An article I wrote for The Wire’s regular Global Ear column, focusing on the underground music scene in Lima, has been published in this month’s issue (#379). The piece looked at the reissuing of albums from Peru’s avant-garde in the 70s (namely Miguel Flores, César Bolaños, Arturo Ruiz del Pozo and Édgar Válcarcel) as well as new artists including Pauchi Sasaki and Liquidarlo Celuloide.
The issue is available here.
Very happy to be releasing the third publication from Sounds and Colours, a new book focusing on Peruvian music and culture. As with our previous titles this one includes a CD. However, as an interesting new addition we’ve included a DVD with this one, a collection of short films made by French film-maker Vincent Moon capturing Peruvian folk music.
I wrote a number of pieces for the book, as well as curating, editing and publishing it.
You can find out more about Sounds and Colours Peru by following this link: soundsandcolours.com/issues/sounds-and-colours-peru
I was hugely honoured earlier this year to be asked to write the liner notes for a new compilation being released by Staubgold and featuring the music of Ensamble Polifónico Vallenato and Sexteto La Constelación De Colombia, two bands that formed in Colombia in 1999/2000 and whose members later started amazing projects like Meridian Brothers, Frente Cumbiero, Ondatrópica, Romperayo, Los Pirañas and La Distritofonica.
In addition to the liner notes I wrote a press release, which can be read here:
On 6th March 2014 I made a brief appearance on Monocle Radio, on their Midori House show, to promote the Sounds and Colours Brazil book. It was a slightly strange experience as I was only on-air for 10 minutes and the presenter chose to ask me some quite odd questions and didn’t pay any attention to my answers, which made it quite hard to answer as enthusiastically as I would normally.
You can listen to the show on which I appeared at monocle.com/radio/shows/midori-house/602
Recently I was asked by the great people at The Music Exchange, the finest record shop in Nottingham, to write an article for a new newspaper/magazine they were putting together to celebrate Record Store Day this year.
After much deliberation I decided the time was right to finally write about Eduardo Mateo, a musical genius from Uruguay who deserves much more praise and who I had always struggled to write about (because I just love his music TOO much).
Well, The Music Exchange have now published their newspaper and it’s available from the shop in Nottingham at the moment and will be available from record shops all over the UK on Record Store Day. It’s a free newspaper so you really have no reason not to pick up a free copy.
Have a listen to Eduardo Mateo below and revel in the man’s greatness:
Cerys Matthews now has a copy of Sounds and Colours Brazil, the book about contemporary Brazilian music and culture that I published and edited last year. On her show, Cerys On 6, she said:
“You need to get [it] if you’re a music lover or going to the football.”
So what more do you need to know? You can get Sounds and Colours Brazil from soundsandcolours.com/02-brazil
If you’d like to hear what Cerys had to say about the book in full you should listen to the show from 02:18:10. The link is bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zjdbx
God Is In The TV Zine have just published a quite amazing review of the Sounds and Colours Brazil book. Here is just one of the tasty extracts (which describe the book in more interesting ways than I’ve ever managed!)
An all-encompassing purview, with occasional focus on fringe activities, burgeoning scenes and the progenitors of Brazilian culture, this bit-size guidebook plots a loose course back and forth across the country’s vast and varied terrain.
Read the full review at godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2014/01/20/books-brazil-sounds-and-colours
I recently did a radio show for Tropical Beats, chatting about South America as normal, and this is one of the results of that, a podcast for Kickstart Your Dreams which you can listen to on Soundcloud.
Huge thanks to Karl Hildebrandt and Jonathan Baillie Strong for making this happen.
Things have been so busy over the past few weeks that I forgot to post here that Sounds and Colours Brazil, the Brazilian music and culture book and CD that I’ve been working on for most of 2013 has now been released. I will endeavour to talk more about it at another juncture, but for the moment I recommend simply heading over to the Sounds and Colours website and checking it out for yourself.
Here’s the page for the book: soundsandcolours.com/02-brazil
It seems sometimes people read things. This I know because I just got sent an email from a PR company promoting the new record by Tracy Shedd (who I’ve never heard of by the way), a singer who has just covered Sonic Youth’s “Teenage Riot” with the help of Howe Gelb. They contacted me because I published an email Howe sent me a couple of months ago. So, as the track is pretty damn grand and I’m awash with excitement that my blog has been filed in the ‘G’ section of someone’s cabinet I figured I would post the track.
