Weekly Music Roundup: Daymé Arocena with iLe, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Mulatu Astatke

This week, an indie rock take on bluegrass, a Cuban/Puerto Rican duet from Daymé Arocena with iLe, and an Ethiopian legend with an Israeli brass band. Plus Turkish Star Melike Şahin's latest album, and acoustic ambient music via Montreal. 

Daymé Arocena Welcomes iLe On Unplugged New Single

Afro-Cuban singer Daymé Arocena’s song “Por Ti” (“For You”) was a standout track on her last record, Alkemi. Now, she’s issued an unplugged version that takes out the beats and the horns, but adds the Puerto Rican singer iLe. The song’s Afro-Cuban roots are suddenly more evident, and the pacing slightly more languorous; the combination of the two women’s voices is a meeting of velvet and silk. The video has a charming, homespun quality as well – watch iLe singing in the studio while reading the lyrics on her phone.  

Yonder Mountain String Band Release New LP

Colorado-based quintet Yonder Mountain String Band is one of the leaders of the so-called progressive bluegrass movement of the past couple of decades, injecting their acoustic, traditional roots sound with rock energy, jazzy interplay, and occasional bouts of funk. Their eleventh studio album, Nowhere Next, came out earlier today and the title track is a perpetual motion machine, a driving indie rocker played without amps, drums, or effects. With its warnings about “once you’re in the system,” the song has a completely contemporary message to go with its deeply-rooted sound. 

An Ethio-Jazz Legend In Tel Aviv

The Ethiopian percussionist, composer and arranger Mulatu Astatke was the godfather of what has come to be known as the Golden Age of Ethiopian pop, in the late 60s till 1974, when emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown. Astatke studied here in New York and brought the sounds of Latin music, funk, jazz, and pop back to Addis Adaba, which became known, for a brief time, as “Swingin’ Addis.” That sound, usually referred to as Ethio-Jazz or Ethiopiques (after a particularly important series of reissued albums) is now carried on by bands in America, Europe, and in the case of the Hoodna Orchestra, Israel. Tension is the name of the new collaborative album by Hoodna Orchestra, from Tel Aviv, and Astatke. The record has all the earmarks of classic Ethio-Jazz, with horns in close harmony playing the exotic scales of Ethiopian music, simmering percussion in various 6/8 rhythms, heavily reverbed organ or electric guitar, and in this title track, “Tension,” that most classic sound of all, Mulatu Astatke’s vibraphone solos.  

A “First Sound” From Three Montreal Regulars

Violinist Sarah Neufeld, cellist Rebecca Foon, and bassist/multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry are all fixtures on the Montreal new music scene.  Parry is part of the Grammy-winning indie rock band Arcade Fire; Neufeld is best known for her work with that band but has had a notable solo career; and Foon is the driving force behind Saltland and the world/chamber ensemble Esmerine. Together, they’ve released an album called First Sounds, which reflects their enormous range: the record includes an acoustic form of ambient music, post-minimalist ensemble pieces, strings (and occasional wordless vocals) surrounded by an electronic haze, and chamber music abstractions. It was produced by the ubiquitous Shahzad Ismaily, who plays percussion on this piece, “Maria.” It features a plaintive melody over a drone (a sound strongly reminiscent of Armenian duduk music), and a measured, step-wise rhythm from the bass and percussion. 

Turkish Star Melike Şahin Looks Abroad

The Turkish singer Melike Şahin has become the voice of a generation of disaffected women in her homeland. Her songs mix the sounds of Anatolian pop (the heady mix of Turkish folk and psychedelic rock that burst on the scene in the 70s) with calls for female empowerment, and occasionally her lavish, almost orchestral arrangements take her into ABBA-adjacent territory. Şahin’s new album is called Akkor, or “incandescent,” and if she is glowing with rage she doesn’t let it get in the way of a torchy ballad or a toe-tapping dance tune. This song, “Ortak,”  or “partner,” is both – a steady beat driving a song of a woman who still can’t get over the fact that her partner has left her.