Jace Clayton, better known as DJ /Rupture (previously on mefi), interviewed last month for the avclub. He discusses his use of Colombian cumbia music, collaborating with Dutch guitarist Andy Moor of The Ex, and a concept record with his Spanish electro-string quartet Nettle. The concept? Stephen King's The Shining transported to an abandoned luxury hotel in Dubai.
posted by mannequito on Oct 11, 2009 - 10 comments

"Radiodiffusion Internasionaal is devoted to the evolution of popular music from Africa, the Middle East, India and Asia and the proliferation of Western influences on these non-Western cultures. The focus is primarily the music from the mid 60's to the mid 70's." (Description from the front page of the site.) Slightly differently formatted version of the website here. Nice set of links, too (scroll down to the Words and Pictures section).
posted by cog_nate on Aug 13, 2008 - 8 comments

World Passport Music – 75 hours of free world music in mp3/podcast format. Afrobeat, Cuban Diaspora, Haitian Kompa, Salsa, Highlife, Rumba Congolaise, Kinshasa-Nairobi Sounds, Afrijazz, Calypso, Hawaiian, American Jazz Roots, Yoruban Ejeki Jo... Let’s Dance!
posted by algreer on Nov 1, 2007 - 23 comments

Badi Assad has some incredible technique goin' on (YouTube) and charisma to burn. The 41-year-old Brazilian singer and guitarist comes from a musical family and has been signed to a pretty prestigious North-American record label. Of course these days there is the obligatory Wikipedia entry and her MySpace page. Here's an interview (from ten years ago) wherein she discusses her music. So far as I can see those hips and those lips and those fingertips don't lie. [Much more Badi Assad on YouTube]
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Aug 10, 2007 - 24 comments

Por Por: Squeeze-bulb horn music of Ghana[pdf].
posted by geos on Mar 16, 2007 - 8 comments

OH NO! THERE GOES TOKYO! GO GO GODZILLA! (Nearly) every Godzilla soundtrack. (Thanks to my girlfriend for hipping me to this)
posted by klangklangston on Oct 10, 2006 - 28 comments

Hamza el Din, hailed as "the father of Nubian music," has died. El Din's death has not yet been reported in the news, but I'm told he passed away from complications of brain surgery. It's a great loss for music lovers all over the world. "Escalay," performed on oud with the Kronos Quartet on their album Pieces of Africa, is probably his best-known work, but "Ollin Arageed," his haunting piece for handclaps and tar -- a goatskin drum -- was played numerous times onstage with the Grateful Dead, who championed el Din's music and jammed with him at the Great Pyramid in 1978. Eclipse provides an excellent introduction to his work, the ethereal sounds of one of the oldest continuously-inhabited regions on the planet. In the 1960s, el Din's own home village in Egypt was drowned underwater by the construction of the Aswan Dam, as archeologists tried to save what they could.
posted by digaman on May 23, 2006 - 21 comments

Congotronics! Mawangu Mingiedi, 72, a musician and truck driver from Kinshasa, was simply trying to allow the music of his street band, Konono No. 1, be heard over the traffic and street noise, but when he fashioned home-made amplifiers out of junkyard parts he created something raw and distorted with a sound all its own (quicktime). (via MonkeySARS, where an MP3 awaits you)
posted by Robot Johnny on Nov 22, 2005 - 41 comments

No Condition is Permanent. World music, and African music in particular, often falls into two categories: pleasant and inoccuous, or the fetishized other. Even speaking of "African" music is misleading. Senegalese mbalax doesn't sound that much like Camaroonian makossa. And I don't say this as some great authority; I'm still just at the beginning of the learning curve. So come along with me. There's the broad Benne Loxo du Taccu, the sidebar of Mudd Up!, the great (and self-explanitory) African Hiphop, Stern's Music (this link going to a more accessible Thione Seck), Aduna (for Francophones— my middle-school French gets me by, but I'm really there for the music), Du Bruit (more Francophones, with an emphasis on vinyl sharities), and Worldly Disorientation (which covers all sorts of world music, but has some excellent African stuff). Have I missed anything great? Recommend it in the thread. I tend to prefer the psychedelic and dubby stuff more than straight folk styles, but that's me.
posted by klangklangston on Nov 17, 2005 - 42 comments

Every audience seems to be niche audience these days but this guy (not forgetting this guy) were the goods. I was reminded of them when a friends sent me this link from Germany. Made my day, it should at least raise a smile. (Guitar players may want to weep) And there seems to be a lot more of it out there than I had suspected, predictably in France and Holland, but even places like Argentina, Finland, and Japan . America does her part, and count on Britain to be encyclopaedic on the subject Okay, some are better than others, but they all have heart. Just now I could almost wish to live in Southern California just for this
posted by IndigoJones on Feb 11, 2005 - 16 comments