Asian music thread While there may not be enough interest in supporting a thread of just Indian, Chinese, or Persian music, there does appear enough interest to have a 'pan-Asian' music thread that would include the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Islands. To start, I will recommend Marcel Khalife's "Jadal", an amazing piece of music for two ouds, bass and tambourine from the Lebanese oud master. Another great recent purchase was "The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan." Its a horrible album title, but there's a ton of great music on it from Armenia to China. A two disc set put together by the Smithsonian Institute.
Are we talking about just traditional Asian music or popular music as well? I love Japanese drums, but they're better live than on CD.
Well, if you're going to include Middle Eastern music, let's push a bit further West and include some Algerian "Rai" music. Cheb Khaled was the King last time I checked, but I haven't heard any new stuff in a couple years. His "Aicha" is a GREAT song though...
This thread includes anything & everything: traditional, pop, Bollywood, fusion, whatever you want...I set no limits.
Let's get some mod to change the thread title to "world music thread", I'm all about including African, South American, Balkan, etc.
I've always liked world music but the older I get the more I'm beginning to love it. That said, one of my favorite things to do at lunch is head to the mega-monolith-Virgin records and listen to the massive world collection near the bottom floor. They divide the sections up nicely by continent. Yesterday, I was listening to some Arabesque compilations. Also listened to some Salif Keita since he has a new album and tour.
Sad what happened to her. The first time I heard Ofra was on a Mute comp...the 4th edition of the "Mao" series I believe. It had a cool Erasure tune and some Throwing Muses. Very ecletic.
Fela, now there's some serious stuff. He makes all of these "political rockers" look like Debbie Gibson. He spent time in jail, his mother was murdered, and all kinds of crap, just for telling it like it is. Too bad he's gone, his band was awesome. I do like what I've heard of his son though, Femi Kuti. Have any movies been made about Fela? I know there's a book, but it would he would be an interesting subject for a film.
What happened to Ofra Haza? I have one of her records and I still find it amazing that (according to the liner notes) it's completely acoustic, i.e. no drum machines or synths, because some tracks and rhytm breaks sound exactly like your typical new wave synth band.
Soukous rules. I've heard some some stuff by this group - Wenge Musica - and by J. B. M'piana out of this group, that was ridiculously infectious.
Nicodemus was right...this album is all that. I've been listening to it pretty constantly for a couple weeks now. I'm on quite an African music jag right now - actually have been for a while.
Another great album - Simon Shaheen and Qantara. If you can't get enough of the oud - and who can? - then this is the album for you. It's safe to say that Simon Shaheen WILL be playing on a future Sting album - and that's not just because of the cover of "Tea in the Sahara" he does on this album - but because he deserves to step up to the next level of world music stardom.
I like Simon Shaheen quite a lot, but "Blue Flame" is my least favorite thing he's done. It is "too fusion" for me. I prefer the following albums: "The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab": M.A. Wahab was Egypt's greatest film composer and wrote cool non-film music too. This record is hard to find but it is amazing! and "Turath" Turath is more straight up Arabic music and is wonderful. His "Blue Flame" album shows his jazz/Sting influence and just isn't as good to me.
Any fans of Ali Farka Toure here? I have a copy somehwere of his "Talking Timbuktu" and love it, even though it's almost purely a blues album, but with a definite West African feel. Also, Salif Keita and Yousoo N'Dour have done some songs I like (can't remember titles, though). And I've heard Baba Maal is very good, though I haven't heard his music (or have and didn't know it). I'm wondering what stations people listen to in their towns/cities to hear world music, or what clubs they go to to hear it.
Ali Farka Toure is great. You should check out his "Niafunke" album as well. In addition to AFT, you should check out his protege, Afel Bocoum, whose album "Alkibar" is excellent. Another great album of West African music is Orchestra Baobab's "Pirate's Choice." They mix Afro-Cuban music with Senagalese music. It is one of the coolest albums of African pop music that I have. This album came out 20 years ago and was supposed to be one of the first world music albums that hit it big in the west.
Some of the places I've seen doing a great job in World Music. I know there are more, but these are ones I'm aware of. (broken down by region): NORTHEAST If you live in NYC, you have to check out the offerings of the World Music Institute. They use a variety of different venues, but they do everything under the sun. Makes me wish I lived in New York. http://www.worldmusicinstitute.org If you live in Boston, check out an organization called simply, World Music: http://www.worldmusic.org/ SOUTHEAST If you live in the Raleigh-Durham, NC area, Duke University has some awesome programs (World Music Stuff is about midway down the page): http://www.duke.edu/web/dia/calendar.html Strangely enough, Birmingham, Alabama has a great world music program: www.bhammusic.org/world.html MIDWEST Cleveland Museum of Art http://www.clevelandart.org/educef/carnevale/html/ WEST San Diego has the Center for World Music: http://www.centerforworldmusic.org/ CAPITOL CITY The Smithsonian Insitute: http://www.si.edu/
Great new label There's a really good new UK-based label putting out Indian music by lesser known artists and the packaging/design is great and targeted more towards a western audience. The label is called Sense World Music. www.senseworldmusic.com I've only heard two of the albums so far, but they're both really good. "Vibermaster" by Purbayan Chatterjee & "Touching Air" by Kala Ramnath. There's a few stores you can order them from in the USA/Canada if you don't want to hassle with ordering from Britain. you can get them from www.khazana.com or www.shrimatis.com Those are two of the best sites for buying Indian music of all genres.
French/Tunisian thing I just discovered a very cool album on ECM Records (and isn't just about everything they put out really cool) by Anouar Brahem called "Le Pas Du Chat Noir" The disc is all instrumental and includes Brahem on oud with two french guys, one playing piano and the other accordion. When I read the review of it recently in Songlines I thought it sounded pretty terrible, but then remembered that ECM doesn't really put out too much bad music, so I decided to check it out just because it sounded weird. It is awesome. It is this super chill & somber album (perfect for rainy and/or cloudy days.) Imagine if Miles Davis' group was Tunisian and French and that might get close (not really, but its cool & understated like Miles.)
Re: French/Tunisian thing I didn't like this album at first because I was so into Brahem's sound he achieved with his trio on "Astrakan Cafe" (which has to be the some of the most hypnotic and moving music I've ever heard). But "Le Pas du Char Noir" really grew on me -- the oud and accordion weave in and out of each other more pleasantly that I would have imagined. The song "Leila au Pays du Carrousel" is especially good. BTW, I saw the Anouar Brahem Trio perform recently here in DC. It was their first US tour in 12 years and they were just wonderful. They performed just about every song from "Astrakan Cafe". The only disappointing thing about the concert was how little Brahem seemed to really improvise. Listening to "Astrakan Cafe" I had assumed that his solos were mostly spontaneous improvisations, much like jazz solos. But judging from the concert this doesn't appear to be the case -- it's more like solos he's worked out ahead of time. Nothing wrong with that I guess, I'm just used to the never-play-it-the-same-way-twice jazz ethic.
Re: French/Tunisian thing This is quite good. I was listening to it at Virgin a couple of days ago. I didn't purchase it, however, 'cause I wanted something with a least some percussion. It would be nice music to put on for that tail you just picked up at the local souk