journal.nonesuch.com

Rolling Stone: Four Stars for Orchestra Baobab's New Album, "Made in Dakar"

Made in Dakar, Orchestra Baobab's first album of new recordings since 2002's Grammy-nominated Specialist in All Styles, hits stores in the United States today. Rolling Stone gives Made in Dakar four stars, with reviewer Will Hermes writing that "with this collection of burbling grooves, these Senegalese legends recapture the Afro-Cuban bliss of their 1982 classic, Pirates Choice---imagine the Buena Vista Social Club weaned on motherland polyrhythms." Hermes points to guitarist Barthélemy Attisso as the band's "secret weapon," calling him "a guitar giant with a touch as delicate and melodically sublime as Jerry Garcia's" and describing his performances on two particular tracks as "so chill they'll buckle your knees."

To read the review, visit rollingstone.com.

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Click here to add Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar CD now for $16 and download the album MP3s, including the exclusive Nonesuch Store bonus track, "Mamadou," at no additional charge.

Click here to add Specialist in All Styles directly to your Cart for $16 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

Click here to add the 2002 two-CD reissue of Pirates Choice directly to your Cart for $20 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

NY Times: Orchestra Baobab's New Album Likely Year's Most "Buoyant, Affirmative-Sounding"

"There isn't likely to be a more buoyant or affirmative-sounding release this year than Made in Dakar by the legendary Orchestra Baobab," writes the New York Times music critic Nate Chinen of the forthcoming collection of classic tunes from the Senegalese group, due out next Tuesday and available now for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store. He continues:

The beguiling guitar work of Barthélemy Attisso would be enough to recommend the album, were it not for a breezily amalgamated babble of grooves (high life, rumba, calypso, guajira) and dialects (Wolof, Malinké, Portuguese Creole).

An additional highlight Chinen points to is the song "Nijaay," "a reinvigorated classic" that features a guest vocal from Youssou N'Dour. Read the review at nytimes.com.

You can listen to "Nijaay" now at Pitchfork, which is streaming the tune through imeem. Pitchfork's Drew F. Hinshaw says that "the enduring international popularity of the band and their Spanish-speaking cousins in the Buena Vista Social Club" shows that the combination of cross-cultural, Afro-Cuban sounds in which both bands excel, "just works."

Hinshaw writes of the updated version of "Nijaay" recorded for Made in Dakar:

No matter what corner of the Afro-Cuban continent you hail from, there's something to dig, be it Nigerian saxophonist Peter Udo's Coltrane impression, the swirling guitar runs spilling out of Togolese Barthelemy Attisso, or the vocal contributions of Youssou N'Dour. The conga flutters even tell an interesting story, about ocean crossings and musical adaptations.

To listen, visit pitchforkmedia.com.

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Click here to pre-order Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar CD now for $16 and download the album MP3s, including the exclusive Nonesuch Store bonus track, "Mamadou," on release day, May 20.

Guardian Names 1,000 Must-Hear Albums (Part 1: A-M)

With iPods now holding up to 160 gigabytes of your favorite music, it might not be such a bad idea to start thinking of the 1,000 or so albums you just can't live without. Or, as the Guardian (UK) has put it, the 1,000 albums you must hear before you die. All this week, the Guardian is revealing, day by day, the records its music team thinks are must-hears "before you shuffle off your mortal coil."

Out so far on the list, released alphabetically by artist, are groups A through M. Here's some of what the Guardian's music mavens had to say about the Nonesuch albums they included:

• Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche à Bamako (2005) "This husband-and-wife rhythm and blues pairing from Mali were already huge in France before they added even more sparkle by hiring Manu Chao as producer. A sublimely paced record of pedal-to-the-metal acceleration and relaxed, freewheeling charm."

• Laurie Anderson: Big Science (1982, r. 2007) "Her dry humour, abrasive instrumentation and technological obsessions sound as current as ever: 'So hold me Mom, in your long arms. In your petrochemical arms. Your military arms. In your electronic arms.'"

• Buena Vista Social Club: Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 1997) "A bunch of elderly Cubans were unlikely candidates to displace Portishead as the dinner party soundtrack du jour but, with Ry Cooder's patronage ... the power and charm of its protagonists ensured theirs was a long-told tale ..."

• Brian Eno & David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981, r. 2006) "Underloved at the time but hugely cherished since, this album sees Byrne and Eno travel into the heart of darkness, their art-rock fuelled and flavoured by African percussion, Egyptian pop singers and samples of crabby radio DJs and a real-life exorcism. An experiment, but utterly absorbing nonetheless."

• Ali Farka Touré: Savane (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2006) "Ali Farka Touré, who died in March 2006, was the finest and best-loved African guitarist of his generation. Often described as the godfather of the desert blues, he proved through his hypnotic instrumental work and singing that the blues must have originated from his home country of Mali ... He recorded a series of classic albums, ... but this album, released after his death, is arguably his finest. That's certainly the way he saw it ...  [On this album,] he produced some of the most compelling guitar work of his career ..."

• Ibrahim Ferrer: Buenos Hermanos (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2003) "Backed by Ry Cooder's dream team—the jazz bassist Cachaito, the surf-rock guitarist Manuel Galbán and the Blind Boys of Alabama on backing vocals—Ferrer's effortlessly soulful voice has never sounded better: crooning the boleros, rolling his Rs on the salsas and making staggering vocal improvisations sound as casual as clearing his throat."

• Bill Frisell: Have a Little Faith (1993) "Jazz, folk, classical, pop—like a small-town electrical store, Frisell's landmark album has it all. Made with an unusual jazz quintet that includes Guy Klucevsek's accordion, it's a kind of love letter to American music, with John Hiatt's rolling title track and tunes by Copland, Ives, Foster, Rollins, Dylan and even Madonna."

• Kronos Quartet / Pat Metheny / Steve Reich: Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint (1990) "Different Trains, with its locomotive rhythms and melodies generated by the cadences of speech, is a meditation on Reich's wartime childhood and the fate of Jews in the Holocaust; it's the composer's most moving work."

• Orlando Cachaito López: Cachaito (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2001) "Even though the Buena Vista Social Club franchise had thoroughly shaken up world music, nobody was quite ready for this sprawling, eclectic and slightly bonkers album from bassist Cachaito and producer Nick Gold, which mashes reggae, jazz, and French hip-hop with Cuba's finest."

Also on the list were Ry Cooder (Chicken Skin Music), k.d. lang (Ingénue), The Magnetic Fields (69 Love Songs), Brad Mehldau Trio (The Art of the Trio, Vol 4: Back at the Vanguard), and Pat Metheny (80/81).

For all the artists A through M, visit music.guardian.co.uk. Stay tuned for N through Z!