Columns / Media / Music

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

Sound advice for action, inspiration and organization.

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