Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (1992)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lbum_cover.jpg

Either this album or a later collaboration with Jerry Douglas. This one seems easier to find.

^ Thanks for this nomination - it`s an album I`ve always been planning to investigate, so I`ll be interested to see how it gets on. :)

Although it`s a day or two late, I`ll open a new poll thread for albums later this evening.

I actually preferred the sound of the Jerry Douglas collaboration Bourbon & Rosewater but it seems hard to come by.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov...153918y0yx.jpg

Thanks, fazstp, I`ll put Bourbon and Rosewater into the poll, when I get a minute to open the thread; just now I find myself snowed under with work stuff. :(

I love this thread.

Beautiful



Gary Higgins


Gary Higgins "I Pick Notes From The Sky" 1973 - YouTube

Welcome to the club,Cru Hoor, and thanks for the nomination. :)

The medieval-looking Gary Higgins will be entered in the next poll (June 7). Is "Red Hash" the name of the album that you`re nominating ?

Glad that you enjoyed the Karen Dalton album from stp. Did you notice that the opening post of this thread has a list of all the albums nominated so far ? That`s where you`ll find this link, where you can read/vote/ comment about KD :-
http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...en-dalton.html

Definitely! June 7th eh? awesome!

Yah the album is Red Hash! :)


Thanks for the link for Karen Dalton!

I assume the Huun Huur Tu nomination was one of your finds Lisnaholic? I must say I am blissfully obsessed with it at the moment. The Bulgarian choir marries beautifully with the Tuvan throat singing. Great stuff :)

"Blissfully obsessed" !! That`s a great expression ! I`m glad you are enjoying it so much - for me too it is something truely exceptional.
Anyway, it looks set to win the current poll, so lets hope that it generates at least some debate or comment.

I guess the difference between these two albums is that on A Meeting by the River Ry Cooder more or less simply accompanies Vishwa Mohan Bhatt but on Bourbon & Rosewater they kind of meet in the middle for a more interesting (at least to me) fusion of styles.

I'll nominate "Neshamah" by Tim Sparks. It's a nice solo acoustic guitar album that explores several different types of traditional Jewish music with some jazzy themes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-_Neshamah.jpg

Thanks, Frownland : we haven`t had a solo piano album before, so this makes for a very interesting nomination. I think Janszoon is going to change the poll for us, so that Tim Sparks features in the latest poll.
I`m going to post your album in the poll thread now.

EDIT : Thanks for fixing the poll, Janszoon !

(It's a guitar piece ;))

Yeah, I just noticed that too. I saw the album cover and I read what I expected to read ! :laughing:

Toumani Diabaté - The Mandé Variations (2008)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Variations.jpg

Featuring Toumani Diabaté playing solo kora. This video has some background on the musician and on the kora.

Another Toumani Diabaté but this time in a nice bit of Brazilian fusion.

Arnaldo Antunes, Edgard Scandurra & Toumani Diabaté - A Curva Da Cintura (2012)

http://liberta-e.com/acurvadacintura/img/curva01.jpg


If you can only use one of my nominations this round I'll leave it to you to pick your favourite. I like the solo Toumani Diabaté but this one is maybe a little more varied.

Thanks, stp ! They both look like interesting albums, so I`m not sure which one to pick. If no-one else chips in with an opinion, maybe we should go with the one that`s easiest to get hold of. What do you think ?

Maybe just stick with my first nomination of The Mande Variations. It's probably the stronger of the two.

I'll nominate Mayo Thompson's "Corky's Debt to His Father". It's a fantastic album by one of the Red Krayola's founding members and is essentially folk rock that blends together several different genres and is a fantastic listen, even for those who aren't fans of his later post punk work.

Just looked it up. I had no idea Red Krayola had been around since the 60s.

Wishing all our contributors and lurkers a Happy Birthday because the FAIR album club is one year old today !

Some facts and figures :-
We have examined a total of twenty albums and given each album its own thread, listed in this thread´s OP. The threads are still open for votes and comments, but these are the prize-winners so far :-

Highest scoring albums:
Joint first : Nashville Skyline and Fly, Fly, My Sadness with 10 points* each, nominated by Moshe and me
Second place : Passion, Grace and Fire with 8 points, nominated by stp
Third place : Folk Songs and Instrumentals with Guitar with 7 points, nominated by Jack Pat - sorry, I mean Cenotaph

Least popular albums :
Joint last place : This Is Fire and Solar Shears, which both scored 0 !

* This is how I worked out the points:
an Excellent vote = +2, Good = +1, OK = 0, Disappointing = -1, Awful = -2, though everyone has been too polite to ever vote "Awful."

Roll Of Honour :-
This is a chance to thank the people who have helped to keep the FAIR club alive for a year:-

Contributors:
First place:
stp, formally fazstp, who has nominated 10 albums so far. Not one to show off, he actually has an extensive knowledge of, and a keen interest in, a lot of seriously good music in this and other MB forums.
Second place:
Cenotaph, formally Jack Pat, who nominated 6 albums which usually challenged us to edge out of our comfort zone. It`s thanks to Jack Pat that I now have a 22-track compliation of Exuma songs which I regularly play in my car.
Joint Third place:
Frownland has nominated 2 albums and is the most promising newcomer. Don`t know a lot about him yet, but anyone with a Beefheart user-name and, ahem, a Marcel Duchamp avatar can`t be all bad !
Moshe nominated 2 albums, but sadly seems to have abandoned MB.
Runners up:
Newcomer Cru Hoor and missing-in-action members like Petula07 and Ashberry have nominated one album apiece.

Midwives:-
Thanks to tore, whose PFAC showed us how an album club could be done. Thanks to TheBig3, Conan and Jack Pat who were in at the birth of the FAIR club, and thanks to Pedestrian and Janzsoon, who have politely, uncomplainingly, fixed up all my mistakes since !
:)

Hey and thanks to you Lisnaholic for keeping this thing rolling and helping me broaden my musical horizons!

This. I really owe it to Lisnaholic for getting me out of the shoutbox and into this club so that I can extend my music taste. You should've put modesty aside and put yourself as the first place contributor, Lisnaholic! You're the one that keeps the entire Country, Folk, & World Music subforum alive. Happy birthday, F.A.I.R. Album Club!

Hey, guys ! Thanks very much for the positive comments; I`m very glad that you both find something worthwhile in the FAIR Club, and are helping to keep it afloat.
I`ve just come back from a weekend at the beach, which is why I`m late to say thanks, and why I`m running late our next poll ....

:)

Really excited about this club, and I'll probably work on hearing all the picks you guys have made over the next couple of weeks. To give back, I'd like to nominate a personal favorite:

http://www.freecodesource.com/album-...ian-Dances.jpg
Frantz Casseus: Haitian Dances (1954)
A lovely lovely departure through the supple Caribbean fingers of Casseus, Haitian Dances briefs the listener on some of the best folk works in Haiti's canon. The album feels like a soothing lullaby for a gone day and goes well with sunsets and hammocks or a smoke-filled lonely island bar evacuating its final patrons at three in the morning.

That Frantz Casseus record looks awesome. Is that hard to come by?

Thanks for the nomination, Joy Circumcision; a very neat description, and a very interesting choice!
It`s the oldest album to be nominated so far, which is a plus point in the eyes of all those "back-to-the-roots" enthusiasts. I don`t know much about the Folkways music collection myself; I`ve always been daunted by the quantity of their material. So far in the FAIR club, for instance, we`ve only examined one other album from that source, but perhaps you know it already :-
http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...th-cotten.html

Anyway, your album will go into our next poll. That won`t be until August 7, I`m afraid, as this club advances at a rather sedate pace, but thanks again, and welcome to the club !

Smithsonian Folkways - Haitian Dances - Frantz Casséus

$8 download from their website

Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments (2007)

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/albums/1050...e.837705ff.jpg

Quite an interesting mix here exploring various world influences and experimental outings.

Group Bombino - Guitars From Agadez Vol. 2 (2009)

http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/images/sf046.jpg

A modern evolution of northern African music traditions.

Keep in mind these are live field recordings so the quality's not great but the energy is pretty kicking.




Edit: There are a number of videos on YouTube from various venues in the States so it would seem they have been pretty active.

Well done, stp ! Both of these albums look fascinating to me - I`ll be checking them out soon, whether they are poll winners or not.
Thanks for giving me some new leads into the kaleidoscopic maze of world music !

The first nomination led to the second by way of the Sublime Frequencies lable set up by Sir Richard Bishop and friends.

"Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments (2007)"

Absolutely Beautiful:)

Hamza El Din - Al Oud: Instrumental & Vocal Music of Nubia (1965)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZvnwXx2A47...mza+el+din.jpg

Bit of Oud music this time from an Egyptian born musician who apparently played with The Grateful Dead at one stage.

^ Thanks for this latest nomination, stp; I`ve just included it in the new poll. Looks like you are really digging deep into the stringed instruments of Africa at the moment. The kora and the oud both have a beautiful sound - perhaps we should open up one of those vs threads; the kora vs the oud.

When I read on Sublime Frequencies that the group's location was unknown I thought it might have been a bit of spin but apparently two of the band's members were executed and Bombino was living in exile in Burkina Faso.

Bombino gets European release for his album Agadez on Cumbancha | GondwanaSound

I'll nominate another throat singing album since the last one was so popular. It's Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun's Divine Music From a Jail. It's vocals and accordian, written and recorded during Oidupaa's Serbian imprisonment. It's a gorgeous album and it has some of the best throat singing I've ever heard.

Can't find much on this Brazilian artist but a pretty nice album.

Ana Flávia - Orações Aos Orixás (Candomble Prayers to the Orishas) (2009)

http://home.iprimus.com.au/fazstp/im...Aos-Orixas.jpg