World > Latin World

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

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