Rooted in Finnish folk traditions, classical idioms and innovative modern ideas, Tsuumi Sound System was founded to support the Helsinki based dance troupe, Tsuumi. With so many ideas and a cast of talented musicians, they soon branched out into concert and recording projects devoted to new musical sounds. Online now is a live performance by the ensemble at the Viljandi Folk Festival, presented by Estonian Traditional Music Center. Listen to the concert

New sounds are emerging from Madagascar in the form of Tsara Madagasikara, by the group known as Samy Izy. Their name is a typical Malagasy poetic play on words, with multiple meanings that include "Just as good" and "the true Sammy." Andriamalalaharijaona Samoela, better known as Sammy, has appeared on many recordings through the years by Tarika Sammy with a floating group of musicians. He is back, as part of a new ensemble with new ideas for a new century. Read More | Listen The "bridal room" at Savannah's historic Trinity Methodist Church offers a glimpse into the clichéd world of the Southern belle. Overstuffed sofas, heavy drapery, straight-backed chairs, and an ornate full-length mirror with golden trim dominate the main room, while shelves loaded with hairspray, lotions, gels, pins, nets, and formulas used to tame the wild manes of brides and debutantes clutter two adjoining rooms. This old-world spell was shattered when three of folk music's most well-regarded steel magnolias breezed into the stuffy room oozing confidence, quiet determination, and good humor. In this literary atmosphere, songwriters Caroline Herring, Claire Holley, and Kate Campbell sat down with Georgianne Nienaber to talk about the writer's life, their musical tribute to the author and photographer Eudora Welty and tell Stories From a Delta Bridal Room. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Oswin Chin Behilia is the musical voice of Curaçao, a Caribbean island and former Dutch possession where both pleasures and issues that need addressing are found. For proof, look no further than the first two songs on his latest album, Liber. Read more | Listen   Dramatic times call for dramatic music, and perhaps it is no surprise that in the midst of our collective cosmic meltdown, the Polish band Zywiolak's Nowa Ex-Tradycja is just coming to light. Zywiolak describe themselves as a 'folk-metal' band, but I'd beg to differ as their influences are much too diverse. Zywiolak aren't folk-metal in the way that the Norwegian band Asmegin is folk-metal, with their buzzing and crunching guitars and cookie-monster deep-throated vocals. Nope; Zywiolak are far more witchy and pagan and punk, drawing on thunderous pounded drums, hurdy-gurdies, and a positively feral mix of the acoustic and the electric that tattoos itself onto your consciousness... Read more | Listen Three Score & Ten - A Voice to the People recounts the story of 70 Years of the Oldest Independent Record Label in Great Britain, and the origins of Topic Records are particularly fascinating. Initially, the organization from which Topic would take root was the Workers' Music Association (WMA), founded in 1936 as "an educational offshoot of the British Marxist Party." The Workers' Music Association was created to aid in the struggle against the fascism and totalitarianism that had arisen in the 1930s, and also to provide an outlet for workers to express themselves through music. From the beginning, intellectuals and artists joined together in this effort, under the organizing influence of the composer Alan Bush. In 1939, the first record released by the Workers' Music Association was a 10" 78rpm disc entitled "The Man Who Watered The Worker's Beer" attributed to Paddy Ryan, backed by a performance of "The Internationale." This record was issued under the Topic imprint as TRC1, indicating the 'Topic Record Club,' a subscription method of distribution for the music to be issued by the WMA. The message is clear: from the beginning, what would become Topic Records was a label committed to social justice, and to the sounds of indigenous folk forms... Read more | Listen A little over a year ago after storm surges from Ike and Gustav almost washed away Terrebonne Parish, Delta bluesman Tab Benoit took the mic in defiance as whisps of wind snaked through the scrim draping the backside of the stage. Friday's early evening crowd stayed put as Benoit offered reassurance that this, the sixth annual Voice of the Wetlands Festival, would continue come hell or high water..."This is our rally. This is our cry for help." Just a few months later, the explosion of British Petroleum's Transocean/DeepwaterHorizon's wellhead took eleven lives, and the subsequent "river" of oil is now poisoning shrimp, oysters, bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles, as well as human livelihoods. The Louisiana Delta, shorelines and marine sanctuaries from Grand Isle to the Florida Keys are in peril, but the men and women profiled in this article are not giving up. New roots singers have joined with their voices. Sadly, this account will not be "outdated" for decades to come. Georgianne Nienaber talks with Tab Benoit (and also Ann Savoy, Waylon Thibodeaux, Cyril Neville and other musicians who are part of the "Voice of the Wetlands" All-Stars) about the the music, the culture, and the future of the Lousiana coast. Read more Recent reviews Samy Izy, Madagascar Cote D'Ivoire: West African Crossroads Pressgang, UK Oswin Chin Behilia, Curaçao Zywiolak, Poland Bad Reputation, US Tradish, Denmark Veziana, Italy Topic Records: 70 Years Jordi Savall and Hesperion Sofia Jannok, Sami/Sweden The Music of Central Asia (series) Willy Clancy, Ireland Fernando Otero, Argentina/US Tab Benoit, US Tord Gustavsen Ensemble, Norway ...plus many, many more.

Air flowed through the bellows of the accordion. There were no melodies, no chords, no reeds vibrating. Simply wind. It was unexpected and riveting. Thus began the live performance by accordionist Frode Haltli and saxophonist Trygve Seim. Greg Harness spoke with these two Norwegian musicians at the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival in Portland, Oregon. Read more For a brief period in the 1970s, Cote d'Ivoire's capital, Abidjan, attracted entrepreneurs, degree holders, musicians and young, post-independence hipsters from not only the country's own surrounding rural areas, but other West African nations as well. It's cocoa production at the time gave it something of an economic edge until, into the eighties, corruption, economic crisis and ultimately, an early 21st century civil war, reduced the former French colony's viability. In fact, it's hard to imagine that there was a time not too long ago that it had the appeal that it did. Whatever the case, the double CD Cote D'Ivoire: West African Crossroads, one of many in the African Pearls series, is a frustrating collection of hits and misses. Read More While many musicians play the role of sufferer without a lot of first hand knowledge on the subject, this remarkable band knows of such things all too well. Displaced by the barbaric civil war that lasted through most of the '90s and into the new millennium in their home country, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars are a collective of singers and players who found one another in a refugee camp and began making music as a way of coping with the atrocities they'd witnessed. Their first album, 2006's Living Like A Refugee, was a healing blend of reggae, Afropop and folkloric sounds with lyrics that were full of biting social commentary and conciliatory beauty. Rise & Shine is a suitable title for the All Stars' latest, which finds them emerging from their troubled past, conscience intact, ready to explore a bit more in terms of music and perspective. Read More One of the most exciting elements of music from Occitania the cultural region that lies amongst and between France, Italy, and Spain is the heterogeneous musical influences evident in this area. For quite some time, there has been a deep cultural revival occurring in Occitania, with special emphasis on the music and language. Bands such as Gai Saber and Lou Dalfin have mixed traditional Occitan music and its medieval sounds with rock and roll and electronica. On their CD Alba auba aurora aurore, the group Veziana, located in the Pyrénées, provides a different take on the music of the region... Read More | Listen There can be no doubt - lumping musical collections into a pile based on nothing more than a huge, and often vague, geographical region seems nothing more than a convenient way to compartmentalize entire swaths of earth, music and the various peoples who perform it. It's not like one would review avant-jazz saxophonist Daniel Carter alongside North Carolina ballad singer Dellie Norton just because they were both from the United States. It's almost as ridiculous as writing about Kazak traditional music from Western China as Chinese, rather than, well, Central Asian. But then, it is Chinese, and Kazak, and Central Asian, even if China isn't technically a Central Asian country. One thing is clear, the various ethnicities that make up Central Asia have little to do with borders. Whatever the case, three meditative, profound and gorgeous collections are from The Aga-Khan Central Asian Music Initiative. Furthermore, at least two of them draw heavily from Indian influence, as well as sharing a common performer. And all of them are concerned, in one way or another with drone, repetition and trance... Read More Shouka is the first recording by Mariem Hassan to properly marry the voice and lyrics to arrangements befitting a singer of such authority. With a small army of electric guitars delivering single-chord droning riffs, she spins tales of injustice and female empowerment... Hassan comes with the experience of life in the El Ayoun refugee camp, one of some dozen instant villages that appeared over the Algerian border from the Western Sahara in the mid seventies. Ironically, even in these camps, human rights are under question. Yet, it is also in the camps that women like Hassan are able to be educated, demand equal rights and divorce their husbands, as Hassan did when a past partner tried to keep her from singing. Indeed, the Saharawi are a culture largely nurtured by women. It's this sort of cultural complexity that makes Mariem Hassan's music so intense... Read More | Listen