Around the World – 13 & 15 November 2022 - Preview
Music from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Macedonia, Mali, Mongolia, Netherlands/Turkey, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Senegal, USA, and Wales
The featured album this week is The New Faith by Jake Blount, described as "A dystopian Afrofuturistic concept album." Read more about it below.
There's also music from Altin Gün, Björk, Clare Sands, Compagnie Rassegna, Djana Sissoko, Djely Tapa, Duo Ruut, Kokoroko, Kolinga, La Mambanegra, Liraz, Lívia Mattos, Maison Bélier, Minyeshu, Momi Maiga, Päivi Hirvonen, Perija, The Hu, The Unthanks, VRï and Wesli.
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
My top albums November 2022
More a guide than cast in stone, these are the albums I’m paying attention to this month. I hope to play at least one track from each (perhaps more) during the month. Go to my blog to see the full list.
Featured Album - The New Faith - Jake Blount
Jake Blount - "Once There Was No Sun"
As usual there will be four tracks from the featured album. This week it is the new release from Jake Blount, The New Faith. He describes it as “A dystopian Afrofuturistic concept album.” It aims to envision what Black religious music would sound like in a not-so-distant future world devastated by climate change.
The record features ten reimagined and reinterpreted traditional Black spirituals across twelve tracks in addition to two original spoken word pieces.
It was conceived and written during the lockdown while Blount was still recovering from what he now knows was likely to have been a bout of long COVID. He then recorded it in his bedroom in Providence, RI.
Blount is on vocals, fiddle, banjo, percussion and strings. Brian Slattery an old-time fiddle and banjo player heavily indebted to the style of playing that originated in Ithaca, New York is on percussion, guitar, and strings. There are also guest appearances by about half a dozen other musicians.
Blount is about to set out on a tour – all the US so far: Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Washington, Brooklyn, Boston, Bristol Tennessee, and a few other places.
The New Faith is released as part of Smithsonian Folkways’ African American Legacy series – co-conceived with and supported by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Also on the show
The show is particularly relaxed this week with a lot of music with a “folk” background. And fair amount of fiddle playing, not only from Wales and Ireland (and that Jake Blount album) but one of Finland’s leading fiddle players Päivi Hirvonen. “The music is rooted in Eastern and Western traditions of Finland and takes inspiration from film scores and pop music. Hirvonen's use of Fenno-Ugric vocal techniques gives the songs their distinctive tone while the hypnotic and archaic sound of bowed lyre and rootsy fiddling set the ground.
“Päivi Hirvonen is one of the rising international folk music artists from Finland and a pioneer of simultaneous fiddling and singing.” [More]
Päivi Hirvonen (trio): Vanha ja vapaa
From Colombia's salsa hotbed Santiago de Cali, the ten-piece La Mambanegra call their sound 'Colombian Break Salsa', mixing salsa dance songs with funk and Caribbean influences, along with R&B and jazz-edged brass and keyboard lines.
“The band was founded in 2012 by the composer, producer, saxophonist and singer Jacobo 'El Callegüeso' Vélez, whose song narratives are inspired by a mysterious, mythical hero from Cali's Barrio Obrero neighbourhood and his Odyssean adventures in the underworlds of Havana and New York.”
This video of the song on the show tonight is set in Havana – and is the anti-thesis of The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony (great tune which I’m not playing).
La Mambanegra - Yo se ya
Perjia are from North Macedonia. They play that sort of dark folk music but blend the languages and style of music from throughout the Balkans, sometimes drawing on influences from the middle east and north Africa. I’ll be playing Visoko letaj, nadolu gledaj (Fly high, look down) from Falan Filan (Turkish for Blah blah) but this video gives you an idea of what Perija do.
Perija - Sevda ( Tvojte ochi Leno mori )
If you want to catch up with the show later in the week, see the full running order, hear or read about previou shows or contact me directly, go to website DavySims.com
You can email me at davy001@gmail.com