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Category: Music
Welcome to our blog! Below are some of our favourite albums this month.
Hanggai / Introducing Hanggai / World Music Network
Themes of heroic bravery, love forlorn and nomadic culture resonate throughout the album of Hanggai, making it an atmospheric and symbolic album. The hoomei-sung (traditional Mongolian throat singing) melodies weave seamlessly through the instruments of morin khuur (2-stringed horse-haired fiddle), tobshuur (2-stringed strummed lute), khel khuur (mouth harp) and Western additions of percussion and electric guitar. Faithful to tradition, the horse is almost idolised through the album: from galloping rhythms to lyrics on the love for horses. Street sounds from Beijing (where the album was recorded in co-producer Robin Haller's apartment) and joyful sounds of festivity from a drinking party featured in Drinking Song give the album much character and charm. I am delighted to see another Mongolian album break into the Western market and I am too eager to see where this album takes this Beijing based band next.
To find out more about Hanggai, visit their MySpace site.
You can also watch a clip of them here.
Various / La Paloma: One Song for All Worlds Vol. V/ Trikont
It is remarkable how a single song can journey for miles and be remoulded to fit into a local culture – convincingly for some but perhaps not quite so perfectly for others. Vol. V traces the migration of La Paloma from its Basque roots around the world and features some of the weirdest and wackiest versions of the piece. Taken from a German documentary on the song, La Paloma – The Song. Worldwide Yearning, the tracks include an extraordinary Peking operatic interpretation, an Afghan adaption by the legendary Ahmed Zahir (how he quite got his hands on the piece, we aren't told) and a delightful version from Zanzibar by Makame Faki. The album also includes novel and unforgettable renditions such as a recording of an antique music box (once belonging to famous Cuban writer José Martí) from Havana's Museum of Music, a brassband Rumanian version and possibly the most inventive Humpbacks which features Mick Black using sound-samples of his wife's voice mixed with real whale calls to produce La Paloma. This is a unique compilation, one of its kind, and it's even got John Peel's stamp of approval … well, Vol. IV does!
Jah Wobble / Jah Wobble – Chinese Dub / 30 Hertz Records
Jah Wobble – Chinese Dub is one of the few successful infusions of mainly instrumental Chinese music with drum and bass. Premiered in Liverpool for the 2008 European Capital of Culture and a favourite at WOMAD this year, the music goes jointly with a spectacular visual performance of the famous mask change from Sichuan opera, dancers from Hangzhou and singers from Tibet and Yunnan Province. An Anglo-Chinese dub band made up of drum kit, bass and a selection of traditional Chinese instruments accompanies, as do the Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra on the album.
Jah Wobble's Chinese Dub EP is available free to stream on MP3 via 30 Hertz Records and the full album is due for release late 2008. To watch their video, click here.
MYO
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