Top tunes this June

Veteran kora master Toumani Diabaté and Kayhan Kalhor soar to the top spot on the June edition of the Transglobal World Music Chart with a new release on Real World, The Sky Is The Same Colour Everywhere. Diabaté is well-known for his cross-cultural collaborations, from his early days with Ketama, a flamenco, jazz, West Africa fusion, to later work with the London Symphony Orchestra (Korolen), while Kalhor is an award-winning Kurdish-Iranian master of the kamancheh (fiddle) and setar (lute).

The pairing was initiated in 2016 by the director of the Morgenland Festival in Germany, Michael Dreyer. With minimal preparation, the duo went on stage and played for 90 minutes. They played a few shows in Europe and recorded the album. On the Real World website, Diabaté noted that: "It's like this music was already waiting for us. And it's like the two of us knew each other before -- in another life."

I have seen Diabaté do the same with other musicians, notably years ago when he told a Japanese koto player just to lead off and he would follow. He seems to be able to perform, always with just the right input, with any musician. This beautiful album offers a moment of musical calm to soothe our troubled times.

Another kora master who has followed in Diabaté's footsteps is Seckou Keita (long-time readers will remember his collaborations with Welsh harp player Catrin Finch) who has released his African Rhapsodies: A Work For Kora And Symphonic Orchestra (Claves).

Musical prodigy, balafon (wooden xylophone) master and multi-instrumentalist Kimi Djabaté, from Guinea, has worked with the who's who of popular music, including Madonna. But he also creates his own fusion from traditional Guinean music, Cape Verdean, Afrobeat, Malian Tamashek and Latin music. His new album, Dindin, which means children in Mandinka (a major language in West Africa) tackles religion, women's rights, poverty and education. While the subject matter may be dark, his sound is pure joy.

The Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo is still performing in her 90s. Her new album Vida was recorded during the recent lockdown when she was in Havana. Recommended.

Southern Italian traditional music is represented by the distinctive voice and music of Hiram Salsano with her new album, Bucolica, which trips along to the foot-tapping beats of the tamburo a cornice, a frame drum.

Also riding high at the moment is the long-awaited studio session from Somalian giants The Dur-Dur Band (readers may remember a recent compilation of Somali popular music Sweet As Broken Dates on which the band appeared). The Berlin Session (2019) was released in March this year and reunited the original band members, many of whom had gone into exile in far-flung lands. An essential album.

The pick of Asian new releases is Aditya Prakash's Karnatik Roots. The South Indian singer, who is based in the US, is known for his cross-cultural collaborations but on this album, he explores the traditional roots of his musical heritage. Well worth checking out.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The iconic independent record label was set up in New York by Marian Distler and Moses Asch. From Woodie Guthrie (This Land Is Your Land) to John Cage to Ekonting music in West Africa and the Kronos Quartet, to the ever-popular Sounds Of North American Frogs, this label has developed a huge archive of both studio and field recordings from, well, just about everywhere.

The label currently has an album at No.6 on the chart, Damir Imamovic's The World And All That It Holds. This is an unusual project -- the result of a collaboration between Bosnian musician Imamovic and novelist Aleksander Hemon, who published a novel of the same name as the album. It is not often that the worlds of music and literature collide in a sonic rendering of the word -- see more on the Folkways website (see below).

Folkways has announced a series of events to celebrate its anniversary, most of which are in the US, however, there are also lots of releases and compilations coming out as well. Hop over to the Folkways website for more information and news at folkways.si.edu.