Dozens more acts named for WOMAD (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Dozens more acts named for WOMAD

10:00am Tuesday 5th June 2012 in Malmesbury

The latest stars to appear at WOMAD festival’s 30th birthday at Charlton Park, Malmesbury, have been unveiled.

Many big names have already been announced for the event from July 27-29, including Robert Plant presents Sensational Space Shifters, Jimmy Cliff, Hugh Masekela and Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club featuring Omara Portuondo.

More than two dozen further artists have just been added to the bill including Khaled, who is the ‘king’ of Algerian rai singers and is said to match irresistible charisma with a soaring sandpaper-and-honey voice.

Meanwhile blind singer-songwriter Gurrumul, from Elcho Island off the coast of Aust-ralia’s Northern Territories, who has sold millions of records across the world, is also expected to be a big attraction.

While WOMAD is known for presenting folk music from all corners of the earth, it’s also celebrated for presenting cutting-edge sounds; Toddla T & Serocee, a Sheffield DJ/producer and a Brummie-Jamaican MC who create an unstoppable urban music tag-team, are leading the way on that front.

Another home-grown project, DJ Yoda and the Trans-Siberian Marching Band, finds the disc-spinner sharing a stage with the massed horns and drums of this high-energy combo.

From New York, Balkan Beat Box return to WOMAD stages for another glorious mash-up of border-ignoring electronica that draws from far and wide.

The Lisbon-based project Batida takes the vintage rhythms of Angolan kuduro music and gives it a thoroughly 21st-century makeover.

From South Africa, Johann-esburg DJ/producer Spoek Mathambo will make his WOMAD debut. His original take on house and electro stops in their tracks everyone in earshot.

Two Senegalese musicians also join the proceedings: singer Omar Pene has, for years, been Youssou N’Dour’s great rival on the airwaves and stages of Dakar, while Carlou D has traded his time as a rapper with Positive Black Soul to become a guitar-toting troubadour, his songs full of gravity and insight.

There’s also a double dose of Cameroonian musicians heading to Wiltshire. Blick Bassy is a singer-songwriter whose love of bossa nova flavours his jazz-flecked creations, while Kareyce Fotso’s calm, smoky voice sets her up to be one of this year’s lesser lights to make an impact above and beyond her current reputation.

Also flying north are Hot Water, the multi-racial combo from Cape Town who stir a multitude of indigenous South African styles into their stew of pop and folk.

From the island of Réunion, 500 miles east of Madagascar, comes Urbain Philéas, a purveyor of the local style called maloya, an intoxicating amalgam of furious percussion and call-and-response vocals.

Further north – Nairobi – is the spiritual home of the Owiny Sigoma Band, a collaboration between Kenyan musicians and a handful of their London counterparts which could be one of the highlights of the whole weekend.

WOMAD always issues invitations across the Atlantic and artists from Louisiana are among those to be taking part.

The Pine Leaf Boys are an energetic young Cajun band from the state’s swamplands who are ambassadors for the age-old rural sound.

From New Orleans are the Soul Rebels Brass Band, who combine rap and funk.

Also expected to make a big impression are Portico Quartet, the Mercury-nominated instrumental four-piece signed to WOMAD’s sister organisation, Real World Records; the singer-songwriter Jamie Catto who, aside from co-founding Faithless, was one-half of the much-lauded 1 Giant Leap project; and Revere, the London-based indie-rock seven-piece (and occasional Toumani Diabate collaborators) who will be making their acoustic debut at WOMAD.

WOMAD also offers Portuguese fado (Deolinda), Nubian singing and drumming from Egypt (Nuba Nour), Greek rembetika (Apsilies), fleet-footed electro-jazz (The Correspondents), pan-European folk (Chet Nuneta), the multinational sound of London Town (Vadoinme-ssico).

Tickets can be booked at 0118 960 6060 or visit www.womad.co.uk