![Album Review: Orkesta Mendoza – Curandero [Glitterbeat Records; April 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/orkesta-mendoza-curandero-cover-335x335.jpg)
How best to shake off the dust from down Calexico way? Sergio Mendoza has the answer- give your listeners a good time to rival tequila as Mexico’s best export, as on Curandero. What follows is perhaps best described as a more authentic take on the faux-Tex/Mex border radio sound (at...
Album Review
Articles![Album Review: Populous – W [Wonderwheel Recordings; May 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/populous-w-cover-335x335.jpg)
It doesn’t need to be International Women’s Day to release an album fully dedicated and committed to women. As shown by its cover, a feminine, voluptuous and “very Populous” interpretation of Raphael’s The School of Athens (or a more contemporary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band‘s cover) portraying music characters who have populated the...
![Album Review: Lokkhi Terra – Cubangla [Funkiwala Records; June 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/lokkhi-terra-cubangla-cover-335x335.jpg)
Mother Africa’s children do her proud once more in spreading her spirit across what is a rather large diaspora, considering she spent rather a long time beside humanity’s cradle. And just at the moment where it needs some cajoling to get up and stop feeling sorry for itself, in steps...
![Album Review: Lido Pimienta – Miss Colombia [ANTI-; April 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/lido-pimienta-miss-colombia-cover-335x335.jpg)
What if Frida Kahlo did Instagram? Or if Sun Ra gave cumbia the astral treatment? Well it would probably look and sound like Lido Pimienta and her grower of a new album, Miss Colombia. The title is a reference to the super awkward Miss Universe moment of 2015, when the...
![Album Review: Santrofi – Alewa [Outhere Records; April 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/santrofi-alewa-cover-335x335.jpg)
Here to revive the golden era of highlife, box-fresh 8-piece Santrofi bridge the mid-century sound of Ghana with polished afrobeat and an azonto attitude (more on that later.) Assembled around bass player Emmanuel Ofori, whose credentials include playing with elders Ebo Taylor, and Pat Thomas and Kwashibu Area Band, the...
![Album Review: TootArd – Migrant Birds [Glitterbeat Records; May 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tootard-migrant-birds-335x335.jpg)
Tootard is one of my favourite bands, their combination of Middle Eastern tonalities: the maqqam scales, with Caribbean reggae and western funk and disco – is not only original, but innovative. Migrant Birds is their third studio album, out on the hit churners Glitterbeat Records. The brother duo Hasan and...
![Album Review: Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela – Rejoice [World Circuit Records; March 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/allen-masekela-rejoice-335x335.jpg)
With the very recent passing of Tony Allen, this set of recordings has special significance. He and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela had been planning on making a record together for years and in 2010 this finally was about to become a reality. Producer Nick Gold got the two titans...
![Album Review: Satori Vs. Dr Echo – Dub Defender Sessions [Anicca Records; May 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/satori_va_dr_echo_-_dub_defender_sessions-2048x2048-335x335.jpg)
Back in 2005 reggae enthusiast and experimental artist Steven Jess Borth II founded Satori. Soon after the band’s debut album, Savor Every Moment came out, Borth began collaborating with sound engineer and fellow Californian, Justin De Hart (aka Dr. Echo). Borth is currently based in Denmark while De Hart resides...
![Album Review: Koichi Sakai feat. Afla Sackey – Wono LP [Olindo Records; March 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/koichi-wono-cover-335x335.jpg)
Moved by the love for both electronic and West-African music, Koichi Sakai joins forces with Ghana-born percussionist Afla Sackey in a synth infused, hip-wriggling psych take on West-African flavours. Wono is a seven track LP spanning from acid inspired slow house, to meditative kora-based tracks. Reminiscent of the psychedelic atmosphere of...
![Album Review: The Colours That Rise – Grey Doubt [Rhythm Section INTL; May 2020]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/thecoulourthatrise-greydoubt-335x335.jpg)
If ever there was one cultural movement that pushed back the frontiers of black identity, it was Afrofuturism. Inspiring generations of musicians to come up with ingenious, edifying narratives, it gave us Drexciya – an advanced underwater civilization built by the offspring of African women thrown off the slave ships...