This week "World Tour" features another chart from Europe, as compiled by some 50 radio presenters, producers and critics across the continent who listen to music from around the world. From Estonia to Portugal they list their favorite albums of the moment, and we feature the top ten. This time: music from Greece, France, Finland, Colombia and Palestine among other destinations.
At #10 a compilation album of the best in Afrocolombian music. It's called "Afritanga" and draws on the great diversity of music produced by Colombia's Caribbean coast. One track is by the band Calambuco and it's called Guajira de un Abandanado. The band's style is known as salsa dura - roughly translated as hard-boiled salsa....and its name ‘Calambuco’ comes from the means of transport used by sugar workers in the Valle del Cauca. A few years back, as you can tell, they visited Cuba....Calambuco: a one-stop shop for bolero, descarga, mambo, guajira, currulao and of course salsa....
At #9, the album "AsFar" (which means journeys) comes from three Palestinian brothers originally from Nazareth and now settled in Paris. They are the Trio Joubran - Samir, Wissam and Adnan - and they are all virtuosos on the oud, an instrument in the Arab world that's the cousin of the lute. Their music is steeped in Palestinian traditions as well it might be - their father is one of the best-known makers of the oud in the region. But the trio are not beyond imaginative improvisations. To get immersed in the heat and exoticism of the Middle East, as well as its immense history, try the track Masana - and check out the band's website.
Speaking of improvisations, there's a band -- yet another band -- from Mali that's finding international acclaim with a hybrid of west African, middle eastern and western influences. Call it desert rock for short - there are striking similarities with trailblazers with Tinariwen - but this band - called Tamikrest is not beyond the occasional reference to Latin influences too. Their album "Toumastin" is #8 this month - and here is the very cool "trailer" for it. The track on the show is Tarmanahine Assinegh.
#7 takes us to the other side of Africa - at least metaphorically. Dub Colossus is the vision of Brit Nick Page - aka Dubulah. Composer, guitarist, bass player and programmer Nick started his music career with Steel Pulse and in 1990 he formed Trans-Global Underground. Several incarnations later, he is the driving force of Dub Colussus - jazz Ethiopian pop and reggae wrapped together. The latest album is Addis Through the Looking Glass (clever or what?) and among the tracks is Satta Massagana; on the show we play another track "Dub Will Tear Us Apart."Vocalist Sintayehu 'Mimi' Zenebe runs a nightclub in Addis and has been described as Ethiopia's Edith Piaf. Experimental but very accomplished fusion.
Imam Baildi is a Greek recipe and the name of a band that take traditional Greek music and does outrageous things to it. The reicipe is this: "Place an aubergine over a hot flame and heat until it surrenders." The term literally means "the imam fainted". Well, the Imam are in fact two brothers - Orestis and Lysandros Falireas -
and they have a new album at #6 in our EBU chart called "The Imam Baildi Cookbook." As the show went to air it was impossible to get hold of the new album or any of its tracks, so i had to settle for Poso Lypamai from 2008. If you like artists such as Wax Poetic, I bet you like these guys. Purists in Greece are not wild about what they've done to classic Greek songs, but anyone who can segue between Greek ballads and Mariachi music deserves at least respect....
Next fusion of an an almost nuclear dimension. At # 5 in the European world music chart: a Vietnamese-French musician covering Eleanor Rigby. It's one of a dozen covers of rock and pop songs from another era, on Nguyen Le's new album "Songs of Freedom," which can now be found on iTunes. Lê is on guitars, and the album features the stunning vocals of Guo Gan. Born in Paris from Vietnamese parents, Le began to play drums at the age of 15, then took up guitar & electric bass. Le has dabbled in just about every style of music, and played with just about every sort of musician over the past thirty years - Ornette Coleman, the Yellowjackets, Cassandra Wilson, as well as knocking out a couple of filmscores...His website will give you a taste of his remarkable range.
For decades Peruvian diva Susana Baca has dedicated her life to keeping Afro-Peruvian culture and music alive (just like the artists on Afritango in Colombia's case.). On her latest album, "Afrodiaspora," she looks outward - toward New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Pernambuco in northern Brazil. The foundation of the album is Spanish guitars and cajon - the rhythms are cumbia, son and the Peruvian lando. And her lithe vocals flutter through every track effortlessly. Several tracks, like Plena y Bomba feature the Puerto Rican brothers known as Calle 13. According to one review: "The unity of past and present, obscure and familiar, across continents, is Afrodiaspora’s greatest strength."
A new entry to the chart at #3, and one of my favorite bands of the moment. They are Watcha Clan, who have a new album out called, rightly enough, "Radio Babel." Rightly because they feature Balkan, North African and Latin sounds in an eclectic and often frenetic collection. The band are from one of teh most diverse cities in Europe, the port of Marseille. And they're pretty diverse themselves. Singer Sista K is the daughter of an Ashkenazi Jewish Polish mother and a Sephardic Jewish Berber father from Algeria.
Like Dub Colossus, they draw on rock, dub and Africa, but throw in a few more elements too in their pursuit (musically and lyrically) international cultural fellowship. But if you get the album, I guarantee that no track sounds like the next....There are more instruments than the Berlin Symphony and more styles than Lady Gaga's hair. Have a listen to We Are One; the track on the show is the more chilled "Overseas Reveries."
In the last chart they were #6. This time around it's #2 for the sound of the Kronos Quartet and their ethereal collaboration with the Finnish duo, accordion adventurer Kimmo Pohjonen and sampling guru Samuli Kosminen. The album is "Uniko" and it's truly a multi-national enterprise - produced by Iceland's Valgeir Sigurosson, (known for his collaborations with Bjork) and recorded at Avatar Studios in New York. Uniko was first performed in 2004 in Helsinki , so it's not exactly new but this is a new recording on the Ondine label Here's the world premiere (performed in Helsinki in 2004) of the track featured on the show, Avara.
So to #1, and what a surprise that a band based in New York should be the most popular among our European panel. Wade Schuman and his nine-piece band - called Hazmat Modine - provide a sweeping portrait of American musical history on their latest release - "Cicada". On several tracks they get help (not that they need it) from Natalie Merchant and the Gangbe Brass Band from Benin in west Africa. Here's the promo thingy for it. And a live version of the track on the show - The Tide.
If you've got this far the least I can do is offer to play your requests or try to find that forgotten track you heard while under the influence on a Mediterranean ferry or at a Brazilian beach bar. Let me know by posting a comment somewhere below.
World Tour airs every Wednesday at 7pm on WMLB AM1690 in Atlanta, and online at 1690wmlb.com.
Tim Lister
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