WOMADelaide line-up 2011

The line-up for next year's WOMADelaide festival (a world-music festival held over a long-weekend in Adelaide) has just come out and it's making me lament the fact that I will be on the other side of the world at the time. It seems to be a tremendous line-up of artists and I'd so love to be there, lying on the grass and enjoying the sublimity. Here's a little review of some of the artists which I would love to see (and hear):

AFRO MANDINKO (Australia/Senegal/Gambia)



I love their wonderful fusion of West African rhythms, brass, and reggae. You can download some of their songs on their website.


ANA MOURA (Portugal)



Fado on a warm afternoon under a giant fig-tree is more than I can ask for right now.


ANGUS AND JULIA STONE (Australia)




These Australian siblings are gorgeous...


ASA (Nigeria/France)



Nigerian/French 'Asa'...


DEREB THE AMBASSADOR (Ethiopia/Australia)



Originally from Ethiopia and now residing in Australia, it seems Dereb is worth a listen.



FAIZ ALI FAIZ (Pakistan)



The best qawwali singer since the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan they reckon.


HORACE ANDY & DUB ASANTE (Jamaica/UK)



A classic voice of Jamaican reggae..it hurts to think I'll miss him.


HANGGAI (China)



Mongolian punk musicians going back to their folk roots... spot on.


JOANNA NEWSOM (USA)



I've been in love with this little pixie's music for a while now, and have as yet not had a chance to see her live.


THE NECKS (Australia)



Minimalist experimental jazz, these guys are simply superb.

I think the new music I would find it hardest to do without, fifty years after Kind of Blue, is that produced by The Necks... A piano trio, but not like any other piano trio you have heard... There is a great deal of joy in The Necks' music, and it is the more rewarding for being hard-won... Kind of Blue's legacy is apparent in the ease with which The Necks exploit the spaces that were opened up for them all those years ago: spaces in harmony, rhythm and melody, but also spaces in the mind.

Richard Williams - 'The Blue Moment: Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' and the Remaking of Modern Music'

Find more reviews and videos here.


OMAR SOULEYMAN (Syria)



Fanging our cars around the leafy suburbs of the foothills of Adelaide in our post-pubescent years, my friends and I used to listen to home-made tapes by a guy who went by the moniker of 'Smooth Pete'. Pete had obviously got his hands on an old Casio keyboard and he'd 'rap' and 'scat' [*doo dippy dippy woo woo woo*] to a backing track... the result was obviously hilarious. Pete was either a wonderfully adept self-satirist...or just a little bit slow (...what I would pay to get my hands on a copy of one of those now long-lost cassettes!).
Although Mr. Souleyman's musical endeavours obviously require much more skill and an acquired knowledge of the folk music of Syria, it still sounds like he's using an old Casio... so I'm going to call him Smooth Omar.


TANYA TAGAQ (Canada)



Maybe not something to listen to while you're making pizza and sipping on wine after a tiresome day at work, but I wouldn't mind seeing Innuit throat singing on stage just once in my life.


THE YABU BAND (Australia)



You try finding better Aboriginal desert rock-reggae...



This is of course only a small representation of the splendour of Womadelaide...It is a bit disappointing to see Eastern Europe underrepresented again (gypsies don't count!)...