World > European World > Celtic

Advantages: wonderful songs
Disadvantages: none really

...instrumental song. ~~~~~ Dreamcatcher is a 18 track "Best Of" album released in 2000 and created especially for the UK market to bring us up-to-date with Secret Garden's previous albums: White Stones, Songs From A Secret Garden and Dawn Of A New Century. Just a note: Normally I would not add lyrics to my music reviews, but because not all the songs have lyrics and for the ones that do, they aren't very long at all. I thought it would create a more ...
...~~~~~ Track 4 - Dreamcatcher 4.35 (taken from the album Dawn Of A New Century) The song starts and ends with the short lyrics written by Nikki Matheson who provided backing vocals in the second track "Prayer". Hear my silent prayer Heed my quiet call When the dark and blue surround you Step into my sigh Look inside the light You will know that I have found you As with the other songs on this album it is a calming song but thanks to the talents ... Read review

Advantages: Wintery, mellow, haunting, classic, beguiling
Disadvantages: Er...er... well, none actually.

...has improved with age and Amarantine represents something of a tour de force. The tracks swing wildly from the soaring, majestic sound of the first song (Less than a pearl) to the more sedate, ethereal pleasantry of the eleventh (Amid the falling snow). Some of the tracks are encouraging, urging you to feel better about things and get on with life (Track 6 - Long, Long Journey) while others simply instill within you the firm belief that everything ...
...In fact, the music drags you through such a range of emotions and themes that, by the time the CD ends, you have utterly forgotten who you are, what you were doing, where you were going and why. The wonderful thing about it is, that you don't really care any more. It is hard to say when you should listen to Enya; she lacks the upbeat tempo of 'getting ready' music, is not suicidal enough for 'just split-up' music and doesn't swear enough for 'I'm ... 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