Programmer Marc Decock left last week for Babel Med, the peerless world-music showcase-festival at "Dock Des Suds" in Marseille.. Here are his highlights:
- Best opener: Jambinai. Still from Korea with their post-rock heavy metal folk and were in the ABClub just last year. Every festival should open with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ABpjyc1Gs - Best kuduro or ‘tight butt’ dance music: Batida, again from Portugal and/or Angola, and the perfect thing for fans of Buraka Som Sistema, Throes & The Shine (and beautiful legs and images).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclCZzN3cPQ - Best cover: the slightly too explosively named Boom Pam from Israel with Alakazam. Hocus pocus, do you recognize the original?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA3fV3QRvvU - Best local Jaune Toujours: Zoufris Maracas from France, in French but with rumba accents, gypsy rhythms and tropical ‘saveurs’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsyHwlsO_8s - Best accordion: irrefutably Chango Spasiuk from Argentina, and the ‘shaman of the chamamé’, but they already even know that in Antwerp and surrounding areas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0P4di0q7hc - Best, well, rather confusing name: La Dame Blanche, mainly from Cuba and with that burning ‘latin urban’ that melts many an icecream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfsInOaSh4Q - Best museum annex esplanade annex botanical garden: as ever, Mucem on the old harbour, ahead of the wind, urbanisation at its best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV5TX8SAppo
http://www.mucem.org/
