With only a week to go before their highly anticipated sophomore album's official release, the Jewish Monkeys are revving up the promo engine or as The Jerusalem Post called it, Monkeying Around. In a recent interview with Ariel Dominique Hendelman of the leading Israeli English newspaper, Ran Bagno (accordion) and Gael Zaidner (vocals) shared their thoughts on the band, talked about a momentous performance in front of Syrian refugees and hinted at the fact [...]

"Rough Romanian Soul" is the title to their debut album and that is exactly what the Berlin-based quartet Zmei3 formed around two Romanian immigrants delivers. Classically trained vocalist Paula Turcas and band leader Mihai Victor Iliescu on guitar are joined by master vibraphonist Oli Bott and the full sound of double bass player Arnulf Ballhorn as the group conjures up a powerful blend of urban music inspired by its rural Romanian heritage. Recorded live [...]

Sad news reached us last week, as an obituary page in the New York Times informed us of Louis Sarno's passing. Aged 62, the New Jersey-born Sarno had devoted himself to studying and most importantly preserving the music of the Bayaka, a pygmy tribe in the Central African Republic. Sarno spent nearly half of his life with the tribe, fully immersing himself in their culture, their language and most notably their music, which is what drew him there in the first [...]

Drawn in at first by the vibrant artwork, young singer and multi-instrumentalist Derya Yıldırım's voice on this Anatolian psych-pop sensation's debut EP literally struck us like a lightning bolt. Which brings us to the rest of this 'outernational' five-piece, alias Grup Şimşek (Turkish transl. 'lightning'), composed of British drummer Greta Eacott (G-Bop Orchestra / One-Take Records) as well as three quarters of the respectable Orchestre du Montplaisant [...]

Back in 2011, Tunisia played a significant role in the uprising now known as the Arab Spring with its own revolution, which resulted in the ousting of then president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and lead to the implementation of a democratic parliamentary system. Around the same time, Tunisian singer/songwriter Emel Mathlouthi landed a viral hit with her powerful song "Kelmti Horra" (Arabic transl. 'my word is free'), which went on to become an anthem of sorts [...]

Brace yourselves for acclaimed Malian chanteuse and tireless women's rights activist Oumou Sangaré's brand new album "Mogoya", which translates to "human relations" and releases May 19th on No Format. "Mogoya" is her first musical offering since her 2009 album "Sera". Last week Sangaré joined the Paris-based Radio Nova crew to perform two songs off her forthcoming album. Watch the live performance here, which included the lead single "Yere Faga", [...]

March Madness! Hot on the heels of their recent, raucous tour of 'Doitschland', which capped off with a sold-out show in their hometown of Frankfurt, the Jewish Monkeys continue to unleash new heat off their forthcoming sophomore full-length "High Words", to be released officially next month on April 28th!

Following the release of the first heated album preview "Fever" they now premier the companion video to the album's title track, filmed at the same [...]

Available as of today is a different project of sorts, different in the sense of what we usually post on here and different in the literal sense, as in 'I am not sure I have ever heard anything quite like this before'. Hailing from Umlazi, Durban, South African rapper Simiso Zwane, aka Okmalumkoolkat, puts forth his second "Holy Oxygen" instalment on Vienna-based left-field electronic imprint Affine Records, featuring relentless and forward-thinking production [...]

Once every month, we here at Greedy are particularly keen on turning our proverbial dial to German national radio station Deutschland Radio Kultur, where our friend Thorsten Bednarz hosts the weekly Tonart Weltmusik show for world music and global grooves. Thorsten is a self-proclaimed "desperate record collector of mainly African grooves" and our personal digger/selector of choice.

For his latest show, he put together a brilliant mix of rare Ghanaian [...]

One of our favourite purveyors of Neo-African club tunes, aka the notoriously relentless Daniel Haaksman, is back at it and once again laying proof to his undeniable 'goût' as a selectah and able producer: Releasing on March 24th via his very own Man Recordings imprint is a catchy new "trans world Afro house and electro inspired club tune" by Canadian-Moçambican singer Samito. "I Saw You" is a song of lost love that takes a surprisingly harsh turn in the [...]

Just days ahead of their upcoming Germany tour the tireless Jewish Monkeys land extensive coverage in Germany's leading Sunday paper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The full-page article by Jörg Thomann arrives just in time for a string of live performances to take place across seven German cities over the next seven days. You can find a detailed list of all upcoming gigs in our designated 'Shows' section. As for the eloquent write-up, well it's [...]

Although we usually don't cover the big names and rather try to circumvent the at times overpowering Anglo-American grasp on so-called popular culture, we could not deny the latent 'Om' factor underlying this historic, soon-to-be-released compilation by New York-based imprint Luaka Bop (does William Onyeabor ring a bell?), covering ecstatic music by a certain Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. Yes, that is THE Alice Coltrane, who was once married to the late [...]