This Week
You can always listen to the most recent show on Mixcloud
Music from: Austria, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mali, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Senegal, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Korea, Togo, Ukraine, and Wales.
Music by: ADG7, Alicia Edelweiss, Alpha Blondy & Capleton, Ana Carla Maza, Anne Paceo, Baklava & Elena Baklava, Barbora Xu, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Casper Shiki, Charles Maimarosia, Cocoa Thrill, Daughters of Donbas, Dogo Du Togo & The Alagaa Beat Band, Duo Ruut, Empanadas Ilegales, Kadialy Kouyate, Kajos, Lina & Jules Maxwell, Moana & The Tribe, Salif Keïta, Söndörgő, The Gentle Good, and Warsaw Village Band.
This week’s featured album: Barĩy (Fera) by Maurice Louca.
Maurice Louca performs Barĩy (Fera) with Ayman Asfour live at Le Guess Who? 2024
Maurice Louca is a Cairo-born composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work sits at the crossroads of experimental rock, and Arabic microtonality. He’s something of a driving force in the Arab world’s alternative music. Barĩy (Fera), released in May this year. It draws from Arabic psychedelia and experimental jazz.
Maurice Louca was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, where he picked up the guitar at age twelve. Growing up amid Egypt’s vibrant street music scene, he absorbed shaabi rhythms, electronic sounds, and Arabic classical traditions. During the 1990s, local crackdowns on rock and metal steered him toward experimental and electronic instruments—drum machines, synthesizers, samplers—which he mastered in solitude before emerging as a leader in Egypt’s alternative music movement.
Louca’s music is defined by microtonal guitar tunings, glitch-infused beats, and trance-like, minimalist grooves inspired by West African and Yemeni chant traditions. Critics draw parallels to Sun Ra’s cosmic vision, noting how Louca weaves sensual Arabic maqam over hypnotic, repetitive structures—an approach that makes each composition feel both ancient and futuristic.
Hypnotic polyrhythms play a central role on Fera, creating the pulse for a sound that’s rich in acoustic tonality and lively energy. Louca uses custom-made, microtonal guitars to explore nuanced phrasings, and his languid interplay with violin, synthesizer, and other instruments lead to moments of vivid beauty. This wild and adventurous album that Egyptian artist Maurice Louca wrote over a four-year period takes its title from the Latin root for the word feral, and has its origins in a solo set that Louca first developed in 2019; the compositions eventually took their final shape when he recorded them in a Cairo studio in 2024 with a group of longtime collaborators and guests.
The violinist Ayman Asfour, percussionist and drummer Khaled Yassine, double bassist Rosa Brunello and co-producer Adham Zidan all play critical roles on the album, and they’re joined on two tracks by multi-instrumentalist Nancy Mounir (who plays violin and theremin on “El Taalab”) and oud virtuoso Hazem Shaheen (on “Sahar”). Fera is some of the most composed and thoughtfully-crafted music Louca has ever made, but of course it’s guided by the dynamic experimentation and collaborative spark that have become central to his work. (Bandcamp)
Sources:
okayafrica.com - bandcamp.com - freejazzblog - www.discogs.com - citerne.live
Alpha Blondy feat. Capleton - Cold Fire
Roots reggae meets dancehall, call-and-response vocals.
“Rise,” Alpha Blondy’s twentieth studio album, released in April 11 on the AlphAlliance label. Across eleven tracks, the Ivorian reggae veteran fuses his signature roots rhythms with African percussion patterns. The centrepiece of “Rise” is its lead single “Cold Fire,” which features Jamaican dancehall titan Capleton.
Sources: discogs.com - reggae-albums.com
Alicia Edelweiss - The Shiny Ones
Alicia Edelweiss was born in 1992 in Klagenfurt as Edelweiss Danner and officially chose the name Alicia at age five. She embarked on a two-year hitchhiking journey across Europe at 19, busking her way through Spain and writing her first songs in Portugal. It was on the streets that she discovered the accordion—an instrument that would become her hallmark alongside guitar, piano, and ukulele.
Edelweiss is widely regarded as a representative of Freak-Folk, Anti-Folk, Chamber Pop, and Art Pop, a blend she dubs “Circus Freak Folk.” On stage she weaves autobiographical narratives with poetry, humour, and theatrical flair—integrating clowning, hula-hoop, and even circus elements into her live shows. This multidisciplinary approach underscores her mantra: “I don’t make music, I make art,” treating each performance as a holistic creative statement.
In May 9 Alicia Edelweiss released her eagerly awaited second studio album Furie on Glitterhouse Records.
Sources - wikipedia.org - stradamusic.com - www.musicexport.at
Where and when to hear Around the World
Thursday:
LIVE DRN1 Perth Western Australia - 9:00 p.m. local time (2:00 pm CET)
Friday:
Akaroa World Radio 2:00 pm local New Zealand Time (3:00 am GMT 4:00 am CET)
NAR-GROUP Germany – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m (CET)
Mosel Radio – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m (CET)
NAR-Alf – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m (CET)
Waterwaves Radio: 9:00 pm GMT (22:00 CET)
Saturday:
Power 101FM Malawi: 11:00 local time
Flirt FM (Galway's Community of Interest & Student Station) 101.3 10:45 am - 12 45 pm
Best City Radio (Belfast) 3:00 pm
RCFM (Radio City FM) Duisburg, Germany 3:00 – 5:00 pm CET
U Radio - Sri Lanka 8:00pm - 10:00 pm local time
World FM 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am GMT, 12:00 noon CET)
Essential Radio Midnight to 2:00 am GMT (1:00 am CET)
Sunday:
West Coast FM Namibia 10:00 pm to 12:00 noon Central Africa Time (2:00 to 4:00 GMT)
Power 101FM Malawi: 12:00 local time
NFRS Osaka Japan: 12:00 noon local time (3:00 am UK time 4:00 am CET)
973FM in Singapore and 11:00 pm local time (3:00 pm/15:00 hours UTC – Universal Time).
Circl8 Chester: 12:00 noon
Websound Radio (Larne) 11:00 pm
Slice Audio 10:00 pm local time (11:00 pm CET)
Monday:
Armagh City Radio 00:00 pm local time (01:00 pm CET)
SparkFlame Radio: 00:00 am GMT (01:00 CET)
Circl8 Chester: 12:00 noon
Stirling Community Radio 8:00 pm GMT (9:00 pm CET)
Waterwaves Radio: 9:00 pm GMT (22:00 CET)
BR2 Pure Gold Radio – Costa Blanca, Spain 10:00 pm local time (CET)
Akaroa World Radio 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am GMT, 12:00 noon CET)
World FM 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am GMT, 12:00 noon CET)
Tuesday:
Shire Extra: 8:00 pm GMT (21:00 CET)
Waterwaves Radio: 9:00 pm GMT (22:00 CET)
Wednesday:
World FM 4:00 am local New Zealand Time (5:00 pm Tuesday GMT, 6:00 pm CET)
Slice Audio 4:00 am local time GMT (5:00 am CET)
Life Right Radio (London) 7:00 pm
Best City Radio (Belfast) 10:00 pm
Radio Skye (Radio Garden) 10:00 pm GMT (11:00 pm CET)
Thursday:
Waterwaves Radio: 9:00 pm GMT (22:00 CET)