Category: World Music

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays GOAT Returns with a Gorgeous and Cinematic, New Single

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of months you’d likely know that the mysterious Northern Swedish collective’s highly-anticipated, third, full-length effort Requiem is slated for an October 7, 2016 release and the album’s “Try My Robe” continues on a similar vein as “I Sing in Silence,” as the collective has gone for a stripped down, acoustic, psych rock vibe paired with chanted/shouted vocals, shimmering and dexterously looping guitar work, mischievously complex, handclap led percussion and a slow, shuffling bass line that manages to be deceptively propulsive in a song that sounds subtly influenced by African and Middle Eastern music. Requiem’s latest single “Alarms” is a gorgeous track consisting of African and Middle Eastern-like percussion, shimmering and gorgeous guitar lines and an ethereal melody that floats just above the instrumentation. Sonically, the song manages to sound both incredibly cinematic and as though it could have been released in 1966.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Peruvian Septet Bareto Returns with a Cosmic Take on Traditional Cumbia Paired with Satirical Visuals

The album’s latest single “La Pantalla,” will further cement the Peruvian septet’s reputation for pushing the sonic boundaries of cumbia as a looping guitar line played through gentle amounts of reverb are paired with soaring organ, electronic bleeps and bloops, an infectious hook with call-and-response vocals — and as a result, the song possesses a subtly psychedelic and cosmic feel. And along with that, the band manages to play with a coolly swaggering, self-assuredness.

The recently released music video is a rather satirical take on Peruvian TV shows, featuring shows hosted by grotesque talking heads, violent and absurd situations, spliced with footage of the band performing the show on a shitty late night talk show and footage of dancers splashing, sloshing and getting even filthier in the mud; in fact they get so filthy that they manage to spread their filth on to a nearby child.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Classically trained Havana, Cuba-born and based jazz pianist and composer Harold Lopez-Nussa was born into a very musical family. Not only are his father and uncle are both working musicians, his late mother Mayra Torres was a highly-regarded piano teacher. When Lopez-Nussa turned eight, he began studying at Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and finally graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA). “I studied classical music and that’s all I did until I was 18,” Lopez-Nussa said in press notes. Then came jazz.

“Jazz was scary. Improvisation was scary. That idea of not knowing what you are going to play . . “the Cuban pianist and composer explains. “At school I learned the works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and then it was all very clear. That permanent risk in which jazz musicians find themselves in all the time was terrifying—of course, now I find myself in that risk all the time.” And yet interestingly enough, throughout his recording career Lopez-Nussa has found himself moving between classical, jazz and pop music rather easily.  He has recorded a rendition of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Fourth Piano Concerto” with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra back in 2003; has won the First Prize and Audience Price of the Jazz Solo Piano Compeition at the Monterux Jazz Festival in 2005; has collaborated with David Sanchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris on Ninety Miles in 2011; has made an appearance on Esencial, an album of compositions by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer, also in 2011; and as far as more popular projects, he was involved in the Cuba volume of Rhythms del Mundo, which had him recording songs with members of the world-famous Buena Vista Social Club; and he spent three years as part of the Omara Portuondo’s tuouring band — and naturally those experiences have deeply influenced the Cuban pianist and composer’s own personal style and aesthetic.

El Viaje, Lopez-Nussa’s latest full-length effort features the Cuban pianist and composer’s trio, which includes his younger brother Ruy Adrian Lopez-Nussa (drums and percussion) and Senegalese bassist and vocalist Alune Wade, as well as guest appearances from the Lopez-Nussas father Ruy Francisco on drums, Mayquel González on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dreiser Durruthy and Adel González on percussion.  Alune Wade’s collaboration with Lopez-Nussa goes back to when the duo worked together on Havana-Paris-Dakar, and as Lopez-Nussa explains, “Having a non-Cuban musician on this recording speaks to our contact with other cultures. Especially with African culture, which is so far from ours geographically and yet so close. Every time we play, I believe we enter into a journey we are creating.”

Interestingly, the upcoming Stateside release of Lopez-Nussa’s latest effort comes as the US has begun to lift the embargo started during the Kennedy Administration and normalize diplomatic, cultural and trade relations — and in fact, it’ll be the first album by a Cuban-based artist to see a complete international release in more than 50 years. And as a teaser of what you should expect to hear off the album and the Cuban pianist and composer’s Stateside tour, you can check out two singles from the album “Mozambique en Mi B” and “Feria.” And from both tracks, Lopez-Nussa’s compositions possess an understated and elegant simplicity that makes both “Mozambique en Mi B” and “Feria” sound and feel timeless; in some way, they nod at bop era jazz — hinting at the charm and mischievous wit and stunning melodicism of Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk but meshing that with a breezy and danceable tropicalia and Afro-Cuban/Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms. And while mining from somewhat familiar territory, if you’ve listened to as much jazz as I have, the material possesses a vitality that separates it from countless others.  Check out how the interplay between Lopez-Nussa’s piano chords and Wade’s bass and vocals seem as though they’re flirtatiously dancing with each other on “Feria,” while “Mozambique en Mi B,” sounds as though it were heavily influenced by samba and includes a deft and gorgeous Lopez-Nussa solo — and it’s in those moments that the Havana-born and based pianist and composer reveals himself as arguably one of the more inventive, contemporary composers you’ll come across.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tour Dates

Aug 10 / The Opera House at Boothbay Harbor / Boothbay Harbor, ME

Aug 11 / Payomet Performing Arts Center / Truro, MA

Aug 12 / Shalin Liu Performance Center / Rockport, MA

Aug 14 / SFJAZZ Center Miner Auditorium / San Francisco, CA

Aug 14 / San Jose Jazz Summer Fest Jade Leaf Lounge / San Jose, CA

Aug 15 / Kuumbwa Jazz Center / Santa Cruz, CA

Aug 18 / Vail Jazz Festival (Special Guest w. Maraca) / Vail, CO

Aug 19 / Aspen Snowmass Jazz Festival (Special Guest w. Maraca) / Aspen, CO

Aug 30 / Cotton Club / Tokyo, Japan

Sept 2 / Musashino Swing Hall / Musashino (Tokyo), Japan

Sept 3 / NHIC Tokyo JazzFest (Forum Hall A) / Tokyo, Japan

Sept 4 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI

Sept 5 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI

Oct 4 / Gateway City Arts / Holyoke, MA

Oct 5 / Museum of Fine Arts / Boston, MA

Oct 6 – 7 / The Berrie Center (Ramapo College) / Mahwah, NJ

Oct 8 / The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Terrace Club) /Washington, DC

Oct 11 / Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Jazz at Lincoln Center) / New York, NY

Oct 13 / The Side Door / Old Lyme, CT

Oct 14 / BRIC Jazz Festival / Brooklyn, NY

Oct 15 / Chris’ Jazz Cafe / Philadelphia, PA

Oct 18 / Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant / Minneapolis, MN

Oct 19 / SPACE-Society for the Preservation of Art & Culture Evanston /Evanston (Chicago), IL

Oct 21 / The Dirty Dog Cafe / Detroit (Grosse Point), MI

Oct 22 / The Dirty Dog / Detroit (Grosse Point), MI

Oct 23 / Baur’s Listening Lounge / Denver, CO

Oct 27 / Blue Whale / Los Angeles, CA

May 6 / Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center / Davie, FL

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by frontwoman and principle songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza, Portland, OR-based alt folk/folk rock/indie rock act Y La Bamba, the critically applauded act can trace its origins to  early 2008 when Mendoza wanted to perform under something else other than her name, and began writing and making home recordings of her songs on a one-by-one basis largely drawing from the traditional Mexican folk songs she heard as a child growing up in San Francisco and playing with her cousins in the San Joaquin Valley, the work of Loch Lomond and Devendra Banhardt and others. Around the time she had begun writing her own material, Mendoza had begun regularly hosting an open mic at a sake bar in Northeast Portland, where she met the members of the band’s original line up — Ben Meyercord, Mike Kitson (drums), Sean Flinn (guitar) and Eric Shrapel (accordion).

Over the course of the band’s three albums and several lineup changes of collaborators, friends and musicians, the band’s material has gone through a variety of changes — but it’s the the band’s forth full-length effort Ojos Del Sol that may be arguably be the most radical turn in sonic direction, while returning to familiar themes of searching and personal discovery — themes that have come up a number of times in Mendoza’s own life, whether as the daughter of Mexican immigrants connecting with her ancestry and searching for spiritual meaning that goes much further than organized religion. In fact, as Mendoza explains in press notes, the material on the album thematically is a “cerebration of family and community” — but a community of shared humanity.

Interestingly, the album’s first single “Libre” finds Mendoza and company at their most self-assured but in one of the breeziest and pop-leaning songs as they pair an infectious and anthemic hook with an arrangement that includes what sounds like xylophone, a mischievous and sinuous bass line, a steady backbeat, Mendoza’s gorgeous vocals along three part harmonies in English and Spanish, a rolling, African folk music-like guitar line in a song that evokes a sense of almost childlike wonder and joy, while making a connection both to Mendoza’s ancestral homeland and Africa in a way that subtly channels Paul Simon‘s Graceland.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bareto’s Mischievous and Breezily Futuristic Take on Peruvian Cumbia

Impredecible’s slow-burning yet buoyant new single “El impredecible,” possesses a languorous and looping rhythm, intricate and dexterous guitar lines familiar to Peruvian cumbia; however, the song manages to be simultaneously angular, as the looping rhythms are paired with complex polyrhythms and beats, ethereal electronics, warm blasts of horns coming out of the ether and earnest vocals to craft a sound that feels and sounds simultaneously traditional and futuristic.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Paris-based DJs Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalho, electronic music act and production duo Acid Arab have developed a reputation for a sound that meshes Western electronic music, namely house and acid house, with Arabic arrangements and vocals — and for increasing collaboration with scores of Parisian-based musicians from across both North Africa and the Middle East. And as a result of their crowd-pleasing, genre meshing approach, the duo have been a name for themselves by playing the European major festival and club circuit to support several critically applauded EPs released through French label Versatile Records. Interestingly, as the duo of Minisky and Carvalho increasingly began to collaborate with locally based musicians, the duo four the need to make each song tell a story, which takes place in a world without barriers and domination.

The duo’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Musique de France is slated for an October 20 release through Crammed Disc Records and the album finds the Parison electronic music act collaborating with world renowned artists including Algerian keyboard player Kenzi Bourra, Syrian musician Rizan Said, who’s known for his work with Omar Souleyman,  Rachid Taha, raï fusion pioneer, Sofiane Saidi and gnawa musician/singer, Jawad El Garrouge — and a result, the French production and electronic music duo will not only further cement their burgeoning reputation for a globally-based genre mashing sound, it also finds them expanding upon it, as you’ll hear on “Buzq Blues,” the first single off the duo’s forthcoming album. The song has the duo crafting a slick production that features propulsive percussion, tons of kick snare, and skittering drum programming, cascading layers of synth stabs, gently buzzing synths, undulating electronics paired with gorgeous, Arabic instrumentation to craft a a trippy dance floor-friendly song that effortlessly bridges the incredibly modern with the incredibly ancient.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially comprised of Dan Klein (vocals), Chuck Patel (organ, piano), Rich Terrana (drums, vocals) and Preet (bass, vocals), along with Norihiro Kikuta (guitar) and Mike Torres (percussion), Queens-based act The Frightnrs have developed a reputation across the city’s DIY and soundsystem scenes for an aesthetic that draws from Jamaican Rocksteady, a revered genre that took over Jamaican airwaves in 1967 and yielding some of the country’s most beloved and popular songs before petering out by the end of 1968, 80s Rub A Dub, punk rock, ska and reggae in a way that’s a subtle redefinition of what a contemporary reggae act can sound like. In fact, the act’s debut effort received airplay from reggae and radio legend David “Ram Jam” Roddigan and Mad Decent’s Diplo, who later released the band’s EP last year.

After the release of their EP, renowned New York-based funk and soul label Daptone Records released the band’s critically acclaimed cover of Etta James‘ “I’d Rather Go Blind” before officially signing the band as their first reggae signing based on two things — the strength of their local reputation and on the fact that they stumbled on to the perfect band to a long desired Rocksteady album, with Victor Axelrod, best known as Ticklah behind the dials and knobs. As the band’s Chuck Patel explains in press notes “Rocksteady was the first style of Jamaican music that Dan [Klein] and me fell in love with, and the idea of making a classic album for a classic label like Daptone was a dream come true.”  As soon as the band was officially signed, the members of the band immediately went to work with the understanding that they had to work within Daptone Records’ tight frame and constraints — mainly they had to write only Rocksteady songs, which forced the band to display a singular focus. In fact, as Axelrod adds “The fact that the direction of the album was determined by it being a Daptone record was crucial.  We wanted to make a solid and cohesive record and so chose songs that most fit the Daptone aesthetic and the result was the best music that Dan and the Frightnrs had ever made with truly expanded levels of creativity.”

Sadly as the band was recording their full-length debut effort Nothing Left to Say, which is slated for a September 2, 2016 release, the band’s frontman and co-founding member Dan Klein was diagnosed with ALS in last November and although he was able to finish the major work during the recording sessions, Klein tragically died last month making the recorded effort a testament to their friend and founder. As for the album’s first single, album title track “Nothing More To Say,” the track reminds me of the sort of stuff I’d hear during Dahved Levy‘s WBLS radio show. And although the song possesses an upbeat, bouncy riddim, the song is actually a bitter and aching lament from the song’s narrator about being devoted to a fickle and difficult lover, who may not have even loved him anyway — and as you can imagine the song’s narrator quickly recognizes that his relationship with this person was a lie. So he vows to pack up his stuff and go — and go as quickly as possible. Certainly, I’ve been there a couple of times as you have, and the song voices the bitter sense of confusion, heartache, regret and foolishness we’ve all felt at some point or another because of love.

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I’ve previously written about Melbourne, Australia-based Latin music nonet San Lazaro. Featuring band members, who claim heritage from all over the Spanish speaking world — including Chile, Cuba, Catalonia and elsewhere. And as result, the Australian act have developed a reputation for a sound that draws across the Latin Diaspora as it possesses elements of reggaeton, salsa, Cuban son, 70s New York salsa and 60s Peruvian cumbia in an effortlessly seamless fashion; in fact, the band has simultaneously developed a reputation for being Melbourne’s preeminent Latin acts, as the band’s 2012 release Clave contra Clave helped the band win Best Australian Latin Band, and their single “Muchacho Tranquilo” was included on the 2014 Rough Guide to Psychedelic Salsa compilation.

La Despedida (which translates from Spanish to English as “The Farewell”) the Melbourne-based nonet’s latest effort, appropriately focuses on some familiar themes to all of us — breakups, loss, insomnia, political protests and more. And adding to the emotional weight is the fact that the material is also deeply informed by the fact that the band has broken up and reconvened several times. Now, you may remember that “Amor De Despedida” was a propulsive song that balanced swooning heartache with a bitter, kiss off to someone who made the song’s narrator feel ambivalent and confused emotions, “La Ola” the album’s latest single is a swinging and bouncing bit of cumbia that has the band pairing twangy country music-like guitars with a propulsive and insistent rhythm and an enormous horn line to craft a song that’s inspired by the Chica cumbia sound of 1970s Peru — while the song’s narrator tells a woeful tale about a fickle love that seems to to come and go as she pleases, and as you listen to the song, the song’s narrator expresses a frustrated, bemused and ambivalent bitterness over it while admitting that they seem hopelessly pulled into a situation they can’t quite control.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past 18-24 months or so, New York-based electro pop duo Sofi Tukker have become blogosphere darlings while becoming JOVM mainstay artists. Comprised of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, the duo can trace their origins to when the duo were students at Brown University . Meeting and a local art galley, the duo began writing music around their shared desire of crafting accessible, pop-leaning world music that could reach a wide audience. And much like a number of artists across the country, the duo upon their graduation relocated to New York, where over the next year they began working on material — including the material that would wind up comprising their soon-to-be released EP Soft Animals, which is slated for a July 8 release. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about “Deja Vu Affrair,” a single that drew from 80s s New Order and house music as angular guitar chords played through gentle washes of reverb and delay are paired with four-on-the-floor drum programming, cascading layers of wobbling synths and Hawley-Weld’s sensual cooing. The EP’s latest single “Awoo” is a mischievous collaboration with vocalist Betta Lemme that pairs propulsive and tribal drum samples with samba-styled keys. Lemme and Hawley-Weld’s contribute sultry vocals and gleeful, child-like shouting — as though they were losing their minds to the song in the club.

Sofi Tukker is embarking on a lengthy series of tour dates — some opening for M83 and a number of headlining shows, including a hometown set at Baby’s All Right  at the end of July. Catch them at a music venue near you.

Tour Dates:

Supporting M83*

July 1 – London, UK @ British Summer Time @ Hyde Park (w/ Massive Attack) (TICKETS)

July 1 – London, UK @ White Heat at The Lexington (TICKETS)

July 2 – PITCH Festival Amsterdam (TICKETS)

July 6 – Cesme, Turkey @ Burn Electronica Festival (TICKETS)

July 7 – Milan, Italy @ Festival Moderno (w/ Grimes & Blood Orange) (TICKETS)

July 9 – Zamardi, Hungary @ Balaton Sound Festival (TICKETS)

July 15 – Salacgriva, Latvia @ Positivus Festival (TICKETS)

July 17 – One Love Festival Istanbul (TICKETS)

July 20 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre (w/ Chairlift) (TICKETS)*

July 21 – Boston, MA @ Blue Hills Bank Pavilion (w/ Chairlift) (TICKETS)

July 25 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant (TICKETS)*

July 27 – Council Bluffs, IA @ Stir Cove (TICKETS)*

July 28 – Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theatre* (SOLD OUT)

July 30 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (TICKETS)

August 19 – San Francisco, CA @ Popscene at Rickshaw Stop (TICKETS)

August 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Pershing Square (w/ Todd Rundgren) (FREE SHOW)

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra Bridges the Sounds and Cultures of the African Diaspora with Funky Grooves

Album title track “Bade Zile” employs the use of propulsive and complex polyrhythms paired with call and response voodoo chants, a driving groove and swirling electronics to craft a sweaty and funky free-flowing jam that subtly nods to reggae and funk while directly and overtly nodding to Afrobeat and traditional Haitian music in dizzying and seamless fashion.

The recently released music video was primarily shot in Port-au-Prince during Fete La Musique and it captures the island nation’s stark poverty, its people’s beauty, dignity and pride, some gorgeous voodoo relics and the musicians of the Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra in the rehearsal room and on stage jamming, as well as the audience at the festival rocking out and enjoying the proceedings. And the entire time I watched the video I couldn’t help but be awed by such a proud, beautiful people, who have suffered so greatly.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Brooklyn-based musicians Elenna Canlas and Peter Mason, best known for their primary gig Underground System, the duo have stepped out into their own with a side project, Big Everything, which the duo have described as possessing a sound that’s “equal parts NYC club culture, freaky funk and R&B sty liens and electronic reckless abandon.”

The duo released their self-titled debut mixtape earlier this month and it features guest spots from Tierra Whack, Awkwafina, Bajah and others, and interestingly enough the mixtape has started to receive quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere. And when you hear the mixtape’s latest single “Killer Bee”you’ll see why, as the duo along pair enormous, blasts of enormous brass, boom-bap beats, stuttering drum programming, deft sampling, buzzing synths and an emcee spitting bars towards the song’s last third. Sonically and aesthetically speaking, the song manages to mesh several disparate genres — in particular, hip-hop, Eastern/Gypsy funk, funk, electronic dance music, brass bands and others — in a seamless fashion that only seems possible in a truly global world.

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Congolese-born, Minneapolis, MN-based guitarist, singer/songwriter and composer Siama Matuzungidi has had a lengthy, decades long prolific career that began in earnest when he left his home in rural Democratic Republic of the Congo, then Zaire with a guitar strapped to his back. He then travelled to Kinshasa and Uganda before eventually landing in Nairobi, Kenya. And during those travels a young Matuzungidi was a studio musician, songwriter and or cowriter with some of soukous’ biggest and brightest names including Kanda Bongo Man, Sam Mangwana, Moni Mambo with Shika Shika, Lovy Longomba, Tshala Muana and Samba Mapangala with Virunga; in fact, Matuzungidi has played on more than 100 singles, including some of soukous’ most beloved radio hits while developing a reputation for material based around tales of love, desire and betrayal paired with catchy hooks and a wry and ironic sense of humor — although on many of those songs he wasn’t officially credited.

 

As a result of his prolific songwriting and incredible guitar work, Matuzungidi became considered one of soukous’ legends — and in a highly competitive genre in which writing catchy song just wasn’t enough to stay relevant. During the genre’s golden age during the 70s and 8os, it took more than writing a catchy song to keep listeners ears and fans buying albums, and the genre’s songwriters and musicians began writing songs with a deeper complexity and nuance, so you’d hear intricate hooks, complex scales an more. And interestingly enough, that period of experimentation may arguably have prepared and influenced the Congolese soukous legend’s future interest in experimenting with his sound.

Now as the story goes, after spending time performing in Japan and Dubai, Matuzungidi relocated to Minneapolis, the soukous legend quickly realized that he was in for a rather big professional and personal change — “for the first time there wasn’t anyone to play soukous with. I was worried I might have to stop playing but another voice told me to try new things,” Matuzungidi explains in press notes. So the Congolese singer/songwriter and guitarist decided to invite a number of local and locally-based emigre musicians to collaborate with him including Carnatic Indian singer and veena virtuoso Nirmala Rajasekar, renowned gospel singer JD Steele, master Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzen Ngawang, classical cellist Jacqueline Ultan and Joe Savage on pedal steel. As Matuzungidi continues “I invited musicians to share what they feel when they hear my music. I didn’t tell them what to play. I just encouraged them to express themselves in their own way. The music still sounds like home but they’ve added so many cool ideas to it.”

And as a result Matuzungidi’s recently released full-length Rivers is a bit of a modern and highly global take on traditional Congolese music. I have the unique privilege of premiering Rivers‘ opening single, the upbeat 6/8 “Jungle Zombie” which pairs a twisting and looping guitar line with bright blasts of horn, playful polyrhythm and a jazz-leaning bridge in a loose composition that allows room for each of the musicians a few brilliant moments to show off in a brilliant solos, along with call and response vocals. Reportedly, the song is loosely inspired by and is meant to channel the imagery of Matuzungidi and his family walking through the bush to get to their farm, where they grew their own food. Interestingly, as the press notes mention the song’s lyrics translated from Lingala simply say “Bring me water. Bring me food . . ” But the main thing is that the song is so joyous, so fun that you can’t help but want to dance along.