Monday, January 18 2010
Top 10 Global Albums of 2009
The top 10 "world music" CDs of 2009, stretching from Africa and the French Caribbean to New Zealand and Brooklyn.
Tuesday, December 1 2009
Bela and Boban in Budapest
The first phrase to learn in Budapest has to be "Maga sokkal jobban tud angolul, mint én magyarul", or “Your English is far better than my Hungarian.”
Wednesday, October 21 2009
Bluegrass Grows in Brooklyn
The Five Deadly Venoms are leading the charge of a thriving bluegrass scene in Brooklyn.
Tuesday, September 22 2009
Brazilian Funk and Cuban Soul Heat Up the Northern Climes
A killer samba beat and an irresistible Cuban Sway: Brazil's futuristic Otto and Cuban expat Alex Cuba deliver soulful sounds.
Wednesday, August 26 2009
Tuva Meets Technology
From the ‘non-existent’ land of Siberia comes the long-existing sound of Tuvan drumming and throat singing.
Wednesday, July 15 2009
Bob Holroyd Re:Turns
“Writing music is often like assembling a collage, and I think this is why a lot of my tracks have a sort of cinematic quality to them,” says Holroyd.
Monday, June 22 2009
For Summer Dancing in the Streets
Six spectacular world beat albums that will have you dancing through those sweet summer nights.
Tuesday, April 14 2009
Novalima: Peru’s Hidden Treasure
Friends and band mates since high school, these Peruvian electronistas all moved to different countries; Novalima was made via emails and zip files.
Tuesday, March 24 2009
A Transcendental Evening at Alice Tully Hall
After the first piece, my friend leaned over and whispered that if you close your eyes, you are easily taken away.
Wednesday, February 11 2009
Beyond the Bubble of the Grammys
The Grammys suffer from the same problem as the rest of the recording industry: thinking America defines culture.
Wednesday, February 4 2009
Across the Universe, for the Sixth Time
This year's globalFEST was punctuated by performances from Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, La Troba Kung-Fu, Kailash Kher, Watcha Clan, and others -- a brave journey through the world of sounds, guided by open minds and big hearts.
Tuesday, January 20 2009
Visions of the World
Three world-music documentaries deserving of your attention detail the unity of Islam through music, the convergence of South Asian folk with modern technologies, and the plight of Saharan desert dwellers.
Monday, December 1 2008
The Ubiquitousness of Ubiquity Records
There is no clear-cut definition of what Ubiquity Records produces, unless we go for universal terms like "good" and "dope".
Monday, November 10 2008
Forty-Nine Hours at T-Dot Town’s Annual Small World Music Festival
Today's global music is an extension of the culture that has been emerging over the last century, when airplanes and vinyl recordings made social exchanges possible to an extent previously undreamed.
Monday, September 22 2008
Fela! Here Comes the Black President
Great art such as Fela! inspires us to make the choices we need to make, and not give up our responsibilities because it is easier to allow someone else to make decisions for us.
Thursday, August 28 2008
The Dusty Foot Philosopher Kicks Up America
K'Naan stood on stage, drum in hand, focused on the two instruments that comprise and compose the totality of African storytelling: the voice and the drum.
Monday, August 4 2008
A Walk Through the Medina
It's fascinating to think that a culture that produces such deep and soulful bass music could also contact its spirits via the shrieking, grating sounds of this flute, yet such is the nature of Moroccan music.
Monday, June 16 2008
Ten Years Dancing on the Hudson
For the last decade, Turntables on the Hudson has held gatherings of positive music -- funk, hip-hop, soul, dance; African, Latin, and Balkan beats -- that thrive on human connection.
Monday, May 12 2008
Three Nights in France
Beres hits Paris and Bourges to take in the eclectic sounds of Transglobal Underground, Les Primitifs du Futur, Watcha Clan, and Fat Freddy's Drop, and gets pulled into the "sacred space" that solders the connection between sound and human.
Monday, April 14 2008
Women of the (Music) World
There is little in this world as beautiful as the female voice. Sometimes it’s necessary to stop and remind ourselves of this.
Tuesday, March 18 2008
Classical Egypt in America
By shining the light on the vast, rich cultures of the Middle East, these musicians are bringing misconceptions and misunderstandings out of the darkness of the past, not to mention the dark corners of our present.
Wednesday, February 20 2008
Devotion Through Music
Global spiritual traditions are being evolved by artists fusing the best of many worlds, electronic and traditional, into forms of devotion applicable to us all.
Thursday, January 24 2008
Bass Makes the World Go ‘Round
As Hamsa Lila knows, the heart and soul of trance lies in the passionate intensity performed by its players.
Wednesday, December 19 2007
The Redistribution & Revival of Roots
Like the roots of old and those of new, music flows stream-like from the hearts of these artists into an ocean of humanity.
Wednesday, November 21 2007
Big Brass at the Disco
Shantel has accomplished the most daunting task imaginable in this genre: making an accessible pop record with tubas, trumpets and dumbeks, and our response remains among the greatest of human pleasures: we dance.
Monday, October 15 2007
Bachata: Generations Apart and Together
Bachata grew up in the barrio. Servants would turn trashcans and fences into instruments in their nighttime escapades, and the words would tune hearts to a frequency unheard during daytime hours.
Monday, September 24 2007
Passport to the Future
Once you get past the initial groove that Manu Chao lays, and become accustomed to his fast-paced nature, you recognize a passionate soul as devoted to music as he is to political and social justice.
Friday, August 31 2007
New Ways to Breathe
Breathing Under Water, a collaboration between sitarist Anoushka Shankar and tablist Karsh Kale, is not only where music is going, it's where it's at.
Monday, August 6 2007
The Evolution of Africa and Hip-Hop
Pharoahe Monch's new album, Desire, is a complete surround-sense experience, but it's also a reminder that as much as our technologies have improved, what we are communicating is not necessarily the most righteous of information.
Monday, July 9 2007
Journeymen
Gypsy Caravan, a new documentary about a six-week tour featuring some of modernity's top Gypsy musicians, is an exceptional peek at life on the road, entwined with the history, and current state, of Gypsy culture.
Thursday, May 31 2007
The Evolution of Vintage
One of the glaring paradoxes of technological evolution is its ability to reconnect us to history. And if we know anything about human nature, it's that as we step into the future, we always look back.
Monday, April 30 2007
Emerging Ideas in Global Distribution: An Interview With Six Degrees’ Bob Duskis
"If you don't embrace your buying base, you're going to go out of business." Beres talks with the electronica label's co-founder about digital distribution and independent music.
Thursday, April 5 2007
The Marleys and Mind Control
The efforts of major corporations to disarm their consumers is a reminder that music used to be judged by how it made the listener feel, not how many times it was downloaded.
Tuesday, February 27 2007
Rumi-nating on a New Axis
The Sufi poet formerly known as Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi is celebrating 800 years, and the entire spectrum of Persian culture is throwing a party.
Thursday, February 1 2007
Ali in the Family
Vieux Farka Touré continues his late father's musical legacy with a weathered voice, poetic passion, and a new debut album.
Friday, January 12 2007
A World Shares the Stage
Beres inspects the 'major guitar and string theme' at this year's globalFEST event in New York, which will host music from Brazil, Cape Verde, Paris, and beyond.
Friday, December 8 2006
Desert Trance
These are the sort of flowers that bloom in the Sahara Desert: thumb pianos, distorted amps, muddy blues, and traditional chants.
