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Reviews

Review of Okuté

Okuté

Okuté

Chulo Records/Daptone Records

Rating: ★★★★

The debut album from some of Havana’s finest rumberos, the self-titled Okuté explores the age-old traditions of rumba and Santería...

Reviewed by Charlotte Algar in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Minka

Minka

Eva Quartet

Riverboat Records

Rating: ★★★★

The Eva Quartet are undoubtedly the finest current exponents of small group vocal music by Bulgarian composers and arrangers, rooted...

Reviewed by Kim Burton in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Beyond the Blue

Beyond the Blue

Brain Damage meets Big Youth

Jarring Effects

Rating: ★★★★

Jamaican toasting legend Big Youth collaborates here with travelling French producers Brain Damage and Sam Clayton Jr in a heady...

Reviewed by Clyde Macfarlane in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of The Old Fabled River

The Old Fabled River

Alasdair Roberts og Völvur

Drag City

Rating: ★★★★

For this project, Alasdair Roberts was invited by fiddler Hans Kjorstad to Oslo to reinterpret songs from Roberts’ back catalogue...

Reviewed by Glenn Kimpton in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Slåttesong

Slåttesong

Erlend Apneseth & Margit Myhr

Heilo Music

Rating: ★★★★

“It’s great to be at a point where it’s the music that’s in focus and not where it comes from.”...

Reviewed by Fiona Talkington in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Mo Ashibi Magic: Live in Tokyo 1999

Mo Ashibi Magic: Live in Tokyo 1999

Takashi Hirayasu & Bob Brozman

Respect Records

Rating: ★★★★

Okinawan singer, guitarist and sanshin player Takashi Hirayasu and world music nomad Bob Brozman came together in 1999 to record...

Reviewed by James Catchpole in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Timeline

Timeline

jamani duo

jamani duo

Rating: ★★★

This is an innovative recording from a Canadian husband-and-wife duo who quirkily insist on writing their name in lower case....

Reviewed by Martin Sinnock in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble

Flowfish Records

Rating: ★★★

It took the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble until their fifth album and tenth year to go eponymous. It takes time to know...

Reviewed by Jim Hickson in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of We’re OK. But We’re Lost Anyway

We’re OK. But We’re Lost Anyway

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp

Bongo Joe

Rating: ★★★

Is this title an exercise in assured bravado and chutzpah for this Geneva-based band’s fifth album, or is it a...

Reviewed by Max Reinhardt in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

Review of Devil’s Fiddle

Devil’s Fiddle

Cezary Duchnowski & Radical Polish Ansambl

Bôłt Records

Rating: ★★

The idea of fiddlers selling their soul to the devil for special musical gifts or being linked to the supernatural...

Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: Aug/Sep/2021

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