WOMAD New Zealand 2018 is on at Brooklands Park, New Plymouth, from March 16 to 18.

www.womad.co.nzwww.womad.co.nz

The internationally established three day world music, arts and dance festival is known for its exciting and diverse line-up and this year’s event is no exception.

Over the weekend Brooklands Park will ring with the sounds of a melting pot of folk, afro-funk, hip hop, classical, jazz and punk rock performed on violins, ouds, koras and squeeze boxes. With artists from countries as varied as Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Mauritania delivering a blend of traditional and modern performances; expect diverse languages, cultures, harmonies and rhythms from the big names and to discover glorious artists you’ve never heard of. 

Making up the 33 exciting and eclectic artists from across the globe performing at WOMAD 2018 will be familiar festival favourites; the pioneer of bass-dominant, dub flavoured dance tunes, UK’s Adrian Sherwood, the heavy metal inspired acoustic guitar duo from Mexico, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Washington D.C. based DJ collective, the uniquely diverse dub inspired Thievery Corporation. 

Joining them will be; the highly anticipated Los Angeles saxophonist, composer and jazz superstar Kamasi Washington, the Indian classical and progressive sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar and classic Kiwi band Dragon. 

Brazilian 10 piece, Bixiga 70 will deliver dizzying heights of progressive Afrobeat, Tinariwen will delight audiences with their scorching Mali desert blues and Havana Meets Kingston's sound-clash of reggae, dub and dancehall with salsa and rumba will be sure to make the crowds move. 

Lebanon’s soulful, classically trained Ghada Shbeir and Israel’s vocal hip hop star Victoria Hanna will deliver tales from ancient texts and stories of current social injustices. Chilean political-punk-poet Nano Stern and Ghanaian Jojo Abot who seamlessly blends electronica, indie-soul, reggae and hip hop, will be  part of a growing global conversation with audiences.

Always a highlight of WOMAD are the talents of local artists and 2018 looks to be one of the most exciting yet with the “toweringly talented song writer” Aldous Harding and Auckland city’s Hopetoun Brown, who will stomp and parp their way into audience hearts with nothing but brass, a bass clarinet, two sets of tambourines and tonsils. West Auckland newcomers, The Miltones will deliver some excellent knee slappin’, foot stompin’ and booty shakin’ tunes. The award winning Māori soul acoustic artist Maisey Rika will capture hearts, and with deep roots in the classical world, Black Quartet will impress with their vast sea of influences, from blues, rock, jazz and pop. From Taranaki, The Slacks will bring home some classic kiwi messages of unity, aroha, and community.

“WOMAD 2018 is a fantastic representation of World music today and continues to support diverse voices on stages” - Emere Wano, WOMAD Event Director & NZ Programme Manager.

WOMAD New Zealand 2018 is on at Brooklands Park, New Plymouth, from March 16 to 18. Tickets on sale from www.womad.co.nz

Groove WOMAD song of the Day - Letter to the Editor by Thievery Corporation

From now until 16 March Groove will be featuring one of the artists coming to WOMAD 2018.
First up is one of our favourites:  Thievery Corporation.

Thievery Corporation is an American electronic music duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton. Their musical style mixes elements of dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern, hip hop, electronica, and Brazilian, including bossa nova.

They make abstract, instrumental, midtempo dance music whose classification falls somewhere between trip-hop and acid jazz. Featuring the production skills of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, Thievery Corporation released several warmly received singles on their own Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL) label (named after their own Washington, D.C. bar and nightclub) in 1996. Although previously known primarily among acid jazz and rare-groove DJs, the group shot to minor celebrity when a track from one of their early 12"s appeared on respected DJ/producers Kruder & Dorfmeister's mix session for Studio K7's DJ Kicks series. Similar in many respects to that Viennese production duo, Thievery Corporation subsequently grew in popularity among a wider audience of DJs and headphonauts.

The duo's debut LP, Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi, appeared in 1997, along with a compilation of Washington, D.C.-based electronica artists entitled Dubbed Out in DC (both albums were released by ESL). After signing with the British label 4AD, Thievery Corporation began to work on their second LP but were forced to postpone its release date after tapes were stolen in a mugging. The stopgap remix compilation Abductions & Reconstructions was released in 1999, and their second proper album, The Mirror Conspiracy, followed one year later. The duo's growing fame made them a natural choice to select tracks for the 2001 Verve compilation Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi.  Also one of Groove's favorite albums.

They returned to their own work in 2002 with The Richest Man in Babylon, and the mix album Outernational Sound and remix EP Babylon Rewound both appeared in 2004. That same year, the track "Lebanese Blonde" was featured in the highly successful Garden State soundtrack, which later won a Grammy Award. Released in 2005, The Cosmic Game featured guest vocalists Perry Farrell, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, and David Byrne, and the remix compilation Versions followed in 2006. As election season approached, Thievery Corporation released the politically minded studio effort Radio Retaliation in September 2008. Featuring a guest appearance from Mr. Lif, Culture of Fear arrived in 2011 and mixed social commentary with dub tracks. Their 2014 release, Saudade, turned their music in a different direction, being a bossa nova-based effort with guest vocalists like LouLou Ghelichkhani, Karina Zeviani, and Elin Melgarejo. For their eighth studio album, 2017's Temple of I & I, the duo temporarily relocated to Jamaica, where they could fully channel their dub/reggae influences into the recording process.  Here's a track from the latest disc:

For more info go to: http://www.thieverycorporation.com/ or https://www.womad.co.nz/