Copenhagen, Istanbul, Brasil
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| Music Reviews | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I regularly review new electronic and world music releases for PopMatters and maintain strong contacts within the expat electronic music scene in Germany. Recent reviews include new CDs by: Wax Poetic, Antibalas, Tobias Thomas, Lanu, MIDIval PunditZ, Ellen Ailleen, The Cinematic Orchestra, Magda, Nick Warren, Hakan Lidbo, Yndi Halda, and Azam Ali. Click the headlines to read complete clips. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Cinematic Orchestra: Ma Fleur | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ... Conceived as a narrative to an as-yet-unmade film, the album begins with chords on a quietly insistent piano that open into the crescendoing strings and vocals of "That Home". The song's gentle lyrics, a reflection on place - "Where the windows are breathing in the light, / where the rooms are a collection of our lives" - serve as an apt metaphor for the remainder of the album. As (vocalist) Patrick Watson continues, "This is a place where I don't feel alone/ This is a place that I call my home", you feel as though the orchestra is inviting you into their emotional home, to breathe in the light, to experience the mood swings and along with them, an atmospheric progession. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Bulletproof Afrobeats" Antibalas: Security | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Over the last decade, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra has established itself as one of the leading purveyors of afrobeats in the world. The genre founded in the 1960s by Femi Kuti in Nigeria hybrids jazz with the Yoruba/Nigerian music tradition and incorporates Afrocuban, palmwine, apala, highlife, funk and soul. The result is an eclectic, mutable assortment of sound, one that's both horn-driven and motivated by bass, both up tempo and chill, both African and American. It's James Brown with congas, Zola without the heavy bass drops. Overlaying a distinct, frantic style of composition with unabashedly political lyrics, Kuti created a new form of protest music, one that fits as perfectly in today's US as it did in 1960s Lagos. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Indian Electronica Gone Awry" MIDIval PunditZ: Remixed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ...Combining elements of India's rich musical heritage with electronic basslines and danceable beats affords producers ample opportunities for creating incredible, unique sounds. ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Wax Poetic's Series of Streetscapes" Wax Poetic: Copenhagen, Istanbul, Brasil |
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| ...Releases on Nublu prove as varied and unpredictable as nights out at the like-named live-music bar/lounge in New York's Alphabet City -- you never know who's going to show up, or what mood they're going to be in. ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Lanu: Right at Home" Lanu: This Is My Home | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ...A hybrid of sounds, the introduction sets listeners up well for the eclecticism to come by sampling various styles, from uptempo funk to Afrobeats to breaks, and foretells the impending digital fluctuations. ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel | Green | Fiction | Music | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Health | CV | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| courtneytenz *at* gmail *dot* com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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