Nozama

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Raise Your Spirit Higher: Wenyukela

>> Go <<. I have their music and saw them in concert last year. I began listening to them after hearing them on Paul Simon's Rythm of the Saints. It's been 17 years since Ladysmith Black Mambazo's vocal harmonies poured the foundation for Paul Simon's landmark 1986 album Graceland, an album that catapulted the South African a cappella gospel group into the international consciousness and led to worldwide stardom, a Grammy, film soundtracks, and candy commercials. Fans of the group's intricately arranged vocal landscapes will be pleased to know that all that ensuing attention hasn't diluted the group's appeal. Their latest CD, Raise Your Spirit Higher, is as strong as anything the group has recorded in its now 30-year career.

Afro-Celt Sound System - Volume 3: Further in Time

>> Go <<. This is an excellent CD. If you like world music and Peter Gabriel, it's a must-have. While not as out-of-left-field revelatory and astonishing as their exalted debut, nor as darkly magnetic as their sophomore follow-up, Volume 3: Further in Time finds Afro Celt Sound System fleshed out, funky, and fiercely fresh. Now a band of 20-some-odd players, the Afro Celts push forward with unbounded energy and focus, organically driven beats, and a thoroughly joyous fusion of West African and Irish traditional music enhanced with dissonant Eastern influence, psychedelic trip-hop groove, and a monster flood of sonic waves.