A Ramirez Christmas

It was a dream come true, not just for the participating musicians, supporters and audiences in attendance, but also on a wider scale, a well overdue cultural step towards restoring peace between two politically hostile countries, namely Iran and Israel.

Following their initial encounter in the German city of Nuremberg back in 2014 and sharing a common vision, two young bands, alias the alternative Teheran-based indie-electronic outfit Langtunes and the [...]

London-based 2015 "Label Of The Year" at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards, Strut Records is considered one of the leading reissue labels with a knack for soul, funk, world sounds, disco, post-punk and industrial music, while also releasing albums by original legends and new world music artists the likes of Mulatu Astatke, Orlando Julius or The Souljazz Orchestra.

Currently they are readying another highly intriguing project on the traditional music of [...]

In what can only be described as one of the very unfortunate and equally threatening side-effects of the current European refugee crisis, the anti-immigrant and anti-muslim incitement of the German-born Pegida movement has quickly gained ground with its polarising rhetoric, even spreading to other countries within less than a year.

'Enough of this monkey business', said the Jewish Monkeys and visited Dresden last October, while in Germany as part of their [...]

As recently reported in the Guardian, the Saharan state of Niger, famous for its Tuareg community and bringing forth world-renowned "desert blues" artists the likes of Bombino, Terakraft and Tinariwen, has now produced a crowdfunded film, based on Prince's 1984 cult classic "Purple Rain".

While Prince is not widely known in West Africa, "the electric guitar has become synonymous with Tuareg culture" and the story of a kid trying to escape his violent life [...]

A few weeks ago, Danish sampling kings Den Sorte Skole (which translates to The Black School) released their much acclaimed and long-awaited fourth longplayer "Indians & Cowboys", a riveting 77-minute, genre-transcending patchwork of obscure samples and interweaving sounds from vinyl records across the globe, made available to the general public on a 'name your price' basis via their website.

In a fundamentally significant and highly recommendable guest [...]

On a recent stroll through the worldwide web we stumbled upon the up and coming Texas three-piece Khruangbin (meaning 'airplane' in Thai). Inspired by the obscure 1960s and 70s Thai funk recordings found on the notorious Monrakplengthai blog as well as Tarantino soundtracks, surf-rock sessions and groundbreaking space jazz explorations, the trio set out to find and define its own spiritual soundscapes in a barn on the Texan countryside.

Their recently [...]

What could arguably be mistaken as Disney's latest infernal duo actually is a sizzling two-piece, but of flesh and blood. Echo & Tito hail from Tel Aviv’s vibrant musical underground scene, bringing to the table a heavy mix of ethnic backgrounds and genre-defying styles of bass music, masterfully blended with electronic dub, hiphop, trip hop and glitch elements as well as soaring vocals.

Echo, alias Echo Morgenstern, the singer/MC and Tito, alias Tom Iddan, [...]

Subject of a recent FACT magazine feature, the UK's University of Central Lancashire's Global Sound Movement team of staff and students is dedicated to "recording unique instruments from around the world and offering these sounds to composers/producers to enhance their pallet of sounds". Adding value to the overall project, they are also "committed to mapping the sonic landscapes of unique geographic locations", ultimately putting those remote spots on the [...]

Currently creating a significant stir on the international airwaves is the Tel Aviv-based Fortuna Records label. With a slew of recent vinyl re-issues promoting vibrant and somewhat forgotten grooves from all over the Middle East, the DJ crew is also deeply ingrained on the local 'party' scene in such highly relevant initiatives as the popular underground Teder.fm 'pop up radio bar'.

Their claim to fame was the 2014 breakthrough re-issue of the super [...]

London-based record label, record store, sound system, book publisher and radio broadcaster Soul Jazz Records has been digging up and re-releasing rare gems from a dizzying array of genres for the past 15 years. So if you are looking for rare grooves, obscure finds and superb re-issues, you now know, who to turn to.

Releasing this Friday, November 13th, is "Coxsone's Music", the label's stunning new, over two and a half hour collection of proto-ska, rhythm [...]

Ever since releasing their self-entitled debut-LP back in 2013, Cape Town-based five-piece John Wizards have risen from obscurity with “a cheerful conglomeration of intricate beatwork, swirling melodies, multifaceted instrumentation, and, of course, a nod to southern African sounds” (via Okayafrica).

Most recently they delivered a mindbending remix for Italian producer Populous’ “Night Safari” that was subsequently transformed into an animated music [...]

Copenhagen's one and only non-profit world music venue, fittingly named Global, opened its doors to a mixed and multi-generational crowd of music enthusiasts back in 2006 and has since positioned itself as one of the prime establishments of its kind and in the world, while being the only venue in all of Denmark dedicated to the genre itself, as eloquently put in this well-written piece, recently published on Vice magazine's Noisey platform:

"World music is [...]