Category
Mediterranean Music.
“More than 50 women’s voices you should hear” is a spin off from the imaginary Mediterranean tour. This is the first of probably four posts
Almost two years ago, I set out on an imaginary journey around the Mediterranean to explore the music and hear how such diverse cultures and peoples could influence each other and rely on each other for development in modern music.
The end of the journey and the music of Morocco. The music is real, the trip (as is the grilled fish sitting on a Moroccan beach) is imagined.
With the exception of Libya, north Africa has been incredibly rewarding. No less Algeria.
This is my fantasy journey around the Mediterranean Sea in search of music.
Tunisia – you are outstanding. Read about the musicians, listen to the music.
On our fantasy tour of the Mediterranean we arrive in Egypt. The music on this playlist has been a real pleasure to compile. It is full of surprises; traditional, experimental, avant garde, even.
My imaginary journey around the Mediterranean seeking out music I can share brings me to Palestine – and some of the most interesting music so far.
My imaginary journey arounf the Med in searchj of music This is a troubled area and I am not giving either travel directions or political analysis – although sometimes separating politics from music is a bit like separating sand from treacle.
I’ve not managed to find a lot of music for this trip in Lebanon. Suggestions welcome.
It has taken quite a while to write about Syrian music that I have found on this imaginary trip around the Mediterranean. After a slow start, I found at least two fabulous bands, and many other fascinating musicians.
These are my favourite albums starting in Piran on Slovenia’s Adriatic coast and ending Tunceli in Anatolia.
My make-believe journey around the Mediterranean continues. From Greece to Turkey with some of the best music of this trip.
My hyper-superficial imaginary music tour of the Med. continues. We are in Greece this time.
I remember will listening to Radio Tirana late at night as it crackled and faded and propagandised into the night.
Gentle reader, I have failed. Aside from some rather cheesy (to my ears/eyes, anyway) “folk” videos and a few Eurovision entries, I can find no music from Montenegro. Here’s what I did find.
It is more than a month since my last post. It is more than seasonal torpidity that has kept me back. But it is largely. I’m fully conscious that I write this for myself – if anyone happens across it and reads it all the better. If you are that person I hope you enjoy it.
This instalment comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was supposed to be in Sarajevo this week last year, but I cancelled the trip when I saw the weather forecast. Looking at the street cam for Sarajevo, there is no snow there today.
After several days searching, I thought was going to get nowhere with Croatia. This tour began as an exploration of the coasts of the countries that are washed by the Med, but for this next section of the journey I am taking music from anywhere in the country I am exploring. I was just about ready to give up when I remembered the most underused resource in this journey – Ethnocloud.
So far … so good, but time to review the rules. To this point, the Mediterranean make-believe expedition has concentrated on coastal towns and regions. I don’t know whether I will be quite so strict for the second part of the trip beginning here in Slovenia where there is more to music than Laibach. A small country, but a big diversity of music.
Time for a breather and look back on the last few months’ music collecting. We started our journey in Gibralter, and I am pausing here on the doorstep of the Balkan peninsula. I hope you enjoy this music as much as I did. Do watch the videos, too.
Almost the last part of the of the Italian leg (sorry!) of this imaginary Mediterranean journey. Leaving Apulia and moving north, the plan now is to add “all of the rest” of the music that I have left behind so far, or can’t get a fix on exactly where musicians are from. The playlist is varied and draws mainly from the north east of Italy, but a few additions picked up along the way.
To the deep south of Italy to discover some of the most exciting and invigorating music that I have heard for years, all the more enjoyable as I have never heard of Pizzica music, seen such big tambourines or ever considered that at Italy’s heal there was such a concentration of superb musicians.
Finding music and literature from Rome, Naples and Florence on an imaginary journey around the Meditteranean.
It’s always the same. When I get excited about music I want to share it immediately. Even though, on this invented trip around the Med., I still have to pass through Rome and Italy, I’ve already discovered some of the music of Southern Italy. It is the most exciting I have heard on this voyage of the imagination. And I have to share some of it with you now.
Leaving Monaco with an Italian novel in my hand (set in Monaco) heading for North West Italy and music from Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont, Milan and Bologna.
As I continue my search for the best ethno/world music from the Mediterranean, (without leaving my home) I arrive in Monaco with all its soulless glamour, glitz, aspiration, but not much music to talk about.
My imaginary Mediterranean music tour continues. It was music from this region that twanged my interest in the search-the-Med-for-music trip. I have no idea how or when I came across them. The first is Dupain. who led me to La Mal Coiffée a book called Total Chaos and another band IAM. Here’s the story and the music.
I have tried very hard to trim down the playlists from Mediterranean Spain. I was aiming for 20. The final list has 50 and there were more I wanted to include. It is almost three hours long. I won’t be doing the same on YouTube.
The book for this first section is Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones. Marvellous. A challenging 700+ pages, but a beautiful read.
Catalonia, do you have a lot of music; and even more diversity than I was expecting, and a lot of protest which I suppose I was expecting. And there is Arabic, African, Chanteuse, Jazz (of many types), electro, experimental, early medieval European and some decidedly uncharacteristically odd without category. And a 3 hour playlist.
In my imaginary musical journey I decided to add some books to read along the way. I had already started to blog the journey and was re-reading A Colder War by Charles Cumming set in Istanbul when I had the idea. But where to start? Should the books be read at the time I am listening to the music of each country, or mix them up?