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We’ve updated our regular Worldwide FM playlist with upfront and reissued music from around the world. Listen throughout the month on air, or to enjoy on the move, subscribe or follow the playlist on Spotify and Soundcloud.

(Liv).e – What’s The Real [In Real Life]
79rs Gang – Brand New Day [Sinking City Records]
Albino Sound feat. Sayaka Botanic & Kohhei Matsuda – Night Shift [Ransom Note Records]
AMA//MIZU feat. EERA – Fil De Lune [SaS Recordings]
An Alien Called Harmony – After the Dance [An Alien Called Harmony]
Anderson .Paak – Lockdown [Aftermath Entertainment]
Andrew Wasylyk – Last Sunbeams of Childhood [Athens of The North]
Asher Gamedze – siyabulela [On The Corner]
Atsushi Yano – Sun Pearl [Omena Records]
Bab L’Bluz – Waydelel [Real World Records]
Beverly Clenn-Copeland – River Dreams [Transgressive]
Black Josh – MANNYFORNIA [Blah Records]
BO NINGEN – Silenced [Alcopop! Records]
BRISA – In The City [Brisa Music]
C.A.R. – Pressure Drop (Suzanne Kraft Remix) [Ransom Note Records]
Carlota – (0(00n [trip recordings]
Chari Chari – Of Mystic Dreams [Seeds and Ground]
corto.alto feat. Soweto Kinch – Is That It? [corto.alto]
Danalogue x Sarathy – Major Goes Free [Danalogue]
DJ 3D – How Many Ways (Refreshers Rework) [Refreshers]
Dreamcast – Deserving
Ebi Soda feat. Chloe Bodur – Run for President [Sola Terra Records]
Ego Ella May – Tonight I’m Drowning [UpperRoom Records]
Ella Knight – What We Are [Ella Knight]
Floco Floco – On m’a dit (Gilb’R Rester Con Reprise) [Versatile Records]
Fynn feat. China Charmeleon – Fair Lady [Stay True Sounds]
Gold – You Are So Wonderful [Athens of The North]
Howling – Dew [Counter Records]
Hugh B – Be Kind To Your Mind [Repeat Concrete]
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – When Will I See You Again [Strut]
Insólito UniVerso – Goyo Tuyero [Olindo Records]
Jimi Tenor – Sugar and Spice [Philophon]
Joel Culpepper – Burden [Soho Radio Records]
Jorja Smith – Rose Rouge [Universal Music]
Julianna Barwick – Inspirit [Ninja Tune]
Kamaal Williams feat. Lauren Faith – Hold On [Black Focus Records]
Kasia Konstance – North41 [Kasia Konstance]
Keleketla! – Crystallise (Edit) [Ahead of Our Time]
Keleketla! – International Love Affair (Edit) [Ahead of Our Time]
Kelly Lee Owens – On [Smalltown Supersound]
Kevin Haynes Grupo Elegua – Hebwa baba [jazz re.freshed]
Khruangbin – Pelota [Dead Oceans]
Knxwledge. – alligot-needalotmore [Stones Throw Records]
Lapalux – 51 Endless Pulses [Brainfeeder]
Leron Thomas – Blind [Lewis Recordings]
Lianne La Havas – Weird Fishes [Warner Records]
Lord Tusk – Paradise Awaits [Lord Tusk]
Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto con Elber Álvarez – Maestro Toño García (Cerrero dub mix) [Llorona Records]
Lucrecia Dalt – Disuelta [RVNGIntl.]
Madi Saskia – Furthest [Madison Hall]
Mark Cake + NeONE the Wonderer – We’re Holding On [Nathan Lawrence]
Maxwell Owin & Xenia Menasseh feat. Joe Armon-Jones – Probably Never [Extra Soul Perception]
Minyo Crusaders and Frente Cumbiero – Cumbia del Monte Fuji [Mais Um]
Mulatu Astatke & Black Jesus Experience – Mulatu [Agogo Records]
NeONE The Wonderer – Headphones On [NeONE The Wonderer]
Oliver Palfreyman feat. George Riley – Just A Taste / Just A Phase [Oliver Palfreyman]
Pedro Lima & Conjunto ”Os Leonenses” – Lionensi Sá Tindadji [Les Disques Bongo Joe]
Pete Josef – Giants [Sonar Kollektiv]
Philippe Cohen Solal feat. Angelique Kidjo & Mo Laudi – Afro Bolero (Poté Remix) [¡Ya Basta! records]
Photay – The People [Mexican Summer]
Reuben James – So Cool [Rufio Records Limited]
Roy Ayers, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad – Synchronize Vibration [Jazz Is Dead]
SAHRA GURE – Leave Me (Neue Grafik Rework) [Sun of Agmiu]
Saint Clair – Goddess [Dearly Beloved]
Sarah Davachi – Stations II [Late Music]
Sarathy Korwar feat. Zia Ahmed – Turner on the 20 [Bandcamp]
SAULT – Pray Up Stay Up [Forever Living Originals]
Setwun – Thanks For The Record Flash [1952489 Records]
Shakira Alleyne – Unhealthy Substitute DEMO [Shakira Alleyne]
Shielding – Mossa [Wisdom Teeth]
Shunaji feat. My Rugema – On My Mind [Shunaji]
Space Afrika – more than [Space Afrika]
Steve Arrington – Keep Dreamin’ [Stones Throw]
Szun Waves – Warming Up [The Leaf Label]
Tenderlonious – Quarantena [22a Music]
Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder & Kamasi Washington feat. Phoelix – Freeze Tag [Sounds of Crenshaw]
The George Semper Orchestra – Got To Find A Way To Make Some Money [Arc Records]
The Koreatown Oddity feat. Jimetta Rose – Chase the Spirit [Stones Throw]
TONYSPARK – Baby, U So Fine [Mimm]
V feat. Yameen Allworld – Into The Light [BBE Music]
YĪN YĪN – Chông Ky [Les Disques Bongo Joe]
Zara McFarlane – Black Treasure [Brownswood Recordings]
박혜진 Park Hye Jin – Like this [Ninja Tune]

Zara McFarlane – Songs Of An Unknown Tongue [Brownswood Recordings]

Morning Mari*’s album of the week for 20-24 July is coming from our beloved Brownswood Recordings, Zara McFarlane‘s “Songs Of An Unknown Tongue“.

Since Zara McFarlane’s last release in 2017, she’s been on a journey into the folk and spiritual traditions of her ancestral motherland, Jamaica. Songs of an Unknown Tongue, her fourth album, is the outcome of a deep dive into the esoteric history of the Caribbean isle. It is a rumination on history and black heritage which speaks in richly patterned electronic beats and McFarlane’s characteristically crystalline vocals.

Research centred around The National Library of Jamaica and the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston for audio and video samples, led her to discover an array of rhythms associated with old Jamaican rituals: Bruckins, Dinki Mini, Revival, Kumina and Nyabinghi. Though initially she struggled to differentiate between them, slowly but surely the rhythms began to speak to her. “I listened really carefully, deeply, and began to hear the emphasis and accents,” she says.

Back home in London, Zara collaborated with producers Kwake Bass and Wu-Lu to deconstruct the elements of the folk rhythms from her research and transfer them into new formats. While each track has a story of its own, the album overall speaks not only to Jamaican folk histories but to contemporary issues of empire, colonialism, race and identity.

Songs of an Unknown Tongue is a reflection on Zara’s journey to piece together her heritage. This album marks a new chapter in this multi-award winning artist’s story; from an originator in the Jazz scene, honing her craft with Tomorrow’s Warriors, to being unafraid to take her time to be experimental and create a bold new sound that reflects her own journey to connect with her history. A timely expression of the personal and political, it is clear Songs Of An Unknown Tongue is both a letter she has written to herself, and to us.

[Written by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff 2020]

Tracklist:
1. Everything Is Connected
2. Black Treasure
3. My Story
4. Broken Water
5. Saltwater
6. Run Of Your Life
7. State Of Mind
8. Native Nomad
9. Roots Of Freedom
10.Future Echoes

THIAGO NASSIF – Mente [Gearbox Records]

Morning Mari*‘s album of the week is Thiago Nassif’s “Ment” out on Gearbox Records.

Thiago Nassif is a Rio de Janeiro-based musician.

“The leading light of the new generation of Brazilian songwriters” says Arto Linsay who is a co-producer of the album.

An underground Brazilian artist whose profile is gradually growing in the West, Thiago Nassif forms part of Rio de Janeiro’s younger generation of talents, many who have collaborated with and take influence from the likes of Caetano Veloso, João Donato and Ava Rocha, and who now appear on his latest project, “Mente”. Featured on the first single ‘Soar Estranho’, released April 10th, are progressive musicians Vinicius Cantuária (O Terço, Bill Frisell, John Zorn) on drums and Ricardo Dias Gomes (Kill Shaman, Caetano Veloso) on Minimoog. The second single, ‘Plastico’, includes Claudio Brito on atabaque and singers Negro Leo and Laura Wrona, and is a soulful yet jarring criticism of the institutionalised “white cube” format of art galleries.

Thiago’s catalogue includes the self-released “Garconnière” in 2009 and “Práxis” in 2011, as well as “Três” in 2016, which was co-produced by Arto Lindsay and released in the UK via Foom. Combining his influences from no wave, electronic music and Tropicália and inspired by artists such as Tom Zé, Ricardo Villalobos, Alva Noto, and James Chance, Três received the seal of approval from the “Dean of American rock critics,” Robert Christgau, who graded it A-, and was heavily played on BBC 3’s Late Junction, with Thiago appearing on the show as a guest in July 2018, as well as on the Bandcamp Weekly program earlier in the same year. In the meantime, Thiago continued his collaboration with Lindsay, co-producing and editing his recent “Cuidado Madame” album, and working on his follow-up to “Três”.

Thiago celebrates his signing to London-based label Gearbox Records with “Mente”. The title of the album is a homonym in Portuguese, meaning both “to lie” and “mind”, and represents the post-truth political era that we are living, which Brazil’s current regime seems to be at the forefront of.

Tracklist:

1. Soar Estranho
2. Pele De Leopardo
3. Voz Única Foto Sem Calcinha
4. Plástico
5. Feral Fox
6. Trepa Trepa
7. Transparante
8. Cor
9. Rijo Jórra Já
10. Santa

Kate NV – Room For The Moon [RVNG Intl.]

Morning Mari*‘s album of the week is Kate NV‘s “Room For The Moon” out on RVNG Intl.

“Music knows what she wants,” says Moscow-based artist, Kate NV. On Room for the Moon, the lyrical follow up to the buoyant minimalism of 2018’s для FOR, NV follows this muse in fluid expression, harmonizing her lunar lullabies with a starry compositional choreography. NV says, “I always let music express herself without pressure, and with or without voice.”

NV began sketching the music of Moon sometime before для FOR, but the album did not take its full shape until the artist entered a new physiological phase. After trying to make a Buchla synthesizer mirror human imperfections, she was compelled to look past the patch bay and reconnect with her own voice. “I spent almost a year and half sitting, at best, or bending over the table. In the end it, my body rebelled, on some kind of physical level.” No longer concerned with demonstrating a traditional composer’s craft of для FOR, the return to vocal forms first found on her debut album Binasu was liberating and (gasp!) gleeful.

On Moon, NV’s vocals contour through screens of tulle or jars of glitter, the entire collection composed and produced by NV at home and studio spaces throughout Moscow. “I finished this record during the loneliest period of my life,” confides NV, with hints of melancholy, or fabled life lessons, adding even more depth to songs of cheery disposition. Her songs, sung in Russian, French and English, each carry unique features, like ten personas or ten scenes in a play where each character has its own keynote. Room for the Moon was conjured from unlived memories of 70s and 80s Russian and Japanese pop music and film, a 20th century fairy tale suspended in time like a moon torn from a paper sky.

NV is accompanied by long-time music collaborators on Moon: Jenya Gorbunov on bass guitar, Vladimir Luchanskiy on saxophone, and Quinn Oulton on both instruments. Musician Nami Sato’s gentle words lift and lilt over synth for one piece, too. These friendly contributions are in service of NV’s singular vision; the album is personal and particular in its construction. Filled with warm and sweet memories of her own invention, NV says, “these songs are now my closest friends.”

Moon could be made from chiffon ripples, night sky transmissions and long shadows. With each song we enter another chamber of illusion, NV’s vocals tiptoe through one track, toy with riddles on another and try to save time in a polka-dotted pocket. On “Plans,” NV, through some sort of sorcery, created a sax solo using only samples from the Found Sound Nation’s “Broken Orchestra” sample pack. A laugh slips from the sheets of music in “Ça Commence Par” like a misplaced photo. Mallet and marimba converse over mushroom tea on “Du Na.” “Tea” herself borrows melody from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and “Telefon” teases us that “there’s nowhere to hide from the song.” But that’s ok, we’re all invited to the party.

Moon’s cast might make friends with other electric, eclectic, and visionary works of Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Akiko Yano, and Ann Steel. You know the feeling of instant affinity? It’s how you may respond to Room for the Moon. You’ll recognize something strangely familiar and inexplicably attractive, an afterglow of times spent in happy company, imagined or otherwise.

Tracklist:

1. Not Not Not
2. Du Na
3. Sayonara
4. Ça Commence Par
5. Marafon 15
6. Tea
7. Lu Na
8. Plans
9. If Anyone’s Sleepy
10. Telefon

Vibration Black Finger – Can You See What I’m Trying To Say [Jazzman Records]

Morning Mari*‘s album of the week is Vibration Black Finger‘s “Can You See What I’m Trying To Say” out on Jazzman Records on the 19th of June, 2020.

Lascelle ‘Lascelles’ Gordon – the driving force behind Vibration Black Finger – astonishes us yet again with a magnificent second album. Once more his inspiration is drawn from the obscure spiritual jazz collectives of the 1970s where he employs a vast array of like-minded collaborators to create a listening experience infused with an ever-present undercurrent of personal expression and cultural empowerment that’s as enriched with ideas as it is progressive in its form.

Having earned his chops as founding member of the Brand New Heavies, Campag Velocet and Heliocentric World, Lascelle’s latest album Can You See What I’m Trying to Say bursts with energy and vivid contrasts, flowing effortlessly between beat-laden grooves, oscillating improvisations, soulful recitations, audio verité and moody atmospherics. The album drops like a post-hip-hop reimagining of foundational genres, with a prayer to the future.

‘’Can You See What I’m Trying to Say’ is a quote from Marion Brown, the great alto saxophonist’ explains Gordon. ‘The album was put together over the last three years, not in the conventional way of going into the recording studio with musicians, but starting from ideas I had on various formats (cassettes, mini disc, DATs & reel to reel). I also used field recordings. I did a lot of home recording with long time musical friends Ben Cowen & Diana Gutkind, some of them going back 20 years. The voices of my nieces (heard on Law of the Universe) were recorded 25 years ago. ‘Only in a Dream’ and ‘Empty Streets’ are the only songs that were recorded live in the studio.’

‘I was blown away by the New Life Trio ‘Empty Streets’ (from 1978) and was fascinated by the vocals’ continues Lascelles. ‘I always thought it would be great to cover this tune’. Such is the power of this song, it’s used to open the album, with vocalist Ebony Rose turning in a thoroughly haunting vocal performance. While not a concept album as such, Lascelles has nonetheless conceived and presented Can You See What I’m Trying to Say to be heard as a complete listening experience, with each track blending into the next, resulting in a seamless expression of music.

Following ‘Empty Streets’, some instrumental interludes segue into a dimensional drift of beats, space synths, horns and electronics; there’s a vocal reprise of ‘Acting For Liberation’, sung with gusto by Maggie Nichols, and then there’s the album’s momentous finale, ‘Only In A Dream’, which takes off as an ominous drone before a delicious bassline from the late Ken Kambayashi transforms it into an intense, soaring epic which finally descends onto another world.

In a career spanning several decades, Lascelle Gordon remains an omnivorous musical force, whether as DJ, collaborator or radio broadcaster. As amply demonstrated on Can You See What I’m Trying to Say, he refuses to rest on his laurels and continues to impress with music that is as rich, vital and contemporary as anything he’s done before, covering an incredible amount of musical ground in the process.

‘As always I’ve made a conscious move towards making deep, heavy music’ he says, ‘Music without meaning seems pointless.’

Tracklist:

1. Empty Streets
2. Adrianna
3. Gutkind’s Dream
4. Acting for Liberation, Pt.1
5. Law of the Universe
6. Can You See What I’m Trying to Say
7. Acting for Liberation, Pt.2
8. Persia & Cornelius
9. The Glory
10. Soul Fire
11. Twelve Wire Byrd
12. Only in a Dream