International musical alphabet pt1

To inject some life into the blog, on account of it becoming a bit moribund, I thought about doing one of these questionnaires. But I was slightly horrified at the amount of information the answers provided. Far better, I thought, to remain a shadowy persona, a fleeting impression of whom might be gleaned from my musings on beetles, pop music, haggis etc.

So I didn't bother with the questionnaire and you can't force these things so, despite the fact that blog worthy stuff is going on in my life, I reconciled myself to waiting until inspiration struck (it saddens me that I couldn't find the words to blog about the trolley bus exhibition at Fulwell Bus Depot back in May).

Anyway, the other day it occurred to me that the last two albums I'd listened to were by musicians from Argentina and Zambia respectively, and that gave me the only slightly desperate idea to do a round the world thingy about records. Alphabetically around the world in twenty six records.

I picked my countries from the first list I found on the internet, only to find that it's not very accurate  - for D I was all set to have Dhekelia on the grounds that I'd never heard of it and it looks a bit science fiction. But it turns out it's just a British military base on Cyprus, so that's no good.

I think I'll probably hop about a bit rather than do it in strict alphabetical order, as there are bound to be hold ups seeking suitable tracks from various territories. For a start I know I want to use a particular track from Peru for P, but I've lost the link and all I've got to go on is that it sounds like an old woman chanting, shaking some shells and someone hitting two bits of wood together.

And there's the matter of X. Not sure what I'm going to do about that one. Still, we live (as always), in turbulent times and perhaps a suitably initialled breakaway republic will pop up in due course.

So, A.  As usual I've no idea how I got on to this track (I do remember though that it was while I was watching a film called Perfume. God, that was a weird film, unrelentingly weird. I never really got used to what I was seeing).  Juana Molina gives us A for Argentina. I don't throw dinner parties myself, but I imagine she could be the next big thing in dinner party music. For all I know she already is. Or was.

Juana Molina La Verdad