Musique Non Stop | eMusic Electronica

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John Wizards, John Wizards Posted: 03 Sep 2013 06:00 AM PDT African and Western, traditional and modern, mashed together in a way that defies separation When in the 1980s African artists began to make their way to world music circuit, the biggest acts — Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Ali Farka Touré — were also the most unadulterated, their music with clear lineages back to their highlife, juju and griot roots. But in the 21st century, the African acts most likely to break through are instead a messy and bright jumble of genres. The Very Best, the acts on the Shangaan Electro comp and Cape Town’s John Wizards offer a panoply of sounds both African and Western, traditional and modern, mashed together in a way that defies separation.

Forest Swords: Engravings – review

(Tri Angle)

Forest Swords is Matthew Barnes, a Liverpudlian producer whose sound is singular and hopelessly gorgeous enough to induce oppositional descriptors such as "ancient but contemporary" and "epic but intimate". This is his first full-length release and it's restless – exploring dub, post-rock and R&B – but each track coheres seamlessly into a whole of a record. The only human voices are processed and reverbed into wordlessness so that they sound as dread-laden as they do ecstatic. In short, it has the kind of beauty that sees you playing it, and only it, for the next three weeks.