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Evolve (stylized as ƎVOLVE) is the upcoming third studio album by American rock band Imagine Dragons, scheduled to be released on June 23, 2017 through KIDinaKORNER and Interscope Records. The album is the band’s new material follow-up to their second studio album, Smoke + Mirrors.
After the release of Smoke + Mirrors and its respective world tour, a self-imposed hiatus for 2016 and cryptic messages from the band through their social media gained anticipation for their third album. The album was finally announced on May 9, with the initiation of the album’s pre-order. In comparison to Night Visions and Smoke + Mirrors, frontman Dan Reynolds explained that the album will be an ‘evolution for Imagine Dragons’.
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His was hard rock and heavy metal, hers was the classic sound of the East Texas piney woods. Theirs was a fiery collision, bearing forth a sound that was at once novel and instantly familiar.
Funk is widely known across the United States but, arguably, the genre’s not-so-distant cousin makossa embodies what it truly means to be “funky.” Derived from the Douala phrase meaning “I dance,” makossa has been bringing listeners to their feet since its start in the early 1950s. Starting out as a dance simply called kossa, the genre has grown to see international success outside of its homeland, Cameroon. The most widely known artist was Manu Dibango, whose hit record “Soul Makossa” pioneered in the disco scene and later served as inspiration for songs from Michael Jackson and Rihanna. Though makossa has seen widespread acclaim, Pop Makossa delves into the lesser-heard songs of the genre recorded from 1976-84. Analog Africa’s founder Samy Ben Redjeb has been compiling tracks for Pop Makossa since 2008, and with good reason. The label is known for its knack of finding hidden gems as seen on past compilations like Senegal 70 and Space Echo, so it only makes sense that Redjeb would want to keep up the trend. The underground of makossa is filled with sounds that bridge Africa to the funk, disco and soul stylings of America in the 1970s and ‘80s, and Analog Africa succeeds in uncovering some far-out picks.
The album, fittingly, starts with “Pop Makossa Invasion,” a bare-bones track by Dream Stars which premiered on Radio Buea in Cameroon but never saw an official release. You await additional instruments to join in on the groove being laid down by the guitarist, bassist and drummer of the group, but they never come in. Instead, your attention turns to the prominent bass line (a reoccurring trend on this album) and rhythmic chanting, instructing you to “do the pop makossa”. And “do the pop makossa” you will. Although the track keeps the instrumentation to a minimum, the beat slowly works its way through your head and you’ll find yourself bopping along in no time. However, the second cut quickly takes us up to speed on a trip into the nation’s capital with “Yaoundé Girls” performed by Mystic Djim and the Spirits. While the opening number is more of a slow burn, Djim throws us directly into the fire telling us the various ways (reggae, grooving, telling them good things) with which you can keep Yaoundé girls satisfied.
Despite the fact that all of these compositions are from a vintage Cameroon era, their variation in sound would suggest that they’ve been plucked from all over the world, and even outside of it. The piano line on “M’ongele M’am” by Eko wouldn’t feel out of place with Donna Summer’s vocals layered on top, blasting out of Studio 54. The introduction on “The Sekele Movement” from Pasteur Lappé sounds like James Brown is about to greet us with his classic shout at any moment. Continuing our journey, Lappé serves as pilot and guides us into a tropical paradise, presumably located far across the galaxy as spacecraft-like sound effects litter his other song, “Sanaga Calypso.” This cosmic sensation is heightened by the album cover, featuring a highly decorated figure shooting laser beams out of its eyes. This supernatural being is juxtaposed with the Cameroonian town seen in the background, well reflecting the wide variety of sounds and influences heard on this album. Pop Makossa culminates seven years of careful deliberation as to which choice cuts should be included, but I believe the time was well spent as this record does an (inter)stellar job of highlighting the unique crossover sounds of the genre.
You can stream and buy the full album here:
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Through acoustic piano, guitar, and vocals, I sing and minister healing to others through song; songs of healing and of hope.
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Carolina Blue is a Brevard, NC based band whose roots run deep in the tradition of Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs. The band was formed in 2007 after the release of the album “Nothing So Blue” by Bobby Powell and Tim Jones. Carolina Blue won the South Carolina state bluegrass championship at RenoFest in 2011. The band’s repertoire consists of original songs (including Tim Jones’ “Spring Will Bring Flowers”, which was recorded by 2014 IBMA entertainers of the year Balsam Range), many bluegrass favorites, and gospel too, all done in the traditional style. Available recordings are Bobby Powell & Tim Jones “Nothing So Blue” (2007 produced by Steep Canyon Ranger Woody Platt and featuring Platt, Graham Sharp, Mike Guggino, Shannon Whitworth, and Roy Chapman), “Carolina Blue Live at Renofest” (2011) self produced “Goin’ Home Today” (2016) which earned them their first song on the charts, and most recently released “Sounds of Kentucky Grass” (2017). Band members are Bobby Powell on guitar and vocals, Tim Jones on mandolin and vocals, Reese Combs on upright bass and vocals, James McDowell on banjo and vocals, Merl Johnson on fiddle and vocals
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“Twang Solo“ is one of the most entertaining instrumental albums.Not only because oft he diversity in style, but also because oft he detailed arrangements. The very beginning of „The 4D Man“ for example reminded pleasantly on „Ghost Town“ by THE SPECIALS. In „Marisnatchi“, rattlesnakes wriggle around the recording desk. Tracks like „The Torturer“ that starts as a deadly alliance of electric bass and fuzz guitar are spiced up with short dialogue samples, while the melodies are throughout persuasive. Classic surf-tracks alternate with other facettes like the fantastic psychobilly-instrumental „Johnny Dangerously“.
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“Annabelle’s Curse are one of several folk-rock bands that have gone out on a limb to give the classic American genre an engaging revitalization, their songs inundated by rollicking banjos and guitar, tight percussion, and singalong choruses not far off the beaten path from an early Mumford & Sons. Where the comparisons end are arguably at lyrical depth and composition variety, wherein the Tennessean-Virginian outlet has them beat”
-Pop Matters
Every summer, the breezy Moroccan beach town of Essaouria hosts the Gnawa World Music Festival—the largest gathering of North African Gnawa musicians anywhere in the world. This year the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary, with an impressive lineup of international performers, workshops, and Moroccan musicians from all over the country. This year’s festival takes place from June 29 to July 1, one week after the end of Ramadan.
For the last two decades the festival has attracted serious international talent: Salif Keita, Tony Allen, Oumou Sangaré, Baaba Maal, Marcus Miller, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Omar Sosa, Randy Weston, Maceo Parker, and even ‘90s hip-hop outfit Arrested Development are just a few of the artists that have turned up in Essaouira.
This year’s lineup is no exception, with Brazilian funk legend Carlinhos Brown, Senegalese superstar Ismaël Lô, Congolese composer Ray Lema, Moroccan pop star Hindi Zahra, American bluesman Lucky Peterson, Algerian jazz drummer (and longtime festival favorite) Karim Ziyad, and dozens more. [See full festival lineup here]
Of course, the real draw of the festival is the chance to see Morocco’s mesmerizing Gnawa music played live by the masters of the genre. Known to their fans and followers as maâlems, master singers like Hamid El Kasri, Mokhtar Guinea, Mustapha Baqbou, Omar Hyat and other giants of the genre will be working their magic on the festival’s main stage and in the cool, tiled courtyards of the various riyads and zaouias of Essaouria’s 18th century medina.
For the uninitiated, Gnawa—or Gnaoua–is ritual trance music that is part of a larger spiritual and cultural tradition found across North Africa. In Morocco, these traditions were originally practiced and passed down by the country’s minority black communities, largely descended from slaves form Mali and Mauritania.
Photos by Lisa A. Walker
Gnawa music is hypnotic by design: call-and-response chants from master maâlems and their choruses [kouyous] rise and fall gently over gutbucket bass notes plucked out on the lute-like sintir and the metallic clatter of qarqab castanets. The music has fascinated outsiders for generations. Jamaican poet Claude McKay and American writer/composer Paul Bowles were both early proponents, writing about and recording Gnawa music as far back as the 1920s; while later American jazz giants like Randy Weston and Pharaoh Sanders have been especially attracted to Gnawa, recognizing the music’s spiritual kinship with the blues tradition.
But even as Morocco’s Gnawa masters were attracting the attention of Western cognoscenti, they were still relegated to the lower rungs of society at home in Morocco. For most of the 20th century, their social and economic status was precarious, and Gnawa music was not favored or encouraged by the ruling class. The Moroccan government tended to promote Andalusian classical music at home and abroad, and few maâlems made a living on music alone.
Luckily, that’s no longer the case. The radio and TV success of Gnawa-inspired pop acts like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jalala in the 1970s and ‘80s helped pave the way for Gnawa’s mass appeal. Today some maâlems are practically household names, releasing a steady stream of albums that often find their way onto the radio—something practically unheard of just a generation ago. And the Gnawa World Music Festival played a big part in this reversal of fortune.
The festival was first conceived in 1997 by its current director, Neila Tazi, who believed fervently that culture could drive economic development in Morocco.
Born to diplomat parents in Washington D.C. and educated in Paris, Tazi brought her worldly perspective to bear on a small Atlantic port town that was long on charm but short on money and infrastructure.
“The festival has definitely had an economic impact on Essaouira,” Tazi said in a 2015 interview. “When we started the festival there were something like 40 hotels in town, and today there are over 300… That’s just one metric… But what’s more important is how much the situation has improved for the Gnawis since we launched the festival. I always believed that if we gave them the visibility and the tools—and most importantly respect as artists—that they would go very far.”
And so they have: The festival celebrated its big anniversary a little bit early this year, with a U.S. tour bringing maâlems Hamid El Kasri and Abdeslam Alikkane to Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in March. The tour also brought maâlems Mustapha Baqbou and Hassan Boussou to the Bataclan theater in Paris, where they played alongside festival favorites Tony Allen, Hindi Zahra, Titi Robin, Mehdi Nassouli and Karim Ziad.
The tour was just a taste. The real party starts next week in Essaouira.
[Label: Strut | Cat#: STRUT151]
