Souad Massi: Sequana

December 7, 2022

Like water, music flows; like music, water heals. Souad Massi may not be the first artist to link the two essential life forces, but on her seventh studio album she combines them in spectacular and oracular fashion. Sequana takes its name from the Gallo-Roman goddess of the Seine, with wellsprings believed to have curative powers. In pandemic solitude, the Franco-Algerian singer-songwriter would walk along the riverbank in Paris, where she found … More Souad Massi: Sequana

Lily Henley: Oras Dezaoradas

November 8, 2022

Like Appalachian dew at sunrise, Lily Henley’s voice sparkles on her second full-length album, but beneath the surface of her songs run forces that have rearranged landscapes for more than 500 years. The pillars of Oras Dezaoradas (Timeless Hours) are the artist’s nomadic childhood, her family having moved more than a dozen times; the fiddle camps she attended every summer that became an … More Lily Henley: Oras Dezaoradas

Khiyo: Bondona

October 30, 2022

Khiyo emerged when Sohini Alam, a singer born in London to Bangladeshi parents, met Oliver Weeks, a Gloucester-born musician-composer steeped in Bengali culture. Their work together reflects nothing less than the laws of chemistry and the story of humanity: Two entities combine to produce something new that shows its roots but also develops independent force and identity. The music of their now six-member band (plus guests) is Bengali folk … More Khiyo: Bondona

Iberi: Supra

September 30, 2022

High ground is supposed to be secure, but Georgia’s perch in the Caucasus Mountains hasn’t kept out invaders—from Romans to Russians, with other empires in between. Still, time seems to be on the country’s side. Georgians have a winemaking tradition going back 8,000 years and a heritage of polyphonic singing that predates their fourth-century adoption of Christianity. Wine, music, history and dedication to homeland all merge on Supra … More Iberi: Supra

Elif Sanchez: Mi Voz

September 21, 2022

Art and life merge in the luscious voice of Elif Sanchez, and her second album offers the privileged listener an international voyage, no passport required. Her music rests on a traditional foundation of family and schooling: Born Elif Cakmut in Istanbul, she grew up singing Turkish and Azerbaijani folk songs with her mother, had a classical conservatory education, learned oboe and English horn, played in a symphony orchestra, studied jazz … More Elif Sanchez: Mi Voz

Imarhan: Aboogi

September 14, 2022

Imarhan’s third album takes its name from the dwellings the Tuareg band’s forebears built in their first permanent settlements—and it derives added meaning from the modern shelter they erected in Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria near the borders of Mali and Niger: After two albums produced in France, in 2019 the quintet started work on the first recording studio in the oasis town where they grew up, and Aboogi is the first album to … More Imarhan: Aboogi

Oumou Sangaré: Timbuktu

September 1, 2022

Once a center of trade and learning graced by canals and mango trees, Timbuktu languishes today, a victim of poverty, desertification and war. As political decay spreads, Oumou Sangaré sees the legendary city as a symbol of her beloved Mali—how it lost its way and how it might flourish again. Sangaré is one of her country’s leading singer-songwriters—however broken its politics, Mali is still a music superpower—and her path from poverty … More Oumou Sangaré: Timbuktu

Lenka Lichtenberg: Thieves of Dreams

August 25, 2022

If poetry is a lost art, Lenka Lichtenberg’s latest album is a welcome reminder that what is lost can also be found. In 2016, the Czech-Canadian Jewish singer-songwriter was in her native Prague, sorting through the belongings of her mother, who had just passed away; opening a drawer she discovered two worn notebooks filled with poems her grandmother, Anna Hana Friesová (1901-1987) … More Lenka Lichtenberg: Thieves of Dreams

Blaumut: Olímpica i Primavera

August 17, 2022

Einstein, Dalí and Descartes walk into a bar… No, this isn’t the full story of Blaumut’s fifth album but it suggests the ambition, gravity and splendor of 10 songs that peruse the relative positions of heavenly and earthly bodies in real, surreal and fictional terms, from an eternal we-sing-therefore-we-are viewpoint. Seriously playful, the Barcelona-based band has always seen entertainment as … More Blaumut: Olímpica i Primavera

Marjan Vahdat: Our Garden Is Alone

August 3, 2022

At the foundation of Our Garden Is Alone lies a rift between body and soul. Though Marjan Vahdat lives in California her heart is in her native Iran: Whenever one part of her is in daylight the other part sees only the night sky. Her songs carry fierce sorrow and glimmers of hope, suspended between clarity and ambiguity. Are expressions of love aimed at a person or at a country? Does the … More Marjan Vahdat: Our Garden Is Alone