The MacAlba

I seem to have been discovering new and exciting music every week recently. I’ve just ordered two CDs from Fraser Fifield – a sort of “Folk/Balkan/Jazz” fusion. I recently heard some tracks from the Fraser Fifield Trio on the BBC Radio Scotland Be-Bop to Hip-Hop programme and was quite taken with them.

More on those in a few weeks time.

Over the past few days I’ve been re-ripping a few hundred CDs at a higher bit rate. I’m also taking advantage of iTunes new feature whereby individual movements of classical pieces can be aggregated, or joined, to a single track. This latter feature makes per-track shuffling a more practical proposition.

The CD that I’ve just finished listening to, and re-discovering, is “World Fusion“, a Magnatune compilation. The compilation is a selection of works by musicians in Magnatune’s “World” genre.

Of the fifteen tracks there was only one track that I felt slighly disinterested in to begin with, but then it grew on me.

I think it’s the unusual (to me) mix of old and new, traditional and modern, that is most refreshing:

• Beth Quist: electro-Balkan/Indian meets New Age
• Curandero: Flamenco guitar meets Indian Tabla
• Falik: middle-eastern infused with electronica