Music Wire: News for the global urban generation

Macedonia’s incredible Koçani Orkestar have just announced a series of dates in France. YouTube has a video of them playing “Siki Siki Baba” with Zach Condon. It’s chaotic, but fun. Check it here.

We saw the Pascal Schumacher Quartet again just before the summer. What can we say? They are still as tight, bright and melodious. So they are STILL our n° 1 hot ticket in jazz. Since then, they have released a new album of cool jazz called “Silbregrau” on the Igloo label. Click through for […]

As mentioned below, the death of Mamadou Konte was a great loss to African music (and indeed the US and European music fans that enjoyed the acts he promoted). The company he created, Africa Fête, is however continuing. On September 9 and 15 next, they are putting together a special homage to Konte with a […]

Reviews of the Seun Kuti live shows with Egypt 80 in North America have been very good, with reviewers again welcoming the arrival of a massive Afro-Beat band led by the son of the iconic Fela Kuti (not that anyone has forgotten his other son Femi yet). “The band was the most important thing in […]

Apart from the Chehadé brothers, I had never really thought about Palestine as a source of music - and certainly not electronic music. Mea culpa. Checkpoint 303 are a Franco-Palestinian-Tunisian collective that create electronic music using field recordings of life in the occupied territories. Although not overtly political, the sounds they use are often of […]

We’re beginning to get a lot of press releases concerning summer festivals. One we thought we’d highlight is the annual Africa Fête show in Marseilles on June 30. First, because we’ve always wanted to visit the town and secondly as the event is quite cool. Headliners include Kristo Numpuby, Ashes to Machines, Oumar Kouyaté and […]

The bad news this week is that the Konono N°1 European tour has been hit by the visa blues. The group was due to fly to Europe via Switzerland but two members were refused as they didn’t have the requisite Schengen visas. These had been requested at the German embassy in Kinshasa but were […]

Balkan Beat Box are a nutty band that mixes rock with strong Balkan/Greek/Mediterranean influences, making them sure-fire favourites at festivals. Their second album, “Nu Med”, has been out since April in Europe (late May in the UK). So the band is taking to the roads again, criss-crossing the continent between now and mid-August. We really […]

The Arabo-Fusion singer Natacha Atlas is currently touring Europe to follow up on the release of “Mish Maoul”. The dates include shows in France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, England and Scotland. Transglobal Underground will appear with her on at least one date.
Atlas is one of the few performers that easily broaches the divide between the […]

One of the most popular acts in France at the moment are Magic System, the Ivory Coast band that has chalked up a number of major hits such as “Premier Gaou” and “Bouger, Bouger”. They have so far totalled over 2 million singles in France alone, as well as 400,000 albums.
Their mainstream version of the […]