Tag Archives: world music

Efkar’s Back to Anatolia

Efkar is a six-person ensemble, featuring two female vocalists, as well as four men who play various traditional percussion, string and wind instruments. One of the vocalists, Sabahat Akkiraz, has six solo CDs to her credit. It looks as though … Continue reading

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Balkanarama’s Balkanarama Live

Seattle band Balkanarama plays mostly Rom or Gypsy music, largely dance music of the type you’d hear at wedding celebrations in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Greece. In addition to traditional instruments like violin (Matty Noble), saxophone (Ferko Saxmanov) … Continue reading

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Sivan Perwer’s Min bêriya te kiriye

In A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts, Christiane Bird refers to Sivan Perwer as ‘the most popular of all Kurdish singers.’ Later in the same book, she relates a story about him that she heard from a group of Kurdish … Continue reading

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Las Rubias Del Nortes’ Rumba Internationale

Las Rubias Del Norte is a Brooklyn-based combo that sings a little bit of this, a little bit of that, all of it with a Latin beat, and with sweet, sweet harmonies. The name, of course, is a bit of … Continue reading

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Lhasa’s The Living Road

Lhasa de Sela is a Canadian singer who performs a unique blend of acoustic folk and electronica, sung in the three major languages of the North America: French, Spanish and English. This CD is brimming with passionate melody and rhythm … Continue reading

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Andean Fusion’s Andean Sounds for the World Vol. VII

It doesn’t even take a full listen to realize that Andean Fusion is having a great deal of fun on Andean Sounds for the World Vol. VII. The South American themed band is famous for its daily performances at the … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Heroes & Horses: Corridos from the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands

Songs that tell stories have long been a major component of folklore worldwide. And in the arid lands where the southwestern United States meets northern Mexico, a type of ballad called the corrido is still an important component of everyday … Continue reading

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Shujaat Husain Khan’s Hawa Hawa

This review was contributed by Big Earl Sellar. This is one of those discs that I go into thinking, “Oooh, this is going to be cool.” I hate it when I do that: a premise is hardly the basis of … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Music from the Tea Lands

11Putumayo comes up with some interesting compilations. Tea Lands is less successful than most. The concept is to present a variety of music from Asian lands and cultures, and it’s not a bad one. But not all of the selections … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Mali to Memphis: An African-American Odyssey and Louisiana Gumbo, and Oliver Mtukudzi’s The Oliver Mtukudzi Collection: The Tuku Years

These three discs from world music purveyors Putumayo present a study in how the music of America and Africa have influenced each other. Mali to Memphis Well before the deluge of blues-roots discs that accompanied 2003’s “Year of the Blues,” … Continue reading

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