Category: Folk
Manu Chao: Clandestino
Released in 1998 and followed up in 2000 by its “little sister” Próxima Estación: Esperanza, Manu Chao’s Clandestino turned the former front man of cult Latin rock band Mano Negra (1987/1995) into a global superstar. In total contrast with the high-octane punk-rock of Mano Negra,…
Dom la Nena: Ela
Instantly adding to the canon of poems and songs in Spanish dealing with exile and the constant dream for a return home, “Golondrina” (the swallow) is an original composition by the-then-24 year old Brazilian singer songwriter Dom la Nena. The title track of her November 2013 EP…
Anaïs Mitchell: Why we Build the Wall
Released in 2010, American singer songwriter Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown is a modern retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Introduced as a “folk opera”, the concept album began life as a stage production which premiered in 2006 in Mitchell’s home state of Vermont. Influenced by…
Natalie Merchant: Giving up everything
Giving up everything, see the whole magnificent emptiness […]Giving up everything, the compass and the map I was reading […] Giving up everything, the big to-do, the hullabaloo, the tug-of-war for some twisted truth.For the everlasting ache of it, no longer slave, not chained to it,No…
Natalie Merchant: Leave Your Sleep
Released in 2010 on the Nonesuch record label, Natalie Merchant’s Leave Your Sleep is an impressive collection of children’s poetry, nursery rhymes and lullabies from British and American authors adapted and set to original music by the singer songwriter. The birth of her own daughter…
Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XX: Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
The Llibre Vermell de Montserrat (the Red Book of Montserrat) is a 14th century codex compiled by monks and still preserved in the library of the monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat located outside Barcelona in North-Eastern Spain. The monastery was at the time an…
Hurray for the Riff Raff: St. Roch Blues
Originally from the Bronx in New York, singer-songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra left home at the age of 17 to travel westwards across America before settling in New Orleans. Perfecting her craft busking and singing with various bands while immersed in a city rebuilding itself in…
Radio Tarifa: Temporal
20 years before Jon Balke’s project Siwan, a group of passionate musicians going by the name of Radio Tarifa set out to explore what the music of mediaeval Spain might have sounded like. Over the course of four albums released on the World Circuit/Nonesuch record…