A Musical Tour of the World: All Countries A-Z One Per Day

Today I can look no further for this thread than some Bulgarian folk singers -

the Abagar Quartet

Abagar quartet conquering international stages

In 2007, a 20 year-old singer Nevena was the winner on the first Bulgarian "Music Idol" TV show, with a song apparently called 'Izlel e delio haidutin'. I'm not entirely certain whether it is her who is heard on this video, or seen confronting some cattle; but I chose this over the clip from the show
YouTube

And we should have a track from the original "Music Of Bulgaria" LP, recorded when a Bulgarian female ensemble was on tour in France in 1955. The album became an early "world music" hit after it was reissued by Elektra Records in 1964 (subsequently on Nonesuch); became a favourite with a number of rock stars who who went on to recommend it.
YouTube
'Theodora is Dozing'
Ensemble Of The Bulgarian Republic - Music Of Bulgaria
Nonesuch Records Bulgaria: Music of Bulgaria

 

Just when I started to search Bulgarian music on the web, the very first tune that popped up spinning on YouTube was a classical piece of music, which sounded like the cry of a violin accompanied by a strikingly dark atmosphere underlying it all, and what is more, augmented by a spark of drama half-way through it, wow amazing indeed. Music of a kind that if it was added to it some equally great poetry (lyrics) it would spoil quite some bit of the piece's strongly emotional and beautiful appeal, IMO. This classical piece could well belong to the Romantic Era (my favourite classical era).

Georgi Zlatev-Cherkin - "Sevdana" for violin and piano (1944)
Performed live at the "Bulgaria Hall" in Sofia, 2009 (Svetlin Roussev - violin; Georgii Cherkin - piano)



According to what's written by the Bulgarian pianist, Georgii Cherkin (he's the composer's grandson), on YouTube, it's one of the most famous and beloved classical music pieces in Bulgaria, performed by every talented Bulgarian violinists all over the world.

 

And I'm glad to just find another beautiful and interesting piece to add to my big classical collection. It was composed by the Bulgarian composer and pianist Petko Staynov, who, according to Wikipedia enriched the Bulgarian musical culture and contributed considerably to its development with a great classical repertoire. The piece belongs in one of his works that became symbolic for the Bulgarian music for revealing the fervour of the country's folk dances. But what most surprised me about it was its beautiful dynamics, and at two specific points throughout the piece I could hear a stunning resemblance with the Waltz. The entire piece of music felt really gorgeous to me .

Petko Staynov: Rachenitca from “Thracian Dances” (1925) , performed live by the Sofia Festival Orchestra at an event called FORTISSIMO FEST 2012 (September 8, 2012)



P.S.: As a side note, nteresting that the second edition of the European Union Competition For Orchestra Conductors was held in the Bulgarian cities of Sofia and Pazardjik, from 4 until 11 January 2020. The awards included money prizes and concerts in Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, and of course Bulgaria. The Bulgarian conductor Zlatkov Svetlomir won the third prize; José Eduardo Poças Gomes from Portugal won that competition, securing the first prize and the Beethoven prize.

 

Great and diverse selection, as always @HitAndRun!
I am going to post a song by rocker Nikolo Kotzev, from his rock-opera Nostradamus. It is pretty over the top . Usually he worked with his band Brazen Abbot


By the way, if your plans to go overland to Samarkand become more concrete, let me know. I have extensively traveled practically everywhere in Central Asia.

 

A rock opera about Nostradamus with Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple Mks IV + V as King Henri II of France?!?!?! Wow.

Thanks. I will. At the moment I'm not even allowed out of my city, but hopefully things will change

Thanks John + Rick.

BTW: I'll take this opportunity to post another track. As someone who was a young teen in 1978, I frequently find music described as 'punk' that doesn't really meet my personal template of punk. But, here's Bulgarian band A-Moral with some proper buzzsaw guitars in this song - Orehov prut.

 

Yes, A-Moral comes quite close to the punk aesthetic. Not bad. And yes, I read that England is relaxing the rules, except for Leicester. Stay safe. Here in Caracas I've been in lockdown since 15 March....

 

Thanks for the music, everyone.

Today's country tis Burkina Faso.

I'm going to start off with Yombo, by Floby. I find this song and video refreshing in several ways. First, it's a recent song that doesn't massively over-do the pitch-correction on the voice. Also, after seeing so many videos where performers are shown driving Lamboghinis and Ferraris as part of the 'lifestyle' depicted in the clip, here we have the performer dancing around a mountain bike (bicycle) as a prop. On Wikipedia Floby is mentioned as one of the artists performing in the Coupé-décalé style, 'characterised by its electronic dance beat and percussive rhythm'. Interesting that while this style is said to have started from Côte d'Ivoire, it is said that it originated in Paris among expatriate Ivorian DJs.



Idak Bassavé grew up with music, as her parents Abdoulaye Bassavé and Marie Béré who ran a group that Google Translate tells me is the Bassavé Family, but which I can find little about. And when search I find pages about Idak Bassavé, so it appears that she has eclipsed her parents. Here she is with Zambela. The clip is rather rustic, and I'm not sure what it is meant to show. Particularly: what is she saying to that guy.

I found this clip, To Mi To Zi by Burkina Electric interesting. After some guitar strumming has a very prominent synthesiser bass sound, and nicely bluesy lead vocals. The dancing is interesting too. The Dailymotion video in that link seems a bit overcompressed. This Youtube link has better sound quality but is audio only.

Perhaps my initial post here isn't covering enough ground. According to Wikipedia, there are about 60 different cultural groups in Burkina Faso, and of course there is traditional and modern music of different eras. But, I'm going to end with this track, Tama Ngonon by the late Victor Démé which features very nice, melodic, and not excessively autotune vocals and a strong backing by what sounds to me to be marimba, but is probably balafon, mixed with a stringed instrument.

(Balafon)


Officially after the end of my post (cheating!) for a comparison I'll post this clip. Laawol by Dicko Fils. It has all the elements of a nice song and clip. But, that autotune... And I've come across far more egregious examples than this. Particularly if I go through a playlist of the most popular songs of 2020 of many countries.

There's more and more variety in my notes, but I think this is a good start. I'll point out that my aim in these posts and the thread in general is not to cover everything, but sample some Burkinabé music that I enjoy.

 

A nice selection as always, I especially liked the Idak Bassave song, and the Burkina Electric track was enlivened by the powerful vocal by Mai Lingani. Once again my preference is for the female singers of the country.

From a YouTube trawl, I picked out 'Dakoupa' by Tiness La Deesse (Tiness the Goddess) aka Justine Zigani; the song denounces the practice of "l'excision" - Burkina Faso was I see one of the first African countries to make FGM illegal in 1996; although the then 81-year old Sengalese director Ousmane Sembene did choose to set his excellent 2004 film on the same subject "Moolaade" in the country. Tiness had been a dancer for a number of years prior to beginning a career as a singer.


Google Translate

I also liked 'Sougri' By Fleur

YouTube
Google Translate

and 'Waye Waye' by Anita Zare

YouTube
I couldn't find any information about her; the clip is annotated "Musique en Bissa", an ethnic group that extends into neighbouring countries, but I did note a comment has been added "Vive la culture Burkinabe" so I'm guessing that she does belong here today.

Autotune is of course ubiquitous these days. I guess younger listeners now find it strange if it is absent.

 

One more for your first country on the list, Afghanistan.
A very famous mahali (loosely 'folk') singer who emigrated and now lives in Sweden and still performs regularly.
Faiz Karizi

 

Thanks John. I enjoyed all those clips. After I played the Fleur clip, youtube auto-played her covering a song by Floby, linking my post and your post

I'll just add something more traditional. This is a traditional dance, accompanied by drums and the sounds of the dancing bells(*) on dancers themselves, of the Mossi people. The Mossi are the largest cultural group in Burkina Faso, accounting for 40% of the population.



(*) I don't know the name of this instrument. In India, they would be called 'ghungroos'.

EDIT: I see we are reaching the end of the B's. We'll go to Burundi tomorrow, and then on Sunday we can have a rest/catch-up day. On Monday we go to Cabo Verde.

 

A country worthy of its own music encyclopaedia. Here are some of my favourite albums from Brazil:-

1968 Caetano Veloso Caetano Veloso OR Pedro Santos ‎Krishnanda
1969 Jorge Ben Jorge Ben OR Caetano Veloso Caetano Veloso [White Album]
1972 Novos Baianos Acabou Chorare
1973 Secos & Molhados Secos & Molhados
1976 Jorge Ben África Brasil
1990 Margareth Menezes Elegibo - US compilation release
2002 Tribalistas Tribalistas
2003 Maria Rita Maria Rita Great memories of a holiday in Rio de Janeiro, the hit single "A Festa" was everywhere
2004 Elza Soares Vivo Feliz
2006 Eddie Metropolitano
2007 Seu Jorge América Brasil O Disco
2008 Eddie Carnaval no Inferno - alongside Tribalistas, probably my Brazilian album of that decade from this hugely underrated band from Olinda​

 

Oh dear, it seems I have lost track of the days of the week, AGAIN!!!!!

Tomorrow is Sunday and we will be in Burundi, and we have our rest/catch-up day on Monday before heading to Cabo Verde on Tuesday

I'll take this extra post opportunity to post this unused link from my notes. Taximen by Amadou Balaké. It's a nice song and I enjoy it, but when posting my first post there were more distinctive songs to choose from.



I almost posted something here from Debademba, but after a quick online check of the composition of that band and its members' bios,. that song has been transferred to my already very crowded notes for Mali. Which reminds me, I have a CD delivered enough days ago sitting in my 'quarantine' place that I can go pick up now. A lot of bands are very international. I've just emailed a band to ask which of four possible countries they would most consider themselves to fit within. BTW: Burkina Electric up above originate from Burkina Faso, but they live in New York now.

 

Yé Lassina Coulibaly (b. 1966) is an African composer, performer, and music therapist from Burkina Faso. The song below, Soundjata is with another musician from Burkina Faso, called Yan Kadi Faso. It's a beautiful meditative piece of music.

 

If you like those vintage West African sounds, there was a release of mid-'70s music from Burkina Faso some years back:

Various - Ouaga Affair - Hard Won Sound Of The Upper Volta 1974-1978

(Upper Volta is the former name of the country).

 

Nice tip! thanks a lot. And yes, I do like African sounds from the 70s very much.

 

Thanks for the music, everyone.

Today's country is Burundi. Perhaps some of the music in this post is a big mainstream, so if you're looking for something unusual to (at least my) western ears, skip to the last paragraph.

According to an article I read, Natacha Burundi dominates the local music scene. It says that if you just use her first name 'Natacha' everyone will know who you mean. It seems that youtube things so as it keeps auto-playing Natacha songs after I have listened to something else.

Here is her quite short song about the coronavirus pandemic.



I've seen a number of corona/covid-19 songs in research for this thread. I think this is the first one I've posted.

While we're on the topic of songs written for a purpose, here's a mostly English language song, 'Intamba: Our Pride', by Jiji Seven featuring Bernice, supporting the Burundian football team.

This song, Vovota by MB Data x Drama T shows Burundian rural life.

I haven't included much hip-hop in my posts, so I'll include this song which again shows Burundian life in the video, and it has a very nice sung chorus too. Hari Kera by Kingorongoro featuring Vichou Love.

The Amagaba troupe are said to mix traditional music with modern tunes. Visually they seem to wear slightly modern looking clothes in their videos. So, I don't know how much of the following is traditional and how much not, but I present their track just called 'Burundi' in the youtube description. Burundian cultural groups seem quite common on the internet. There is also Club Ihunja, and Club Giramahoro for a start.

I've already posted a fair number of songs here, and want to post something a bit different. Here's something a bit different, labelled as 'Burundi whispered songs : Inanga ya Sindirimba', playing the inanga, a traditional stringed instrument. The comments say that it's an innovation to play inanga in both French and Kirundi (the official language of Burundi, also spoken in parts of several neighbouring countries.) The quality of this clip is not great, but I think it's musically very interesting. I wasn't familiar with the concept of whispered songs before ... well a few minutes ago to be honest. Here's another inanga + whispered vocals song, just described as: 'Whispering song accompanied by inanga - Burundi musiques traditionnelles'

 

Wow! You're an early riser! And that on a Sunday. Those whispering songs are really unusual. Not sure what to think about it. An acquired taste for sure, but interesting.

 

I'm giving blood early this morning, so wanted to get the post done and still have time to get ready and go out. I've since read that the whispering vocals are because singing in full voice is considered to overpower the sound of the inanga.

Here's something traditional that is more melodic. I haven't been able to find the name of the instrument yet. (I have tried.)

 

A very enjoyable selection including the best song I've heard about Corona Virus / Covid-19 ...... although also the only one. We need to have more of Natacha, I think -

here she's campaigning against violence against women (Iyamirize)


and here she's celebrating the women of Burundi (Abarundikazi)
ABARUNDIKAZI by NATACHA (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

 

From the original 1968 LP "Musique du Burundi' - 'Akezehe', par deux jeune filles


which appears to have been sampled in 2015
Radio Citizen's 'Stars' - Discover the Sample Source

the most famous track 'Ensemble de Tambours', which would later become the basis for a 1971 UK hit single (14 weeks on the chart although no higher than no.31) with overdubbing by the French Michel Bernholc aka "Mike Steiphenson" - I used to have the original 7" single on the Barclay label.
YouTube
later on the inspiration for Joni Mitchell, Bow Wow Wow, Adam & the Ants amongst others.....

Various - Musique Du Burundi

 

Thanks John. It's easy to hear how the traditional drumming influenced Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow. I was generally aware that there was an African influence in the drumming in those historically related bands, but didn't know the source and hadn't heard to compare. It's interesting to hear it.

Natacha has a lot of videos on youtube, as would be expected from an artist of her stature. I note that the videos you link to and others I heard present her voice in a much more natural way, without the obvious autotune of the covid-19 song. And, it sounds much more pleasant to my ears.

In my notes I have two other covid-19 songs. One which will be considered during the Es, and one in the Vs. I may discover more as I go along.

 

Thanks for the music, everyone.

Today is a gap/catchup/rest day. We can discuss anything missed out among the Bs countries, or anything else people feel is suitable.

I'm going to post a singer that I found during research for Bahrain. Initially when searching for Bahraini songs this child singer kept on turning up. I'd play a video and 'It's that kid again'. Eventually I googled further to see who she was. The singer is Hala Al Turk. It seems that she appeared on a TV talent show Arabs Got Talent in 2011 when she was about eight. I can't work out how far she got, but I think she got either to the finals or semi-finals.

That's what I know now. Previously it seemed bizarre to me that she kept on turning up all over the place.

According to her English language Wikipedia entry, this was her first song released. A very sickly-sweet song where she is singing to Saudi Arabian (of Lebanese descent) singer Mashael who is taking the role of her mother. Note: Usually my aim is only to post music that I like myself. This is definitely not my thing. But, here it is in case anyone decides to watch it. BTW: Hala Al Turk has an international background too - her father is a Bahraini/Jordanian music producer, and her mother is Syrian.



She became very popular, and I found it quite surreal when this song 'Happy Happy Song' appeared in a youtube playlist of the most played Arabic songs of all time. I warn anyone considering watching this. It's definitely a children's song.

Like many other child stars she has to face the issue of growing up and not being a cute kid any more. Being born in 2002 she will be 18 this year or will already have turned 18. According to her wikipedia discography, the following song was released in 2020. But, this song, Mamnoo Ellames, was posted to youtube in 2018 - so: I'm a bit confused. In any case, it certainly is an attempt to transition to being an adult star. It's not the first, here in her song 'Why I'm So Afraid' from 2016 where she sings in English - an attempt to go worldwide?

I didn't post any of this under Bahrain as it's not music I enjoy. But, I thought it an interesting glance into a another musical culture. So, I'll post it for my Bs catch-up.

 

I'll go back further to the As if this is permitted, for the Angolan diva, Ary (Ariovalda Gabriel); although if I understand things correctly (which is not guaranteed to be the case) I'm also going forward to the C's and tomorrow's country, as the song 'Bida di Gossi' in her latest video (posted to YT only last week) appears to be from Cabo Verde / Cape Verde



'Mani Dani' from 2019 - I'm not sure what the the video is about ...
YouTube

Ary – Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre

 

Everything is permitted I don't think the thread will become a huge mess, so we can hold back on trying to make up arcane rules

In my notes I was thinking of using today for some international musicians/bands that weren't easily classifiable. London band Onipa is perhaps more Ghanian than anywhere else, but with half of their core not looking very Ghanian (could be, I can't find a biography), and a wide range of guests from different countries, I decided to put this band under 'unclassifiable'.

Here they are with some of their music, the song 'Fire', which has been described as 'Afrofuturist'.

This has nothing to do with Bs, but at least it means that I post some music that I like today

 

I decided just like after "A" to look up some dependencies starting with "B". The first one about which I found some interesting music is Bermuda, which is a British Overseas Territory. These are the Bermuda Talbot Brothers, a band from the sixties, with 'Man Smart - Woman Smarter'. Nobody would argue with that.