¡Globalquerque! Announces 2009 Line-Up

¡Globalquerque! is at the very top of my "American World Music Festivals That I've Gotta Get To" list, and has been for several years. Why? Because they book the best lineup. Instead of being booked by an amorphous committee, or a sleazy music-biz type that only looks at ticket sales histories when choosing a lineup, or even just booked by some lovely person who genuinely has no concept of world music beyond Enya and Celtic Woman, ¡Globalquerque! is booked by a couple of guys, Neal Copperman and Tom Frouge, who actually know what they're doing. Okay, so their lineup is not always packed with a bunch of international superstars, but when have we hard-core world music types cared about pesky details like that? The beauty of attending a well-booked festival is in knowing that you're going to find something new, and at ¡Globalquerque!, you will.

¡Globalquerque! takes place this year on September 25 and 26 in the beautiful Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM. The lineup to date is as follows:

• Blick Bassy (Cameroon)
• Cava (U.S.)
• Maria de Barros (Cape Verde)
• Indian Ocean (India)
• Mamak Khadem (Iran)
• Kusun Ensemble (Ghana)
• Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver (U.S.)
• Little Cow (Hungary)
• Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo)
• Mono Blanco (Mexico)
• Nation Beat (Brazil/U.S.)
• Novalima (Peru)
• Saints & Tzadiks: Susan McKeown & Lorin Sklamberg (Irish/Yiddish)
• Toppah & Yazzie (Dine/Kiowa)
• Vasen with Darol Anger & Mike Marshall (Sweden/U.S.)

I've seen six of these bands in real life: the exuberant and always incredible Kusun Ensemble, whose dancing actually made my jaw drop the first time I saw them; the hot, hot, hot bluegrass pickers Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver; Mexico's enchanting Mono Blanco, who are at the forefront of the "renovadar" (renaissance) of traditional son jarocho music, and who were my favorite discovery at the 2008 Penang World Music Festival in Malaysia; Nation Beat, who tear the house down with their Brazilian-meets-Louisiana-cowboy blend every time they play; Novalima, who I just saw a few weeks ago and who I think actually made me a genuinely cooler person for having heard them; and Vasen, who might simply be three of the world's absolute greatest (and unquestionably tallest) instrumentalists. Suffice it to say, if you go, you're in for a treat. You're also in for the wrath of my jealousy, but that's a story for a different time.