Every now and then we chance upon an album that commands our full attention and speaks to us with a voice that is entirely its own. Such is the case with Arab Palestinian singer, musician and vocal/music therapist Samah Mustafa, who late last year released her nine-track album "Balloor" to the world. "Balloor" (or 'Crystals') sees Samah exploring new levels and layers in her own voice, using it both as an instrument and a means to express different [...]

Look up in the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane? Balkan Taksim are prepared for liftoff. The Romanian duo just released single number four off its forthcoming, long-awaited debut album and is now set to premiere the accompanying official music video via yours truly. Blending electronic psychedelia with regional traditions, multi-instrumentalist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici and producer Alin Zăbrăuțeanu are currently pushing the boundaries of contemporary Balkan [...]

Beckoning us to join him on his latest tropicalia-tinged, club-ready single "Vem" is Berlin-based producer, DJ, radio host, journalist and Man Recordings label founder Daniel Haaksman. Haaksman has long been a purveyor of global bass and tropical styles, ranging from his 2004-released "Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats" compilation to his 2016-realeased "African Fabrics" LP and his 2020-released "Black Atlantica Edits". So it may not come as a surprise that his [...]

Easter is here and with that we present you Teno Afrika's "Amapiano Selections" released late last year on the always stellar Awesome Tapes from Africa imprint. In case you were wondering, let us provide some more context: Like kwaito and diBacardi, the amapiano style of electronic music arose from the townships of South Africa, marked by a "DIY ethos" and "evolving from an underground sound to a nationwide mainstream staple," Setumo-Thebe Mohlomi's liner notes [...]

Dobry dzień! Hot on the heels of their widely celebrated reissue of Polish songstress Renata Lewandowska's 1970s classic "Dotyk" (in collaboration with The Very Polish Cut Outs), Astigmatic Records returns with a sizzling 7" release by the "founder, leader and conductor of the funkiest orchestra in Eastern Europe."  Preceded by the remastered reissue of Henryk Debich and the Łódź Polish Radio and Television Orchestra's 1978-recorded LPs "Horyzonty" and "[...]

What have we here? Country? Western? Flamenco? As the sounds of J.H. Guraj's guitar come tumbling out of our speakers we cannot help but wonder, where's this coming from and where's it going? Mysterious yet familiar and most definitely enticing, we decide to wander down the same dirt road, marveling at each and every unfamiliar turn. Is this free-flowing improvisation or premeditated ? 

J.H. Guraj released his bountiful opus back in the summer of 2020 on [...]

It's a rare feat to ready a project that is coherent from start to finish, that is so complete it is best consumed in its entirety. Chicago-based beatmaker and producer Lapgan recently released an insanely dense 21-track beat tape for Mauritius-based imprint electrocaïne's X-Series, "composed almost exclusively with sounds from India and Pakistan."  His latest project digs deep into the '60s and '70s film industry of both Pakistan and India, revealing uncanny [...]

Batida, Batida, the name definitely rang a bell. A quick search of the archives revealed that we had indeed covered the Angola-born and Lisbon-raised producer Pedro Coquenão, alias Batida, a few years back, during his involvement with legendary Congolese 'thumb piano' outfit Konono No.1 for Belgian label Crammed Discs. We breathed a sigh of relief. After all, Batida "ranks among the leading exponents of the new wave of African electronic music."

With another [...]

Time to ring in 2021 with a release that arrived late last year on Lyon-based "audioactivist" imprint Jarring Effects, but no doubt deserves all the attention it can get. "Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin" is a collaborative and emancipatory effort to empower African women, that combines age-old Bantu lullabies with state-of-the-art electronic instrumentation rooted in hiphop. Led by renowned Congolese chanteuse and percussionist Gladys Samba, Les Mamans du Congo [...]

On this last day of Hanukkah, we thought it befitting to share the latest digital release of Chris Silver's Montreal-based Gharamophone (gharam (غرام) meaning  "love," "passion," and "infatuation") imprint, "dedicated to preserving North Africa's Jewish musical past, one record at a time." And that is quite literally what the compilation achieves in astounding fashion, complete with bagpipes (mizwid), birdsong and that charming yet unrelenting crackle of [...]

Hanukkah is here and the Jewish Monkeys are back. After having the second leg of their "Catastrophic Life" tour obliterated by a certain global pandemic, the band locked down in its native Tel Aviv, keeping a low profile and waiting for the dust to settle. Restless by nature, however, this hiatus did not last and the group soon returned to the proverbial drawing board to get those creative juices flowing again.

Premiering today, is the spanking new companion [...]

What have we here? Our Greedy senses instantly went wild upon hearing the first single "Watjoro" off the Omniversal Earkestra's newest collaborative album "Le Mali 70". The Berlin-based big band flew to Mali to record a spectacular album with iconic Malian musicians from the '70s the likes of Cheick Tidiane Seck, Sory Bamba, Abdoulaye Diabaté and, of course, Salif Keita. The resulting ten-track longplayer recently released on Munich imprint Trikont and is most [...]