WE CAN HAZ NEW WRITERZ PLZTHX?

musicOMH is looking for new music writers.  ARE YOU ONE?

If you are, you'll want to thrill the world with your knowledge, innate good taste and opinions and you'll really, really like going to gigs and festivals and listening to albums.

Maybe you'll enjoy interviewing musicians and thinking up features.  You'll certainly be able to write to a given house style, to a high standard of English, and you'll proofread your regular contributions.

If this sounds like you, drop me a line saying so, together with some recent URLs, your last three gigs and why you believe your writing should be published on musicOMH.

Email: editor@musicomh.com

(Note that all positions are unpaid.) 

Africa Week

All this week on musicOMH we're running interviews with, features on and reviews of African artists, with new articles being published daily.

With Mali's Rokia Traoré headlining in London, Baaba Maal's first album in eight years out and Western Sahara's Group Doueh having just completed their first UK tour, it seemed timely to throw a spotlight on the continent's musicians and their works, from a mainstream, rather than a specialist, perspective. 

This is the first time we've themed this site for a week, and there's a reason for it. African music in the media is ghettoised, confined to specialist publications, BBC Radio 3 and a smattering of newspaper columns. While the quality of these is often excellent, I don't see why it should be so separate, or why people who claim to love music seem so often to dismiss an entire continent, its people and their output as readily as they do.  As Baaba Maal said in his interview with me, "African music... is just music. It doesn't belong to this part or this part. Music is something you share."

So we're running interviews with Maal, Amadou & Mariam (pictured) and Youssou N'Dour, features on the legacy of Fela Kuti and African music's huge influence on dance and classical works from the west, plus a preview of Malawi's Lake Of Stars festival which returns in October.  

Reviews will include Traoré and Doueh live and coverage of new albums from Maal, Vieux Farka Touré, returning Tuareg desert tribesmen Tinariwen and the latest archive raid by Damon Albarn's Honest Jons label, this time delving into 1950s Congo. Most of this will be up by the weekend. 

We've also collected together a selection of our African music related archive content, including reviews of Salif Keita, Angelique Kidjo, Tony Allen, Mayra Andrade, Ali Farka Touré and last year's Africa Express shows, amongst much else. You can access all this and more at the Africa Week index.

I'm well aware that this is but a snapshot of what African artists are doing.  It is in no way meant to be comprehensive.  But I do hope that at least it constitutes something of a rebalance.

The May Spotify Playlist

Ah, June already - halfway through the year. So it's that time of the month when we take a look at the last four weeks and assemble a Spotify playlist for your delight and delectation, highlighting 50 of the best tracks of the month.

All of this month's tracks were released during May, either on an album, single or MP3 and as ever we've been (only slightly) hamstrung by Spotify's selection process (no Grizzly Bear yet? For shame, Spotify!). Yet from Dizzee Rascal through to Phoenix, Graham Coxon, The Maccabees and the Manics, it's been a typically varied month's listening here in OMH Towers.

To listen to the playlist, click here, and don't forget to leave us your comments below. For you poor people outside of Spotify's user reach, here's what's on our playlist this month:

Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers
Kasabian - Fire
Toddla T - Shake It
St Vincent - Actor Out Of Work
Esser - Leaving Town
The Maccabees - Love You Better
Junior Boys - Hazel
Tiga - Shoes
Graham Coxon - Perfect Love
Passion Pit - The Reeling
Jarvis Cocker - Leftovers
Phoenix - Lisztomania
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - Hypnotic
Thomas Truax - Twin Peaks (Falling)
Gallows - The Vulture
Flare Acoustic Arts League - Love Finds Andy Warhol
Kleerup - Until We Bleed
The Wave Pictures - I Thought Of You Again
Alessi's Ark - Over The Hill
Conor Oberst - Roosevelt Room
Peaches - Mommy Complex
God Help The Girl - Come Monday Night
Marmaduke Duke - Silhouettes
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - The Debtor
Chairlift - Bruises
Eg - Weird Friendless Kid
Annie - Anthonio
British Sea Power - Man Of Aran
Green Day - Know Your Enemy
Manic Street Preachers - Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Team Waterpolo - Room 44
Eels - My Timing Is Off
Marilyn Manson - I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies
Fink - Sort Of Revolution
Placebo - For What It's Worth
Laura Izibor - From My Heart To Yours
Iggy Pop - King Of The Dogs
Little Boots - New In Town
Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Speech Debelle - Go Then, Bye (Esser Remix)
Tori Amos - Welcome To England
Bloc Party - Signs (Armand Van Helden remix)
Bob Dylan - Life Is Hard
Son Of Dave - Nike Town
Fanfarlo - Drowning Man
Post War Years - The Red Room
Nathan Fake - Basic Mountain
My Latest Novel - All In All In All Is All
Alec Empire - Control Drug
Scott Matthews - Suddenly You Figure Out