en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal The Last.fm journal for blogmeridian. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/06/11/4fio6d_overlooked_music%3A_willem_maker Sat, 11 Jun 2011 20:02:57 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/06/11/4fio6d_overlooked_music%3A_willem_maker [First in an occasional series.]

I briefly mentioned Willem Maker (born Wes Doggett) in my Best of 2010 Music list, but I didn't speak to my sense of his being Overlooked--and I should have. Consider this post a belated remedying of that oversight.

Actually, Maker may not remain Overlooked for much longer. In the course of looking around for links for this post, I learned that Maker received brief mention in this past Sunday's New York Times, in belated acknowledgement of Maker's album Agapao, released back in April. Ben Ratliff describes Maker's music as "sophisticated southern-rock trance music, composed with open-tuned guitar and boot heel, adjoining blues and country and heterophonic gospel music," and that is hard to improve upon.

But, this being the Internet, I'll elaborate anyway.

At the heart of Maker's music's power is that trance-like quality. It owes something of its quality to the droning, proto-boogie style of north-Mississippi blues practiced by R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough (both also very much worth knowing, if you don't already), but its tempos are slower, giving Maker's songs a more expansive, starker quality. Think of the opening riff of Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks"--not just its rhythm but its overall mood--and that's something like the feel of Maker's songs.

But these songs wouldn't work if Maker had a crooner's voice, and fortunately, he doesn't. Imagine a rougher-voiced Bob Seger who isn't so much singing as declaiming rhythmically, and you'd have Maker's voice.

I said "declaiming." Maker's songs are more like visions (often foreboding) than stories. In some of them, lovers done each other wrong, but more often than not the speaker's concerns transcend the particulars of his world to include all of us. Maker sees, he doesn't like what he sees, but he's unafraid of what he sees. This isn't exactly lounge-by-the-pool, Southern good-timey music, but it's heady, heady stuff.

As an example of his work, click to play "Red as a Rose," from Maker's first album, the one-man-show Stars Fell On. This link is a freebie via Maker's record label, so download with impunity, if you're so inclined. Lyrics below (from Maker's website):

Black road's busy
Toll's overflowin
Payin for a promise
It'll take care and save
Away from the danger
Away from the threat
Wolves for shepherds
Chains for charms

They say
It's all gonna be alright
But I don't believe em
And if they say
Its all gonna be alright
Don't you believe em
Don't you believe em

I came here for joy
I came here for love
I came here to open the darkest door
I say I'm a lover
That knows how to fight
For the precious, the dear and the quiet
that cries

No more to be so civilized
With teeth like fangs, eyes flashin knives
A hunger’s shift from led to lied
I pass the sheep for the shepherd’s hide
Gold’s illumination to hide the beast inside

I see a road
And it's red as a rose
I see a road
And it's red as a rose
Red as a rose
Red as a rose
Red as a rose]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/02/13/47t5ka_arvo_p%C3%A4rt%3A_art_and_blank_slates Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:59:32 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/02/13/47t5ka_arvo_p%C3%A4rt%3A_art_and_blank_slates This morning, hearing the extraordinary title track from Tabula Rasa made me want to revisit the CD's accompanying liner notes (written by Wolfgang Sander), which I hadn't looked at in a very long time. Here's part of what I found--a quote from Arvo Pärt himself:

"In the Soviet Union once, I spoke with a monk and asked him how, as a composer, one can improve oneself. He answered me by saying that he knew of no solution. I told him that I also wrote prayers, and set prayers and the texts of psalms to music, and that perhaps this would be of help to me as a composer. To this he said, 'No, you are wrong. All the prayers have already been written. You don't need to write any more. Everything has been prepared. Now you have to prepare yourself.' I believe there is a truth to that. We must count on the fact that our music will come to an end one day. Perhaps there will come a moment, even for the greatest artist, when he will no longer want to or have to make art. And perhaps at that very moment we will value his creation even more--because in this instant he will have transcended his work."

The temptation is strong to read this passage within the context of Tabula Rasa (the album as well as the piece itself) and meditate on that phrase's meaning and think, "This is Pärt's signal that he is prepared; he is ready not to produce or respond, but to receive." Sander himself certainly says as much in his commentary on the piece itself, and to which I can add nothing:

What kind of music is this? Whoever wrote it must have left himself behind at one point to dig the piano notes out of the earth and gather the artificial harmonics of the violins from heaven. The tonality of this music has no mechanical purpose. It is there to transport us toward something that has never been heard before.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/01/01/44tpli_some_%28good%29_free_samplers_on_amazon Sat, 1 Jan 2011 15:34:43 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2011/01/01/44tpli_some_%28good%29_free_samplers_on_amazon One of Amazon's better-kept secrets is that their site offers an abundance of free music in the form of single tracks from albums and, even better, album-length samplers by smaller labels.

Here are links to some that I've enjoyed listening to/learning from this past year. I should note that these things' shelf life as freebies is not indefinite; there are a couple other excellent samplers that would appear here but are no longer available for free. So, check now, and check back often--new stuff gets added quite often:

Barsuk Records: 2009 Amazon Digital Sampler. Home of indie- and experimental pop. The best-known bands here are probably Death Cab for Cutie, Mates of State, Ra Ra Riot and The Long Winters (whose best song, "Pushover," is here). Other fine groups, though, are Menomena and Viva Voce. Nary a miss here.

Six Degrees Records Global Grooves Sampler. Six Degrees is a fairly well-known dance-oriented "world music" label, and this sampler attempts to represent that breadth. One can quibble (Vieux Farka Touré, Ali Farka Touré's son, is well worth listening to, but all of Africa is represented by two tracks by him (on an 11-track sampler), but on the whole this is a solid introduction to some very good--and danceable--music. The Brazilian selections (CéU and Zuco 103) are especially fine, and this disc served as my introduction to a good European group, The Dø.

Rotana Presents: Music from the Middle East. Rotana specializes in music from the eastern and southern sides of the Mediterranean. Not all of this is my cup of tea, to be honest, but it's here because it's good to remember that, here, Al-Qaeda gets our attention, but far, far more Arab kids are listening to stuff like this. That disco thump means the same thing in Arabic that it means here.

The Orange Mountain Philip Glass Sampler Vol. 1. Two reasons to get this: 1) For better or for worse, Philip Glass is an unquestioned giant of 20th-century American classical music; 2) Orange Mountain is Glass's own label, which means this sampler can--and does--range across the vast expanse of his body of work. There's an hour's worth of music here, from his soundtracks, solo piano pieces, symphonies, operas, all of it among his very best work. This cd makes for a perfect introduction to this fellow.

Digital Bang: The 2010 Sub Pop Sampler. Sub Pop introduced the world to Nirvana and grunge two decades ago. This sampler shows that they have since broadened their musical palette: there's some post-rock (The Album Leaf), some alt-folk (Blitzen Trapper), some experimental pop (Foals, CocoRosie), and even some music from west Africa (Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba). If one wants a quickie survey of the present state of things in that vast realm called indie, this does the job pretty well.

Merge Records 2010 Digital Sampler. Merge's best-known artists are Superchunk (who also established the label), Lou Barlow and Spoon. They're here, along with other bands you may be hearing much more about in the months/years ahead: Shout Out Louds, Caribou, She and Him, Lambchop, and Wye Oak.

Four Quarters--20/20 World Vision. Another world music release, but there's more musical diversity here than on the Six Degrees sampler. Sara Tavares, Hugh Masekela, and Yasmin Levy are three extraordinary singers who would be huge stars here if we 'Murrikins weren't so picky about wanting our music without subtitles.

Frenchkiss Records Super Sampler. Yet more "indie" music that tends toward the adventurous rather than the mainstream--but Local Natives, The Antlers, and The Dodos (the latter two represented by two songs each) are very, very good.

Too Big to Fail: The Tompkins Square Label 5th Anniversary Amazon Sampler. Those of you whose tastes run in the direction of folk (broadly defined) will almost certainly find something to like here. "Eclectic" is the adjective we're looking for: everything from Charlie Louvin's old-time bluegrass to James Blackshaw's ensemble's gorgeous acoustic wall of sound.

Tango and Folklore Music of Argentina--Epsa World Music. I don't know much at all about tango, but the quality of playing and variety of styles on this disc make this a fun place to begin learning more about the present state of Argentina's musical gift to the world.

Happy new year, all.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/12/29/44lkwu_best_of_new_%28and_new-to-me%29_music%2C_2010 Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:26:56 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/12/29/44lkwu_best_of_new_%28and_new-to-me%29_music%2C_2010 Some comments, first:

1) It's a short list. I bought only a few full-length cds this year; part of that was due to tight money, but--gratefully--part was due to a combination of the generosity of friends and the proliferation of free (and legal) online music. So, in addition to actual titles of albums, I've made a list of groups that I either became aware of for the first time or, as in the case of Drive-By Truckers, actively began listening to.

Corollary: I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some folks that merit being here. But that's the way it goes.

2) No music from Africa or Brazil this year, as has usually been the case with my end-of-year lists. I'm as surprised as you are. This year's obsession, though, appears to be a genre that, for lack of a better term, I will call "alt-folk"--that genre dominates the "Artists" list below.

Here are the two lists, in alphabetical order (again reminding the reader of the title for this post):

Artists and albums:

Bettye LaVette, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
Loscil, Endless Falls
Ana Moura, Para Além da Saudade
Old Californio, Westering Again
Gretchen Parlato, In A Dream
the Picturesque Episodes, Constellations
Max Richter, Infra
Esperanza Spalding, Junjo
Sun Kil Moon, April
Steve Tibbetts, Natural Causes

New (and new-to-me) artists I especially enjoyed this year:

Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Alela Diane
Drive-By Truckers
The Hush Now
Willem Maker
J. Tillman
Laura Veirs

If you've read this far, you may be interested in seeing some further comments and links for these choices. If so, here you go]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/07/14/3rvp07_niafunk%C3%A9%3A_an_appreciation Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:13:11 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/07/14/3rvp07_niafunk%C3%A9%3A_an_appreciation [Cross-posted at Amazon's page for Niafunké]

Let's be honest: Music that gives pleasure to the listener is, relatively speaking, a dime a dozen. We hear it on the oldies stations; our collections are filled with such music. Far rarer is music for which the listener feels genuine, profound gratitude to its maker for having made and for his/her own great, good fortune for having heard of it before s/he died. Niafunké is most definitely on my list of such music.

I don't believe I had even heard of Ali Farka Touré before a friend played Niafunké for me almost ten years ago. A couple of songs in, and I actually felt something like shame that I had not known about this man and his music long before: it was--and is--that good, that gripping and compelling.

The first four songs give the listener an idea of this album's musical range: "Ali's Here," a rave-up that prepared me, without knowing, for Tinariwen; "Allah Uya," a song whose melody and rhythm, despite its religious subject matter, can't help but evoke slow movement across the desert and which, I'd learn much later, borrows a little guitar lick from Red's "Timbindy"; "Mali Dje," a slow-tempo plea to Toure's nation's peoples to work together for their common survival (and thus an indirect introduction to Mali's history of inter-ethnic (and sometimes intra-ethnic) violence); and "Saukare," my introduction to the njarka, the Malian violin--a screechy-sounding instrument that is, admittedly, an acquired taste (it has grown on me, but I admit it took a while). These songs also serve as a partial introduction to Malian music more generally; all that's missing is southern Mali's Nigerian- and Senegalese-influenced music (as embodied by Habib Koite and Oumou Sangaré), a kora piece by Toumani Diabate, and something from Sya, Issa Babayogo's masterful melding of traditional instruments and musical forms with Western techno. But for me the real revelation on Niafunke is "Howkouna," a song whose melody feels, to this Western listener anyway, as though it's beginning in the middle of a line (Savane's "Erdi Yer Bounda" has that same quality); then the njarka's repeated riff kicks in; and then that extraordinary second part of the song where the melody line just goes and goes past the point that it feels like it "should" stop, slowly down the scale, occasionally turning back up the scale before heading back down again, like water seeking out a downhill route. You know it's structured because the chorus knows the words and will sing them back, call-response style, but it feels, if not improvised, then certainly organic. Even today, after many subsequent listens, that second part still catches me anticipating its end and being surprised when it keeps going.

There are also the circumstances of this record's being made that enhance its aura for me: Touré had not recorded in five years and was disappointed in his more recent records; he rarely performed; he had devoted himself to improving the lives of his fellow citizens of Niafunké by becoming its mayor and purchasing irrigation equipment for its farmers. The basic tracks were recorded in an abandoned mud building on the outskirts of town, after Touré was done tending his fields for the day. It's clear that Touré wanted to make this record; it's equally clear, though, that there were other things to do while he made it, more pressing than guitar-playing . . . and who would argue that? And yet: Look at what resulted--a record whose subjects are those other, more pressing things, along with the urgency of embracing them. This is political and spiritual music in the most essential senses of those terms--which is to say, it is communal.

Of course, when I first listened to Niafunké, I was just as ignorant of the Malian artists named above; it is because of Niafunké that I know what I do of them, and that is the other reason I am so grateful for this record. I wanted to hear more, so I looked for samplers; the same friend who introduced me to Niafunké also played me Issa Bagayogo's Sya; one thing led to another, as these things do; and now I have some inkling of Mali's (and by extension, western Africa's) musical richness. Before hearing Niafunké, that richness was one of those examples of things that we don't know that we don't know (which, of course, we can recognize only in retrospect); after hearing Niafunké, I had to remind myself that ignorance is not a sin (except when it's willful) but, as I noted above, I couldn't help feeling a bit ashamed for not having head it before.

Can you tell I like this album? I like lots of music, and lots of different kinds of music; there are few records, though, that I will recommend without reservation to anyone with a varied musical palette, or willing to cultivate one . . . or even to the not-so-willing. You've often heard it said that Kind of Blue is that album you recommend to someone who says he hates jazz. For me, Niafunké is the Kind of Blue of Malian music.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/05/09/3mhnj2_andrea_marquee_and_authenticity Sun, 9 May 2010 16:49:16 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/05/09/3mhnj2_andrea_marquee_and_authenticity Not that anyone reading this should have noticed, but I have spent this morning adding content to the artist page for Andrea Marquee, a Brazilian singer I'm quite fond of who has a grand total of one album available in the United States, Zumbi. But anyone rushing over to that page will probably wonder what the big deal is--you'll see some cut-and-pasted content from National Geographic (which they got from Calabash Music (now MondoMusic), a link to Last.fm's Portuguese-language wiki page, and another picture. So, really, it'd be more accurate to say that I've been trying to find content to add. Speaking of which: Here is the link to Zumbi's page on Amazon, with all of three reviews, one of which I added just this morning.

But I'm posting this not because of the above but because of some commentary I ran across in a couple of reviews for another record that Marquee's music appears on, a sampler called Brasil 2mil. This appears to be a pretty good survey of contemporary Brazilian music; artists include Bebel Gilberto, Suba, Arto Lindsay, and Zuco 103. Marquee's song on this record, by the way, appears nowhere else that I know of, so fans of hers--and of this style of music in general--are advised to pick this up. Anyway, the commentary from two reviewers ran along the lines of, "This isn't authentic Brazilian music." Well, no, it's not--not in the sense the reviewers meant it, anyway: it's not by-the-numbers bossa nova or samba or oxo or, going back even further, choro. And--full disclosure--I fully understand the reviewers' point of view on this because of my own preference for 50s-60s era country music over what passes for mainstream country music these days. But I remind myself that Hank Williams raised eyebrows in his day for incorporating drums into his bands.

You see the problem here, no?

Wherein does authenticity lie exactly? Consider Bebel Gilberto's groundbreaking record, Tanto Tempo: The daughter of Joao Gilberto sings (in Portuguese and English) a mix of sambas and bossa novas, many of them tricked up by (Yugoslav native!) Suba's production into an evocation of the sort of late-'60s Brazilian music that most of us in the U.S. would be hearing, if we were hearing it at all. Or consider Cibelle's record, The Shine Of Dried Electric Leaves, a record that, much as I like it, and though Cibelle, a Brazilian and a Suba protege, also sings in Portuguese and English, is stylistically about as "Brazilian" as I am. Zumbi sits about midway between those records, but i would argue that it's actually more faithful to traditional Brazilian musics in its attentiveness to their forms--yet these songs aren't trapped by them. Put another way: the reviewers I mentioned above seem to want their Brazilian music not just to be closed forms, like sonnets, but not to push at the boundaries established by the traditions of those forms. But the sonnet hasn't survived for 800 years because writers only wrote them in Italian, or only in the Italian rhyme schemes, or only on the subject of love. As for this new Brazilian music, it was buying--and loving--Tanto Tempo that made me want to buy, among other things, Getz/Gilberto and The Rough Guide to Samba, and Cafe Brasil (a collection of choros, a Brazilian music that predates samba; the album is very much in the spirit and mood of Buena Vista Social Club). In other words. many listeners will find that the new stuff doesn't shut them off from authentic Brazilian music but serves as a doorway to it. Andrea Marquee's work is a more-than-worthy doorway, too.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/04/09/3jupfa_%28very%29_belated_best_of_new-to-me_music_of_2009 Fri, 9 Apr 2010 04:47:53 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2010/04/09/3jupfa_%28very%29_belated_best_of_new-to-me_music_of_2009 What this dusty old journal needs is some new(er) content--so how about some 4-month-old content?

What follows is more a new-to-me list of the best music I ran across in the past year, though some 2009 releases appear here. Because of my yammering on (and on) above, the comments below will be brief but, I hope, reflective and not reductive of what you'll hear.

Balmorhea, All Is Wild, All Is Silent (2009). Named for a small town in West Texas known for its enormous spring-fed swimming pool (now a state park), Austin-based Balmorhea is yet another post-rock band in that city. This group's sound has a chamber music feel to it, with its acoustic guitars, piano, violin and cello serving as foundations and some electric instruments as ornamentation. This album's music (and its title) are inspired by the letters of one of the very earliest American settlers in Texas--he was there even before the arrival of the famous-for-Texas Moses and Stephen F. Austin-led settlers to the land between the Brazos and Colorado rivers. It works even if you don't know all that, but (I think--and I may be writing about this album later) it becomes a richer listening experience if you do. Good driving-across-the-prairie music, at any rate.

Boards of Canada, Twoism (1995; 2002). Electronica, I suppose you'd call it, but with a "live" rhythmic feel to it that so much of that music lacks. As I listened to this for the first time, I kept being reminded of the sort of thing you hear on the radio program Hearts of Space, but more overtly shaped by rhythm than much of that music is. If someone were to ask me what "chill" is, I'd point him/her in this direction.

Magnolia Electric Co., What Comes After the Blues (2005). This band and its previous incarnation, Songs: Ohia, were one of last year's big revelations for me. Jason Molina, the singer and principle songwriter, is a Neil Young soundalike whose music captures much of Young's brooding mysteriousness from those early-'70s albums; Molina's music mixes that with an alt-country vibe (think Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, the Jayhawks). The website has lots of samples from this and the other albums, plus scores of full-length live performances. Good stuff.

Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile (2008). Meyer (bass) and Thile (mandolin) work the space between bluegrass, jazz, and classical music. It's a tribute to just how intertwined the instruments are when I say that at times, it's difficult to know which of them is the one I "should" be listening to. Virtuosic, indeed, but often moving and, more than occasionally, witty and even humorous.

Luciana Souza, Duos II (2005). Souza is yet another in Brazil's apparently-endless line of smoky-voiced altos. I posted about Souza's album Brazilian Duos last year; this album also offers up older and contemporary sambas and bossa novas, but the playing and singing on this album has a jazzier feel. This is instantly likable and yet holds up to repeated listening as you become more aware of the wonderful musicianship on display here.

Tinariwen, Imidiwan (2009). The cover art for this album pretty much conveys what is important about this group: in particular, the desire to make music out of whatever is at hand. But by way of concluding this post I'll quote the (translated) lyrics of "Tamodjerazt Assis" ("Regret Is Like a Worm") and hope that some of the music you heard last year speaks this earnestly, this nakedly:

Regret is like a worm, anxiety is like war
For my youth which I wasted
I touched incandescence, I burned everything whole
I set fire to myself, I became like cinders
I wasted so much time with futile things
Getting mixed up with lies, with schemes, and with treachery
When I was a child, I was determined
When I was a child, I was already disconnected
I lived beyond the news of the world, I wasted everything.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2008/04/04/6nsg8_mali_mondays Fri, 4 Apr 2008 20:04:20 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2008/04/04/6nsg8_mali_mondays Over at my blog for the past several Mondays, I've posted entries about prominent Malian musicians as a way to indulge my love of that music, to learn more than the little I already know, and to share a little of that music, still not well-known in this country--certainly not in Kansas--with visitors to my blog. The posts contain pictures of the musicians and, when I can find ones of decent quality online, videos of them in performance. It's been fun so far, and my readers seem to have enjoyed exploring this, for them, very unfamiliar corner of world music.

I'll have a few more posts dedicated to individual artists, then move on to reviews of noteworthy albums. Also along the way (read: as I learn enough so that I don't sound completely ignorant), I'll have some posts about the role music and musicians have played in helping unify this culturally-diverse country since winning its independence.

Anyway, consider this an invitation to visit and have a look/listen. You'll be able to find all the "Mali Monday" posts here; what follows are the names of the individual artists I've posted on thus far, Last.fm-linked for your convenience:

Rokia Traore, Ali Farka Toure, Tinariwen, Toumani Diabate, Oumou Sangare, Tartit, Issa Bagayogo, Salif Keita, and Mamou Sidibe]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2007/12/31/6nsbb_best_of_2007 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:47:37 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2007/12/31/6nsbb_best_of_2007 Mozo78 and smbrannan have flattered me by asking what my top music picks for 2007 are. I can't say that I'm the best person to ask; I listen to a fair amount of new music, but nothing like those gentlemen do; this past year I bought only seven albums that have a 2007 release date; moreover, as you'll see, my list reflects what I've been especially interested in learning more about, the musics of West Africa. But. Six of those seven deserve to be on a list of this sort (the other is a Rough Guide collection); and in any case Mozo78 and smbrannan were kind enough to ask; so, with all those caveats out of the way, here's the list, in alphabetical order:

Bebel Gilberto, Momento. Not as musically adventurous as her stunning debut, Tanto tempo, but still a beautiful example of elegant music-making from Brazil.

Emily Haines, Knives Don't Have Your Back. Simple but not simplistic music, much more intimate than the music Haines makes with Broken Social Scene.

Radiohead, In Rainbows. A bold marketing experiment, more than vindicated by the solid songs on this album. To my ear, it's reminiscent of OK Computer's sound. Not a bad place to be sonically.

Sigur Ros, Hvart/Heim. The Amazon reviews are mixed; even beautiful music can be disappointing if, in the listener's opinion, it's "just" more of the same. Artists should grow, I know, but this album is something of a retrospective, after all. And anyway, personally I'm not at all tired of this band's sound. As far as I'm concerned . . . more, please.

Tinariwen,Aman Iman. For me, 2007 was chiefly about learning more about music from Mali and, by extension, west African musics--the vast majority of my listening to and buying music reflects that journey. I am bowled over by how rich the musical traditions of that region are and how ignorant I remain of them. Tinariwen's music is that of the Touareg people of Saharan northern Mali, but its electric guitars and bass, combined with Touareg percussion, give this music an intensity and drive that will make you want to take it with you on your next road trip.

Vieux Farka Toure,Vieux Farka Toure. Ali Farka Toure's son plays guitar and performs songs in a style strikingly reminiscent of his father here on his debut album, but whereas Ali stayed firmly rooted in his "desert blues" style, Vieux shows a willingness to introduce new sounds into that style, much as Issa Bagayogo does in his best album, Sya. This is a powerful debut that shows the son more than capable of looking his father's music straight in the eye and willing to bring something new to it.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2007/11/01/6ns3b_calabash_music Thu, 1 Nov 2007 03:54:42 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/blogmeridian/journal/2007/11/01/6ns3b_calabash_music Since this summer I have had a (free) account with Calabash Music, and--especially if you're interested in discovering new (or new-to-you) artists from, mostly, the non-Western world. They seem in particular to me to have an inexhaustible variety of African artists.

For a few weeks now, Calabash has been providing new downloads of two new songs per day by both new and more established artists. The free songs remain available all week. These aren't throwaway or short pieces; one I downloaded tonight, "Hoaminao" by Madagascar guitarist Modeste (more information here), is 7:34 and features exquisite, intricate playing reminiscent of music from the coastal regions of West Africa. This is good stuff that most people would be willing to pay for.

I've learned much from Calabash and added some intriguing music to my collection besides. Maybe you'll give them a try as well.]]>