The Essential Guide To World Music
[Union Square : EsgCD306]
Triple CD, African Lives has 12 tracks with a rounded mix of material from Youssou N'Dour, Khaled, Tony Allen, Mahmoud Ahmed, Tinariwen etc. The South American Way includes The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Seu Jorge, Aurelio Martinez and bringing things up to speed Yerba Buena feat Adussa with some New York based Reggaeton. CD three is 'When East Meets West' which effectively starts in India with tracks from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Lata Mangeshkar and A.R.Rahman and moves us to Spain with Pepe Habichuela & The Bollywood Strings (spot the link, here comes another) Nitin Sawnhey with Marina Abad and Ojos De Brujo. Along the way there's some Gaelic influences from Mouth Music and Alasdair Graham & Congregation. A neatly formed collection, that, with a title like that could happily run for several thousand future editions. Graham Radley