May 8Global music column – MayPlace: Ecuador While most would name Colombia as the home of South America’s forward-thinking club scene, neighbouring Ecuador has quietly been carving out i...
Apr 10Global Music Column – AprilHailu Mergia – Yene Mircha Ethiopian multi-instrumentalist Hailu Mergia’s backstory is one of “world music” cliche. Gaining fame in his home country as the o...
Apr 5Indian Sun by Oliver CraskeForever photographed sitting cross-legged and clutching his sitar, with incense burning, Ravi Shankar has been credited with almost single-handedly spreading...
Mar 13Shabaka and the Ancestors – We Are Sent Here by HistorySaxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has spent the past few years questioning our ideas of what constitutes history and why we shouldn’t just blindly accept the nar...
Mar 13Global Music Column – MarchDumama + Kechou – Buffering Juju South Africa’s Mushroom Hour Half Hour label has been releasing some of the more ear-tickling sounds from the country’s expe...
Mar 13Sam Gendel – Satin DollSam Gendel plays like a man trying to erase his instrument. The Californian saxophonist – perhaps best-known for his thoughtful collaborations with Moses Sum...
Mar 13Robert Glasper – LafayetteOn any given performance, a crowd can encounter several unpredictable versions of the pianist Robert Glasper. There is the studious interpreter, head bowed a...
Feb 29Haleek Maul – ErrolBack in 2012, aged just 16, Bajan-American rapper Malik Hall, AKA Haleek Maul, was making downtempo, introspective rap probing the sulky, nocturnal musings o...
Feb 15Moses Boyd – Dark MatterDrummer Moses Boyd has always been a difficult musician to pin down. Half of the fiercely propulsive free jazz duo Binker and Moses, he was heralded as a pos...
Feb 15Global music column – FebruaryDJ Diaki – Balani Fou Recent years have seen some of the most exciting dancefloor-focused music moving further and further away from its spiritual homes of D...
Feb 12Makaya McCraven and Gil Scott-Heron: We're New HereFor Makaya McCraven, sampling is a means of remembrance. The Chicago-based drummer and producer has spent recent years honing his studio style to incorporate...
Jan 31Umrao Jaan Ada's tale of courtesans and toxic men makes an unempowering musicalEven by the standards of Bollywood sagas, Umrao Jaan is complex and melodramatic. It is based on what is considered the first Urdu novel, Umrao Jaan Ada (189...
Jan 31Anthony Braxton Standard QuartetThe standard is a quintessential concept in jazz. A canonical composition reinterpreted and disassembled by both new players and established elders, they are...
Jan 31Global Music Column – januaryVarious: London Is the Place for Me: The Music of Young Black London, Vols 7 & 8 Creole languages and culture can be loosely defined as those that have been ...
Dec 24, 2019Tyler, the Creator – Igor"Excuse my voice; I can’t sing but I don’t care because it feels good.” So said Tyler, the Creator before he launched into an impassioned – if tuneless – ren...
Dec 24, 2019Jaimie Branch – Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of ParadiseAt its peak, Jaimie Branch’s trumpet playing has the feeling of a prelingual shriek, a cry out into the distance that intuits no response. It’s a dark, deepl...
Dec 3, 2019Global Music Column – DecemberOmar Souleyman Shlon There was a glorious moment during Syrian singer Omar Souleyman’s 2011 Glastonbury set. Having just opened to a crowd of sedate, sun-bak...
Nov 18, 2019Herbie Hancock review – fusion fantasist digs deep to keep it freshThere is a well-known photograph of Herbie Hancock aged 23, when he had just joined the Miles Davis Quintet. Taken by Blue Note label co-founder Francis Wolf...
Nov 3, 2019Global Column – November 2019The laser-gun-like, pitch-modulating burst of the electronic tom is a cartoonish staple of 1980s music, cropping up everywhere from Duran Duran’s chart-toppe...
Oct 5, 2019Global column – October 2019Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band – Obiaa! Ghanaian highlife music has never been a single statement of artistic intent. Birthed from the indigenous rhythms of...
