Rob Vollmar

Rob Vollmar is WLT's book review and online editor.

  • January 2018

    Compass
      Compass Mathias Énard Trans. Charlotte Mandell New Directions, 2017  At the very time one should be looking ahead to the excellent works in transl...

  • November 2017

    Meïkhâneh. Photo: Claire Huteau (2017)
    Photo: Claire Huteau (2017) Meïkhâneh La Silencieuse Buda Music La Silencieuse is the second album by Meïkhâneh, a musically expansive trio from Rennes, France, that brin...

  • September 2017

    Hello Psychaleppo. Photo: Andrew Cagle
    Photo: Andrew Cagle Hello Psychaleppo Toyour Hello Psychaleppo’s third release, Toyour, draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources, some musical, some literary, and all celeb...

  • September 2017

    Thomas Hardy’s home, Max Gate, sits at the east end of Dorchester. Photo: Michael Day There are few British authors for whom place played a more important role in their work than Thomas Hardy. By all...

  • May 2017

    Rob's Summer Reads Books
    With a wealth of fiction, nonfiction, and verse stacking up in his office, Book Review Editor Rob Vollmar has narrowed his reading ambitions for the summer down to these three worthy titles....

  • May 2017

    Letters from Iraq: Oud and String Quintet
    Rahim AlHaj Letters from Iraq: Oud and String Quintet Smithsonian Folkways   Iraqi-born composer Rahim AlHaj’s latest album, Letters from Iraq, is his most ambitious to date. AlHaj...

  • March 2017

    OY, Space Diaspora
    OY Space Diaspora Crammed Discs     This issue’s special section on climate dystopias set me wondering what kind of responses to an uncertain future dwell in the world music community. One...

  • January 2017

    Angel Passage
    In addition to his better-known work as a writer of comics and novels, Alan Moore has built a considerable body of spoken-word albums, most created in conjunction with a collective known as Moon and S...

  • January 2017

    Alan Moore. Photo: Joe Brown
    Alan Moore. Photo: Joe Brown Alan Moore is the most celebrated comics writer living but doesn’t write comics anymore. For the past decade, he’s been working instead on his second novel, Jerusalem...

  • January 2017

    The group is a three-member collective made up of principal melodist David Satori; a percussionist, Tommy Cappel; and dancer Zoe Jakes.
    Beats Antique Shadowbox Antique   American composer Henry Cowell traveled to a variety of countries in the 1950s on behalf of the State Department, building bridges between cultures conside...

  • September 2016

    The Bible for Unbelievers: The Beginning: Genesis
    Guus Kuijer The Bible for Unbelievers: The Beginning: Genesis  Trans. Laura Watkinson  Seven Stories Press, 2016    The Bible has occupied a central position in Western culture sin...

  • September 2016

    Tajaliyatt by Afoforo Music Club
    Tajaliyatt Afoforo Music Club   Tajaliyatt is the second album from the ambitious Achref Chargui Trio. Composed of the aforementioned Chargui, a Tunisian oud playe...

  • May 2016

    Captivity
    With a toddler to parent, WLT’s book review editor, Rob Vollmar, isn’t anticipating being able to go much of anywhere this summer, so he’s relying on his summer reads to take...

  • May 2016

    Kalthoum
    Ibrahim Maalouf Kalthoum Impulse! “Umm Kalthoum is the quintessential Arab,” Uncle Jihad said. “She’s probably the one person whom all Arabs can agree to love . . .”—Rabih A...

  • March 2016

    Musique de Nuit by Vincent Segal & Ballaké Sissoko
    Vincent Segal & Ballaké Sissoko Musique de Nuit Six Degrees Now that a representative sample of the world’s recorded music is available at no greater cost than an hour’s worth of drill-do...

  • January 2016

    Amjad Ali Khan and Rahim AlHaj
    Amjad Ali Khan and Rahim AlHaj The sarod is an instrument used in North Indian classical music whose origin is shrouded in mystery and no small amount of controversy. What is not in dispute is Amjad...

  • November 2015

    World Music: “A Brief History of Tango,” by Rob Vollmar
    From the opening ascending arpeggio of “Taquito Militar,” the thoughtful interplay between guitarist Berta Rojas and Argentina’s most beloved chamber group, Camerata Bariloche, takes center stage on...

  • September 2015

    Alif. Photo by Tanya Traboulsi
    Photo by Tanya Traboulsi If ever an album has been created to invite the uninitiated to dip a toe into the deep water of contemporary Arab music, it is Alif’s debut release, Aynama-Rtama, re...

  • September 2015

    The Mountain and the Wall By Alisa GanievaDeep Vellum   The Vienna Melody By Ernst LotharEuropa Editions   Alisa Ganieva’s The Mountain and the Wall (201...
  • March 2012 WLT Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá. Daytripper. New York. Vertigo. 2011. ISBN 9781401229696 Daytripper is the rarest of graphic novels—a work meetin...

  • March 2012

    Tezuka Osamu spent the first two decades of his career entertaining Japanese children with his manga like Tetsuwan Atomu, but the rigors of being Japan's most visible creative public icon...

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