Articles tagged "world music"

Music Review

Rupa & the April Fishes: Este Mundo

by Richard Elliott

[7.Dec.09] :. While much supposedly "boundary-crossing" music can end up bogged down in dubious fusion, the music of Rupa & the April Fishes works because it's rooted in broadly sympathetic musical styles.

Recent Music reviews

Music Review

Khaled: Liberté

by Richard Elliott

[12.Oct.09] :. Raï king Khaled claims freedom from musical straightjackets and has made some of the finest music of his career.

Recent Music reviews

Travel Feature

Pathways to Creation: Exploring Sacred Music in Fes, Morocco

by Derek Beres

[21.Jul.08] :. PopMatters goes to Morocco for the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music to honor and share the world’s great spiritual music traditions. At this 14th annual festival, Derek Beres would hear the indigenous sounds of Vietnam, Tunisia, Norway, Pakistan, Belgium, America, and much more.

Recent features

Music Review

Dobet Gnahoré: Na Afriki

by Deanne Sole

[26.Jun.07] :. It's disappointing to discover that Cumbancha's latest release is an album that asks to be tossed in the "Africans With Nice Voices Singing Nice Songs" drawer.

Recent Music reviews

Music Review

Benjamin Escoriza: Alevanta!

by Deanne Sole

[8.May.07] :. After listening to Alevanta! it's easy to think of this as the fifth Radio Tarifa album that never was.

Recent Music reviews

Vusi Mahlasela: Guiding Star

by Aarik Danielsen

[23.Apr.07] :. Though its 16 tracks vary in subject, style, and dynamic, each seems to be an unadulterated cry from Mahlasela's soul.

Various Artists: Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project

by Heather Snell

[20.Apr.07] :. There is pleasure in hearing our favourite songs "indigenized" by artists who, thanks to the proliferation of independent music labels, are made readily available at mainstream music retailers.

Stephen Marley: Mind Control

by Colin McGuire

[20.Apr.07] :. Middle Marley stays true to formula of reggae while brothers keep searching.

The Marleys and Mind Control

by Derek Beres

[5.Apr.07] :. 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.

Tropicália: Brazil’s Musical Revolution Turns 40

by Marcelo Ballvé

[2.Feb.07] :. Tropicália would combine the cosmopolitan sensibilities and lyrical precision of rock with the entire geological depth of Brazil's considerable musical tradition.

Desert Trance

by Derek Beres

[8.Dec.06] :. These are the sort of flowers that bloom in the Sahara Desert: thumb pianos, distorted amps, muddy blues, and traditional chants.

Tartit: Abacabok

by Deanne Sole

[9.Nov.06] :. Comparisons between Tartit and the better-known Tinariwen seem inevitable, but, really, there's no reason why one should be confused with the other, or why you shouldn't like both in different ways.

Tinariwen: Amassakoul

by Gypsy Flores

[5.Jan.05] :. Although Halloween night was cold and cloudy in Santa Cruz, the desert winds blew in soft and sultry toward the Kuumbwa Jazz Center to quite possibly one of the finest concerts of the year of 2004 in...

Various Artists: Festival in the Desert

by Gypsy Flores

[13.Jan.04] :. More than anything else, the Festival in the Desert is a symbol of unity and peace between nomadic tribes. The Tamashek of northern Mali and Niger, who had been warring for years, had recently burned...

Tinariwen: The Radio Tisdas Sessions

by Barbara Flaska

[17.Jan.03] :. This debut album by Tinariwen, also known as the Tuareg Rebel Blues Band, can seem the antithesis of Western pop music, even that generated by the engines currently driving the world music markets.