World > Latin World > 5 GBP to 10 GBP

Advantages: Gets Everything Moving!
Disadvantages: None

...programme on television about the Buena Vista Social Club, I was inspired to buy this CD. And, I was not disappointed! I don't usually buy music from this genre but I was soon dancing around the room 'shaking my booty'! - not a pretty sight!! The front CD cover shows Ibrahim, wearing a leather cap, looking as though he's had a great deal of life's experiences and enjoyed them along the way! The plastic CD cover is also covered by a cardboard one. ...
...until he appeared with the Buena Vista Social Club, that he gained a more international recognition. The album was mixed in Havana by the same group used by The Social Club, and so you get the same feel for the music - they know what they are doing! Other artists and musicians have been invited to perform on this recording and so you get a good mix of sounds and a wide range of talented people - mainly from Cuba. Ry Cooder has produced this album, ... Read review

Advantages: Easy listening
Disadvantages: Spanish lyrics

...1999) I had heard of Buena Vista Social Club for many years but only recently I dug out this treasure and started to appreciate it. Sometime ago I saw the documentary film about Buena Vista Social Club on FilmFour; I was so captured by the music in the film that I ordered the CD album straight away from Internet. Ry Cooder, the producer of the CD, said in the introduction, "In Cuba the music flows like a river. It takes care of you and rebuilds ...
...umm umm... 13) Buena Vista Social Club * * * * * Believe me, this jazzy piano piece really flows like river. I loved it! 14) La Bayamesa * * * A patriotic song about a woman who burnt down her house to prevent the enemy taking over. ♪ But she can hear her homeland crying out… ♪ She has left everything, she has burnt everything… The CD is sold with a 48-page booklet describing the background of the tracks, plus the lyrics ... 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

Advantages: Superbly talented musicians playing good music
Disadvantages: Flute irritates me sometimes

...throughout the 18th century. Kobzar is brought out by the German record label Eastblok Music and was released in March 2008. 1 - Vstup Is a 19 second song which I'm unaware of the point of, perhaps it has significance. 10/10 or 0/10 depending on how you look at it. 2 - Efir - 4:34 A jolly song where accordian, drumming and later trumpet features highly with a catchy chorus and impressive near orient or latino "aaah's" (if you know what I mean!) ...
...Tramvayem Violin, trumpet and accoustic guitar heavy track to start off with yet another upbeat feeling accompanied with a bit of crooning and later gets a more funky, jazzy feel to it. Insane song to dance to. 8/10 4 - Message Starts off with a heavy metal/hard rock style and moves into reggae with space noises plus the occasional folks instrument (possibly bagpipes) and later jazz trumpets, sang in Polish mostly due to the song being written ... Read review

Advantages: The antithesis of commercial rubbish.
Disadvantages: Very few.

This is must buy as along with being great music is also a documentation of rarely recorded works of a fleeting genre. A number of the artists recorded have never previously been recorded at all and some are now deceased, since these recordings were made. Sufi music is Islamic in nature but has very little to do with organised religion. The music itself is not written or performed to any set standard but rather being truly folk music is passed down ...
...the genre thus evolves quite organically. These CDs concentrate on Pakistani Sufi music which grew out of Islamic mysticism that developed around the Indus river from the 8th century onwards. The content varies from deeply haunting to light-hearted to the almost surreal in Ghulam Ali Qawwal and Party's "Deewana hai Deewana". The recordings include the unsung masters Pathane Khan and Allan Fakir as well as various tribal instrumentals from Sindh and ... Read review