The Rough Guide to Planet Rock
Label: World Music Network
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Rough Guide to Planet Rock, The
You haven’t heard music until you’ve heard the Tuvan throat-singing punk band Yat-Kha tackle ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.â?� Seriously. This disc pushes the definition of ‘rockâ?� in a few instances, but the combination of a few familiar genre-benders (the gypsy rockers of Gogol Bordello, the wouldn’t-have-made-it-on-Cambodian-Rocks surf pop of L.A.’s Dengue Fever) and relatively unknown talents is a thrilling introduction to the many ways that rock & roll gets transmogrified when it lands in faraway places. Strong showings from Guinea’s Ba Cissoko (the frenetic, electric ‘Sabolanâ?�) and the grinding Hungarian folk of Transsylvanians once again indicate the Rough Guides‘ preference for Eastern European and African hybrids, but, when you’ve got Yat-Kha breaking it down in the Garden of Eden, what’s there to complain about?
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.