Besh O Drom - Kertünk Alatt/Down The Garden (Narrator Records)
The observant reader will already have seen Besh O Drom mentioned on these pages before, but it took until now for an album (their first in more than five years by the way) of this Hungarian band, trying to lift the Balkan genre to the twenty-first century, to land on our desk.
Various Artists - BLNRB, Welcome To The Madhouse (Out Here Records)
Boudewijn Büch, a Dutch author and notorious mythomaniac who passed away prematurely, often claimed Goethe, one of his great fascinations, was all-encompassing and omnipresent.
Roland Tchakounte - Blues Menessen (World Connection)
The exception confirms the rule and Cameroonian guitarist and songwriter Roland Tchakounte is perhaps one of those exceptions.
Frankie Paul - Most Wanted (Greensleeves)
Slump in CD sales or not, the Greensleeves label continues to deliver new editions in their Most Wanted compilation series.
Joggo - Modern Rockers Vol. 1 (Dredda Records)
After Maikal X and Ziggi, Joggo's 'Modern Rockers Vol.
Various Artists - Mista Savona presents Warn The Nation (Soulbeats Records)
For their latest release the Soulbeats Records label travelled to faraway Australia with a stopover in Jamaica.
Earlyworm - Natty Droid (Renegade Recordings)
The work of Earlyworm (who prefers his name spelled Earlyw~rm), the latest dub revelation from Toronto, is described by that other Canadian dub master, Dubmatix, as: "This isn't any ordinary dub, this is dub that has traveled across the Galaxy and landed on Earlyworm's Terra Firma laptop!", a description we can only agree with.
Zulu 9.30 - Tiempo Al Tiempo + La Kinky Beat - Massive Underground (Kasba Music)
Just a few weeks after the release of the new La Pegatina album, the Kasba Music label is already serving up new releases by their mestizo-brothers of Zulu 9.
Augustus Pablo - Message Music (Pressure Sounds)
The Pressure Sounds label had another browse through the catalog of melodica king Augustus Pablo and for 'Message Music' focused on some his lesser-known productions from the 1980s, a period when Pablo both as a musician and as a producer tried to adapt to the increasing digitalization of Jamaican music.
Ras Zacharri - New Horizon (Shem Ha Boreh Records)
Even though 'New Horizon', the second long player by Ras Zacharri (still somewhat unknown in Europe) is certainly not a bad album, it doesn't match up to 2009's 'Herbs Man'.
La Chiva Gantiva - Pelao (Crammed Discs)
No idea what their band name exactly means, but the story of La Chiva Gantiva - a group of Colombian expatriates who found each other in music - is the same as that of Spanish band Che Sudaka, but from a musical point of view the two bands are quite different.
Amsterdam Klezmer Band - Katla (Essay Recordings)
Yours truly is certainly no expert where klezmer is concerned - don't ask me to explain the difference between sirba and oompah for example - but fortunately the language of music is universal enough to make that unnecessary.
Earl Sixteen - The Fittest (Heartbeat Europe/Rounder)
Not Easy At All Productions and JahSolidRock appear to have become the purveyors of the Heartbeat Europe label, because after Chezidek and Apple Gabriel it is now Earl Sixteen's turn to put his best foot forward on their riddims.
Zongora - Doverie (Muziekpublique)
What do you get when you bring together a Brussels violinist (Nicolas Hauzeur) and guitarist (Benjamin Clement) with a number of Gypsy musicians? The answer is Zongora.
Ocote Soul Sounds - Taurus (ESL Music)
Ocote Soul Sounds (the word "ocote" is derived from the Nahuatl word "ocotl" and in Central America is frequently used to refer to coniferous trees) is the brainchild of Adrian Quesada (Grupo Fantasma) and Martin Perna (Antibalas) describing their music as "psychedelic, Afro-Cuban influenced pan-Latino analog funk" and just as with Grupo Fantasma, we were seriously impressed with the music this band turns out.
Luciano - Rub-A-Dub Market (Irievibrations Records/Grooveattack)
How in God's name (something you may take literally in this case) can Luciano keep turning out one solid album after the other as if it's nothing? One of the reasons could be the fact he constantly works with different producers and riddim suppliers - variety is the spice of life - and for 'Rub-A-Dub Market' that were the Austrians of Irievibrations (the label that already surprised us in the past with releases by, among others, Sojah and Mark Wonder) and that results in a lot of recognizable riddims: 'Living My Life' is a tune on the Lovebird riddim we already knew from Sojah's 'Crisis' or Elijah Prophet's 'Mother Nature' and 'Always Around' explores the delicious Caribbean Riddim (known from Elijah Prophet's 'Piece Of Ganja').
Lobi Traore - Barra Coura: Acoustic Bamana Blues & Bwati Kono: Raw Electric Vibes From Bamako (Kanaga System Krush)
The American Kanaga System Krush label operates under the motto: "Putting money into the pockets of the artists & music into the hands of the people!" and focuses on music from West Africa.
Taraf de Haïdouks & Kocani Orkestar - Band Of Gypsies 2 (Crammed Discs) + Boban I Marko Markovic Orchestra & Fanfare Ciocarlia - Balkan Brass Battle (Asphalt Tango Records)
Ten years after the release of their legendary album 'Band Of Gypsies', Taraf de Haïdouks presents this successor.
Tamikrest - Toumastin (Glitterhouse Records)
On 'Toumastin', the successor to their 2010 debut album 'Adagh', Tamikrest sounds somewhat more aggressive; lyrically anyway, because musically speaking this album again offers the hypnotic desert rock we've become so fond of in Europe.
Africa Unite - Rootz (Universal)
Sometimes the title of an album already tells the whole story and that is definitely the case for 'Rootz' by Italian reggae veterans Africa Unite (30 years in the business!).