World Music fans are in for a real treat with the announcement that Bassekou Kouyate & Nigoni BA will be performing in Dublin this May as part of The Contemporaries Concert Series, presented by Note Productions.
Let those who never thought culture stopped at the first world's borders, who never thought it was only happening in English, cast the first stone at Paul Simon and mock his work as patronising. To do so is to miss the point. Western music will die on its feet unless it learns to assimilate outside influences rather than repel them and if people like Simon or David Byrne or any of the other World Music daytrippers can offer a handrail to the nervous then so be it.
Come Into The Garden
Colm O'Hare meets Fionnuala Sherry, the only Irish person to win the Eurovision for Norway and half of new age superstar group Secret Garden
Katell Keineg confesses that she's lazy, eccentric and mis-understood yet she's back with a live appearance in dublin in February and a new EP due in the spring. Interview: Fiona Reid
Those angry young Marxist Punk-Rockers THE MEKONS are back with a new album I Love Mekons and a contribution to a pro-abortion Woman’s Rights compilation . . . but they’re no longer quite so angry or young, not exactly Marxist, and their Punk is reinforced by Folk, Country and World Music! ANDY
DARLINGTON finds out what the hell is going on in Club Mekon.
When Enya s Watermark was released last September, few outside her closest associates could have predicted the runaway success which would ensue. To date, the album has clocked up worldwide sales of over 3 million copies with the Orinoco Flow single topping the charts in many countries, including Britain, Holland Venezuela! To promote her records, Enya undertook a gruelling promotional schedule in which the term globe-trotting took on a new meaning. This is an account of those travels . . . in her own words.
Former jazzy drum’n’bass bod James Hardway embarks on a world music voyage and immediately the alarm bells start ringing. Cynics that we are, such adventurous projects are usually a sign of a creative dearth or a serious coke habit.
David Byrne
‘Like Humans Do’ [Virgin]
Claiming to hate the condescending catch-all entity that is known as world music, ‘Like Humans Do’ sees Byrne back on a similar observational pop tip to what informed all the best Talking Heads records.
New age, techno pop and world music are the main ingredients for the hybrid Metisse stew, as well as Professor Skully’s inventive work in the synth lab and the stunning presence of Aida’s lush voice
Japanese tin whistlers, Harlem Gospel singers, Indian mandolin players . . . De Dannan have traded scales and tales with them all. Dermot Stokes catches up with Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn and is entranced as the Michael Palins of pan-cultural playing share excerpts from their ongoing odyssey.
Having conquered Africa, Youssou N’Dour is now turning his attentions to the rest of the world. With Eno, Peter Gabriel and Wyclef Jean all singing his praises, Sam Healy reckons it’s only a matter of time before he has his evil way with us
He used to be the ultimate indie no-hoper. But now JACK PEÑATE has discovered Krautrock, nu-rave and world music and released one of the year’s most engaging, and surprisingly accomplished, records. He talks about cultivating his eclectic side and discovering an outsider sensibility he describes as ‘joyous melancholy’.
hotpress.com re-runs an extensive 1999 interview with Joe Strummer and lets Brian Young, lead singer with legendary northern punks Rudi, explain how The Clash changed his life
The annual Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival has put Longford on the world music map. Jackie Hayden talks to the festival’s originator Chris Keenan about how it grew from initially being laughed at to becoming one of the most important folk festivals in the international calendar.
Roots music may help build bridges between past and present and us and them, but the media stance is still often isolationist. So says simon emerson of the afro celt sound system. siobhan long takes notes.
Roots music may help build bridges between past and present and us and them, but the media stance is still often isolationist. So says simon emerson of the afro celt sound system. siobhan long takes notes.
IARLA O LIONAIRD has a new star-studded solo album out but the Afro Celt Sound System continue to teach him that music can be enjoyable and not just sublime . Interview: Colm O'Hare
Trad quartet Lunasa, named to honour the Irish harvest god Lugh, who also gave his name to the month of August, have become something of gods themselves within the Irish trad scene. Jackie Hayden talks to them in the wake of the release of their new album Se.
She's the hard-rocking- and by all accounts, hard-drinking- Norwegian indie-babe sensation. Ida Maria tells us about the rare condition that lets her see music as colour and more.
Jeff Martin rose to fame as singer and guitarist with Canadian rock band Tea Party. Now trading as a solo artist, he is currently holed up in a remote part of County Cork where Jackie Hayden tracked him down.
This month, the 2006 RTÉ Living Music Festival, sponsored by IMRO, celebrates Steve Reich, arguably America’s greatest living composer. Jackie Hayden meets the 70-year-old whose influences stretch beyond the contemporary classical world to rock and rap music.
On Belfast's Royal Avenue, there's a genuinely stirring event taking place. It's Saturday afternoon, the rain has held off for an hour, and the fourth Belfast Carnival is kicking in. Roll on the floats, the dance troupes, the chi-chi costumes, the giant skeletons and the enormous Picasso masks.
In a place where any parade - from St Patrick's Day to
Melbourne born virtuoso classical guitarist John Williams is best known for a pair of unlikely chart hits, one with fusion outfit Sky, the other being 'Cavatina', the theme to Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. But beyond the pop spectrum he's enjoyed a long and distinguished career.
Gareth Murphy’s Atlantean project takes Irish music on a journey of depth and discovery that sees it flirt with Arabic, Spanish and Indian stylings, Jah Wobble and Eno, all under the influence of maverick filmmaker Bob Quinn.
California-born, Harvard-educated, Alison Brown is not your everyday bluegrass flagbearer. But her emotive playing – and the contribution of her Compass Records label – have made her a leading figure in the American roots scene.
It?s real, it?s now and it goes all the way back to the source ? roots music is taking the world by storm and Ireland is very definitely on the map.
By siobhan long.
Italian-born multi-instrumentalist antoni o'breskey considers Ireland to be his spiritual home, so much so that he changed the spelling of his name just for us. siobhán long finds out more.
There was a time when the associations of Irish culture were such that those of a radical, progressive outlook automatically turned the other way. Not any more. Irish culture is alive and kicking. Report: Chris Donovan.
New York quartet Vampire Weekend are set to be one of the breakthrough bands of ‘08 thanks to their inspired brand of Afro-beat tinged rock. Just don’t mention Paul Simon.
Folk institution Kila met a dream collaborator in the shape of traditional Japanese musician Oki. Working together they’ve produced one of the most remarkable roots records of recent years.
Australia s the churcH have survived nearly 20 years of changing fads and fashions by maintaining their commitment to pure pop. siobhan long takes a pew.
If there were handouts for the shy and retiring, Dervish would be at the back of the queue. Never backward in coming forward, this Sligo/Roscommon ensemble have elevated audience rapport to an art form that's sadly all too rarely practised round these here parts. Lead singer, Cathy Jordan (the sole Roscommon interloper amid a quintet of Sligomen) delights in the more quirky and bizarre backgrounds to the band's songs and tunes. And somehow they all seem to treat a night flight to Kuala Lumpur with the same gravity as they would a skite to Kenmare. Dervish live and breathe on the road. Its interminable miles are the band's sustenance, its cat's eyes their compass to the next town, the next continent, and the next gig.
The 25th anniversary edition of London Calling includes an album’s worth of previously unheard material, and most of it’s amazing! Stuart Clark talks to Mick Jones.
40 years after the Clancy Brothers brought Irish ballads to an international audience and won famous fans like Bob Dylan, Tommy Makem is still committed to the power of song – but appalled at the way modern Ireland treats its own culture.
From his holiday hideaway in southern France, the hairier half of Mexican-Irish guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela talks about the rigours of life on the road, busking on the mean streets of Dublin and the duo's growing heavy-metal following.
From Donegal to London and beyond, altan s breathtaking music continues to win new converts. As the band showcase material from their latest album, Runaway Sunday, at the international headquarters of Virgin Records,
mairiad nm mhaonaigh tells sarah mcquaid:
It s all about letting it rip.
The author of the influential *AwopBopAlooBopAlopBamBoom*, Derryman NIK COHN has helped lay the foundations of serious rock criticism. Here, the author of the short story on which "Saturday Night Fever" was based talks about his latest book, "The Heart of The World". and tells JOE JACKSON why Elvis is King and Dylan is crap.
Guitar heroes Rodrigo Y Gabriela have gone from busking on Grafton Street to jamming with Metallica. The acoustic duo talk about their long, strange journey, their fantastic new album – and their debt to the metal world
Having made his name in the folk arena with Emmet Spiceland, Planxty and The Bothy Band, DONAL LUNNY went electric with the ground-breaking Moving Hearts. In the second part of a wide-ranging interview reflecting on all of the major characters and plots in Irish music since the folk revival blossomed in the '60s, he talks about the demise of the Hearts, the impact of Riverdance, Shane MacGowan, Sharon Shannon, Altan, Coolfin – and what he'd like to do with Sheryl Crow. Tape: NIALL STOKES
In the run-up to the long-awaited reunion gigs by the legendary eighties folk-rock-jazz band Moving Hearts, Jackie Hayden talks to saxophonist Keith Donald and percussionist Noel Eccles.
ROCK IN RIO, which attracts 200,000 people, may be known for headliners like Sting, REM and Britney Spears. But this year, DERVISH played there too - and got a rapturous welcome. SIOBHÁN LONG reports from an extraordinary event
Their unique combination of sensual Latin melodies and brilliant, metal-inspired guitar playing have made Rodrigo y Gabriela a phenomenon in their adopted Ireland, with a platinum album, sell-out tours and barn-storming festival appearances already to their credit. Now, with the release of their third album, Rodrigo y Gabriela, their sights are set on the international arena. Here, this extraordinary couple explain why they swapped sun-drenched Mexico for rain-kissed Dublin – and, for the first time, talk candidly about the open relationship they enjoy, as long-term friends and lovers.
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
From Yorkshire to the former USSR, from Leeds to Kiev, from The Wedding Present to their latest CD Kultura, THE UKRAINIANS are a unique band. ANDY DARLINGTON submits a political, sociological and musical report on their progress so far.
Time magazine dubbed him The Renaissance Man Of Rock . With and without Talking Heads, he s made some of the most innovative music of the last two decades, as well as being an author, photographer, director, sound-track scorer, Academy Award winner, and all-round friendly neighbourhood psycho-killer. David Byrne allowed Hot Press to put him on the couch for thirty minutes when he arrived in Dublin for his recent Olympia Theatre show.
Peter Murphy was there to hear the Head man
talking.
Now that he's discovered the joys of the Dobro, are Frankie Lane's madcap, balcony-scaling days over for good? Not a bit of it. *It's all really just about finding a new way of being nasty.* He tells Siobhan Long.
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.
Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O'Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. .
Softly spoken off stage and complete lunatics on it, Kila have torn up the rulebook with their wantonly eclectic mix of styles. music, inner anger, revolutions and, er, women who cure warts are all discussed, as the band’s Colm O Snodaigh talks to Peter Murphy.
When a police investigation was launched into Michael Jackson’s alleged activities with Jordan Chandler, the King of Pop’s media image went from Peter Pan into the fire. In his new biography christopher andersen becomes the spokesman for Wacko’s degeneration offering a damning portrait of the real man behind the mask. Report: Bill Graham.
It's off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of Altan as Bill Graham spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
LIAM FAY gets a hot line to DAVID BYRNE on the eve of his Dublin concerts and found a pretty talkative head, discussing everything from Brazlian merengue music to Tommy Cooper.
It’s off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of ALTAN as BILL GRAHAM spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
Most cities and towns have their trouble spots and their danger zones, but Limerick's have been given more than their unfair share of publicity. Such a focus on the negative has tended to detract attention from the positive aspects of this resurgent city, with its vibrant music scene, its buzzing university, the warmth and friendliness of the people, its obsession with rugby, and er, Ryan Turbidy.
It sounds like the stuff of hype and overnight success – from struggling garage band to next big thing and accolades from noel gallagher, morrissey and bono – but even at an average age of 23 The Thrills have paid their dues. Olaf Tyaransen hears how the summer’s hottest band went from worshipping whipping boy to having beck’s da play on their debut album.
Ten, nine, eight… we count down the contenders for 2003. Words Hannah Hamilton, Colin Carberry, Niall Stokes, Richard Brophy, John Walshe, Eamon Sweeney and Stuart Clark
JENNIFER BATTEN, as well as being a solo artist in her own right, has spent 10 years slinging six strings for michael jackson. Amazingly, she has survived to tell her story to peter murphy.
Pix: Cathal Dawson.
Helena Mulkerns catches up with the charming Dublin-based chanteuse on a tour of East Coast college campuses, and finds a wilfully free spirit at ease with her sexuality – if not with the industry’s categorisation of such guitar-wielding women.
Back in the saddle with their eagerly anticipated second album Demon Days, subversive animated quartet Gorillaz here talk to Paul Nolan about striking out against celebrity culture, what went wrong with the Gorillaz movie, collaborating with Shaun Ryder, Roots Manuva and Dennis Hopper, and why they didn’t vote Labour. Oh, and Mexican brothels.
PHIL COULTER is far from the muzak-producing bore of caricature. Here, he talks to JOE JACKSON about family tragedy, northern politics, drink binges, having songs covered by Elvis and his experiences working with stars like Van Morrison, Siniad O Connor and Luke Kelly. Portraits: MYLES CLAFFEY
The HP-7 Summit is back with Michelle Doherty, Rocky O'Reilly, Niall Breslin, Mark Greaney, Niamh Farrell, Messiah J and Danny O'Donoghue sat around the only table that matters this Christmas.
It was inflight double entendres all round as Bell X1 donned cabin crew attire for a special Hot Press photoshoot. When not showing an unhealthy interest in women’s clothes and fancy Raybans, they talked about their chart-topping new album Blue Lights On The Runway, their imminent breakthrough in the US and freezing their arses off on The Late Show with Dave Letterman
A special report on the arts in Northern Ireland which is alive and rocking with the whole gamut of cultural activity. Here James Elliott and Margaret F. Grundy give the lowdown on the province’s artistic and creative hub.
As well as May and Regan, Josh Ritter, Buzzcocks and Tinariwen will headline the forthcoming Belfast Festival at Queens, running from October 16 to 31.
Since releasing her self-titled debut album in 1997, Susana Baca has built a formidable worldwide audience for her intense take on Afro-Peruvian traditional music. Touted by former Talking Head David Byrne, she first sprang to prominence when he included one of her songs on his The Soul Of Black Peru compilation.
A complex outfit who take traditional music into strange new territory, Kila fuse folk rhythms with all kinds of otherworldly sounds without losing their Irish identity
While some might have had them marked them down as a poor man’s Portishead or a less credible Massive Attack, this collection convincingly proves otherwise.
From the name you might think Celtic trad, from the album title you might think indigenous Australian and on first listen you might assume French, but hip-hop three-piece Daara J are 100% Senegalese.
MAW man Louis goes off on a solo tip for this project. Where Kenny revels in all things hip-hop on his one-man missions, Louis’ territory is jazz, funk, soul, bossa and latino.
They may not have released an album in over fifteen years, but seminal electronic funkers 23 Skidoo were never too far removed from developments in contemporary electronic music.
WAY BACK when, yea, as far back even as BC (Before Country), I used to write about a lot of acts that appeared on the Canadian Nettwerk label – notably groups like Skinny Puppy, Manafacture and Moev.
The haunting melodies which lie at the heart of Clannad's appeal have beauty all of their own making, and the x-factor in their aural impact is the voice of Máire Brennan.
Championing alternative music in the west of Ireland, Galway's student station Flirt FM 101.3 has extended its new schedule, broadcasting up to 100 hours a week from next Monday.
Director, Republic Of Loose and the Sultans Of Ping are set to headline this year's Indie-pendence Festival, which features a host of homegrown talent - for free!
In an age when former angry young men like Elvis Costello have become all-round family entertainers and half the nation's youth seem to be blissed out on the music of Westlife et al,. . .
Charlie Watts once famously said of the first 25 years with the Rolling Stones that it was five years of music and twenty years of waiting around. What a pity that those twenty idle years were not used for such splendid projects as this rewarding adventure with that equally decent skinsman Jim Keltner.
Born in Washington DC, Lily Neill took up the harp at age nine; five years later she was performing for then-president Bill Clinton and appearing as featured soloist in the premiere of John Cameron’s ‘Missa Celtica’.
One of the true jazz legends, tenor saxophone genius Pharaoh Sanders has been lined up for what promises to be a very special Dublin show, early in the new year.
FRANKIE KENNEDY - R.I.P.
WRITING ABOUT death is never easy, but trying to find the appropriate words to mark the sad passing of Frankie Kennedy is, for me, particularly difficult.
A mere decade after his first post-Clash solo effort, Earthquake Weather, Joe Strummer comes bounding back into the ring just as his previous band's legacy is revisited via a superb video documentary Westway To The World, an incendiary live collection From Here To Eternity and the remastered reissue of their entire back catalogue.
THOSE FAMILIAR with the oeuvre of Iceland's most famous indie-band The Sugarcubes will already be aware that Bjork has a voice that could cut diamonds at fifty paces.
The Hype are one of countless brave bands struggling to make headway with no money to spend on recording and saddled with a manager in a similar plight
Here he comes again, Tricky, leering out of the spliff-smog, all expectations of ever recreating the warped coffee table perversions of Maxinquaye well and truly dispelled by those difficult second and third albums.
Opinions are somewhat divided on the future of trad – some feel the music should retain its explicit links with the past, while others contend that the only way for the genre to survive and flourish is through stylistic diversification. Plus the usual round-up of news from around the country.
Whip-smart, arresting and far more fleet-footed than a two-hour plus running time ought to allow, The Inside Man is a storming heist movie from Spike Lee, perhaps not the first name one expects to find on a lavishly budgeted action thriller.
Four years is a hell of a long time in pop music – the fact that The Corrs could afford to lay low for such an extended period is a testament to the band’s confidence in their audience...
During the Careers In Music Seminar in Cork over the recent bank Holiday weekend, one of the American delegates, Barbara Lindberg, posed an interesting question.
The Sex Pistols are back! In what has the look of a major coup for the event, punk’s great trailblazers are among this year’s headliners at Electric Picnic 2008, which takes place in Stradbally over the final weekend in August.
Never mind the Osama lookalike – our royal correspondent argues that the big story about Willie’s birthday was that the Windsors didn’t go far enough with their ‘out of Africa’ theme
Some of the country's leading music industry figures joined thousands of people for the Music Show, a two-day celebration of all that's good about the recording arts in Ireland.
Following in the footsteps of such luminaries as W.B. Yeats, Ray McSharry and Tommie Gorman, western folk heroes Dervish have recently been honoured as Free Men of Sligo.
Is Plastic Orange Ireland’s Top Of The Pips? JACKIE HAYDEN unpeels RTE’s latest rock show, gets right to the core of its raison-d’être, almost goes bananas, but, er, stops well short of taking the pith.
THE INTERNET is already in the process of changing the face of the music industry. ETAIN BREATHNACH looks at some of the best websites, speaks to some of the Irish pioneers and outlines coming controversies.
There's one sure fire way to bring your music to the attention of the masses – and that's by getting it played on radio. Fortunately, Ireland has no lack of independently inclined stations out there – most of which play demos.
Wwhy, despite his best efforts, Bruce Springsteen's take on September 11 is ultimately a let-down; and how the Catholic Church in the US is experiencing simultaneous accountancy problems and sex abuse scandals
It may be miles off the beaten track, but Connolly’s of Leap has become one of the best-loved live venues in Ireland. Now with the launch of Rescue Music, the man behind the Connolly’s phenomenon, Paddy McNicholl is embarking on an exciting new phase of activity. Report: Jackie Hayden.
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.-Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O’Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. Pix: Michael Quinn.
While Electric Picnic did not lack for non-musical highlights, the hottest action was to be found on stage, where the likes of the Sex Pistols and My Bloody Valentine whipped up a storm.
It reads like a scene from Twin Peaks but turns out to be far stranger than any fiction. Bill Graham dons his best John Travolta strides and eavesdrops on the American slants being given to Irish traditions at the Green Linnet Folk Weekender.
Pix: DAVID NEWTON.
The Great Record has visited some fine places over the past year or more. Now we ve finally wound up in Limerick, plumbed the depths of both city and county and emerged in one piece to tell the tale.
30 years after the recording of Bitches Brew, the release of The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions comes on like Apocalypse Then The Sequel. PETER MURPHY journeys upriver into the heart of darkness and unearths still more evidence to confirm MILES DAVIS reputation as one of the most peaceful and influential musicians of the millennium.
With the death of Kurt Cobain in April casting a shadow over the following months 1994 will hardly go down as one of the most joyous in Rock history. Your guide to a month-by-month account of the names and events of the past year. Stuart Clark.
In the past Paul Simon has successfully drawn on diverse American musical traditions and has worked with, among others, the gospel group the Jesse Dixon singers and the South American folk-group Urubamba.
This, Tarika's fourth album, has been recorded and ready for quite some time, but was back-burnered for several months following the dissolution of their label, Wicklow.
On her latest album Atlas continues the blend of ancient and modern, of east and west, that were the essential ingredients of her previous albums – the excellent Diaspora, as well as Halim and Gedida. Recorded in studios in Cairo.
Memories of the Suns of Arqa are fond indeed, mostly stemming from long summer days and nights spent in a field somewhere listening to their mighty global dub sounds.
