Tuesday, August 30 2011
Various Artists: The Rough Guide to African Guitar Legends
The boundary for this compilation is huge, and surrounds all of Africa, a continent with more guitarists and guitar styles than anyone can easily count.
Thursday, July 14 2011
What a Wonderful ‘Life’: An Interview with Director Oliver Schmitz
Life, Above All director Oliver Schmitz brings the best-selling novel Chanda's Secret to the big screen with a dazzling cast of African actresses. Schmitz chats with Nik Ruckert about the making of this universal South African tone poem about tolerance.
Friday, June 17 2011
Group Doueh: Zayna Jumma
Electrified Western Saharan jam band plays weddings, warps time.
Friday, April 1 2011
Rikki Ililonga & Musa-O-Tunya: Dark Sunrise
Afro-psyche guitar wizard provides the most convincing case yet for the vibrancy of the 1970s Zamrock scene.
Thursday, March 10 2011
WITCH: Introduction
Something about WITCH seems to have excited record collectors outside of Zambia, but in a world where rareness, exoticism, and commodity fetishism become peculiarly intertwined, one hopes that it is more than just the rarity of the commodity that is being valued.
Tuesday, October 12 2010
Various Artists: Roots of OK Jazz
The sound quality of these remastered 78s is excellent and the compilation bears eloquent witness to the development of Franco's guitar style, from brief blasts of sound to the more fluid lines that would become his signature.
Friday, July 2 2010
Various Artists: Afro-Rock
If Afro-Rock and the numerous compilations that have followed in its wake have set a decade and its fashions in the artificial amber of retro-chic, they have also made available brilliant, adventurous music that forces us to reconsider our ideas of the evolution and revolutions of popular music.
Friday, March 12 2010
Daby Balde: Le Marigot Club Dakar
Balde's album may be too local a pleasure for the tastes of many world music fans. But for those who found Baaba Maal's latest a little too globetrottingly bewildering, this may be the ideal alternative.
Monday, January 25 2010
Various Artists: Ghana Special
Following the success of the Ethiopiques compilations, here's another stellar collection of popular African music recordings from the '60s and '70s. Highly recommended.
Friday, November 6 2009
Endgame
Endgame crafts a crackling thriller out of the tangle of crafty maneuvering and happenstance that put a stop to South Africa's apartheid.
