Tabla de contenidos para December 2025 en Songlines

The Life & Songs of Martin Carthy (September 27) would have been a memorable concert even without Bob Dylan, but it was his unexpected appearance that will ensure that this epic, five-hour tribute to Martin Carthy will be remembered as a legendary folk event. The first interval was coming to an end when a montage of video tributes appeared at the side of the stage. Those appearing included Van Dyke Parks, Robert Plant… and then Dylan, who congratulated Carthy, saying: “Your songs have been a part of mine for so long… stay well, keep playing”. This was a worthy celebration of the modest, brilliant and ever-adventurous singer and guitarist who has transformed the folk scene since he started off in the 1960s, whether playing solo, in duos, or in bands…

At first glance, the collaboration between Pakistani-American singer Ali Sethi and Chilean-American electronic artist Nicolas Jaar seems unexpected. Yet everything makes sense when you hear how fragments of their distinctly separate styles begin to fold into one another in the music, seamlessly. It began in lockdown, when Sethi – known for his pop-blended ghazal – began experimenting with Hindustani classical ragas while streaming his musical forays online. Sitting with his harmonium, he sang improvised verses to spliced loops of Nicolas Jaar’s experimental-ambient album, Telas (2020). “His music has all these interesting repetitions inside it. He hypnotises,” says Sethi. “A motif appears, morphs and then reappears. Time gets tricked. It’s in a liminal space between slow and fast [which] reminded me of the qawwalis I grew up hearing, which are also…

Selva Selva is the debut album of Wayku, a project led by Peruvian guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and ethnomusicologist, Percy A Flores Navarro. It’s a record which thrillingly explores a dialogue between jazz, rock and Amazonian music, given particular legitimacy through Flores himself, who is an acknowledged expert on the sounds of the jungle. Flores was born in Tarapoto, a city in northern Peru that borders the upper Amazon, an hour by plane from the capital of Lima. He studied composition at Lima’s Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where he developed a passion for musicology. “I knew that I had to investigate the music of the jungle,” he says, “the conscience of the music seeps into you.” The name Wayku is linked to an artistic community in the Peruvian Amazon, 15 miles…

Founded in 2005, Country & Eastern’s catalogue embraces Hindustani and Carnatic songs from the 1960s, recordings of Ghanaian village music, surprising Swedish/international collaborations, and much more. For Stockholm-based label founder and owner, Bengt Berger, jazz provided the entrance to his personal musical world. Sweden has a long history of welcoming jazz players to its shores, and Berger is lucky enough to have seen some of the very best. It was the drummers, especially the great Elvin Jones, who particularly caught his attention, leading Berger to pursue a lengthy and successful career as a jazz drummer. Berger’s idea of starting a label came to fruition while recording alongside bassist Christian Spering and saxophonist Jonas Knutsson. “We had done some albums for the Amigo label, and when they sold the label to…

ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 26 The rhinestone cowboys of Kensington were out in force as the Royal Albert Hall became, for one night only, the home of legendary country music show, the Grand Ole Opry. To celebrate the 100th birthday of the longest running radio broadcast in US history, the Opry – which helped make the name of artists such as Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks – brought five of its biggest stars over from its regular home in Nashville. Starting out in 1925 as the WSM Barn Dance, the show, which originally served as a vehicle for emerging artists, has grown into a worldwide cultural institution, enshrining Tennessee’s capital as the centre of the country music world. The promise of Luke Combs, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Darius Rucker…

It’s hard to ignore the chorus of ‘Tanu’, the track that ends the new album from Amadou & Mariam: ‘Tanu b’aw ye ne ka tanu b’aw ye/Foli b’aw ye ne ka foli b’aw ye’ (‘I am grateful to you, I salute you’, they sing in Bambara). The Malian duo had finished the album, L’amour à la folie (Love to Madness), prior to Amadou Bagayoko’s passing on April 4 this year. Still, it’s impossible not to read these words, never mind this whole album, as a form of eulogy for one of Mali’s most loved musicians. No doubt, this will be amplified when Mariam pays tribute to her late husband and long-time musical partner by taking the album on the road this winter, beginning with a North American tour. Born in…

It’s a balmy summer’s night in Calvi, Corsica, and the crowd is buzzing with a kind of excitement not typically found in Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste. There will be no sermonising from the pulpit or hymn sheets tonight. Instead, the space is filled by a mix of multi-layered voices and drone polyphony so tangible that it seems to physically hold the listener. Dressed in the colourful, traditional robes and flower crowns of their native Latvia, the four-person group, Saucējas, gently dominate the space. The women switch between their traditional open-air singing, designed to communicate messages across vast distances, and emotive chants which celebrate the turning of the seasons. Drawing on archival recordings and fieldwork, the performance culminates in a celebration of sisterhood, reminding us of the role singing once held in everyday…

Cleon Roberts was 17 years old when she remembers her father playing a fresh recording on his reel-to-reel magnetic tape machine in 1984. The track had yet to be mixed and cut on vinyl, but she recalls the power of the raw yet soft reggae love song, by young St. Vincent singer Judy Boucher, called ‘Can’t Be With You Tonight’: “I remember my mother being animated and loving the lyrics,” she says, “and my dad holding his chest singing, with my mother singing along with him!” Cleon’s father was Sonny Roberts, a music producer and record shop owner. She was working part-time in her father’s shop, Orbitone Records in Harlesden, when she first met Judy. “She would come to the shop to discuss the songs with songwriter Felix Da Silva,”…

Bianca Carrera Bianca is a journalist covering the Middle East and North Africa for outlets such as Al Jazeera and The New Arab. On p48, she talks about the renaissance of Amazigh music in North Africa and the diaspora Chris Wheatley Chris is a writer with a lifelong love of global sounds. He was busy this issue, hot on the pursuit of essential gimbri albums (p78), introducing Wayku (p14) and shining a light on Country & Eastern (p16) Eva Adorisio Eva is a travel and culture writer who has written for Time Out, BBC and others. In this issue, she explores the Kazakh music scene inspired by her deep interest in Central Asia (p19) Songlines was launched in 1999 and is the definitive magazine for world music – music that…

ARGENTINA: President Javier Milei appeared before a crowd of 15,000 at Buenos Aires’ Movistar Arena stadium to perform a nine-track set of 1980s Argentine rock anthems to promote his new book, The Construction of the Miracle… BRAZIL: Mariah Carey and some of the most respected singers from the Brazilian state of Para – Dona Onete, Joelma, Gaby Amarantos and Zaynara – performed on a floating stage in the Amazon Rainforest on September 17. The concert took place on the Guamá River in Belém and was part of Amazônia Live, which also included a show at Belém’s Mangueirão football stadium headlined by Brazilian pop diva Ivete Sangalo. The event, promoted by the same team responsible for Rock In Rio, aimed to raise awareness of the upcoming COP30 conference in Belém in…

Turn O Spinning Wheel is the exciting fruit of an ongoing collaboration between Indian classical/Sufi vocalist Deepa Shakthi and global folk band Mishra. It’s been four years since Mishra released their last album, Reclaim – described by Songlines as “energetic and enjoyable” – and three years since they first met Shakthi. So, how did this new material come about? Kate Griffin (banjo and vocals) and Ford Collier (low whistle and percussion) met at the University of Sheffield and shared a fascination for the creative possibilities of combining elements of Indian classical music with UK and Irish traditional music, which led to the duo forming Mishra in 2018. At Sheffield, they were introduced to John Ball, leader of the university’s Indian Music Ensemble, which gave them an even deeper understanding of…

Kahanga Dekula ‘Vumbi’ (AKA Vumbi Dekula) is a true globetrotter. Born in Uvira, in the easternmost part of Kivu region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he has been living in Sweden for almost three decades. “Swedes love to dance, so they love our music. It’s music made to dance”, Vumbi laughs from his home in Stockholm. Before arriving in Scandinavia, Vumbi lived and performed with various groups in Dar es Salaam, Paris and London. Growing up in a Swedish Catholic missionary home, he took up guitar aged 16, immediately falling in love with the instrument and its Congolese virtuosos, Dr Nico and Franco. “In Congo, everyone loves rumba and soukous. It’s our music.” But native musicians weren’t his only influence. Western artists such as Django Reinhardt, George Benson…

Miles Davis Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959) Good Lord, how many of these kinds of lists is this record on? I wasn’t really aware of ‘vibe’ as a musical force until I started reverse-engineering the trance that ‘So What’ through to ‘Flamenco Sketches’ invariably draws me into. Of course, the ambitious instrumentalist part of me was in awe of elements like the point and counterpoint of Coltrane’s and Adderley’s first solos. Still, it became pretty clear that there was greater sorcery at work: Miles’ ability to establish a vibe or, perhaps more correctly, perceive that a vibe has been established and then sustain that vibe. That said, it’s been 30 years since I dug this out of my dad’s LPs, and I’m still trying to unlock its secrets. Radiohead Kid…

MONTRÉAL, CANADA, AUGUST 29–31 Montréal’s leading trad fest marked its 33rd edition in August – a three-day manifestation of Québec’s dynamic ‘patrimoine vivant’ (living heritage). Formerly known as La Grande Rencontre, the friendly, community-focused event platforms emerging talent through a small, but well-attended, programme of music, workshops, talks and plenty of dancing. The opening night at the Maison de la Culture Ahuntsic was preceded by an acknowledgement of presence on the unceded Indigenous land of the Kanien kehá:ka people – an increasingly common practice in Canada. The first act were the non-Québécois fiddle and cello duo Jocelyn Pettit and Ellen Gira, with guest guitarist Everest Witman. The three met in Scotland and several of their tunes reference this, such as ‘Last Train to Glasgow’ and ‘Drenched in Tennent’s’. Next up…

Hidden behind heavy double wooden doors on one of Lisbon’s many cobbled slopes stands Mesa de Frades. Inside the historic building – once the chapel of Alfama’s Dona Rosa 18th-century palace, its walls lined with intricate azulejos – is a candle-lit Portuguese fado house that hosts both veteran fado singers and new voices any night of the week. Tonight, we’re here to meet Carminho, the renowned Lisbon-raised fado singer and songwriter. Born Maria do Carmo Carvalho Rebelo de Andrade, she is a regular at the venue, sometimes stepping up to sing, at other times content to simply sit and soak up the atmosphere like everyone else. Carminho practically has fado in her DNA; she playfully claims she began practising the musical tradition while still “in her mother’s belly”. Given that…

Songlines’ pick of the bunch… Le Trio Joubran (29 NOV Barbican Hall, London) Twenty Springs premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris, where the trio were awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture for their cultural contributions. With an expanded line-up featuring a string quartet and percussionists, the renowned Palestinian oud trio will now perform the show in London. UPCOMING UK & IRELAND Malin Lewis Pioneering bagpiper, fiddler, instrument maker and composer. 5 NOV Dunfermline Folk Club; 6 NOV Paisley Arts Centre; 11 NOV Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham; 12 NOV Nottingham Lakeside Arts; 13 NOV The Live Room at Saltaire, Shipley. Gwenifer Raymond Unique take on the finger-picking music of Mississippi and Appalachia. 5 NOV The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol; 9 NOV Wiltshire Music…

Played by the Gnawa people of Morocco and Algeria, the gimbri (also spelled gembri, or guembri) is a distinctive three-to-five-stringed plucked lute, with a wooden ‘box’ body and a stretched camel skin functioning as an acoustic membrane. The instrument plays a vital role in traditional Gnawa music, with its low harmonic range fulfilling a duty similar to that of the bass guitar in the West. Like a bass, the gimbri not only anchors and drives rhythm, but also provides deeply hypnotic and melodic patterns which subtly yet richly alter a composition’s sound. A master player of the gimbri, Abdel Benaddi stands as one of the most important Gnawa artists at work today. As director of the Zaouia Sinda Bilal (Ceremonial House of Gnawa) situated in the port city of Essaouira,…

TOP OF THE WORLD TRACKS 01 Cheikh Lô ‘Koura’ From Maame on World Circuit Records Senegalese singer and cross-genre alchemist serves up a tender love ballad, his alluring vocals buoyed by Vieux Keita’s fabulous balafon and Vieux Mac Faye’s cosmic electric guitar. See p54 02 Meklit ‘Geefata’ From A Piece of Infinity on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Ethiopia’s rich musical heritage gets refracted through a contemporary jazz filter, Meklit’s bluesy register riding an infectiously perky flux of keys, horns and feverish polyrhythms. See p53 03 L’Antidote ‘Pomegranate’ From L’Antidote on Ponderosa Music With pointillist piano, droning cello arcos and punctuating daf ricochet, this virtuoso trio infuse Middle Eastern folk with neo-classical airs. Sensitive acoustic composition at its minimalist best. See p64 04 Sarathy Korwar ‘Is There Beauty?’ From There Is Beauty,…

Together for Palestine, co-organised by Brian Eno, took place on September 17 at London’s OVO arena, bringing together 12,000 people to watch over 60 artists and raise over £1.6m. Online, the event was streamed by over 200,000 viewers worldwide. The four-hour show – which aimed “to raise millions for the Palestinian-led organisations at the frontline of the crisis” – billed a mixture of musical acts including Neneh Cherry (and her pop star daughter, Mabel), Gorillaz and Paul Weller alongside Palestinian composer Faraj Suleiman and oud player Adnan Joubran. Following a set by Jamie xx and Sama’ Abdulhadi, which mixed moody, rapturous techno with maqam melodies, Ibibio Sound Machine took the stage alongside Hot Chip and Trans Voices. Together they performed Hot Chip’s 2019 track ‘Melody of Love’, which segued into…

Rows of aged instruments hang from the wall. I stand in front of one; wooden, half-egg shaped, with a thin, long guitar-like neck and strings – it’s the dombra. Thought to date back as far as 4,000 BC, this national instrument of Kazakhstan epitomises ancient Kazakh culture that was almost lost during communist rule. Here, in the Museum of Folk Music in Almaty, these emblems of Kazakhstan are being preserved and protected behind glass cabinets. However, Kazakh musicians are taking it a step further by reviving and reinventing these ancient arts to form a modern identity. Layla Tazhibayeva is a professional kobyz player based in Almaty. Created in the 9th century, the kobyz – which legend says can banish evil spirits with its sound – features a curved wooden body…

MANRESA, CATALONIA, OCTOBER 9–12 Manresa is a handsome town in Catalonia, 60km inland from Barcelona. This October it hosted the 28th edition of the Fira Mediterrània, a fair of music which attracts a large local audience and professionals from across Europe. There’s a cathedral whose present structure dates back to the 14th century and an old bridge that’s from even earlier. The fair took place in parts of the town dating back to the 19th century, with shaded boulevards and theatres and clubs tucked away in the narrow streets. As the name suggests, the music is Catalan, Spanish and more widely Mediterranean, but there was also a special Balkan focus this year. The sold-out opening concert was by Anna Ferrer, a rising star from Menorca in Catalan-speaking Balearic Islands. She…

After forming in the late 1960s, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou became one of Benin’s most celebrated musical exports, a legendary dance band across the whole of West Africa, whose sometime-prefix of ‘Tout Puissant’ (All Powerful) could not be more apt. In the 2000s, they belatedly found global fame, and remarkably, the group is still active, albeit their personnel has changed over the years. Beninese multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Mélomé Clément began leading bands such as Groupe Meloclem and Sunny Blacks Band in the mid-60s, finally forming Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou in 1968. Key to this new group was the addition of singer Vincent Ahehehinnou, who brought powerful soul vocals to the ensemble (reports say he was the best James Brown interpreter in Benin). Yet he was just one of the band’s…

Martin Simpson, one of the most distinguished British folk guitarists of his generation, seems happily caught between two worlds. He’s inspired by both the verdant countryside traditions of his native England and the rough and raw folk songs of America. He has lived in both places, although the UK is now his home. Luckily for us, he’s found clever ways to bring his two loves together by tracing generations of singers who’ve similarly moved between the UK and the US. On two recent albums, Nothing But Green Willow, which he recorded with fellow guitarist Thomm Jutz, and Stealing Time, which he produced for Newfoundland ballad singer Matthew Byrne, Simpson has been delving into historic transatlantic traditions that reveal how folk songs have evolved; how they’ve twisted and turned to find…

It seems impossible to separate Liverpool’s music scene from The Beatles. From the iconic Cavern Club, where the band apparently played over 300 times, to the group’s first ever performance at The Jacaranda, their story is everywhere you look, and even cast in bronze if you venture down to the Pier Head. To help us wade through this ‘Beatlemania’ and discover what else the city’s music scene has to offer, we’ve enlisted the help of neo-jazz star Ni Maxine, a singer-songwriter based in Liverpool who sheds some light on the wealth of exciting and diverse music hiding just behind the four famous mop tops. What’s the music scene like in Liverpool? There is so much cool grassroots stuff going on, lots of independent artists doing their own thing and creating…

Music has always been a part of Noura Mint Seymali’s life – she was born into a family of respected musicians and grew up steeped in the poetic tradition of the griots. By 13, she was performing with her stepmother Dimi Mint Abba, a famed Mauritian singer known as the ‘Diva of the Desert’. Music permeated Seymali’s youth, yet there was one song she recalled that particularly struck her at an early age, a song she heard for the first time when she was “around five years old”: a griot song called ‘Guéreh’. “Guéreh is a song played at weddings that’s traditionally a dance for the groomsmen. When it’s played, the friends and family of the groom will get up and dance to it,” says Seymali. Born in 1979, Seymali…