Africa music reviews

It's been 17 years since Ladysmith Black Mambazo's gorgeous vocal harmonies poured the foundation for Paul Simon's landmark 1986 album Graceland, an album that catapulted the South African a cappella gospel group into the international consciousness and led to worldwide stardom, a Grammy, film soundtracks, and candy commercials. Fans of the group's intricately arranged vocal landscapes will be pleased to know that all that ensuing attention hasn't diluted the group's appeal. Their latest CD, Raise Your Spirit Higher, is as strong as anything the group has recorded in its now 30-year career. Ladysmith has always defined itself by merging Christian gospel music with a native South African musical tradition called isicathamiya, which was developed by mine workers who sang to entertain themselves after their grueling work. That tradition continues here, with several tracks like "Uqinisul' Ubada (Lord is the Light and Truth)" and "Udidekil' Umhlaba (Lord's Work)", devoted to Christian themes. Since the group sings in their native Zulu, however, Ladysmith's international appeal has always been in the stunning variety of sounds they are able to produce with their voices alone, and Raise Your Spirit Higher is no exception. The percussive clicking sounds on "Selingelethu Sonke" and Wangibambezela" are otherworldly, and the gorgeous call-and-response between leader Joseph Shabalala and the group on "Wenza Ngani?" shows that the group's polish hasn't lost anything since "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes." The most moving track on the album though, is the closing "Tribute", sung by Shabalala's grandsons in tribute to their grandmother, tragically murdered in 2002 during the recording of this album. --Ezra Gale

This 1990 recording contains one of the best African blues tunes ever recorded, and a classic Ali Farka Toure moment. As the electric guitar roars in at the opening, punctured by a darting harmonica line, "Heygana" lays out the roots and branches of the blues in its journey from west Africa to the Americas, and more importantly, back again. Sung in the Songhai language, pushed by a vaguely reggae groove and pulled along by a sometimes idiosyncratic percussion line on a calabash, it pretty well epitomizes what Toure is about. The sound is stripped down, with the guitar and voice working a bare minimum groove. The calabash clicks, a thick stringed ngoni adds some punch, and a few tracks feature Toure on the njarka (fiddle). In addition to Rory McLeod's harmonica, there is one piece with The Chieftains' Seane Keane and Kevin Conneff on fiddle and bodhran (Irish goatskin drum), and a marvelous duet with saxophonist Steve Williamson that adds a little sideways R&B. The River is one of Toure's most straightforward recordings made in the decade after the light of his international fame had first shone. --Louis Gibson

Morocco's Gnawa tradition has been producing trance music for many centuries, but Nass Marrakech take the idea in a new, more global direction, incorporating elements as unlikely as Indian tablas and Japanese shakuhachi flute into the mix. It could be a worldbeat mess, but instead it proves to be a triumph, simply because the band features some of the best gimbri playing since Hassan Hakmoun and a firm sense of trance and its role in the ensemble's music. So while there are elements of flamenco (Morocco and southern Spain are close in both history and geography), the true roots remain plainly visible. The harsh, jangly rhythm of the karkabas, the tiny Gnawa steel finger cymbals, run through this collection in sizzling fashion while other world-music ideas float on top, anchored by Abdel Bensaloum's gimbri. Magical and mesmerizing. --Chris Nickson