Reviews

In Memory of Ethiopia’s Greatest Azmari

Chalachew Ashenafi & Ilita Band

After the success of the Netherlands’ band The Ex’s collaboration with Getatchew Mekuria, Terrie Hessel, the band’s guitarist, has issued...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Captain Rugged

Keziah Jones

Captain Rugged purports to be the sound of a man on a mission, with Nigerian Afro-rock musician Keziah Jones adopting...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Adibar

Mamadou Kelly

It’s odd now to recall that initial responses in the West to Ali Farka Toure’s Songhai guitar music – 25...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Keme Borama

Tiecoro Sissoko

This is the first internationally released recording from griot guitarist Tiecoro Sissoko and sadly it is a posthumous debut, Sissoko...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Vagabonde

Mar Seek

Hasn’t the world now heard every possible permutation of the nexus of bands that revolutionised Senegalese music in the 1970s,...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Bamako Nights: Live at Bar Bozo 1995

Lobi Traoré

The late Lobi Traoré’s reputation as the wild maverick of the Malian electric guitar is based less on his recorded...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Le Grand Kalle: His Life, His Music

Joseph Kabasele

Joseph Kabasele, better known as Le Grand Kalle, was a Congolese singer and bandleader, and his dance¬band were the first...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Emmaar

Tinariwen

Those who saw Tinariwen at the Songlines Music Awards 2012 Winners’ Concert at the Barbican at the end of 2012...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Angola Soundtrack 2

VARIOUS ARTISTS

This follow-up to 2010’s Unique Sound of Luanda trawls a similar time period. Subtitled Hypnosis, Distortion & Other Sonic Innovations...

Reviewed in issue March/2014

Africa Express Presents: Maison des Jeunes

VARIOUS ARTISTS

It was always going to be interesting to see how Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project would translate to the recording...

Reviewed in issue March/2014