So Omar Souleyman is basically the greatest. The rightly-legendary Syrian has been making waves here over the course of the last few years, thanks mainly to the phenomenal Sublime Frequencies label (who have been a reliable blight to my income for quite a while now). Well, Souleyman is poised become even bigger now: he’s remixed the latest Bjork single “Crystalline,” and it’s truly fabulous — a thrilling combination of Souleyman’s strange, snakelike instrumentation and Bjork’s otherworldly singing. Play it loud.

Though I take issue with the “unexpectedly awesome” tag in this feature, kudos to Flavorwire for this quick primer on some of the more fascinating corners of international music. A whole bunch of people still have a bad taste in their mouth from the “World Music” branding craze of the late ’90s that more or less presented music from other countries as the perfect soundtrack for lattes and napping. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll discover a whole world of fascinating, vibrant sounds — some of them dating back decades — all designed to get bodies on the dancefloor.

Read Flavorwire’s 10 Unexpectedly Awesome Foreign Music Genres

By Richard Gehr
Tabu Ley Rochereau is more than just one of the greatest singers and composers in African popular music. He’s also the master politician of the Congolese dance-band nation, which has splintered, fractured, revolted, imploded and rebuilt itself more or less continuously over the course of three generations while producing some of the world’s most beautiful and sophisticated music along the way.

Born Pascal Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabou in 1940 in Banningville, a port town in the Banandu region of the Belgian Congo, Tabu Ley was raised in Léopoldville. He acquired the nickname “Rochereau” as a schoolboy. Teenage Tabu Ley was a prodigy, and the Lingala, French and pidgin-Spanish songs he submitted to Joseph “Le Grand Kalle” Kabasele eventually earned him a gig with Kabasele’s African Jazz, the city’s top band. Rochereau enjoyed his first hit in 1958 with “Kelya,” the dulcet rumba that appropriately kicks off The Voice of Lightness, a marvelous Sterns anthology of Tabu Ley sides released between 1961 and 1977 — with volume two carrying us to 1993.

Continue Reading The Incredible Lightness of Being Tabu Ley Rochereau

Man, myth, badass — Fela Kuti was all of them and more. Even people who love him can’t deny some of his views were a bit, er, unconventional, but the power of the man’s music and the force and passion with which he stood up to a corrupt government — in the face of repeated beatings and imprisonment — are hard to deny. Fela was incredibly prolific, and he leaves behind a legacy that, simply put, redefined music. How many people in history invented an entire genre?

Fela’s catalog hit eMusic this week, and we put together this hub to help you get started. My favorite periods fall within the “Black President” and “Band on the Run” era. Both Richard Gehr and Jess Harvell did an excellent job contextualizing these records, and I highly recommend reading all of their writeups to get a sense for the situations that prompted these songs.

What surprised me the most the first time I heard Fela’s records was just how uncompromising they were. Fela was not fucking around — he names names and describes in detail the injustices against both him personally and all of Nigeria. The lyrics to “Zombie” are cutting, straight-up mocking the Nigerian army in one epic 12-minute taunt. And “Expensive Shit,” which recounts the notorious incident that had the Nigerian gov’t literally standing around waiting for Fela to go to the bathroom, cuts even deeper, reveling in the way Fela was able to pull one over on officials.

That Fela kept doing this, over and over, with such incredible focus and precision despite the actions the government took against him — actions that ultimately resulted in the brutal and heartbreaking death of Fela’s mother, activist Fumilyao Ransome-Kuti, is inspiring. This is a man who stood up to injustice, and fuck the personal cost.

He’s also incredibly contradictory — despite the fact that his own mother was a firebrand revolutionary, Fela’s views on women are, to put it mildly, considerably less than stellar. In fact, many of his cultural views in general were far from progressive. But for sheer audacity, nerve and unflagging adherence to social justice, you could hardly ask for a more inspiring figure.

We are able to offer the Fela titles below what would be considered “full album cost,” so take advantage and dive in today!

We’re still patiently waiting on new arrivals from the mighty Honest Jon’s label (Surely there must be some kind of deal we can strike, Damon, to prioritize the arrival of the London is the Place For Me series?) but I wanted to take a few moments to call out an exceptional new HJ comp that’s well worth your time: The World is Shaking: Cubanismo from the Congo, 1954 – 1955. This collection fulfills all my Awesome Comp Rules: it focuses on an unbelievably obscure strand of music. It is particular to a region. It has more than two titles, one of which is a date. One day I am going to develop a random-comp-title-generator website to accommodate this fetish. Let it End in Ecstasy: Expat French New Wave from Belgium, 1978 – 1984. But I digress.

What’s important here is the music, and The World is Shaking is as close to perfect as any recent comp I’ve heard. The songs are fantastically scratchy, clearly mastered from old vinyl or cracking tape reels. Like many of the other recent Honest Jon’s comps, these songs come from the ancient archives of EMI, which HJ recently acquired.

The Honest Jon’s site does a better job of laying out the historical context than I ever could but, in brief: in the mid 50s, African workers began flocking to the city of Leopoldville (what today is called Kinshasa) in search of factory jobs. Slowly, a metropolitan nightlife scene began developing, with clubs devoted to performing traditional African music with a hip flair. Add to this the easy access to 78s of Latin American music, and what you’ve got is an irresistible mix of styles and sounds.

Listen to “Matete Paris,” that sawing violin, the ululating vocal, that weird stalking guitar part in the background — its about six different genres at once, all battling for supremacy. The song right after it sounds like highlife, but with the swagger and sway of tango. The vocal on “Bengela Ngai Bosele” could have been lifted from the Ethiopiques series. Cubanismo is full of moments like this, making for a fascinating, essential listen.

In a few weeks, eMusic will herald the arrival of a very special record — A Society in Which No Tear is Shed is Inconceivably Medicore by Yonlu. A collection of spare, brittle, lo-fi folk songs, Society is what Caetano Veloso might sound like if he collaborated with Lou Barlow. Most of the songs sound like they were recorded on a crumbling 4-track, and some of them are interrupted by strange bursts of static and sound. Yonlu’s voice is tiny and trembling, possessing all the fragility of prime Elliott Smith. Yonlu would post these songs to various internet forums, gradually gaining a small but appreciative following.

All of this came to an abrupt halt in July of 2006, when Yonlu chose to end his life. In his suicide note, he encouraged his parents to listen to his music whenever they missed him, his songs a testament to his painfully short life. His father took the recordings to the Luaka Bop label, who compiled the best of Yonlu’s songs to create the collection that will be released in a few weeks.

Pop music has a way of allowing backstories like this to eclipse the music in question, but in Yonlu’s case, that would be cruel and unjust. The music on Society is arresting and beautiful, a testament to a young, creative mind. You can listen to a bulk of the record here, and get a glimpse into Yonlu’s sweet, humble genius.

Good News From Africa is a 1973 album from the South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim that I heard for the first time last week at the suggestion of Rob, head of label relations here and in-house classical and jazz nerd/savant. It was also prominent featured in Britt Robson’s User Guide to Abdullah Ibrahim. For me, the whole record comes down to “The Pilgrim” and the softly rocking bass part, half-lullaby half-warning, a refrain that returns a few times on Good News. And the vocals that open “Ntsikana’s Bell,” the album’s beginner, the soft, not-quite-sad tone and the hyena yelps that announce Ibrahim’s essentially pop piano part, are just incredible — instantly reminiscent of so many great Smithsonian Folkways field recordings, but fit into a larger arrangement.

I know this isn’t blowing minds here, talking about what I know is a beloved record, but I’ve just really been taken with it this week, and wanted to share the love. Anyone into this album? Anyone have love to share back?

Later today, the eMusic homepage will begin previewing our guide to African music, but the list is so freaking great I wanted to give everyone a sneak peak here first. You can check out the hub here. Basically, what you are getting there are tons and tons and tons of amazing records touching on a bunch of different African styles. We vouch for every album on there. They are all incredibly great. Take a look and let us know what you liked and what we missed.

To follow on from Yancey’s last post, here are a few albums that have washed up on European shores.

Buena Vista Social Club Live At Carnegie Hall
The latest Buena Vista release, providing a new take on the material from the famed 1997 album. It sounds like a pretty special concert – and was one of just two where the full ensemble played together.

Nitin Sawhney London Undersound
What to say? First off I’m really not happy with the first track “Days Of Fire” using the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station as a jumping off-point for a song, no matter how right-on the political message. Nonetheless it’s interesting to me, as a Londoner, to hear someone address not just 9/11, but the later attacks on London in 2005. Sawhney’s pulled in some good collaborators too, but the overall package is a bit too slick, too produced. I forgot it was playing half way through, which is pretty damning as the subject matter usually touches several emotional nerves for me.

El Guincho Alegranza
I like this a good deal more than I thought I would. I can certainly hear the Tropicalia influences; it’s pretty easy to tell he’s from Spain and the Afro-beat comes through loud and clear, but the supposed rock ‘n’ roll element eludes me. Good stuff though.

MIA Paper Planes The DFA mix is the one to look for here, it gives the single a tougher sound and throws the lyrics into sharper focus.

I first saw Bishi perform one very hot night in the summer of 2006 at east London’s Bistroteque. The audience had started to blow out the candles on their tables – even the tiny amount of heat produced by a tea light was too much. The room was nearly dark when Bishi appeared, using her clear voice to cut through the sticky air. Even though her sitar playing was still in its infancy then, she was a mesmeric performer: a folk singer with the soul of a showgirl. Her music is just like her, part Bengali, part English and all London.

Bishi has been a fixture on certain London scenes for years now, although she’s still only in her mid-twenties. She’d pop up at various events. It turned out we knew a few people in common. She was talented, yes, and doing pretty well with a Patrick Wolf support slot, but also someone who was just around. Which is why it was a pleasure and a surprise to see her playing on Britain’s biggest chat show, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, last week. Apparently Wossy is a big fan and asked for her especially. For you American’s this is pretty much like David Letterman or Jay Leno getting into Crystal Stilts: not impossible, but certainly something to make you sit up a little straighter and text a few people. I hope you enjoy the clip.