On this side of the world today is the longest day of the year. It is the start of the summer and, contrary to the predictions, the weather is fine (touch wood). The outlook for the next few weeks is even sunnier, so there are grounds for optimism.There is a long line of festivals this weekend or coming up, in often pleasant surroundings. And perhaps I should be preparing to go out and party & dance in the streets. But -apart from one or two exceptions*- the 'offerings' at these festivals are often disappointing and/or selected for motives other than their musical value. Too often organisers select artists for financial (cheap or guaranteed crowd-pullers) or socio-political reasons. Understandable as these 'safe' choices may be, they won't persuade me to overcome my natural inhibitions when it comes to large crowds.
So I'm at home, posting carnival music from Angola. Music by Dimba Dya Ngola, an orchestra founded in 1963. They featured on an album I posted earlier.
"Luanda Cidade Linda" (Luanda beautiful city) is a very happy and optimistic lp from 1984, with a very Angolan sound and very Angolan (semba) music. I have never been to Luanda, and therefore am in no position to judge Luanda's beauty (the photos I have seen neither confirm nor contradict such a claim), but this album at least leaves me with a very positive feeling about the place....
IEFE Discos 059 (new link May 28, 2014)
*I make an exception for the great Afrikafestival in the village of Hertme in the east of the Netherlands. Highly recommended, and if you need to be persuaded: read the programme and listen to the podcast (bottom left)!
7 comments:
Thanks for music and for mention about festival.
If you will be there, it would be interesting to know your opinion about perfomance and organization. At all - it's good idea to collect information about good african festivals in Europe (It seems, there is now such source in the net).
Wow. Thanks for that. I like that kind of angolian music a lot.
With a the intro of the first song it starts as a cadence des antilles record.
The play with the rhythm details and patterns...
the light keyboard parts from the title track feel as beguine from martinique.
The carnaval song has the horns from cadence.
The others are more pure semba.
Very very nice album - I love it now.
I noticed the inclusion of Culture Musical Club in the Afrikafestival program, and that reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask. You have produced a series of truly stunning podcasts, which I have enjoyed immensely. Would you have the time or inclination to put together a Taarab p'cast sometime in the future? Given that taarab is generally overlooked, I don't think anyone would complain. Thanks for all.
joe
@Anonymous(a.k.a. Joe): A taarab podcast sounds like a good idea. I'll work on it, i.e. I'll gradually collect some tracks to put it together (so it may take a couple of weeks).
Wow.
I have recently been on a personal respective dig into my Angolan albums and loving once again what I hear, but I have never heard or seen this one before. I love the guitar stylings in particular.
Although every song on this album is wonderful,the first 4 songs have been played in my house many times now.
Merci merci merci mingi!
dear,
for one reason or another i can not download this file anymore.Love Angolan Music any possibility u can post it again? by the way great blog, really enjoy it.
@Anonymous (the last one): The link has been restored.
Thanks for pointing it out to me!
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