Rachel Z Returns With More “Good and Evil”

Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor, Wednesday, 06 August 2008

Rachel Z and DOGE

"In the music, I tend to play minor chords. That's why I'm in the department of evil. We joke about it a lot, but the chords are kind of scary. They represent a harmony I really enjoy, one that came out of the late '60s with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. The department of good has the bass and drums. They're funky, groovy, slinky, sexy -- all the happy things." – Rachel Z

Sometimes the true nature of jazz is obliterated by our tendency to classify and label. Despite its “melting pot” roots and evolution, the genre is often embroiled in controversy over its definition. Enter an undeniably talented pianist/vocalist/composer whose chops shout Shorter and Hancock while her repertoire screams Sting and Stones. Such fusion of stylistic ideas has haunted popular performers from Miles Davis to the Bad Plus, and similarly, Rachel Nicolazzo—known simply as Rachel Z—and her Dept of Good and Evil ensemble. Next weekend, Rachel and DOGE return to the stage of the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis for a weekend of unclassifiable fun and serious musicmaking.

Rachel Z initially seemed destined to follow her mother into the world of opera. Growing up in Manhattan, she began voice lessons at age two, then classical piano at seven; she attended her first opera at age nine. “My first doll house was a Metropolitan Opera House,” she notes. But on hearing “Miles’ Smiles” at age 15, she began improvising against the grain of her classical repertoire and was soon playing in a band covering Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan. She further crossed the classical-to-jazz divide by listening to Herbie Hancock’s interpretations of Wayne Shorter, launching a quintet named Nardis, and studying with Joanne Brackeen and Richie Bierach.

Rachel graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she worked with Bob Moses, Miroslav Vitous and George Garzone. Back in New York in 1988, she toured with NEC classmate Najee and co-wrote the title track to the smooth saxman’s best-selling Tokyo Blue. Throughout the 90s, she played with fusion band Steps Ahead, Al DiMeola, Larry Coryell, Special EFX, Angela Bonfil and Mike Mainieri, who produced her debut release, Trust the Universe (1993). Next Z collaborated with hero Wayne Shorter, arranging, playing acoustic piano, and directing his tour for the Grammy-winning High Life. In the mid-90s, she extensively toured in support of her album dedicated to women artists, A Room of One’s Own, before turning to more electronic-driven music via Vertu (Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White). Over the past decade, her efforts have encompassed interpretations of everyone from classic jazz giants to contemporary pop and rock stars, including recorded tributes to Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell. A global tour with Peter Gabriel (2002-2004) as well as three more recordings brought her international attention.

About two years ago, Rachel formed Dept. of Good and Evil. For percussion she looked to long-time collaborator Bobbie Rae, an equally eclectic musician with a long resume of mostly indie rock projects as drummer, producer, arranger, and educator. A native of Philadelphia, Bobbie is a founding member of Amplify, performs in duo as Twin Engines with guitarist Jimmy Walls, and has lived and worked throughout Europe. For acoustic bass, Rachel tapped Maeve Royce, one of her students at the New School in Manhattan. Growing up in Baltimore, Maeve started out on cello, switching to electric bass and then acoustic bass at 15. She began playing in Philly-area jazz clubs while attending Rowan College, later making the move to New York and the New School. Additional sonic power on Dept of Good and Evil comes from another long-time partner, electric bassist Tony Levin, and Twin Cities-based trumpeter, Erik Naslund.

Dept of Good and Evil is a natural extension of Z’s tendency to reconstruct favorite tunes from pop, rock, and Goth. Notes Rachel, “I loved the Good and Evil concept, which reflects everything going on these days, not only in government but also in the music world where overhyped projects are often terrible and others which get no hype are great…Bobbie and Maeve are the good, and I’m the harmonically evil one. Dept. of Good and Evil is the best of everything for me, exciting material to work with and an incredible ensemble of players which I just love vibing with…we can play a whole night of jazz standards and then turn around the next and do a strictly rock and groove thing.”

Mixing the “rock and groove thing” with inventive post bop explorations yields a recording that covers both familiar and obscure tunes as well as three original compositions, two from Rachel Z and one co-written with Bobbie Rae, who also produced the recording and contributes arrangements on all tracks. Despite the disparate sources, overall the recording flows like a multi-part suite, not only from track to track but even within specific tracks as Z and company shift mood and rhythm from moment to moment, yet always tethered by a golden thread of musical logic. The result is one of the most exciting piano-led recordings I’ve heard in the past year―Z’s eclectic history may disguise the fact that she is among the top echelon of modern jazz pianists, with a strong emphasis on “jazz.” Listen to Rachel and multiple influences are apparent: Fred Hersch in the elegance of her elongated phrases with contrasting clipped and chordal passages; McCoy Tyner in the runs that swing with power while challenging the speed limit; Keith Jarrett in the structures that spiral through the universe, exploring all directions; and most of all, idol Herbie Hancock who integrates all of the above.

Be it a blessing or curse, Rachel Z’s eclectic appetite has proven a commercial success over the release of eight recordings and numerous tours, bridging genres and sonic sensibilities in reaching listeners from multiple generations. And assuming the diverse origins of musical ideas are simultaneously irrelevant and basic to modern jazz, Z’s current project should serve to place her exactly where she belongs—among the most talented and inventive of 21st century post bop magicians, one who should appeal equally to those raised on U2 and Smashing Pumpkins and those steeped in the lineage of Evans, Jarrett, Hancock and Tyner.

Lanois doc explores creative process

by Shawn Conner, Vancouver Courier, Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The documentary Here Is What Is, co-directed by cinematographer Adam Vollick (left), takes an arty, ramshackle approach in examining the creative process and the making of Daniel Lanois' album of the same name.

At one point during Here Is What Is, a new documentary featuring Daniel Lanois, there is a montage of album covers. Images of releases by the likes U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson, all produced by Lanois, flash by. However, one record is conspicuous by its absence, at least in the eyes of this writer. Where, I have to ask, is the cover of This is the Ice Age--a 1981 disc from Martha and the Muffins, produced by Lanois, and featuring his sister Jocelyne on bass?

"Not a whole ton of thought went into what was included," says Adam Vollick, the Here Is What Is co-director/cinematographer, reached in his hometown of Toronto. "I don't even think that one ever got tabled. We just quickly did a Google search and stole a bunch of images off the Internet. It was real fly-by-night addition."

Despite this sin of omission, the doc is a fascinating, if somewhat arty and ramshackle, document about the creative process in general and the making of Lanois' album of the same name in particular.

"The structure is meant to be a bit of a visual poem," says Vollick. The 30-year-old has known Lanois, 57, for five years, and began his career as a photographer. Under Lanois' mentorship, he's been moving into filmmaking and audio engineering.

"We didn't want to spell out, by having someone narrate, what the public is supposed to get out of it. If someone feels inspired enough to go out and do something they love after they've watched it, that makes me a real happy person. But basically, there was a massive amount of work that was done, and the criteria for something getting in was that it was touching, it had a vibe that was indisputable. Only those choicest moments got past the finish line."

A collage of studio and rehearsal performances, conversations and even dance sequences, Here Is What Is captures a number of memorable moments. Lanois jams with Irish super-group U2 in what looks like a hotel lobby but might well be Bono's bathroom. Actor/musician Billy Bob Thornton drops by chez Lanois to compare hats and drink the one Pabst Light he allows himself per day. However, by far the most interesting person in any room he's in is Brian Eno. The veteran British musician and producer, who has worked with Lanois on a number of projects, seems incapable of voicing a banal thought.

"There's absurdity in his kind of genius sometimes," says Vollick. "I wouldn't say any of it is normal."

The film mirrors Lanois' approach to musical textures by playing with the visuals. Negative images, flashes of neon colour, and mostly black and white film are used. "We tried to keep all the visualizations analogous to what was happening sonically," says the co-director. "We tried to find a visual to match the sort of lo-fi textures Dan uses in his music."

Among the film's more bizarre touches are the brief sequences featuring Carolina Cerisola. Lanois came across the burlesque performer at the Los Angeles club Forty Deuce. Every so often, the film cuts to Cerisola, shimmying and shaking suggestively across the screen.

"An artist always needs his muse," explains Vollick. "She's a symbol, just like all the other characters in the film, of somebody who fell in love with what they do at a very young age, and had no choice but to get good at it. There's nothing that brings her greater joy, or that she's better at, than dancing." The scenes were done "way before" the shots of record-making sessions, says Vollick. "It was one of those things that we found, in select places, acted as punctuation. There's also a little shock value--people don't expect to see a sexy girl dancing in a music documentary."

Well, it's better than constantly seeing the musicians' ugly mugs on screen. "I don't like my ugly mug to be seen," says Vollick. "I'd rather let my image be the thing that I make, rather than whatever I end up wearing when I get up in the morning."

Here Is What Is screens at Vancity Theatre Aug. 9-14.

Imagine there's a village...

By Stuart Thompson, Dewsbury reporter Published Date: 05 August 2008

Cambridge Folk Festival 2008

Martha Wainwright clearly isn't up to speed with the right apparel for a folk festival. Instead of the seemingly ubiquitous open-toed sandals, boots or flowered wellies beloved of just about everyone – on or off-stage – at the 44th Cambridge festival, she's opted for a fetching pair of silver stack slingbacks allied to garish pink stockings.

Of course, the crowd loves her dress sense – and loves too her splendid set which showcases her melodically memorable, and rockier than anticipated, songs. Strikingly beautiful was her cover of Pink Floyd's See Emily Play extra touching for the fact that its late composer, Syd Barrett, lived for many years as a recluse a mile from the festival site. Wainwright's Saturday night spot was just one of the highlights at an event whose line-up this year arguably bordered on the conservative, but was ultimately no less successful for that.

'Legendary' is a much over-used term in contemporary music, but it begs to be applied to New Orleans's Allen Toussaint. In a career of over 50 years as performer, producer and songwriter he has worked with just about everyone, and his languorous piano work shines on his own compositions, including a splendid 'Brickyard Blues', a song which should have helped to make a superstar of the great Frankie Miller in the mid-70s, but somehow didn't.

Saturday also saw excellent sets from American bluesman Eric Bibb, Canada's k.d. lang and, most impressively, from The Imagined Village, a multi-media project featuring, among many others, Billy Bragg, Martin and Eliza Carthy, and dhol drummer Johnny Kalsi. It's a celebration of the multi-ethnic pot-pourri that is contemporary English roots music, and it works – gloriously.

After 25 years, you know exactly what you're getting from Billy Bragg, but his solo spot still enthuses a crowd more than willing to accept his personal brand of power-pop polemic and humour, while on the Friday his Imagined Village cohort Eliza Carthy showed why she has been at the top of the English folk tree for well over a decade.

Also beloved of the Cambridge audience is flautist and piper Michael McGoldrick, who has appeared here over the years in countless bands. Now leading his own group, it's their superb playing which helps McGoldrick to truly soar into the 'world class' category.

Flying the flag for the southern hemisphere were Australia's The Waifs, the unexpected hit of this event in 2003 and back this year to show they have lost none of their winning ways with top tunes, beautifully played and sung.

Among the other stand-outs were Quebec's Mauvais Sort, a four-piece whose accordion-driven songs prove highly infectious, Dublin's Kila, who succeed in melding all sorts of world music influences into a glorious, danceable whole, and the quirkily memorable 6 Day Riot, a young band clearly going places.

Add on Sunday sets from the evergreen Joan Armatrading and Sheffield songster Richard Hawley, and it's clear that Cambridge is still getting it well and truly right.

We7 Anticipates Trouble As It Releases 200,000 Tracks

Story from REDORBIT NEWS, Published: 2008/08/05

We7 (www.we7.com) is an ad-funded music download site, that lets music fans stream or download music for free in return for receiving targeted advertising. The site was co-founded by Peter Gabriel and launched in May 200 7 with a mere 30 tracks; there are now 750,000 tracks available for streaming on the site.

The hosting challenge for We7 is that apart from the paid-for music downloads it offers, the content on its site is dynamic by nature, since each free track that is streamed or downloaded is served with ads targeted at that subscriber. We7 works with a web hosting company called Mythic Beasts, which co-locates at one of the big London Docklands data centres, to ensure it has enough bandwidth available for users accessing its site.

But, more importantly, says Steve Purdham, chief executive of We7, the site was built with performance in mind. "The infrastructure and design of the site has been built to be scalable; the ability to load balance between one set of servers and another had already been put in," he explains.

Even so, when We7 announced a partnership with Sony BMG and the release of an additional 200,000 tracks on its site free to subscribers from 28 April this year, it began testing four weeks ahead of the launch. "The first thing we tried to anticipate was all the different bottlenecks," he recalls.

We7's preparations turned out to be worthwhile. "Our peaks on the launch day were around 40,000 streams, 16,000 previews and 12,500 downloads," he reveals. Despite the testing, We7 did hit a glitch. It turned out to be something very simple to fix. One of the server's operating systems had an embedded file limit that restricted it from opening more than 10.000 files at any one time, and the server went down. But in 15 to 20 seconds, Purdham says it was back up again and only 130 people experienced poor-quality streaming as a result.

His response is pragmatic: "These things are going to happen; what you have to do is anticipate them and have processes in place that capture them."

Undercover Feeds The Filter

by Paul Cashmere - August 5 2008

Undercover`s daily music news feed is now being featured at The Filter, Peter Gabriel`s new digital media destination.

The Filter sorts relevant content for each user to serve your taste and mood based on unique algorithms.

"As well as providing daily, personalised recommendations of music and movies, The Filter also aggregates the very best entertainment news & review content out there. As part of our global ambition, it's great to now include Australia's Undercover amongst our quality feeds, as, without this, the world may never have known that Phil Collins got to Number 1 in NZ only last week" The Filter CMO Andy Semple says.

“The Filter aims to be the best possible blend of man and machine - a hybrid engine that filters all entertainment content to one’s own personal taste,” says Martin Hopkins, a co-founder and CSO of The Filter.

Undercover’s daily news feed is now supplied to The Filter so that The Filter users will gain the instant daily knowledge of what their favorite artists are up to.

The Filter was developed by Hopkins and Rhett Ryder in Bath, England. David Maher-Roberts, a new-media and marketing expert joined soon after as CEO and was closely followed by former Dennis Inc executive Andy Semple.

Check out The Filter at www.thefilter.com

Live: Dengue Fever

From the Los Angeles Times

POP MUSIC REVIEW
Live: Dengue Fever
The one-world party band makes a homecoming at El Rey.
By Mikael Wood
Special to The Times

August 4, 2008

Near the end of Dengue Fever's show Saturday at the El Rey, guitarist Zac Holtzman dedicated a song to his pal Ricky, who Holtzman said was celebrating his birthday in the audience. For most groups, that kind of shout-out doesn't signify much, but for Dengue Fever it served as a welcome reminder of what this sextet is: one of L.A.'s cleverest party bands.

Holtzman and his bandmates, who include his brother Ethan on keyboards and singer Chhom Nimol, play a mind-bending brand of one-world music. After a trip Ethan took to Angkor Wat, the Holtzmans formed Dengue Fever in 2001 as an experiment: What if they made an updated version of the late '60s Cambodian pop that had been inspired by the American music blasting across Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War? They recruited Nimol after hearing her sing in a Long Beach nightclub, and the outfit has since released three buzzed-about albums; the latest, January's "Venus on Earth," contains all original material.

Dengue Fever has had a big summer, playing festivals around the globe and signing a record deal in England with Peter Gabriel's Real World label. You can't blame the band's booking agent, then, for scheduling its homecoming at the El Rey, a venue quite a bit larger than the cozy Eastside clubs where Dengue Fever established its well-deserved reputation as a raucous live act.

Still, judging by Saturday's 80-minute set, the group isn't quite ready for the upgrade: Playing to a half-full room, the musicians had trouble mustering the pent-up energy familiar to anyone who's seen Dengue Fever at Spaceland or the Echo -- or at the tiny Cambodian dive the band rocks in "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," a recent documentary about its first tour of Nimol's homeland.

Like any great party band, Dengue Fever requires a party to achieve liftoff; its sweaty intensity isn't a product of spontaneous generation. So although it was well sculpted and rich with detail -- indeed, the El Rey's high-end sound system might have been too precise for a band that thrives on boozy jubilation -- the music Saturday contained no tension and offered no release.

Zac Holtzman's birthday dedication did conjure some of the band's old small-room sizzle, as did a couple of Zac-and-Nimol duets from "Venus on Earth." Both "Tiger Phone Card" and "Sober Driver" used romantic turmoil as an eloquent metaphor for cross-cultural contrast.

And when the guitarist invited a pair of female fans onstage to sing "I'm Sixteen" with Nimol -- bassist Senon Williams called them "Chhom Nimol and the Chhom-ettes" -- it was possible for a moment to imagine you were watching a Dengue Fever show in somebody's backyard in Echo Park.

But then the Chhom-ettes left the stage and we were back in a space filled with too much space. Maybe next time the invitation will reach a few more revelers.

Sounds of summer: Womad

Akin Ojumu, The Observer, Sunday August 3 2008

Charlton Park, Wiltshire

Womad has had a bit of a facelift. Last year the festival moved to a new venue and a quick glance at this year's line-up showed a shift towards mainstream pop. With so many festivals these days boasting eclectic lists of Western and 'world' acts, is this such a good idea?

But after last year's mudfest, Womad 2008 delivered three days of glorious sunshine. One of the most appealing things about this particular festival is the chance to hear new music, but on the opening night it was the retro disco of Chic, orchestrated by sole surviving member Nile Rodgers, that got the easy-going crowd on their feet.

Elsewhere, the French-Algerian punk Rachid Taha brought his beguiling mix of influences to an appreciative crowd, including a thrilling version of the Clash's 'Rock the Casbah'. Veterans such as Senegal's Orchestra Baobab and the gospel singer Mavis Staples also shone, and on Saturday afternoon there was a treat from Kenyan Luo band Kenge Kenge who delivered a fabulously lively set that included a tribute to Barack Obama, the man of the moment and son of a Kenyan Luo.

Martha Wainwright provided a touch of class, while Roni Size raised the bpm level for those who could handle it. On Sunday, Squeeze rolled out the hits and reminded us that they were once a pretty good singles band. By then most people's spirits were as sunny as the weather.

Best performance Chic - Nile Rodgers and co brought back the 'Good Times'.

Best discovery Kenge Kenge - irresistible Luo and Benga tunes.

Overheard 'Ernest Ranglin? Yeah, he is famous actually. He does Jamaican jazz or something... '

Peter Gabriel collabore avec 75 artistes pour son album "Big Blue Ball"

Publié le 02 août 2008

Après seize ans de gestation et trois ans d'enregistrement, Peter Gabriel publie dans l'Hexagone son projet : Big Blue Ball.

Ce disque, qui réunit 75 artistes de 20 pays dont Sinead O'Connor, Joji Hirota, Natacha Atlas, Billy Cobham, Papa Wemba, Juan Canizares, est issu des sessions légendaires qui se sont déroulées dans les années 90 dans les studios de Peter Gabriel.

L'album est paru le 31 juillet sur son label Real World et sera distribué en France par Harmonia Mundi.

"Mon idée était de confronter des musiciens de rock à des artistes du monde entier. Aujourd'hui, c'est comme un bon vin prêt à être bu. Et c'est la musique que je me suis le plus amusé à faire", précise Peter Gabriel dans un communiqué de presse.

L'artiste britannique a débuté son projet en 1992 lors d'une "recording week" dans ses studios de Real World. Pendant plusieurs années, de nombreux artistes comme Karl Wallinger, Sinead O'Connor, Tim Finn, Joseph Arthur, Natacha Atlas, Papa Wemba, The Holmes Brothers, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Manu Katché, Vernon Reid, Billy Cobham, Arona N'Diaye, Jah Wobble, Sevara Nazarkhan, Hukwe Zawose, Juan Cañizares, Francis Bebe, Marta Sebestyen, Eric Mouquet, Michel Sanchez, Alex Faku, Joji Hirota, Wendy Melvoin, Hossam Ramzy, Andy White ou Guo Yue se sont succédés dans ses studios, improvisant des duos surprenants.

L'album Big Blue Ball compte 11 titres qui offrent un véritable voyage dans l'univers de la world music. Peter Gabriel, chef d'orchestre de ce projet, propose des rencontres originales. Dans cet opus, la chanteuse irlandaise Sinead O'Connor chante avec le percussionniste japonais Joji Hirota tandis que Papa Wemba rencontre le guitariste flamenco Juan Canizares.

Le premier single extrait de cet album concept s'intitule Whole Thing.



Le disque de Peter Gabriel, co-produit par l'artiste lui-même ainsi que Karl Wallinger (ex-Waterboys et World Party) et Stephen Hague (Pet Shop Boys, O.M.D.) a été officiellement lancé lors du festival Womad en Angleterre à la fin du mois de juillet.

Invité d'honneur au Midem en janvier 2008, Peter Gabriel est considéré comme un artiste complet particulièrement avant-gardiste, notamment dans les nouveaux modèles digitaux.

Tracklisting :
1. Whole Thing (Original Mix) (featuring Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Tim Finn, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger, Andy White)
2. Habibe (featuring Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparkes)
3. Shadow (featuring Juan Cañizares, Papa Wemba)
4. Altus silva (featuring Joseph Arthur, Ronan Browne, Deep Forest, James McNally, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Vernon Reid)
5. Exit Through You (featuring Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger)
6. Everything Comes From You (featuring Richard Evans, Joji Hirota, Sevara Nazarkhan, Sinead O'Connor, Guo Yue)
7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down (featuring Billy Cobham, Peter Gabriel, The Holmes Brothers, Wendy Melvoin, Arona N'diaye, Jah Wobble)
8. Forest (featuring Levon Minassian, Arona N'Diaye, Vernon Reid, Hukwe Zawose)
9. Rivers (featuring Vernon Reid, Marta Sebestyen, Karl Wallinger)
10. Jijy (featuring Arona N'Diaye, Rossy, Jah Wobble)
11. Big Blue Ball (featuring Peter Gabriel, Manu Katché, Karl Wallinger)

Peter Gabriel & Friends, Big Blue Ball
Sortie : le 31 juillet
Real World/Harmonia Mundi
Site officiel : http://bigblueball.realworldrecords.com

Womad Festival, Wiltshire, UK

By David Honigmann, Financial Times, August 2, 2008

The first person on Womad’s main stage this year was Johnny Kalsi. Generally, the worst that can be said of the amiable frontman of the Dhol Foundation is that his drumming forces fellow musicians to wear earplugs. But for many in the audience, the last time they had seen him was when he announced from the stage last year that their cars, having been hauled from the mud by tractors, were being towed away by the police.

Kalsi made only uneasy allusion to the shambolic mudbath that was Womad 2007: “Don’t mention the m-word”. But it was surely no accident that the act he introduced, the monks of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, are regularly invited into homes to clear bad energy. As they sounded their 12ft horns, residual bad energy started to shift. But then they paraded round the stage with a giant umbrella, the Womad equivalent of talking of rope in the house of the hanged.

Chris Smith, Womad’s new events director, explicitly saw the role of this year’s festival as “rebuilding trust”. Lots of things went his way including the weather. On Saturday afternoon, serendipitously, the RAF’s Red Arrows aerobatics team flew fighter jets low over the site. “We didn’t organise that but it was pretty impressive,” says Smith. When not scorching, Womad was bucolic. Giant inflatable sculptures lurked amid the trees; passing punters banged away at a woodland gamelan; diners removed their shoes to sit in the sushi yurt.

Vibe is one thing, music another. The 2007 festival pulled out all the stops for its programme; this year’s lineup was less glittery. Nonetheless, almost every one of this year’s winners at the Radio 3 Awards for World Music played. Bassékou Kouyaté sat on a monitor at the ront of the main stage and played his ngoni while the rest of his band crept theatrically behind him and his wife, Amy Sacko, smiled indulgently when not singing her heart out.

Sa Dingding gave a stunning show, complete with dancers. She ended kneeling on the stage, whipping her long hair around her in a frenzy. Rachid Taha stormed the main stage on Friday night, Bo Diddley riffs ablaze on the oud, electric guitars crunching, and the crowd singing along as he transmuted The Clash’s impertinent comment on Middle Eastern politics into “Rock El Casbah”.

The usually reliable Siam Tent seemed cursed. One of the acts there, Toumani Diabaté, swapped the hushed religious ambience of this year’s wonderful solo concerts for a band, including his son Sidiki (who has his father’s flashy fingerwork but, as yet, none of his subtlety). A new composition, “Essaouira”, sounded like Weather Report with a twin kora frontline. “You promised we could go to the steam fair,” complained a child, loudly. The Senegalese singer Wasis Diop was lacklustre there as well. It took Shane MacGowan, slurring through “Fairytale Of New York” with Sharon Shannon, to bring the tent to life.

Breaking into the big time were the Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever. They played Cambodian pop music from the 1960s, riding a wave of electric organ and twanging surf guitar. David Ralicke played saxophone solos that could have been composed by Mulatu Astatke. Chhom Nimol jumped around like a Cambodian Debbie Harry.

Away in the arboretum, Jah Wobble gave the performance of the festival. His new project, Chinese Dub, started as a relatively modest commission for Liverpool 08, marking the city’s year as European capital of culture, and grew into a tour and an album. Wobble, in grey suit and hat, played forceful basslines that could have performed CPR two fields away. Dodging about the stage, he cued other players to drop in and out. His wife, Zi Lan Liao, sat playing the guzheng, a plucked zither. Clive Bell played Chinese pipes.

Dub and Chinese music proved a perfect mixture. The earnest folk melodies leavened the dub’s conceptual self-importance; the dub hardened the Chinese music against kitsch. As if to demonstrate the kinship, the band played Augustus Pablo’s “Java”, echoing with melodica and a guzheng solo dovetailed in as the rhythm dropped out. Later, Claire Rose sang Dawn Penn’s “No, No, No”, rising from a low growl to impressionistic wails, accompanied by the Tibetan singer Gu Ying.

Midway, Wobble brought on two mask-changing dancers. As they twirled and high kicked, red and yellow silk cloaks whipping around them, their masks constantly changed from one eyeblink to the next, expressions and colours and designs constantly transforming as hands flashed across faces. It was a moment of stage magic so surprising, and so inexplicable, that the audience was dumbstruck.

This year’s big names played surprisingly safe. Squeeze essentially performed a compilation album in its entirety. Chic stretched their one glorious rhythm over 75 minutes: parents and toddlers channelled Travolta while teenagers pretended to be orphans. Eddy Grant mixed the highlights of his songbook with one less familiar number, “Hearts and Diamonds”, that was one degree from Dire Straits.

And then again, away in the woods, the Marseille choir Lo Còr de la Plana was issuing an irresistible a capella invitation. Within 90 seconds, the audience had linked hands and formed a running line, threading in and out of the trees like an Occitan village festival. The rhythm, beaten out on frame drums, quickened, more and more people were sucked in, and Womad’s true spirit of serendipity lived again. Even Johnny Kalsi was forgiven.

Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Posted on: Friday, 1 August 2008 by Jeff Miers On RedOrbit

Sarah McLachlan

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: Legacy Edition

The record that launched a thousand Liliths, and eventually became an oft-copied, never-duplicated representative of the feminine in modern pop-rock, has been gifted with a deluxe edition. Deservedly so.

Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan arrived just as grunge was rearing its greasy-haired head and loud guitars with post-punk/ metal vocals were becoming de rigeur. McLachlan was having none of that, of course -- not for her, the Courtney Loves or L7s of the world. The prize McLachlan's eyes were firmly set on insisted on an elevation of female elegance, a belief in serious melodic invention, a hierarchy placing beauty and sturdy craftsmanship far above attitude and volume.

"Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" was McLachlan's third album, and with it she solidified her vision. Taking a cue from Kate Bush, Sinead O'Connor and Peter Gabriel, McLachlan brought sultry ambience to bear on vaguely world music-inspired beats, guitars providing lush counterpoint to her stunning singing, poetic lyric imagery balancing billowy keyboard washes and the thick, hypnotic production afforded by collaborator Pierre Marchand. All of this combined to become the very definition of Romantic pop music.

In the 16 years that have passed since "Fumbling" fumbled into the mainstream consciousness, going gold in the process, the "McLachlan sound" became a bit of a cliche, as is often the case when an artist ably captures the zeitgeist. (How many "Nirvana- be's" have been born and died during that same period?) Proof of the album's continued validity can be found in its decidedly vanilla pudding, however. From the opening fan dance of "Possession" through the elegiac closing mantra of the title tune, "Fumbling" is a sure- footed, clear-eyed attempt to capture transcendental concepts on tape. It's aching to be even more than it is, and this sense of passionate desire is what makes the music pulsate.

"Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" is so well-conceived and stunningly produced that it didn't really need a remastering -- a comparison between the Legacy Edition and my original CD copy of the album displays no miraculous discoveries, no unearthing of previously unheard bits and pieces in the mix. As always, the record sounds crisp, round, classy, beautiful. However, the inclusion of bonus disc "The Freedom Sessions" -- featuring stripped-down, primal, acoustic versions of many "Fumbling" tunes -- and the complete concert film from the tour supporting "Fumbling" make the package a comprehensive one.

McLachlan never bettered "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy." It is indeed her masterpiece, still.

China calls upon Sa Dingding

By CLIFFORD COONAN, Variety, Aug. 1, 2008

Singer aims to bridge cultural gap with music

The Chinese Kate Bush?

The Mongolian Bjork?

As Chinese music strives to win auds outside of Greater China, a new voice -- that of 25-year-old Sa Dingding -- aims to bridge the cultural chasm.

Sa, who was raised a nomad with sheep and cows in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, was signed to Universal Music in 2007. Her album "Alive" -- or "The Life of 10,000 Things" as it is known in China -- has sold 2 million legitimate copies there and untold more pirated editions.

Now she has her sights set firmly on the West, with showcase events in the U.S. over the past month and fest appearances like the just-concluded World of Music and Dance (WOMAD) in the U.K. She also collaborated with French producer Deep Forest to produce a song for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

Since winning a BBC3 World Music Award in April, Sa -- who sings in a combination of Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan and her own invented language -- has been touring tirelessly to promote her blend of electronica, Chinese singing and Buddhist chants.

And she continues to draw from diverse influences.

"I listen to a lot of Western musicians, because they are not afraid to show their individuality. They express themselves openly and publicly, particularly contemporary Western music. But I also like Asian music for its subtlety," she says.

Sa, who is prepping a new album that she hopes to release at the end of the year, faced controversy when earlier this year she said she supported Beijing's policy on Tibet following the crackdown on anti-Chinese protests in the Himalayan enclave.

But she remains a fan of Icelandic warbler Bjork, who angered the Chinese government by singing pro-Tibetan independence lyrics during a show in Shanghai, shortly before the riots in Lhasa.

"I like Bjork's music very much. I think that when a new concept emerges, people will make comparisons with something already out there, and I'm OK with that. The most important thing is that as time passes, people see Sa Dingding's performances, then they can understand Sa Dingding's music better.

"This process takes time," she says.

Mixed traditions at World Music Awards

By Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard 31.07.08

This was the most whole-hearted of the Proms' forays beyond the Western classical tradition, offering music from three continents, some ancient, some modern, some post-modern. Each act had won a Radio 3 Award for World Music and constituted a miniature Womad. Indeed most of them played Womad last weekend.

Sa Dingding, a sensation in her native China, certainly puts on a show, with keening vocals, multiple costume changes, kung fu dancers and a band blending old Chinese and new Western instruments. Unfortunately the Chinese elements are subsumed within, and sometimes obliterated by, a thoroughly Western aesthetic. In a word, her music has been MTVed, although her work with almost forgotten languages presumably has a political dimension in China.

There was a more symbiotic blend of cultures between British guitarist Justin Adams and Gambian fiddler Juldeh Camara, who produced such a range of colour from his one-string riti that you wondered why the European violin needs four strings. Hardly less remarkable is the Malian ngoni, a kind of guitar-cum-banjo that, in the hands of Bassekou Kouyaté and his band Ngoni Ba, whips up a guttural tunefulness in which amplification becomes part of the instrumental make-up. Here, the gulf between Mississippi and Africa disappeared.

For dancing, nothing equalled the exuberance of Spain's Son de la Frontera. Their music sticks close to flamenco tradition, although Cuban guitar, less percussive than Spanish, produces a gentler inflection. The dancing, with amplified foot-stamping and virtuoso hand-clapping, had an equine grace, while the singing came from some deep well of anguish.

Any such event poses the question at the heart of the very notion of "world music": is globalisation a force for freedomor cultural homogenisation? On that one, over to you.

The best one to date

WOMAD is famed for giving lesser known artists a platform to shine on but Sunday was Africa's night. During the final 24 hours of the festival music fans lapped up the glorious sunshine and absorbed a lesson in true world music.

Nigerian Seun Kuti closed Womad with a rousing performance worthy of his late father, Fela, who was the former lead singer of his band Egypt 80. Fela was a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, and a pioneer of Afrobeat music, a human rights activist and political maverick. His son gave the festival a politically charged, rock inspired performance.

American country rock band Little Feat got the afternoon off to a rousing start on the open-air stage with a huge crowd strumming their air guitars to their lively set. French reggae group Babylon Circus and the African influenced Trans Global Underground gave audiences something to dance away the evening to.

But for many the highlight was British band Squeeze, who got the crowds up on their feet with a number of their hits including Up the Junction and Cool for Cats. The festival presented an eclectic mix of entertainment and the last word should go to organiser Peter Gabriel who called it musically one of the best festivals WOMAD ever had'.

By Lois Avery, Gazette & Herald, Thursday 31st July 2008

Hassan Hakmoun

Photo by Angel Romero

World Music Central, 30 jul 2008 Hassan Hakmoun was born in Marrakech in 1963. At the age of seven he began to study tagnawit, the Gnawa related arts and lore, under the renowned Hmida Boussou. Starting with a few dances and songs, he gradually moved on to learn drumming, sintir playing ( sintir is a three-stringed long-necked lute), litanies, chants, costume and knowledge of the spirits.

Hakmoun began to play for the Derdeba (Gnawa ceremony), which can last from ten in the evening into the next day. It is believed to release spirits that have inhabited a person or place. At fourteen, Hakmoun left school to pursue a less formal education on the road. He traveled throughout Morocco, Spain and up into France, learning from his experiences and from the Gnawa masters he visited on his journey.

Returning to Marrakech, Hakmoun continued to work as a Gnawa, performing as an entertainer on Jamaa el-Fna, the town square and working as a m'allem (master musician) in the Derdeba. Along with other young musicians in Marrakech, he has begun to broaden the repertory of Gnawa entertainment songs by performing Arab and Berber tunes in the Gnawa style. Whether onstage, or visiting with friends in a small apartment, as Hakmoun sings and plays himself into a trance, people around him seem not too far from a trance-like state themselves.

The pentatonic scale and driving rhythm of the Sintir are instantly appealing and familiar to Western audiences; music of the Gnawa, like much American popular music, is built from elements borrowed from West Africa. Clawhammer banjo enthusiasts will also find commonality in the percussive style of plucking the Sintir.

Hakmoun made his U.S. debut in 1987 at Lincoln Center and has been living in New York City ever since. He performed at Woodstock '94 and on the WOMAD '94 tour. Besides performing traditional Gnawa music he has performed and recorded with jazz musicians such as Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph, pop stars like Peter Gabriel and Paula Cole, and world beat artists like Jamshied Sharifi. In the year 2000, Hassan moved from New York to Los Angeles. He is romantically involved with pop singer Paula Cole.

WOMAD celebrates a successful 2008 festival

easier.com 30 July 2008

The 2008 WOMAD Festival has proved a massive success. Back at Charlton Park, Wiltshire for the second year, Lord Suffolk’s magnificent grounds were turned into an amazing mass of colour, sound and cultural activity, which saw 30,000 festivalgoers dance, sing and eat their way through a wonderful weekend.

WOMAD was back with the luck of beautiful weather on it’s 26th anniversary, after a run of 24 years of sun, last year’s festival was a welly festival for sure being hit by torrential rains all weekend. This year however, it has experienced a return to form with fantastic sunshine meaning red noses and shoulders were the only concern as families rocked up in there thousands.

2008 brought a new look site, placed over a greater area, it was met with great enthusiasm from artists and festivalgoers alike. With the main arena moving, to give both the festival a more free flowing feel, and to help counteract any more ‘freak’ weather, this new look to the grounds has proved a massive success.

Many new initiatives had been put in place this year that have been a success, one being the cup return policy (on returning a beer up, you get 10p back or 10p off the next pint), this has resulted in the festival having noticeably less litter, with many children taking it upon themselves to collect empties!

The WOMAD Festival has built up a reputation over the years as being the safest, and most family friendly festival to attend, and this year the festival organisers have surpassed themselves. Crime is at an all time low with only six arrests over the entire weekend. The Wiltshire Police and festival organisers have worked very closely this year to ensure that a safe, and enjoyable weekend was had by all!

Inspector Mark Levitt of the Wiltshire Police has this to say about this year’s festival - “Crime was significantly down in the region of 75%, no disorder, fantastic traffic management and visitors, staff and artists have created a wonderful atmosphere. We work really hard in regards to targeting organized criminals who seek out such festivals for stealing from tents. We are confident that this effort has resulted in far fewer arrests at this years event.”

Festival Director, Chris Smith - “2008 was an important year as we had to win back the trust of our audience and the local community after the mud bath of 2007. I am delighted that the success of this year has achieved both of these things and so much more, a fantastic festival with a great vibe in a beautiful place!”

This year was another phenomenal and eclectic line up, that only WOMAD can bring. Peter Gabriel called it - “musically one of the best festival we have ever had”.

The festival was full of many highlights, including Finley Quaye bringing everyone together with some classic hits as well as new material, followed by the energy filled Roni Size Reprazent who stated they were blown away by the vivaciousness of the WOMAD crowd.

Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee proved you can do two things at once as he wowed the crowd with his eclectic mixture of classical flute playing and urban beat boxing. Playing in the Siam Tent, Toumani Diabate proved WOMAD is a family festival through and through by bringing his son on stage for the first time in the UK.

Hailing originally from Los Angeles, Dengue Fever, gave an amazing performance mixing their Californian West Coast rock roots with the influence of Cambodian sounds picked up by the lead singer whilst travelling throughout Cambodia in the late ‘90s proving once again WOMAD is the Mecca of global amalgamation. Going from the sounds of California and Cambodia to the witching music of Sa Ding Ding, China’s pop princess, who wowed the audience not only with her upbeat songs but also with the couture dresses representing her life travels throughout her home.

This was followed by the legend Eddie Grant who played classics such as ‘Electric Avenue’ to an ecstatic audience who couldn’t help getting on their feet for a Grant induced boogie! The founder of the festival Peter Gabriel was also in attendance conversing with Karl Wallinger at the Little Sicily stage talking about the upcoming album Big Blue Ball.

Throughout the three days, seven stages, 70+ acts, numerous workshops, the Taste The World area and the world of wellbeing which is dedicated to the tired feet of dancers, plus much more, WOMAD has one again proven itself in its 26th year as the number one festival for World Music, Arts and Dance.

Show of Hands hit the festival trail

By Nadine Bateman, Portsmouth today, 29 July 2008

They've been described by Peter Gabriel as 'one of the great English bands', and Jools Holland says their music is 'wonderful'.

Devon's Show of Hands – widely recognised as the finest acoustic roots duo in England – set off early on their UK festival season this year, and will have notched up appearances at no less than 26 events by the time the summer's over.

Just days after completing their UK spring tour singer songwriter Steve Knightley and multi instrumentalist Phil Beer headed to Kent for the Sweeps Festival in May - the first of a summer full of performances that ends at St Ives Festival in Cornwall on September 14.

As well as returning to favourite flagship festivals such as Trowbridge, Fylde, Sidmouth and Towersey they will make their debut at 14 others, including WOMAD last weekend.

Womad at Charlton Park, Malmesbury

Bubbles, balloons and colourful flags filled the blazing blue sky above the utopian kingdom of Womad over the weekend. Thankfully, the sultry summer heatwave was much kinder to the global village fête after last year’s muddy relocation to this new Wiltshire site.

A genteel and family-friendly affair, Womad increasingly feels like the model for an ever-expanding calendar crop of eclectic boutique festivals such as the Big Chill, Bestival and Latitude. This year it felt more gentrified than ever, with luxury spa facilities making their debut. The only serious flaw was a lack of running water onsite, a surprising oversight for such a well-organised event.

Womad inevitably attracts grumbles from world music purists, but such sniping seems to wilfully misunderstand the event’s egalitarian, mongrel spirit. After all, any dissenters repelled by Squeeze’s nostalgia-laced Britpop or Martha Wainwright’s quirky confessionals could simply take refuge in the austere purity of the Uzbek folk singer Monajat Yulchieva or the devotional wailing of the Pakistani Sufi maestro Asif Ali Khan. All tastes were catered for.

One of the weekend’s early highlights was a rare appearance by the sporadically active 1970s disco legends Chic. Although the guitarist, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers is the group’s sole surviving founder member, the polished funk-pop classics, including Good Times, Le Freak and Everybody Dance, still sparkle like fine champagne.

Fusions of oriental and western pop were a feature of the weekend. One of the most entertaining was Dengue Fever, an LA-based group who overlaid a lively mix of psychedelic garage rock with the fluting vocals of the Cambodian singer Chhom Nimol. The punk veteran Jah Wobble also unveiled his latest project, Chinese Dub, a collaboration with his Chinese-born wife Zi Lan Liao that features reggae-rock arrangements of Mandarin, Mongolian and Tibetan folk songs.

Attempting something similar from a Chinese perspective, the award-winning Mongolian singer Sa Dingding sang traditional songs over modern pop instrumentation and electronic textures. Often likened to Björk, the elfin young diva wore a selection of spectacular costumes and ended her Sunday afternoon set on her knees, headbanging furiously. Weird but alluring.

Overall, this was a weekend of sunny celebration, from the rousing Franco-Algerian rabble-rock of Rachid Taha to the shimmering Afro-Caribbean pop of Eddie Grant, who inspired the crowd to form giant conga lines with vintage hits including I Don’t Wanna Dance and Give Me Hope Joanna. Sunday peaked with the West African veterans Orchestra Baobab, Senegal’s answer to the Buena Vista Social Club, whose undulating rhythms and mellifluous harmonies cross easily across national and generational borders. Perfect Womad headliners.

Sun shines on Womad

ITN Jul 28 2008

Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation were among the first performers on stage

Festival fans at the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival, or Womad, have enjoyed a weekend of sunshine in Wiltshire. Among the acts at Charlton Park near Malmesbury were Eddy Grant, Martha Wainwright, Squeeze and 70s New York funk/R&B outfit Chic. Around 25,000 music fans watched some 70 acts at the festival which was established by Grammy-winning musician Peter Gabriel.

Maverick producer and Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers said: "I've never had to play music to make a living ever since we made our first hits. After I wrote We Are Family, I now play music because I love being in front of people playing music, and if they understand the essence of our soul, that's all that counts."

Meanwhile, Mercury Prize-winner Roni Size Reprazent said: "What makes this festival different from every other festival that I've been to is when you walk into the tent. It's filled up with kids and buggies and their mothers and their fathers. Now that is an unbelievable sight."

Canadian singer-songwriter Wainwright, the sister of Rufus Wainwright, and who took to the stage in six-inch heels, said she loved playing outdoors. "I think it is important to get into the spirit of it and not worry too much about your hair and outfit," she said, adding: "But, at the same time, I'm more of a city person so when I get on stage I like to wear high heels and a dress, so I have to be myself too. I don't mind all of it, I don't mind being outdoors. It's sort of like my summer vacation."

Grant, who provided one the most powerful performances of the whole weekend, said he did not agree with the categorisation of non-Western music as "World Music". He said: "I think music is music and there should just be music festivals and people should just be able to play. But as I said, the world is built how the world is built, so therefore there is need for further definition of what should have already been defined. It's great the Womad festival exists, and it's not what they are called but what they do that counts."

We won back fans' trust says WOMAD boss

By Lois Avery, Gazette & Herald, 28th July 2008

Charlton Park near Malmesbury was blessed with glorious sunshine this weekend as 30,000 music fans poured in for the WOMAD festival.

After torrential downpours made last year's festival a mud bath the prayers for good weather this year paid off and WOMAD 2008 did not see a cloud in the sky all weekend.

And with a new look site covering an even bigger area the organisers have hailed the weekend a success.

Crime was at an all time low at the family friendly event with only six arrests over the entire weekend compared to over 100 last year.

Inspector Mark Levitt said: "Crime was significantly down in the region of 75%, no disorder, fantastic traffic management and visitors, staff and artists have created a wonderful atmosphere. We work really hard in regards to targeting organized criminals who seek out such festivals for stealing from tents. We are confident that this effort has resulted in far fewer arrests at this years event."

Safe in the knowledge that the site was safe, fans were free to enjoy the music.

With a line up that included Finlay Quaye, Squeeze, Eddy Grant, Martha Wainwright and Shane MacGowan they were not disappointed.

Festival director Chris Smith said: "2008 was an important year as we had to win back the trust of our audience and the local community after the mud bath of 2007. I am delighted that the success of this year has achieved both of these things and so much more, a fantastic festival with a great vibe in a beautiful place."

Womad on the sunny side of the beat

Simon Broughton, Evening Standard 28.07.08

There was one thing everybody was talking about at Womad and that was the weather.

Last year, the festival's new location in Wiltshire was a sodden mudpit. This year, it bathed in a sunny sense of disbelief.

Still to be sorted, though, is bad noise spill between some of the stages which had the Caribbean revels of Eddie Grant disrupting the devotional Sufi singing of Sheikh Taha from Egypt.

There were three groups who failed to make it from Congo, India and Pakistan due to visa trouble - a growing problem with red tape for artists from outside Europe. But after fears that Seun Kuti wasn't going to make it, the son of Fela got his visa and delivered vibrant Afro-beat till midnight last night.

With more than 60 acts over three days - from Bedouin folk songs to Chic, Mavis Staples to Cambodian pop - everyone makes their own festival. It was the UK premiere for Chinese singer Sa Dingding (who appears at the Proms on Wednesday), but her style-overcontent show seemed like an Orientalist fantasy including flags, fans and Buddhist ethnic chic.

Much more fun were Dengue Fever, giving catchy Cambodian pop songs a Californian makeover. But it was a couple of little-known groups that were the talked-about hits - Lo Cor de la Plana, virtuoso male singers from Marseilles doing polyphonic gymnastics, and Kenge Kenge, a band from Kenya with a fine song about Barack Obama.

Womad: what's the world coming to? When the world comes to Wiltshire

28/07/2008

Mark Hudson reviews Womad at Charlton Park, Wiltshire

This year, the premier world music festival featured a quirky Canadian singer-songwriter, a thundering journey into 1990s drum and bass, a veteran gospel diva and the return of a 1980s pop-reggae icon.

Indeed, looking at Saturday's programme, there appeared to be just about everything on offer but world music. Did it matter?

The organisers had assembled a positive cornucopia of African talent, yet many of these artists were tucked away in odd corners of the bill. Appearing early on Friday evening, the Malian kora master Toumani Diabate hit the ground at a level of speed and lightning-fingered virtuosity that appeared impossible to sustain.

While the rest of his set was something of an anti-climax, his band's rather uncertain foray into jazz, with slap-bass and piano, was well received by the crowd.

Playing on the tiny Radio 3 Stage, hidden in woods on the edge of the site, Kenya's Kenge Kenge Orutu System got Saturday off to an exuberant start with their joyous energy.

Performing on cow's horn trumpets, flutes and wailing fiddles, and powered by muscular kit drumming, the high point of their set was an exuberant tribute to Barack Obama, whose Kenyan father is a member of their Luo ethnic group.

The gospel legend Mavis Staples effortlessly commanded the main stage, her fabulously throaty voice backed by low-riding, swamp-funk grooves. A stark and brooding version of the Band's The Weight was the high point of a set that took rock back to its most elemental roots.

If Martha Wainwright's set felt like an hour of adolescent whingeing set to music, the drum and bass pioneer Roni Size blasted the cobwebs away with a frenetic journey into rhythm that was exhilarating in its energy, but nightmarish in its claustrophobia and horrendous volume.

Eddy Grant may have been born in Guyana and now live in South Africa, but his headlining set felt as quintessentially British as a bank holiday in Margate.

A parade of his golden oldies - Can You Feel My Love, Electric Avenue and a glorious calypso-flavoured Gimme Hope Jo'anna - transported you straight back to Top of the Pops circa 1982 and left the crowd baying for more.

If all this Western-centred nostalgia left you wondering what had happened to the Womad spirit of visionary cross-cultural collaboration, a wander into the vast Siam Tent provided the answer.

Lying on the ground as mystical Islamic singers from Egypt, Uzbekistan and Pakistan intoned into the small hours, while psychedelic patterns played over the roof, it felt like Womad's inspirational oddness was doing just fine.

TORONTO '08 | Columbia '68, Youssou Ndour, Valentino, and Varda in TIFF Doc Spotlight

A scene from Paul Cronin's "A Time To Stir." Photo courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival

Twenty-six documentaries have been added to the lineup for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. A work-in-progress of Paul Cronin's "A Time to Stir," about the Columbia University student strike in 1968, will screen as a work-in-progress in the event's Mavericks section, while the world premiere of Chai Vasarhelyi's "Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love," about the acclaimed musicisian, is on tap for the festivals Special Presentations section. Set for a North American premiere, after screening at the Venice Film Festival, are Matt Tyrnauer's "Valentino: The Last Emperor" (Special Presentations) and Agnes Varda's self-portrait "Les Plages d'Agnes" (Masters). Twenty-two other documentaries have been announced for the Toronto fests's Real to Reel section...

..."Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love," directed by Chai Vasarhelyi, USA (World Premiere)

One of Africa's most prominent musical exports, Youssou Ndour's distinctive tenor voice became internationally known through a string of popular tracks, including collaborations with Peter Gabriel and the hit "7 Seconds" with Neneh Cherry. Having used his fame to draw attention to a range of political issues, Ndour was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2007. Several years in the making, "Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love" follows Ndour as he releases the deeply personal album Egypt as an expression of his Islamic faith, challenging Western stereotypes of the religion while stirring controversy in his home country of Senegal...

by Eugene Hernandez (July 29, 2008)

Stopping Music Piracy

Slap on the wrist

The UK music industry has launched its biggest initiative against download piracy: a huge letter-writing campaign, targeting hundreds of thousands of illicit file-sharers with a mixture of appeals and vague threats. So far the business has concentrated on nailing the big peer-to-peer networks (most famously Napster in 2001) but the industry's efforts have had little effect: the average UK teenager now holds around 800 illegally-downloaded songs on his MP3 player.

This latest move attempts to jolt ordinary internet users out of that warm, fuzzy feeling of total anonymity. Legally, however, the record companies can’t actually lift a finger to stop them. With UK law skewed towards personal privacy above all else, and web providers unwilling to play policemen and sever any customer's internet connection (which would include the connection to their bank account), this new initiative isn’t likely to change much. Nor has the Digital Rights Management fiasco done the industry's moral stance much good.

A more realistic policy was suggested this week by former Genesis front-man Peter Gabriel, who called for a radical overhaul in the commercial structure of the music industry, with subscription and advertising replacing the increasingly unworkable pay-per-song system.

Posted by Jonathan Theodore, 28 July 2008

The global soul-tinged pop of Daby Toure

Between the rain-swept streets of Paris and the swirling sands of the Sahara, there lies a voice that is neither and both of these music-soaked places. Musician Daby Touré, son of the African desert and child of a Parisian musical upbringing, has created new boundaries and categories that go beyond territory, ethnicity or birthright with new release Stereo Spirit. Singer/songwriter Daby Touré explores the vivid common frontiers of African, jazz and pop music live at the baby grand in Wilmington on Monday, August 4 at 8pm.

This musician's life started out in Mauritania, where the Sahara, the world's largest hot desert, divides northern Arabic Africa with southern black Africa. There, in the village of Djeole on the banks of the verdant River Senegal, he grew up surrounded by music and a feast of languages and cultures. "I was born in Africa," mentions Touré. "And all the traditional music I picked up when I was young is still in me and that doesn't change. But in my music I am still searching, and mixing, and trying things and that's what I am doing now. I have travelled far from the 'traditional' or 'folkloric' music of my country."

His 2007 release Stereo Spirit attempts to offer some kind of musical solace in troubled times. "My songs are about giving people an emotion, making them feel good, just for a few moments," says Touré. "What I'm trying to do is to give people the best moment possible while listening to this album, even if they don't understand what I am talking about because I'm not speaking a language they understand."
Daby Touré's lyrics are a complex interplay between languages, both European and African. Along with French and English, he mixes Wolof with Soninké and Pulaar, the languages of his childhood that represent the different cultures that abound on the African continent.

"Stereo Spirit is a testament to the power of music to transcend linguistic barriers. Touré's sweetly haunting vocals and striking melodies have an ability to touch the listener, whether or not they share a common language. This isn't an album that takes time to appreciate; its effects are immediate and long lasting. From the first time you hear it, prepare to hum along, tap your toes, and be mesmerized by Daby's infectious brand of global soul-tinged pop"…"after one listening, you won't be able to get this album out of your head," says BBC reviewer Jan Gilbert.

"When you travel in Africa," says Touré, "you understand that people are really different, that there are so many different cultures and mindsets. And sometimes that can really complicate things because we don't speak the same language. What I am trying to do in this album is to say to people, 'look, we have to speak the same language, for our future and for the future of our children. We have to forget our differences so we can take steps towards becoming more powerful, more united as Africans for when we want to talk to the rest of the world.'"

With Touré's rich voice soaring through the songs that are sometimes only accompanied by the punctuated tapping of his fingers on the fret board, it is easy to see that this latest work Stereo Spirit - created over a three-month period in 2006 - is a one-man work of serious personal expression. Touré has already supported Peter Gabriel on the Still Growing Up tour, appeared on the main stage at WOMAD 2004 in Berkshire, and was nominated for best newcomer in the BBC Awards for World Music in 2006.

Contributed by the Arden Club Concert Music Gild • July 28, 2008

Womad a sunny success

Monday, July 28, 2008

Eddie Grant, Martha Wainwright and Finely Quaye wowed thousands of festival-goers in the sunshine at Womad.

The World Music, arts and dance festival in Charlton Park, Wiltshire was attended by more than 30,000 people and they were treated to great live music and glorious weather.

Chris Smith, festival director, said: "2008 was an important year as we had to win back the trust of our audience and the local community after the mud bath of 2007. I am delighted that the success of this year has achieved both of these things and so much more, a fantastic festival with a great vibe in a beautiful place!"

And musician and Womad founder Peter Gabriel called it "musically one of the best festival we have ever had".

Across the three days, over 70 acts played on seven stages. There were numerous workshops including the Taste The World area where festival goers could learn to cook international recipes, or just taste them.

Legend Eddie Grant played classics such as Electric Avenue to an ecstatic audience, and playing in the Siam Tent, Toumani Diabate demonstrated the family atmosphere of Womad by bringing his son on stage for the first time in the UK.