Around the World – 12 & 14 September 2021

SliceAudio and FerryFM, and Radio Larne plays-out Around the World on Sundays from 10.00 pm – midnight local time. The show is also available Tuesdays from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Lisburn’s 98 FM, Bangor FM and Down Community Radio.

You can hear the show anytime here on MixCloud.

Get the weekly preview on Substack. This week’s preview is below.

Hello and here’s hoping you have a good weekend planned. When you wind down on Sunday or want to catch up on Tuesday, Around the World will be there to transport you beyond the usual.

In the meantime you can hear last week’s show on Mixcloud.

The first hour is here.

The second hour is here.

You can see the running order on my blog.

Let’s see what’s lined up for this week.

Afghanistan: All credit to the work of Belfast charity Beyond Skin  who have been working with young women musicians in Afghanistan and Armagh. Earlier this year they released some songs from the project. I’ll be playing one of the tracks, a popular Afghan song ‘In Gham-e-be Haya’ meaning Audacious Sorrow composed by Ustad Salim Sarmast. The work of Beyond Skin has dramatically changed in recent weeks from creativity to resettlement as they work on behalf for some 400 musicians to support them if they want to leave the country.

Their Local Giving Fundraising page is here where you can read about their work.

This song is the follow up to ‘Arsala Khan’ released last year and the second shared production in the trilogy as part of a social action programme building relations between young musicians in Northern Ireland & Afghan Women’s Orchestra led by Beyond Skin and Afghanistan National Institute of Music.

Here’s the video of Arsala Khan:

Palestine: The theme of young women’s voices continues through the show this week with the featured album “Henna: Young female voices from Palestine”. There are only eight tracks on the album and I’ll be playing four. It was recorded earlier this year at the Ramallah Studio of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music. Almost immediately on release it went to number 1 at the Transglobal World Music Chart in August 2021 and number 3 in the World Music Chart Europe (I’m a member of the WCME panel).

Here’s a video presentation around the album.

And here’s the album on Spotify.

Romania: 25 years together, 10 albums and countless live shows all over the world, we start the show with the legendary Fanfare Ciocărlia who have just released “It wasn’t hard to love you” to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

The eight piece band are from a tiny village in Romania Zeche Prăi-jehini which is not much more than a bus stop and a church and another brass band Fanfareh Zeche Prăi-jehini – more brass bands than anything else it seems.

I fell for Balkan Brass about 10 years ago and can’t get enough of it. Fanfare Ciocărlia are high in the top ten of bands I want to see live.

Closer to Home: Dani Larkin’s Notes For a Maiden Warrior is a very fine album. This from Breaking Tunes: “Dani Larkin is a singer-songwriter and folk musician from the Armagh-Monaghan border. Her songs are inspired by the folk tales she was raised with and blend elements of melodies and rhythms from around the world in a seamless and timeless tradition.

In 2019 DANI supported Rufus Wainright, Lisa O’Neill, Joshua Burnside and performed at Other Voices Belfast alongside Lemoncello and Alfí.” [More Here https://www.breakingtunes.com/danilarkin]

Here’s the song I’ll be playing a song about Belfast – this is a live version from Dani Larkin at Culturlann McAdam Ó Fiaich last year.

Who is Ronan Skillen? Last week I played Syssi Mananga’s Nzela (feat. Ronan Skillen) from Mopepe Mama and mused that with a name like Ronan Skillen, he must be from here or have family from here and then I began to wonder if he is from here, why do I not recognise the name? So I contacted Syssi Mananga who is from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire but currently lives in Nairobi. And se replied “Yes Ronan is from Northern Ireland.” And sent a link to his story and his work.

http://www.ronanskillen.com/projects/didgi-taal/

I’ll be playing something from Ronan’s solo catalogue. Here’s a Didgeridoo Solo from Ronan.

What else can you expect? There will be music from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then to Cyprus for Monsieur Domani who have released their new album Pissourin – a Cypriot word meaning total darkness. Listen for music from Belgium, Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, Czechia as it is now called, Guantanimo – on the island of Cuba, Mozambique, Bulawayo  in Zimbabwe. And close to the end of the show an amazing single from the Korean band DongYan Gozupa.

Oh, and there’ll be a Horslips track, too.

Links:

What music should I be listening to? Send me a message about your music suggestions via my blog.

Link to me on Twitter

The Around the World archive on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/davysims/

Slice Audio: 

Slice Audio

Ferry FM: 

https://ferryfm.com/

And on Radio Garden

Bangor FM 107.9:http://radio.garden/listen/bangor-fm-107-9/IycUhUbT

Lisburn’s 98FM:http://radio.garden/listen/facebook/ASeqAEl8

FM105 Down Community Radio:http://radio.garden/listen/fm-105-down-community-radio/K8lBDGFf