BEST Gig N BEST Album of 2017

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Time to look in reverse and what took your best of year.

Best Gig or show for me was -M- Lamomali on the Open Air Stage. I soooo badly wanted that gig to last longer.
IFE and Orchestra Baobab took place 2nd but a long way behind -M-
Jupiter and Okwess International and Mokoomba at Africa Oye were pretty special.

Best album is a split deal between
The Kondi Band
kondiband.bandcamp.com
Only 8 euro on Bandcamp.....or better still go for the earlier
kondiband.bandcamp.com/album/the-freetown-tapes-2006-2016
from December 2016

Equal first goes to St Vincent -  Masseducation
every track is different and it been a regular listen since it came out in November
and HEY! the cover is pretty good 

[calndel]

sooooo many to choose from

For Del it had to be loon dancing with everyone at Afro Celts

away from WOMAD it was the Amorettes in the Toll Booth in Stirling (small venue, jam pack with fans and everyone up for it), special mentions for Anthrax, Metallic and Living colour

Cal loved the Lamomali workshop and loon dancing to Songhoy blues

Best album for Del is a 3 way split Shade by Living Colour, Rokh by Datcha Mandala, Transparent Water by Omar Sosa and Seckou Keita

Best album for Cal was Songhoy Blues by resistance

[digitalmonkey]

I'm going to break the rules 😁


Best gig, my last one actually. Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage at arguably my favourite music venue, the Unicorn in Abingdon.

Best live performance. The story of migration and travel by the Transports in Shrewsbury Folk Festival. Brilliantly put together and superbly narrated.

Favourite WOMAD performance, The Tanzanian Albino Collective.

Not brought many albums this year. Radiohead one of the best although think that was last year. I generally cannot decide between Bella Hardy, The Good Lovelies, Jesca Hoop or Tift Merritt.

[mikey]

Best gig for me was seeing Rhiannon Giddens at the Colston Hall. Best gig I did not see was hurray for the Riff raff at the trinity Bristol (had a ticket but was brought forward a week to appear on Jools - so I was still in India and unable to make the new date 🙁)
Best at Womad was Seu Gorge playing Bowie in Portuguese. The feeling of togetherness he brought to the crowd sheltering in the Siam tent.
Best album, if released in 2017 it will be Ruminations by Conor Oberst (it may have been a 2016 album) otherwise it is the Navigator by hurray for the Riff raff. The Conor Oberst is an album of songs that make sense of the trump dominated world. The navigator is an incredible concept album that tells a story of Puerto Rican’s pushed out of their community in favour of a beach development and contains the song Palante, a call to stand up for your community and right the injustices we see every day.

Best film, the death of Stalin, so funny yet educational, whoever thought history coul£ be so much fun (actually, so many great films and I am probably just leaning to the most recent in memory).

Best tv. Discovering 5 series (and a champion of champions two parter) of Taskmaster on Dave. So funny, if you ain’t seen it yet, check it out on catch up.

[digitalmonkey]

Best new venue for me this year was The Slaughtered Lamb in London closely followed by The Arts Centre in Bridgewater (the name escapes me).

If I can think of a reason to return to Bridgewater I would go again. No doubt I will return to 'The Lamb.

[standing stone]

Toughy. Philip Henry and Hannah Martin, Chris Packham at Hawk Conservancy Trust or the Unthanks? ACSS, TDF or Grayson Perry? Each of these were fab. I could choose and justify any one of them. Unthanks wins on the basis of being the last visit to the Pound Arts Centre in Corsham with someone special.

Best Album - XAOS- in its own right and for memories of wandering around alone Womad to seek this out at Siam tent, but really wish I had met up with everyone else from this forum who was dancing there!

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Just got to add Karine Polwarts beautiful album A Pocket Of Wind Resistance to my list because its a masterpiece and Ive only recently discovered it.
Its a full story whole album listening experience that has nearly brought me to tears.
The youtube clip is old but wonderful and the song getting a second chance featured on track 13.
Anyone like me that hasn't picked up on this album before then I totally give it 10/10 thumbs up because its a work of beauty.

www.karinepolwart.com/home/blog/new-album-a-pocket-of-wind-resistance

BTW WOMAD can we have her on the festival next year in the woods.

[calndel]

making a late run into our list is Ross Ainslie's, Sanctuary

[calndel]

a wee sample of sanctuary 

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Just listened to Ross Ainslie - Sancturay and I found myself looking for some singing.
As much as its a lovely album it needs more than the spoken word on the last track, so for me my slice of Scotland will stay with Karine Polwart for now CHEERS.
BTW its a Ardmore Legacy in the glass tonight and totally yum.

[sc]

Received as a Christmas Gift in 2017 but released in 2016 (hope that counts for this thread

Malaya McCraven - In The Moment - Deluxe Edition (the standard version is 2015)

Amazing Jazz album, only listened to it once so far, on vinyl this is a triple album and a double on CD. Utterly mesmerising, nods of appreciation back to JC's a Love Supreme plus many others. At the moment I would place it head 'n' shoulders above Portico Quartet, a beautiful piece of musical craftsmanship.

Made me chuckle at my own weakness with understanding Jazz and how far I still have to travel to fully understand it when it got to a section where one track "Gnawa" went into a scratch or looping type of action where one note was repeated over and over in an organic and discordant manner, it focused my attention, was this cool? where was the music going? after about one and a half minutes I glanced at the CD player, it was stuck and repeating at 17 seconds!!! It was a small smudge of grease on the CD Such is Jazz

[mikey]

Dec 31, 2017 12:55:14 GMT sc said:

when it got to a section where one track "Gnawa" went into a scratch or looping type of action where one note was repeated over and over in an organic and discordant manner, it focused my attention, was this cool? where was the music going?

Nice!

[calndel]

Dec 30, 2017 22:27:02 GMT grey said:

Just listened to Ross Ainslie - Sancturay and I found myself looking for some singing.
As much as its a lovely album it needs more than the spoken word on the last track, so for me my slice of Scotland will stay with Karine Polwart for now CHEERS.
BTW its a Ardmore Legacy in the glass tonight and totally yum.

Ross doesn't really do lyrics ;o)

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Verity Sharpe picks and discusses The Karine Polwart album on an album of the year Late Junction program.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt8
For what its worth Bjork also gets listed. Cant see it myself as that woman lost me again with Utopia.... Bjork BRING BACK SOME LUSH BEATS!!!! and can I have my 12 quid back please.

[calndel]

Jan 1, 2018 11:12:43 GMT grey said:

Verity Sharpe picks and discusses The Karine Polwart album on an album of the year Late Junction program.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt8
For what its worth Bjork also gets listed. Cant see it myself as that woman lost me again with Utopia.... Bjork BRING BACK SOME LUSH BEATS!!!! and can I have my 12 quid back please.

sorry Grey but Bjork has gone to the arty side and she is staying there