Collector’s Café – Recordings For Your World Music Library.

Check here each week for my thoughts on CDs and vinyl recordings in my collection as well as those I’ve recently added. Once something catches my eye, I generally look for and purchase those on sale as “used in good condition.” On occasion, I get a “lemon” and have to send it back and ask that it be replaced. Check them out on the internet and listen to learn if they’re worth adding to your personal collection.

6.4.2020
Last week I recorded a new “The Odyssey Audio Series” on Afro Celtic music. “The fusion of African and Celtic music exemplifies the historical complexity of global cultural interaction. It explores the musical cosmos where origin and innovation to expand our imagination can be shaped by intention and by chance. And, what is particularly fascinating beyond the accidental merge of these two distinctively unique brands, is their lasting musical imprint on the multi-layered globalization of cultures that exist today.”

Hear more at https://www.wpr.org/shows/connection-between-afro-celtic-music

The music of the group Baka Beyond plays in the background. I ordered their CD “Journey Between”, 1998, Rykodisc. I’m listening to it as I write.

From the opening moments, it is clear that this truly a ‘world music’ collective. The fused sound of their music is a celebratory wedding of Celtic, African, and Western musical flavors. The groove of their music re-imagines the pastoral sounds of First Nation – Native American, where the flute floats over land, water, and sky.

You can dance to their trance-like sound pulsating with the percussive underpinning of Baka music from the Southwestern Central African Republic, where the use of music is often associated with hunting and ritual practices. Quickly, each track could stretch on for thirty or more minutes (I wish they did) not so different from Raga music in Hindustani Classical Music. It’s rare to hear music that you can fall asleep to and dance to and the time. However, just when you start to drift off into slumber land, the group’s violinist lures you back to reality with the textured sound of Celtic fiddle playing. Senegal, UK, France, and Ghana.

I wonder if they have ever performed at the Sauti Za Busara Festival in Morocco? The crowd would be in seventh heaven – me too! If you enjoy and have a CD of music by Sami singer Marie Boine, this CD should live alongside it.

Write to me via higherground@wpr.org, or on Facebook at @worldmus1 and let me know which musical ‘friends’ are dining with you.