Yalla Miku Pack a Cosmopolitan Punch on ‘2’
The music fascinates and scintillates. 2 is an exciting new step for Yalla Miku as the group harness their collective chemistry and finds ways to elevate it.
Global Music
iLe’s Boleros Give Women a Powerful Voice
iLe’s vocal outpouring makes the boleros seem like cousins to flamenco or Portuguese fado, which aim to express deep and powerful emotions.
Coco Maria Curates in Full Color on New Compilation
Coco Maria is a genuine selector: knowledgeable and curious. Her Club Coco series has long offered a soundscape going beyond smooth background beats.
Bongo Joe Celebrates 10 Years of Eclectic Releases
Bongo Joe’s compilation is worth listening to from start to finish, a thrilling way to traverse the cosmopolitan scenes of Geneva and, by extension, a world of sonic style.
Mádé Kuti Discovers New Clarity with ‘Chapter 1’
Mádé Kuti’s Chapter 1 shows that he’s here to make his own sonorous mark on the world, and it’s going to be a worthwhile one.
Algerian Freh Khodja’s Brilliant, Funky Debut Is Reissued
Freh Khodja’s story is one of mobilities and frictions, complex power structures, and lived realities that underlie and challenge utopian notions of cosmopolitanism.
Hamid Al-Saadi’s ‘Maqam Al-Iraq’ Is Beautiful and Meaningful
This is an opportunity for the world to behold a master of Iraqi maqām, Hamid Al-Saadi, the likes of whom are nearly impossible to find these days.
Sami Galbi’s ‘Ylh Bye Bye’ Is an Incredible Debut
Swiss-Moroccan producer Sami Galbi crafts a warm, inviting blend of chaabi, North African folk music, trap, and global club sounds, creating a DIY street party
Francis Bebey’s Remarkable Legacy Shines on New Compilation
Francis Bebey made music that was traditional and future-facing, synthesized and acoustic: worldly music, in tune with both past and present, yet never nostalgic.
El León Pardo Offers a Celestial Reimagining of the Known
El León Pardo carves out new corners while slipping in a few nods to pre-colonial indigenous musical ideas, soaking them in reverb and layering on slippery grooves.
Pachyman Expands Dub Horizons on ‘Another Place’
What Pachyman is doing is too fresh to ignore, crossing enough lines that even the most cynical reggae skeptic will find plenty to enjoy here.
Amazonian Band Kayatibu Transmit the Forest’s Voices
Kayatibu’s NI HUI explores encounters between human societies, humans and animals, and plants and humans, and is proudly infused with the Amazon’s life force.