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Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza
New album: An inspired collaboration between the veteran 81-year-old Brazilian singer and the American jazz bassist, singer and arranger, 39, their low and high voices blending beautifully and bringing new life to the former’s old catalogue, plus covers and guests including Paul Simon and Lianne La Havas.
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Bizhiki: Unbound
New album: A primal, evocative, soul-stirring release combining Native American powpow chanting and with ambient electronica dulcimer strings and gentle drums by singer-songwriter Joe Rainey, drummer and producer S Carey, and indigenous singer Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings
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Bab L'Bluz: Swaken
New album: Out last month, a fabulous second LP by the French-Moroccan quartet who fuse traditional with psychedelia, blues and heavy rock with Africa's Maghreb: Gnawa, Amazigh, Hassani and Houara music
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Arooj Aftab: Night Reign
New album: An exquisitely dark, lingering fourth LP from the Grammy-winning Pakistani-American singer and composer with a mix of songs in Urdu and English, her resonant, pure voice accompanied by rippling piano, harp, guitar and more in a dark landscape of folk, jazz and traditional music
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Mdou Moctar: Funeral For Justice
New album: After 2021’s acclaimed Afrique Victime album, the brilliant Tuareg guitarist and band band from Agadez, Niger, return with explosive, powerful, emotive numbers, impassioned songs about his culture and social wrongs, wrapped in a frenzy of drums, guitars, bass and vocals
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Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds
New album: A beautifully evocative, documentary compilation of anonymous spontaneous performances and field recordings from descendants of slaves in a northern section of the city of Mobile, Alabama, one of the last places in the US to receive slave ships
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Les Amazones d'Afrique: Musow Danse
New album: A joyous, vibrant, powerful, life-affirming third LP by the West African Mali collective female artists, mixing traditional, rich African vocal harmonies with electronica, dance, funk and folk of course no shortage of feminist fervour
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Favourite LPs of 2023, Part 2.
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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Nitin Sawhney: Identity
New album: The acclaimed British-Asian musician returns with a powerful LP themed very much as titled, and spurred by burning issues over how immigrants are portrayed, presents 17 tracks on different sides of heritage, sense of self, belonging and multiculturalism, with an impressive set of guest singers and rappers
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Public Service Broadcasting: This New Noise
New album: A tremendous noise indeed about radio, as the vintage footage-inspired experimentalist band led by J Wildgoose Esq release a remastered album version of their acclaimed 2022 BBC Proms performance from London’s Royal Albert Hall with the full BBC Symphony Orchestra
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Rhiannon Giddens: You're The One
New album: The Greensboro-raised singer-songwriter and brilliant banjo player of Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters returns with her first solo album for six years, for the first time mostly originals, continuing her focus on black culture reclamation of catchy, soulful country and Americana
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Mokoomba: Tusona - Tracings In The Sand
New album: A gloriously uplifting new release by the collective from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, joined by the horns of Ghanaian highlife band Santrofi in celebratory songs inspired by Makisi dance gatherings and sung in various languages - Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala
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Various: The Endless Coloured Ways - The Songs of Nick Drake
New album: An enthralling collection of 23 cover versions of classic numbers by the legendary British folk singer who tragically died in 1974, featuring diverse artists including Fontaine’s D.C., Emeli Sandé, Aldous Harding, Guy Garvey and John Grant
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PJ Harvey: I Inside The Old Year Dying
New album: Seven years after The Hope Six Demolition Project album, Polly returns with mysterious, experimental, beautiful, alluring release in which she adapts poems from her book Orlam into songs immersed in the otherworld-underworld of her home Dorset countryside, laced with local dialect and unusual acoustic instruments
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Desert meets country: Tinariwen’s Amatssou
New album: A fabulous new release by the north Mali nomadic group whose distinctive Tuareg Saharan desert blues is beautifully combined with a country style, with added pedal steel and violin, and a title that is is Tamashek for ‘Beyond The Fear’
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Fatoumata Diawara: London KO
New album: The Mali star returns with an third LP, mixing Afro-futurism and feminism wassoulou traditions and western, but also celebrating her links the UK and and collaborations, notably with co-producer Damon Albarn, and other guest including Angie Stone and Roberto Fonseco
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Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations: I Came From Love
New album: A rich, complex and brilliant release about black history, identity, and channelling the idea of ancestry by British singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist joined by a stellar cast of fellow artists, including Wesley Joseph, Tom Skinner, ESKA and Grace Jones
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Desire Marea: On The Romance of Being
New album: An extraordinary, beautiful, passionate, spiritual and erotic new solo LP by the South African multidisciplinary artist, sangoma (Nguni spiritual healer), and previously part of queer gqom group FAKA, now with a 13-piece orchestral ensemble mixing soul, jazz, rock and Zulu chants
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Altin Gün’s fifth album, Aşk
New album: The Amsterdam psychedelic and electro-pop-funk rockers make a fabulous fifth LP with their special interpretations of traditional Turkish and Anatolian folk, echoing the heavier sound of their earlier albums On and Gece
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Four masters making a perfect blend: (from left) Vincent Peirani, Ballaké Sissoko, Émile Parisien and Vincent Segal
New album: A gorgeous genre-spanning jazz-folk-Anatolian LP featuring Malian kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko, specialist improv cellist Vincent Segal, accordion virtuoso Vincent Peirani and French soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien
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