Mar Gabriel

Gabriel Le Mar’s been on a roll. Not content to recast techno through his simmering dub vernacular to yield ever more bracing results, he manages to construct records of both gorgeous accessibility and wholly entrancing affect. Among Trees I Want To Live finds him returning to Carpe Sonum armed with his characteristic brimstone and brio. Back in the 90s, a track sporting the seductive pulsations of “Regenerative” would have been classified as armchair techno; genre tokenisms aside, it is instead a sterling five minutes of neon throb and quacking guitar process that easily casts a spell on the dancefloor and home listening space alike…

This record, Nuevo Mundo, is a classic testament to creativity of the highest order. In the music contained within it we have a volcanic confluence of modern American music, Peruvian folk motifs and the all-pervasive African roots of both musics. And what Alegria does is funnel the musical lava through his horn whereby he makes a statement that is raw and harking to an ancient future so new that although there are touchstones of the historic past there is also something elementally new, unheard before… and altogether breathtaking.

Danças Ocultas are four accordionsts from Agueda near Porto who are among the most innovative and most exciting representatives of contemporary Portuguese music. For some years now they have been rising on the international world music scene – with an apparently very simple concept: quiet, lyrical, more or less traditional, with only four diatonic accordions.