It’s raining, but we don’t care! The first full day of WOMAD got into full swing this Friday with the wide range of global music we’ve come to expect. The BBC Radio 3 Charlie Gillett Stage played host to probably the youngest band member this year along with her family band...
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Articles
In support of their debut album, Abyssinia Afterlife, Black Flower ambled on to the stage at a sparsely populated Rich Mix last Saturday and proceeded to transport us to a magical land. As the title of this record suggests, it is an imagined journey through a dream-like garden of the...
For the thirteenth year in a row, London becomes the northernmost African city. Twenty-six acts spread over ten days of “glorious music” and ten London vibrant venues will bring to life the 2015 edition of the London African Music Festival. The event, organized by Joyful Noise since 2003, has always...
Back in the early 1980s, he was arguably the first musician to introduce the British audience to Congolese music. After having displayed his talent all around Africa, he moved from Kinshasa to London and quickly became a sincere music ambassador of his country. Today, thirty years after his move and...
From the famous Cissokho Griot family Modou N’Diaye will be gracing the stage at Falmouth University’s Academy of music and theatre arts. Traditionally trained by his musically renowned family, N’Diaye collaborates with electric ensembles showcasing the modern sound of Senegal. Since 2002 Modou has toured throughout the UK, playing festivals...
The stage was set at London’s Royal Festival Hall for Atomic Bomb! ‘David Byrne’s Meltdown’ was projected in large letters over the stage and there was no denying a buzz of anticipation in the air that mounted to cheering and whistling as the lights went down and the welcoming words...
Saharan blues never sounded so rocky! This Toulouse-based group plays with spirit and energy, and for a trio their sound is big. Just after their fiery WOMAD show on The Radio 3 Charlie Gillett Stage early on Saturday evening we talked to front man Omar Adam Goumour, bass player Menad Moussaoui...
As part of David Byrne’s ‘Meltdown’ festival, one of flamenco’s leading lights, Estrella Morente, opened her concert standing solo on an atmospherically lit stage. Within minutes her gypsy-esque voice, plaintiff and emotive had the audience gripped. Morente’s heritage is drenched with Flamenco gold. Her grandfather was the guitarist Montoyita, and...
This is only the third year that Walthamstow Garden Party has lit up the North London borough, but it could have been a decade or more. People are already getting used to the two-day-long festival that brings music, art and delicious food onto the grass of Lloyd Park. And like...
WOMAD and Bristol have developed a tight-knit relationship. The festival has always hosted many bands from this southwestern city on its stages, and thousands of Bristolians visit Charlton Park every year to enjoy hearing their fellow city-dwellers playing in a different context. It’s not surprising then that one of the...
