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1 Lendmenn Den Fyrste (Etnisk Musikklubb EM111). Norway’s gammaldans music – couple-dance tunes of a rumpty- tumpty tendency such as reinlenders, waltzes and mazurkas, usually on accordeons, fiddle, guitar, and bass – has typically been marked by garishly tacky CD packaging, but some younger bands now show more taste in play- ing and design. Ottadalen sextet Lendmenn is one such. www.emcd.no


1 Stanley And The Ten Sleepless Knights Quelbe! Music Of The US Virgin Islands (Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40568). Quelbe reflects regional bamboula dance and fife-and-drum music and pointed topical commentary, vocal call-and-response, flute, banjo-ukulele, squash (gourd rasp), steel (triangle), and more recently, electric keyboard, drumkit, conga, and electric bass. Stanley et al are quelbe’s premier propo- nents. folkways.si.edu


1 Joe Cuba Merengue Loco: Out Of This World Cha Cha (Malanga Music MM830). Latin boogaloo owes much to Nuyorican con- güero Joe Cuba (Gilberto Miguel Calderón, 1931–2009), a contemporary of Ray Barretto, Willie Bobo, and Richie Ray, and inspiration to Carlos Santana. This title, recorded with Sonny Rossi in 1961, comprises Cuba’s first three (pre-boogaloo) LPs. UK distribution by Discovery Records. discovery-records.com


1 Seheno Hazo Kely (Lokanga LOK 17635). Attractive voice and atmospheres from young Malagasy woman and small multinational band. Bit po-faced, but she has real presence, whether on songs elegiac or seat-of-the-pants. www.lokanga.com


1 Curro De Utrera Grands Cantaores Du Flamenco (Le Chant du Monde 274–2388). Here are 21 illustrative tracks from 1959 – 60 by Sevilla native and celebrated flamenco cantaor Curro de Utrera (Francisco Díaz García, 1927–2015), with guitarist Rafael El Cordobés; notes in French, English, and Spanish, but alas, no discographic details. lechantdumonde.com


@ Haley Richardson With Dylan Richard- son Heart On A String (Own label, no cat no). Horrendous family vanity album by twelve-year old USA fiddling “prodigy” and her guitar-strumming elder brother which proves that good taste comes from experi- ence when playing Irish tunes. www.towheads.org


1 María Berasarte Súbita (Own label, KAR 2811). San Sebastián native Berasarte, the translucent ‘voice of Spanish fado’, sings primarily in Spanish and Euskara (the Basque language), less often in Portuguese, with spare, tasteful backing on guitar, acoustic bass, acordeon, clarinet, and percussion. mariaberasarte.com


1 Wesli Ayiti, Étoile Nouvelle (Web Urban Productions no cat no). Carnival rara, vodou, gospel, reggae, West African percus- sion and Manding flute converge in the work of Haitian guitarist-composer Wesli (Wesley Louissaint), who has backed Emeline Michel and traded licks with Alpha Blondy while working out his tasty, sinuous sound in Mon- tréal’s global crosscurrents. rockpaperscissors.biz


1 Various Artists Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music (Numero Group NUM058) An intriguing nineteen-song collec- tion of country rockers (1968–1980) who didn’t quite make it. From hopeful ranch hands to ignored serial demo producers, their dreams of being the next Gram or Emmylou were never realised. In the main, their stories are more riveting than the songs. www.numerogroup.com


1 Eric Truffaz Quartet Doni Doni (Par- lophone PRO17460). French trumpeter Truf- faz has a distinctive contemporary jazz sound, with a debt to Miles Davis. Rokia Traoré fea- tures on four of the ten tracks here. Fine of its kind but, I’d imagine, of only peripheral interest to readers of this magazine. www.eriktruffaz.com


1 Ram Ram 6: Manman M Se Ginen (Willibelle Publishing & Sales 859715-746631). From the opening carnival rara horn onslaught to the parting call, Ram’s reading of Haitian rhythmic and melodic traditions crosses over into the electric global sphere, breathing renewed life into cultural and political senti- ments rooted in the living legacy of the Haitian independence struggle. rockpaperscissors.biz


1 Paco El Lobo Flamenco (Buda Musique 4771365). Backed by guitar, percussion, and cajón, singer-guitarist-composer Paco El Lobo performs pensive and mostly original bulería, fandango, flamenco rumba, seguiriya, sevil- lana, soleá, tanguillo, and tango. budamusique.com


1 Camilla Granlien Kjære Vennen Min (Ta:lik TA113CD). Clear singing, with smooth slightly jazzy arrangements of piano or har- monium, bass, kalimba, and string quartet, render traditional songs collected in mid-19th Century Gudbrandsdalen with pretty if per- haps sentimentalising elegance. www.talik.no


2 Brooks Williams My Turn Now(Red Guitar Blue Music RGBM-2016). Brooks’s lat- est can’t-put-a-finger-wrong collection really rocks, stirring up soulful Americana, full-on blues and tasty rootsy grooves, with muscular, brilliantly tight rhythm-section support, on seven compelling new originals and four impeccably chosen covers. Very likely Brooks’ best batch yet. www.brookswilliams.com


2 Kitty Macfarlane Tide & Time (EP) (TCR Music TCRM75102). This young Somerset- based singer-songwriter’s blessed with a strong identity: a confident singing voice and a compelling writing style deriving inspira- tion from growing up in the south-west, allied to a talent for finding wider signifi- cance in everyday experiences. An outstand- ing debut. www.kittymacfarlane.com


1 Sinderins Sinderins (WestWynd Records WYNDCD001). Attractively packaged epony- mous debut record from ambitious and determined Dundee band, bringing an at times over-the-top energy and a big-sound- ing, wide-scale profile to self-penned songs that for the most part feel distinctly overpow- ered by their setting. www.facebook.com/Sinderinsband/


1 Dónal O’Connor, John McSherry, Seán Óg Graham Ulaid (Own label JDS001). Ten self-composed tracks by the Northern Irish trio of fiddle/keyboards, uilleann pipes/whis- tles and guitars/accordeon which combined sound very much like another At First Light album and, sadly, all blend into an unmemo- rable slurry of sound (though expertly played). www.ulaidmusic.com


1 Fivil Fivil (NORCD NORCD1557). There’s a particular, distinctive airy clarity to Norwe- gian female traditional singing, well exempli- fied in this CD of Kirsti Bakken Kristiansen and Ingebjørg Lognvik Reinholdt’s unaccom- panied harmonising and counterpointing duets in traditional songs, with some wordless tralling of dance tunes and animal-calling. www.norcd.no


1 Alexander D Great After The Win- drush – Rum Shop Kaiso Chronicles Vol- ume 3 (Lion Valley Records SAR13). A thir- teen-track acoustic set from veteran UK calypsonian ADG. Songs on immigration, struggle and the celebration of cultural icons (Mandela, Maya Angelou). Well intentioned, pleasant but hardly earth-shattering. www.alexanderdgreat.net


@ Joe Driscoll & Seckou Kouyate Monis- tic Theory (Cumbancha CMB-CD 37). Second collaboration between US singer-guitarist-rap- per Driscoll and Guinean kora player Kouy- ate. Closes with a killer live instrumental ver- sion of Stevie Wonder’s Master Blaster but most of what precedes it is all a bit meh (and Driscoll really should give up on the rapping). www.joeandsekou.com


1 Black Bank Folk Rising (FFS Records ffscd001). A concept album based around the events pertaining to the 1916 Rising. James Sheeran and John Colebert write a batch of personalised accounts focused on the human side, bereft of nationalistic chest beating. The results are richly compelling and worthy. www.blackbankfolk.com


1 Maar Epleslang (Ta:lik TA 140). The Nor- wegian half of Nor/Scot quartet Boreas – fid- dler and hardanger-fiddler Britt Pernille Fro- holm and accordeonist Irene Tillung – and double bassist Ellen Brekken, with clever, con- voluted original tunes and some trad. www.talik.no


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