MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Album reviews with Michal Boncza: July 22, 2022
New releases by Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio, Avalanche Kaito and The Shipbuilders
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio
Homenaje a El Carmen/Homage to El Carmen
(Buh Records)
★★★★★
THE town of El Carmen, 200 miles south of Lima, is home to the largest black community in Peru and Los Hermanos Ballumbrosio are mesmerising exponents of the local music distinctly structured around west African rhythms and evolved by slave communities into the festejo and panalivio dances.
The sound is articulated with cajon (box), quijada (jawbone), congas, bongo and bata drums, violin and zapateo (shoe-tapping) and defines the cultural universe of El Carmen.
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Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
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MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
