CD Review: Toubab Krewe - Live at the Orange Peel

Here in Ithaca, New York, we've been having a bitterly cold end-run of winter. We're talking single digits here, folks, when you have to wear three sweaters, two scarves, and an ankle-length down coat just to step onto the porch to grab the mail. I'm pretty sure that nature intended for me to live in the South of France, or maybe Barbados, but I'm stuck here for the moment, so I'm doing everything I can to stay warm.

One thing that usually works for me, at least a little bit, is to listen to music that I associate with warmness. This is not the time of year that I bust out the Norwegian fiddle CDs or the Inuit throat-singing albums - I'm all about music from either tropical islands or somewhere equatorial. Right now, Toubab Krewe's latest, Live at the Orange Peel is doing it for me. See, Toubab Krewe combines traditional and contemporary West African music with Southern rock and surf-rock. So, in my head, the music reminds me of Sub-Saharan Africa, the deep South, and California beaches all at once... warmness all around. Plus, the music is the sort that makes you feel like dancing which, of course, also goes quite a way towards warming you up.