10 posts tagged “world music”

In 2002, when Tinder records released the album “I Storie O Café Di Lu Furestiero,” it immediately became one of my favorite World Fusion albums. Four years later a new version of this album was released by the Italian CNI Music label, this time around marketed as “I Storie O Café Di Lu Furestiero Novo.” It is not just a simple re-release of the album, but rather a new take on the same material featuring two new tracks in addition to slightly updated favorites from the 2002 release. Ultimately, this is the same 2002 vintage, but this time around it is a little more complex, a little more mature, and with a few nuances that make the album more complete than its predecessor.

The concept behind this album is the sound of an imaginary Sicilian café where immigrants from across the Mediterranean gather to converse, sing, have a cup of espresso, or maybe even a glass or two of wine. Track after track Milagro Acustico invites us to eavesdrop on various visitors of the café, providing us with bits of foreign speech and intermixed sounds of instruments from various Mediterranean cultures, poised against the backdrop of Daniela Barra's beautiful vocals, which provide a surreal dream-like atmosphere for the whole album.

The music of “I Storie O Café Di Lu Furestiero” is the ultimate immigrant music – though it’s impossible to pin point the exact origin of each individual song, some particular elements can be easily traced to Turkey, Morocco, Andalusia, Persia, and of course Sicily. For many centuries Sicily has been the crossroads of the Mediterranean. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and even Vikings called this land home at some point of its turbulent history. Taking that into consideration, it’s hard to imagine a place that could provide a better locale for the “Foreigner Café.”

“I Storie O Café Di Lu Furestiero Novo” is filled with seemingly nostalgic lamentations, so typical for immigrant music in general, interjected with happy memories of various homelands, ethnic instrumentals and otherworldly vocals, all of which create a truly beautiful setting for an occasional jazzy note or foreign spoken word monologue. The overall mood created by Milagro Acustico’s godfather Bob Salmieri, could be described as dreamlike. Though I definitely would not call this meditation music, I find it extremely difficult whilst listening to this album to not close my eyes and imagine myself amidst the Café di lu Furestiero, letting the music be my guide through the melting pot of sounds, smells, and visuals, through the dreamscape created by Milagro Acustico and so skillfully captured in “I Storie O Café Di Lu Furestiero Novo.”

Azam Ali is an Iranian born singer and musician who grew up in India and later immigrated to the United States. World music fans know her as the Yin half of the band Vas, which Azam Ali founded with another talented musician – Greg Ellis.

“Portals of Grace” is the solo debut of Azam Ali, although Greg Ellis was heavily involved in the making of this album and is responsible for many musical arrangement featured on “Portals of Grace.” On this album Azam Ali reinterprets medieval European melodies, giving them a strong Middle Eastern flavor of her own heritage, and creating surprisingly balanced compositions of exceptional beauty. Azam Ali’s supernatural voice, a magnificent instrument in its own right, is accompanied by mostly Middle Eastern musical instruments, such as duduk, riq, dumbek, oud, daf and tombac. The material used by Azam Ali ranges from Sephardic songs, to Provençal trobairitz poems, to Swedish and Breton melodies. The final result of this seemingly unnatural combination of Middle Eastern sound and Medieval European compositions is a mystical journey through a make-believe land located somewhere along the borders of Persia, Byzantium, Moorish Spain, and Catholic France. You will not find this place on a map or in a history textbook, but this place exists in the songs of Azam Ali.

My personal love affair with Middle Eastern music began with the music of George Abdo, and some of his songs, such as “Hadouni, Hadouni” and “Raks Mustapha,” are among my absolute favorite world music compositions. This particular compilation issued by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings contains some of George Abdo’s greatest hits and can serve as an excellent introduction to the music of Belly-Dance and Middle Eastern music in general.

It’s hard to imagine that just a few decades ago Middle Eastern culture was considered hip and fashionable in the United States. After decades of political turmoil, years of Intifada, rise of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, and overwhelming anti-Arabic propaganda that dominated American movie and TV screens since the late 70s, the Middle Eastern culture is anything but fashionable. However that was not the case in the 60s and 70s decades of the 20th century – time when Middle East was considered exotic and yes – hip. During that time, dozens of Middle Eastern restaurants and night clubs prospered and American public embraced the exotic Middle Eastern culture.

Many similar cultures are divided in their homeland by animosity caused by differences in religion, centuries of warfare, and mutual genocides. However once removed from native soil immigrants from Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Jordan, Israel, and other Middle-Eastern countries quickly discovered that despite their differences, they shared common cultural background manifested in similar culture, cuisine, music, and dance. This common cultural background once transplanted onto American soil gave rise to a fascinating musical genre – not quite Middle Eastern in the traditional sense, and yet not completely Americanized. Eddie Kochak, one of the prominent figures of this musical scene called this unusual genre Ameraba – American Arabic Music. However, even this term is too restrictive – this music can be equally claimed by a variety of ethnicities, and this fact made it truly American, in the “melting-pot” kind of sense. For convenience, we could call it Belly-dance music. Belly-dancing was exceedingly popular, and Anglo-Saxon house-wives engaged in belly-dancing routines were more common than authentic Middle Eastern belly-dancers. Places like Club Zara and Averof Restaurant quickly became the centers of the belly-dancing sub-culture, catering Pan-Middle-Eastern culture, décor, cuisine, dance, and of course music to Americans and immigrants alike. And George Abdo was the undisputed king of this Belly-Dancing scene.

George Abdo and his multi-ethnic Flames of Araby Orchestra, created some of the most beautiful musical compositions, generously spiced with virtuoso improvisations on various acoustic instruments, traditional Middle Eastern melodies, authentic compositions, and occasional touches of guitars, violins, or keyboards. His music cannot be considered truly traditional; however George Abdo’s belly-dance routines are predominantly acoustic and lack the drum-machine and keyboard sound that dominates the modern Middle Eastern pop music. Being neither traditional nor modern his music belongs in the smoked up Middle Eastern restaurants of the 60s and 70s. It is best enjoyed with grape leaf mezzas, lamb kebobs, occasional shot of anise vodka, dabkah line-dancing, and of course belly-dancing.

This incredible album is one of the most beautiful world music records I have ever heard. It took me six months to hunt down this record online and it was well worth the effort and the money spent. The record is dominated by Irén Lovász’s beautiful vocals highlighted by László Hortobágyi’s signature percussion dominated by Indian rhythms and occasional keyboard chords.

The voice of Irén Lovász is haunting. It resonates deep inside, striking some primal spiritual chords, bringing to light unconscious universal cultural memories, and awaking the basic human being in all of us – the naked crying newborn free from physical, cultural, and spiritual restrains. Some of the many things that come to my mind when listening to this album include the safety and comfort of millions of lullabies sung for millions of generations to millions of my ancestors, pagan rhythms and chants, and fairy-tale creatures hiding from civilization in ancient woodlands.

"Világfa" has a truly mythological quality to it. Without understanding a single word I was instantly transported to the distant past when ancient Huns poured from the east into the heartland of Europe... Irén Lovász and László Hortobágyi explore what would the Hungarian folk music sound like if the ancient Huns turned south or east instead of west. They go back to the very trunk of the World Tree and explore the possible branches that could have been...

Alan Lomax Collection released by Rounder Records is a fantastic exploration of world and folk music based on the mid-20th-century recordings made by brilliant ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax. The collection includes music from around the world, including US, Caribbean, Spain, and Italy. The authenticity and beauty of these recordings is stunning, sound quality is excellent, and notes that accompany each CD (based on original notes by Alan Lomax) are extremely comprehensive and are exceptionally well researched.

The Trallaleri of Genoa is one of the jewels of the Italian Treasury series. This recording explores the improvised five-voiced male polyphony that originated in the Italian region of Liguria (Genoa is the largest city of the region.) The five voices that define Trallalero are falsetto, tenor, chitarra (guitar), baritone, and bass. The history Trallalero goes back for many centuries, as Alan Lomax points out when he notes that “this Ligurian style is probably one phase of music that is literally as old as human time,” however we can only speculate about the origins of this style of singing. I don’t want to bore you with the theory of Trallalero, however keep in mind that the notes that accompany this recording discuss the history and theory of Trallalero in great detail.

This CD is one of those recordings that blew me away as soon as I heard the very first five seconds of the very first song, and a strong desire (but lack of ability) to join in the chorus didn’t leave me until the music stopped. The level of understanding and agreement these rustic men achieve in order to create these perfectly improvised melodies of rare beauty and complexity should be an object of endless envy for the solitary and self-sufficient urban dwellers we have become. The deep soulfulness of these songs is rooted in the earth itself, the melodies are intricate yet very straightforward, and cheap Italian wine is soaking through every note...
Trallaleri is the music that makes me want to quit the half-hearted complexities of the civilization and embrace the hearty simplicity of the country. Trallalero is best enjoyed with a group of friends, a jug of wine, a chunk of fresh Mozzarella, and a loaf of fresh Italian bread...

Eliseo Parra is one of the titans of traditional Spanish music. His musical journey stretches for several decades, going through many different stages, during which he explored various types of music - from rock to jazz, from Spanish folk to Latin American salsa, from learning to play forgotten instruments in small Iberian villages, to studying percussion in School of Jazz and Latin Percussion in Barcelona.

A talented multi-instrumentalist, in the recent years Eliseo Parra concentrated on different types of folk fusion, blending contemporary percussion with time-honored sounds of Iberian folk that results in very traditional and yet very cutting edge music. His 2002 album “Viva Quien Sabe Querer” (“Long Live He Who Knows How to Love”) is a wonderful example of this. It’s the folk fusion at its best, based on Spanish traditional music and interjected with hundreds of hard to identify musical influences and generously spiced up with Eliseo Parra’s signature percussion.

This wonderful album is surprisingly unpopular in the US – I could not find even a mention of it neither on Amazon.com nor on Allmusic.com, a fact that wonderfully illustrates the endangered status of authentic world music – music that was not discovered by Peter Gabriel, not licensed by Putumayo, and not distributed by any major label.

This CD is not available on Amazon, but you can buy it here.

What happens if you take a Tuvian throat-singer, educate her in western overtone music, and make her join an experimental jazz band for a few years? That’s right – you get Sainkho Namtchylak. Let’s face it – not many people would be able to locate the republic of Tuva on the world map. Politically Tuva is a part of Russian Federation, located just north of Russian-Mongolian border. Culturally, however, Tuva has very little in common with Russia (other than its love for vodka, which became a beverage equivalent of Lingua Franca in the whole territory of Russian Federation.) The Republic of Tuva is predominantly Buddhist and Shamanist and has strong cultural ties to Mongolia and Tibet. The Tuvian folk music is dominated by throat-singing and the instrument of choice is Jews Harp. All of these musical characteristics can be found in the music of Sainkho Namtchylak. In addition to her Tuvian folk roots, she studied traditional western music in Gnessinsky Music College in Moscow, and later became an integral part of Russian experimental jazz band – Tri-O. Since then she released many fantastic albums, all of which are quite different from each other - from experimental and upbeat electronic fusion of “Stepmother city” (2002) to much more chill, traditional, and even slightly “new-agy” “Naked Spirit” (1998). Don’t let the new-aginess of this album scare you – it’s a beautiful record filled with Sainkho’s signature vocals, shamanic beats, and beautiful meditative compositions. “...I’m born naked and I will die naked. All I can take from this great illusion called Life is my Spirit...” – writes Sainkho in the notes accompanying this album. From this phrase comes the name of the album – “Naked Spirit,” name that perfectly reflects the mood of the album.

When I first heard this album, I was slightly, disappointed, because I was expecting something more experimental, or vice versa – something more traditional, however the album truly grew on me. The more I listened to it, the more I liked the unpretentious yet many-layered compositions, filled with subtle nuances and beautiful vocal arrangements. “Naked Spirit” became one of my all-time favorite albums and I highly recommend it to everyone. It’s a good introductory album to the music of Sainkho Namtchylak – one of the greatest musicians to come out of the Republic of Tuva – a land rich in musical traditions and motherland to many fantastic musicians.

Lâszlô Hortobâgyi – is a Hungarian avant-garde musician and the godfather of "Gâyan Uttejak Society" – an Eastern European society dedicated to the study of oriental music. His music is heavily influenced by North Indian music, but often incorporates a wide variety of instruments, vocals, and arrangements from around the world and from various time periods.

In one of his interviews Lâszlô noted that he sees music as time travel, and his album "Traditional Music Of Amygdala," released in 1991 proves just that. It is a ethnographical, mythical, musical journey to the fictional empire created by the eccentric mind of Lâszlô Hortobâgyi. The name of the album according to the press release comes from Corpus Amygdaloideum located in human brain – “hidden there are human "behavior", genetically inherited and the instinct system formed by culture and environment.” Taking this as a starting point, Lâszlô Hortobâgyi creates an entire fictional Amygdala culture, complete with fictional geographical locations, religion, philosophy, etc. Lâszlô Hortobâgyi tells us about Amygdala in nine out-worldly tracks accompanied by fascinating notes written by Lâszlô himself.

"Traditional Music Of Amygdala" is a bizarre, yet beautiful combination of Indian classical music, modern Western computer arrangements, with an occasional vocal or instrumental touch of unidentifiable origin. It’s a fantastic music journey that is worth every dollar you spend on it.

Zvuki Mu, which loosely translates from Russian as “Sounds Moo,” is currently a one-man band – Pyotr Mamonov. Recording alone or in collaboration with other musicians under this name since 1980s Mamonov has released many albums in different genres. Over the course of his career the sound of his music has changed dramatically and “Chocolate Pushkin” is a long way from his collaboration with Brian Eno in the late 1980s that brought Mamonov the very first wave of recognition. Although every single album that he has ever released deserves a prime spot on your CD shelf, “Shokolanyj Pushkin” (which translates as "Chocolate Pushkin") deserves special attention. It was written and recorded in 2001 in Mamonov’s private studio in a small Russian village, where Mamonov has been recently hiding from the “temptations and insanities” of the modern civilization. This album is rather hard to classify – part spoken word, part eerie Mamonov-style rap, with Zappa-like weirdness to it. Mamonov himself classifies it as Lit-Hop and lists such names as Beth Gibbons, Mum, Slowblow, Afro Celt Sound System, Colder and Blockhead among his then recent influences. However Mamonov does not exactly claim the authorship of this album to begin with - he does not believe that he actually creates art, but rather simply transmits it. In one of his interviews he put this way: “I repeat - I don’t come up with anything. I just put out my little antenna and receive. Sometimes I even surprise myself: where is this from? Wow! And only then the craftsmanship can begin – something needs to be cut off, something strengthened.”

“Chocolate Pushkin” is a record that proves this philosophy – one can hear the voice of the Universe transmitted through Mamonov’s poems and music, one can easily imagine that Mamonov himself is nothing more than a radio set while the true origins of the lyrics and music that he produces might not be known even to him.

Pyotr Mamonov is one of the very few modern artists who have achieved the status of not international, but rather galactic or even universal cultural importance. And I am very saddened to understand that due to the linguistic limitations he is now and always will be hardly known outside of Russia - the language barrier creates an impossible to breach gap between him and the English-speaking audiences. “Chocolate Pushkin” is not an exception from this rule - the songs of the album that do contain coherent Russian speech lose most of their appeal to non-Russian speaking listeners. But don’t let it discourage you – many songs of the album do not contain Russian language and are instead filled with music and vocal-rhythmical explorations of the artist. And of course you can always learn Russian. Understanding Mamonov’s lyrics is a good enough reason to learn this hard yet beautiful language...