The Cabo Verdean popular music genre of funaná is one that, up until a few years ago, had little representation in the wider global marketplace, and it’s easy to understand why. Outlawed by the Portuguese colonial government in the 1950s as too proud an expression of identity, it emerged into the local mainstream only in the 1990s, where it served as a sonic symbol of political activism during Cabo Verde’s shift to a multi-party government. In more recent years, popular sounds of the island nation have featured in several new releases – Analog Africa’s Space Echo and Legend of Funaná, Ostinato’s Synthesize the Soul – with funaná occasionally the focus.

Etran de L’Aïr (or “stars of the Aïr region”) welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, “Agadez” celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding.

Motéma Music, now celebrating its 20th year as one of the world’s premier jazz/world labels, will release FlamenKora, a self-titled debut album from a new trio that unites West African Mande music with authentic Spanish flamenco guitar and American and Euro jazz trumpet to create a transglobal collaboration unlike any other. FlamenKora features German-born, New York-based trumpeter Volker Goetze, Senegalese-born, Paris-based kora master and vocalist Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko, and the rising Madrid flamenco guitar sensation, Alejandro Moreno. Following a series of sold-out shows in Europe, FlamenKora will introduce their cross-genre global music to the masses with their Motéma release on Friday, June 9th, 2023.

The special project by Acid Mothers Temple and Honeymoons (Tenko and Kamura from Mizutama Shobodan) “ACID MOON TEMPLE” release a studio recording album “gassha” from Acid Mothers Temple label in 2022.

Congolese-born, Montreal-based musician, songwriter, and DJ Pierre Kwenders (he/him) is a storyteller at his core. Motivated by the intricacies of love, his songs weave together narratives from memories of the past, sketches of his hometown, and reflections on the future. With his third album, José Louis and The Paradox of Love (via Arts & Crafts), Kwenders arrives at a new juncture – a moment of resonance, carefully wrapped in freewheeling tapestry, hinged in reverence to its diverse heritage, yet reveling in the inventive combination of its elements. Seamlessly working across Congolese rumba, contemporary electronic music, pop-R&B, and jazz-infused progressions with a range of global collaborators including Tendai Maraire (Shabazz Palaces), Branko (M.I.A., Buraka som Sistema), Win Butler (Arcade Fire), Michael Brun (J Balvin), and Uproot Andy (Poirier), the new album is both an embrace of African musical tradition and an evolution of it.

Immortal Memory is a collaboration between vocalist Lisa Gerrard and Irish composer Patrick Cassidy. Billed as a cycle of life and death and rebirth, Immortal Memory is better described as an orphaned film score. Cassidy's warm arrangements allow the former Dead Can Dance singer to step out of the dark medieval world that she's called home for nearly 20 years – though there is much of that world within these castle walls – and focus on the simplicity of love, faith, and loss with a grace that's bereft of the icy perfection of her previous work. Gerrard, whose voice has aged like the finest oak, displays an almost supernatural mastery of the material. Her effortless contralto wraps itself around the ten Gaelic, Latin, and Aramaic spirituals like an evening prayer, making each stunning entrance the equivalent of audio comfort food.

Some people have commented that Tinariwen have always been a country band, albeit a North African take on that most North American of genres. That idea is magnified on new album Amatssou, which finds the Tuareg band’s trademark snaking guitar lines and hypnotic rhythms blending seamlessly with pedal steel, piano and strings from guest musicians including Daniel Lanois, the embellished arrangements lending the songs an epic, universal application.

This is the sound, the story, of the M’berra Ensemble, a collective of Malian musicians from the M’berra Refugee Camp in southeast Mauritania, and Italian producer and electro-shaman Khalab. In a sprawling tent city rising out of the desert, out of nothingness, at the border with Mali in West Africa, brought together by spirit and circumstance, the group’s Arab and Tuareg members — some unknown, some who have previously toured Europe — find solace and beauty in music and song.

The official compilation of Eurovision 2023, in support of Ukraine, all united by music! For this 67th edition of the competition, you will have the pleasure of finding all the artists as well as all the titles performed during the television program broadcast on May 13th.

The legendary Malian singer/guitarist returns with his most personal and immersive album to date. Intimately recorded with a small band, "Binga" dives deep into Samba's Songhoy roots.

A must for Magma fanatics, fans and freaks everywhere. An opportunity not to be missed. For the first time ever, the full set of 9 incredible studio albums - from Kobaia to K.A - in deluxe digipack form. Each volume has its own 32 to 48 page booklets, containing photos and previously unpublished documents re-telling the story of Magma in 9 detailed chapters. Also includes a bonus double CD of archive documents: the first demo recorded by the band in 1970, the original sound track from the film 24 heures seulement recorded that same year by the line-up playing on the first album, a demo version of MDK with just rhythm section and a vocal guide track, and a version of Eliphas Levi with drums.

Sometimes the unexpected happens and it becomes a gift. Serendipity, good fortune. Think of it as life handing you what you need, not what you thought you wanted. When Malian singer and guitarist Samba Touré was planning Wande (The Beloved), his third Glitterbeat release, he had strong ideas for the way it should sound. But once the sessions were over, he knew he had something entirely different, something even more satisfying: a collection of songs where warmth filled the grooves of every song. An album that seemed like home.