Sabrina Malheiros, Novos Baianos and BPM

Hi WMW fans. Due to technical difficulties with the wonders of wireless, this blog is seeing it's first ever guest post by Lucy's sister, Susie (@Schrubbel in case you're wondering). Lucy sends her apologies and left me with strict instructions not to post any naughty music (as if I would....).  

I’ve recently been dragging out my Bossa Nova compilations and having fun with Gilberto, Getz & Co in the October heatwave that hit a grateful UK after a damp, cold summer. That led me to the music of Sabrina Malheiros, who is one of a number of artists on the BPM (basically Brazilian pop) scene producing jazzy up-tempo music combined with smoother vocals. There’s something very 70’s about Brisa Mar, a song relaxed enough to admit that it’s only trying to have fun in the Sao Paolo sun.

For those who like things more jazzy than pop, Terra De Ninguem hits all the right notes with jazzy flute riffs and light vocals from the lady in question.  

For those who like a touch less electronica and more authentic acoustic Brazilian beats, there’s no beating Swing de Campo Grande by Novos Baianos, widely credited as having given wings to the BPM genre. 

 With any luck, Lucy'll be back next week to sail further into the uncharted waters of wacky but wonderful world music. 

Bukkene Bruse

Since starting university, I've rediscovered the hardships of self-motivation, and classical music can be good for helping me to motivate myself but sometimes I listen to it on too often a basis for it to be effective, so I've taken to listening NRK Folkemusikk (a norwegian folk music radio station listed on iTunes list of radio stations for world/international music) as another tool for self-motivation. Whilst I was listening to this radio station today, I heard a beautiful piece of music by Steinar Ofsdal, so I decided to investigate his music further by typing his name into YouTube and that's how I discovered Bukkene Bruse. The band came up in connection with his name because he's a member of this band, so I began listening to their music and I just loved the old-fashioned, traditional sound of their music, and therefore felt that they definitely deserved to be featured on this blog!

They've composed a number of traditional and folk-style Norwegian songs of different repertoires, that come from many different Norwegian traditions. Steinar Ofsdal plays the flute, and he's joined by Annbjørg Lien, who plays the Hardanger fiddle and the nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle), Arve Moen Bergset, who sings aswell as playing the fiddle and the pipe organist Bjørn Ole Rasch. They are a very well respected group, who have often performed in Scandanavia, although they have also performed in other countries. They were chosen as official Olympic Musicians for the Lillehammer Olympic Games, in which they performed in the closing ceremony. The group's name comes from the tale of the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, which is known as "De tre bukkene Bruse" in Norwegian.

TriBeCaStan

As you can see, I've not quite kept to my standard of doing a blog post for each week. I'm terribly sorry about this but it's been due to the fact that my university's wireless connection keeps going wrong and I've had a lot of reading to do along with all the domestic chores.

I came across TriBeCaStan when they started following me on Twitter and thought I should share their music with you, for what should have been last week's post because I really like the combination of West African kora and Appalachian mountain tunes, since it's unlike anything I've heard before. I admit that there are some tunes on their album, which I'm not so keen on but even in those cases I still like the way in which they highlight international socio-economic/socio-political problems.

As they have many influences, their music encompasses a great range of styles such as Yugoslavian village music, punk, gamelan, free jazz, funk and The Beatles. The artists, Jeff Greene and John Kruth, play more than 24 instruments throughout their albums and they have often allowed many different artists (artists with a recording contract, who aren't so well known) to accompany them in recording music, so they've almost certainly recorded a piece of music to suit everyone's taste.

I would go into more depth but my seminars start next week and I still have a lot of reading to do but if you want to read more about them, then I recommend using this link, http://www.last.fm/music/TriBeCaStan/+wiki , because they are a fascinating band to read about.