With the commercial exploitation of the American colonies, thousands of Africans are brought to Seville to be sold as slaves. Some are exported to the colonies and others stay in the city. The latter form part of a population of Afro-Andalusians, who over time manage to gain space in a society wrought with racial prejudices, whilst dealing with their situation as slaves. Music and dance will be part of their expression and the most important affirmation of their identity. From the outskirts of cities like Seville and Cadiz they give shape to the popular music of the time, together with other marginalised communities such as the gypsies, moors and Andalusians on the cities' peripheries. From the XIX century, the black population begins to disappear, partly being assimilated into parts of the community like that of the gypsies. In this same century we start to hear about a new type of music: Flamenco. Since its beginning theorists who have spoken about this art form have completely forgotten the fundamental contribution the Afro-Andalusians made to it.
As the band Placebo approached their 20th anniversary they were given a unique opportunity to play ten cities throughout Russia. In a time when Russia was at the forefront of the world's current affairs, little was actually reported outside the country about its internal culture.
Lunar Orbit takes us deep into the Ultraworld of the pioneers of ambient house music. We explore The Orb's unique creative process with unprecedented studio access and delve into the story behind the music.
Fed up with the lack of critical appreciation despite being a successful writer, Abhimanyu Roy returns to his roots in Kolkata to write more meaningful literature and decides on an old-fashioned love story - which was now, 3 years in the making. This writer's block is called Bindu. How do you contain this unpredictable, crazy, restless, larger than life, live wire in the pages of a book? As Abhi says ''You know when a song comes on and you just have to dance? Bindu was that song. That silly infectious joyful tune you couldn't get out of your head - even if you wanted to." So where should he begin? Where should he end? But when Abhi stumbles across an old audio cassette of their favourite playlist, it sends Abhi down memory lane - and as he waltzes in and out of his past and present through the songs in the mixed tape, he finally faces reality and reconnects with his roots, with his family and his novel starts writing itself. Of course, life in its usual scheming manner surprises him yet again and changes the ending of his book and his life, as he once again finds himself being pulled back into the centre of that crazy little thing called love. He realises, that love, is neither time- nor place-dependent. - All we need is the right person next to us and of course the right soundtrack.
A celebration of the life and works of guitar virtuoso Mick Ronson, the rock hero and significant Bowie collaborator. As a member of Bowie's backing band The Spiders From Mars in the early 1970s, Ronson contributed to some of the most iconic compositions, lyrics and recordings in contemporary music.
Ronson went on to record several solo albums and also earned a reputation as a sought-after session musician who played with Ian Hunter, Lou Reed and Morrissey, and toured with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison.