Belgium - Brussels

 So we arrive in the capital of Belgium, Brussels or Bruxelles or Brussel, the bilingual capital of Europe.  Like most capital cities it is a big melting pot of cultures, which is reflected in the local music scene, so we'll be hearing music styles from all over the world here.

We start with my favourite band here, Jaune Toujours.  Their style has been described as mestiza, a blend of salsa, Latin, ska, Balkan and punk.  The term they use for their style is Europeana, as opposed to Americana.  They sing in French, Flemish and English.  This song called La Bruxellois is from their 2009 album Kolektiv:

Here's another nice ska number from their 2018 album Europeana called Save Le Monde.  It's a beautiful day to save the world... :)

The Ångströmers is a cluster of sound artists and musicians around the Brussels record label Ångström.  In their latest collaboration they have teamed up with Haitian 6-piece band Chouk Bwa where Afro-Caribbean Voodoo polyrhythms meet bass-weight dub electronics.  An explosive mix, mostly recorded in Brussels, their album Vodou Alé came out in May.  This is the title track from the album:

Brussels other claim to fame is that with some 40 Gnawa musicians living in the city it takes the claim as Gnawa capital of Europe.  Jola is a project to bring most of them together to record an album, which was released in March as Jola - Hidden Gnawa Music in Brussels, which is available on Bandcamp.  In Moroccon dialect 'Jola' means tour is the term for an essential step in a musician's initiation to the tagnawit (the way of the Gnawa).  The launch concert for the album got cancelled, because of the Covid pandemic, but instead they recorded some of the musicians in their homes.  On the album the sound is of course a lot fuller with the musicians playing together rather than solo with plenty percussion:

Five-piece hybrid jazz combo Black Flower piloted by saxophonist and flutist Nathan Daems mixes Ethio-jazz and oriental sounds with afrobeat and dub.  In 2016 they spent 2 days in a studio mixing a largely improvised album called Ghost Radio, which was initially released as a limited run on vinyl.  It sold out fast and they have recently re-released the vinyl as well as a digital download version.  Here's a track from that album called Ray:

Also inspired by Ethio-jazz is 6-piece combo Azmari, who were created in 2015 fusing it with psychgroove, funk and dub.  Azmari, meaning one who praises in Amharic, is the term for an Ethiopian singer/musician equivalent to a European bard or a West African griot.  They only appear to have one EP so far called Ekera released in 2019. Here's the hypnotic opening track to the EP called Dolmuş:

Finally, Refugees for Refugees and is an ensemble of 10 accomplished musicians, displaced by wars and political instability, who got stranded in Brussels and formed a band under the guidance of Belgian Tristan Driessens.  The musicians hail from Syria, Tibet, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Their music is all about breaking boundaries and represents all their respective cultures along the historic southern Silk Road.  It's a beautiful and varied collection of songs and well worth supporting.  Their second album, released in 2019, is called Amina and here is the title track from it:

I hope you enjoyed our international tour of Brussels.  As usual you follow my virtual journey on my Tripline map.