►FMM Sines 2012 – the aftermath

First of all: the few (but invaluable) fellow readers of my blog might have been wondering if this blog has died a premature death. No, not at all, fortunately I can assure you, my friends, that it is not dead. This post can be taken as a factual proof, right?

On a more serious note, I can explain the long absence from posting (two months): in July I had to take care of the last (but most complicated and most stressing) tasks related to my job as a music teacher in public school, like preparing exams, watching some more exams and judging some more exams, again. And add to this the usual meetings. On the other hand, me and my wife had to take care of moving out of our (temporary – that is, for one school year) home. At the beginning of this year, we promised each other we would NOT take more stuff than we needed into this home, but I guess we failed a little. About three cars went full with stuff. In the meantime, the month was coming to an end and finally, we had some (very) deserved holidays, of which we spent two days at Sines.

Sines is a rather smallish town at the portuguese west coast, something like mid-way between Algarve and Lisbon. Normally it is known for its very important international harbour and its petrol raffineries. On another hand it also has a nice beach and pitoresque streets and houses, as well as an old castle to offer. But more important than all this (at least for me):

It is the setting of FMM (“Festival de Músicas de Mundo“: something like World Music Festival).

I’ve already been there two years ago and became instant fan. Absolutely great venue, very nice atmosphere, nice people, no stress or hectic masses of audiences (although it does get really crowded) and fantastic choice of bands and musicians from all around the globe. So, I had to come back this year, and will try to go almost every year, too.

This edition, I managed to attend the following concerts:

Portuguese traditional music meets the classics from Brazil with the very musical and alternative interpretation of two brazilians who came to Portugal:  Luanda Cozetti (vocals) and Norton Daiello (bass) with the help of Ruca Rebordão (percussion) and José Peixoto (guitar) recreate their own versions of all-time classics and also some originals of their own, where they play from soul to jazz-funk.

Bosnian band emerging from the ashes of civil war and becoming one of the most popular projects in eastern europe, mixing folclore with reggae, hiphop and plain, hard and noisy rock. Original and interventional lyrics paired with strong rhythms.

This promising project from Argentina might be one of the best examples for the modern state of Tango, aware of the traditions but inspired by the crowded and uncensored life on the streets of Buenos Aires, taking their tools from Jazz, Rock and even contemporary instrumental composition.

A very talented lady from Mali who grew up with the ancestral blues music from the Wassolou region and although having started as an actress, never stopped believing in herself and made her dream come true: become an internationally known singer.

All members of this ensemble from Republic of Congo have some kind of physical handicap, in fact most of them appear on stage in wheel chairs, making this project a great demonstration of courage and winning the most difficult adversities in life.  Their music, pairing traditional rhythms with Funk and Rumba, won’t leave anybody indifferent.

A portuguese Folk-Rock project with unusual compositions and also a unusual line-up: from a Hurdy-Gurdy (strange instrument, but sounds great… look here if you don’t know what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy) to traditional flutes, bagpipes, concertinas, mandolin and “cavaquinho“.

Definitely the best concert of all, and one of the greatest I’ve ever been at. Absolutely soberb performance, great musicianship and perfect sound. Stunning. I’ve already dedicated one chapter of my series “Alternative Music Lounge” to Dhafer, check it out here for more details. That’s also why I include the video-report of the actual concert he gave at FMM Sines 2012, rather than one of his music videos, those you can find on the article or directly on youtube.

In 2010 (at FMM as well) I heard for the first time one of the very special “throat-singers” of the Norwegian Swami people (Wimme), now it was time to hear Mari Boine, also representing these unique Shaman music traditions.

 

And that’s it. I wish I could have stayed longer… See you next year, FMM Sines!

►The Alternative Music Lounge: Dhafer Youssef

After quite a while without anything new in this series (since I started to work full-time I have found it more difficult to have time to write on the blog, unfortunately), know here’s finally one more listening suggestion.

In this series, I’ve already presented to you a great musician who plays the Oud (Rabi Abou Khalil), but here’s another one, and I think the only things they have in common are the instrument, their interest in Jazz and the quality of their music…

His name is Dhafer Youssef and he was born in Tunisia but moved to Europe in 1990 to have more freedom and ways to perform his art – playing the Oud, singing and composing.

His music ranges from Jazz and World Music over Fusion right all the way to Avant-garde.

I especially admire his musicality (having listened to the album Malak (1999)  – where he performs with Markus Stockhausen and Renaud Garcia-Fons, among others), his impressive voice (listen to him singing unissono with a trumpet, for example, and you will feel that shivers going down your spine, I grant you) and the astonishing dynamic range of his music (right from ppp to fff, it’s like classical music – never had listened to something similar in Jazz or World Music before) aswell as the criativity of his compositions and the quality of his interpretation along with his other band members.

Have a listen for yourself:

http://www.dhaferyoussef.com/music/samples/malak/04-kind_of_love.mp3

http://www.dhaferyoussef.com/music/samples/malak/02-iman.mp3

Some more recent recordings of him (Dhafer Youssef Quartet):

Here’s the link to his official site: Dhafer Youssef

and the article on Wikipedia.

 


About this series:

One of the ideas I have for this blog is to start periodic post series about a few interesting topics. Like one post a week or a month, about the same topic but always bringing you new (or classic but little known) musical discoveries.
This series that I gave the name “The Alternative Music Lounge” is about presenting you bands and projects that I like a lot or respect much because of the quality of their music although they haven’t made it into the so called “main stream” and therefore probably will remain unknown for many people.
Whatever might be the reasons for this (sometimes their creations are just too good, too unique, lacking any “commercial characteristics”, othertimes it’s just another case of being disregarded by the music industry, we all know what’s usual to happen…), I think the’re more people out there who might like their music but just didn’t have a chance to discover it yet, so I hope these publications of mine might be helpful.
By the way, if you’re a musician and think I might like your music and would like to propose your creations for being featured in a post of this series, you’re welcome to comment this post or any other future post of this series, stating your project’s name, a link to where I can listen to some tracks and a way to contact you.
I promise to try and listen to everyone’s tracks and respond, even if I happen to not accept the proposal.

►The Alternative Music Lounge: Rabih Abou Khalil

Today’s chapter of this series is about a very eclectic and quite unique musician, his name is Rabih Abou Khalil.

Born in Lebanon, but having moved to Germany in 1978 because of the civil war, he early started his music studies, becoming a virtuoso on his main instrument, the oud (string instrument having common origins with the lute – read more here).

 

An oud
An oud (Author of photo: Viken Najarian)

Probably the best term to describe the style of Khalil’s music could be “World Jazz”, as he combines traditional arabic music with jazz, rock and classical music.

Having released several albums with different projects and colaborations, his original compositions feature a wide spectrum of styles, instrumentations and genres.

Along his career he ranged from an album with mostly arabic music, over two projects more oriented to jazz (one with Sonny Fortune and the other with Charlie Mariano and Kenny Wheeler), a lineup of string quartet, oud, tuba and frame drums producing the album called Arabian Waltz, an exotic project called Morton’s Foot (combining european and easter traditions, including tibetan throat singing) to his most recent project, consisting of a trio (oud, piano and drums), with the original name Journey to the Centre of an Egg.

For a more complete biography, read this.

Let’s listen to some of his music:

Ma Muse m’amuse (from CD The Cactus of Knowledge)

 

Live at Jazz Club 1990

 

Sahara!

 


About this series:

One of the ideas I have for this blog is to start periodic post series about a few interesting topics. Like one post a week or a month, about the same topic but always bringing you new (or classic but little known) musical discoveries.
This series that I gave the name “The Alternative Music Lounge” is about presenting you bands and projects that I like a lot or respect much because of the quality of their music although they haven’t made it into the so called “main stream” and therefore probably will remain unknown for many people.
Whatever might be the reasons for this (sometimes their creations are just too good, too unique, lacking any “commercial characteristics”, othertimes it’s just another case of being disregarded by the music industry, we all know what’s usual to happen…), I think the’re more people out there who might like their music but just didn’t have a chance to discover it yet, so I hope these publications of mine might be helpful.
By the way, if you’re a musician and think I might like your music and would like to propose your creations for being featured in a post of this series, you’re welcome to comment this post or any other future post of this series, stating your project’s name, a link to where I can listen to some tracks and a way to contact you.
I promise to try and listen to everyone’s tracks and respond, even if I happen to not accept the proposal.