VARIOUS ARTISTS - 80s World Music Classics (Nascente)

A definitive-as-dammit collection mapping the gestation of a genre invented out of the necessity to provide some marketing oomph to a burgeoning scene that couldn’t penetrate the elephant hide of mainstream music industry conservatism despite accruing listeners, artists and movers and shakers swimming against the tide of what compiler Nigel Williamson calls “a cacophony of synths and drum machines”.

This is ‘World Music’ before it was labelled as such, early-to-mid eighties tracks that were hitting curious folkies and discerning “what next?” post-punkers from roughly three angles. Whether it be witnessing Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck’s circular acoustic guitar figures in one of the handful of supportive venues, hearing Jali Musa Jawara’s headily vigorous kora and ghostly falsetto played by Peel, Kershaw or Gillett, or reading here or in City Limits the back story to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s chest-thumping Sufi praise music, there were game-shifting ear-openers aplenty for the trad-seekers.

While those artists celebrated and disseminated their roots, others keen to harness the latest studio gadgetry decamped to Paris or Brussels, availing themselves of the drum-tracks and synths that were all but killing western pop music. Fortunately the likes of Antillean zouksters Kassav’ and soukous star Kanda Bongo Man managed to find the polyrhythm setting and thus kept the dance-floor jumping, while Salif Keita’s searing Islamic wail burst through a mist of studio trickery. And the Chebs and Chabas of Algeria wouldn’t be 80s rai-stars if their guttural yearnings weren’t presented on a bubbling bed of digitised beats and buzzing synths. And the addictive sugar-rush of intertwining guitars that courses through Souzy Kasseya’s mighty Le Telephone Sonne sits in a production of unalloyed 80s clarity.

Finally there were those genres swept up in the general rush for difference, most notably the Latin American sounds that were already a swinging fixture on the club scene. Salsa, samba and cumbia are well-represented here via punchy Joe Arroyo, sinuous Gilberto Gil and super-caffeinated Rudolfo Y Su Tipica RA7.

All that plus Youssou’s epochal Immigres, a trio of hopping southern African gems, and the unadulterated harmonies of the Bulgarian State Choir. The latter are the only purely east European representation, so no room for Hungary’s Marta Sebestyen or Nadka Karadjova’s imperious A Lambkin Has Commenced Bleating. There’s no soca either, no King Sunny Adé or Fela and none of the accordions that shook the ‘world’ world. No matter, this essential snapshot has so much wealth on offer it can afford the occasional unavoidable omission.

TONI XUCLA and SOLO KOUYATE - Duna (Temps Records)

A meeting of Casamance and Catalonia that at its best puts one somewhat in mind of the Songhai meetings between Spanish group Ketama and Toumai Diabaté. Xuclà’s 12-string guitar is perhaps not quite as briskly attacked as those of the flamenco band but it’s certainly sympathetic to Solo’s playing, sometimes mirroring the rhythms, at others dancing in and out of the solos. Some fine bass playing from the Spaniard too, taking the rhythmic strain as Solo embarks on flights of melody fancy. The main reservation is the choice of songs, which seem on the conservative side as, perhaps no more than a summation of the duo’s original jams when they first met in Senegal with a handful of new numbers bolted on. It’s always nice to hear new versions of Miniamba and Jarabi, but these are quite standard interpretations. A bit more of Mari Sadio’s jaunty, playful reworking would have enlivened proceedings. However, the handful of original compositions is generally well-worked making this a highly promising debut by a duo to watch out for.

www.vesc.cat

MAJID BEKKAS - Makenba (Igloomondo)

Atmospheric meeting of classically trained Moroccan multi-instrumentalist Bekkas and a host of fine musicians from Africa, Europe and the Americas. Bekka’s guimbri bass is at the centre, purposefully pushing a groove around which snake Louis Sclavis’s clarinet (and sax on the slightly over-jazzed title track) and Aly Keita’s trusty balafon, which as always provides unshowy light rhythms ans melodic flavour. A smattering of north African percussion is given added texture by Argentine Minino Garay’s snappy drumbeat and Majid is a fine oud player too, and possesses an attention-holding deep, dark and expressive voice. It’s on the stropped back, poised Louhid, where those two instruments are left to their own devices (with minimal percussive encouragement) that this interesting album hits an emotional, poetic peak.

www.igloorecords.be

TWO MAN TING - Legacy (2boot music)

Two Man Ting comprise midlander Jon Lewis and Sierra Leonian Jah-Man Aggrey. They are an offshoot of the Le Cod Afrique, the world dance collective who were something of a medium-scale hit on the small festival circuit a few years back, and like that band (only more sparingly) they play a bright, appealing blend of multicultural roots-pop centred on Lewis’s Palm Wine-meets-highlife picked guitar and Aggrey’s sunny, chatty vocals. Djembe and hand percussion fill out a sound that should lighten up many an outdoor musical gathering this summer.

Le We Go Ba – a lightly-cadenced Moussu-T-like romp with nursery refrain - begs for audience participation and a take on Sonny Rollins’s St Thomas allies delicate circular guitar melodies with probing thoughtful lyrics. And speaking of covers, there’s the inevitable nod to the king of Palm –wine music, S E Rogie, and a delightful looped take on Armagideon Time too. Full of such bright, tuneful moments, Legacy is a decent debut that one suspects will probably really take off in an intimate live setting.

www.twomanting.co.uk

NATHALIE NATIEMBE - Karma (Sakifo Records)/CHRISTINE SALEM - Lanbousir (Cobalt)

It feels like years since we heard from this intriguing singer of Mozambique heritage from La Réunion and (forgive me if I’m misremembering) in past incarnations she seemed to draw heavily on her percussive creole maloya roots. There’s little left of that on Karma, a moody, effects-laden meeting with genre-defying French sound-sculptors Bumcello.

Natiembé has a tough, forceful vocal style pitched somewhere between a rap and a chant (a rant?) which are set against Vincent Ségal’s portentous dubbed up bass and Cyril Atef’s trippy percussive effects on an album that often intrigues, but which almost drowns the singer’s Indian Ocean and African roots its artfully-rendered wall of sound. Readers of this magazine are warned to approach with care.

www.myspace.com/nathalienatiembe

Christine Salem is more in the mould of the Nathalie Natembe of old, a singer also from La Réunion who dampens rhythmic maloya percussion with the evocative rattle of her kayamb shaker. The songs are mostly call and response chants – Salem’s vocals a glorious controlled belt, too forceful to be described as soulful, too assured to be described as raucous – against a sparse rhythmic backdrop.

Energetic and repetitive, there’s a hypnotic feel to the music that contains traces of the Brazilian Bahia style (Ila and Maméléo go further, bordering on the exultant choreographed thrum of samba rhythm) and although Christine has been brought out from behind the Salem Tradition name by which this thrilling collective is usually known – presumably in an attempt to modernise the appeal, the music remains vibrantly rooted in a sound worthy of that original classification. Traditional music with a modern sensibility - Lanbousir works, and works well.