Royal Rhythm: Maracatu North and South
(Photo by: Kevin Yatarola) When Dona Marivalda Maria dos Santos took the stage at Lincoln Center in Manhattan recently, she flickered like a psychedelic Snow White. The glittery queen, priestess and...
View ArticleMohsen Namjoo: Meet the Iranian Jim Morrison
Although his music has been haunting my headspace for the past several weeks, I can’t pretend to understand the poetic, classical or political context in which Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo...
View ArticleBryan and the Haggards, Merles Just Want to Have Fun
Kicking their goofy brilliance into overdriveFor much of the 20th Century, jazz drew melodic inspiration from the Gershwins, Cole Porter and other sophisticated pop songwriters. Bryan and the Haggards,...
View ArticleWhite Denim, Corsicana Lemonade
A tight, tart dosage of one of the country's more potent psych-rock outfits“Mixed by Jeff Tweedy” is the headline hook for this Texas-based prog-boogie quartet’s sixth album, and you can hear the Wilco...
View ArticleWilliam Onyeabor, World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor?
Late-'70s Nigerian afro-funk from a cosmically knowing one-man studio wizardThe afro-funk compilation that originally contained it may be lost to the mists of time, but the ten-minute existential...
View ArticlePenny Penny, Shaka Bundu
Hard-hitting house from apartheid South AfricaThe youngest of 68 children (his father had 25 wives), Giyani Kulani Kobane was a 34-year old janitor working for a Johannesburg record company when he cut...
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Discover: Awesome Tapes From Africa
The humble and formerly ubiquitous cassette tape turned 50 years old in August 2013. But every day is Cassette Store Day for Brian Shimkovitz, whose Awesome Tapes From Africa blog and record label have...
View ArticleCumbia, My Lord!
Cumbia — or, as the supersized Mexican sound systems known as sonideras exalt it, CUUUUUUUMBIA!! — originated in Colombia’s Caribbean coastal region and spread throughout Latin America like a benign...
View ArticleInterview: Anoushka Shankar
Pandit Ravi Shankar’s death in December 2012, at age 92, didn’t simply quiet Indian classical music’s most internationally renowned musician and composer; it also marked the end of one of its...
View ArticleHard Working Americans, Hard Working Americans
A 'Workingman's Dead' for the new millenniumHard Working Americans marks the debut of a promising quintet fronted by agitprop singer-songwriter Todd Snider. In these muscular adaptations of 11 of...
View ArticleDamien Jurado, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son
An expansive yet concise album of psychedelic road songsDamien Jurado’s 2012 album Maraqopa was inspired by a dream about a rock star who chooses not to return from a quest to find himself. In its...
View ArticleInterview: Angelique Kidjo
Africa couldn’t have found a more tireless and powerfully-voiced advocate than Angélique Kidjo, an onstage powerhouse whose fortifying new album Eve celebrates motherhood, daughterhood and sisterhood...
View ArticleVarious Artists, Haiti Direct: Big Band, Mini Jazz & Twoubadou Sounds, 1960-1978
A danceable crash course in Haiti's rich music sceneWelcome to the Haitian compilation the outside world has been waiting for, one focusing on regional bands rather than more famous expats such as...
View ArticleTinariwen, Emmaar
Sounding more organic and single-minded than everCurrently displaced from their Northern Mali territory, where Tuareg insurgents battle radical Islamists, this band of exiles recorded its seventh album...
View ArticleVarious Artists, Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles
Bang your head proudly, suffererA lonely, frustrated dude stuck in flyover country with his Zeppelin albums, Sabbath posters, and dog-eared Lord of the Rings paperbacks would have been crazy not to...
View ArticleWelcome to Zamrock: Musi-O-Tunya’s Zambian Psych Revolution
Zambia combo Musi-O-Tunya’s debut Wings of Africa isn’t simply the first “Zamrock” album — that’d be “Zambian rock ‘n’ roll” — it’s also a stunning psych-fuzz head trip, one that deftly blends...
View ArticleKasai Allstars, Beware the Fetish
Getting down with the brutal sound of multiple electric thumb pianosThe fifth release in Crammed Discs’ Congotronics series challenges listeners to expand their boundaries and get down with the brutal...
View ArticleDave Douglas & Uri Caine, Present Joys
Two virtuosos make spiritual music, solid as Shaker furniture and sober as a Quaker meetingDave Douglas’s 2012 quintet album Be Still focused on Protestant hymns his mother asked him to play at her...
View ArticleHieroglyphic Being and the Configurative or Modular Me Trio, The Seer Of...
Where form and chaos coexistFrom his recording name down to many of his track titles, Jamal Moss owes more than a little to Sun Ra, the original afrofuturist. Ra would often re-edit and repackage...
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