Around the World Preview – 6 & 8 February 2022
Ethiopia, India, Cabot Vert, Finland, Italy, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland, Greece and farther.
Hi and welcome to another preview of Around the World - and for those who asked, I’m feeling much better, thanks.
The preview usually leaves me on a Thursday evening and if you subscribe will be with you in plenty of time before the show goes out. You can also use it to contact me - or you can do that through the blog here.
See last week’s running order here (Around the World – 30 January & 1 February 2022). You can listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of last week’s show and all previous shows on Mixcloud here
Around the World is on Slice Audio, Ferry FM, and Radio Larne on Sundays at 10:00 pm to midnight. On Tuesdays at 7:00 pm the show is broadcast on Bangor FM, Lisburn’s 98FM and FM105 Down Community Radio.
Featured Album: Around the World is a weekly galivant to find extraordinary music from unusual places. Ethiopia, India, Cabot Vert, Finland, Italy, Nigeria over these two hours. The featured album this week by the Ghanian band Alostmen is from the summer last year. The album is Teach Me.
Alostmen’s music is based around the Frafra traditions of the kologo, a stringed lute, using traditional instrumentation in entirely new ways. “I like to force my instrument to work,” explains Stevo. “I’m a yout’man and into rap, reggae, Malian music. I add these to the band’s sound.”
“I had toured with Stevo in my band Afro Gypsy in 2017,” Wanlov continues, “and we recorded the tracks for this album on the road in Uganda and North West Ghana in hotel rooms” The band comprises Stevo (kologo, vocals), Jo Ajusiwine (goje fiddle, vocals), Aminu Amadu (talking drum) and Sowah (gome box, djembe and conga) while featured guests include highlife legend Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Ghanaian stars Yaa Pono and Medikal.
“We are Alostmen because we were lost in the street, the forgotten people,” explains Stevo. “People at home see music as a teaching so I always try give my community hope to achieve.” Strut Records
Also on the show: There’s more from the featured album from a few weeks ago “Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads” [Rolling Stone review]. It’s a reconstruction of the first series of recordings by Woody Guthrie, set in a time of drought, unemployment, unstable weather, ruined crops. The dustbowl storms swept through the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. They damaged the ecology and agriculture of the mid-west and destroyed jobs and living standards. Woodie Guthrie was one of the thousands of people who headed west to California to find work. During that time he began writing and recording the dust bowl songs. They were released in 1940’s and covered here by 14 contemporary musicians including the The Watkins Family Hour track I’ll be playing.
One of my favourite albums is Scaramantrika by Serena della Monica & Le Ninfe della Tamorra. It was released in 2014. There is a new “version” which is not quite a re-release although it has the same title. This recent version is a combination of some of the tracks the original Scaramantrika the 2017 Femmene album. While it may be disappointing that there is nothing new, it’s good to hear again.
This isn’t the track I’ll be playing but here we go … 1, 2, 3, 4
“One of Hamburg’s most unusual and most successful new music projects,” according to the German publication Ziet, “is MEUTE – They are a techno marching band - eleven drummers and horn players.” I’ve been playing MEUTE since I started the show and included them a few weeks ago. Here we go again.
If you ever go to Sarajevo … The show begins in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Zavrzlama is the 7th release from sevdah band Divanhana. It was released last week. I’m very fond of sevdah music from the Balkans. It’s quite often introspective, reserved sometimes a bit formal. But not all of it and Divanhana a lot more upbeat
Sevdah is found all over the Balkans. Historically the music goes back to the Ottoman Empire. And should you ever go to Sarajevo there is a little café in the old town The Sevdah Café. Apart from being a very pleasant place to get a Bosnian coffee, there is a museum of sevdalinka culture. Ans as promised I’ve put the link to it on the blog.
Tone Of Voice Orchestra found me through the blog. Trinelise Væring sent an email; “I co-lead and work with PR for a Danish 10-piece band Tone of Voice Orchestra. Original music, a mix of our Scandinavian roots and global influences. I have a hunch you would enjoy this.” And she was right!
Other music included this week. Ade, Alenti, Alessia Tondo, Aster Aweke, AZUEI Ben Charles, De Danann, Gaisha, Monsieur Periné
Nani Noam Vazana, Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita, Piers Faccini, Riccardo Tesi, Ritva Nero, Syssi Mananga, and Track Dogs.