Music Review – Sounds of the Planet: Womadelaide 2007

Music Review by Renate Nguyen

WOMADelaide is one of the music festivals that are on my list of gigs to attend. The Adelaide event, which is held in March each year, hosts some of the best musicians from around the globe.  If your ears appreciate a diverse palate and you’re into world music, then this event should be on your list as well. Fortunately, the WOMAD festival is also held in the UK, Sicily, Spain, Abu Dhabi and New Zealand. So whether you’re in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, you needn’t miss out on the action.

The next best thing to seeing all this live, of course, is getting the CD, which is what I did. I’ve been listening to ‘Sounds of the Planet: Womadelaide 2007’, a compilation CD that features sixteen artists from around the world. It’s a brilliant starting point for exploring music outside the regular mainstream music fare. WOMAD never serves up something half baked, so you can be sure that what you’re listening to represents the best of world music.

I listened to this CD and turned it into something of an ethnomusicology test by guessing the origin of the music and artist without looking at the liner notes. It was an interesting little experiment. I found that while it’s easy to identifying the continent, it’s a lot harder to identify the specific countries.

There was a minimalistic song in Spanish that had the slightest trace of Middle Eastern sounding melodic elements. It turned out to be the Judaeo-Spanish music of Israeli-born Yasmin Levy and her song “Me Voy”.

I listened to politically-tinged reggae that sounded like it could have come straight from the Caribbean (were it not for the computerised sounds that suggested a different origin), but instead turned out to be Ddub from Auckland, New Zealand, with their song “Give it Some”.

There was a vocal group singing in a language with click sounds, the timbre of their voices suggesting this was an African group. My guess (Central/South Africa) wasn’t far off, as this was The Mahotella Queens from South Africa with their song “Amezemula”.

Another particularly rhythmic song opened with an instrument that I recognised and associate with Western African music. It turned out to be “Tekere” by Salif Keita with his band from Mali.

Others had me baffled, like Huun-Huur-Tu, which sounded like indigenous music from either north America or Asia. Their deep throaty songs actually come from a part of Russia called Tuva, which borders on Mongolia.

There was one artist whose voice I recognised, because I happen to have one of her albums, although I hadn’t heard this particular song before: “Oica La’O Senhor Vinho” by Mariza. Gorgeous music that sounds Brazilian, but is actually influenced by the fusion of Mariza’s dual Portuguese-Mozambican heritage. Worth getting a hold of.

I could go on… and I’m only skimming the surface here – this music is rich, rich, rich. Besides the above-mentioned songs by Mariza, Ddub and Yasmin Levy, I would recommend listening to these songs:

• Lila Downs ‘Viborita’ (Mexico)
• Celenod ‘Co Weli’ (New Caledonia)
• Guo Yue ‘Dragonfly’ (China)
• Lior ‘This Old Love‘ (Australia)

That’s it. I’m way over my word count, but I guess that is what happens when you get me talking about World Music. I certainly loved this CD. Hope you get a chance to hear some of these artists yourself.

Renate Nguyen

Advertisement