There are some new additions to our blogroll and a few touches to the design after I realized how much it sucked. I’ll be editing it more until I can get Boran to help me with a brand new redesign.

Griots as everyone with minimal interest in African music know, are not only story tellers, but they are the embodiment of the oral tradition and keepers of the social memory. There are many well known griots such as Malians Afel Bocoum, Boubacar Traoré, Habib Koité, Guinean Mory Kanté, Senegalese Baaba Maal, but perhaps the best known is the kora player Toumani Diabaté whose Mande Variations told ancient stories from the empire’s heyday. Now another Malian artist, Bassekou Kouyate, who plays the ngoni takes the stage with his sophomore album. He has already played in Diabaté’s orchestra, but this time he’s with his own orchestra; Ngoni Ba. Kouyate brings modern influences as well as Western inspiration to “I Speak Fula”, the debut release of Next Ambiance, an imprint of Sub Pop! Guest appearances by Toumani Diabaté and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré and vocals by Amy Sacko.

It is no coincidence that Kouyate’s music has so elegantly merged with blues-based music. As is well known, American blues has its roots in West Africa, particularly around the Sahel region of modern day Mali. This sonic link became clear to Kouyate in 1990, when a friend who went to Mali in search of the origins of the blues, invited the ngoni virtuoso to play with noted American bluesman Taj Mahal. “I didn’t even know who Taj Mahal was,” Kouyate recalls, “and we had no language but music to communicate. He began playing and I joined in. When we stopped, Taj said: ‘So you already know the blues!’ but it was the first time I had ever heard blues. I was just playing my Ségu (home village) style, and it is the same music.”

TLOBF reports :

All Tomorrow’s Parties announced Mr. Matt Groening, that guy behind the Simpsons and Futurama, as a curator for ATP UK Weekend 1 at Butlins, Minehead on May 7th – 9th 2010, some time back, but had yet to confirm which acts he’d chosen to play. Well, the wait is over as he’s picked the first acts for his weekend:

BOREDOMS performing Boadrum – 9 Drummer Show
The Raincoats
Toumani Diabate
Danielson (formerly Danielson Family)
James Blackshaw
Anni Rossi
Viv Albertine’s Limerence (formerly of The Slits)

No wonder Simpsons and Futurama are the best cartoons ever created the guy has a rock solid & diverse musical taste, James Blackshaw and Toumani Diabate on the same lineup, WIN! Big ups to Matt Groening!. Also on Guardian.

Last night we heard the news that the father of modern anthropology and noted figure of structuralism Claude Lévi-Strauss passed away, aged 101. An important thinker of 21th century and one of the greats who did much to celebrate different cultures of the world. A proper way to thank him would be with a diverse selection around the world, that’s when our friend Ozgur Uckan gave the keyword “Tristesse Tropiques”. This selection is a collab between him and me, features music from Brasil, Angola, Hawaii, Egypt & Cuba, more or less around the tropics, and almost exclusively sad. Please read the obituaries. RIP.

“The world I knew and loved had 2.5 billion people in it. The terrifying prospect of a population of 9 billion has plunged the human race into a system of self-poisoning.” Claude Levi-Strauss at 100

Image by Carles Solis

One of the things that will hopefully continue in 2010 is Strut’s magic streak. They hit bullseye this year with Mulatu & Heliocentrics and the 4th edition with Jimi Tenor & Tony Allen (feature coming soon). The shower continues with the Mulatu Astatke Career Retrospective released two days ago. I already have most of his records but it’s practically impossible to complete 50 years of back catalogue, so I’ll be getting my copy.

To make up for the waiting, here are two wonderful songs coming off a recent compilation called Ethiopian Urban Modern Music Vol. 3, if it weren’t for Mulatu most of us would have missed Ethio Jazz completely. And that would have been awful.

The amazing Ethiopoques series continues to amaze with another stunning album of classic “Golden Era” Ethiopian recordings from 60’s & 70’s Addis Ababa. The third in their ‘Ethiopian Modern Music’ volumes, this album collects a massively varied set of killer grooves; from the super tight soul funk of Girma Béyéné’s ‘Ené négn bay manésh’ or his kinkier psyche funk winner ‘Yebeeqagnal’, to Seyoum Gébreyés and Wallias Band’s rhodes driven ‘Métch ené terf féléghu’ or the extended slow jam ‘Djémérégne’ from Muluqén Mélléssé and the intoxicating female vocals of ‘Métché néw’ from Asséléfétch Ashiné and Géténésh Kebrét. Boomkat

I think I found this on the always tasteful Club Cortez. Nobody Fails is a moody afro-psychedelia piece by Nigerian band Ofege. Off their Try and Love album which is available at Boomkat.

A band that needs no introductions – if you’re not spoonfed by MTV crap or somehow prejudiced against world music – Touareg nomads Tinariwen are back with their fourth album Imidiwan. Once again they manage to amaze with beautiful compositions in the same vein that cemented their name on the top of world music. The tried and tested desert blues formula of twanging guitars, rolling rhythms and chanting still seems fresh; and the guitars will surely inspire a whole new generation of afropop, or fit in with the lo-fi stuff that’s coming out of US these days. Just listen to the closer Era Tasfata Adounia, which go into an amazing drone in the last four minutes. This is the real desert sun drone, boys!. 4/5

Tinariwen are largely content to do one thing brilliantly. Like the Rolling Stones, the Byrds, Kraftwerk and AC/DC, they have created a sound that is theirs and theirs alone – a rolling, dusty groove whipped mercilessly into great uncoiling waves of rhythm, overlaid with the mournful, atavistic moan that remains the expressive birthright of the world’s dispossessed, whether they be Mississippi cotton-pickers, displaced Aborigines or north African nomads. Guardian

What can I say apart from utter fantastic. This was THE best stuff send to our inbox in August and the reason that keeps us sifting through hundreds of irrelevant music every month. Read about Akwaaba Music’s trip to Angola. If you’re going to buy one album this month make it this one.

Histórias da Casa Velha is a collection of songs released in Angola, mainly during the years leading to independence in 1975. In the 1960s and 1970s, Carlos Lamartine was one of the leading voices in the struggle against the Portuguese, and this collection highlights the difficulties and victories of the movement he was a part of, the MPLA party, which came to power with Agostinho Neto, and is still ruling Angola today. Lamartine plays semba, a typically Angolan genre rooted in traditional carnival rhythms, such as kilapanga, rebita, kazukuta and kabetula. In semba, much of the rhythm is not carried by drums, but instead by guitars, allowing the music to develop more complex chords, some of them borrowed from the Portuguese’s rich melodic heritage.

Semba and Brazilian samba share common roots, however neither derives from the other: both appeared as they are today during the 20th century, at a time when there was extremely limited exchange between Brazil and Angola. However both words come from the Kimbundu language, and both are rooted in the rhythms of present day Angola and Congo. On Histórias da casa Velha, Lamartine is backed by some of semba’s finest bands, among which Os Merengues, led by Carlitos Vieira Días, son of Carlos Vieira Días, founder of legendary Angolan band Ngola Ritmos.

Vieira Días and Lamartine are alive today and still perform and release music. We hope to contribute to their music and allow it to travel outside of Africa.

Had time to check out some newly found music blogs and add to our blogroll. Do check them out! Specifically grab;

+ Change (Intergalactic disco) / Sunshowers (original of M.I.A’s sunshowers) on Dollar Bin Jams.

+ The pleasure of the ghana beat on American Athlete.

+ Jethro Skull (if you like no-fi garage punk) § Rose Quartz / PRMNT VIBES Summer Megamixxx (if you like “dreamwavey electro, lo-fi pop, hazy tropical feelin’s”. Shahs if you like (no-fi indie pop), also best aesthetics on a blog?

+ The United States of America on The Decibel Tolls.

+ Carol Bridi and/or Gianni Riso on La Magie de la Funk.

+ Telecult Powers (noise/drone) on smooth assailing amazing blog which mostly does CDR/cassette reviews, by avantgardening.

+ Everything on 20jazzfunkgreats and Likembe the authority on African music.

+ read a review of Jackie-O Motherfucker’s new album on Museumface

One of the best african music albums we missed last year was Famoro Dioubate’s Dununya. Like Toumani Diabate, he’s also part of the Griot people, the storytellers of the Mande Empire, unlike him he’s from Guinea and plays the balafon, the ancient xylophone.

“As legend holds, the balafon (xylophone) appeared magically in the forest almost a thousand years ago where it was discovered and guarded jealously by mighty sorcerer-king Sumanguru Kante. Eventually it was re-conquered by the founder of the Mandé Empire, Sundiata Keita, who bequeathed it to his griot, Bala Fasseke Kouyate to play and protect.”

On Dununya, his 9 piece Kakande orchestra features some unlikely instruments like cello (Raul Rothblatt), flutes (Sylvain Leroux) and sax (Avram Fefer), but also traditional instruments like the kora (Yacouba Cissoko). He shares vocal duties with his cousin Missia Saran Dioubate. Lots to discover here from laidback grooves to infectious dance rhythms, telling traditional stories in contemporary ways. Read more on the afrobeat blog.