It’s been awhile, but here’s the final podcast of the year! The track listing is as follows:
1. Peter Fox – Alles Neu
2. Hilarion Nguema – Gabon Pays De Joie
3. The Chambers Brothers – Time Has Come Today
4. Carlos Gardel – La Muchacha
5. Ennio Morricone – Dal Mare
6. Al Bowlly – Fancy Our Meeting
7. Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
8. Peter Thomas – Raumpatrouille Orion
9. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians – Auld Lang Syne (Film Version)
10. The Durutti Column – Tomorrow (Live, from the album ‘Domo Arigato’)
Pavle Aksentijević is a living, breathing repository of Serbian music, both sacred and secular, as well as an icon painter and member of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Here he is performing with a group called Zapis. Consider hunting down his work on record, or check out samples over at Youtube.
Many thanks to bolingo69 for posting this rather sublime-looking set. Has anyone been able to find a copy of it, or has access to a digitized copy? This looks like a very enjoyable set to spend these winter nights with.
One of the greatest bands in the history of Balkan alternative music, Anastasia were fronted by singer Goran Trajkoski (Gotra), who went on to sing for Macedonian legends Mizar, as well as making incredible music as a solo musician. He is also an old friend who is as decent as he is talented.
Here is a sample of what you’re hearing, which is based on a text from the Holy Bible (David’s Psalm 137:1) in historic documents connected with destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 588 BC.:
На реките Вавилонски
таму седевме и плачевме
сеќавајќи се на Цион
На врбите среде него
ги обесивме нашите харфи
Таму нашите поробувачи ни бараа песни
нашите мачители се радуваа викајќи:
Пејте ни од песните ционски
Како да пееме песни господови на земји туѓински
Ако те заборавам тебе, Ерусалиме
нека се заборави десницата моја
Нека си го голтнам јазикот
ако не се сетам на тебе
ако не го издигнам Ерусалим
над мојата најголема радост
Сети се Господи на синовите едомски
кога дента во Ерусалим викаа:
разурнете го, разурнете го до темели.
Ќерко вавилонска, опустошена
блежен нека биде тој што ќе ти го направи тебе
она што ти ни го направи нам
Блажен нека биде тој што ќе ги земе децата твои
и ќе ги удри од камен.
In English:
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it
To its very foundation.”
O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.
Tigran Hamasyan is a new name on my radar. He’s from Armenia, plays a very aggressive sort of jazz, and will be worth watching develop as the years pass. Nonesuch Records have picked another winner.
The Internet is a treasure trove which never ceases to amaze. Thanks to the enterprising souls over at Analog Africa, a brilliant reissue label from Germany, we get to here these long-forgotten wonders from the country formerly known as Zaïre, now the Democratic Republic of The Congo.
Welcome back, friends! It’s been a while since I’ve bothered to post anything here due to traveling and work obligations. Time to make this little labor of love a bit more active!
We start out by posting a classic rhumba-and-calypso-influenced tune from what was then the Belgian Congo, then Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of The Congo). The bank, O.K. Jazz, were one of the finest exporters of this type of sound in South-Central Africa, and they gave the world one of the true giants of African music, the guitarist François Luambo Luanzo Makiadi, know to his legions of admirers simply as Franco.
Hamlet Gonashvili possessed perhaps the most beautiful voice to ever come out of Georgia, which is no simple thing to claim. He died far too young after falling from an apple tree in 1985, but left an admirable body of work from his native homeland. This is, to me, his best work.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 