The variation between any two styles of taarab equals the distance from ska to dancehall squared. Throwing out Zanzibari traditions and urban amplification alike, Zein L'Abin Ahmed Almoody's embrace of the oud opens the floodgates to Nile civilization influences. If you can decode the supplied chart of relationship between rhythms and modes, and you're not some kind of an initiate, let me know. Eyes closed, hands clasped behind their heads, they slide down the reggae pop chute like nothing. And I mean nothing.
Irish music is worldbeat's poor relation.
Even bluegrass gets more respect, though Celtic echoes run through pop as far removed from Cork as Soweto. And at full-tilt a reel is as Dionysian as your average runaway juju locomotive. Swan's self-absorbed synthesizer virtuosity spawns chilly planetscapes when he should be sowing fecund matter for vocalist Talitha MacKenzie's hymns to Demeter. Panpipes and Andean flutes choke some of the finest musicians with nostalgia, perhaps because the vestiges of Incan folk music haven't evolved on their own into broader form of pop. Harp, guitar and woodwinds evoke brisk patches of sunlight deftly split into prismatic components, easy on the bouncy melancholia.