What a perfect title for Imani Uzuri's second album, not only because there are hints of Roma music throughout, but because it's hard to imagine where this restless, distinctively gorgeous album's home might lie. Uzuri, a singer-songwriter from North Carolina, takes her blues and country roots trekking, routing it through sounds and scenes she's encountered as a world traveler: Indian classical, Sufi devotional, Afro-pop, Eastern European folk, tango, Turkish pop. It's quite a scope, but Uzuri and her rich, deep, magnificent voice give it a soulful focus. "Gathering" will change your life.
Ten years after the end of Sierra Leone's brutal civil war, the Refugee All-Stars look both back and forward. An homage to the role of radio in Africa, especially during war, their third album is steeped in sounds the All-Stars grew up hearing over the airwaves -- funk, soukouss, reggae, Afrobeat -- and recorded on vintage analog equipment (with Antibalas vet Ticklah at the helm). Woven into that warm throwback fuzz, however, is a map of how far this group has come. Tracks like the dubby, psyched-out "Toman Teti" showcase some of the tightest grooves the Refugees have ever assembled.
Words that would be criticisms for another band are celebratory for Cornershop: Scattershot. Difficult to pin down. Fluffy. But a playful, crazily eclectic aesthetic that toys with pop structures has always been this British dance-rock group's ethos. Urban Turban just epitomizes it. Skipping from disco to Bollywood to alt-dance, it laces each style with idiosyncratic beats and disparate guest vocalists. Here and there -- like "Who's Gonna Light It Up?," a hodgepodge of throbbing guitars, distanced soul vocals and tabla -- all that lovely flightiness congeals into something beautifully solid.
Aziza Brahim is too often lumped in with the Sahara's big blues bands. And while she does share some aesthetic traits -- a raw rock 'n' roll mournfulness, a contemplative roll to her sound -- with acts like Tinariwen, Brahim's blues are distinctive. A Spanish-speaking Sahrawi artist who assembled a band of artists from around the globe, Brahim weaves Iberian or Gypsy sounds into many of her tracks (see the flamenco-ish "Laaiun Ezeina") and generally imbues Mabruk with a kind of cosmopolitan chic. But it's the interplay of quietly moving vocals and the driving rock licks that grab at your soul.
Curumin's third album employs the same whiplash-inducing experimentalism of his fantasy world JapanPopShow. That means bells and whistles, Gypsy horns and Indian chants, industrial beats and shimmering samba grooves -- and that's just "Treme Terra." Elsewhere, otherworldly, acid-washed instrumental tracks and space-age dub-funk ("Doce") cozy up to pop-friendly bossa cuts like "Passarinho." Two albums of this kind of eclecticism can sound a bit samey-samey at first glance (and Arrocha isn't as tight), but closer listens (which Curumin thrives on) unearth plenty of innovative new nuggets.
This is the second Rough Guide to highlife, which speaks to both this West African genre's importance and the incredible wealth of it that exists. The compilation spans the gamut of highlife, a style of dance music that began in the early 20th century and went on to incorporate elements of jazz, rock and funk. Frantic jams, playful party tunes and mellow grooves are all stitched together with rolling guitars, bits of wind instruments and syncopated rhythms. Artists include kings like Celestine Ukwu and Dr. Victor Olaiya, as well as a young Fela Kuti, who got his start kicking out the highlife jams.
Reinventing various psychedelic wheels has been the name of the world music game for a while, so it's about time someone made Ethio-jazz their vehicle. And what a vehicle Debo Band has renovated with their debut. This Boston collective is well-versed in the prickly pentatonics, gently out-of-sync rhythms and snaking melodies that make up a heady Ethio-groove (see any of the classic covers and originals here). But things get really interesting when those grooves are used as a jumping off point into klezmer ("Habesha"), cabaret ("Ambassel") and jazz from Gypsy to NOLA. An exhilarating ride!
Like a musical mystery tour of Brazil, Quilombo do Futuro dances across capoeira, baile funk, samba, hip-hop, even forro -- the sounds of Brazil past and present, in other words, played by musicians who have mastered these traditions and styles. Where the futuro comes in is that each of these styles has been sutured to blazing-hot electronic dance beats by Maga Bo, the American DJ behind this fascinating project. Berimbau twangs are bolstered by global bass, dancehall riddims saunter around a samba shuffle, and the whole thing feels like a globe-trotting conga line we want to join. Now.
Besides a play on (racist) vintage exotica, Chicha Libre's second album title is also a reference to musically omnivorous habits -- habits these expat New Yorkers who play an obscure form of Peruvian psychedelic cumbia have hung their hats on. With chicha as its wavering foundation, Canibalismo gobbles up hits of nearly every complementary style: spaghetti western, surf rock, French café pop, samba and more. But don't let the acid haze fool you: The Scooby Doo slink of "Danza Del Millonario" and even the chicha-fying of Wagner are tightly coiled, carefully crafted grooves.
Even if you don't speak any of the languages Niyaz (Farsi for "yearning") reference on Sumud (Arabic for "steadfastness"), it will make sense to learn that the group's third album is an exploration of religious oppression around the world. A pensiveness that transcends linguistics pervades Sumud. Each track here swells and sways with thoughtful Middle Eastern pop. Melodies and instrumentation culled from wide-ranging classical and spiritual traditions (Sufi, Indian, Afghani, among others) are cut with shimmering electro-beats and grounded by Azam Ali's mournful crooning. Gorgeous stuff.
