Thursday, January 28, 2021 Songlines #165 (March 2021) is out now! A Beginner s Guide to Ballaké Sissoko; Pakistan s vocal master Ustad Saami dials up devotion through a dying art; the music industry s response to COVID-19; Electric Jalaba s homage to Gnawa music and more in the latest issue of Songlines
The March 2021 issue (#165) of
Songlines is now on sale. This issue’s cover star is
Ballaké Sissoko, the Malian master of
kora collaboration who has a new album coming out in April. Other features include a look at the music industry s response to the impact of COVID-19 around the world; an interview with singer
Ustad Saami from Pakistan; an overview of the current
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Verity Sharp presents an exclusive collaboration between two musicians who have never met: the sound artist Kate Carr and cellist Leila Bordreuil.
Kate Carr is an Australian sound artist and field recordist currently based in London. Her work often explores people and place, with a particular interest in the complex relationships between natural and built environments. Her music blurs the boundaries between field recording and electronics to articulate a wonder in the everyday. Leila Bordreuil is a cellist and composer, originally from France and now in New York. Using her cello as her starting point, she uses improvisation and amplification to explore noise and texture. Her work often aims to interact with the listener’s tonal perception and their physiological relationship to space and sound.
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Verity Sharp shares a mix from guitar and saxophone duo Divide and Dissolve, who blend classical influences with crushing doom to create a sound that aims to ‘speak without words’.
The pair initially bonded over their Indigenous backgrounds, and feel that their music enables them to communicate with their ancestors. Their inspirations range from James Baldwin and Octavia Butler to bodies of water and the forest. Their work draws on ideas of liberation, freedom and Indigenous sovereignty.
Elsewhere in the show, there’s a piece from the debut solo album of avant-garde vocalist Maggie Nichols, who first became active in London’s free improvisation scene in the 60s. This album is her first solo release, recorded over lockdown on her computer. There’s cosmic sounds from Senegal courtesy of the Wau Wau Collectif, a group of local musicians from the small fishing village of Toubab Dialaw, now a hub for Senegal’s bohemian art scene. Plus some modal r