Tag: latin
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…
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…
Danay Suárez feat. Roberto Fonseca: Hay un lugar
Since 2009, UK-based DJ and music producer Gilles Peterson has been partnering with the Havana Cultura project, “a global initiative to promote contemporary Cuban culture”. While the highly successful Buena Vista Social Club project delved into Cuba’s rich musical past to highlight forgotten Son Cubano gems,…
Gustavo Santaolalla: De Ushuaia a la Quiaca
Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla’s powerful theme “De Ushuaia a la Quiaca” is used to stunning effect at the very end of The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). Based on Ernesto Guevara’s eponymous memoirs and on his companion Alberto Granado’s book “Traveling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary”,…
Giovanni Mirabassi: El pueblo unido jamás será vencido
Giovanni Mirabassi is an Italian jazz pianist who has been living in Paris since 1992. In 2001, the pianist recorded Avanti!, his first solo album where he revisited with a personal and moving style several popular anthems, songs of resistance, anti-war or partisan songs from around the…
Lhasa: El desierto
Born in the United States from American and Mexican parents, brought up through English and Spanish, travelling during her youth around North and Central America in a converted school bus, then spending her time between Canada and France, Lhasa de Sela (1972-2010) was a true wandering…
Cesária Évora: Mãe Carinhosa
A new song by Cesária Évora is certainly a good excuse to open the floodgates of nostalgia! The Cape Verdean singer passed away in December 2011 after a very successful “late” international career. The singer was 47 when she recorded her first breakthrough album La…
Tony Gatlif: Vengo
Tony Gatlif is a French film maker born in Algiers of a Romani mother. This family connection probably explains why almost every film by Tony Gatlif is concerned with the social, political and cultural alienation of gypsy communities across Europe. And why music as a…