I'd like to nominate Origa this week, with her album "Era of Queens".

http://images.wikia.com/lyricwiki/im..._Of_Queens.jpg

She is a Russian singer who has worked extensively in Japan. I find her to be very relaxing and a bit spiritual. I'm not sure if she really qualifies as FAIR, because her songs do ten to be a bit electronic in nature, but she sings in various languages and does have a unique sound.

Here are a couple of my favorite tracks:





Enjoy!

^ HaHa! No problem, Sir Cactoos. If you want, I can put in a link or image when the time comes.

Thanks, miss p ! To judge from what you say, and the album cover, I think your choice is going to provide us with a slight change of diet from our usual fare. Well, I´m always ready for a bit of extra sugar or salt !
I´m happy to see you posting again. You seemed to go quiet for a while, at the same time that the demonstrations in Instanbul were hitting the headlines. I was beginning to wonder if you were affected by them at all ...

I went back to Maine for a visit home, but when I came back the protests were raging indeed!

I posted about my experience over at the Turkey thread. :) It seems to have blown over now, but people are very, very unhappy.

Time to put up the balloons, cut the cake and sing Happy Birthday again, because the FAIR club has now been running for two years. Because the club only attracts a few people, there´s space to mention everyone who has contributed an album nomination this year:-

Roll of Honour:-
stephen - without your consistent enthusiasm I probably would´ve closed the club by now, so many thanks for your support and the great music you have introduced us to.
frownland - hoping you haven´t abandoned us. My apologies if some of your nominations have received limited attention in the polls; I still feel that we are special buddies because we listen to exactly the same two-for-one Beefheart cd !
misspoptart - most promising newcomer, deserves credit for not only exploring strange music, but exploring strange countries too. She wins the crown for Miss FAIR Club 2013 - although you haven´t yet submitted a video of yourself belly-dancing to gypsy music, Miss P. What are you waiting for ??
cenotaph, joy circumcision and Sir Cactoos nominated one album each this year.

Facts and Figures:-
We looked at a total of 18 albums, of which the stand-outs were:-
First Place: Tempest scored 18 points.
Second Place: Agadaz, nominated by stephen, scored 8 points.
Equal Third: Red Hash (from Poor Ol´Po), Kef, and Niyaz (from misspoptart) all scored 5 points each.
Bottom of the Barrel: Worst scoring album was Pianoriental, which I have to own up to, and which got a score of minus one.

(Scores go like this: an excellent vote=2 points, good=1, OK=0, disappointing=-1, awful=-2)

Happy Birthday FAIR club and thanks to you Lisnaholic for your tireless championing of non-western gems.

Thanks Lisna! I happily accept the crown! *curtsy*

As for the gypsy belly dancing...welllllll, I may or may not be able to arrange it for the club.

Happy Birthday, FAIR club! I hope you stay for ever, because I love you all!

^ :laughing: well, you and me both, Stephen; it´s good to have someone else here who is always ready to shine a torch into the furthur reaches of the musical universe!

^ Thank you very much for the kind sentiments, misspoptart. You are such a great addition to this part of the forum - and I am taking this, btw, as a firm promise:-

Skyline rules

In case anyone´s been wondering, the FAIR club has missed a couple of poll cycles recently, but it isn´t necessarily dead.

It´s been quiet for a variety of reasons - the chief one being a lack of input from MB members. Well, you are what you is, and the FAIR club has always been a minority-interest thread inside a minority-interest forum.

Nevertheless, I prefer to think of it as being dormant rather than dead, like one of those desert plants that only needs a drop of rain to burst into life again. I haven´t put up a poll for a while as I´ve been busy myself at work but I might try opening one more poll on Sept 21 just to see how things pan out.

´Til then, Lisna.

Boubacar Traoré - Je Chanterai Pour Toi (2002)

http://www.musicbanter.com/members/s...car-traore.jpg

Malian musician fusing blues, Arabic and Mande styles.

wiki

Thanks for nominating an album, Stephen. This one looks like an interesting blend of styles and I´ll be taking a look at it when I get a chance.

In fact, I´m moving house tomorrow and will be pretty busy, and probably off-line, for a week at least, I should think. So I won´t be posting even more than I already haven´t been posting, or something like that ....

Hoping you´ll still be here when I return, Lisna.

I hope the move goes well! I'll be here when you get back but I can't promise about posting... :)

Good luck with the move and see you when you're back online.

Oooh, Boubacar Traoré. Bob Harris often plays them on the radio over here. Don't know much about them but like what little I've heard.

I only have the one album so I'm not exactly an expert but yeah some nice stuff on there.

Feel free to post a nomination for the FAIR club. It is currently on hiatus while Lisnaholic gets resettled but I'm sure he would be heartened to see some renewed interest when he is back online.

In the mean time the first post has links to past albums reviewed by the club if you want to delve into the club litany. My personal favourite would be the Huun Huur Tu which I still love despite playing it way too obsessively.

Mmm, it's an interesting and diverse list of albums. Not familiar with many of them which is nice as it's always good to be introduced to new artists. Curious to see Niyaz make the list as that's one of Aazm Ali's least 'folky' albums - but a cracking listen all the same.

Thanks for your messages, Stephen and Miss P; I´m now more or less installed in a new house - and finally have an internet connection again, so I hope we´ll be swapping FAIR music recommendations again soon. Whether I´ll have the time or energy to crank up the FAIR club in its old format again is something I´m not sure about just yet.

Nevertheless, thanks for doing a bit of promo work, Stephen, and @ Mr. Charlie, Welcome to the Folk forum! You seem to be the most promising newcomer that we´ve had in ages, so please don´t get fed up by the fact that things are so quiet here. Across the weekend, I plan to look properly at your threads; so far I´ve just glanced at Van Morrison and Eliza McCarthy and a little light came on that said, "Aha, a kindred spirit!" so I look forward to making your acquaintance in the coming days ...

A sincere thank you for the kind words and warm welcome. :)

It is quiet here. But it's all good. I think maybe folkies are quiet by nature...

Hello, after the long period of my absence. I want to apologise for my disappearance without any word, but my duties at the university has surprised me as the thunderbold at the daylight. I am wondering whether this thread is still alive or not.

I promise I'll at least try to give a word more often than previously. :)

Sir Cactoos ! :wave: I´m so glad to hear from you again !! I´m sorry to say that stephen has effectively left MB and that misspoptart does not post very often either. So I´ve stopped posting FAIR club polls; not enough people were interested. :(

There is still some activity going on in the other threads, though. If you have made any interesting discoveries or want to enthuse about an old favourite, you can start an independent thread or post on the "Recommendations" Sticky Thread. ( I´m still ocassionally play Xera that you recommended,btw.)

Anyway, I´m sorry you got swamped by university work, and I hope you can hang around for more than just the Christmas vacation, Sir Cactoos.

Hello Lisnaholic! :wave: I'm glad to see you too! :) Sorry to read all those things about people's activity (or rather lack of it) and, to some extent, I feel responsible for that a little.

I'll try to post on other threads and create new ones, as often as real life would allow me to do so, mainly in this topic. Either to recommend some artists or to carry on some discussion. And I'm glad that my previous recommendation has given some sort of yield. :)

the whole reason I signed up for these forums was to try and find new and exciting world/folk music. I haven't made it through the entire thread yet but I'm sure I'll be sad when I get caught up. Are we any closer to reopening this club?

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_reggae

Samba-reggae arose in the context of the black pride movement that occurred in the city of Salvador de Bahia, around the 69, and it still carries connotations of ethnic identity and pride for Afro-Brazilians today. Bahia's population has a large proportion of dark-skinned Brazilians who are descendants of African slaves who were brought to Brazil by the Portuguese in the 17th and 18th centuries. These Afro-Brazilians played a major role in the early development of samba, which first took form in a Bahian style of dance and music called "samba de roda", probably in the late 19th century. Samba de roda was brought to Rio de Janeiro by Bahians around 1900, where it was combined with harmonic and rhythmic elements from European influences (such as chorinho and military marches). By the 1930s, samba de roda had developed into the faster, more harmonically complex Rio-style samba that is now played in Rio's Carnival. Through the middle of the 20th century this new Rio-style samba spread throughout Brazil. Of note, the low pitch bass that was heard on beats 1 and 3, and the higher pitched surdo on beats 2 and 4 in Bahia, brought by the slaves, was changed in Samba-the low pitch was moved to beats 2 and 4.

The paradoxical result was that samba was brought back to Bahia from Rio, but now in a highly altered form, and no longer associated with Afro-Brazilians. Thus, in the mid-20th century, the city of Salvador had many samba schools that were modeled on the samba schools of Rio, as well as blocos (informal street percussion groups), both of which performed Rio-style samba in Carnival parades every year. Yet, ironically, black Brazilians did not participate in these Carnival parades or in the blocos. They were not allowed to participate.

Samba-reggae represents an effort by black Brazilians to develop a Carnival parade music that they could call their own, and to form all-black or mostly-black blocos with which they could parade during Carnival. The afro bloco music was very different because they aimed to recreate and strengthen their community through their music.


Grupo Didá (only-women samba-reggae group)






10 minutes of Olodum rehearsal, the most famous samba-reggae group

from wikipedia.org

"The musical supergroup, a project also called Inna De Yard, is shown collaborating on recording an acoustic album of old songs by each of the musicians,
in Saint Andrew Parish in 2017."

Inna de Yard - Stone Feat. Derajah

On CD
Led-Kaapana-Black-Sand

Ledward Kaapana Slack Key Guitar & Fran Guidry - Black Sand

The brother-sister duo called Kwiat Jabłoni (Apple Blossom) , they are hailed as a new, exciting and charismatic face of the Polish pop-folk music. Their music combines lively, rhythmic elements of folk with electro music and even harder, rock-inspired sounds.

From album: Niemożliwe

Last year I red in the newspaper that bluegrass isn`t so popular anymore. To good tunes I can listen on and on and on.

The Best Of Bluegrass - Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms




John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band - There is a Time




Billy Strings - Watch It Fall

oops - wrong thread :(

Rhiannon Giddens - Waterbound (with Francesco Turrisi)

I’m never sure how we define ‘folk’ music but these two sound folky enough for my ears.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5wDNYivt_s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATaFyIbd5hY

Great music!

this is an album club thread though. not a thread to randomly post folk music.

Yep, it's also an album club that closed years ago, as is explained in the Opening Post:-

So this thread shouldn't really see much action itself, though I would be delighted if people were to dip into the individual album threads on page 1 to comment on the albums in their respective threads. It's a resource of a kind - a mixed bag of over 30 World Music albums recommended (to a greater or lesser extent) by old MB members.

This is kinda fun (and the whole album is too):



https://youtu.be/w310z1LiEjY

Dom Flemons feat. Sam Bush - "Guess I'm Doing Fine" (USA)