Groove& is a South Korean percussion trio with the slightly unpromising name, at least in its transliteration. The skill and precise interaction of the three women - Sang-kyung Lee, Min-ju Sohn and Ha-gyeong Kim - is extraordinary, and every sound has musical significance. Using a wide array of Korean instruments they make music of great melody and texture with a tonal spectrum more fundamental than twelve semitones or chordal harmony, one made of higher and lower, thinner and thicker, longer or short sounds that make perfect, cross-cultural, melodic and internationally accessible sense. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and listen to some of the music.

It is hard to believe that this solo album from Alessia Tondo, a singer with a such high-profile band as Italy?s Canzionere Grecanico Salentino, should vanish under the radar, but that seems to be the case for the 2021 release of Sita. Intended, she says, as a healing album, this very personal collection of songs is wondrously intimate. Tondo possesses a siren voice and uses it to full effect - a soft lulling call that crosses all manner of barriers, demonstrating its beauty as she layers tracks and harmonizes with herself. Hear the varied sounds of this remarkable vocalist and read Chris Nickson's review.

New in our file of short reviews and audio introductions: Here's a pair of digital-only EPs from the bouzouki player Jens Ulvsand, who is probably most familiar as a member of the Danish Trio Mio. Born out of something to fill the long days of isolation during Covid lock down, Trad-Groove 1 & 2 are explorations of traditional music, but with a twist. Ulvsand uses bouzouki and a variety of other instruments on this pair of recordings to achieve different results on each. Come listen and get a few more Sound Bites

Ever So Lonely: An interview with Sheila Chandra "The trouble was I wasn't representative of the larger Asian communities in the UK. I wasn't Punjabi, Gujerati, Bangladeshi, Muslim or Hindu... I wasn't even full blooded Asian – I have an English grandmother who never set eyes on England... Yet I was having to represent all these communities under the disapproving eye of the first generation who had emigrated who felt I was 'bastardizing' their culture with fusion. They didn't see that our culture had to adapt to its context and exist as a living breathing tradition to survive." Sheila Chandra talks with Chris Nickson about a magic time in the 1980s when everything changed.

Portuguese is an airy, sonorous language that lends itself especially well to music, whether expressed in the mother tongue, or inflected with Brazil's multi culture, or fused with the Africanisms of the former Portuguese colonies. Cape Verdean Carmen Souza embodies that affinity; her music, vocals and lyrics are a feast of sensuality, intelligence, rhythm, and the unexpected. Souza's voice, and how she invents and reinvents it in each tune, is one of her several musical gifts, which include composing, arranging, and as a guitarist and percussionist. Her interpretations of songs on Interconnectedness are so intimate that they seem to be an extension of her very self. Carolina Amoruso delves into the many voices of this unique artist.

Retimbrar, based in the city of Porto, is at core a group using the wide range of Portuguese traditional percussion with vocals, but its instrumentation expands to cavaquinho, violin, bass, flutes and more, and for Levantar do Chão they collaborate with a range of individual and ensemble guests, so that the overall impression isn't of a percussion album but a collection of songs, richly varied in melody, rhythm and arrangements. Andrew Cronshaw reviews.

It's hard to imagine that Eliza Carthy is celebrating her 30th anniversary as a professional musician. It feels like no time at all since she began, and yet it's also as if she's always been there, relentlessly experimental as she kicks at the tradition and writes her own material to sit alongside it. Folk music, maybe, but like her parents, Martin and the late Norma Waterson, her definition of the term has been very elastic and full of surprises. She pulls more than a few here, with a collection partly selected by Twitter. Right from the beginning she wrong foots the listener with a vocal melody on "Whirly Whorl" that works across the instruments. For a moment it's discombobulating, but makes it apparent that Queen Of The Whirl isn't an album of reprises. It's a radical reworking by Carthy and her outstanding band, The Restitution.  Hear more surprises and read Chris Nickson's review.

It's been 25 years since a compilation called Meisterspel assembled the work of the some the 20th century's great Norse fiddlers. The problem? Every one of them was male. Celebrated hardanger fiddle player Benedicte Maurseth has put together this response – Systerspel – a pair of CDs with all women featured. Maurseth chose the tracks and wrote the book for which this is the soundtrack. It chronicles a century, beginning in 1919 with Kristiane Lund's "Fykerud's Farvel Til Amerika," one of the very first pieces of music ever recorded in Norway, and carries through to recent days with works by Ragnhild Furebotten, Mari Eggen, Susanne Lundeng, Annbjørg Lien and many more. Spend 100 years with the female fiddlers of Norway and read Chris Nickson's review.

Góbé are a Hungarian band that formed fifteen years ago in Budapest. The band has travelled all around the Carpathian (Pannonian) Basin, a huge area that covers not only Hungary but extends into Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. "Góbé" translates as "a man with a twisted mind" and perhaps that phrase aptly serves as the band's manifesto since they integrate a vast number of different musical styles into their interpretations of Hungarian music. An oft-levelled critique (for better, or worse) of folk-rock is that the music may not be reverential of source materials or respectful of source singers; but, it is worth noting that Góbé have both the training and the chops to allay jaded fears. Read Lee Blackstone's review and hear some music.  Góbé's album Elem is our selection for Music of the Month for December.

At this distance, it's hard to imagine the musical landscape of 40 years ago. Plenty of synths, crash, New Romantics and elaborate hair. MTV was still a novelty. World music hadn't acquired its awkward name yet. Such as it was, global sounds comprised ethnological releases, classical music from different cultures, and Bollywood soundtracks that didn't reach beyond the Asian population. Rock bands had added a sitar here and there in the 1960s, but there was no real cross-cultural invention. Then came Monsoon and the world shifted. The single "Ever So Lonely" was initially self-released in 1981 and resurfaced a year later on a larger label. The brainchild of musician and producer Steve Coe and multi-instrumentalist Martin Smith, it was the ur-text of so much of what we take for granted today. All those fusions, the Asian Underground, so many of the albums in your collection - they all were born out of this. They also gave singer Sheila Chandra her first platform and taste of stardom. It's impossible to overstate the importance of "Ever So Lonely," or the album Third Eye. Read Chris Nickson's review and listen.

In his review of the album Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae), Andrew Cronshaw writes: "In the past year I've seen two concerts by South African cellist/singer Abel Selaocoe, who's becoming deservedly celebrated here in the UK. Each was an absolute tour-de-force. There was a long standing ovation at a sold-out Queen Elizabeth Hall in London for the brilliant Abel Selaocoe - cellist, singer, composer, improviser, performer, a shining light in bridging between western classical, African and improvising music, in collaboration with his trio and the string players of the Manchester Collective. Inspiring, indeed awe-inspiring, and liberating..." Read Andrew's review of Selaocoe's debut album. It includes works from the album and a full concert video.

Some three years after his passing in mid–2019 at 77, we have the final studio album by Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John). Karla Pratt (executive producer and estate executor) relates that Things Happen That Way is her father's long-contemplated tribute to the country and western music Rebennack imbibed as a youngster. But the repertoire, pacing, tone, and laid-back groove comprise something closer to musical autobiography and memoir. Michael Stone takes us for one last visit with the Doctor.

Torgeir Vassvik is a Coastal Sámi from the small fishing village of Gamvik at northern tip of Norway, on the Barents Sea. The Sámi, northern Europe's indigenous people, are known for their unique form of vocalisation, the joik, in which the joiker expresses, indeed inhabits, the essence, of an animal, another person or a place. Vassvik, one of the most primal, bold, raw, committed performers you're likely to see or hear, has evolved ways of keeping it as essentially personal expression. A Place Behind The Gardens Of The Houses - Báiki, his third album, is the first in which he makes all the sounds himself and has done most of the recording and producing. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and hear some of the music.

Given that fact that Rachele Andrioli has been involved with the music of Southern Italy for a number of years, it is surprising that this is her first solo album. Better late than never, though, because the singer and multi-instrumentalist offers a global garden of delights, all flavored with the warmth of her homeland. Her original material nestles easily beside pieces by Victor Jara, the great Enzo Avitabile, Rita & Daniele Durante (who founded Canzione Grecanico Salentino the 1970s, laying the ground for most modern Italian music from the south of the country), and the remarkable Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Quite a challenge to set herself, but she more than lives up to it. Perhaps there's a reason Leuca has taken so long to reach fruition – perfectionism. Read Chris Nickson's review and listen to some of the music. https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/andrioli-22.shtml

Even when it involves an artist as auspicious as the late and indubitably great acoustic guitarist Bert Jansch, an eight-CD set is a massive commitment. With tracks here ranging from 1966 to 2006, five years before his death, the remarkable thing is that so much material was kept. But be glad it was. Be very glad. It's a chance to hear the evolution of the man and his approach to songs as they recur over the years - the perennial "Blues Run The Game," for instance, and the definitive fingerpicked instrumental "Angi" – also called "Angie" in a few instances here – are prime examples. Jansch was classed as a folk musician, but the reality was so much more. Chris Nickson reviews.

Norwegian violinist and composer Inger Hannisdal's North South East West presents ten of her original compositions performed alongside four other players. Norway famously has a strong and thriving fiddle tradition and new releases from emerging artists offering their own take on the music occur with some regularity. What soon becomes clear here is that the influence of that Norwegian musical heritage, though not altogether absent, is never central. Perhaps significantly Hannisdal chooses to list her instrument as violin and not fiddle and the album title itself implies a wish to look outward in every direction for inspiration. Mike Adcock explores the debut album of this Norwegian artist.

Cory Seznec is an artist who's flown well under the radar for a while. The Franco-American musician and singer's third full-length album comes after a gap of five years. Although he recorded all his tracks in just three days, there's never a sense of anything being hurried. It's all performed with touching good grace, and a warm, inviting voice. Seznec is an outstanding fingerpicker on both guitar and banjo, always assured, completely at home in the blues, yet never sounding like any of the earlier generations of performers. There's a lightness of touch in his performance that's immediately appealing, and more than a few touches of West African music in his work, too. Read Chris Nickson's full review and listen to some of the album.

Among all the role-playing, power-ballad glitz of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest there was the still, quiet, sincere voice of Salvador Sobral. No glitz, no dancers, just him in his normal clothes, singing a beautiful song in Portuguese written by his sister Luisa Sobral. Says Andrew Cronshaw, "I'd watched him win Portugal's own competition for the country's Eurovision entrant, which in itself was an affirmation from his home country. That he went on to win Eurovision with its massive international voting audience was extraordinary and encouraging. In the winner's reprise of the song he duetted with Luisa, and at the following year's final, after a heart transplant, he duetted in it with iconic Brazilian composer and singer Caetano Veloso." Five years later came the opportunity for Andrew talk to him.

The harp-lute known as the kora continues to provide one of the most popular sounds to come from the African continent. It is distinctive and beautiful, with an equally unmistakable visual appearance, and first became widely known through the international touring of Keda Fodéba's African Ballet in the1950s which featured two kora players. Each subsequent decade has seen the emergence of more fine players including Mory Kanté, Toumani Diabaté, Ballaké Sissoko and Sona Jobarteh. Such artists have shown an interest in collaborating with musicians from different lands and different musical backgrounds whilst maintaining a deep respect for the the Mandinka tradition from which their music sprung. Mike Adcock reviews albums from two more kora-players, Dawda Jobarteh and Momi Maiga.

There's a popular association between Scotland and bagpipes, but actually there are long bagpipe traditions all over the world, and Scotland is a relative late-comer. But, while there are Swedish bagpipes, there's no evidence of a bagpipe tradition in Norway. Not to say they were never there, though, and as Tellef Kvifte observes, the ringing sympathetic strings and double-stopping technique of Norway's Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele), a much younger instrument than bagpipes, create something of a drone effect. "So," says Kvifte, "in the 1990s, I decided that the bagpipe had to be the solution for a wind instrument that could be used for Hardanger fiddle tunes." And what he says, and plays, is worth listening to... Andrew Cronshaw reviews. Andrew Cronshaw reviews.

Soundtrack composers from Ennio Morricone to Piero Umiliani or Ryuichi Sakamoto to Lalo Schifrin have all used their scoring opportunities to mix genres into undescribable blends, practically creating new musical subgenres during the process. Freaky, acid grooves find themselves nudging up alongside choirs, symphonic percussion, odd drones, field recordings, and noise in these composers' most challenging scores. All of which connects them to the work of Peru's Luis David Aguilar, a prolific musician and composer who wrote music for television shows, advertisements, and film. Aguilar, whose work blends the avant-garde with classical composition and some of Peru's native traditions, was one of a number of Peru's more experimental film composers, such Walter Casas and Seiji Asato, coming to prominence in the 1970s. A review by Bruce Miller.

Norway-based Serbian accordionist Jovan Pavlovic has had many projects including his band Bengalo. Now comes his first entirely solo album. He's previously played his a piano-accordion in the standard Stradella-type set-up, which has piano keys for the right hand, and for the left a matrix of buttons each of which links reeds as a chord. But on most of this album he's switched his instrument to free-bass, in which the left-hand buttons play single notes, not chords. This means the notes skip and mingle from the two sides, rather than right-hand melody with left-hand chordal accompaniment. "I decided to start working on it because of lots of free time during the pandemic," he told me. "Since I started playing with free bass, a whole new world has opened up for me. I can form chords as I like, I can play separate lines and rhythmical figures which live their own life and are totally independent from each other. It's like having two keyboards!" Andrew Cronshaw shares works from this solo album, Life On The Accordion.

Islais A Genir is a landmark in Welsh music. And, showing the label recognizes and supports that, the CD comes in a beautifully produced hardback book-type pack with some fifty pages of photos and interesting, discursive writing in Welsh and English about the material. VRÏ (it's an old Welsh word meaning 'up' or 'levitating,' a sense of 'upness') is the trio of fiddler-singers Aneirin Jones, Jordan Price Williams and Patrick Rimes. What they make is music of six interacting voices, three male human and three of bowed instruments: two fiddles and cello or bass. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and hear some of the music. VRÏ's Islais A Genir is our selection for Music of the Month for November, 2022. Subscribe monthly and get a full download of the album and book.

Okra Playground's Itku frequently mentions the Earth turning darker. As a metaphor, this looms large for a world that feels as if it is spinning off its axis, our times clouded by pandemic, conspiracy theories, war, climate crises, and other modern ills. At the same time the Finnish band's name is of the earth - Okra meaning 'ochre,' the particular color of soil and clay on which the band treads. The group is anchored in Karelian traditions, and the set list mixes several original tracks which draw on beguiling wordplay such as one might find in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala: lyrics redolent with a coursing, vibrant natural world, set against human foibles both tender and violent. The sextet continues to blend traditional folk instrumentation with electronic soundscapes, balancing experimentation and pop flair. Singer and fiddler/bowed lyre (jouhikko) musician Paivi Hirvonen is again a guiding light, and her voice joins with the two kantele players in Okra Playground, Maija Kauhanen and Essi Muikku. Okra Playground's sound is rounded out by Sami Kujala on electric bass; Veikko Muikku, accordion and synthesizer; and Oskari Lehtonen, percussion. Additional electronic augmentation was provided by Sami Zimmermann on most of the album tracks. https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/okra-22.shtml Lee Blackstone leads you into the darkness of the Finnish band's third album.

"This group of UK musicians who are creating another pathway for jazz are not leaning toward intellectualism or crowd pleasing but are instead marrying the two concepts by being authentic. Their experiences come from hip-hop, afrobeat, world music and avant garde jazz. They come from the African and Caribbean diaspora and they live in London, which despite Brexit, is a multicultural society with many different languages and cultures being the norm. Edward Wakili-Hick's new album project Nok Cultural Ensemble, is a modern sonic exploration of African and Caribbean rhythms. It introduces the Nok Culture, a civilization that thrived in Nigeria 2,500 years ago which among other things, produced hyper modern sculpture. .." Lisa Sahulka reviews. Listen in.

Throisma is hardcore, really hardcore, but please don't let that get between you and this music, because this may be one of the most interesting recordings you will come across this year. Regular readers know Antonis Antoniou as a member of Monsieur Doumani, so let's be clear, this has nothing to do with that band. This is a rock record with a 70s vibe, yet with a very 21st Century electronic undertone, and very clear Eastern detailing. For those lucky enough to understand Greek, you'll find a Cypriot artist, singing in the local dialect with its very characteristic cadences and hard consonants... There is a hint of rage, but also a spirit of celebration, an undercurrent of knowing that your life can be turned upside down or even ended without notice, regardless of your age. Nondas Kitsos reviews.

Britain's Phil Tyler has been a quiet fixture on the folk scene for many years, emerging as an additional musician with Cordelia's Dad when they toured Europe, then marrying and performing with their bassist, Cathy Tyler, in a duo that stripped traditional American and English songs down to their skeletons and presented them as bare, powerful things. This time around he's working with a different singer, Sarah Hill, on a set of (mostly) traditional English music titled What We Thought Was A Lake Was A Field Of Flax. The layout is much the same as in the past, with Phil Tyler on guitar, banjo, vocals, and Hill singing. Everything is spare, with voices front and center... Chris Nickson shares a review and some music with you.

Yanna Momina is a singer from Djibouti, on the horn of Africa. She became known locally for her extraordinary and powerful delivery. Record producer Ian Brennan recorded Momina on her home turf in the spring of 2018 drawn by what he describes as her "kamikaze vibrato," also telling in the sleeve notes to Afar Ways how she is rare amongst the Afar people in being a woman who writes her own songs. Read Mike Adcock's review and hear the music. Then move on to the hows and whys of music like this, in Mike's in-depth interview with producer and recordist Ian Brennan. "What I'm looking for in music, what I'm trying to convey is intimacy. The intimacy of one voice, one guitar, singing original songs captured in a recording can be something invaluable, a thing of supreme beauty, and that is why I like live recording, why I like field recording, because you're listening to something that actually occurred, for better or worse, versus a simulation."

Over the last 15 years, Sam Sweeney has established a reputation as one of the go-to fiddle players in English folk, as his stints with Bellowhead and the Fay Hield Band testify. But with Escape That he's definitely spreading his wings, with 11 tracks culled from 20 pieces of music he created on synth and guitar (but apparently not violin). As he developed the tracks, anything that seemed like a hook was kept and everything else tossed away, then the hooks were joined together. The result is definitely folk pop, and Sweeney proclaims it loudly. It's an ambitious idea, especially where other instruments tend to be consigned to a supporting role and the fiddle takes the lead, which is generally the case. Read Chris Nickson's review and listen to some of the music.

The music on The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah was highlife getting a much needed makeover. Alhaji Waziri Oshomah and his bands de-emphasized the jazzy swing and large horn sections of highlife's outdated past, and instead, brought local rhythms to the foreground, allowing electric guitars and keyboards to drive languorous, unhurried melodies for extended grooves. Luaka Bop's latest in its 'World Spirituality Classics' series demonstrates Waziri's leisurely approach with a collection of 7 songs anywhere from 8 to 17 minutes long. Perhaps what makes Waziri's brand of highlife trance so special comes from his home territory in Auchi, located in Northern Edo state in southern central Nigeria. Edo is a place that has found Muslims and Christians intermingling peacefully for decades, a fact that adds complexity to the typical understanding of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. Read Bruce Miller's take on this wonderful new album and hear some of the music. The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah is our selection for Music of the Month for October, 2022. Find out how to subscribe and receive a copy of the album, while supporting RootsWorld with your donation.

Spanish composer Feliu Gasull, who normally writes for larger forces, offers an album of (mostly) solo guitar music, Pit roig. Coaxing a rich palette from his instrument, Gasull gives voice to an alluring range of textures, technical flourishes, and tunings. The title track sets the mood for his five-part 'La Finestra,' shuffling through scenes as a camera might cut from one apartment window to another: different lives, same building. A lithe yet grounded quality to his writing, rendered with a sensibility that embraces the value of past and present, ensures that quiet reflections hold their own against evocations of pure exuberance. Read Tyran Grillo's full review and listen to some of the tracks.

I very much enjoyed the showcase set at the 2015 Womex by Polish trio Sutari, with their quirky music, and vocals accompanied by a mixture of instruments including violin. For a self-contained creative unit, collaboration with another band can result in a dilution of the distinctiveness of both, but Tamoj, with Polish instrumental trio Bastarda, works really well, emerging as a single well-balanced five-piece. Bastarda takes early music as its source and develops it with arrangement and improvisation using clarinet (Pawel Szamburski), cello (Tomasz Pokrzywinski) and contrabass clarinet (Michal Górczynski). The deep woody tones of their three instruments create a rich foundation and environment for the Sutari duo's voices, violin, frame drums and occasional chimes of kankles (Lithuanian Baltic zither, close kin of Finnish kantele, Latvian kokle and Estonian kannel). Their material for the album draws on Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian musical traditions, exploring the old cultures of these bordering countries, with original lyrics by Songin and Kapela inspired by, and sometimes quoting, tradition. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and hear a few songs.

New in our file of short reviews and audio introductions: There's folk dance music, and then there's hardcore Nordic folk dance music. Optur definitely strut their stuff across the floor in the latter camp. The four-piece, which highlights fiddle and sax over a rhythm section, is the brainchild of violinist Søren Korshøj, possibly best known for his time in innovative Danish folk-rockers Instinkt. The idea is to mix Nordic-influenced folk dance with improvisation, and it works like a charm. The first cut, "4 Drops," sets out the stall in belting style, while "Polska Nu," with its twisting melody, is full-tilt madness, giving space for sax man Mikael Fleron to show his ability. Even if you're just listening, you'll be out of breath by the end. Come get a few more Sound Bites

O Ku Ngwo Di Ochi is the first new record in over 20 years for Oriental Brothers International Band. Since their last efforts, key members have passed away; however, original members Ferdinand Opara- aka Dan Satch- and Livinus Akwila (Aquila) remain. Musically, little has changed. Clave rhythms continue to underpin guitar weavings, as songs truck across the 10-minute mark, forcing the body to react. To hear any of their earliest records is to hear highlife getting an infusion of sounds from Congo, with a de-emphasis on brass while the guitars eschewed chord changes for longer, more hypnotic grooves. It's this basic concept that fuels Satch, Aquila, and their band to this day... This release, digital only for now, houses five ten-minute tracks with no high points or filler. Listen to some of the studio tracks, as well as a live performance, as you read Bruce Miller's full review.

Loudon Wainwright III seems to be enjoying a renaissance with his new album, Lifetime Achievement, which isn't bad for a man who's already spent a little over half a century as a singer and songwriter. Interviews and reviews are plastered everywhere, quite something for an artist who's just turned 76. The thing is, it's actually a very good record. Sharp, often lyrically acute, a little sentimental at times, and he still has one hell of a voice. Read and hear why Chris Nickson thinks he's ready for the award.

The wildlife of Madagascar is special and very distinct from that of Africa, and so are its people and their music, as are the instruments they play, prominent among which is a variety of stringed instruments including the valiha, marovany, jejy voatavo, lokanga and kabosy. Nowadays, there are also very Malagasy approaches to the standard acoustic or electric guitar. Malagasy singer and songwriter Berikely plays the kabosy, which is akin to a small guitar of varying body shape but often rectangular. Usually some of its frets don't go all the way across the fingerboard, an arrangement that helps with making chord shapes, as the player's fretting hand moves up and down the neck while the other creates an intricate, highly syncopated strum. Berikely is an established, indeed veteran, artist in Madagascar, who now lives in France. There, with the help of the group's guitarist and arranger Erik Doboka, he has assembled an excellent band, Zama, that really grasps and masters the essence of Malagasy music. It comprises three Frenchmen - Doboka on guitar, bassist Thomas Boucherie, drummer Jean-Yves Boucherie - and Malagasy percussionist Bema Ratovondrahery. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and listen to some of the music. Elaela is our Music of the Month selection for September 2022. Subscribe now, or make a one time donation and get this recording as my 'thank you' for supporting RootsWorld.

Emanuel Vigeland's mausoleum in the hilly, leafy northern suburbs of Oslo is a big, windowless, barrel-vaulted space, which one stoops to enter through a low doorway... it's a wonderful place to play or sing, if one keeps the music fairly uncluttered... it suits the ringing strings of solo Hardanger fiddle very well indeed. Notes overlay one another and become chords, double-stopping becomes orchestral. Erlend Apneseth is a leading player of the instrument who, with his trio and other ensembles crosses the divide between traditional music, Norway's distinctive form of atmospheric, misty jazz that's a long, long way from New Orleans, and contemporary classical. For Nova he's entirely solo, which is the traditional context of Hardanger fiddle playing, and the building provides the ensemble for his minimalist playing... Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and listen to this unique open sound and space.

Lidija Dokuzovic is a versatile gem of Croatian tradition-rooted song, whether as singer with folk band Afion, leader of a vocal ensemble, as fishnet-stockinged rock-chick fronting the splendidly rousing Zykopops (inspired strapline 'Even worse than turbofolk'), or here with her Lidija Dokuzovic Trio. The majority of the material on their debut album, Cula Jesam - I've Heard, is from Croatia, but some is from, or shared with, other traditions of the South Slavic area – Serbian, Kosovan, North Macedonian and Greek. Despite recent and less recent history, music recognises little in the way of borders. Dokuzovic and her Swedish partner Allan Skrobe met when both were mentors at the international Ethno music camps, and while they now live in the southern Swedish city of Malmö she hasn't lost touch with Croatia and its traditions, and returns often. With her in the trio are Skrobe on guitar and mandola, and double-bassist Jesper Nordberg, and they make a beautifully balanced unit. Right from the start, even before Dokuzovic's voice enters, it's clear that Nordberg is a very fine bassist, making big contributions... Read Andrew Cronshaw's review and listen.

The second solo album from Finnish fiddler and singer Päivi Hirvonen builds with fire and intensity as it progresses. Serene as it begins, with fiddle and vocals on "Kulkuat/Travellers" – the only track with guests, two other singers lovingly layered alongside her own voice and some programming to flesh out the sounds – it's the lull before a storm of passion that takes in subjects close to her heart: shattering glass ceilings, polyamory, societal expectations and more. Ultimately, however, what's more important than the subject matter on Kallio is how it's presented. Here's where things become interesting. Hirvonen is superb at evoking atmosphere, like the darkness that creeps around "Varjot/The Shadows," where she multi-tracks violin parts to impart a strange, creeping eeriness... Chris Nickson explores the darkness and the light of this new album.

Mohamed Abdel Wahab (1902-1991) was one of Egypt's greatest songwriters. Never afraid to incorporate influences from near and far, he gifted his music to humanity at large, casting through the lens of his native land a light of love that continues to glow in the many musicians he has influenced, from Omar Faruk Tekbilek to Anouar Brahem. Among them, too, is oud and viola virtuoso Simon Shaheen, whose renderings of Wahab's sound are now the subject of a vinyl reissue. Originally produced by Bill Laswell and released in 1990, The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab has given this seminal album new life in a different world. Tyran Grillo explores this rich reissue.

Ethiopian popular music makes you stand up and take notice. From the myriad local genres that funnel into the sound, to the brilliance in color and tone of Mulatu Astatke's Ethio-jazz, to influences from the rest of Africa and the Gulf States, and the inevitable infiltration of Western pop, this amalgam is a national treasure that offers endless discoveries. Minyeshu Kifle Tedla's fifth release presents us with a cornucopia of these intriguing sounds, stamped with her distinctive lyrics and vocals, and her collaboration with Eric van de Lest on composition and arrangements. While the mood of Netsa's ten tracks varies from rousing to contemplative to sentimental, one comes away from the album elated. Minyeshu sings in lesser-known trgional languages, yet she has a way of reaching all takers with her varied tones in seductive minor key selections of Ethiopia's pentatonic scales. Carolina Amoruso takes you inside.

As the title gives away, Anon II is the second album that Norwegian fiddle-player Ånon Egeland has put out under his own name. The first was released over twenty years so it's probably about time, and in fact this is his first purely solo album, the previous one having musical support from two other musicians. Egeland is from the Agder region, to the south of Norway, which stretches down to the country's southern coast. Anon II features both the regular four-string fiddle and the Hardanger variety with its underlying sympathetic strings and both types have long been played in Agder, though the Hardanger fiddle tends to be heard more in the areas where Agder borders with Telemark and with whom some of its tunes are shared. Listen to some tunes and read Mike Adcok's review.

Langt Ud' I Skoven slipped under the radar, even for many of the band's fans. Here is Dreamers' Circus (with a few friends), plus a Danish children's choir, performing largely traditional songs for children – a interesting subset of Danish folk. It's not something that's been slapped together for an album and performance; there's plenty of time and imagination gone into the arrangements, and everything soars with the trio's usual sense of melody. Chris Nickson reviews.

Rose Jimetta is a native of Los Angeles and is part of the independent music scene there. She, like many jazz performers, uses R&B, Hip-Hop and choral jazz to make her distinctive sound. Parts of this album channel Charles Mingus; think "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting." Raised in church and choir from birth, the soul-jazz singer easily conjures the sound of gospel music and then enhances it with other genres. With her ensemble Voices of Creation, she channels gospel, jazz and praises God and the gods of music like Sun Ra, Coltane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Have your spirit lifted as you listen to the music and read Lisa Sahulka's review.

Wantok Music Vol. 3 opens with a song from Torba Province in Vanuatu, north-east of Australia. It tells of how, in the late nineteenth century, a white man arrived there bearing gifts as a way of enticing the local people to trade with him. Subsequently, having continued to raise his prices to a level they were unable to afford, he persuaded them to grant him some land, where he then set up a trading center to make the local people dependent on him. The fact that the song, by Father Levi Sandy, is delivered unaccompanied helps to give it a timeless quality, but unfortunately that's not the case with the majority of tracks on the album which, through their arrangement and production, have an overtly modern sheen to them, which already makes them sound rather dated, at times. Read the pros and cons of the label's approach in Mike Adcock's review, which includes a few songs and videos.

Jagdselskabet is one for those who delight in hardcore instrumental Danish folk music. The trio of violinists Krtistian Bugge and Steen Jagd, and pianist Malene Beck, used to play together regularly, and recently began collaborating for dances again, performing traditional music and for this album, Jagd's compositions. His music is certainly inspired by the tradition, and it's very much music for dancing, even with the delightfully quirky touches that pepper tracks. Listen and maybe even dance a kvadrille or a vals, as you read Chris Nickson's review.

Avishai Cohen, the trumpeter from Tel Aviv and now New York based, takes the work of Miles Davis in a parallel but similar direction. Miles Davis wanted crowds and more accessible music but always at the core he was interpreting emotions. Cohen is doing the same thing in reverse, using his trumpet to express emotion in a way less accessible, but more stream of consciousness, dream state. When Davis went into the studio, the space he gave his musicians to improvise was legendary. In a similar way, Cohen has brought musicians together to improvise emotions. The songs are simply "Part 1," "Part 2," and so on. We get more information in the last tune, which is a spoken word composition. In this space, it is interesting to think where Davis might have gone if he did not head towards fusion, and intriguing to think what Cohen is doing in this improvisational, dream-like space. It is haunting and so personal. Lisa Sahulka listens in.

You could come to this album simply intrigued as to how a Barcelona born, Paris educated jazz violinist might interpret the classic song "My Favorite Things." John Coltrane famously took the composition composed in 1959 by Rodgers and Hammerstein to a completely different place just a few years later in 1961 and defined what modern music was, or could be. Coloma Bertran takes "My Favorite Things" apart into nine additional compositions on the album Principis (Principles) with flavors of the original... Bertran lives in Barcelona, where the native language is Catalan, which gives the title track, "Principis" a double meaning. In an email exchange, she says it is "one of the main themes of the album, which I wrote to remind me where I come from and what my principles and values are." The title tune begins with a lone violin, then drums and then it explodes into a joyous romp. Her take on the jazz violin is also interesting; an instrument that is relatively rare in jazz, she makes it the center of attention. Lisa Sahulka reviews this unique album.

Amélia Muge first appeared on my radar in a 1998 recording of romanciero, a style of narrative poem that was popular on the Iberian peninsula in the 15th and 16th centuries. Novas Vos Trago (Tradisom) featured a group I had already come to love, the energetic percussion, bagpipe and vocal group Gaiteiros de Lisboa, and she appeared on a few tracks with them. While she is often promoted as a fado singer, and sometimes fits well into the category, it is her unyielding interest in the ancient and how it can inform the new that has made her essential listening for me over the last two decades. She has flirted with pop music and some purist fado in that time, but Amélias brings her fully into her own, in an album completely focused on the voice, the lyric, the stories. Hear more from this finely performed and beautifully illustrated recording, reviewed by your editor. Amélias is our pick for Music of the Month for July, 2022. Find out how you can subscribe monthly, or get the CD for a one-time donation.

Magalí Sare is a pianist, vocalist, flautist, percussionist, composer, arranger, lyricist, and more from Catalonia, with training in Western classical music and jazz; these elements combine to give a sophisticated and lyrical sound to Esponja (Sponge), Sare's second album released under her own name. Esponja is both alluring and infectious, made ever more captivating by the polished elasticity of Sare's voice. She adorns her gift with a palette of vocal accents, chirps and sighs for example, to illustrate her stories, confessions, her soul, further enhanced by toothsome lyrics and classy instrumentation. There's little here that is not immensely pleasing. Carolina Amoruso soaks it all in.

Jerry Jeff Walker, the late, great singer-songwriter, wasn't a Texan. That's a surprise in itself; his music seems organically entwined with the Lone Star state and it did become his home for many years, but he was born in New York state. Steve Earle, who was born in Texas but now ironically lives in New York, is an unabashed fan who worked with Walker back in the 1970s. Jerry Jeff is Earle's way of paying homage to a man who was a huge influence on him. Read Chris Nickson's review and hear how Steve Earle and The Dukes pay tribute to the great songwriter.

Estonian artist Eva Väljaots plays a variety of kannels, zithers with different sounds, strings and using different techniques, and her album Hundinuiaois - Bulrush Bloom taps into the essence of that delight in sound. Conceptually this series of pieces, all her own compositions, relate to aspects, and neighboring plants, of the bulrush (great reed mace), whose stiff brown sausage shaped flower-mass, atop a tall swaying stem, fragments as it matures, into a blizzard of white down that floats off in even the gentlest breath of breeze. Her simple, rather Moomin-like, line drawings of it and other plants in the CD booklet illustrate each track. Andrew Cronshaw takes you deeper into the instrument and the music.

There is a depth to the music of Soadan that takes a minute to define. Pieds Nus isn't a day at the beach barefoot, minimal clothing and a band playing all day on the shore. It is an extended time in a place that is both familiar and exotic, joyful and serene; that experience of waking up from a distant dream to sunshine, waves and new places. Soadan is the trio of Gregory Audrain (vocals, guitar, bass), Armel Goupil (marimba, keyboards) and Jean Marie Lemasson (vocals, drums, percussion), all natives of Brittany in France but steeped in the roots of not only their own culture, but a wide range of music from far flung places in Africa, the Indian Ocean and South America. Lisa Sahulka takes you on a trip inside this unique 'jazz' trio. Lisa Sahulka takes you on a trip inside this unique 'jazz' trio.

A classically trained cellist, banjoist, singer, and songwriter, Leyla McCalla, born in New York of Haitian immigrant parents and activists is now based in New Orleans. Her work has drawn upon her Haitian heritage and many other influences. When Duke University acquired the archives of Radio Haiti (1957–2003), McCalla took on the challenge of reviewing and incorporating elements of that material into a multi-disciplinary theater project that became Breaking the Thermometer. She weaves Radio Haiti's humorous and provocative archival broadcasts, interviews, traditional Haitian tunes, and her original compositions into a varied and engaging reflection upon the cultural, social, and political struggles of latter 20th Century Haiti, and the effort to trace her personal trajectory in that dynamic context. Read Michael Stone's review and hear some of the music.

There are bits of free jazz, sci-fi and a complicated mix of the African Diaspora in the music of Irreversible Entanglements' Open The Gates. The incendiary poetry that accompanies the music is beautiful in this context. Music is more powerful than the sword and this music is a tsunami of thoughts on justice and equity laced with various rhythms. Shabaka Hutchings' new album Afrikan Culture fits well in this space, a most welcome addition to jazz and its continuing evolution. It melds Japanese wood instruments with the kora and mbira to an effect that isn't entirely expected. Lisa Sahlka listens to two recent recordings that explore politics, jazz and new ideas.

On the second album from Anna Dantchev and her ensemble Dantchev:Domain, The Lions We Are, the Bulgarian singer who lives in Finland finds them exploring the theme of courage, a concept that's not always easy to define. Perhaps aptly, then, it's an album of surprising twists and turns in music, brimming over with ideas. That surfeit is evident on the very first track. "Goodbye" shifts quite abruptly from lament to a hyperspeed disco bassline, colored by deep brass that morphs into jazz. It's quite astonishing, and there's no doubt the musicians are exceptional, but the track, like the rest of the album, is very much an album of shadowed textures; plenty of darkness without the relief of light, only a few swirls of guitar and xylophone to offer occasional counterpoint. Read Chris Nickson's review and hear some of the new music online.

Orchestre Massako is an EP length 4-song collection that pays homage to late, prolific vocalist and songwriter, Jean-Christian Mboumba Mackaya aka Mack-Joss, a Gabonese musician who spearheaded this band from the late 1970s until their mid-1990s demise. Orchestre Massako, which was formed by members of Gabon's National Gendarmerie, eventually became Gabon's national orchestra and starting making records in Paris, where they were pressed and sold in Gabon. The band also came to include Amara Toure, a singer who had found fame in Senegal before moving first to Cameroun and then Gabon, where he joined Massako (you can hear him on two of this album's tracks). Musically, the sound here is polished but not slick, and like many West African bands of the time, owes some of its sound to music coming in from Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean African diaspora Saturno 2000 is an odd release. The recordings come from Mexico City. Well, sort of. Essentially, this compilation is indirectly the result of records that were sold to sonideros- block party DJs in Mexico City. The art of Mexican DJ culture runs along a timeline roughly the same as the earliest hip hop parties in the Bronx or the heavy, dub-drenched toasting of sound system DJ. What they all had in common was creativity based on economic decisions where money was tight. Whereas hip-hop's origins or Jamaica's toasters rapped over manipulated vinyl, Mexican block parties thrived due to the invention of turntables with pitch control, meaning DJs could slow records down from 33 to 20 RPMs, a concept that came to be called rebajada, or "to lower or reduce." This collection's real inspiration comes from an accident at a Monterrey block party when a local sonidero's turntable connection overheated, causing the records to slow down. The next day he started receiving requests for mix tapes of the tracks at the slower speed and a movement was born as more and more people wanted recordings. So, while the music here is largely from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela, it comes via purposeful and accidental tweaking much farther north. And it's astounding stuff, meant for a slow, hot summer day and a joint. Arguably, slowing the tracks down allows a listener to get inside the music. Truly, except on rare occasions where vocals appear, one would never know this music had been manipulated unless they were familiar with the original recording. Bruce Miller delves into two very different brands of popular music, from Gabon and South America.

Singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Drew Gonsalves is a native of Trinidad, transplanted as a teen to Canada. Inspired by the Kaiso tradition of such definitive purveyors of calypso as Neville Marcano "Growling Tiger" and Calypso Rose, Gonsalves pens most of Kobo Town's material. Carnival of the Ghosts delves more universally than its predecessors into the metaphysical vein. As Gonsalves relates in the album notes, "While much of my writing has been inspired by the history that has shaped the Caribbean and its diaspora, leaving its marks and scars in all our manners and doings, this album takes a wider look at our human condition­here the lingering past is not just beneath the surface of the present, it is also something we are all quickly becoming part of." Read Michael Stone's full review and hear some of the music. Carnival of the Ghosts is our June, 2022 selection for Music of the Month. Read more about it and subscribe to our monthly CDs, or purchase this one for a donation to RootsWorld.

Nyokabi Kariũki gives us a highly personalized sound journey in peace places: kenyan memories. She takes us down a path through the sound images that haven't left her; rather they have been informed and transformed by her artistic growth, and by the vividness as well as the fickleness of memory. Hers is a twenty-first century African interpretation of the environment and its relationship to traditional music. She teases us gently with console-tweaked natural sounds and with electronic fabrications. We share with her an intimate passage, one in which we feel, at the same time, enclosed within her secrets. Carolina Amoruso takes you to some of those secret places in her review. Listen.

Any Westerner who's heard music of the Beja people, who live near Port Sudan, a city located on Sudan's Red Sea coast and responsible for perhaps 90% of Sudan's trade, discovered it via a 1995 CD release titled Rain in the Hills: Beja Ballads of Port Sudan. The album, released on the late John Storm Roberts' defunct label Original Music, featured solo oud laments as well as tunes played on the basankoob, a Beja lyre. This new Ostinato release may not be the first to reach western ears (as they claim), but Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan's Red Sea Coast gives this music the largest Western audience it's likely to have. It has also introduced a hybrid instrument, the tambo-guitar, a combination electric guitar and tambour (aka the basankoob). Also, the music on Beja Power! differs radically from the OM release as it's electric, vocal-free, and played by a band that includes hand drummers, a sax, a second guitar and bass. Noori, the tambo-guitarist, sails over the album's six tracks as his Dorpa Band rides subtle, breathtaking vamps. Bruce Miller gives you the rest of the story.

The seljefløyte is a Norwegian flute made from willow and Hans Fredrik Jacobsen reckons his latest album Svadilja is the first ever to solely feature the instrument in its traditional form. Jacobsen prefers to make his own flutes, in the traditional way. "One of the things I love doing most is whittling a willow pipe. This is something I do every spring, when nature is awakening with new life, colors are appearing, sap is rising in the trees, birds are singing and the world is a better place." Svadilja is a collection of solo pieces he chose to record in the open air, in a forest not too far from Oslo. Mike Adcock reviews, and Hans Fredrick will show you how to make your own seljefløyte.

Those of us who listen to music constantly, particularly jazz, wait for the next burst of creativity that further defines the music. Jazz has been influenced by so many genres, including the African diaspora, Latin music and now every other form of music. It leads to the question: "Is this jazz?" Enter Maga Bo and his new album Amor (É Revolução), which recently stopped me in my tracks one morning while listening to WPKN radio. Maga Bo is an American-born music producer who has spent many years living in Brazil and mixing indigenous Brazilian roots music with 21st Century production and an amalgamation of various music forms... On Amor (É Revolução), his music is channeled in a glorious salute to Brazil, conjuring earth and spirit. Read Lisa Sahulka's review of the album and hear (and see) some of the music.

Long Term Parking is made up of the Czech trio of Christineck (aka Michal Krystýnek of the band Ponk), Kolib (aka Libor Koutník), and Pavel Bríza. Their first album Luxury Luxury is dark material. At this uncomfortable moment in time, something ecstatic just sounds wrong to my ears. A bit of keening anxiety is in order, along with spoken word droning, some catchy hooks to keep humming to and a bit of experimental sound atmospherics mixed with strings to get to the heart of the zeitgeist. We are (perhaps) coming out of the covid pandemic and into who-knows- what. The album is made up of songs laying bare moral struggles of the mind in the face of technological intrusions, and the collapse of self-identity and agency within the internet age. It's heady, deep listening stuff. Luxury Luxury has a message, delivered via elaborate lyric imagery and sonic textures. Join Martha Willette Lewis and explore a different take on Luxury.

Stelios Petrakis is top of the tree among Cretan musicians and instrument makers. He's particularly known as a leading player and maker of Cretan lyras, including the lyra with sympathetic strings that he and Ross Daly developed, but he's also master, and luthier, of laouto and saz, and here he brings in a new development of his, a bass lyra he calls 'Cretan cello.' This is a beautiful, richly textured, dazzlingly played album, of mostly his own compositions which, like his instruments, embrace and expand on the finest and subtlest parts of Cretan tradition, in instrumentals and songs with lyrics traditional or by his brother Yannis Petrakis. His quartet consists of himself on the aforementioned instruments, with Dimitris Sideris (laouto and vocals), Michalis Kontaxakis (mandolin) and dancer Nikos Lembesis. For this album they're joined on some tracks by singer Vasilis Stavrakákis, great Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani on zarb, daff and bendir, Charalambos Paraskakis on askomandoura (Cretan bagpipe), and Valencian musician and recording engineer Efrén López on pandero. His latest recording is titled Spondi. Read Andrew Cronshaw's review of Spondi and listen to some music.

The mere concept of a bunch of white folks from the states or Europe deciding it would be a great idea to collaborate with the Black musicians who inspired them is worrisome. From white-boy "blues" musicians such as Clapton playing with Howlin' Wolf to Jon Spencer's party record with RL Burnside, these collabs might have helped the aging bluesmen gain a larger audience, but they couldn't help but come off as patronizing... There's no escaping the dilemmas this inequality places on such pairings. Globally, there was the well-intentioned but problematic Real World Records run by Peter Gabriel, which, while introducing African musicians to the west, also seemed to sonically flatten what many of them had on offer, suggesting western production values were somehow more palatable. But sometimes we simply hear something and like it, finding familiarity and letting the influences wash over us. And that's precisely what happened when Belgium's Crammed Discs started releasing records in the West by raw, Congolese tradi-modern, electric ensembles who jacked their instruments into homemade-out-of-necessity amplification for a sound teetering on punk-rock sensibilities... What sets Congotronics International apart from the troubling white/Black collabs of the past is that Western artists featured here- Deerhoof, Juana Molina, Skeletons, Wildbirds & Peacedrums aren't enlisted by the label to give Konono #1, who reunited for these sessions, or Kasai All-Stars any larger audience. Instead, they're here to work their way into the Congolese bands' tonal and rhythmic spaces out of sheer love. As a result, Where's the One? truly feels like a more global celebration... Listen along while Bruce Miller gets deep inside this unusually successful collaboration.

Meneet, the long-awaited follow-up to Maija Kauhanen's remarkable 2017 solo debut, Raivopyörä, might well be even more satisfying that its predecessor. No other musicians this time around, it's simply her on various kanteles, both natural and prepared, along with all the voices and percussion, including "stuff from flea markets." Working alone is demanding, but Kauhanen has been careful and precise with the arrangements, yet still allowing space to work up a real fire. That's most apparent on the deviliish "Käärme" ("Snake") where she spits out the words like venom over the heavy bassline from the kantele, and a rising crescendo of instruments, erupting in a snake charm chant that pulls from several historical texts. The evil slithers along, insidious, dangerous and deadly, and the track becomes a musical battle. Who wins? Well, you'll just have to listen and read Chris Nickson's review to find out.

Percussionist Manongo Mujica, who began playing in Peruvian rock bands in 1970, went on to fuse jazz with the country's roots-based music in the 1980s, has composed, improvised, and collaborated with the likes of Acid Mothers Temple and Richard Pinhas. In 2020, he received the news that his dear friend of nearly 50 years, visual artist Rafael Hastings, had died, prompting the musical travels on Del Cuarto Rojo, as he tried to detail their friendship in sound. The results are evocative, touching, and sadly beautiful. Territorio del Eco compiles key Peruvian musicians who were at the forefront of the country's sonic innovations during the second half of the 20th Century. The focus here is on players who meshed the country's Andean traditions into some truly far-reaching explorations. Read Bruce Miller's reviews of these two recordings and listen.

Unsurprisingly, even a global pandemic could not keep Oumou Sangaré from expressing her musical heart and soul. Visiting the U.S. in 2020 from Mali, Sangaré got caught in the covid-19 lockdown and decided to stay put in Baltimore, where she bought a house, and started to write and record songs for her latest album. From across the Atlantic, Sangaré sings words of praise and caution to folks back home in Mali, particularly its women. For Timbuktu, Sangaré teams again with Mamadou Sidibé, an old friend and her accompanist on the kamele n'goni African lute. But on this new album, she has an inspired partnership with Pascal Danaë, a Paris-based guitarist and leader of the band Delgres, where he unites his Guadalupe roots and gritty electric blues. Danaë fits perfectly into the Malian electric-acoustic hybrid blues sound, contrasting nicely against the dry twang of the n'goni... Throughout, Sangaré's voice is a celebratory delight – silk and smoke, honey with a bit of grit, powerful and lithe. Read Marty Lipp's review, watch 2 videos, and listen to some of the music.

Calabria is home to composer/musician Ettore Castagna. It's a place that's been buffeted by influences from all around the Mediterranean over many centuries. You can hear strong hints of that history in the music here; bits of Greece and North Africa, along with that dry, dusty sound that typifies the entire south of Italy. It makes for a heady rhythmic and often hypnotic combination, one that multi-instrumentalist Castagna gleefully explores. Eremìa started life as a completely solo project, just Castagna's voice and playing, but quickly grew far beyond that, as he brought in musicians and instruments from around the world to add their own colors and textures to the material. Yet, for all the guests, the core of the sound remains constant to Castagna's original vision. Come listen and read Chris Nickson's review.

Andrew Cronshaw finds it full of memorable material, beautifully arranged and played.