"World Music" recommendations, anyone?

[antiant]

Originally Posted by wombastic

I had some Sundanese that was just amazing, I think I found it off of Amazon. Opened me up to world music.

I love "world music" because of the fact that no matter what you hear, what country it's from or what artist(s) it is it will always and most likely be "new" "fresh" "original" and "opening up" to me at least and there are so many different and unique styles in creating music (as well as instruments that you've never heard before) whether it's traditional, modern, a bit of both or something way out in leftfield, there's a lot of creativity and "world music" doesn't just open you up to other acts of "world music" but a variety of things that may not even be musically centered

[Davey]

Originally Posted by AC1

...got to see Zap Mama live because of it...not mentioned in this thread yet.

Yeah, I did just have a separate thread on Zap Mama a few days ago, but only got a couple responses and there was only a couple brief mentions in this thread by myself on the compilation I linked, and antiant in the big list, but great band nonetheless, especially on the earlier stuff for those that love the sound of female vocals.

[Enverxis]

Originally Posted by antiant

also try the following:
1. Natacha Atlas
2. Sezen Aksu
3. Lila Downs
4. Lhasa
5. Susheela Raman

THANKS!

[gevorg]

Here are some amazing world albums. No lyrics.

Armik - "Lost in Paradise" (flamenco guitar - contemporary)


Ara Malikian - "De la felicidad" (flamenco violin - contemporary) High quality recording - lots of air


Ara Gevorgian - "Ani" (Armenian New Age/Intrumental/Traditional) just amazing!


Djivan Gasparyan - "Tribute" (Armenian duduk - one of the most ancient instruments)



Most of these can be found on amazon.

[setmenu]

If anyone is interested in hearing the music of the Maasai people the cd:

Maigisa, songs of the Maasai, it is a great listen, and fantastic to walk with!

Here are a couple of links for Maasai music:


http://www.maasai-music.com/index.php


http://www.laleyio.com/

The last link has some sound clips to give a taster.



Enjoy

[binkgle]

varttina : group of four finnish women with a rocky, poppy, folkish style of music.

i noticed tuvan throat-singing was mentioned above. while i do like genghis blues, the best throat singing is done by the tuvans themselves. the group huun huur tu has some great stuff (i love the album live 1), and you should check out kongar-ol ondar, too (he's been one of tuva's greatest throat-singers for years on end, constantly winning the pan-tuvan throat singing competitions in multiple categories).

for something really fun, some tuvans got together with some russians to do throat singing with modern instruments. the band yat-kha came from this. two great albums are alydyn dashka and dalai beldiri.

great french rock/reggae = tryo (especially the album grain de sable)

[sacundim]

Originally Posted by markl

Baaba Maal-- Missing You

Buena Vista Social Club

Orchestra Baobab-- Speciailist In All Styles

All 3 are also awesome recordings to boot, Buena Vista a real reference disc. The Baobab disc was done by the same people, so it too is eerily good. The Babaa Maal was produced by the great John Leckie (probably best known on this board as producer of Radiohead's The Bends, though he's worked with Floyd, XTC and many greats).

I dislike BVSC, but I'll focus on the other two recommendations. Neither is a bad album, but I really think Baaba Maal's Djam Leelli and Baobab's Pirates' Choice are much, much better...

The sound quality is, by conventional standards, not as good, but it's plenty good enough.

[sacundim]

Here's a few I haven't seen mentioned:

• Caetano Veloso — Transa. Caetano Veloso is of course one of Brazil's most famous and popular musicians, and this one is my favorite album of his.
  
• Trio Mocotó — Samba Rock. Not really rock, but this is one hell of a groovy album. (Beware: their recently released album, Beleza! Beleza!! Beleza!!!, is nowhere near as good as this one.)
  
• Sam Mangwana — Galo Negro. A superb acoustic Congolese Rumba album.
  
• Les Cowboys Fringants — Break Syndical. OK, this is far from being your regular "world music" (a.k.a "third world") fare, since it's a really popular contemporary French Canadian (mostly acoustic) rock outfit. (It helps to understand French for this one, though the music's not bad.)
  
• The Rough Guide to Youssou N'Dour & Étoile de Dakar. Early stuff, but I like it much better than his later recordings.
  
• Late 60's and early 70's NYC salsa, on the Fania label. Most of all, the Willie Colón with Héctor Lavoe albums, but there's lots of good stuff to be found here.

I think it's just as important, however, to mention things I dislike, which other posters haven't done. I'll put my flame-resistant suit on, so here's a list:

• Bebel Gilberto. Boring. (Her father is, of course, utterly brilliant.)
  
• Baaba Maal's electric albums. (His acoustic stuff is another story, and I fully concur with other people's opinions above.)
  
• The gazillion of "world electronic music" (or "world groove," or whatever) albums that are out there. (But of course, I also dislike "non-world" electronic music.)
  
• The immense amount of dilettantism, arrogance, and escapist fantasy that exists among a lot of first-world "world music" aficionados. To put it bluntly, a lot of "world music" doesn't so much represent the local music that's popular in the countries in question, but rather, the aficionados' fantasies of what those countries are like, and ideas of what those people should be listening to. They edit out aspects of local music scenes that fail to confirm their fantasy.
  
  Examples: (a) the "world music" industry marketed the hell out of the Cuban hip-hop outfit Orishas (not a bad group, but not that great either), while totally ignoring the immensely popular and vital reggaeton genre coming from a lot of the neighboring countries (Puerto Rico, Panama, Dominican Republic, etc.); (b) the "world music" industry almost completely ignores the existence music from Cape Verde's largest, most populated island (Santiago), which has a very vital local music scene.
  
  And I'm not in a "defend music I like" mode here. I actually have never cared for reggaeton; and while I really like the funaná music from Santiago island in Cape Verde (which sadly is very hard to get abroad, except in bad versions from São Vicente artists), I don't care for French Caribbean dance beats they've adopted for most of their local pop music. But nearly every English-language "world music" publication I've ever read systematically fails to acknowledge the existence of such things, and it really boils down to (a) romanticized pictures of "exotic" countries, for the benefit of their customers, and (b) socioeconomic, racial and/or ethnic prejudice.
  
• The Buena Vista Social Club industry. Ugh. A bunch of really old guys playing son in a mediocre fashion, marketed at yuppies who, again, want a romanticized story about exotic Cuban music. Um, no, thanks.

[s m @]

^^^Your list of 'don'ts' is twice as long as your list of 'dos'.

I don't really see any implied insult in showing interest in any given culture/music. I also think I may be in the minority in that the few times I've heard BVSC, I've enjoyed it.

Edited for snarkiness.

[antiant]

Originally Posted by sacundim

Here's a few I haven't seen mentioned:[list][*]Trio Mocotó — Samba Rock. Not really rock, but this is one hell of a groovy album. (Beware: their recently released album, Beleza! Beleza!! Beleza!!!, is nowhere near as good as this one.)

i almost mentioned them haven't heard them yet though

I think it's just as important, however, to mention things I dislike, which other posters haven't done. I'll put my flame-resistant suit on, so here's a list:

• Bebel Gilberto. Boring. (Her father is, of course, utterly brilliant.)
  

i mentioned some i didn't like just didn't tell anyone/viewers because i figured what i don't like may very well be a "like" for someone else and i definitely agree with you on bebel, although her music is "nice" it doesn't have that "PUNCH" to me (i can listen to her, but not continuously).

• The immense amount of dilettantism, arrogance, and escapist fantasy that exists among a lot of first-world "world music" aficionados. To put it bluntly, a lot of "world music" doesn't so much represent the local music that's popular in the countries in question, but rather, the aficionados' fantasies of what those countries are like, and ideas of what those people should be listening to. They edit out aspects of local music scenes that fail to confirm their fantasy.

i mentioned this briefly, nice point, i'm in the same boat with you on this one...it's like getting a tattoo of another culture because it's "cool"...you know that whole "asian" character fad type of thing except with music, i believe part of this is due to the fact that most don't speak the language and so what they hear is "different" and thus world music to them, but you have to really dig a lot deeper than that to find TRUE "world music"

And I'm not in a "defend music I like" mode here. I actually have never cared for reggaeton....But nearly every English-language "world music" publication I've ever read systematically fails to acknowledge the existence of such things, and it really boils down to (a) romanticized pictures of "exotic" countries, for the benefit of their customers, and (b) socioeconomic, racial and/or ethnic prejudice.

i hate reggaeton as well everything within that genre or whatever you want to call it, is repetitive, but i digress...as far as the romanticism, socioeconomic, racial and/or ethnic prejudice...that comes with the territory unfortunately in most cases or with some people

there's a lot of "surface material" as far as "world music" goes and if you really want to get into different world musicians or whatever...you've got to do a lot of scratching on the surface and try and find that "core" if one even exists, but overall those are great points to consider with "world music" and music in general