Reviews

Lately Pressure Sounds seems to have developed a preference for obscure and more obscure work.

After his well received 2005 debut effort, 'Hail The King', Fantan Mojah, the imposing singjay with his inseparable backpack, went suspiciously quiet again.

When talking about this new Perfect album, one can't go past the beautiful sleeve design; this piece of art, that covers just about a century of African-American history, was designed by Austrian illustrator and tattoo artist Franke and the album itself, produced by Irievibrations Records, is also of Austrian origin.

What to say about this new Beres Hammond album? Once again 'A Moment In Time' carries Hammond's lovers rock quality label, but this time reggae purists might turn up their nose, because at times Beres sounds commercial and poppy and other songs are very r&b and soul flavored.

For those not familiar with Faya Horns, this is a project started by Eric 'Rico' Gaultier (sax & flute) and Thomas Henning (trombone).

Roots lovers have known it to be true for a while now: there seems to be something in the air in France, because the country is overflowing with average to really excellent sounding reggae formations.

'One Moment In Peace' is in every regard (both in terms of style and content as in sleeve design) a logical sequel to Sturm's debut effort 'This Change Is Nice'.

'In A Town Called Addis' finally fills a gap in the Real World catalog, the label offering until now music from just about every region in Africa except Ethiopia, something that became painfully clear when for the soundtrack of 'Long Way Down' in the episode featuring a ride through Ethiopia, Somali music by Maryam Mursal was used.

Where Benin is concerned the musical knowledge of yours truly limited itself to the work of Angelique Kidjo, until now that is, as we just discovered Gangbe Brass Band.

Yours truly continues to ride the Balkan express and this time it took us to Milan in the North of Italy, where we found the motley crew of Figli Di Madre Ignota.