A small yet musically dynamite African nation will be heard on this week’s program..  formerly Dahomey, currently Bénin, and perpetually mistaken as a part of Nigeria, this sliver of a nation in West Africa blends beautiful native rhythms with Latin percussion, French-language pomp, rock’n’roll swagger, and the soul of the ancient Vodoun spiritual heritage.

This is pretty much the greatest synthesis of far-flung styles that humans have yet created:

All aboard, we’re trippin’ to Honduras this week.  Expect a fruity mix of Carribean, African, and Latin flavours — blended to the point of no barriers.  The Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people (spread across the Carribean Coast of Belize, Guatamala, Honduras and Nicaragua) carry the sonic torch of punta rock… a hybrid dance groove that lives and breathes musical mastery:

And this should at least make you giggle:

Is that a synth-flute he’s playing?  Only in Tegucigalpa..

No time for half steppin’– we’ve got a fully far-out show for you this week, guaranteed to bring unfamiliar frequencies through your ear canal and right into your temporal lobe.

To kick off the show at high noon, we will be joined by the masterful, mysterious one-man-tornado who goes by the name Zen Junkie.  He will perform several acoustic delights and present music from his debut LP, The Good Monster.  This is music to shock the senses into absolute attunement.

We shall then dip into uncharted waters, as we begin our monumental trip through the Stans (well we already visited Pakistan, but that’s a different sound altogether).  Just east of the Caspian Sea lies Türkmenistan, second only to North Korea in its self-imposed isolation from the world.  Only 2% of the population have internet access.  Beards are illegal.  The months are named after the President’s family.  MCs are imprisoned for swearing in their music.

But, as we’ve come to expect from all true humans, the music is top-notch:

Vietnamese musicians don’t get enough credit for their role in the modern sonic soundscape…

They developed the original vocoder (k’ni):

They rocked the theremin (đàn bầu) long before the days of electrical current.  Warning, the following video will melt your face off:

And as the Vietnamese War continued to escalate in the early 70s, groups like the CBC Band set a new standard for political protest music, eventually leading to exile from their homeland.

This and more as we explore; Viet Nam on our weekly Program.