Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts Enter the S.S.

[Video: Pete Maiden/Eric Helton; Editing by Pete Maiden]

RollingStone, January 27, 2009 :

Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astonauts - "Temporary People"

One of our favorite singer-songwriters, Joseph Arthur, was kind enough to drop by the S.S. to play a few songs, and he brought his band the Lonely Astronauts with him.

One of the most prolific writers around, Arthur was discovered in the early '90s by Peter Gabriel, and signed to Gabriel's label, Real World Records. His debut album, Big City Secrets, was released in 1997 and was followed by the Grammy-nominated EP, Vacancy, in 2000. Since then, Arthur hasn't slowed down. He's released 11 EPs and has just cut his seventh full-lengh album, Temporary People. He's loved by contemporaries like Ryan Adams, Lou Reed and Michael Stipe, who covered Arthur's "In the Sun" for Hurricane Katrina victims. Also a talented painter, Arthur had his own art gallery in Brooklyn before being evicted in September '08.

Arthur is playing a couple of shows this weekend at the Bell House in his current hometown, Brooklyn, with Harper Simon opening, before shipping off for a mini-tour of France in March.

JA&LA were nice enough to play four tracks off their latest release, Temporary People. Check out the title track above, and click the jump for "Dead Savior," "Turn You On" and "Faith." (...)

Amadou and Mariam : Welcome to Mali

By Jonathan Rothman, Exclaim.ca

The funkiest blind, married, French-speaking Afro-pop couple around, Amadou and Mariam return after 2005's Manu Chao-produced Dimanche à Bamako with a potent blend of electronic twists and guests spots for Welcome to Mali. While feature artist turns include guest producer and knob-twiddler Damon Albarn (leadoff track "Sabali," with Mariam's piercing vocals), K'naan and Keziah Jones on the rousing "Africa," and Amadou's desert blues guitar with Toumani Diabaté's sublime kora ("Djuru"), none can outshine the main attraction here.

Playful call and responses, impassioned stories and meditations and wailing Malian violins over slow, bluesy jams — almost to the effect of a cuica over a slow samba canção — keep the focus on the world music duo now embraced by everyone from World Cup soccer fans to Scissor Sisters devotees. Yes, like mid-career Peter Gabriel, Amadou and Mariam are a safe world music act you can admit enjoying but that's also because they're brilliant, dynamic and passionate. (Because)

Totó la Momposina to take Afrocolombia to Bogotá

Colombia reports

Totó la Momposina, the world's best known representative of Colombia's traditional music, will perform in Bogotá on both February 6 and 7.

The 61-year old singer from Mompox, Bolivár has released albums since 1983 and has garnered increasing international acclaim since Peter Gabriel decided to put her album 'La Candela Viva' out on his RealWorld label.

Totó la Momposina, whose real name is Sonia Bazanta Vides, comes from a family that's been involved in traditional Colombian music for generations. Her children also are musicians.

The diva of traditional music will perform in Bogotá's Roberto Arias Pérez theater. Tickets can be purchased online.

Les chants mystiques soufis et ceux des tribus pakistanaises vivent encore

Véronique Mortaigne, LE MONDE, Article paru dans l'édition du 03.02.09

Mis à mal par les graves turbulences politiques qui traversent la région, le Pakistan demeure un pays où la musique est reine. Cet art y est au carrefour entre les influences de l'ancien empire perse, des traditions tribales, notamment celles des zones qui font frontière avec l'Afghanistan, et des raffinements hérités de l'Inde, à laquelle le Pakistan appartenait avant la partition en 1947.

Terre musulmane, le Pakistan a perpétué les rituels mystiques soufis du nord de l'Inde et de l'Asie mineure, célébrant un dieu souverain par des chants dévotionnels débridés et des poésies enivrées. A cela, on ajoutera les allers-retours entre ceux qui sont restés au pays et la jeune communauté indo-pakistanaise du Royaume-Uni, friande de musiques électroniques rythmées et de cinéma Bollywood.

Le programme est passionnant, et le Théâtre de la Ville le suit depuis plus de vingt-cinq ans. On ne saura jamais assez gré à l'établissement parisien d'y avoir fait découvrir l'immense chanteur Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, en 1985, avant que ce soufi pur sucre né près de Faisalabad, au Pendjab, n'aille s'encanailler en 1990 avec le chanteur de rock Peter Gabriel et les précurseurs du trip-hop de Bristol Massive Attack pour un génial tube planétaire, Mustt, Mustt.

Icône du chant mystique qawwal - le chant dévotionnel soufi du sous-continent indien, 700 ans d'âge -, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan est mort prématurément en 1997, à 49 ans. Avec son physique de bouddha, sa voix hors du commun, sa bande de joueurs d'harmonium et de claqueurs de main, Nusrat a été au qawwal ce que Glenn Gould fut à une génération de pianistes désireux de jouer Bach : paralysant.

Au rayon de la foire aux spectacles, Nusrat avait des concurrents : les délirants frères Sabri Brothers, de Karachi : cheveux longs et teints en roux, bagues à tous les étages, yeux maquillés au khôl. L'un des frères, Ghulam Farid, trépassa en 1994, et le groupe disparut.

Samedi 31 janvier, dans l'un de ces concerts de fin d'après-midi du Théâtre de la Ville qui ne cessent d'être des havres de paix dans le bruit parisien, c'est un jeune chanteur, Javed Bashir, et son groupe qui se risquent à la succession. Ils choisissent une troisième voie, un qawwal fervent, mains déployées, yeux au ciel, mais plus discret. L'emballement rythmique du qawwal de la génération Nusrat, et son empressement à atteindre Dieu par l'extase, est refréné par des éléments d'un chant classique très maîtrisé, très intériorisé, proche de l'ancienne Perse. Javed Bashir n'en travaille pas moins son physique, taillé à la serpe, par des allures de chevalier noir dans un costume d'ébène avec paillettes, car il a aussi des accointances cinématographiques - il a chanté pour le film Khuda Kay Liye (In the Name of God), de Shoaib Mansoor (2007), un film à succès sur l'après-11-Septembre.

La voix de Javed Bashir s'enfonce profondément dans les graves, dans des contrées sonores d'où il faut revenir par paliers, sauf à vouloir s'y perdre à jamais. A ses côtés, son frère Ali Akbar, en blanc, voix aérienne, plus haute, modulations de gorge en dentelle. Des tablas, une flûte, et des harmoniums portatifs (héritage des missionnaires portugais), et le tour est joué. Les voici chantant des poèmes de Bullhe Shah (XVIIe siècle), d'Amir Khusro (1253-1325), des hymnes à Ali, le guide des musulmans sunnites.

ZARSANGA, LA BRANCHE D'OR

Dire qu'il fait bon vivre au Pakistan serait osé. A Peshawar, où habite la chanteuse Zarsanga, attendue au Théâtre des Abbesses, autre salle du Théâtre de la Ville, le 7 février, les musiciens aussi craignent la violence, et évitent de s'aventurer vers le col de Khyber qui mène à l'Afghanistan. Dans des temps moins rigoureux, Radio Peshawar diffusait de la musique et les chants de Zarsanga ("branche d'or"), née il y a cinquante-cinq ans à Bannu.

Elle fut bergère, nomade, fille d'une tribu pachtoune, célèbres gardiens de ces montagnes, infiltrés aujourd'hui par la drogue, la CIA et Al-Qaida - pour résumer. Hier illettrée, elle a élargi ses compétences en chantant des ghazal classiques, posés au milieu de la complexe tradition pachtoune. Sa qualité de Pachtoune lui permet de se faufiler encore en Afghanistan pour y chanter. Zarsanga est venue en France pour la première fois en 1989, au Festival d'Avignon. Depuis, elle fume toujours des cigarettes, elle porte toujours des voiles brodés, et chante dans un souffle discret.

Zarsanga, le 7 février à 17 heures, Théâtre des Abesses, 31, rue des Abbesses Paris-18e, M° Abbesses. Tél. : 01-42-74-22-77. De 12 à 17 euros. Disques : Zarsanga, songs of the Pashtu, 1 CD Long Distance. A consulter : www.mondomix.com.

Gilles Peterson a "terrible wedding DJ"

Created On January 27th, 2009 by skrufff, inthemix.com.au

Acid jazz/rare groove/eclectic dance pioneer Gilles Peterson chatted to Skrufff this week about his upcoming tenth anniversary show on Britain’s Radio 1 and revealed that he once got bumped off the decks after just ten minutes for playing Fela Kuti at a celebrity wedding. “I’m a terrible wedding DJ, I’m probably the worst DJ to invite to play at weddings; I’m just too serious,” Gilles confessed. “I remember playing at Peter Gabriel’s wedding in Sardinia for just a couple of hundred people. He had a private beach, Richard Branson was there and Phil Collins was performing and they had African music and so on. Then I had to DJ.”

“I lasted something like ten minutes, when I suddenly heard different music than the record I was playing coming out of the speakers, they’d literally cut me off. The bride’s family, who were regular working class Irish people, had put their own cassette into the master mixer then faded me out – they ended up playing tracks like the ‘Birdie Song’. I still had a good time,” Gilles added. “Though Peter Gabriel was very, very embarrassed. And then I went home. It was fine,” he laughed.

The wedding playlist would have proved no problem for Gilles’ French experimentalist counterpart Laurent Garnier who in 2001 boasted of owning not one but two copies of The Tweets’ early 80s classic. “When I’m really drunk with a few of my friends I love playing that shit,” Garnier told the London Standard. “Hey, I’m not embarrassed,” he added. “I’m proud of my ‘Grease’ and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ albums too.”

Gilles had more wedding grief courtesy of fellow Londoner Norman Jay over the duo’s football rivalry. “Norman Jay is a good friend though he supports Tottenham Hotspur and I support Arsenal and we’re both quite well known for supporting these two teams and we both hate each other,” Gilles laughed. “I remember one day I found out that he had been DJing at (then Arsenal star) Thierry Henry’s wedding. I phoned Norman up and I nearly fell out with him after that. He hates Arsenal so much, but he still played at Thierry Henry’s wedding. That was the one party I would have died to play at. A big regret,” he chuckled.

Womad's horizon expands

Monday, January 26, 2009

Rock legend Peter Gabriel's world music festival is expanding into a new location – Abu Dhabi.

Womad, based at Gabriel's studios in Box, is to team up with the oil-rich sheiks of the United Arab Emirates to stage a world music festival in the Arabian desert.

The event, which is to take place in April, will be the first Womad festival in Asia.

The name is already well-established in Spain, the Canary Islands and Adelaide in Australia, with other Womad festivals recently springing up in New Zealand and Italy.

Two years ago, the team brought the original version of the festival back to the West Country with a move to Charlton Park in north Wiltshire.

The new event will be held for three days in the open air at several locations in Abu Dhabi, and Womad is working with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage.

Womad director Chris Smith said: "The event will bring a whole new cultural experience to the people of Abu Dhabi and will attract an audience from across the Gulf region and beyond."

Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street

Walker Art Center Presents Visionary Composer/Trumpeter Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street

MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- Björk, Bono, DiFranco, Townsend, Basquiat, and Glass have raved about Jon Hassell, the master innovator and visionary creator of what he calls “worldly music”—a mysterious hybrid of ancient and digital, composed and improvised, Eastern and Western. On his first U.S. tour in 20 years, composer/trumpeter Hassell, with his band Maarifa Street, performs at the Walker Art Center’s William and Nadine McGuire Theater at 8 pm Thursday, February 12. Joining Hassel for this concert are musicians Peter Freeman (bass, laptop), Jan Bang (live sampling), Helge Norbakken (drums), and Kheir-Eddine M’Kachiche (violin).

Early in his career, Hassell worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and raga master Pandit Pran Nath, whose Hindustani vocal style was transmuted by him into a new trumpet sound. Rock innovators Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel collaborated with Hassell, then steered his ideas into the avant-pop sphere, where they have since evolved into post-jazz and rock forms. His 1999 album, Fascinoma, produced by Ry Cooder, opened a surprising new chapter in his recording career, creating a glorious acoustic sound that reaped critical acclaim. Hassell began touring with Maarifa Street in 2005, playing to European audiences from Norway and Madrid to Rome and Berlin astonished at the discovery of an atmospheric music which defies category: in France, Playboy wrote, “this celestial jazz is amazing”; about his performance at the Vienna Kunsthalle, the cathedral of classical, Der Standard raved, “the concert of the year.”

In the last two decades, Hassell’s connoisseur recordings, built around a completely unique "vocal" trumpet style (developed in studies with Pran Nath), have inspired a generation of collaborators. His trumpet performances show up on records of world stars like Björk, Baaba Maal, and Ibrahim Ferrer. Film and theater credits include scores for Wim Wenders (Million Dollar Hotel, with Bono), The Netherlands Dance Theater (Lurch), Peter Sellars (Zangezi), and the theme for the hit TV show The Practice.

Fascinoma, with bansri flute master Ronu Majumdar and jazz pianist Jacky Terrasson, inspired a new generation of European trumpet players like Arve Henriksen, Erik Truffaz, Paolo Fresu, and Nils Petter Molvaer, who have all acknowledged Hassell’s influence as leading beyond the gravitational pull of Miles Davis.

Montreal, Milan, and Paris concerts became the raw material for magical transformation in the 2005 release Maarifa Street/Magic Realism 2—another difficult-to-define musical fantasy stretched across geography and time, as was its 1983 namesake ka-Darbari-Java/Magic Realism.

In Tsegihi, a choral work for 100 voices and chamber group, premiered in the 11th century Norwich Cathedral in May 2008. This year, a reconnection with the prestigious ECM label has resulted in the just-released Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street and the Return to USA tour—from New York’s Zankel Hall to Royce Hall in Los Angeles—signalling the growing awareness of a master musician and a music without borders whose freshness comes increasingly into focus as time passes.