All the Right Signs Listening Post 337. At the junction of multiple roads you often see signs pointing in many directions, and Batila’s debut solo album is a crossroads of sorts. Son of Congolese and Angolan parents, he was raised in Germany and England and now lives...
The Mellow Side Listening Post 306. Adjiri Odametey has a touch of the philosophy professor who presents life’s central questions in the classroom, or around the campfire, with such gentle and infectious enthusiasm that we don’t so much think it over as drink it in....
Song Love & Wanderlust Listening Post 235. Like the queue outside the Louvre, the seven-woman chorus Tsaziken is a fascinating mix of disparate elements and common threads. Based in Cologne, with German and Slavic roots, on their second album they sing in eight...
Out of This World and Home for Dinner Listening Post 134. As consistently as she releases sparkling albums, Claudia Koreck reaches new heights. Her 2007 debut ignited a revival of Bavarian-dialect song, a movement that now counts her as its Grande Dame. In short order...
From Yin-Yang to Oy-Oompah Listening Post 118. Scholars debate whether Yiddish, the German-based language of Ashkenazi Jews, emerged in the Rhineland or Bavaria. Few have studied Bavarian-Yiddish links more than Andrea Pancur, who focuses less on debating linguistic...
Floating Village Listening Post 92. The Berlin-based world/folk group 17 Hippies emerged in an open-minded Europe that valued diversity. Operating less like a band than a village in which each resident carries instruments and tastes acquired on foreign adventures, the...
Town & Country Listening Post 51. Aesop’s story of the city mouse and the country mouse described a clash of worldviews. In the hands and voice of the German singer-songwriter Claudia Koreck, city and country are competing and complementary forces within one body....
TMI Listening Post 12. Annett Louisan is Marlene Dietrich redesigned: Shorter in stature, higher in voice, she takes her own route to the same seductive ends. Innocent or naughty, funny or critical, perky or melancholy, she adroitly juggles modern vocabulary and retro...
