Jan Fairley

Various artists - Songlines Music Awards 2012

Innovative magazine championing new and classic world music acts

(Songlines/Proper Music) Despite difficult times for music business sales, with popular small independents reporting they are barely covering their costs, let’s hear it for this innovative magazine. Songlines champions new and classic acts, offering…

Roberto Fonseca - Yo

Pianist combines cutting edge jazz, lyrical poems and more clubby sound

(Montuno/ Jazz Village) Hitherto dressed by number one French fan Agnès B, Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca literally strips naked to underscore journeying into the diaspora of his Afro-Cuban roots. As eclectic as ever, Fonseca walks a fine line between…

Martyn Bennett - Aye

A collection of the best tracks from the late celtic fusion artist

(Long Tale Records) Seven years after his tragic early death, wunderkind Martyn Bennett’s legacy lives on. Anyone who never experienced the live or recorded version of his multi-instrumental music (whistles, fiddles, piano, bagpipes) will surely gasp…

Batida - Batida

African-inspired electronica record that probably works best in a club setting

(Soundway) Having carved out a reputation for unearthing rare tracks of touchstone Latin musics, Soundway now champions hot sounds heard today on the streets of Luanda. Angolan/Portuguese DJ Mpula (aka Pedro Coquenão) creates electronic dance music…

Various Artists - World Routes: On The Road

30-track BBC Radio 3 compilation featuring Toumani Diabaté, Tito Paris and Ilham Al Madfai

(Nascente) How would we hear diverse world musics without Radio 3? Thank goodness they still have the budget to travel to far-flung places to capture stunning sounds from ordinary musicians we’d never know about otherwise. Since 2000 the World Routes…

Ibrahím Maalouf - Diagnostic

A groundbreaking album of brooding French-Arabic tones from trumpeter

(Harmonia Mundi) The brooding French-Arabic quarter tones of Ibrahím Maalouf’s trumpet first seduced as guest on the late Lhasa de Sela’s desert island disc The Living Road. Bewitching then, Maalouf’s own debut with a brace of tremendous musicians…

Baobab-Gateway – Strings That Sing

Accomplished Scottish-African musicians with healthy, multicultural roots

(Brechin All) Baobab-Gateway’s name pinpoints the West African influences found in their original sound. The international pedigree and multi-ethnicity of these experienced Scottish based musicians (Salsa Celtica, Bhundu Boys, Waa Sylla) is a…

Simon Thacker and the Nava Rasa Ensemble – Nada-Ananda

Fruitful reinterpretation by the British classical guitarist and collaborators

(Slap The Moon) Shirish Korde’s Nada-Ananda concerto allows classical guitarist Simon Thacker and South Indian violinist Jyotsna Srikanth, working with the Edinburgh Quartet, Brazilian bassist Mario Caribe and percussionist Iain Sandilands, to show…

Anoushka Shankar - Traveller

Thrillingly diverse yet fluent sequence of Indian and flamenco that does justice to both

(Deutsche Grammophon) With cutting-edge Spanish producer Javier Limón as collaborator, Anoushka Shankar (daughter of Ravi, sister of Norah Jones) brings together two strong cultures linked historically by nomadic Roma gypsies. Created more or less in…

The Very Best of Muzsikás featuring Márta Sebestyén - Fly Bird, Fly

Fantastic retrospective of the Hungarian folk group's career

(Nascente) Early on, Hungarian musicians Muzsikás, with singer Márta Sebestyén, were at the forefront of the European folk scene. Forty years after they pushed forward traditions championed by ethnomusicologists Bartok and Kodaly, they sound as fiery…

Caetano Veloso & Maria Gadú - Multishow Ao Vivo

Concert from Brazilian singer/guitarist and up and coming singer

(Universal) This superb stripped-back concert sees Brazilian hero and singer/guitarist Caetano Veloso partnered by up-and-coming female singer Maria Gadú. Armed only with acoustic guitars, their deceptively light, shapely and meaningful voices blend…

Julaba Kunda - Traders

Scotland’s Griselda Sanderson and Gambia’s Juldeh Camara conjure magical range of timbres and tones

(Waulk Music) ‘Traders’ aptly describes the exchange of tunes and oral tradition between Scotland’s Griselda Sanderson and Gambia’s Juldeh Camara (often seen touring as a duo with Justin Adams and supporting Robert Plant). 2010’s snowy winter saw a…

Javier Limón - Mujeres de Agua

Spanish musician-producer's songs with 12 top female singers from across the Mediterranean

(Wrasse) Spanish musician-producer Javier Limón is a man of tremendous intuition and vision: responsible for watershed discs for artists like Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucía, or the collaboration between Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés and Spanish singer…

Sia Tolno - My Life

Empoweringly feelgood collection from Young Guinean singer

(Lusafrica) Young Guinean singer Sia Tolno overcame civil war exile to compose defiantly funky songs championing a better life for African woman and children. Her richly rhythmic tones have been rightfully compared to Miriam Makeba and Tina Tuner (as…

Various artists - The Rough Guide to World Lullabies

Globe-spanning collection of bedtime songs

(World Music Network) Despite the fact that so many plug into i-Pods daily, it seems folk still enjoy going old school, and serenading their babes with a restful lullaby. For List readers who may have tiny ones in their immediate or extended family…

Lucas Santtana - Sem Nostalgia

Playful, laid-back guitar work from the Brazilian musician

(Mais Um Discos) Publicity can backfire, as with comparing songwriter Lucas Santtana to bossa nova innovator João Gilberto. Where Gilberto distilled everything through a ‘cool’ Brazilian sensibility, Santtana represents more 21st century, universal…

Various artists - Cumbia! Bestial

(Chusma records) Americans have been dancing in time with the Colombian cumbia music style, with its easy slide side-to-side moves in 2/4 time since the 60s, it really hit the international club scene in the 21st century. Cumbia! Bestial offers a…

Hammock House - Africa Caribe

Classic original DJ-friendly Latin music of 70s and 80s plus remixes

(Fania-Código) Brooklyn DJ/producer Hammock House, aka Joaquín ‘Joe’ Claussell, wittily adds vital 21st-century underpinning to Latin classics created for Fania, the New York label responsible for the hottest, most pertinent Latin music of the 70s…

Vieux Farka Touré - The Secret

Tracks that decorate rather than eclipse Malian blues and father's legacy

(Six Degrees) Anyone watching the 2010 South African World Cup opening concert will have seen Vieux Farka Touré showing he is no longer merely walking in father Ali’s footsteps. This album sees Vieux recording in Brooklyn and Bamako, developing…

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - The 1st Album (1973)

Sensationally funky West African music from a 16–piece with brooding organ melodies

(Analog Africa) In 1970s West Africa, various creative ensembles emerged in the former French trading post of Cotonou, Benin; notably the vibrant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo. Their distinctive earthy grooves mined a musical axis involving neighbouring…

Susana Baca - Afrodiaspora

(Luaka Bop) Grammy award winning Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Baca was an early signing to Talking Head David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label and her latest, long-awaited album sees her explore rhythms of the African-Latin diaspora. Her attractive, clear…

Various Artists - Songlines Music Awards 2011

Varied and fluent tracks from world music awards shortlist

(Songlines) Kicking off with Femi Kuti’s throbbing Afrobeat anthem ‘Dem Bobo’, this is a superbly varied, fluent sequence of top tracks from the 16 nominees for the 2011 Songlines Music Awards. The foremost international music magazine stepped into…

Mariza - Fado Tradicional

Stunning fifth album from Portguese fado singer

(EMI) Mariza, with her iconic, bleached short hairstyle has become an international star since reviving classic Portuguese fado, placing her country and its compelling port songs on the musical map. This new release is her best ever, a 12-song…

Seun Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80 - From Africa with Fury: Rise

The youngest Kuti maintain's the family's vibrant Afrobeat legacy

(Knitting Factory Records/ Because Music) The youngest son of Fela Kuti and step-brother of the fiery Femi, Seun Kuti records and tour with a rejuvenated version of his father’s old band Egypt 80 with whom he has played since pre-teens. This is…

Five reasons to go see Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

The African Soul Rebels visit the Usher Hall

1. He’s part of the afrobeat dynasty. Nigerian musician Seun Kuti plays sax, chant-sings and dances – not unlike his legendary father Fela, pioneer of the funky Nigerian afrobeat sound. ‘What inspires me is Africa today’, says Seun. ‘The same things…