World > Latin World > 10 GBP to 15 GBP

Advantages: Great musical album
Disadvantages: don't understand all the words... but who cares!

This guy is french, but the songs are written in all sorts of languages... french, spanish, english, portugeuse... possible many more. a marvelous melange of language, culture and rhythms. he is huge in france, spain, south america... any country where the above mentioned romantic languages are spoken. So.. why would an anglophone like this album? Well it is superb music. The mix and lyrics mix is great. La Primavera is an infectious pop song that ...
...this album blend into each other perfectly, leaving almost no silence between them. It's a great holiday album and a great album to have on when you're getting ready to go out... I even listen to it when I'm reading a book. Manu chao has several other albums, but this 2001 release is my personal favourite by far. He does concerts every now and then and is completely electric. He's known as the latino bob marley in south america! this is the track ... Read review

Advantages: Amazing melodies and profound beautiful lyrics
Disadvantages: Absolutely none

Silvio Rodriguez is known in Latin America simply as Silvio. This alone goes to show the status he has reached in his beloved America Latina. "Cuba Classics" or "Canciones Urgentes" (Urgent Songs) is usually the album of his that you will find more readily in Britain. However, you can order most of them from amazon.co.uk. This one costs £11.99. **************************************** Silvio Rodriguez Dominguez is a Cuban; a Cuban of the Revolution. ...
...people really understand the Cuban Revolution and only heed what the media say about it, but that is a different topic. I urge you to pay more attention to the artistic side of his though, for his melodic music is simply matchless and for those who understand Spanish, his lyrics are pure poetry. ***************************************** It is very difficult to "judge" an album of this maestro, and indeed I will do no such thing. I will merely try ... Read review

Advantages: Some great recordings of rare tracks
Disadvantages: Misses some of Romica's best works

From 1864 and the abolition of slavery, many homeless gypsies settled on the outskirts of southern towns of Romania, these areas were called "mahalas" and it was where the songs "cantece de mahala" (songs of the suburbs) originated. People met in the local cafe or "carciuma" and a group of local musicians the "taraf" which usually consisted of violinist, double bass player, cobza, accordian and tambal and vocalist would entertain everyone else. This ...
...in 1926 in Bucharest and started singing in cafes by the age of 14 but it wasn't until 1964 that she actually recorded an album, The Gore Brothers (famous Romanian musicians - Aurel and Victor) who also grew up in the same mahala and were in fact cousins to Puceanu helped her become famous by organising gigs for her. She has a strange voice, sometimes incredibly high other times really low - quite similar to a black male blues artist. She was infact ... Read review

Advantages: Uplifting and joyful
Disadvantages: For a debut album, it's hard to fault

...based since 2003 and where Navega was recorded. On this delightfully poised debut album, the 23 year-old Mayra sings on all but one of the songs in a Cape Verdean Creole - a language derived from Portuguese. I didn't realise how different the language was until I looked at the strange text in which the lyrics are written. I had the unusual experience of being able to understand more her singing voice, but less able to decipher the written lyrics. ...
...CD booklet, though after some study I have come to the conclusion that the English translation is not a good one. Nevertheless, there is enough to give you a good sense of the feel and subject matter of each song. Musical InfluencesLargely due to her background, Mayra Andrade's music is a mixture of international influences, in which traditional Cape Verdean rhythms and song-forms are fused with Afro rhythms, Latin melodies, Brazilian samba ... Read review

Advantages: A sublime fusion of roots and more modern music
Disadvantages: Not as good as some contemporaries

This is the self-named album Kal by Kal! Kal are a Serbian band from the small village of Valjevo but are now based in Belgrade, they fuse traditional roma music with a very slight amount of pop/crooning, they are one of very few Serbian artists that still play Balkan music in the traditional sense as Serbian music is these days liittered with keyboards in general. Kal (Romani for black) were once described by a BBC journalist in Leicester as "the ...
...spot on in this case. Kal dress in black suits and hats which instantaneously gives them a mafia look, this image is quickly broken though as they're jolly outlook on life woos the crowd where ever they are quite quickly. The band themselves do a lot of work in Serbia to integrate the roma people in to Serbia in general through theatre productions spanning from Budapest to Belgrade and Bucharest, each year they also run a school (Amala School in ... Read review