March 24, 2009

Friendly Reminder: Amadou & Mariam Album Out Today

Photo courtesy Nonesuch

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National borders not only make traveling to my summer compound in Monaco incredibly bothersome (ahem!), they also really gum up CD release schedules. Especially here in the United States of Kiss My Ass, where great music from around the world often gets delayed for months, if not years. Either labels are scared that us slack-jawed yokels just won’t get it, or I guess they need a couple extra months to form brilliant marketing strategies? Whatever, it makes me mad, since we do have the internet in America, and an internationally-savvy press, desperate to jump on the Next Big Thing, isn’t going to wait for a release date 90 days away, so then anybody reading that review has to go searching around for a little Rapidshare RAR file. Who would be so thoughtless? Oh. Well, to make up for it, I’ll act as your release-date alarm system: Malian duo Amadou & Mariam’s Welcome to Mali is finally out today here in the Homeland. Hooray! That means you can give them money on iTunes and everything. Welcome to Mali was for a while the highest-ranking album of 2008 on Metacritic, although the site has since moved it to the 2009 list out of respect for our flag, I guess (where it’s currently tied with Animal Collective for best-reviewed album of this year). Back in November (I know, I’m sorry) I gave the album an enthusiastic review, and I only like it more now; its mishmash of styles and traditions feels both guilelessly celebratory and deeply respectful, even moving. Plus I’m a sucker for that Afropop guitar sound.

After the jump, the oddly affecting video for the Damon Albarn-produced “Sabali,” a more electronic-based track than the rest of the album. You can also isten to the whole album at their web site.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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