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Landless

Luireach

    Landless are: Lily Power, Meabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinead Lynch.

    The Irish quartet sings centuries old ballads as well as more recently penned folk songs.

    Sometimes unaccompanied and at times with subtle instrumentation, their vocally rich music is dark and patient; spellbinding and gorgeous.

    Luireach is their second album and as with their acclaimed debut Bleaching Bones (2018), it is produced by John 'Spud' Murphy, known for his work with artists such as Lankum and OXN.

    TRACK LISTING

    The Newry Highwayman
    Blackwaterside
    Luireach Bhride
    The Fisherman's Wife 
    The Grey Selkie Of Sule Skerry 
    Death And The Lady
    The Hag 
    My Lagan Love 
    The Wounded Hussar
    Ej Husari

    Buzz' Ayaz

    Buzz' Ayaz

      Hailing from Cyprus's divided capital Nicosia, and led by Antonis Antoniou, the founder of Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, Buzz' Ayaz creates a transfixing Eastern Mediterranean psychedelia - Their self-titled debut album is a fuzzed-out urban soundscape of dubby electronics, 70s-psych organ, growling bass clarinet, amplified folk instruments, ritual beats and Greek and Anatolian melodicism

      The band members come from both sides of the capital's divide, and the music found on Buzz' Ayaz is a deliberate attempt to give a voice to the city as a whole. A mercurial sound that echoes above the concrete walls and checkpoints.

      TRACK LISTING

      Buzzi Ayazi
      Efdji
      Fysa
      Zali
      Arkos
      Ate Pale
      Meres
      Alu

      Altin Gün

      Aşk

        Their 5th album in as many years Aşk (deeper feeling of love), marks an exuberant return to the 70s Anatolian folk-rock sound that characterised Altın Gün’s first two albums. It is a record that radiates the infectious energy found in the Amsterdam-based sextet’s celebrated live performances and next levels the group’s ground breaking sonic palette of Turkish psychedelic groove pop, sci-fi disco and dreamy acid folk.

        STAFF COMMENTS

        Barry says: While Âlem and Yol were indeed great albums, on 'Ask' we get a band returning to their roots in fine style, forging a perfect mix of grooving psychedelic folk and airy lysergic rock. It's both hypnotic and intricate, with time signatures coming and going organically like the rising of the tide, all topped with swooning dreamy vocal lines.

        TRACK LISTING

        1. Badi Sabah Olmadan
        2. Su Siziyor
        3. Leylim Ley
        4. Dere Geliyor
        5. Çit Çit Çedene
        6. Rakiya Su Katamam
        7. Canim Oy
        8. Kalk Gidelim
        9. Güzelligin On Para Etmez
        10. Doktor Civanim

        Tamikrest

        Tamota T

          Tamikrest return with a vivid, irrepressible rock and roll statement. Their most powerful album since 2013’s wildly acclaimed Chatma, Tamota t finds the band not only turning up the volume but also sharpening their meditative atmospherics and ruminations on the state of the Sahara and the world beyond.

          Features acclaimed Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra and a track cut with Japanese traditional musicians.

          TRACK LISTING

          Awnafin
          Azawad
          Amzagh
          Amidinin Tad Adouniya
          As Sastnan Hidjan
          Timtarin
          Tihoussay
          Anha Achal Wad Namda
          Tabsit

          Mekons

          Deserted

            This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for the last 40 years as radical innovators of both first generation punk and insurgent roots music. 'Deserted' marks the return of one of the planet’s most essential rock & roll bands. The new album was recorded in the desert environs of Joshua Tree, California and is drenched with widescreen, barbed-wire atmosphere and hard-earned (but ever amused) defiance.

            When punk exploded in London, fast and brash and full of fury, up in Leeds the Mekons came blinking into the light at a much slower pace. Singles like “Where Were You” and “Never Been in a Riot” (both from1978) fractured punk’s outlaw myth with the ordinariness of real life. During the next decade, as country singers donned cowboy hats and slid into the stadiums, the Mekons celebrated the music’s rough, raw beginnings and tender hearts with the Fear and Whiskey album (1985) and went on to demolish rock narratives with Mekons Rock’n’Roll (1989). For more than four decades they’ve been a constant contradiction, an ongoing art project of observation, anger and compassion, all neatly summed up in the movie Revenge of the Mekons, which has ironically brought an upsurge in their popularity around the US as new audiences discovers their shambling splendour. And now the caravan continues with Deserted, their first full studio album in eight years.

            And desert is an apt word. This time there’s an emphasis on texture and sounds, a sense of space that brings a new, widescreen feel to their music, opening up songs that surge like clarion calls, like the album’s opening track, “Lawrence of California.” The band arrived with no songs written, only a few ideas exchanged by email between Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, the group’s other original member.

            Five days of brilliant chaos let their thoughts run free, from the almost-folk wonder of “How Many Stars” and the wide open space of “In The Desert,” to the oblique strangeness of “Harar 1883,” a song about French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s time in Ethiopia, inspired by photographs Greenhalgh has of the period.

            TRACK LISTING

            Lawrence Of California
            Harar 1883
            In The Sun
            The Galaxy Explodes
            How Many Stars?
            In The Desert
            Mirage
            Weimar Vending Machine
            Priest?
            Andromeda
            After The Rain

            With their second album "Kin Sonic", Jupiter and Okwess transcend the Congo's unexplored musical heritage and dive into a pool of modernity. We're invited to savour his latest recipe, the Okwess ('food' in the Kibunda language) which is the fruit of all the encounters and influences he has absorbed during his many journeys around the world. It's a recipe based on perfect alchemy. Featuring Damon Albarn, Warren Ellis and Robert del Naja, aka '3D' (Massive Attack), this fusion of tradition, technology and modern technique should be the perfect soundtrack to many a summer to come.

            TRACK LISTING

            Musonsu
            Ofakombolo
            Benanga
            Pondjo Pondjo
            Emikele Ngamo
            Nkoy
            Nzele Momi
            Le Temps Passé
            Ekombe
            Bengai Yo

            Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, born into a prominent family of griot and choosing from an early age to embrace the artform that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping- tone for the work Noura and her band have embarked upon in recent years, simultaneously popularizing and reimagining Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time. "Arbina" is Noura Mint Seymali's second international release. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief; soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental bass lines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360 degree vibe. "Arbina" refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself; music of the "Azawan." Supported by guitarist, husband and fellow griot, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, his quarter-tone rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Noura, Jeiche intimates the tidinit's (Moorish lute) leading role under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has innovated a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer/producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut. Many of the songs on "Arbina" call out to the divine, asking for grace and protection. "Arbina" is a name for God. The album carries a message about reaching beyond oneself to an infinite spiritual source, while learning to take the finite human actions to necessary to affect reality on earth. The concept of sëbeu, or that which a human can do to take positive action on their destiny, is animated throughout.

            TRACK LISTING

            Arbina
            Mohammedoun
            Na Sane
            Suedi Koum
            Richa
            Ghlana
            Ghizlane
            Ya Demb
            Soub Hanak
            Tia

            Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra

            Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra

              Seven-and-a-half thousand kilometres of cold ocean separate West Africa from Haiti. But music can cover that distance in a heartbeat, crossing the Atlantic to reunite the rhythms and religion of people torn from their homes to be sold into slavery on the Caribbean island. And on its self-titled album, the Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra honours those ghosts of the past even as it walks steadfastly and hopefully into the future.

              Experimental by name, the band was definitely experimental by nature. The concept started with Corinne Micaelli, the director of the French Institute in Haiti. She wanted to bring drummer Tony Allen, the power behind Afrobeat and one of modern music’s towering figures, to the island. A performance with Haitian musicians at a major public concert would be perfect. Allen agreed, and Erol Josué, a singer, dancer, voodoo priest, and director of the Haitian National Bureau of Ethnology, helped to recruit local percussionists and singers. They decided, in order for different strands of Haitian music to be represented, that the musicians would be drawn from a cross-section of the country’s foremost bands, including Racine Mapou de Azor, RAM, Erol's own band, the Yizra'El Band and Lakou Mizik, the group of Sanba Zao, one of Haiti's leading percussionists and traditional singers.

              Together, the musicians had just five days to compose and rehearse the set they’d play in the main square of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and broadcast live throughout the country. 

              What emerged from the subsequent long, hot sessions were a series of tracks with roots on both sides of the Atlantic, compelling layers of subtle polyrhythms that bridge centuries and cultures. Relentless grooves become the foundation for soaring, utterly modern melodies like the swirling, electronica-fuelled “Salilento” or the Afro Vocoder ritual sound of “Yanvalou” that’s inspired as much by Krautrock and Sun Ra as Lagos or Port-au-Prince. Flying on inspiration and adrenaline, it’s roots music for a global future. 

              Aziza Brahim

              Abbar El Hamada

                Western Saharan musician / activist Aziza Brahim's new album 'Abbar el Hamada' ('Across the Hamada'), is a commanding and compassionate musical statement about, and for, the tumultuous age in which we live. Raised in a Saharawi refugee camp in the Algerian desert, and living in exile for more than two decades (first in Cuba and currently in Barcelona), Brahim's life and music embodies both the tragedies and hopes of the present-day migrant and refugee experience. As walls and borders are again being raised though-out Europe and other corners of the world, Aziza Brahim's passionately sung poetic defiance, is especially timely and profound.

                On 'Abbar el Hamada', Aziza has consciously extended her reach deeper into the sounds of contemporary West Africa. This move has been reinforced by the introduction of Senegalese percussionist Sengane Ngom and drummer Aleix Tobias into her band, and the return of Malian guitarist Kalilou Sangare. Bassist / arranger Guillem Aguilar and guitarist Ignasi Cussa, also return from her previous band. Recorded in Barcelona in the summer of 2015 with producer Chris Eckman (Bassekou Kouyate, Tamikrest), 'Abbar el Hamada', is a wholly persuasive example of Brahim's pan-musical vision and is her most compelling and varied album to date.

                From the pulsing desert rock of Calles De Dajla, to the Afro-Cuban inflections of La Cordillera Negra (evoking 70's recordings by the Super Rail Band) through the dusky elegance of El Canto Del La Arena and the raw balladry of Mani (featuring Malian blues-master Samba Toure on guitar), the music and lyrics on 'Abbar el Hamada' masterfully reflect the restless, imaginative search for home, explicit in the album's title. Hamada is the word used by the Saharawi people to describe the rocky desert landscape along the Algerian / Western Saharan frontier where tens of thousands of their people are stranded in purgatorial refugee camps. 

                Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

                Ba Power

                  Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba's fourth album 'Ba Power' (and his first for Glitterbeat Records) is a striking, career defining record marked by mesmerizing songs, razor-sharp riffs and full-throttle emotions. Following two years of worldwide touring for the much heralded Jama Ko album, Bassekou's band, Ngoni Ba, has turned up the volume and dynamics significantly and Bassekou's masterful ngoni playing has achieved a new level of intensity that can only be called: afro-rock. Distortion and wah wah and propulsive rhythms are now the defining backbone of his songs and the heat lightning vocals of his wife Amy Sacko, more than ever serve as the passionate and perfect foil. This is not the same Ngoni Ba. This is indeed: 'Ba Power'.

                  Without question Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba has revolutionized the sound and narrative possibilities of the ngoni, the lute-like instrument that is essential to Mali's Griot culture. Griots are esteemed musician / storytellers whose lineage stretches back centuries. Bassekou was born into this resonant tradition but his relationship to it has been anything but static. From the beginning of his career, through his invention of a previously unheard repertoire built around the melodies and rhythms of four interlocking (and at times electric) ngonis, Bassekou has demonstrated his respect for the past by radically pulling it into the future.

                  The new album 'Ba Power' is arguably the most inspired and fearless step in this process. It is clearly Bassekou's most outward looking album, an album where he sharpens his view beyond the eclectic sounds of his Malian homeland and directly engages on his own terms with elements of rock & roll ("Siran Fen"), blues ("Bassekouni"), jazz ("Aye Sira Bla") and other West African musics like afro-beat (check out the riff on "Waati"). 

                  The first volume of Glitterbeat's new series of releases: Hidden Musics.

                  Each Hidden Musics release will feature un-mediated "field" recordings of lesser-known global music traditions.

                  "Hanoi Masters: War is a Wound, Peace is Scar" is a haunting audio document recorded in the summer of 2014 by Grammy-award winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Malawi Mouse Boys, The Good Ones). The sepia-tinged songs are sung and played live and direct by elderly Vietnamese musicians using half-forgotten traditional instruments. These musicians all have deep personal connections to the upheavals of the Vietnam War and the album's mesmerizing mood navigates the blurred line between raw beauty and muted sadness. 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, a war these Hanoi musicians still call the "American War", the wounds and scars of that era are ever-present. "Hanoi Masters" is an album of cautious healing and an unforgettable meditation on conflict, resistance, collective memory, and the longing for what has been lost.

                  Samba Toure

                  Gandadiko

                    'Gandadiko', the title of Samba's potent, diverse and ambitious new album, translates from his native language Songhai as: "Land of Drought" or "Burning Land." The title seems to indicate a return to the dark textures that marked Albala but in fact ''Gandadiko' is a more complex story than that. Touré is known to search for the seeds of his musical ideas in the assorted stack of CDs he listens to while driving through the chaotic streets of Bamako. The out-of-the-box musical inspirations he has picked up for his new album range from Serge Gainsbourg to Bo Diddley via Tom Petty to funky psychedelia, though of course, all the raw material is instinctually filtered through the traditional melodies and rhythms of his Songhai musical heritage. 

                    TRACK LISTING

                    01. Gandadiko
                    02. Wo Yendè Alakar
                    03. Malè Bano
                    04. Farikoyo
                    05. Touri Idjé Bibi
                    06. Chiri Hari
                    07. Gafouré
                    08. Su Wililé
                    09. I Kana Korto
                    10. Woyé Katé

                    Fofoulah

                    Fofoulah

                      The London-based quintet Fofoulah (meaning “it’s there” in Wolof) was formed in 2011 and features Tom Challenger (Red Snapper) on saxophone and keyboards, Phil Stevenson (Iness Mezel) on guitar, Johnny Brierley (Outhouse Ruhabi) on bass, Dave Smith (Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters) on drums, and Kaw Secka (Irok) on Sabar drums.

                      With the rhythms of the Sabar drums - a traditional form of Wolof drumming from Gambia and Senegal - at its heart, Fofoulah’s music has evolved into an inspired cosmopolitan mélange that also incorporates elements of electronic music, dub, improvisation and afro-rock. Like the complex city they live in, their music is shaped and lifted by diverse sound-worlds and cultures.

                      Produced by drummer Dave Smith (Robert Plant, JuJu) ‘Fofoulah’ is a previously unvisited crossroads where Sabar rhythms meet dub basslines and sci-fi synths; liquid melodies and Wolof rap entangle with trance-like dance grooves; and raw guitars, horns and samples blend with west and north African song forms.

                      Fofoulah is not merely a cross-cultural project. They are a dynamic band born naturally out of personal friendships and varied backgrounds, the nerve net of contemporary London and the post-global interconnectedness we all experience daily. The band is propulsive, innovative, celebratory and always leaning forward. They are a thrilling extension of the deeply rooted Sabar rhythms upon which their music revolves.

                      Black Mango

                      Naked Venus / Soft Kicks

                        A mysterious two-song release, licensed from a group of Bamako musicians who, with the exception of the Souku master Zoumana Tereta, choose to remain anonymous. Malian head music influenced in equal parts by Ali Farka Toure and Lou Reed.


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