even the ancient Riachao, the great sambista, is around for a song. Perhaps more interestingly, some of the newer trends are present, largely in the form of bands that stem in one form or another from the singular greats and their interactions with the blocos Afros. Timbalada, Ile Aiye, and Muzenza all pump out heavy tracks direct from the Salvador Carnaval parties. Elements of reggae, Yoruba, and Dahomey traditions, along with various Caribbean sounds, can be heard along the way, but the trademark stamps of Bahia are all over the tracks here. Given the massive amount of music to come from Bahia, a single album is arguably too little to capture the sounds. Nonetheless, this one takes a valiant stab at it, coming out with a coherent and enjoyable set.
Part of The Music Box Biographical Collection, this documentary charts the career of the legendary Beatle Paul McCartney. The film consists of footage taken from fans' collections throughout the world. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Sufi music is known mostly through the music of Pakistani singers Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or the Sabri Brothers, to cite just these names. Lately, Sufi music from other Middle Eastern countries has become available, showing a wide diversity of styles in this music. This release presents Sufi music from Turkey. Two forms of Sufi music are found: unaccompanied voice heard in a mosque and instrumental music, also accompanying voice, heard in a Sufi convent. The music heard on this CD also accompanies the whirling dance of the Whirling Dervishes of the Mevlevis. The ensemble on this CD is led by two well-known Turkish musicians, Tahir Aydogdu on kanun and Cevikoglu Timucin on kudum and vocals. Both musicians have toured the world, and are regularly performing on radio. The instruments found on this CD are the kanun, a plucked box zither; the kudum, a small kettledrum; the bendir, a frame drum; the ud, the Arabic lute; the tanbur, a long-necked lute; the kemence, a short-necked fiddle; a halile, Turkish cymbals; and a ney, the Arabic flute. A Western cello has also become part of the ensemble. This excellent CD is a real discovery!
Few people could have predicted in 1992 that Slowdive would get the honor/embarrassment that comes with the tribute album treatment. Then again, tribute albums had yet to plague us during the era when words like "airyfairy" and "oceanic" could be found in every other NME record review. Appreciation for the band has quietly risen since they morphed into Mojave 3 in the late '90s; you can hear it in the young indie bands who would much rather buy new FX pedals than ditch their bassist, and you can also hear it in a handful of electronic labels whose artists seem to be equally inspired by bliss pop, IDM, and new wave. No label exemplifies this more than Morr Music. It's not entirely impossible that demo submissions are required to arrive at Morr's office with proof of ownership of Just for a Day, Souvlaki, and Pygmalion, so it's entirely fitting that they're doing this. The fortunate thing about this particular tribute album is that you're not dealing with the unavoidable tedium that comes with guitar bands mimicking a guitar band; Morr's records, while including guitars here and there, are steeped in electronics with a pop slant and a nudge toward IDM. The unfortunate thing is that Blue Skied an' Clear: A Morr Music Compilation occasionally sounds more like The Moog Cookbook than the Morr cookbook. Most of the contributors don't do much to the structure of the originals; instead, they do their best to replicate the songs with different means. Unsurprisingly, windswept airyfairy atmospherics are kept in place, as are floating tempos. Lali Puna's "40 Days" is the highlight, putting to use their typically soft and cozy drum programming and a bassline that ambles on and then thrums magnificently. Ulrich Schnauss' "Crazy for You" might as well be the missing Chapterhouse remix of the original, with a Rachel Goswell impersonator taking Neil Halstead's place on vocals and a shuffling hip-hop beat added to pull the song down from the stratosphere. A second disc of originals is included. Morr was very smart in doing this, since there must be plenty of Slowdive fans who are unfamiliar with the label. The covers disc, while giving the listener a good idea of what the label does, doesn't exactly play to its strengths. The originals are almost as patchy as the covers, but they show how the artists affiliated with the label take in influences without becoming weighed down by them. Schnauss strikes again with an upbeat vocal number made up of percolating beats, twinkling melodies, and whooshy textures. Guitar's contribution, featuring a singer who's a dead ringer for Pale Saints' Meriel Barham, is honestly just as good as anything released between 1990 and 1992. And Manual's "Summer Haze" is the umpteenth example of Jonas Munk's creaking, cascading hybrids of shoegaze, post-rock, and IDM.
There's only one problem with trying to encapsulate the music of Mexico onto one CD -- it's an impossible task. There's simply so much music that some things are inevitably left out. And however good the disc that's left (and this is very good), it's not complete. This, however, does an excellent job of moving between the traditional and the modern, and giving an overview of styles, as well as introducing international audiences to some staggering talent, be it the older fiddler Juan Reynoso, the eerie los Marineros de Apatzingan, or the younger, ska-influenced Salon Victoria. There are strong contrasts made between the urban and rural styles, nowhere more evident than on the Banda la Michoacana and Mariachi Reyes del Aserradero tracks. While there's a nod to norteno, there's no real corrido, and nothing from hugely influential artists like los Tigres del Norte or Jose Alfredo Jimenez, for example. However, that's quibbling. The bottom line is that this is a remarkably thoughtful compilation that largely moves off the beaten path of Mexican music to explore both roots and branches successfully, and includes some staggeringly good music (like Banda el Recodo de Don Cruz Lizarraga, guaranteed to amaze with their hyperspeed brass playing).
Despite proclaiming itself as being "renowned for the audiophile quality of its recordings, " this album gets off to a very shaky start with an unattractive sound quality. The cello and piano simply sound like they're in a different room than the microphone -- with the door closed.The performances themselves, however, are more acceptable. Cellist Edgar Lustgarten and pianist John Williams (yes, the famed film composer) offer a decent but too-safe performance of Prokofiev's "Cello Sonata." The second theme of the first movement is quite slow and rigid, and even the sassy second-movement scherzo is a little banal and predictable. For pure excitement and joyous playing, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax simply cannot be beat for this sonata. The Ward-Steinman "Duo for Cello & Piano" (a reworking of the cello concerto) is quite a different story. Lustgarten consulted with Ward-Steinman on the composition of the piece and in fact premiered the concerto. His familiarity with the work manifests itself with much more passionate and risk-filled playing than was heard in the Prokofiev. His tone (as far as can be ascertained given the poor recording quality) is quite pleasing, and his intonation is exactly what would be expected from an orchestra musician: flawless. The composition itself plays to all of the cello's strengths: lyricism, extensive range, and broad palate of tone colors. ~ Mike D. Brownell, All Music Guide
Niyireth Alarcon has spent a decade or so training herself in new techniques, uncovering traditional Andean song forms, and bringing her stylistic updates to bear upon Colombian music in general. With training as a classical mezzo-soprano, she brings an added element of technical phrasing to her songs that's rarely heard in otherwise traditional music. Here, she makes a run through a hefty series of song and rhythm genres, using a traditional backing band as a solid base upon which to deliver some surprising sets. The album opens with a bambuco that almost seems to take some rhythmic elements from modern flamenco fusion, moving directly into a pair of guabinas, much more stately and dramatic vocal pieces. More bambuco rhythms follow, but adapted to various formats -- in "Besame Morenita, " the sound is a strong version of Brazilian bossa nova, with extra dulcet tones in Niyireth's vocals. Before finishing out the album, she touches on a couple of pasillos (a quick Andean relative of the waltz), a couple of more stately contradance forms, and one highly recognizable form to fans of Andean music in the huayno. For an overview of regional Colombian/Andean formats, this album plays quite well. It eschews the overly cliched pan pipes and bombas in favor of vocals and strings, and delivers exceptionally well.
Driven from central and northwestern India and gradually pushed into Europe by various belligerent religious, ethnic, or national groups, the people who called themselves the Roma adapted to ever-changing surroundings without ever becoming fully assimilated into established societies. Some Europeans referred to them as "Gypsies" because they thought the Roma originated in Egypt. The people of Hungary, where the Rom first appeared during the 14th and 15th centuries, called them Czigany, and as the Rom learned to speak Hungarian they also became known as Romungros. Each country, from Rajasthan to France, Spain, and Slovakia, inadvertently fostered a different set of cultural dynamics with distinctive musical attributes. In 2008 The Rough Guide to the Music of Hungarian Gypsies supplemented the world's growing library of traditional and contemporary Romany recordings. Guitars and the Hungarian cimbalom predominate along with passionately expressive voices, string bass, violin, reeds, brass horns, percussion, accordion, and anything else at hand. The music reflects the joys and sorrows of the human condition in general, and the Romani condition in particular.
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