Around the World – 11 & 13 December 2022 - Preview
This week music from Australia, Bosnia & Herzigovina, Brazil, Colombia, Czechia, Finland, France, Gambia, Greece, Israel, Italy, Mongolia, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, and Taiwan
The featured album this week is Mostar Sevdah Reunion’s Lady Sings the Balkan Blues. I’ll also be playing: A Moving Sound (with Yi-Chen Chang, Shio-Mei, Yen-Hua Lee, Pei-Chun Wang), Adedeji, Chico César, Christos Barbas & Efrén López, Combo Chimbita, Dawda Jobarteh, Dorota Barová, Enkel, Flowk, Gaïsha, Lafawndah, Liraz, Lucrecia Dalt, Marala, Mau Power, Momi Maiga, Okra Playground, Rachele Andrioli, Susana Baca, Tacho, The Hu, Urban Village, and Viguela.
Hear the show on the web on Sundays at 10:00 pm to midnight:
Slice Audio,
Ferry FM,
Radio Larne, and
Armagh City Radio .
And on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm on the radio and web
Bangor FM 107.9: http://radio.garden/listen/bangor-fm-107-9/IycUhUbT
Lisburn’s 98FM: http://radio.garden/listen/facebook/ASeqAEl8
FM105 Down Community Radio: http://radio.garden/listen/fm-105-down-community-radio/K8lBDGFf
Hear last week’s programme here on davysims.com
Part 1 is here on Mixcloud
Part 2 is here on Mixcloud
Featured Album
Srdo Moja - Mostar Sevdah Reunion
I used to play a game “Who is the Horslips of your country?” In other words, which bands or musicians in your country take traditional music and infuse it with rock or modernise it with a blend of traditional and modern instruments? It is, more or less, the foundation of Around the World. If it had been a competition, the winner would be Mostar Sevdah Reunion. Now, one of my favourite bands. I even travelled to Sarajevo to see them in 2019. I don’t know if Dragi Šestić who founded MSR has ever heard of Horslips. I must ask him.
Mostar Sevdah Reunion began their mission in 1998 and will celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2023. And at last a new album. Taking the lead on Lady Sings the Balkan Blues is long time member of the band Antonija Batinić - a powerful and impressive vocalist who has sung along with many of the previous singers who have included Šaban Bajramović, Esma Redžepova, Ljiljana Buttler and more recently Milutin Sretenović Sreta.
While there are plenty of new songs (and by that I mean newly minted versions of very old songs) there are a few retakes of live favourites like Srdo Moja.
Had the album been released earlier in the year it would have been high in my top picks for 2022. But it arrived too late to qualify. Hear tracks from my top albums 25 (and 27) December.
Here are a few picks from the other tunes I’ll be playing
Liraz - Azizam (official video)
I’ve played many tracks already from Liraz’s Roya. This week I’ll be playing another. This video of Azizam explains the background. It’s when the guest musicians faces are pixilated you realise what a brave concept they are participating in.
“The award-winning Israeli-Persian singer returns with “Roya” (fantasy in Farsi) an exhilarating blend of tradi-modern rhythms and retro-Persian sonics.
“Recorded in secrecy in Istanbul with her band from Tel Aviv and risk-defying Iranian musicians from Tehran. A musical portal to a place of peace, joy and unfettered freedom…
“With them, on violin, viola and the tar, the wasp-waisted wooden Iranian lute, were composers and musicians from the Iranian capital, Tehran. The same clutch of anonymous players who previously collaborated with Liraz online, no questions asked, no faces shown, under the radar of Tehran’s secret police, for her feted 2020 album, Zan. Players who’d travelled undercover from Tehran to Istanbul to work with Liraz and producer/multi- instrumentalist Uri Brauner Kinrot in the flesh.” There’s much more here.
MARALA - Jota de morir
Marala Trio is a band composed by Selma Bruna, Clara Fiol and Sandra Monfort.
Three musicians and composers from Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia. Almost all their songs are original creations inspired by Catalan folk music. (More here)
Their repertoire is based on tradition and music rooted in their regions; music from Catalonia, País Valencià or the Balearics, or even some Basque songs, like the Txoria txori played in the latest work by Fermín Muguruza. Voices, guitars and percussion are the fundamental ingredients of the sound recipe of the Marala Trio, who play songs of their own but also verses by current poets and revisit threshing songs, Sephardic tunes or laments of war. Between songs, Marala speaks with those who listen to them and discover them as committed, sensitive, brave and vulnerable. (More here)
Te Spettu - Rachele Andrioli
“Rachele Andrioli measures herself with singing, spacing in between traditional music and the role of the chansonnier, from music rooted in Salento to world music, to jazz. She started off collaborating over several years with “Officina Zoè”, one of the first and somehow most radical expressions of music from Salento, Puglia. Together with the band she participated in important festivals inside and outside national borders. Her musical journey continues, ranging from Italy to India, Lebanon and the Americas. The artist features in several discographic productions.” (More here)
Have a great weekend.