ANGUS REID calls for artists and curators to play their part with political and historical responsibility
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Global Routes with TONY BURKE
Emblematic voices of Djibouti and Cuba offer, respectively, an intriguing exploration and reassuring familiarity
Yanna Momina and Eliades Ochoa
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YANNA MOMINA recorded Afar Ways (Giltterbeat) in Djibouti, on the horn of Africa.
Music is a serious business for the rural Afar people. Most of them do not have a television so music is performed every night.
Producer and author, Ian Brennan visited Djibouti in the spring of 2018 and discovered Momina accompanied on a two-string shingle played with nails and a matchbox for maracas. She has a stunning vibrato and writes her own songs.
Brennan said: “Yanna has one of the most unique voices I’ve ever heard.”
Recorded in a stilt hut, she is accompanied by a cast of friends. She performs a cappella, including My Family Won’t Let Me Marry The Man I Love (I Am Forced To Wed My Uncle), a song that even her friends had never heard before.
The album is beautifully focused around Momina’s vocals, guitar and calabash.
Cuban guitarist and member of the world renowned Buena Vista Social Club Eliades Ochoa has a new partnership with World Circuit/BMG.
He has been recording and performing for over 40 years and his first release on World Circuit /BMG will be a special edition of his Vamos A Bailar Un Son album.
Originally released in 2020, the album features Eliades’s interpretations of songs by Latin American composers like Nico Saquito and Agustin Lara, as well as two compositions written by Ochoa himself.
The new set features three previously unheard tracks, two of which written by Ochoa, including Ay Mama Que Bueno.
Of the reissue, he said: “This album has made me feel more alive. I am thrilled that more and more young people are connecting with my music.”
Vamos A Bailar Un Son is released on CD, vinyl and digital formats.
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