In all styles, in all places, there are strong women who craft songs just as well as the fellas. In celebration of International Women’s Day 2016, we present a playlist of great female composers and performers – from the big band era to the present – who breached the status quo to share their art, and in the process have divined a more equal world:
World Music
On the Edge of Earth’s Darkest Canyon
Deeper than the Himalayan Mountains are tall, the Mariana Trench is the most mysterious, wettest corner of our incredible planet. And the Northern Mariana Islanders call this place their backyard. If you ever get a chance, you gotta try the fish and chips..
Dragonfish smiling for camera
In a bizarre chain of historical events, this far-flung chain of islands has at various points been under Spanish, German, Japanese, and American control. And if you want United States citizenship, just go there to get born!
“House of Taga” on Tinian Island. What ancient wizards built this?
Despite a rapidly growing immigrant population (particularly Filipino), the music of the Mariana Islands remains deeply rooted in the native Chamorro language and culture. Easy-going vibes and beautiful melodies abound, in a tongue that seems to be a lovely hybrid of Micronesian and Spanish. Can you get any smoother?!
Tambien, the first hour’s Global Mix:
Another UnorthodoXmas
If you too tire of the same melodies played on repeat every December, here’s an odd collection of songs that may worm their way around your brain and cure your seasonal soundtrack disorder. Happy Solstice, magical holidays, and may you find peace and happiness in your own singular way.
Play for Human Rights Day
Good people, today is International Human Rights Day, where we step back to look at the progress we have made in our quest for equality and justice on this planet. It’s easy to look at all the problems worldwide, murders and wars, and settle on hopelessness. But in the grand old scheme of things, we are making progress (or maybe more accurately, slowly returning to a state of consciousness that we had reached thousands of years ago, and lost).
And music! Well this is one thing we can count on to inspire and heal the crazy planetarians. For this important moment, I present you with an hour of renegade music of many vibes – sonic proof that the madness can always strengthen our resolve to be more loving and more alive.
Then we switch scales completely and visit the Saudi Arabian music scene, where some artists must hide in secrecy, risking their lives for their art form and their belief in freedom of speech.
Introducing my bizarro cumbia band.. MNGWA!
Dear far out friends,
Even though posts on this site have been infrequent, the Wandering Rhythms weekly radio show has never missed a beat. Recent trips through the soundscapes of North Korea, North Ireland, Dominican Republic, and the Cook Islands have kept me inspired in this weekly journey of ever-changing musicians.
But this is something personal, the project that has been my other musical obsession for the past two years. This band is the embodiment of the music I like to play most on this show; a wild multicultural mashup of styles that never settle into a single rhythm. We are nine musicians from Mexico, Russia, and Canada that play progressive latin music, jumping from dub to rock, funk to reggaeton, but always settling back into cumbia. We are Mngwa, and we call our music Vancumbia.
Here is our first music video, shot entirely on Kingsway, home to many immigrant communities and also the oldest strip in Vancouver:
And here is our debut record, the first ever Wandering Rhythms production.
WANDERING RHYTHMS RADIO 