Last Week
You can hear all of last week’s show on Mixcloud.
You can listen to all of the music from last week’s show without the talking between the songs on both iTunes and Spotify on the blog. See the running order of all the songs played there, too.
This Week
Musicians from: France, Colombia, USA, Italy, Nigeria, England, Holland, Italy, Oceania, Australia, Niger, Morocco, Norway, Jamaica, Emporda, Türkiye, Seville, Lisbon, France, Belfast, Mali, Finland, and Benin
Music by: Asake, Auld Gods, AySay, Bab L' Bluz, Bombino, Brancaleone Project, Carlos Coronado, Common Kings Flatt & Scruggs, Frank London's Klezmer Brass AllStars, Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble, Hysterrae, Jimmy Cliff, Julian Bel-Bachir, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, La Muchacha & El propio junte, Les Amazones d'Afrique, Lilian Bergkvist, Lina_, Maria Mazzotta, Ondatrópica, Piers Faccini, Raimundo Amador, and Yin Yin.
This Week’s Featured Album - Onde by Maria Mazzotta
MARIA MAZZOTTA - La Furtuna (Official videoclip)
As I write, the new Maria Mazzotta album is not yet released. By the time you read this it will be. And there is only one video available.
Last week’s featured album was from Italy. You may remember if you were listening. Four musicians from Salento, Campania, and Vald’Itria were joined by a singer from Iran. They formed Hysterrae [Facebook} and recorded “one of the most exciting albums of the year, so far”, said I.
It is to Salento we return this week for the featured album. There are at least four excellent recent releases from southern Italy around at the moment. In addition to Onde and Hysterrae, there’s “Gradisca”, the debut by the Apulian trio Brancaleone Project [Facebook] [Instagram]. There’s The Italian Rondella Quartet, an album mainly for the Japanese market. It was released in December. I’ll play something for it next week.
Onde is by Maria Mazzotta who, with Cristiano Della Monica on drums, percussions, electronics and guitarist Ernesto Nobili, has reached into the peasant experience of southern Italy for a very strong album of traditional, folk roots and some what can only be described as rock guitar and electronica.
Maria Mazzotta is one of the finest singers in Europe specialising in the music of southern Italy. She also extends her talents into the Balkans and other countries that border the Mediterranean. I’ve enjoyed the work she has done with several other musicians. In 2017 she and Albanian cellist Redi Hasa released Novilunio. Redi is a guest on Onde and contributed to the Hysterrae album. The great guitarist Bombino is another guest. With the Toulouse group Pulcinella, Maria released Grifone in 2021. And of course, she has been a member of Canzionere Grecanico Salentino.
Nu te fermare - Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino
She is a wonderful performer. I saw her a couple of years ago – just herself and an accordionist on a roller coaster of emotions.
Here is the full performance. Get it up on a big screen and enjoy. But don’t forget to listen to Around the World to hear four of the songs from Onde.
MARIA MAZZOTTA live at WOMEX 2021 (Porto)
This is not the album I was expecting. It is so much more. Hysterrae is one of the most exciting albums of the year so far, Onde does not play second fiddle. They both come to my desert island.
Bab L' Bluz - Imazighen (Official Video)
The second album from the French/Moroccan four-piece Bab L’Bluz, Swaken, will be released in May.
Recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, written partly in Morocco - the birthplace of frontwoman Yousra Mansour - and mostly across a world tour that took the band from Adelaide, Barcelona and New York to Essaouira in Morocco, Lomé in Togo and Dougga in Tunisia.
“Mansour's melismatic voice has never sounded so forceful, or the riffage from her electric awisha lute so mighty. Her bandmates Brice Bottin, Ibrahim Terkemani, Jérôme Bartolome (on everything from keyboards, flutes and electric guembri to drums, backing vocals and qraqeb castanets) interact with what might be telepathy, their playing skilled and tight.”
In the meantime the single Imazizhen is available.
‘Long For Light’ was the first single from Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening’s ‘Cloud Horizons’. Kathryn Tickell is the foremost exponent of the Northumbrian pipes. She is a composer, performer, and radio presenter whose work is rooted in the landscape and people of Northumbria.
Kathryn’s extraordinary career began with learning tunes from old shepherd friends and family, and evolved to traverse genres from jazz and global music to large-scale orchestral works. Exploring and cultivating her bountiful native heritage of Northumberland have been a constant throughout.
From her first album, released at the age of 16, Kathryn has carried the voices of her family and her Northumbrian traditions in her pipe and fiddle playing. Long-admired by musicians and collaborators such as Jacob Collier, Sting and The Penguin Café Orchestra, Kathryn works across many genres, creating material that is contemporary and exciting. [https://www.kathryntickell.com/biography]
There’s always more
You can listen as the programme is broadcast or streamed on the radio stations below. You can catch up next week on Mixcloud and you can find out more at davysims.com
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)
Saturday:
RCFM (Radio City FM) Duisburg, Germany 3:00 - 5:00 pm CET
West Coast FM Namibia 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm Central Africa Time (2:00 to 4:00 GMT)
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:
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 (3:00pm/15:00 hours UTC - Universal Time).
Bangor FM 107.9 7:00 pm local time (8:00 pm CET)
Slice Audio 10:00 pm local time (11:00 pm CET)
Ferry FM 10:00 pm local time (11:00 pm CET)
Radio Larne 10:00 pm local time (11:00 pm CET)
Armagh City Radio 10:00 pm local time (11:00 pm CET)
Monday:
Reverse FM: 00:00 am GMT (01:00 CET)
SparkFlame Radio: 00:00 amGMT (01:00 CET)
Waterwaves Radio: 8:00 pm GMT (21:00 CET)
KNC Radio St Lucia 6:00 am local time (10:00 am GMT 11:00 am 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:
Lisburn’s 98FM - 7:00 pm local time GMT (8:00 pm CET)
FM105 Down Community Radio - 7:00 pm local time GMT (8:00 pm 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)
Radio Skye (Radio Garden) 10:00 pm GMT (11:00 pm CET)