Sterns recommendations?

highlife recommendations would be great for me, too. i've just moved to seven sisters and west green road appears to be full of little ghanaian shops selling vegetables and cds. i'd love to get some tips to give me a foothold on this genre, so i can start exporing it a bit.

you guys are going to hate me for saying this.........but..........the best reccomendation you're going to get is via your own ears.

i always remember sterns letting me listening to stuff on their cd player. have you got a portable cd player you can take in there?

@dave. surely you'll have no problem asking at those shops to hear stuff?

the thing is once one has a few cds under one's belt the terrain starts to make more sense.

STN said:

No, fair enough, I was asking for that reply really, wasn't I? A bit lazy of me to expect dissensians to throw knowledge into my lap (but worth a go, eh?). I don't have a portable CD player but I think they have two you can listen on in there now and it's never too busy so I can take a long lunch, grab a fistful of CDs from a country/region/genre at random and educate myself. It just seems so daunting at first but then, so do all styles...

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well i promise if i knew more about the latest things then i'd gladly impart the knowledge on!

HOWEVER if we were to distill this into a question "Which world musics are likely to appeal to a dissensian (lol)?" (and I'm guessing entry-level here?) then here goes:

First check the world music in here:

http://www.woebot.com/2005/12/part_one.html

then:

<b>Brazil:</b>

There's a great guide by Joe Sixpack here:
http://www.slipcue.com/music/brazil/aa_albums/30best.html

Probably a good starting place is Soul Jazz's recent Tropicalia comp.

Modern stuff (Baile) try both the Favela Booty Beats and Slum Dunk compilations, and if you're brave pick up the less "packaged" brazilian imports which will probably be along the lines of volume 45, volume 76 etc

<b>Africa:</b>

Mali: Check the new Sylliphone conakry compilations (cant believe i havent picked these up yet) which are basically garage bands from mali/guinea. Also Ali Farka Toure's Radio Mali. Ambassadeurs (see my 100)
Guinea: Bembeya Jazz's "Regard Sur le passe"
Senegal: Get Sterns own Etoile de Dakar comps
Ethiopia: Get 1-5 of the Ethiopiques cds
South Africa: Indestructible beat Vol 1. Duck Food.
Nigeria: Anything by Fela Kuti with a wacked out cover, but especially Zombie, Open and Close and Roforofo Fight. Pretty much anything at all by Sunny Ade, but esp "Juju music"

I'd start there really.

Just to add some albums that have provided an entry point for me into different countries' musical output:

VA: Music in my Head Vol 1 - found this phenomenal for an overview of Afropop. Still struggling to find much as good as this, to be honest.

I found 'Clube da Esquina' by Milton Nascimento to be a great entry into 70s Brazilian stuff. Absolutely beautiful.

Also those comps by the guys behind the Sun City Girls (on the Sublime Frequencies label), I found to be a fantastic overview of radio pop and curios from lots of different regions.

I second the "Music In My Head" compilation, it's simply incredible. I discovered it because the guy used to live upstairs from me. Usually, when someone random offers you a world music compilation you suspect it's going to be pretty weak, but I was utterly blown away by this. There's also a volume 2, which is really great as well. I can't recommend them enough, they're some of the greatest compilations I've ever heard. I second Woebot's Etoile De Dakar recommendations, but also recommend anything on the Dakar Sound label, which is likely to be really good. The new Roots Rumba Rock compilation on Crammed has some wonderful stuff on it too. (http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=27286)

Obviously these are all African pop, but if you like Afrobeat then it's really really worth digging Etoile De Dakar, who are surely one of the greatest bands ever. Talking of which, someone was bigging up Youssou N'Dour's early tape releases before Etoile De Dakar, when he was with Star Band de Dakar. Does anyone know anything about these?

i videoed this the other day on west green road.

it's awesome and i really want to know what kind of music this is. anyone able to help?

would love to hear more stuff like it.

stelfox said:

i videoed this the other day on west green road.

it's awesome and i really want to know what kind of music this is. anyone able to help?

would love to hear more stuff like it.

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egad! that's some lively old dudes innit!

the music, seems maybe too obvious to say, but is it not bhangra? that's a dhol drum isn't it? with a shenai isnt it? i mean those guys looks like maybe they're pakistani and well.....

no, it wasn't indian. the drum was too round, too uniformly cylindrical and not tall enough to be a dhol - it sounded similar but more clattery and less liquid and multitonal. some of the playing techniques were the same though - all the stuff around the rim, then moving further toward the centre for the deeper notes. they didn't look indian/pakistani at all, either, so no. i'm still clueless, though

also they were barbecuing food that looked traditional and definitely non-indian. i reckon that they're possibly afghan

Stelfox- just tried to PM you, but there's no room in your bulging box.

emailme at destelfox at gmail dot com, if you like

well apparently it's kurdish dancing called called davulzurna which mean davul - the drum (like tabla?) zurna is that pipe oweeee!
that clip goes pretty good with different music too....

ed you are a genuine hero - thank you so much.
knew you'd be the man for this.
now, another question, what is the social significance of this stuff - when does it get played etc?
i want to buy some of this. the drumming is awesome - like matt says, bhangra-like, but totally in and of itself.
v cool stuff - and as those guys show, you can really dance to it.
mind if i ask how you found out?
or are you keeping your methods to yourself?

me pleasure star
you know my methods are very obscure she told me that's very classic kurdish wedding behaviour, - but it's not specific to weddings i think, weddings are just the main opportunity for dancing in mid-east as discos are less common! green lanes/west green rd is very turkish area so i guess these are turkish kurdish folks ... at least as far as wood green/palmers green, where it becomes more greekish innit...) but iraqi kurdish folk dance that same dance too apparently
anyway
it looks to me a lot like arabic dabke music - see for yrself theres a ton of it on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dabke

just don't get me started on eating out in green lanes pleease!

ah, so it was the missus who knew!
you need to go to my other thread whick has now been totally fucked by people talking about food. funny how the mere mention of anything turkish has people virtually salivating on their keyboards! i need to find where i can but davul zurna stuff, after a bit of digging it seem like it's pretty widespread.
i could possibly get pretty hooked on it.

stelfox said:

ah, so it was the missus who knew!

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nope,