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Zimami Balibalele by Nothembi Mkhwebane
Zimami Balibalele by Nothembi Mkhwebane
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"This reminds me of my dad. He was into liberation drum circles in the Matabele community in Zimbabwe and he worked with people from that community. This is a record from the Ndebele language. Nothembi is an amazing guitarist and it's a rocking album with amazing synths as well. I've been playing this quite a bit over the past year. I almost got to play with her but she didn't turn up. My dad used to listen to Thomas Mapfumo - who supported The Stone Roses at Spoke Island - and I thought this was really funny [at the time] - I should have asked my dad to come along to that gig! My influences for music were more down to my big brother and sister and my mam was into different music again. It's inevitable that you are influenced by people around you. I'd get Anglo-American punk rock and pop music from my brother and sister but my dad wasn't into that; [for him] reggae was acceptable and maybe Welsh language pop. He didn't engage with music to the point where he had influenced my sound whereas my brother and sister's records influenced me directly."

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Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark by Gene Clark / Dillard & Clark / Doug Dillard
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"This well known 1968 album is a pun on the fantastic expedition of Lewis and Clark, the famous leaders of the USA's 'Corps of Discovery' who were the first east coast Americans to successfully negotiate the north west passage to the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century. Of course this ties in beautifully to the John Evans story featured in American Interior - Lewis and Clark used the maps he created between 1795-7 (whilst searching for a mythical tribe of Welsh speaking First Nation Americans) for the first year of their expedition. There's a keen sense of the rhythm of exploration on this fantastic record. Dillard's peerless banjo picking could easily power a steam boat up the Missouri River and Clark's melancholic musings on songs like 'Train Leaves Here This Morning' give a clear sense of long distance travel and loss. Meanwhile a team of proto Country Rock greats including Bernie Leadon, Sneaky Pete and Chris Hillman play away busily in the background, setting the benchmark for the mellow mountain sound that would dominate the airwaves the world over in the following years."

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ClareR (5726 KP) rated To The Dogs in Books

Mar 26, 2024  
To The Dogs
To The Dogs
Louise Welsh | 2024 | Contemporary, Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
To The Dogs by Louise Welsh is a gritty Glaswegian thriller that had me hooked from the first page.
Jim (James) Brennan is a criminologist professor, a vice chancellor of the local university. We meet him as he gets off a flight from Beijing in order to go to his local police station where his son is being held. Jim has tried hard to make his life as different as possible from the one he grew up in: his father was a local legend and hard man. Everyone was scared of his violence. It looks as though Jim’s son is determined to take up from where his grandfather left off.

Things go from bad to worse, when someone is determined to undermine everything Jim has tried to do for himself and his family.

I really enjoyed this. There’s never a dull moment (much to Jim’s detriment!), and Jim finds himself in a terribly awkward situation. He has to decide between his family and his reputation - or is there a way that he can protect both?

This is exciting stuff, and had me guessing up to the last page.