Charlie Winston
Ibeyi

It's been almost a decade since Charlie Winston hit the scene, starting with radio then the stage, in France and Belgium. Within five notes and a whistle, the lanky hat wearer turned the fate of vagabonds jumping off a freight train into a peerless folk soul hit. Since Like A Hobo (2009), he's put out a regular stream of hits (Kick The Bucket, Hello Alone), platinum discs (Hobo) and more slow-burning albums (Curio City). The impeccable 40-something gent with the crooked trilby is back from oblivion and three years of radio silence since Curio City and its electro textures that threw off some of his fans. And Charlie is ready. Square 1 is a mature and militant record with a good dose of melancholy. Winston describes the fourth record as the fourth cornerstone. The title draws on the expression "back to square one". The Brit oozing French chic is certainly going back to his roots. Folk pop is still the Cornwall singer's (1978) favourite playground switching between funky tracks (the hedonistic The Weekend), deep ballads and world music experiments putting Toumani Diabaté's kora and Aresh Druvesh's tablas into his modern and natural folk style.

Crédit photo: © C. Gamus

Ibeyi ("twins" in Yoruba) are a Franco-Cuban duo made up of non-identical twin sisters Lisa and Naomi Diaz from Paris. They recorded their debut album (Ibeyi, 2015) in Richard Russell's studio. After a world tour they came back with their brand new record, Ash (still with Russell at the helm). The Diaz sisters have a contemporary spiritual style with punches of hip hop, electro and fat bass. Naomi adores rap, raggae and dance hall whilst soul is more Lisa's thing. They clearly agree about the substance and speak the same way they sing: together but not with one voice. Their lyrics are in English, Spanish and Yoruba, the Santería language. Their Cuban father, the famous Anga Diaz (died in 2006), played drums for Chucho Valdés, Roy Hargrove and Steve Coleman. When he died, the sisters learnt to play their father's favourite instrument, the cajón. Since the release of The Dawn (1998), the concert's special guest trumpet player Erik Truffaz has sprinkled hip hop, pop, drum 'n' bass, African and Indian spices and jazz into a world straddling electric ether (the Miles Davis/Sun Ra connection) and enlightened rock culture. The theme running through the trumpet player's 20-odd albums with vocals (Nya, Christophe, Sophie Hunger, Rioka Traoré, Oxmo Puccino etc.) has always been about blending styles.

Line-up : Naomi Diaz (voc), perc: cajon batas pads), Lisa-Kaindé Diaz : (voc, (k), Erik Truffaz (t)

Crédit photo: © D. Uzochukwu, DR