Their cover is broody, moody, and a definite goodie. It shuffles along with a late-night jazz vibe, but add some electronica and Elena Tonra’s beautiful, heartbreak inflected tones and you have a cover that might distract you from hearing the original EVERYWHERE.

Thanks to Daughter, on this Sunday, you Got Lucky!

By Marco Canepari

“We have to bear in mind our story, we need to have it in front of our eyes. Because it’s only if we talk about it, only if we spread it over, it can reach the world and we won’t be a ghost population anymore.”

Aziza Brahim is, today, one of the loudest voices of her people. She’s determined and assertive. Every time she talks about Sahrawis, her eyes shine, shivering with passion. She’s the essence of her people.

Since she’s left her refugee camp, near Tindouf in Algeria, she’s travelled extensively all around the world, spending her adolescence in Cuba and, lately, taking up residence in Spain. But her origin is pretty clear. Not simply because, on-stage, she waves a Western Sahara flag, but because every word she says, every plea she makes is a clear reference to her disputed territory, to her brothers’ fight.

Despite its long and tormented history, Western Sahara is no longer a critical topic on the international political agenda. Silence has almost fallen on its vicissitudes, leaving the Sahrawi population in a desperate limbo, struggling for their own existence abroad, in refugee camps or in their homeland (a panhandle between Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria) caged behind a 2700km wall.

They have no voice, they have no political muscles. They can only have say thank you to NGOs like Sandblast, which is their mouthpiece in the Western society.

Aziza is pretty clear about this deadlock: “I’ve realized that the embargo, which is consequently draining my people. Next to the fact that we are a nomadic population, living in a desert, Sahrawis are also pent-up in refugee camps. Left out from the world. They don’t receive news, they can’t spread their voice too. Nobody can listen to them.” That’s why she’s chosen music: to claim her peoples’ demand.

Music is inherent in Sahrawis: “When I left my camp for the first time, at 11 to go to Cuba, I was already able to play percussion. Music is a family thing between my people. Our parents teach us how to play.” But then she has traced her artistic path, “After eight years spent in Cuba, I’ve decided to consecrate myself to music. I left my studies and began to play.” She has understood how music can represent a universal language able to propagate messages. “Music is important for everybody, but for people like mine it is something more. Everywhere music is awareness and culture, but for Sahrawis it is one of the only means we got to spread over our claim. It’s more important than politics.”

Her music and her aimed words are what she has brought to London during a three day tour, touching three of the most intimate but also sought-after London world music venues: SOAS, St Ethelburga’s Centre and World Heart Beat Music Academy.

After the initial movie titled Poet of the Desert, the fourth of a series Poets of Protest, produced by the Scottish film maker Noë Mendelle and narrating the importance of Lkhadra Mabruk (Aziza’s grandmother) for Sahrawis, the Western Saharian artist takes the scene. Or better, her tabl, a Berber large drum similar to tabla and davul, and Javier Otero with his acoustic guitar.

She speaks in Spanish, she sings in Arabic, Hassaniya and Spanish again, but everybody can understand her strength and her hard-edged energy. She sings the lyrics composed by her grandma, poems of the so-called ‘poet of the rifle’: an institution for Sahrawi’s culture and a spiritual guide for Aziza. She sings about the keen desire of freedom, the Polisario Front’s decennial fight, the anguish of the exile. “My music always tries to talk about the suffering of my people and about the willing to live in an upright way. For me it’s important to keep my Arabic origins, but also to mix them.”

Her performances are pretty far from a cry for pain. She picks herself and her cause up, she stirs together her roots and all the influences she’s gathered during her nomadic life and she gives life to vigorous concerts. From the first song on the set list, she enters in communion with the public. Travelling through her first work ‘Mabruk’, she gains the interest of the spectators introducing each piece with intriguing tales and fascinating life experiences: her direct experiences. Then she offers her stories to the audience through sounds, she puts herself on the line once again. Her grandmother’s words, her people’s feelings, her new lease on life.

“I look for enjoyment too, so people can animate themselves when they listen to my music, because if it’s only about the message and a reflective mood, people could get bored. For me and my band it is important to excite not simply consciences but bodies too. I’d like people dancing.”

Even if the result is quieter than what it uses to sound with her full band (Gulili Mankoo) next, despite the stripped line-up she’s able to captivate the audience, engaging it with hand clapping and exotic rhythms. “I’ve lived in Cuba all my adolescence so I feel to have something Latin too inside me.” Arrangements you wouldn’t expect from a North African artist. But Aziza is able to pull unsuspected influences out of her artistic baggage: “in Cuba I’ve also played in a band, which styles were jazz Latino, tumbao and son. I’ve always liked Latin music.”

Food for thought and for dancing on. Soul food to take home and nibble little by little. Reflect upon it and share with others. Because music is one of the loudest voice.

Commander Chris Hadfield returned to Earth yesterday after spending two months aboard the International Space Station and leading Expedition 35. Somehow, during this expedition he managed to find time to record a revised version of Bowie’s Space Oddity and film a music video for it.

Okay, he may not be the best singer, but credit where it’s due: I find it a bit hard to put into words how amazing I find this. The shots where he’s singing with the Earth moving above him even make me feel a bit ill. So I guess I’ll let it speak for itself. Welcome home Cmdr. Hadfield!

Formed by DJ/Producer Jorsch and folk-singer Claudine (no last names as yet) in 2010, despite sucessful careers in their own right, they were eager to take on a new musical challenge. Monophona melds Jorsch’s knowledge of electronica and Claudine’s passion for intimate melodies and together create something that half resembles what we would call ‘trip-hop’.

Amongst several beautiful tracks on their SoundCloud is a cover of the classic Morrissey track ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’ and they’ve given it a radical transformation. Moody, downbeat with a strange counterpoint between the cold production and the warmth of Claudine’s voice (much in the same way the original contrasts sombre lyrics with a life-affirming melodies). It’s only a cover but it’s ingeunity hints at a real talent for songcraft. We’d hate to speak for the man himself but I’d like to think Morrissey would approve too.

Listen to the track below and if you’re off to Great Escape this weekend then you can catch them at Komedia on Friday.

An array of legends from the last 30 years of electronic music have been assembled, like a superhero group out to banish the evil league of EDM. DJs, producers and artists on the night include Squarepusher Live (fresh from assaulting the senses at Roundhouse); Leftfield, who will literally be tearing the roof off (they are a firm part of the Academy’s rich history); Gary Numan and full band; house pioneer and Classic Music Company boss, Luke Solomon; the Disco stylings of Severino, a French contingent of Cassius, Digitalism and Vitalic, the man who introduced us to DJ Shadow, Futura, Unkle and countless others, James Lavelle, the Holy Trinity of Techno, Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, Skint stalwarts, legends and chart stars X-Press 2; ambient dub pioneers The Orb, the list goes on….

But it’s not just the old school representing at The Playground. Wildkats, Krystal Klear, Boddika and many more will be showing their respect and laying down the foundations for the future.

The question is, are you a good student and be there for both ‘lessons’? Or cut class and have to make the tough choice of missing out on potential grade-A performances?

Either way, it’s time to bring out the ear plugs, secure the shades and get ready to have your senses assaulted.

See you at the front.

For more information and tickets, click here.

On the charity night at The Sebright Arms, there was an amusingly named band called All Girl Ninja Death Squad. They were neither stealthy, girls, or remotely assassin like. What they were was an alternative pseudonym for Francobollo, a Swedish band in London that play gloriously fuzzy, angular, stop-start pop that has the minimalism and stylings of a punk band, but with a delightful sense of playfulness and sense of humour.

A true Anglo-Swedish vibe make them quite unique, and a just a tiny bit kooky (especially when they started stripping off their Hawaiian shirts on stage). The video for ‘Basketball’ is a lo-fi love story celebrating the freedom of break-up, with some gloriously freaky dancing! Check it out, do a little dance. Francobollo – not just an assembly made flatpack band (groan). Enjoy.

For those that aren’t aware, Fishing are Russel Fitzgibbon and Doug Wright who are from the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney and they make the kind of electronica which makes you swell with happiness inside. This is no more apparent than on this special live recording of ‘Pee Green Bote’ they did in a tiny rowing boat sailing down the Thames. Doug’s face on the left is priceless. The song is pretty chilled too.

Watch the video below:

Luckily for all you hipsters that refuse the mainstream – they’re still a small, fairly unknown band that have kept to their lo-fi roots (although their debut album is so lo-fi it sounds like it’s being played through a 1940’s wireless radio – don’t think it’s a bad thing, it’s an oh-my-christ-my-ears-are-melting kind of amazing).

Nonetheless, ‘Afraid of Heights’ shows somewhat of a change to their earlier material – focusing more on making a relatable tune instead of beautiful noise. Imagine a Nirvana where Kurt wasn’t a depressed heroine addict, you would have Wavves; belting out mini tunes to a crowd of head-bobbing teens dressed in skinny jeans and flannel shirts. Listen to it – seriously, within minutes you’ll be dancing in your room screaming “I’ll always be on my own” until you end up sobbing into a bottomless pit of cookie dough ice cream.

By Marco Canepari

Despite the fact that it’s become such common-place news it’s no longer one of the top stories in the media, the war in Mali is still ferocious. In fact, the UK and Ireland have just sent, a new contingent to back the French forces.

That’s a clear sign that the war is far from over. Luckily someone is still moving to support. The music world, for example, is still lending its support to the civilian population trapped in a battlefield with no borders. After the tribute offered by Fatoumata Diawara and her project Voices United for Mali, another African artist has gathered together a group of friends and released a hymn to freedom, hopeful to promote the course of peace in the Azawad region.

Mulele Matondo Afrika can be considered a music politician. Bassist, guitarist and arranger, he’s also been a dance producer. But lately he’s decided to enrich his music with a conscience, with an awareness of the country’s condition. Last January, he released his first album, Prophecy; a straightforward message against conflict, corruption and the brutalization of African customs.

He’s suffered years of war that torments his own country (DR Congo), and felt the need to give a sign, to help cure the newest wound that his continent is suffering.

That’s the main mission behind ‘Mali la Paix’, a tune produced and arranged by Mulele but played with 20 other African, European and Latino-American vocalists and musicians. Artists with their own languages, instruments, influences and, most importantly, their supportive messages.

‘Mali La Paix’ is a loud call to not forget about Mali. About its indistinct war. About the difficulties and efforts its population is suffering.

The song is part of a wider crowdfunding plan aimed to raise awareness of the Mali situation – through a video and financing an interactive, musical project about Sahel refugees.

You can download ‘Mali La Paix’ here and contribute to the video project here.

If you’re also interested in the pro Sahel project, you can visit this page. 

The line-up doesn’t get much better than this, and for you Londoners out there, it’s all right there on your doorstep. And it doesn’t hurt that it falls on a bank holiday weekend.

In the style of a village fete, Field Day will be returning to E3 for its seventh year, hosted by some of our favourite promoters. Eat Your Own Ears, Bugged Out!, BleeD/Lanzarote will team up with the likes of The Quietus, The Line of Best Fit, Last FM and FACT Magazine to bring you London’s most progressive festival and line-up.

Field Day brings a wide selection of artists, which is exactly why this festival has been featured on our 2013 Festival Guide. Ranging from the 2012 Mercury Prize Django Django to one of Ethiopia’s most crucial musical figures, Mulatu Astatke, Field Day have got their line-up spot on.

Bringing folk to the field will be James Yorkston, a contrast to the psych, jazz, punk and electronica that Do May Say Think will bring to the stage.

We’re also looking forward to catching electro-pop act Chvrches, who are currently causing a huge stir online. And of course Four Tet is high up there on our list, who’s just recently finished supporting Radiohead, remixed The xx and is now releasing his latest album Pink.

Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo (now considered a security threat by the government of his country due to his politically charged music) will also be making an appearance this year. The creator of chimurenga (‘music of struggle’) and a national symbol for Zimbabweans, Mapfumo is an act not to be missed.

We cannot wait. And with typical fete games on offer, like tug of war, sack races and of course the egg and spoon race, Field Day brings yet another fantastic day for the bank holiday weekend. Get your ticket now before it’s too late!

For more information and tickets, head to the Field Day website here.