Dhol Foundation, St Georges, 14 November

This is my least favourite part of the year - dismal sunless days followed by long dark nights. At around 4 o'clock when light fades, the only way to cheer yourself up is to get out the Casablanca DVD yet again - but wait! Today is different! The mighty Dhol Foundation are playing Bristol this afternoon. You need Dhol drums to get you out of the doldrums and jeez, do this band do it!

I'm in the front row - blistering, ear-popping bhangra beats meet swirling celtic jigs and still we all sit. Johnny K keeps telling us to do him a favour - he's working hard and those drums weigh a ton and he NEEDS US TO GET UP AND DANCE! This is genteel St Georges where wealthy Cliftonians come for their culture - we don't dance here. If Funkadelic, Kool and the Gang and Chuck Berry shared a bill here we would all sit still. Finally, some brave souls go for it and stand up - yep that's right - STAND UP! Slowly, more surrender to that ecstatic Punjabi rhythm - surely one of the most compelling in all world music. We practice our moves. We do impromptu jigs with complete strangers. The summer festival vibe descends on a dark November afternoon. Johnny's happy at last and at the end all's well with the world as we stumble out of the hall, sunshine and long days pumping in our veins. Dhol Foundation rock. Period.

Le Trio Joubran, St Georges, 29 Sep 2010

A splendid show from the oud-wielding brothers from Nazareth. The oud must be one of the most beautiful instruments in the world, both in appearance and sound, and this concert was a real showcase. The trio's on-stage communication both with each other and the audience was remarkable, and the mellow sound they coaxed from their instruments was gorgeous. The music often started slow and tentatively, gradually gaining tempo and volume as the piece unfolded. So much of it was improvised, but the brothers had an intuitive feel for each other's playing and the solos were perfectly judged and paced. Both Arabic and Spanish influences suffused the music.

The last time I saw them was on the Radio 3 stage at Womad a few years back - a magical experience - but they didn't have a percussionist with them. This time they were joined by Youssef Hbeisch who sat behind a battery of darbuckas, cymbals and any number of shakers, bells, chimes and rattles plus a bass drum thrown in for good measure. I felt the percussion dominated proceedings - surely a single darbucka would have been sufficient - and a crash of cymbals accompanied almost every dramatic musical twist and turn. The brothers told us how the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, with whom the trio often collaborated, had emphasised the importance of the silence between the notes - unfortunately we were rather too often denied that beauty because of the intrusive percussion, but this is a minor quibble given the magnificent and evocative music which filled St George's this evening.

Womad 2010

A fabulous weekend. Everything was great, and the ADTs (Annoying Drunk Teenagers) seemed no worse than a couple of years ago. The performances started mostly right on cue on all the stages. Excellent.

Highlights for me included:

Safroman - gorgeous rumba, beautiful guitar playing.
Cedric Watson - fab dancy zydeco
The Kamkars - worth staying up for - magnificently hypnotic.
Geata Krar Collective - lovely playing and spectacular dramatic dancing - more costume-changes than Shirley Bassey.
Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwli - so good I saw them twice - the most intense and ecstatic music of the weekend - they made me cry.
Orchestre National de Barbes - my new favourite band in the world. Joyous music, lovely musicians and a powerful anti-fascist message.
Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars - irresistable.
JazZstePpa - banging.
Soumik Ditta - one of those special Womad moments - gorgeous sarod playing and the evening sun dappling the arboretum. Priceless.
Anxo Lorenzo - a shock to the cultural system - beautifully played Irish and Iberian trad folk music from this phenomenal piper.

Lots of other great stuff, but too many to mention.

Salif Keita: La Difference

The new Salif Keita CD is a gem. If the words 'a perfect slice of Malian pop' were not cliched in the extreme I'd definitely use them to describe this CD - and Salif's voice is as good as ever. Enjoy.

Peter Marren 'Bugs Britannica' lecture, QEH Theatre 28 May 10

I've yet to get my hands on this, the latest lavish compendium of natural history facts and folklore to follow in the footsteps of Flora and Birds Britannica, so I was particularly eager to hear its principle author speak last night.

Marren is a humorous and knowledgeable enough writer but I felt little of his facility with the written word displayed in this lecture. Despite this lack of charisma, however, Marren was able to give us a vivid commentary on a series of images that appear in Bugs Britannica. He took us through some of the extraordinary beliefs and superstitions surrounding spiders, flies, dragonflies, beetles and snails. Attributing cultural significance to such lowly and familiar creatures gives a fresh insight into how the natural world is inextricably bound up with human lives. The portrayal of insects and other invertebrates in art, political discourse, poetry and folklore is remarkable - Large White and Painted Lady butterflies are endowed with Biblical significance in Durer's painting of the Adoration of the Magi of 1504, while Honey Bee society has historically justified the political status quo with its clearly defined hierarchy and the Queen very much at the top.

I came away from Marren's lecture with the idea that modern studies of invertebrate ecology exclude some of the most interesting aspects of bugs - their ancient and intimate relationship with human experience. This colourful world of myth and folklore surely needs to be cherished as much as the invertebrates themselves.

Omar Souleyman/Konono No.1, Bristol Metropolis 11 May 10

I made my way to the Metropolis just in time to see Konono No 1 take the stage. They played their usual heady and dissonant stuff, and I was hooked from the first number. I remember their appearance at Womad a few years ago when I 'danced' solidly for an hour, and this set was even longer, so my knees will suffer, but what the heck - they are a great band. My only reservation was that the hand drums were mixed low and only rarely heard, which is a shame, as they contributed a much needed bass sound to the music. Never mind, it was a great set.

I've never seen Omar Souleyman live before and I confess I don't even have his CD, but he was great. Lots of dance beats and a soaring synthesiser accompanied Omar's vocals and the largely young crowd were loving it. Omar is a real crowd-pleaser, getting everyone to clap at just the right moments - a real clubby atmosphere and thoroughly fun.

Rokia Traore, Colston Hall 30 April

Saw Rokia Traore and her band this evening and enjoyed the show. The only downer was the sparse audience rattling around in a large concert hall. Shimmering, cerebral art-rock and punchy up-tempo funk satisfied both head and heart and I loved this contrast. The referencing of Fela and Miriam in the extended work-out towards the end went down really well I thought, and Rokia's voice was perfectly suited to all the moods and tempos the music went through. I well remember Andy Kershaw interviewing her on the radio and remarking on how she was so vocally different from other Malian divas with, as Andy put it, 'foghorn' voices - true, on record her voice has a touching vulnerability but tonight it soared and dived above the solid instrumental accompaniment.

Rokia represents the intellectual and experimental heart of contemporary African music I think. She's so aware of her illustrious predecessors and fabulous contemporaries, yet she fearlessly takes the music forward in new directions. Careful with that axe, Rokia.

Jim Moray, Future Inns, Bristol 14 April

If the songs Jim Moray sings are epic, then his performance tonight can only be called heroic. Battling against throat problems, he nonetheless rose against the odds and delivered a soulful performance of great beauty. From the first plangent chords of Dives and Lazarus to the beautiful waterfalls of sound accompanying Two Sisters, Jim Moray held us all spellbound.

It was a strange venue, very plush, and not quite what I had expected on a first visit. However, Jim transformed it with his heartfelt vocals and sometimes simple but often complex accompaniment on piano and guitar. Other highlights included a beautiful rendition of the Shirley Collins song Guilderoy and a 'double bill' of Night Visiting with its Philip Glass-like piano figure underpinning the spooky lyrics, and Bella Hardy's gorgeous Three Black Feathers, a song performed magnificently on record by both Bella and Jim but which reached even greater heights this evening.

If there's anyone who has yet to be convinced of Jim Moray's ability to make folk music thrilling and contemporary without jettisoning its traditional spirit (can there be anyone?) then go see him live or listen to his CDs. Perfect.

The new Doctor Who

David Tennant (my favourite Doctor) was a hell of an act to follow and I'm afraid Matt Smith is going to take a bit of getting used to as far as I'm concerned. He really does need to find his own style - at the moment he is trying to be a more sarcastic version of Tennant, although I do see the potential in him for a new 'darker' character compared to his predecessors. It certainly will be interesting to see how he inhabits the role and makes it his own.

His sidekick is interesting - she seems to have many of the qualities of Billie PIper and again it will be interesting to see how the relationship develops between them (assuming she's going to be a more or less permanent fixture in this season).

The show was well-written, but I'm beginning to detect a bit of a formula developing and I hope the new series avoids too much lazy writing. The 'Doctor leaves sidekick behind - she pines for him - but then he comes back in the end' routine is now wearing a bit thin. I'm hoping that the departure of Russell T Davies doesn't make too much difference, but, like Tennant, he was a hard act to follow and the writing will have to be top-notch to equal his input.

So yes, I'll give it 6 out of 10 but fully expect that score to rise as the season progresses and the new team settles in.

Richard Mabey Talk, 16 March

Went along to see my favourite nature writer this evening and got him to sign a copy of his new volume A Brush With Nature, a collection of his columns for BBC Wildlife magazine.

He gave a fascinating talk, full of his conviction that nature should not be seen as some remote object for scientific research, but a phenomenon which enters into human lives and informs our culture. He also made some observations about the fashionable and highly negative strand of environmentalism exemplified by George Monbiot and how this is proving counter-productive for the green movement as a whole.

Mabey said that his aim was to build a bridge between two seemingly contradictory positions; that nature is being destroyed and that nature is resilient. The former is true from his wider reading, but the latter is also true from his own observations and his personal response to natural phenomena. Although he may become depressed at the fate of the common swift, whose numbers have declined remarkably in recent years, his spirits are raised by actually seeing the birds, experiencing them directly.

Mabey also gave an insight into how his writing has evolved. He realised that an early description of a barn owl 'winnowing the grass' had been totally inappropriate - not true to the spirit of the bird. This made him look more critically at his use of metaphor. He resolved to avoid making his writing 'pretty' just for the sake of it.

He answered several questions from the audience - including my own about how he approaches the writing of a monthly column and the inevitable deadlines - with great patience and humour.

Richard Mabey has inspired me throughout my adult life, and it was a humbling experience to see and talk to the man in the flesh.

The Kingdom of Ife, British Museum

Saw this exhibition of West African artifacts from between the 14th and 16th centuries yesterday. Wonderful. The brass, bronze and terracotta heads were exquisite; skilfully executed especially bearing in mind the awkward nature of the materials used and the complexity of the processes involved. The vertical striations on the faces were a striking and recurring theme, and the beautifully-proportioned features really made them come alive - they truly were windows onto a long-lost culture. Lots of very informative background information and well-lit exhibits made for an unforgettable experience. Only £8 to see the show and well worth it. Go along - you won't be disappointed.

Saw lots of other fab stuff in the museum - an exhibition of Native American warrior culture was particularly compelling. Haven't been in the BM for yonks -the airy and light-filled main space is glorious.

Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou

Lush.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, St Georges, 3rd Feb

I think I can technically all myself a CCD groupie, having seen them on each of their 3 visits to the UK. Familiarity certainly does not breed contempt with this fine threesome, though, and this show was as good as ever. Dom's animated stage presence and instrumental flair had the audience gasping while Rhiannon's voice (and virtuosic kazoo-playing) just seems to get better and better. Justin's thoughtful fiddling and honeyed voice provided the perfect contrast. They played lots of old favourites and several from the new album - old time music never sounded so fresh and alive as it did this evening.

Imagined Village, Colston Hall, 23rd January

The new slimmed-down version of The Imagined Village is a huge improvement on the rather sprawling earlier incarnation. The arrangements and instrumentation are tighter and more convincing, and the band seems to work as a unit rather than an amorphous cabaret show featuring a cast of thousands.

Eliza and Martin Carthy shared vocals with Chris Wood. Sheema Mukherjee's delicious sitar-playing provided the perfect accompaniment (how well this instrument suits 'English' folk music!) while Simon Richmond's electronic soundscapes gurgled and popped in the background, creating haunting atmospheres wholly appropriate for the songs. A highlight of the gig was Jackie Oates as guest singer, sharing vocals with Eliza in The Lark in the Morning - beautifully realised. The ubiquitous Johnny Kalsi was a bit of a show-stopper, and the phenomenal drumming of Andy Gangadeen was a revelation. The Imagined Village have achieved a thoroughly successful integration of ancient and modern - well done guys!

Oh, and Chris Wood's opening set was marvellous - his quiet intensity is extraordinarily affecting.