Les Amazones d’Afrique are an all-female collective of west African musicians, campaigning for gender equality. They have been described as a supergroup, and the characterisation seems apt. Angélique Kidjo, Kandia Kouyaté, Mamani Keita, Mariam Doumbia, Mariam Koné, Massan Coulibaly, Mouneissa Tandina, Nneka, Pamela Badjogo and Rokia Koné hold a strong pedigree, and it’s a rare opportunity to witness such a collaboration; the real sound of contemporary Africa.
Pianist Vijay Iyer's fifth album for ECM, 2017's fiery sextet date Far from Over, follows his superb 2016 collaboration with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. Where that album found Iyer and Smith engaged in a deeply interconnected series of often abstract chamber improvisations, here we find him exploding outward, but with no less interconnectedness between him and his bandmates.
Tyketto’s debut album, “Don’t Come Easy” is considered a landmark release amongst melodic hard rock albums of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. While the band has continuously put out quality recordings over the years, fans and critics alike hold the debut album in especially high regard…
Nate Smith‘s visceral, instinctive, and deep-rooted style of drumming has already established him as a key piece in reinvigorating the international jazz scene, and now his rising career reaches a new benchmark with the release of his bandleader debut, KINFOLK: Postcards from Everywhere (February 3, 2017 via Ropeadope Records). Much like his diverse and ample résumé (which includes esteemed leading lights such as Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Ravi Coltrane, José James, Somi, and Patricia Barber, among others), this album sees Smith fusing his original modern jazz compositions with R&B, pop, and hip-hop.
Goran Bregović has done it all. A rock star in the former Yugoslavia, he went on write film scores and ride the fashion for brassy Balkan Gypsy music, selling over 6m albums and collaborating with everyone from Iggy Pop to the Gipsy Kings. Now he celebrates the history of his birthplace Sarajevo, a meeting place for Christians, Muslims and Jews before the Balkan war, with a wildly varied set. There are instrumental pieces honouring the three religions, each dominated by a different violinist, and including powerful atmospheric work from Tunisia’s Zied Zouari. They would work well as a documentary soundtrack. And then there are songs, many of which develop into a brassy knees-up. The cast includes the cool and dramatic Spanish singer Bebe, the Israeli folk-rocker Asaf Avidan, and – best of all – the exuberant Algerian rai-punk rocker Rachid Taha. Patchy, maybe, but often enormous fun.