Renata Rosa

Sorry for being late again with this blog post, I've recently been given quite a few essays to write so I've had less time for everything else! I thought I'd branch out once again by featuring Renata Rosa. The inspiration comes from the BBC Radio 3 album, "World Routes - On The Road". There's some really good music on that album, so I'm really tempted to buy it.

When you hear Renata Rosa, you can hear that her music sounds somewhat tribal even though she's a Brazilian singer. In her music, she sings the traditional Northeast Brazilian chants. Her music has been influenced by the Maracatu Rural (Brazilian carnival music), the Coco (music from northern Brazil, that's been influenced by African music) that and the Cavalo Marinho (Brazilian folk music). She also keeps her cultural origins alive by teaching the Samba de Coco. This dance is a variant of the Coco dance, which originates from the time when the slaves from central Africa brought their culture to Northeast Brazil, so that their cultures fused together. The dance usually centres around the way in which houses made from clay and straw are constructed.


You can find out much more about her with this link but I haven't got time to tell you anymore: http://www.last.fm/music/Renata+Rosa/+wiki

Neun Welten

So for once this week's blog post is actually being completed on time. I thought I'd try and feature a different sort of music this week as I find myself recycling many sorts of music on a frequent basis, so I thought I'd choose a band that had a slight hint of new age in it to try and broaden the scope of this blog. If you don't like it though, do let me know!

I chose Neun Welten because I find their fusion of modern styles with folk music relaxing. Admittedly though sometimes their fusions are a little too outlandish for my liking.

Neun Welten are a German Band. Their name means, "nine worlds", because it's based on Nordic mythology. Because they have been influenced by Nordic mythology, some of their songs are portrayals of mythical places from Nordic mythology but their other songs are about personal impressions and feelings and what they perceive to be nature's magic. They regard their music as being based on folklore but their main aim is to convey a love of nature in their music.

This song is called, "Pan", but there is no such word in the German language, so I presume this is one of their songs which is named after a mythological place.

The name of this song means, "On a scraggy cliff" ("Auf kragem Fels").

I presume that this song is also named after a mythological place because "Valg" does not appear to be a word.

This song is called, "Frosthauch", which means "frosty breath", so I thought it would be a suitable addition to this week's blog post given the current weather conditions!