Around the World
20 March 2026
THIS WEEK
LISTEN TO AROUND THE WORLD ON MIXCLOUD
Music by: Adrian Crowley, Alicia Edelweiss, Altın Gün, Arooj Aftab with Beck & War Child Records, BaianaSystem, Cimarron, Dani Larkin, Dorota Barová, Dub Colossus, Fatoumata Diawara, Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang, Huw Marc Bennett, Imarhan, Júlia Kozáková, Kanda Kodza i Nebojsa, Kasiva Mutua with Bernt Isak Wærstad & Labdi, Leo Middea, Monoswezi, MWSOG, Raül Refree & Maria Mazzotta, Shigeri Kits, Souad Massi, Terrible 2s, Tinariwen & Sulafa Elyas, Tuuletar, and YAGODY
This week’s featured album: Hoggar by Tinariwen
Tinariwen - Tad Adounya
Tinariwen’s story has always read like a modern desert epic—one in which music becomes both refuge and resistance. Formed amid the Tuareg rebellion of the late 1970s and 1980s, the collective forged its sound in exile, and the vast silence of the Sahara. Their music—what the group calls assuf, a Tamasheq word evoking longing and the ache of distance—has since become synonymous with the “desert blues,” a genre they helped define and globalize.
With Hoggar, their tenth studio album and the first released on their own Wedge label, Tinariwen return to the foundations of that sound. The record is named for the rugged mountain range in southern Algeria, a symbolic homecoming for a band now more than 45 years into its journey. Critics describe Hoggar as both hypnotic and meditative, a stew of simmering guitars, communal chants, and contributions from artists such as José González and Sudanese vocalist Sulafa Elyas.
The album’s ethos is one of continuity and inheritance. Tinariwen revisit their earliest songwriting practices—acoustic guitars, campfire harmonies—while inviting a younger generation of Tuareg musicians into the fold. The result is a work that feels at once weathered and newly urgent, a testament to a band still evolving even as they assume the role of cultural elders. tinariwen.bandcamp.com
If Hoggar sounds more intimate, even mournful, it is also defiantly alive. Tinariwen’s music has always carried the weight of displacement, but here it also carries the warmth of community—an insistence that the desert, in all its harshness, remains a place of memory, identity, and unbroken song.
Sources Exclaim! - tinariwen.bandcamp.com - Far Out Magazine
YAGODY - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
YAGODY’s “Не ламай калину” is a striking example of how Ukrainian folk traditions continue to evolve under the pressures of war, memory, and cultural resilience. It’s the track I’ll be playing on this week’s Around the World. The literal translation is “Don’t break the viburnum bush.” The more Symbolic meaning is “Don’t harm what is precious,” “Don’t break her spirit,” or “Protect what is fragile and beloved.”
The video of the song is here on YouTube.
The all‑female ensemble has long been known for revitalising rural songs with contemporary vocal arrangements, but this single feels especially charged. Built around the symbolic kalyna—a viburnum bush that represents both fragility and national endurance—the song unfolds as a dialogue between longing and restraint. Its narrative follows a young soldier leaving for service and the woman who waits, her handkerchief a silent plea for his return.
Musically, the track blends the group’s signature close‑harmony singing with hammered dulcimer patterns and a steady, heartbeat‑like rhythm. The effect is hypnotic: a river‑path of sound that moves between hope and fear, echoing the emotional terrain of separation. The lyrics, drawn from traditional motifs of departure and fidelity, gain new resonance in the current Ukrainian context, where countless families live this story in real time.
Alicia Edelweiss - THE SHINY ONES (Official Video)
Alicia Edelweiss is one of the most entertaining musicians I have seen. Based in Vienna she has carved out a singular place in Europe’s alt‑folk landscape, blending theatrical flair with disarming emotional clarity. The Austrian‑British singer, accordionist, and storyteller approaches song writing like a form of magical realism—half cabaret, half fairy tale. In “The Shiny Ones,” she leans into that luminous strangeness, pairing delicate guitar lines with a performance style that feels both intimate and otherworldly. Edelweiss’s work often explores vulnerability, self‑invention, and the quiet rebellions of everyday life, delivered with a voice that can shift from whisper‑soft to defiantly bright. She remains one of the most imaginative figures in contemporary indie folk.
Where and when to hear Around the World
Friday:
Akaroa World Radio New Zealand - 2:00 pm local time
NAR-GROUP Germany – 2:00 pm local time
Mosel Radio Germany – 2:00 pm local time
NAR-Alf Germany – 2:00 pm local time
Waterwaves Radio England - 9:00 pm local time
Essential Radio Scotland - 10:00 midnight
Saturday:
Best City Radio (Belfast, Northern Ireland) - 6:00 am local time
Power 101FM Malawi - 11:00 local time
Flirt FM (Galway’s Community of Interest & Student Station) 101.3 - 10:45 am local time Ireland
Stirling Community Radio - 2:00 pm local time Scotland
RCFM (Radio City FM) Duisburg, Germany - 3:00 local time
World FM New Zealand - 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time
Sunday:
Power 101FM Malawi - 12:00 local time
NFRS Osaka Japan - 12:00 noon local time
973FM in Singapore - 11:00 pm local time
Circl8 Chester England - 12:00 noon local time
DCRFM (Dover Community Radio England - 7:00pm local time
Websound Radio (Larne Northern Ireland) - 8:00 pm local time
Prodigal Sun Radio - 8:00 pm local time
Slice Audio Northern Ireland - 10:00 pm local time
Holywood Radio - Northern Ireland - Various times
Monday:
Armagh City Radio - 12:00 midnight local time (01:00 pm CET)
SparkFlame Radio - 00:00 am GMT (01:00 CET)
Circl8 Chester England - 12:00 noon local time
Stirling Community Radio Scotland - 10:00 pm local time
Waterwaves Radio England - 9:00 pm local time
BR2 Pure Gold Radio – Costa Blanca, Spain - 10:00 pm local time
World FM New Zealand - 10:00 am local time
Akaroa World Radio New Zealand - 10:00 pm local time
Tuesday:
Waterwaves Radio England - 9:00 pm local time
Wednesday:
World FM New Zealand - 4:00 am local time
Slice Audio Northern Ireland - 4:00 am local time
Best City Radio Northern Ireland - 10:00 pm local time
Radio Skye Scotland - 10:00 pm local time
Thursday:
Waterwaves Radio England - 9:00 pm local time