Spending sunny early spring days on the island, working on translations out on the cliffs and listening to non-Western-centric reinterpretations of "rock" on high volume with the windows open:
Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
What a fucking rush! This might be the single best track released in 2021. I've listened to it so many times, that everything – from the introductory wail, to the galloping drums, to the mighty guitar freak out at the end – feels like it pulses through my blood immediately after hearing the first few seconds. Like a benevolent dose of heroine. Or something similar; I don't know.
Illuminati Hotties - MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA
If any song from 2021 was to give Afrique Victime a run for the money, it would be this earworm to gobble up all other earworms. Pure unadulterated, hellraising fun.
If you're not laughing, baby, then you're not making money!
John Fahey - In A Persian Market
Breaking away from the contemporary for a bit, with an equally infectious melody. For a bit it is an almost abrasively jaunty ditty, but then comes that twice-repeated gorgeous breakdown and evens things out. The fact that it is such an utterly unadorned recording just puts the tune centerstage and makes it even more impossible to get out of one's head once it has gotten a grip there.Yasmin Williams ft. Amadou Kouyate - Urban Driftwood
Another lesson in the strength of purified melody lines. Treating a tune this economically allows for a simple smattering of tablas, like the one at 2:46, to raise the intensity several levels and thrill me to no end. Gorgeous kora lines too (can anything be less than gorgeous when played on the kora?).
Aragehonzi - Detarame Kagura
How to end such a joyous romp of a playlist? Why, with crazy Japanese fusion of course! And with the most exciting vocal glissando put to record in recent years! Discovered thanks to the excellent podcast James Acaster's Perfect Sounds, endlessly mining the odds and ends of the musical output of 2016, with one of the most brilliant comedians of our times. yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOH!
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