A Musical-Moral Compass Listening Post 335. There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life, wrote Dickens, as the simple truth.* “Emergency of life” is as good a description as any to describe humanity’s plight these past two years, and few contemporary...
Wave of the Present Listening Post 334. Like ripples on the water or wrinkles in time, the songs of Mónica Giraldo’s seventh album radiate gently. Water and time, in fact, are central features of the Colombian singer-songwriter’s 10-track collection Hubo un Tiempo...
Looking Up Listening Post 333. The Earth doesn’t move beneath our feet but it does rotate, offering far flung lands with unique cultures a view of the same heavens. Perhaps this explains why Alena Murang’s songs evoke both the mystery of a faraway people and instant...
The Mirror Has Two Faces Listening Post 332. Nouara is Algerian chaâbi at its best—11 evocative folk-blues songs of elusive love, nostalgia, hope and self-awareness, served in Kamel El Harrachi’s silky voice. Throughout his career the artist’s challenge has actually...
Soundtrack of Memory Listening Post 331. There’s an exquisite balance in Sarah Aroeste’s homage to a bygone community that lives in her heart under a bygone name. Bitola is North Macedonia’s second largest city, a place of Ottoman and Neoclassical architecture, of...
Fine Lines Listening Post 330. The title track of Syssi Mananga’s captivating second album is an autobiographical ballad of freedom and motherhood, one concept pulling toward exploration, the other toward roots. Mopepe means “wind” in Lingala and the singer-songwriter...
Fate in the Future Listening Post 329. Fado means destiny, and those who sing Portugal’s signature music explore saudade—nostalgia for what, or who, is lost and longed for. But what is the fate of fado itself? The first post-Amália Rodrigues generation of fadistas—an...
Silver Linings Listening Post 328. The Faroe Islands are shrouded in subpolar isolation, tantalizing mythology and stubborn clouds, but their rugged terrain and spectacular landscapes are accessible to travelers, and examples of the archipelago’s fascinating culture...
Transcending the Trends Listening Post 327. The elements of contemporary music—performers, instruments, genres, modes of consumption—are at the mercy of changeable tastes and racing technology. But consider the extraordinary endurance of West Africa’s griots, musical...
Light, Voice, Action Listening Post 326. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness: Rare is the artist who embodies this adage as fully as Uganda’s Rachel Magoola. Since the 1970s her homeland has seen military dictatorship, civil war, forced recruitment of...
Passion’s Arena Listening Post 325. Love is universal, the feeling that most connects people of every era—from cave dwellers to web surfers—which explains why love songs far outnumber all other kinds. And just like common folk looking for that magic spark, the...
Pluck Listening Post 324. Abbreviated version of Marjo Smolander’s biography: Born in the smallest village in Finland’s North Karelia region, she made the Sahara her second home and had to pull strings to get where she is today. Expanded story: It was in her fortunate...
Tilting at a New World Listening Post 323. When Alex Cuba imagined his eighth album his dream may have seemed unreachable: He wanted songs that reflect the struggle and emotion simultaneously separating and uniting all humanity but he didn’t want them forever...
Into the Rainbow Listening Post 322. The magic in The Wizard of Oz begins when a tornado wrenches Dorothy from her home in sepia-toned Kansas and drops her into a Technicolor universe. Something similar happens with Couleur (Color), Dobet Gnahoré’s sixth album, an...
The Bearable Lightness of Butterflies Listening Post 321. Virtually all Western music comes from the same 12-note scale, so maybe it shouldn’t be remarkable that Tara Fuki— Dorota Barová and Andrea Konstankiewicz—accomplishes so much with two voices and two cellos....
In the Spirit Listening Post 320. Beauty happens when an artist arranges disparate parts and pieces into a fixed space, making arresting sense of out of confusion. Kady Diarra’s third album is a cornucopia of pleasures and wisdom, reflecting her life, her homeland...
Labor of Love Listening Post 319. In May 2019, Isabel Frey, a singer of Yiddish revolutionary songs, landed her biggest gig yet, not in a concert hall but atop a van in central Vienna at the regular Thursday demonstration protesting the presence of the far-right...
Flower Power Listening Post 318. Imagine an archipelago, nine islands sharing a common culture but each welcoming visitors with a sign indicating its singular stories and features: One isle is focused on dance, another on flowers, others on music creation, parenthood,...
Where Music Never Stops Listening Post 317. More than coffee or summer rain, Cuba is drenched in music. It emanates from bars and homes, along Havana’s Malécon, from the streets and squares of cities and towns, from the public buses that weave through the countryside....
The Art of Change Listening Post 316. “Human justice is like ice/Melts with sunrise/Give me the ney and sing/Singing is the justice of hearts.” The Lebanese singer-songwriter Tania Saleh put these words by her countryman Khalil Gibran to music in 2017. Now she is back...
Like Flora, Like Fauna Listening Post 315. The longose is an invasive species that suffocates other vegetation. On her second album, Ann O’aro likens the tree—which flourishes on Réunion, her home island—to traumatic memories that smother the spirit. Symbolism is the...
Positions Listening Post 314. Duarte has three defining missions: “I am married to psychology but fado is my lover,” he says, referring to his clinical practice and his art. And though he has a sterling reputation as a fado singer he is also a lyricist-composer,...
Lost and Found Listening Post 313. Hireth is Cornish for a species of nostalgia, akin to the Portuguese saudade, that expresses insatiable yearning. On her first solo album, singer-songwriter Tanya Brittain comes magnificently close to quenching this singular thirst....
Life, Love & Clouds Listening Post 312. Elida Almeda’s fourth album is a story of Cape Verde, a portrait of the generation of artists following in the footsteps of the great diva Cesária Évora, and the saga of one singer-songwriter, raised by a single mother in a...
The Sound of Walls Listening Post 311. It’s not news that great music emerges from dire circumstances, but bravissimo to Frank London, composer, trumpeter and co-founder of the Klezmatics (among myriad exploits) for his new album, a breathtaking journey through the...
Embracing the Riddle Within Listening Post 310. We all have strengths and frailties, multifaceted personalities and lives, good and bad days. On Tonen i meg (The Tone in Me), Sigrid Moldestad, the Norwegian singer-songwriter-musician, joins forces with Sigrid...
The Many Sides of Time Listening Post 309. Fado and Portugal combined are like a reversible garment: Display the banner of one on the outside and the other side touches your heart. And if the music expresses the Portuguese soul, perhaps no artist expresses fado in as...
Indelible Introduction Listening Post 308. Céline Banza’s voice is so utterly captivating it seems to eliminate emotional distance, merging melancholy with hope, grievance with comfort, artist with audience. On her debut album the Congolese singer-songwriter tells...
Respect, A Cappella Listening Post 307. Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton, Shakira, Nicki Minaj—voices embodying women’s empowerment have revolutionized popular music over the past half century. But as superstars rouse millions of women, they also highlight art as an...
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....
