Articles by Louise Gray

We generally assume music is used for the good – but occasionally this is not so… Plus win a free copy of the No-Nonsense Guide to World Music.

The new album by Norwegian artist Jenny Hval is astonishing - as much about poetry and story-telling as performance, says Louise Gray.

By Cheikh Lô

By Street Music of Haiti

By Various Artists

By Various Artists

Naked art-piles, wireless guitar shoes, and jackets that turn into tents…
Also: a controversial comedy about farmer suicides (yes, that’s right) from Indian filmmaker Anusha Rizvi, and a special focus on a new generation of exciting and talented

By Eliza Carthy & Norma Waterson

By Syriana

By Jordi Savall

By Various Artists

Laurie Anderson is no stranger to the political landscape.

By Konono No 1

Young Cambodian artists are being mentored as they explore the links between their traditional music and modern works – but they need our help.

Hoe-down fiddles, the rhythmic rattle of spoons and kazoos with some banjos marking time, and you could be – where? A fictive Appalachian town? Some 1930s travelling music show?

Folk music, as Empire and Love shows so well, is a music that has a grounding in both past and present, both populist and political.

The politically engaged group refer to their work as ‘Free tunes from the Occupied Territories’, as Louise Gray discovers.

New to the website this month: a chance to listen to the albums we review.

An intimate album with the space for real spontaneity

Assembled under the artistic directorship of Victor Gama, Tsikaya is a superb example of how music is rooted in the society it comes from.

Look beyond Simon Cowell and Madonna for a money-raising charity record with a difference.

The best books, music & films of 2009 as reviewed by NI.

An elegant album, stripped bare to its poetry. Bass notes on the oud ground the songs wonderfully and Jubran’s voice is sinuous and expressive, full of colour tones.

Low whistle, hornpipes, kaval (this is a traditional Balkan flute) and practice chanter (and this a part of the Scots bagpiping set-up) are just a few of the instruments employed by Fraser Fifield on Stereocanto.

Mysterious and opulent in its songs, The Sky and the Caspian Sea is a début album that exudes confidence and poise and promises the start of a great future.

Hiphop fans make a virtue of telling it how it is. Well, there’s no-one out there who tells it better than Sister Fa.

It’s a dance record galvanized for the groove; it’s a John Pirozzi film that takes a serious responsibility for the band’s material and details commitment to Cambodian heroes.

‘It’s me. I’m alive.’ Yoko Ono, startling and challenging as ever.

An album with a range of references stretching from a lazy Delta blues to the yearnings of Urdu devotionals. By Najma Akhtar and Gary Lucas.

Guitars blast, synthesizers go mad and a group of gospel harmonizers strain for the heavens as sitar strings twang. By Cornershop

The name of Margaret Thatcher is humming loudly over the broadband connections these days. Confused? Let Louise Gray and Chumbawamba explain.

CDs that didn’t quite make a full review, but are still worthy of a mention.

Starting where founding father of afrobeat Fela Kuti left off, this album features energetic tracks of sweaty inventiveness.

For all its ancient antecedents, Siwan is a very modern album and a joyous meditation for that.

An odd title, given the political geography of Israel/Palestine, this album projects a vision of multicultural music that seems to have little space for Palestinian musicians.

An album that is very much the sound of a modern-day freedom fighter.

'We'll only stop playing when we have the last despot hanging from our guitar strings.' Louise Gray on a brave artist who's staying put in Zim and making musical 'food for freedom fighters'.

Accompanied by a wide range of sound for this latest outing – jazzy horns, strings and the kamele ngoni (harp) played by trusty sidekick Benego Diakite – Seya is an album that simply flows.

Listeners familiar with the harder sounds of Yothu Yindi are in for a surprise. The 12 songs on Gurrumul display an altogether softer side of their author.

Subtitled ‘18 Songs for Music Lovers’, Easy Come, Easy Go is a double album containing a wide choice of songs: from Brian Eno’s ‘How Many Worlds’ to Dolly Parton’s ‘Down from Dover’

An album loaded with the instrumentation - fiddle, steel guitar, banjo and mandolin - of American roots music.

Congo’s amazing disabled rhythm-maestros Staff Benda Bilili

Sissoko’s warm-toned vocals and fluid kora work, counterpointed by Stone’s banjo-picking make for a wonderfully expansive sound on Africa to Appalachia

Funked-up Hebrew rap, full of asides about booze, girls and – this is one you wouldn’t find with Enimem – gefilter fish.

Pashm’s band – a judicious mixture of Greek, Jewish and Balkan musicians – belt along with brass, baglamas, woodwind and lyres at their disposal.

Waitless by Empty Boat

Mother-Earth! Father-Sky! by Huun-Huur-Tu featuring Sainkho

Made in tandem with the Albanian accordionist / composer Dasho Kurti, the 11 songs on Deserted Villages offer a broad palate, and not all of it mournful.

Certainly some of these songs may have once been heard over fields and cradles rather than concert halls, but their translation from private to public music is a beautiful one.

New instrumental album by Hector Zazou and Swara

The second album by David Byrne and Brian Eno

Peter Gabriel threw open the doors of his Real World studios in rural England and invited an enormous bunch of musicians – Sinead O’Connor, Marta Sebestyen, Papa Wemba, Guo Yue are just a few of them – to come and jam.

17-year-old rabbi’s son – and fledgling composer – Joseph Klein lured one of the greatest names in jazz (Herbie Hancock) to join in performing a jazz prayer ceremony.

The Garifuna Women’s Project from Central America

Chinese Mongolian ‘Björk’ steps into Tibet controversy

This collection of prowling, lunfardo slang-inflected songs concentrates on an imagined lowlife of Buenos Aires.

The début album from the Israeli-born, London-based performance artist Anat Ben-David, is based on a grim paradox, leisure doesn’t exist – it’s virtual

Bragg tempers the unfashionable humanity of his songs with a sad acknowledgement of current realities.

For anyone interested in the past, present and future of this uniquely Portuguese melancholy, the Mariza Box is a handsome object containing Mariza’s three solo albums.

A yowl of fury against the Pop Idol-type mediocrity that seems so often to fuel cultural commerce these days.

Steve Reich’s tribute to murdered journalist Daniel Pearl

African Scream Contest: A cornucopia of Afro-trance music.

Out of Britain’s blustery Northumbria comes Rachel Unthank and her Winterset trio.

Beautiful music from trained earthquake engineers

Turkish sounds from Germany

Cien Años

Che Guevara: Lucha por la Vida

Fusion of West African proto-blues and Western electric guitar

Sri Lankan artist from West London

Music, Books, Films

by Habib Koité & Bamada

by Gnawa Diffusion

Comicopera by Robert Wyatt

Bole2Harlem Volume 1 by Bole2Harlem

Maskarada by Taraf de Haïdouks

New folk

Jewish music

by Tinariwen

History of a city shaped by immigrant memory and musical culture

West African Bassekou Kouyate and Mali’s first traditional lute quartet

Volk by Laibach.

Burlesque by Bellowhead

Plague Songs by various artists

Queer Noises: From the Closet to the Charts 1961-1978 by various artists

Everything Must Change by Orange Blossom

Between the Desert and The Sea by El Tanbura

Savane by Ali Farka Touré

Care in the Community by Babar Luck

RAN (Remote Area Nurse) by David Bridie

Lagos Stori Plenti by Various Artists

Introducing Etran Finatawa by Etran Finatawa

Ok-Oyot System by Extra Golden

Rise Up by Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited.

Ama by Yungchen Lhamo

Live in Ramallah by West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim.

Sprinting Gazelle by Reem Kelani

Balancê by Sara Tavares

Not Alone by various artists

Fonotone Records, Frederick, Maryland by various

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno & David Byrne

LDA v The Lunatics by Los De Abajo

Songs of the Volcano by Papua New Guinea Stringbands with Bob Brozman

Culture for Pigeon by Tracy + the Plastics.

Invisible Fields by Iarla Ó Lionáird

You’ve Stolen My Heart by The Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle.

Zaboum!! by Mina Agossi

In the Heart of the Moon by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté

Chávez Ravine by Ry Cooder

La Juderia by Yasmin Levy

Björk: Army of Me by Various Artists

Nakedness, for dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, is something akin to a state of absolute truth.

As an androgynous performance artist who sprang out of New York’s club scene, Antony (he lost the surname a long time ago) may seem an unlikely pretender to the tones of Nina Simone, the British-born singer is making an excellent go of it.

From Croydon to Cuba - An Anthology by Kirsty MacColl

The Eternal Road by Kurt Weill

Congotronics by Konono No 1

Sciopero (Strike) by Yo Yo Mundi.

The Rough Guide to Rebétika

Mapou by René Lacaille

Spirit of Mambesak by Black Paradise

Hymns of the 49th Parallel by kd lang

Bebel Gilberto

Out of the Reeds by Pharaoh's Daughter

The Weeping Meadow by Eleni Karaindrou.

Attac! Another World is Possible by Various

List of Lights and Buoys by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra

Aïwa by Aïwa

Trampin' by Patti Smith

The Rough Guide to African Rap by Various Artists

Egypt by Youssou N'Dour

Mirrors by Kev Carmody

Liberation by Trans Am

Care-charming Sleep by John Potter and The Dowland Project

Favourites: 60 Years On by Chico Buarque.

Unearthed by Johnny Cash

BourgieBoho-PostPomoAfroHomo by Deepdickollective

Defixiones, Will and Testament, Orders from the Dead by Diamanda Galas

Bowmboï by Rokia Traore

Specialist in All Styles by Orchestra Baobab

Liberté by Kad Achouri

Yusa by Yusa

Nommo by Slovo

Live at Town Hall by Laurie Anderson

London is the Place for Me by various artists.

Concert for East Timor by various artists

Scattered People

Mali Music by Afel Bocoum, Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabaté and friends.

Bininj Manborlh by Nabarlek

The Rough Guide to Bollywood

Sharp Focus on Québecois director Robert Lepage.

Digdig by René Lacaille and Bob Brozman.

This Side of Paradise by Nigel Parry

Stay Human by Michael Franti & Spearhead

Rwanda 94 by Groupov

Yellala by Eyuphuro

Ayeshteni by Natacha Atlas

Cruzando el Río by Radio Tarifa

Louise Gray on artists against the extreme right in Austria.

Little Sparrow by Dolly Parton

Talk Normal by Laurie Anderson

Jara’s songs have aged well. With minimal ornamentation (some percussion here, some panpipes there), his voice conceals in its light tenor a conviction and humanity that is undiminished through time or language.