Friday, September 1, 2006

OLIVER 'TUKU' MTUKUDZI"Wonai"Sheer SoundAZAM ALI"Elysium for the Brave"Six Degrees

ALTHOUGH HE'S Zimbabwean pop's biggest star, Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi is represented outside his homeland by only a handful of albums. So the new "Wonai" is a handy introduction to the rippling, melodious style that has come to be known simply as "Tuku music." A 15-song career retrospective, "Wonai" is available as either a DVD -- a collection of music videos and concert clips -- or a CD. The latter's tunes are captivating, but the package seems something of an afterthought; it includes only the most basic information about the songs, not identifying the albums from which they're excerpted or even the year in which they were first released.

"Wonai" includes three numbers Mtukudzi recorded with the "supergroups" Mahube and Africa South, including the unfortunate "The Third World Cries Everyday," which seems to be the African counterpart to Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Left to his own devices, the singer-guitarist is no less concerned with social issues, but he delivers his observations mostly in his native Shona and set to melodies that are anything but lugubrious.

With Mtukudzi's expressive baritone framed by lilting guitars, chiming mbiras and buoyant female vocals, such songs as "Todii" and "Chara Chimwe" achieve a gentle but irresistible locomotion. Whatever the lyrics say, Mtukudzi's exhilarating music promises better times.

Iranian-born Azam Ali sings with Niyaz, an L.A. group that yokes traditional Persian music to contemporary electronica. That's part of what Ali does on her second solo album, "Elysium for the Brave," but she also starts to define her own style. Where Niyaz sets Persian verse to music, Ali wrote the lyrics to most of these nine songs and in English. And though the album draws on Indo-Persian rhythms and instruments -- and prominently features Niyaz members Carmen Rizzo and Loga Ramin Torkian -- Ali's vocals and melodies dominate.

Among the more venturesome songs are "The Tryst," featuring hazy guitar by King Crimson's Trey Gunn, and "Forty One Ways," in which Ali varies her usually ethereal vocal tone with some earthier passages. The singer is still most likely to appeal to fans of such somber divas as Enya and Lisa Gerrard, and the album's title does suggest alarming goth tendencies. Yet "Elysium for the Brave" is accomplished and frequently lovely, and if Ali comes fully into her own, perhaps one day she'll even crack a smile.

-- Mark Jenkins

Appearing Saturday at Planet Arlington: World Music Festival with Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul, Los Mocosos and Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars. Mtukudzi also appearing Saturday at Zanzibar on the Waterfront.