Psycho Baba - On The Roof of Kedar Lodge (2000)

ARTIST`````Psycho Baba

ALBUM`````On The Roof of Kedar Lodge

GENRE`````Experimental Tribal Psychedelic Japan

YEAR````````2000

Excellent Japanese experimental non-stop fluids.

The project and the album

Psycho-Baba is one of a growing contingent of bands that has been dropping hefty supplies of dynamite on traditional connotations of Japanese music. The group's strength is their innovative mixture of Indian sitars, tablas, drums, and effects. While most Japanese bands are a direct reaction to American culture, Psycho-Baba ventures outside the norm, borrowing largely from the hypnotic trends of Europe and the traditional sounds of Southwest Asia. TabLoveDubLa TabLoveDubLa TabLoveDubLa, their first album, released in 1998 on Japan Overseas, is one drawn out 54-minute track. This monumental piece was noteworthy enough to catch the attention of the paragons of Japanese youth experimentalism, the Boredoms, who they opened for on a 1998 world tour. Originally led by sitar master Mhayow, tablist Ahkio, and drummer Suttgun, the threesome made quite an impression on the Boredoms. For the 2001 release On the Roof of Kedar Lodge, Yoshimi P-We and Atr joined the band, augmenting an already impressive rhythm section.

Making experimental music is easy. Seek out disorganized noise in a relatively new form and you're all set. Making good experimental music, however, is next to impossible. That requires an intuitive sense of breakneck originality that's engaging enough to make an audience take notice. Atr and Yoshimi P-We, dueling drummers for the avant-something troupe the Boredoms, should appreciate this theory as much as anyone. They've slapped together oodles of unlistenable noise albums, and they've also composed sublime, earnest, and ethereal melodies. Psycho-Baba, one of the projects they do to kill time while away from the Boredoms, shows just how wonderful it can be when it all comes together. Led by sitar player Mhayow, the modern experimental tendencies of the Boredoms have been put on the back burner in favor of South Asian harmonies. The ethnic ambiance melds seamlessly with subtle, hypnotic electronic inducements, along with elaborate percussion arrangements that keep it all moving. It's pleasant from start to finish, with moments of near perfection. A great album even for those who might shy away from the Boredoms.

By Kieran McCarthy, Rovi

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Sevilla Circa 1560 - La Trulla de Bozes (2002)

ARTIST`````Various

ALBUM`````Sevilla Circa 1560 - La Trulla de Bozes

GENRE`````Classical, Renaissance, Andalusian

YEAR````````2002

Secular oolyphony of the Andalusian school

Founded just a few years ago, La Trulla de Bozes has made a specialty of repertoire from Spain's Golden Age, and this CD is a result of the group's first-prize win at Antwerp's International Young Artist's Presentation Early Music in 2000. The recording is a testament to the players' technical skills and considerable interpretive gifts--and, equally importantly, it gives exposure to some gorgeous repertoire that isn't as widely known as it should be.

The best-known composer in this collection of secular music certainly is the illustrious Francisco Guerrero, who served as maestro de capilla at the Seville cathedral. Although he lived until 1599, it is his early work--compositions written before the year 1550 or so--that creates the program's basic structure. From the moving madrigal En tanto que de rosa y açuçena to the painterly portraiture of the springtime tune "Dezidme, fuenta clara", Guerrero's mastery even as a young man is already clear. But it is the works of contemporaries such as Rodgrigo Cevallos, Juan Navarro, Alonso Mudarra, Juan Vásquez, Francisco Fernandez Palero, and Ginés de Morata that are particularly illuminating in forming our deeper understanding of the era. And the Trulla singers bring this music to life: their rhythmic vivacity and brightly colored tone really make these compositions gleam. With Passacaille's vibrant (but not overly resonant) sound, recorded in a church in Navara, Spain, this disc is a real pleasure.

Credits:

- Raquel Andueza, soprano

- Carlos Sandúa, alto

- Karim Farhan, tenor

- Juan Díaz de Corcuera, tenor

- Xavier Pagès, barítono

- Raúl del Toro, órgano

- Manuel Vilas, arpa

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African Virtuoses - The Classic Guinean Guitar Group (2007)

ARTIST`````African Virtuoses

ALBUM`````The Classic Guinean Guitar Group

GENRE`````African Folk, World, Latin Influenced

YEAR````````2007

Why

Life would be beautiful if it sounded like this.

Info:

After rushes on gnarly West African music over the past year-- particularly records by Saharan trance bands Tartit, Etran Finatawa, and the fierce Tinariwen-- the focus is sliding down the coast's bulb. This comp of lyric acoustic guitar work from the Diabate family is the third Guinean release Sterns Africa has offered this year, alongside a reissue of a Bembeya Jazz Ensemble retrospective and a singles collection from the Guinean state-run label Syliphone.

Review from Pitchfork:

Not to say that it's protest music, because it's not. If anything, the central charm here is how damn unhurried and relaxed the Diabates sound. Even when they ornament-- and the music is so harmonically and rhythmically simple that it's almost all ornament-- it's more amble than flash; on the closing "Solo Virtuose", Papa Diabate has about seventeen minutes all to himself, so he spreads out, sometimes lapsing into arpeggios alongside brother Sékou for the sake of mutual hypnosis.

Read the rest.

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Babatunde Olatunji - Drums Of Passion (1959)

ARTIST`````Babatunde Olatunji
ALBUM`````Drums Of Passion

GENRE`````African, Worldbeat, Traditional

YEAR````````1959

Some info
Babatunde Olatunji was a virtuoso drummer who became a sensation in the '60s with his albums of traditional Nigerian drumming and chanting. If Olatunji debuted in today's environment, he would be subjected to much tougher scrutiny and evaluation regarding "authenticity" than he received in the '60s. His heralded albums, particularly Drums of Passion, weren't quite the innovative event some claimed. They were fine LPs, but also contained a heavy dose of show business and sanitized playing that would be duly noted today, particuarly in the specialist press. Still, his albums reportedly were very influential on John Coltrane. They were among the few international releases to not just make the charts, but remain on them for years.

The popularity of Drums Of Passion and More Drums Of Passion predated the '60s black nationalist movement and Afrocentricity of the '80s and '90s. They also had some impact in jazz circles, though they weren't as significant as the Afro-Latin revolution initiated by Mario Bauza, Machito and Chano Pozo.

Album Review from allmusic

Having come to the U.S. from his native Nigeria to study medicine, percussionist Babatunde Olatunji eventually became one of the first African music stars in the States. He also soon counted jazz heavyweights like John Coltrane ("Tunji") and Dizzy Gillespie among his admirers (Gillespie had, a decade earlier, also courted many Cuban music stars via his trailblazing Latin jazz recordings). And, in spite of it being viewed by some as a symbol of African chic, Drums of Passion is still a substantial record thanks to Olatunji's complex and raw drumming. Along with a cadre of backup singers and two other percussionists, Olatunji works through eight traditional drum and chorus cuts originally used to celebrate a variety of things in Nigeria: "Akiwowo" and "Shango" are chants to a train conductor and the God of Thunder, respectively, while "Baba Jinde" is a celebration of the dance of flirtation and "Odun De! Odun De!" serves as a New Year's greeting. The choruses do sound a bit overwrought and even too slick at times (partly due to the fact that most of the singers are not African), but thankfully the drumming is never less than engaging. The many curious world music fans who are likely to check this album out should also be sure to look into even better African drumming by native groups like the Drummers of Burundi and the percussion outfits featured on various field recordings.

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Obray Ramsey - Blue Ridge Banjo (1957)

ARTIST`````Obray Ramsey
ALBUM`````Blue Ridge Banjo
GENRE`````Folk

YEAR````````1957

Biography
Obray Ramsey is the banjo-picking cousin of old-time music instrumentalist Byard Ray, and the two worked regularly as a duo until they were "discovered" playing at an Asheville folk festival during the folk music revival of the '60s. From that point on, the two men's musical career took a strangely twisted path. Late-night television mongers who may have made it all the way through the strange psychedelic rock western Zachariah, may wonder who the two old-time musicians are that show up in one of this epic's many strange musical wonders, and the answer would be Ray and Ramsey.
Read the rest of the biography...

More info on this LP
From the back cover of Obray Ramsey’s 1957 LP Blue Ridge Banjo, notes by Kenneth S. Goldstein:

In recent years, we have heard all to often about the ‘dying’ of folkculture in the Southern mountains. Many of the collectors who ventured into this area to record the songlore of the region in the 1930s and ’40s, shed sorry tears for the passing of a beautiful and rich tradition, each proclaiming his own collection to be the “last leaves” of this once-proud heritage. So, fewer and fewer adventuresome souls have involved themselves in recording the still-living tradition of the area. Those who have, however, have been amply rewarded by finding that, even though mountain lifehas been completely revolutionized in the past few decades, tradition dies hard, and numerous singers may still be heard and recorded. To be sure, there are new sounds and new songs, but this material is, in many ways, as vibrant and vital as it was in the days of Cecil Sharp’s pioneering collecting forays.Obray Ramsey, whose sprightly banjo songs and instrumentals make up this LP, is living proof that this tradition still exists. And there are many more young, middle-aged and old folksingers like him, who have retained the best songs of their hardy mountain ancestors, perhaps changing some of them to suit their own artistic and performing abilities, but still retaining the best elements of old-style singing and playing.Ramsey was born on the banks of the three Laurels at the edge of the Smokey Mountains in western North Carolina. His father’s people came from the highlands of Scotland, and his mother’s ancestors were Cherokee Indians.Most of his songs were learned from his mother and grandmother, both fine singers with extensive repertoires. For most of his life he has sung his songs unaccompanied, though he had learned to play the guitar when still a young boy. After he married and settled down as a successful farmer near Marshall, North Carolina, he met Bascom Lamar Lunsford, folksinger, collector, and organizer of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival held annually in Asheville, North Carolina. Lunsford recognized his fine singing talents and encouraged him to take up the 5-string banjo, which he believed would be perfectly suited to Obray’s style of singing. To show his faith in this belief, Lunsford gave Ramsey his first banjo in 1953. Now, Obray Ramsey is one of the finest banjo-pickers in the Southern Mountains. His style is a perfect compromise between old picking styles and currently popular modern styles.

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Paroplapi - La Finestra Dell'Ultimo Piano (2005)

ARTIST`````Paroplapi
ALBUM`````La Finestra Dell'Ultimo Piano
GENRE`````World

YEAR````````2005

Some badly translated info
This group, with an unusual name, suggests the beginning of the XXI century the meeting "music-language" coming from the shores of the Mediterranean. Paroplapi draws its inspiration particularly in France and Italy, which represent areas of origin of members of the group. Voices and meanings. The practice and study of this repertoire, highlights the strong ties between the people and values in common, so are no longer the only musical traditions of a region thatartists exploit, but rather a cultural, evolving in the name of unity in diversity. Individual carriers of these directories for many years, members of the trio Paroplapi met in order to offer a broad spectrum of the Latin folk songs, the anthology of what collective memory has gathered on the edge of time.

From http://www.rambles.net
Paroplapi is the name of an Italo-French folk trio that is like a ray of sunshine, and one of the most popular Italian world-roots music groups. The name comes from "little Cecilia, whose words often collide with her lips," daughter of one of the band members, and performer on this CD.In Italian, French and Provençal-Occitan, Paroplapi's sound is a joy.On La Finestra dell'Ultimo Piano, their second CD, the vocals of Samuela Gallinari and Gael Princivalle blend nicely. Giorgio Albiani's guitar adds another dimension. The CD also features standout hurdy gurdy, bagpipes, accordion (Paolo Simonazzi), mandolin (Silvio Trotta), pipe (Stefano Tartaglia) and a host of guests too numerous to mention."A Come Armatura" ("A for Armour") the first song featured, is a nursery rhyme song featuring the children of the band members --- well coached as it turns out -- interwoven with Gallinari's fine, clear Italian soprano. This is the true gem of the record, though not the only first-class track. It's a catchy, lively alphabet song right out of traditional Tuscan lore.Princivalle, whose voice has the timbre of an Occitan Gordon Lightfoot, sings on several tracks including "Maremma," a dialogue between a shepherd and his beloved, from Emilia-Romagna; his voice blends well with that of Gallinari, in complex harmonies.Songs such as "I Disertori" (Italian) and "La Palombe" (Franco-Provençal, originally from an Arabic source) are timely calls for peace, against war. The former is particularly well-done, with Gallinari on vocals, accompanied by the accordeon: "We don't talk about this war / as long as eternity / to conquer a leaf-sized land / how many brothers have died already."Matteo Belli is featured in the role of Dante in "Dante e Arnaut," the concluding track and one of the more interesting, with spoken word over instrumental.


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