KEY POINTS:
If there is a world music movement gaining momentum right now it is of Sahara blues - music often sounding like exotic Arabia transported to a raw Chicago blues bar in the early 60s.
The big names are Etran Finatawa (who played Taranaki's Womad festival this year) and Tinariwen, whose most recent release, Aman Iman, is still frontrunner for world music album of the year. But Tinariwen have serious competition from Malouma, a Mauritanian woman whose Nour bristles with mesmerising melodies, soaring passion and earthy guitars. As with Tinariwen, Malouma has been swept up by European musicians and producers and a little light studio polishing has been undertaken.
But, again as with Tinariwen, the music is the better for it.
This isn't brittle blues in the manner of Etran Finatawa or Tinariwen, however. If you are looking for a musical reference point think along the lines of Robert Plant's more adventurous North African-influenced albums, because Malouma has something akin to a band here with electric guitars, drums and bass.
The music remains grounded in her culture, so it lopes along into seductive and seemingly endless melodic lines.
In places it sounds like it might have been produced by Brian Eno (those weird little sonic fills which sound like backwards guitars) and the whole thing is so tangential that songs shift into different styles and colours at various points. The standout is Nebine, a churning, chant-driven plea for the peace of the Prophet's message which is shot through with urgent electric guitar and percussion. It's a killer.
This remarkable album is at the intersection of North Africa and Europe and located right in the 21st century. Ignore it at your peril.
If you wish to explore this sound beyond Malouma, Etran Finatawa and Tinariwen then seek out the groundbreaking Desert Blues, a superb double-disc collection in a beautiful and informative long-form package.
That was on the Network label, the same people behind Musica Negra in the Americas, a similarly conceived collection of the music of the various slavery cultures of the Americas.
These 33 tracks are a geographical history lesson as much as guide through numerous vibrant rhythms and songs from the Mississippi Delta (Big Mama Thornton with Muddy Waters) through the Caribbean, into Central America and on to Peru and Brazil.
There are exciting tracks by some slightly familiar names (Andy Palacio from Belize, Susana Baca from Peru, the Abyssinians and the Congos representing Jamaica) but mostly this offers the delights of the unfamiliar: music from Suriname, Curacao, Guadeloupe ...
With just a track or two from each country this could easily have lost the thread, but as with the Desert Blues collection the compilers know their stuff and one track flows seamlessly into the next. Party music mostly.
When it comes to Brazil the collection defaults to the popular samba and the vibrant drum-driven music of Bahia. But back in the late 60s the short-lived Tropicalia movement threw psychedelic rock, Beatlesque pop and soundtrack-influenced music into the blender and came up with a sound that was sometimes politicised and bristling with rage, often avant-garde and angular, and mostly compelling.
Big names in the movement were Tom Ze, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and the band Os Mutantes - all of whom appear on the essential Tropicalia collection, which comes with an informative 54-page booklet outlining the historical background, and how it was crushed by the military after one spectacular year, 1968.
It's a great story, and the music is vibrant, unusual, exciting and unpredictable. Cult heroes Os Mutantes here have a sonic collage, Panis et Circenses, that is very weird and quite wonderful.
Closer to home and our own time is Olatia by Te Vaka, formerly of Auckland but now relocated to Australia. A group much under-appreciated in their own country unfortunately.
Singer-songwriter Opetaia Foa'i brings together traditional songs and contemporary pop styles and writes what should be hits, if only radio had wider ears.
While there is almost palpable Pacific warmth in Te Vaka's music there is also a sadness in many lyrics for what is being lost in this region.
He writes mainly in the language of Tokelau and his subjects are environmental issues such as global warming or care of culture in the face of political and social pressures.
There is a slightly twee spoken word passage by a child in Ki Te Fakaolatia/To The Rescue, but that seems a minor complaint in the face of this typically excellent album.
With this, their fifth album, Te Vaka confirm they are the most important voice out of the Pacific region and that multi-instrumentalist Foa'i remains a potent songwriting force.
More album reviews from Graham Reid can be found at www.elsewhere.co.nz
Malouma: Nour
Label: Harmonia Mundi/Ode
Verdict: A sublime marriage of desert blues from the Sahara with Western rock overtones
Herald rating: * * * * *
Various: Musica Negra in the Americas
Label: Network/Southbound
Verdict: A big package which tries to wrap up post-slavery music in the Americas, and succeeds.
Herald rating: * * * *
Various: Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound
Label: Soul Jazz/Southbound
Verdict: A world away from the cool sounds of samba is the distinctive 60s sound of Brazilian psychedelic Tropicalia
Herald rating: * * * * *
Te Vaka: Olatia
Label: Warm Earth/Ode
Verdict: Five albums in and Te Vaka's distinctive sound remains intact
Herald rating: * * * *
