The latest stars to appear at WOMAD festival’s 30th birthday at Charlton Park, Malmesbury, have been unveiled.
Many big names have already been announced for the event from July 27-29 including Robert Plant presents Sensational Space Shifters, Jimmy Cliff, Hugh Masekela and Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club featuring Omara Portuondo.
More than two dozen further artists have just been added to the bill including Khaled, who is the ‘king’ of Algerian rai singers and is said to match irresistible charisma with a soaring sandpaper-and-honey voice.
Meanwhile blind singer-songwriter Gurrumul, from Elcho Island off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territories, who has sold millions of records in countries across the world is also expected to be a big attraction.
While WOMAD is known for presenting folk music from all corners of the earth, it’s also celebrated for presenting cutting-edge sounds and Toddla T & Serocee, a Sheffield DJ/producer and a Brummie-Jamaican MC who partner up for to create an unstoppable urban music tag-team, are leading the way on that front.
Another home-grown project, DJ Yoda and the Trans-Siberian Marching Band, finds the much-loved disc-spinner sharing a stage with the massed horns and drums of this high-energy combo.
From New York, Balkan Beat Box return to the WOMAD stages for another glorious mash-up of border-ignoring electronica that draws from far and wide.
The Lisbon-based project Batida takes the vintage rhythms of Angolan kuduro music and gives it a thoroughly 21st-century makeover.
From South Africa, Johannesburg DJ/producer Spoek Mathambo will make his WOMAD debut. His thoroughly original take on house and electro stops in their tracks everyone within earshot.
But Spoek Mathambo is far from the only African representation on this summer’s bill. Two Senegalese musicians now join the proceedings: singer Omar Pene has, for years, been Youssou N’Dour’s great rival on the airwaves and stages of Dakar, while Carlou D has traded his time as a rapper with Positive Black Soul to become a guitar-toting troubadour, his songs full of gravity and insight.
There’s also a double dose of Cameroonian musicians heading to Wiltshire. Blick Bassy is a singer-songwriter whose love of bossa nova flavours his jazz-flecked creations, while Kareyce Fotso’s calm, smoky voice sets her up to be one of this year’s lesser lights to make an impact above and beyond her current reputation.
Also flying north are Hot Water, the multi-racial combo from Cape Town who stir a multitude of indigenous South African styles into their stew of pop and folk.
From the island of Réunion, 500 miles east of Madagascar, comes Urbain Philéas, a purveyor of the local style called maloya, an intoxicating amalgam of furious percussion and call-and-response vocals.
Further north – Nairobi, in fact – is the spiritual home of the Owiny Sigoma Band, a collaboration between Kenyan musicians and a handful of their London counterparts which could be one of the highlights of the whole weekend.
WOMAD always issues invitations across the Atlantic and artists from Louisiana are among those to be taking part.
The Pine Leaf Boys are an energetic young Cajun band from the state’s swamplands who are ambassadors for the age-old rural sound.
From New Orleans are the Soul Rebels Brass Band, who combine rap and funk.
Also expected to make a big impression are Portico Quartet, the Mercury-nominated instrumental four-piece signed to WOMAD’s sister organisation, Real World Records; the singer-songwriter Jamie Catto who, aside from co-founding Faithless, was one-half of the much-lauded 1 Giant Leap project; and Revere, the London-based indie-rock seven-piece (and occasional Toumani Diabate collaborators) who’ll be making their acoustic debut at WOMAD.
WOMAD also offers Portuguese fado (Deolinda), Nubian singing and drumming from Egypt (Nuba Nour), Greek rembetika (Apsilies), fleet-footed electro-jazz (The Correspondents), pan-European folk stylings (Chet Nuneta), the multinational mongrel sound of London Town (Vadoinmessico) and a couple of young people’s oufits (the Malmesbury Schools Project and Youth Music Orchestra). Oh, and some “gypsy deathcore”, courtesy of Melbourne’s Barons Of Tang.
More artists are still to be announced with those named so far being: ROBERT PLANT PRESENTS SENSATIONAL SPACE SHIFTERS (UK/Gambia) JIMMY CLIFF (Jamaica) ORQUESTA BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB featuring OMARA PORTUONDO (Cuba) KHALED (Algeria) HUGH MASEKELA (South Africa) GURRUMUL (Australia) Alaev Family (Tajikstan/Israel) Ane Brun (Norway) Apsilies (Greece) Balkan Alien Sound (Ireland) Balkan Beat Box (Israel/USA) Ballet Nimba (Guinea/Gambia/Senegal/Cote D’Ivoire/Ghana) The Barons Of Tang (Australia) Batida (Angola/Portugal) Ben l’Oncle Soul (France) Blick Bassy (Cameroon) Boubacar Traore (Mali) Carlou D (Senegal) The Correspondents (UK) Deolinda (Portugal) Dizraeli and the Small Gods (UK) Grupo Fantasma (USA) Hot Water (South Africa) Jamie Catto (UK) Joe Driscoll & Seckou Kouyate (US/Guinea) Jupiter and Okwess International (Democratic Republic of Congo) Kareyce Fotso (Cameroon) Keb’ Mo’ (USA) Kimmo Pohjonen & DakhaBrakha (Finland/Ukraine) Lions Of Africa (Senegal) Lo’Jo (France/Algeria) Mama Rosin (Switzerland) Malmesbury Schools Project (UK) The Manganiyar Seduction by Roysten Abel (India) Marewrew (Japan) Narasirato (Solomon Islands) New Zealand Shapeshifter (New Zealand) Nuba Nour (Egypt) Omar Pene (Senegal) Owiny Sigoma Band (Kenya/UK) Peatbog Faeries (UK) Pine Leaf Boys (USA) Portico Quartet (UK) Revere (UK) Secousse featuring Etienne Tron and Mo Laudi (France/South Africa) Soul Rebels Brass Band (USA) Spiro (UK) Spoek Mathambo (South Africa) Terem Quartet (Russia) Toddla T & Serocee (UK/Jamaica) Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra (Japan) Urban Philéas (Réunion) Vadoinmessico (Italy/Mexico/Austria/UK) The Wilderness Of Manitoba (Canada) Youth Music Orchestra (UK) Tickets can be booked at 0118 960 6060 or visit www.womad.co.uk
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