Gold Coast based world music band A FRENCH BUTLER CALLED SMITH have been performing their high energy Latin, funk, instrumental fusion over a 2 year period to ever increasing audiences on Australia's East Coast. The initial creators behind this all organic dance music sound were acoustic guitar aficionado (Scott French), bass maestro (Jake ‘the Butler’ Martin) and respected world percussion artist (Brennan Smith).
The Crooked Fiddle Band are a four-piece from Sydney, Australia who formed in late 2006. acoustic and mainly instrumental, tCFB are influenced by / include Eastern European, Celtic and USA traditional material in their punked up compositions. Instrumentation includes violin, double bass, drum kit, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, charango, hand percussion, cello. Free downloads are available from the Triple J Unearthed site and their Myspace. Links for buying their music are available through their official website: http://www.crookedfiddleband.com.
Rully Shabara is a frontman and vocalist of Zoo, a math-rock/experimental band based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In Zoo’s latest trilogy album he develop the music direction with traditional music approach by using javanesse language and traditional instrument but still in the vein of punk music. Meanwhile, Wukir Suryadi devoted his life into traditional music even in his teen he also listening to rock and heavy metal (musical genre that very popular in Indonesia back in the ’80s). He is best known when he create his own instrument named Bambuwukir by himself.
Faiz Ali Faiz (born 1962 in Sharaqpur, Pakistan) is one of the main singers of qawwali, a devotional musical expression of the Sufis, a mystical offshoot of Islam. Faiz Ali Faiz comes from a family of qawwals from seven generations in Pakistan. He started his professional career in 1978, at age 16, creating at the same time his own qawwali ensemble. Though Faiz is from Lahore, he practices the doaba style from eastern Pakistan. He stated in recent interviews he has been influenced by Sham-Chaurasi, a famous Khayal singing school where Ustad Salamat Ali Khan belongs to.
Omar Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend. Since 1994, he and his musicians have emerged as a staple of folk-pop throughout Syria, but until now they have remained little known outside of the country. To date, they have issued more than five-hundred studio and live- recorded cassette albums which are easily spotted in the shops of any Syrian city. Born in rural Northeastern Syria, he began his musical career in 1994 with a small group of local collaborators that remain with him today. The myriad musical traditions of the region are evident in their music.
"The swagger of a Balkan wedding band with the riotous energy of a Latin carnival." Based in Scotland, but taking in musical influences from far and wide, Orkestra del Sol inflect their music with a raucous enthusiasm. Blending the best of brass with the swinging sounds of samba, New Orleans street music or the rolling rhythms of Turkey and the Middle East, they charge through it all with full-blooded rock and roll speed. They make mincemeat of musical categories.
A former member of Australian band Yothu Yindi, Gurrumul was born blind and sings mostly in his traditional language. Gurrumul plays the guitar upside down because there were no left handed guitars in the communities he grew up in. Gurrumul's story will inspire many. But his voice is what will cut through and if it lands on enough ears, his debut album 'Gurrumul' available on Skinnyfish Music could prove to be a landmark Australian release.
Ganga Giri mixes red natural elements with fat tribal beats and dirty funky bass lines to create a unique tribal-technological deep earth dance experience. Explosive and pulsating, at times ambient and flowing, the music is a pumping percussive multi-layered experience of complex grooves and raw, deep natural sound. Ganga himself is a rhythmic didjeridu virtuoso and percussionist -- an inspired music creator whose passion brings people together in celebration of nowness in newness, a modern day corroboree for all!
Emmanuel Jal (born c. 1980) is a Sudanese musician and former child soldier. Born in the village of Tonj in Southern Sudan, he was a little boy when the civil war broke out. Emmanuel’s father joined the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and when he was about seven years old his mother died. Emmanuel then decided to join the thousands of children travelling to Ethiopia who had been told that they could be educated there.
Dead Can Dance is a band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1981 by Brendan Perry (baritone) together with Simon Monroe and Paul Erikson later to be joined by Lisa Gerrard (contralto). They disbanded in 1998, and temporarily reunited to do a highly successful world tour in 2005 with a view to recording another studio album together. In order to concentrate on their solo careers and due to ongoing personal differences between Perry and Gerrard, the project was, however, put on hiatus.