Home Brewed Mbira is the 2008 album by Czeck musician and singer Zuzana Novak. This was released in the Czech Republic & Slovakia by Indies Scope.

Jazz singer/songwriter Michael Franks is an artist most jazz fans feel strongly about one way or another. His unique, romantic poet-cum-laid-back hipster approach to jazz signing is breezy, light, and languid. It's also uniquely his own, though deeply influenced by Brazilian jazz, bossa, and samba. Time Together, his first recording of new material in five years – and his debut for Shanachie – is unlikely to change anyone's opinion of him, but that doesn't mean this is a rote recording. Time Together is an airy, groove-ridden summer travelog that ranges from St. Tropez and New York to Paris, France, and Egypt; it journeys through the nostalgic past and finds space in the present moment, with cleverly notated, languorous, ironic observations about life. Franks split the production and arranging duties between Charles Blenzig, Gil Goldstein, Chuck Loeb, Scott Petito, and Mark Egan. The rest of the international cast on this polished 11-song set includes old friends and new faces David Spinozza, Mike Mainieri, David Mann, Eric Marienthal, Till Brönner, Alex Spiagin, Jerry Marotta, Billy Kilson, Romero Lubambo, and backing vocalist Veronica Nunn.

Stephen Bruton's fifth album, produced by Ross Hogarth, whose credits include Melissa Etheridge, Ziggy Marley, Gov't Mule, R.E.M. and John Mellencamp. Bruton has produced albums for Alejandro Escovedo, Marcia Ball, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hal Ketchum, Storyville and Chris Smither. He's played guitar for Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and his songs have been covered by Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Patty Loveless. This album features bass player Yoggie Musgrove and drummer Steve Ferrone (who plays with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers). On keyboards are Little Feat's Bill Payne and Austin player and composer Stephen Barber. Bruton and his buddy Randy Jacobs handle guitar duties. Old Fort Worth pal Glen Clark spices the mix with his harmonica while, Lon Price, leads the horn section on a number of tracks. Bruton's penchant for collaboration finds him co-writing nine of the album's songs with friends like former NRBQ guitarist Big Al Anderson and Memphis rocker John Kilzer.

Gaëdic Chambrier et Elénore Billy vous emmènent sur la route des Vikings, de la Scandinavie à l'Europe du Sud jusqu’au Moyen-Orient. "J'aime beaucoup! La musique passe du mélancolique à l'énergie pure! Ça fait du bien!" Jean-François Zygel (France 2) Bercés par les mythes et légendes de Scandinavie, les épopées fabuleuses de ces peuples voyageurs qui ont fait le lien entre le Nord et le Sud, Eléonore Billy et Gaëdic Chambrier puisent leur inspiration dans le répertoire de ces cultures riches et métissées.

A renaissance force to be reckoned with, the music of composer, vocalist and percussionist Tosin speaks highly of his African origin, coupled with his exploration of jazz, funk, rock, reggae and Latin American music. As a prolific composer, Tosin writes and sings in Yoruba, Pidgin English and English. Over the years, he has drawn inspirations from his musical influences in the likes of Tony Allen, Art Blakey, Dennis Chambers, Bob Marley, King Sunny Ade, Fela Kuti, Manu Dibango, Majek Fashek, Keziah Jones, Sting, Seal, Peter Gabriel, and Ebo Taylor.

Greg Foat and Warren Hampshire are two the UK's most interesting minds when it comes to contemporary jazz experimentation, and their recent partnership for Athens Of The North feels like exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment.

After covering an iconic album by Bob Dylan in its entirety, that being the famously influential Blonde On Blonde no less, how is a band best advised as far as making its next move? That was the inevitable question Old Crow Medicine Show was forced to consider following the accolades that tribute received. After all, one of the main objectives at that juncture had to be to reestablish their own identity, free of anyone else’s shadow, including the biggest of all, that of Mr. Dylan. How then to make an album that might earn equal acclaim, and reaffirm their identity and ingenuity all at the same time?

If you're a modern middle-aged urban black man living in the U.S., what is your ethnic heritage in music? Is it the hot or sweet music that poured forth from those oldtime tube sets? Is it the lullabies your mother sang? Or the music of the marching bands? Or the sounds from the big bands and r&b groups at the local dance hall? Surely it's a bit of all this and probably much more. Underlying all the concrete musical manifestations of black America you will find two main sources: the African and the Eurasian. From Africa comes the group feeling, the collective music-making, the emphasis on sound and rhythm – echoes of bush schools and community rites. From Eurasian sources come the long solo lines, the emphasis on melody and text – echoes of the bards singing their lengthy epics. These musical heritages impinged when the Jihad of Islam swept Africa in the 8th century and again when the European colonial powers moved into Africa and the Americas in the 15th century, and again when the global music industry moved into every corner of the planet in the 20th century.

Bruce Cockburn is Canada's version of Richard Thompson, a brilliant folk-rock guitarist who also writes smart, acerbic lyrics about the twisted ways of modern society and modern romance. Never as vicious or as funny as Thompson, Cockburn is a more restrained, less obvious talent, but rewarding just the same. Dart to the Heart, free of political abstractions and filled with personal musings on love, is his best since 1985's World of Wonders. The first single, "Listen for the Laugh," is a boisterous hornªpowered rocker that insists good-naturedly that the surest sign of love is not sighing but laughter–and very specific sort of laughter, like "a chain saw in a velvet glove." That's a good description for Cockburn's guitar work, too, for he keeps it buried behind his deep, sleepy vocals, but if you listen closely you can hear just how his picking chews up chords and sends notes flying in all directions.

Innov Gnawa is a Grammy-nominated musical collective dedicated to exploring Morocco’s venerable gnawa music tradition in the heart of New York City. Formed in the summer of 2014 by Moroccan expat Samir LanGus, the group draws on the considerable talents and expertise of Hassan Ben Jaafer, a Maâlem, or master gnawa musician, originally from Fes, Morocco. Under the guidance of Ben Jaafer, Innov has delved deep into the roots and rituals of gnawa music, and made a big splash in NYC, playing some of the city’s most prestigious rooms including Lincoln Center, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Bowl and the storied backroom of Brooklyn’s Barbès.

Love Soundsation is a 2CD compilation released by Sony Music Indonesia. This was made with help from LiteFM, a radio station in the country but this focuses on music from outside of the country, perhaps some of your personal favorites.

Over the course of Lera Lynn's career, the Nashville-based songwriter has explored the darker corners of American roots music. With her brooding, sinewy vocals and penchant for chronicling the underbelly of interpersonal connection, Lynn's star has continually risen since her 2011 debut, Have You Met Lera Lynn, particularly finding new heights following the release of 2016's daring Resistor and her breakthrough gig with HBO's True Detective.

1997's gathering of some 380 artists from South Africa on the shores of the Atlantic in the west of France must be earmarked as the most impressive show of our country's culture beyond our borders. The idea of the Festival du Fin de Siecle was to invite to Nantes all kinds of cultural representatives from three of the world's great cities, in order to illustrate the creativity of each of these places at the dawn of the third millennium. The festival began in October 1997, with a celebration of Johannesburg, representing Africa, continent of roots.Beautiful costumes and great visual performances made the festival a unique event.

As a 16-song, single-disc best-of, this does the job very nicely for those who want Nyro's best and most famous songs in one place. Only nine tracks into the CD you've already heard "Sweet Blindness," "Wedding Bell Blues," "And When I Die," "Blowin' Away," "Eli's Comin'," "Stoney End," and "Stoned Soul Picnic," which should be enough to convince anyone that Nyro was a major singer/songwriter…

In 1971, as an extension of those beautiful holidays in a big house in Seville Street Imperial, which Manuel Bernal Prieto, its owner, baptized with the name "La Trocha" born this group bearing the same name that mythical tablao, always remembered. Manolo Bernal and even early eighties that is when the group broke up, what form Leonardo Lopez Roldan Antonio Ramirez Perez, Antonio Beltran Pavon "Valencina" and Francisco Terrero Ramos (guitar), incorporated after Francisco Sanchez de la Rosa. The act every day of the year in the same place, taking high-flying moves when the tablao with all the luxury Round Capuchins, made it possible that "La Trocha" reached a high levels of professionalism and experience, which could be felt not only in daily activities but the annual discography, always surprising us with songs like "It was your love", "My Thoughts" or "pure Canela" among other compositions of excellent workmanship.