Romania’s Taraf de Haidouks will be making a special appearance on the France Inter radio show “Le Pont des Artistes” on Saturday Nov 24. What’s the big deal? The release of a new album, called “Maskarada”. Over the years, countless musicians have taken their inspiration from Central European gypsy music. So now this Balkan big… Read More »
In terms of diversity and colour, nothing beats African rap. We just got news that the South African band Black Noise will be appearing in Oslo, Norway on October 17 as part of the Oslo Celebrations. More specifically, they will be providing music, DJing and capoeira for an African fashion show at the Georg Sverdrups… Read More »
We just heard the first single from Original Uman’s album “L’aventure c’est l’aventure”. Uman made a mark for himself first with la Puta Madre and later as a toaster. The single “184 centrimetres” is a Hip-Hop workout in French with notes of accordion. The rest of the album promises “Jamaican rhythms”, with the label making… Read More »
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 the… Read More »
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
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 not… Read More »