Artist: Jony Iliev & Band
Title: Ma Maren Ma
Label: Asphalt Tango Records (www.asphalt-tango.de)

When Jony sings and his voice moves betwwen four octaves, heart and head are torn. Filled with passion, thrust in between happiness and despair, between poverty and discrimination on one side, freedom and zest for life on the other – Jony Iliev and Band mesmerize with their masterly compositions spiced with Romani lyrics.

"If it rains in Kjustendil it is the saddest place on earth
But if the sun shines, it sure is Paradise."

This is what Jony says about the gypsy quarter of the town where he grew up. It is just 150 km west of Bulgaria's capital Sofia, on the main road to Macedonia, and the blue waters of the Aegean Sea. On the fringes of town you'll find the country's biggest Machala. More than 20,000 gypsies live there, below the surrounding mountains with their summits, 2000 meters above sea level. Here – in an atmospere, which is urban and almost rural at the same time – lie the roots of his music.

Growing up as the youngest of eight brothers in a musicians' family, Jony's vocal talents were acknowledged early on and subsequently encouraged witin the family structure. At the tender age of 10 he already sang at weddings all night long, his powerful and expressive voice charming every listener.

The next step, on to the stages of the world was only a queston of time. It is almost a matter-of-course that by now, Jony Iliev and Band are on the forefront of Bulgaria's new spectacular Roma-Sound. They have this special intense quality about them, dreaming and fantasizing in their songs about life in Sofia, its nightclubs, the American dream and the mudddy lanes of the gypsy quarters of Kjustendil, their home.

So, welcome to the world of Jony Iliev. Join him on his frantic ride through thte streets of Sofia's gypsy quarter – and its nightclubs. Let him entrance you with the Balkan groove of his passionately swinging band, and indulge in the maestro's voice and his lyrics situated somewere between dream and realiy:The dreams of another life; somewhere else; the illuminated streets of Sofia; the clubs; the elegant restaurants with their nostalgic charm – the freedom of spirit.

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Artist: Kasse Mady
Title: Diabate
Label: Narada World (www.narada.com)

Kasse Mady is one of West Africa's greatest voices and one of the most cherished singers in Mali, known for his profound knowledge of Mali's deepest oral and musical traditions, for his ability to adapt these traditions into a modern context, and last but not least, for the sheer beauty and ethereal quality of his tenor voice.

He was born in 1949 in Kela, a renowned center of the Mande griot (jeli) tradition in western Mali, near Kangaba, one of the seats of the great Mali empire. Kasse Mady's family, the Diabates of Kela - all of whom are jelis - were the singers for the emperors and their descendants, the royal Keita lineages. And still today they are considered among the most important and authoritative jeli families across seven West African countries where Mande culture predominates.

While still a young boy Kasse Mady began singing at local weddings and other ceremonies, and around 1970 he was invited to become the lead singer of the dance orchestra of the nearby town Kangaba.

The 1970s was an important period in Mali because of the new Cultural Authenticity policies, which were in vogue in the newly independent nation states of West Africa. In Mali, as elsewhere, musicians were encouraged to return to their own folktore instead of imitating rock and roll or Cuban music. As it happened, Kasse Mady's special blend of traditional Mande folklore with modern instruments was to play an important role in this movement.

By the mid 1980s there was no longer much interest among Malian audiences in the old dance bands of the 1970s. The trend was for singers to try their luck in Paris, the new center for "world music".
Kasse Mady's non-confrontational and peaceful character did not help him to find his way through the labyrinth of royalty payments and contracts and the hard-nosed music business of Paris. Exploited and disappointed,- he returned to Bamako in 1998 - where things began to look up. The music scene in Bamako had picked up considerably since he had left ten years before. For a start, there was now a new democratic government, and renewed interest among the youth in traditional music.

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Artist: Boris Grebenshikov
Title: Russian Songwriter
Label: Naxos world (www.naxosworld.com)

Boris Grebenshikov became the "Darling of Glasnost" during the post-cold war Soviet Rock boom in the USA. "Like many other artists previoulsy branded as antisovetchiki," music critic David Kissinger wrote in 1989, "Grebenshikov and his band mates are now being bear-hugged by a Soviet leadership determined to project a new image to the world." In fact, he was the first Russian rock artist to record in the West. Today, he can still sell out any stadium in Russia.

Russia's greatest living songwriter spends one month every year in a Tibetan monastery. But his independent thinking has not always served his career well. Grebenshikov and his group Akvarium (Aquarium) blasted onto the Leningrad rock scene in 1973, when there were very few "official" groups in the Soviet Union. The poet laureate of Russan rock refused to submit his contemplative songs to the government's censorship committees. When Akvarium could not get sanctioned gigs, they played in underground venues, basements, back alley bars, and through it all they built up one of the most loyal fan bases of any Russian act.

Although Boris still performs and records with Akvarium, since 1984 he has periodically taken some time to do solo albums, including the US-released Radio "Silence in 1989, when the words of the day were glasnost and perestroika. Some of his most interesting musical endeavors have resulted from these personal recordings, where Boris – who is often compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen – is able to explore the roots of his songwriting and Russian heritage. As a result of these releases, Boris has today come to symbolize the best of Russian music, with books of his poetry and lyrics becoming bestsellers and each album a huge success both critcally and popularly.

"For twenty-five years I have dreamed that an album such as this, in the Russian language, would appear in the United States," said Boris, "And now this dream is coming true."

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