It has been pretty non-stop for the last few weeks with trips to Slovenia and Estonia, but I’m back with my feet under my own desk reflecting on the last week (“Final Lookback at Tallinn Music Week” further on) and wondering about what’s next.
Listen to last week’s show and see the running order on DavySims.com and find out more about the show. You can also listen to Part 1 and Part 2 on Mixcloud.
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
This week’s featured album
Rosalía’s new studio album – her third – is Motomami. The Spanish singer takes contemporary music including urban, rap, jazz, R&B, and on this album at least, a tip of the hat to Japanese electronica games music, and blends with her roots in Catalonia and with Flamenco.
Rosalía was born in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Catalonia north of Barcelona in 1992. She graduated from the Catalonia College of Music with honours having collaborated with with Raül Refree – no stranger to Around the World. Going on to collaborate with musicians from all over Spain and the rest of Europe, she now lives in Los Angeles.
I’ll be playing 5 tracks on the show including La Fama (with Canadian musician The Weekend whose own roots are in Ethiopia), G3 N15 (which looks like a Glasgow post code but isn’t – I’ve checked and still have no idea what meaning the title has, if any). It includes the voice of her grandmother talking about the importance of family and is a reflection on being far from home during lockdown. And you’ll hear the title track which lasts barely one minute.
It is a strange and wonderful and intriguing, unpredictable album. And at times utterly weird. Which is why I like it so much.
Also on the show
Wynona Bleach
Small Island Big Song
Leyla McCalla
Saodaj'
Voice of Baceprot
And a whole lot more
A final lookback at Tallinn Music Week
Ukraine’s Ivan Dorn opens Tallinn Music Week
One of the bands I missed was Sweden’s Northern Resonance, and here are a few others I saw by chance, sometimes being in the wrong room at the right time.
Most of the music I wanted to hear was in the Telliskivi Creative Centre – a group of rooms, clubs, bars, and restaurants converted from an industrial eatate near the train station.
Find out more about Tallinn Music Week here.
Festival Passes for next year available already!
The first “wrong room” I found myself in was four floors up – where the audience exchanged shoes for slippers and I happened into a story telling session “Sounds and Stories from Ruhnu Island” – three fiddlers and a storyteller.
The next find – much later that night – was Budapest-based Góbé. I’m told “The band plays in smoky pubs, dance halls, camps, streets, at weddings or wherever they get the chance. (Are there still smoky pubs??) They have travelled across half of Europe and performed at almost every popular music venue in Carpathian Basin.”
I hadn’t heard of them before they contacted me a week before the event, but I was most impressed – great musicians and great entertainment. I understand they’ll be in Manchester during the summer at Góbéfest.
Svjata Vatra were playing toward the end of the first night. They have a unique line-up a temperamental Ukrainian trombone, Estonian bagpipes, and scythe “Shchedryk” – A Ukrainian song – Little Swallow
While my focus was on music with traditional roots, the full programme extend from jazz and pop, to experimental and dance – and much else.
Which for very good reasons moved from Tallinn to the border town Narva beside Russia showing solidarity with Ukraine. There were Ukraine flags everywhere in Tallinn – and Ukranian performers – who would have been there in any case regardless of Russia’s invasion.
Unfortunately – before that decision was made, I had booked my flight home and couldn’t stay in Narva for the final evening.
I did see a performance of Arvo Pärt’s “Da Pacem Domine” with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the in the Orthodox Cathedral, Narva, which was incomparable. There more about my trip to Estonia, Ukranian flags, and the choir in my blog.
But I missed Trad.Attack!, Tuulikki Bartosik, and Mari Kalkun. But by chance, I met Mari after Suistamon Sähkö and the following night saw her play in a little venue off the main campus.
So that’s all right.
But my big takeaways were - as expected - Duo Ruut and Suistamon Sähkö (For more about both, I refer you to last week’s newsletter).
Thanks to the team at Tallinn Music Week especially Ingrid
Duo Ruut