ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Album reviews with Michal Boncza: July 22, 2022
New releases by Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio, Avalanche Kaito and The Shipbuilders
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio
Homenaje a El Carmen/Homage to El Carmen
(Buh Records)
★★★★★
THE town of El Carmen, 200 miles south of Lima, is home to the largest black community in Peru and Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio are mesmerising exponents of the local music distinctly structured around west African rhythms and evolved by slave communities into the festejo and panalivio dances.
The sound is articulated with cajon (box), quijada (jawbone), congas, bongo and bata drums, violin and zapateo (shoe-tapping) and defines the cultural universe of El Carmen.
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