Umalali - The Garifuna Women's Project
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Free Music Notes for The Garifuna Women's Project
Free Music Review: Excellent!
Hit: 5 Stars
Another great project from the Garifuna people. Don't have the CD in front of me, but kudos to the producer. Shared the CD w/a co-worker of Belizean descent (her mother grew up not far from the locale mentioned in the liner notes) and she loved it! Just all around great music. Too bad Andy Palacio isn't around to hear this CD's praise.Free Music Review: Some beautifully arresting music. It gets under your skin.
Hit: 4 Stars
Andy Palacio's W?tina was one of last year's most highly rated world albums, a showcase for the music and culture of his Garifuna people, descendants of shipwrecked slaves who retain powerful African influences in their villages on Belize's Caribbean coast.
While Palacio died suddenly in January, his legacy is continued here by his producer, Ivan Duran, who brings together a number of singular female voices to explore the women's side of the Garifuna story.
The Garifuna communities of Central America's Atlantic coast are beginning to seem like the new Cape Verde -- there is so much good music coming out of there. The truth is that it has as much to do with the love of Belizean producer Ivan Duran for the music and the people as any one musician breaking it big.
"Umalali" is one of those records that keeps getting under your skin. Plaintive harmonised voices call and respond over the traditional beat of the music and are subtly and successfully added to by sensitive production and additional instrumentation to produce an album that is every bit as good as the late, great Andy Palacio's and a good deal more consistent throughout.
The album was built up over many years. Research giving way to field recordings, followed by studio recording, giving way to additional instruments and finally the whole thing was painstakingly produced. It is, like the Garifuna themselves, a fusion but where it succeeds over the vast majority of field recordings meet studio time projects is in the seamlessness of the end result. It feels every bit the kind of music you might hear sung on a Caribbean evening by a couple of guys with guitars coming back to the village and jamming with the women folk.
In music as in much of life, intention is every bit as important as execution. No sane person would go about making a recording in this way if their intention was just to spice up some traditional sounds for a global market.
The gnarled and penetrating voice that opens this enchanting disc belongs to 54-year-old Sofia Blanco, and her gently scolding song was composed by her husband Gregorio. They've been singing together for nearly four decades in this lovely Guatemalan/Honduran/Belizean answer to the blues.
Their drumming is Nigerian, their main language is Spanish, and their "paranda" musical tradition is Carib: a fascinating mix, leading to some wonderfully arresting music.
Duran's guitar-based arrangements deftly draw out the music's diverse resonances, nudging towards proto-funk, Afro-pop and blues without disrupting the informal barefoot-on-the-beach feel: the voices combining throaty warmth and vigour with a spooky African yearning.
Yet while there's the intimation of a strong, self-contained women's musical culture, Duran's male hand on the tiller prevents it from emerging as powerfully as it might.
Still, this as an affecting album, full of unusual and beautifully realised moods and textures.
The songs deal with all aspects of Garifuna life in Belize, including hurricanes and murders as well as work and childbirth.
Propelled onwards by guitar and drums, their effect is gracefully seductive.
Also welcome on this album is the variety of pace from the fast and frantic "?fayah?dina (I Have Traveled)" to the anthemic and intoxicating opener "Nibari (My Grandchild)" and back again to the catchy, sax-laden "M?rua".
Free Music Review: Outstanding in every way
Hit: 5 Stars
Besides introducting us to the little known music of the Black-Caribbean Indian Garifuna peoples living along the coast of Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, this CD is enhanced with interactive videos of the folk artists in their homes and villages, of celebrations, and of demonstrations of different drum rhythms. [A computer is required for running the videos.] The music itself is strongly West African with more than a Latin tinge and it is sung in Garifuna, although Spanish is the primary language. The sound is unique and full of emotion and rhythm. I certainly wanted to hear more and learn more after purchasing this collection, a joyful education.Free Music Review: Enlightening
Hit: 5 Stars
The sound of these women's voices is incredible. You can hear hints of all the ancestoral influences. Africa, Maya, and hints of India and the east...
Listen and find out for yourself.
Free Music Review: Incredible collection of Garifuna music
Hit: 5 Stars
All songs sung by women, this cd gives people the opportunity to hear the voices of women singing Garifuna music they have composed themselves or members of their family have composed. Garifunas from different communities/countries in Central America are well represented in this collection. The explanations of the songs, the women's experiences, and the song translations increase my appreciation for the music even though I do not understand what they are saying in the moment.
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