Category: World
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John McCusker: Hello, Goodbye
Charming is the word for this solo album from fiddle player McCusker: he’s celebrating 25 years as a professional musician but as he joined the Battlefield Band when he was still a nipper (well 17) he’s still a comparative stripling. As well as the Battlefield Band, he’s played and produced with Kate Rusby and Heidi…
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Qigang Chen: Enchantements Oubliés
This is a remarkable album, successfully combining the sound of English pastoral music with traditional Chinese — from Vaughan Williams to the music from an arty martial arts movie — and played in a way that sounds alternatively intimate and imposing, and cinematographic in places. The end result is highly palatable, though we’d guess some…
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Deltino Guerreiro: Eparaka
Guerreiro is from Mozambique and while you could call this world it’s actually pop, Guerreiro drawing in influences from a variety of musical cultures. It most reminded us of Moonflower vintage Santana, which combined the energy of Brazil with tribal rhythms and western rock. Guerreiro developed his sound travelling from the north to the south…
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Molotov Jukebox: Tropical Gypsy
Most albums start off well and then tail off; Molotov Jukebox do the opposite and opener Pineapple Girl (nice snare solo at the start aside) is a little saccharine for us, like the music from a kids’ television show. But it’s not bad, with its horns and energy, and it gets the party started.…
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Various artists: The Long Road
This has to be one of the coolest charity records ever made. Instead of various boy bands you’ve never heard of mixing with a few big names to produce ear wax that’s at least in a good cause, this is a genuinely good mini album. And Robert Plant is on it. ROBERT PLANT. The Long…
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Kimmo Pohjonen: Murder Ballads
Last week we reviewed Kimmo Pohjonen’s latest album (a take on accordion-led prog with classical leanings), but this week it’s one he did a couple of years ago. It’s in Finnish but it’s wonderful (English translations of the lyrics are supplied). The songs are all stories about murders and murderers. The tales are told in…
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Kimmo Pohjonen: Sensitive Skin
They’re pleasantly mad in Finland: any country that would enter a hard rock/heavy metal band into the Eurovision Song Contest has got to be eccentric. The fact that Mr Lordi won shows that we find such behaviour endearing. Thus with this, a prog album from an accordionist, featuring the Kronos Quartet and distributed by the…
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Lo’Jo: 310 Lunes
We love Lo’Jo in the Review Corner. We came across them on a compilation we had to review about the new wave of French music (Cuisine Non-Stop: Introduction to the French Nouvelle Generation, 2008, Luaka Bop), which was opened by Lo’Jo’s Baji Larabat. Lo’Jo is a kind of collective, formed in 1982 and blending French…
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