Keeping the dialogue going...

Cross cultural dialogue is very much what World music is about at the moment. It was during Glastonbury in 2007 when the fruits of an ongoing project, Africa Express, revealed themselves to an enchanted crowd. Some of West Africa's top artists played alongside Western artists, sharing and cross pollinating their experiences on stage. Thanks in part due to Damon Albarn's adventure in 2002 to Mail, his awakening to depths of Malian music and the fruits of that exploration, his album Mali Music, inspiring a lot more interest in the West African music scene. So, it is in the continuing of that tradition that Dub Collosus's, In a Town called Addis, adds a chapter in the cultural book being mapped out in World music. The album is an Ethio-Jamaican exchange. Music is varied and features traditional Ethiopian instrumentation set against dub basslines, right the way through to entire tracks of solo instrumentation, and then off again into funk and minimalist grooves that will just keep you bouncing on your knees. First rate recording means that you keep having to listen to tracks again and again so you ears can focus on another area of the sound and absorb it completely. The sample, here, captures to me the whole essence of this album, one of celebration, pushing musical boundaries and cultural diversification. Don't miss this one!

African All Stars - TT Collective Mix

The TT collective mix brings together some of the major artists that have been featured in this first month of musical exploration (and shows off other faces that still have to have their own unique spotlight on these pages).

I hope that I've been able to share with you a taste of West Africa's contribution to global rhythm, extending to a depth only surpassed by Captain Nemo. Musical styles which borrow from Cuba, such as those from Kekele and Africando, melodies with their roots in Senegal and Mali copied and served up by the latest elected 24-hour pop sensation, and finally instruments such as the Cora that transcend rhythmic boundaries to offer something completely new and fresh

The African All Stars...(130MB download, 68 mins)

Track Listing: Cheikh Lo - Sou, Ba Cissoko - Allah Lake, Daby Balde - Mido Waino, Dianeba Seck - Bolokolonia, Kekele - Mace, Orchestra Baobab - Dee Moo Wer, Toumani Diabate - Mali Sadio, Tony Allen - One Tree, Tinariwen - Cler Achel, Mory Kante - Nafiya, Africando - Fatalikou, Nuru Kane - Talibe, Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - Kala, Amadou & Miriam - La Realite, Afel Bocoum - Alasida, Djeli Mouse Diawara - Almany, Ba Cissoko – Silany.

All Star Global Warming

Remember Global warming? that period in the 1990s that saw Governments and its communities creating a movement for being more environmentally conscious? That’s right you remember when people started to recycle, and they invented those enormous light bulbs that used less energy. Well, it seems that since the West captured Saddam and Osama has fallen out of the media spotlight environmentalism has made a welcome return to the global agenda. Now communities are made to feel that every freak weather condition is due not to industrial pollution or the seven litre car that has just pulled up alongside them at the traffic lights, but because they put a plastic bottle into a paper recycling bin.

Whatever the politics of it all here is a musical benefit, Rhythms del Mundo is a first for ‘Artists’ Project Earth' - the climate change and disaster relief charity.

The first album features a collaboration of artists including Coldplay, U2, Dido & Faithless, Sting, as well Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo from Buena Vista Social Club. It is the latter two stars that bring to the album the overall flavour: Buena Vista versions of the featured artists most well known songs.

The result is distinctive: Colplay's Clocks, gets a new lease of life with Cuban instruments dissolving the desperation found in the original version, and catapulting the song to a fresher, more positive level. Also Omara Portuondo’s version of the Fugees hit, Killing me Softly, is another notable performance.

Find out more about the album on their website www.rhythmsdelmundo.com

I hope that in the future APE finds a way to team up with artists such as Toumani Diabate, Vieux Farka Toure, Kelele, Africando and Tony Allen to bring these fantastic artists to the global stage.