Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i Songlines

BACK IN THE GROOVE The vinyl market is booming (despite global vinyl shortages), propelled by a thirst for limited gold-splattered editions and labels continuing to find obscure records we never knew we wanted. Here are a few imprints whose recent releases have caught our eye. We Are Busy Bodies The Toronto label’s repertoire varies from electro and dub to rare groove. They have also been releasing gems from Ghanaian highlife group Vis-A-Vis, with the album The Best of Vis-AVis in Congo Style (1976) next up for re-iussue. Jazz Room Records Home of London’s DJ Paul Murphy who is pulling up obscurities from the jazz dance repertoire, the latest being a funky left-field 1979 salsa curio by Tata Vasquez & His Orchestra. Arabusta Records The first release from the new Italian…

Lucy Duran and Moustapha Diallo’s short film, Tegere Tulon: Handclapping Songs of Mali, was shortlisted for Best Short Film Documentary at this month’s Cannes’ Festival International du Film Panafricain. The film follows Hawa Kasse Mady Diabate as she discusses tegere tulon, a tradition of vocal and handclapped songs performed by unmarried girls, visiting rural settings where the practice still takes place, and showing how she has interpreted the sty le for recordings. “The villages are the masters of the tegere tulon,” Hawa says in the film, “any song can be turned into a tegere tulon. When children get together in the village public space, especially under a full moon, those tegere tulon are really wonderful. You take all the songs you’ve learned from the grown-ups, you transform them, that’s the…

It was wonderful to see Manchester embrace the English Folk Expo back into its venues last month (October 21-24). After a digital iteration of the expo last year, the return of live showcases marked a welcome sign of recovery from the last 18 months. There were outstanding showcases from a wealth of artists including some old favourites – Spiers & Boden, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, The Breath – and surprising new acts – Good Habits and Mishra. A particular highlight was Hannah James’ new duo project with cellist Toby Kuhn. As the Expo’s international partner, Hungary showcased some of its homegrown talent including Muzsikas and Dalinda (read a live review on p69). Speaking of the event, Tom Besford, chief executive of the English Folk Expo, says, “the return of…

‘From Balkan exuberance to Cape Verdean saudade or Argentinian tango, from the serenity of Hindustani sequences to the contagious groove of Latin jazz, Temelkovski has built a luminous nomadic patchwork with four soloists at the core of the project’The Sound Braka by Stracho Temelkovski is reviewed on p60 Free album download CLICK HERE Songlines digital subscribers can now download the Top of the World & Playlist tracks every issue. See opposite for more details…

We Famous Strut Records (37 mins) An energetic second outing from Sorie Kondi and co Having had his career derailed by civil war and Ebola, the blind Sierra Leonean musician Sorie Kondi was reduced to plying his trade as a Freetown street musician until by chance the American producer Chief Boima discovered a track by him on YouTube and created a bootleg remix that went viral and caused a sensation. It led to a fully-fledged collaboration on the Kondi Band’s 2017 Afro-electro album Salone. The follow-up reunites the two men and adds Londonbased keyboardist/producer Will LV to the mix, casting the sonic palette wider on a thrilling album that takes Kondi’s rich baritone vocals and the spiralling melodies of his thumb piano and re-upholsters them as techno bangers. The sultry-voiced…

Timber Ramseur Records (37 mins) Impressive, soul-soothing guitar instrumentals Add Bryan Rahija to the ranks of superb fingerstyle guitar pickers from the Piedmont region – Durham, North Carolina, to be precise. A founding member of the alt-folk-pop band Bombadil, Rahija cites legendary fellow North Carolinians singer Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Boy Fuller as influences, along with Fernando Sor, a virtuosic 18th-century guitarist and composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, a 90-something-year-old Ethiopian nun who is renowned for her exceptional playing and technically challenging compositions. In late 2019, newly transplanted to Portland, Rahija marked the beginning of COVID-induced self-isolation by borrowing an old dobro, ordering a new 12-string guitar and setting about the task of writing, performing and producing the dozen compositions on Timber. The resulting music is quietly compelling…

Still as Your Sleeping Hudson Records (42 mins) The case for folk music as a living tradition There’s a paradox at the heart of this album from Scottish singersongwriter Karine Polwart and pianist Dave Milligan. It is that a project conceived during lockdown by two musicians from the same Scottish village, and which is so redolent of place but yet also cut through with a sense of travel and movement – both through land and seascape and through life. Polwart is a master at the art of excavating detail and tapping into our need for belonging. Her work has often focused on her homeland – not simply Scotland, but the village of Pathhead and its moorlands. There’s the sense that she’s burrowing down, like the protagonist in Geoffrey Household’s Rogue…

Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour) Sub Rosa/Northern Spy Records (38 mins) Ambient improv from the Egyptian underground Egyptian multi-instrumentalist Maurice Louca is known for navigating between electronic dance music, crossovers with Egypt’s contemporary maghraganat music, participating in theatre and supporting other musicians like Maryam Saleh and Tamer Abu Ghazaleh in the excellent Lekhfa collaboration. Here, he invited three leading members of Lebanon’s improvisational music scene, Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet and electronics), Sharif Sehnaoui (guitar) and Raed Yassin (double bass), along with percussionist Khaled Yassine, harpist Christine Kazaryan and cellist Anthea Caddy. The recording was made in Brussels, with support from Mophradat, a Brussels-based Arab arts fund; sadly, this probably tells us something about the state of culture in Egypt. The music meanders between a free jazz-like mood and ambient. The liner…

Natura Sonora Shika Shika (41 mins) Digital sounds evoke the natural world Th ough British, Robin Perkins emerged out of the Latin American downtempo scene of the early 2010s under the alias of El Buho. From the off his sty le was clear, this was electronic music not only informed by the sounds and splendour of the natural world, but also in communion with it, and striving to conserve it, an aim which is clearest in the Guide to Birdsong compilations that he has been stewarding. When the pandemic hit, his solution to being holed up was to get creative with the idea of distant flora and fauna, each track on Natura Sonora a soundscape representing a different natural wonder from around the world. At times it touches on ambient,…

Songlines picks… EFG London Jazz Festival (Nov 12-21) Live programme including Luzmira Zerpa (pictured) at the Sanctuary on Nov 18. Talisk (North, Nov 12-14) The award-winning Scottish folk trio are back with fresh material and a brand new band member. Terje Isungset’s Arctic Ice Music (North, Midlands & Wales & West, Nov 16-18) Ice musician takes his frozen show on the road. Onipa (London, Nov 27) The innovative Afrofuturists bring their tunes and an uplifting outlook to London for an evening at The Jago. MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards (Scotland, Dec 4) The annual celebration of Scottish music will be both live and streamed. LONDON 12-21 NOV EFG London Jazz Festival efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk; 14 NOV Sonu Nigam The SSE Arena; 18-19 NOV Pagrav Dance Company Sadler’s Wells; 19 NOV Faris Ishaq Rich…

Gnawa trance on another level Moroccan musician Simo Lagnawi offers modern Gnawa trance mastery and gimbri-playing panache aplenty on Electric Jalaba’s latest tour. Joined by band members Dave De Rose (drums) and the Keen brothers (Oliver, Barnaby, Nathaniel and Henry) who cover guitars and electronics, audiences will see energy and ecstasy collide in these psychedelic live shows. They’ll even be hitting the Jazz Cafe for an explosive New Year’s Eve special. 26 NOV Cobalt Studios, Newcastle upon Tyne; 27 NOV BUMS, Barrow-in-Furness; 28 NOV Future Yard, Birkenhead; 2 DEC Ramona, Manchester; 10 DEC The Jam Jar, Bristol; 11 DEC Mount Pleasant Eco Park, Porthtowan; 17 DEC Bossaphonik, Oxford; 31 DEC Jazz Cafe, London. electricjalabamusic.com…

Vieux Farka Touré, Amadou & Mariam, Oumy Gueye, Tal National, Songhoy Blues and Bassekou Kouyaté have joined together to record ‘The Sahel Song’ for UNOCHA, the UN’s office for humanitarian affairs, in response to the current crisis in the Sahel. It is estimated that this year 29 million people in the region, roughly one in four, will need aid, be that life-saving assistance or protection, which is five million more than in 2020. The crisis has been exacerbated by a combination of factors including poverty, the climate emergency, armed conflicts, chronically high food insecurity and malnutrition. Discussing the situation in Mali – which shares the Sahel region with areas of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria – Vieux says that in his country people now “sleep with one eye…

AMERICAS Puerto Rico: Salsa drummer and bandleader Roberto Roena has died at the age of 81. Roena was an original member of El Gran Combo before forming his own orchestra in 1969. Chile: A founding member of the nueva cancion chilena movement Patricio Manns has passed away at 84. He is best known for his 1965 debut single ‘Arriba en la Cordillera’. EUROPE UK: Robin Morton, an important folk music figure as a member of Scottish-Irish group Boys of the Lough as well as a producer and manager, has died aged 81. Switzerland: Brazilian duo Marco Scarassatti & Livio Tragtenberg have created musical sculptures out of burnt wood to highlight the issue of rainforest deforestation at Basel’s CULTURESCAPES festival. AFRICA Nigeria: Popular highlife musician Nana Ampadu, a founder of the…

The East African coastline has been of strategic importance for centuries, providing outposts for global traders and colonialists, as well as passageways for migrant workers looking to travel in search of better lives. Each footprint has left behind a cultural legacy, sprinkling traces of Arabic, Indian and even Indonesian influence over existing culture. Thus, East African music is a genre unto itself, with subcategories including taarab (Swahili poetry melded with Arabic melodies), benga (lilting guitars mimicking the lute-like nyatiti instrument), dansi (upbeat, almost rumba-like grooves) and mugithi (high-pitched guitar with solo vocals). A collaboration between London-based organisation Abubilla Music and Kenyan nonprofit Ketebul Music, the Singing Wells project documents the music that enriches the East African region, with 2021 marking the project’s ten year anniversary. I ask Singing Wells co-founder,…

Quite simply, it was the “the biggest fusion that ever happened,” santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma says in Ajoy Bose’s new film, The Beatles and India. By the time The Beatles started incorporating sitars, tablas and harmoniums into their songs, Indian music had already been fused with Western classical music in the duets between Ravi Shankar and violinist Yehudi Menuhin, as well as within jazz via musicians such as John Mayer and Joe Harriott. But it was The Beatles’ enthusiasm for incorporating such elements into pop music that created an Indian ‘summer of love’ that lit up the swinging 60s. At the time, the Western attitude to India was still largely one of ignorance, exoticism and colonial-era condescension. The Beatles helped to change that with their forays into Indian spirituality, and…

Blue as the Turquoise Night Bright Shiny Things (55 mins) Families and friends combine for unique orchestral numbers The quality of this album comes as no surprise when you discover that it has close connections to Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble and New York’s Brooklyn Rider string quartet. There are five pieces and although it’s nominally a classical album, much of the music is close to the diverse traditions that have inspired it. The album has a strangely stuttering start with ‘Balkan Bollywood’, a piece by Ismail Lumanovski, clarinettist of the New York Gypsy All Stars. It prominently features the composer on clarinet, Tamer Pinarbasi on kanun (zither), Kayhan Kalhor on bowed kamancheh and Sandeep Das on tabla and presumably the vocal percussion, plus other members of the five-strong New York…

NEW RELEASES Drive My Car (Dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi; Japan; 179 mins; Modern Films; UK release: in cinemas November 19) Less ‘The Fast and the Furious’, more ‘The Slow and Emotionally Repressed’ In modern-day Japan, Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an actor and director working on a production of Uncle Vanya and married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), a screenwriter. The couple, who have been together for two decades, have a relationship that appears fulfilling in every way, despite the death of their infant daughter a few years previously. But their world is disturbed by news that Kafuku has developed glaucoma after he is involved in a minor traffic accident driving his beloved Saab. Two years later, Kafuku accepts an offer to direct Vanya at a festival in Hiroshima where he is…

IFE New Orleans-based producer and percussionist Otura Mun WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO? Robbo Ranx via his weekly Mixcloud show. Jamaican dancehall is the only modern music I really pay attention to and Robbo’s shows help me stay up with the latest tunes and artists coming out of that scene. YOUR ALL-TIME FAVOURITE ALBUMS? John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is the most important piece of music ever recorded. His deep exploration of music and spirituality have been a constant source of inspiration for me. Kanye’s Yeezus, Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream are all albums I also continually return to. MUSICIANS YOU MOST ADMIRE? It’s a tie between Coltrane and Kanye. Both pursued mastery in relentless ways and pushed past what the commercial marketplace…

Scottish folk fiddles galore After almost a quarter of a century riling up festival crowds and exciting concert halls with jigs and reels, this prolific fiddling troupe are making their post-pandemic comeback with a ten-date jaunt across Britain. Catch Blazin’ Fiddles in their latest iteration as some of Scotland’s best bow-slingers offer raucous arrangements of trad favourites at venues throughout the UK. Comprising solo songs and energetic ensemble pieces, each member of the band is given their time to shine. 18 NOV The Maltings, Berwick-upon-Tweed; 19 NOV Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds; 20 NOV St Nicholas’ Chapel, King’s Lynn; 21 NOV The Vyne Theatre, Berkhamsted; 22 NOV Colchester Arts Centre; 24 NOV St George’s Bristol; 25 NOV Aberystwyth Arts Centre; 26 NOV Galeri, Caernarfon; 27 NOV Brewery Arts, Kendal; 28 NOV…

Pieces from Unearth Repeat Catch award-winning multi-instrumentalist Sam Sweeney as he performs songs from his most recent album, Unearth Repeat (a Top of the World review in the May 2020 issue, #157), in his latest gig series this autumn and winter. The Bellowhead alum’s second record saw him put together a band comprised of electric guitars, double bass and keys to carve out a bold sound that takes as much inspiration from Celtic and Scandinavian festival bands as it does from traditional English music. 19 NOV NCEM, York; 20 NOV Hope Chapel, Hebden Bridge; 21 NOV Settle Victoria Hall; 23 NOV Liverpool Philharmonic Hall; 24 NOV Huntingdon Hall, Worcester; 26 NOV Gosforth Civic Theatre; 27 NOV Cecil Sharp House, London; 28 NOV Colchester Arts Centre; 29 NOV Ludlow Assembly Rooms;…

The 1889 Century Dictionary, the first to include the term, defined folk music as ‘a song of the people; a song based on a legendary or historical event, or some incident of common life, the words and generally the music of which have originated among the common people, and are extensively used by them.’ By this definition, the version of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ in honour of Grenfell – performed by the Wicked Skengman of Croydon (Stormzy’s folksiest moniker), Brian May, Paloma Faith, ‘half of One Direction’ and other pop stars – fits the bill perfectly. But I bet you folk devotees don’t hum it while you’re in your rainwater-harvesting showers. What we understand by folk music today is the legacy of Cecil Sharp, who, in the first decades of…

TOP OF THE WORLD PLAYLIST TRACKS 01 Kandy Guira ‘Wasindi’ From Nagtaba on Que du Bonheur en Son/Vlad Production/RFITalents/Inouïe Distribution Traditional Burkinabe rhythms and subtle electro embellishments bubble and pulse beneath Guira as she sings in her Moore mother tongue. See p44 02 Abase ‘Agangatolu’ (feat Jadson Xabla, Gabriel Santana, Dr Drumah, Fanni Zahar) From Laroyê on Oshu Records Hungarian beat mechanic Szabolcs Bognar drafts in Brazilian buddies on this intoxicating MPB-style summit. See p58 03 Bryan Rahija ‘Eight of Wands’ From Timber on Ramseur Records This sublime Portland-based fingerpicker crafts some bucolic bluegrass-indebted arpeggios, his patterns gradually gathering momentum before the briefest burst of porch-side harmonica wheeze. See p48 04 Bonga Jean-Baptiste ‘Gede Nibo’ From Boula on Buda Musique Mystic mantras and tanbou (barrel drums) combine in deep mizik…

Ustad Saami East Pakistan Sky The latest album from the microtonal vocalist and last living surti master. Out now. ÌFÉ 0000+0000 The American producer unleashes new tunes, inspired by Afro-Caribbean rhythms and touching on themes of night and death. Out now. Hannah James & Toby Kuhn (pictured below) Sleeping Spirals Dancer and musician James teams up with cellist Kuhn for a delicate duo dialogue. Out November 19.…

Ross Daly’s Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Houdetsi, Crete has been severely damaged by an earthquake of at least 5.8 magnitude. Labyrinth, which is both a teaching institution and held a museum of traditional musical instruments, was founded by Daly in 1982, and has been based in Houdetsi since 2002. Stelios Petrakis, Efren Lopez and Sokratis Sinopoulos are among some of the musicians to have trained there. Following the earthquake on September 27, the building has visible cracks on the exterior and has been deemed unusable, with Daly telling us that, “this was to be expected given that serious repairs were long overdue for this building.” Their aim is that Labyrinth will have moved to a new building by Easter, in time for the summer courses. Daly adds, “the reason [we]…

Paddy Moloney (1938-2021) Founder and leader of traditional Irish group The Chieftains Paddy Moloney, who has died aged 83, was one of the most successful and popular ambassadors for Irish traditional music over the past half century and more. The founder and guiding light behind the globally-acclaimed The Chieftains, Moloney was a prolific and perennially curious collaborator who crossed one musical boundary after another to work with luminaries as diverse as Paul McCartney, Luciano Pavarotti, Van Morrison and Willie Nelson. Born in Dublin into a musical family, Moloney was playing whistle by the age of six and later studied uilleann pipes with the Leinster-based pipe master Leo Rowsome. Teaching himself the button accordion and bodhran, he gained early experience playing in small ensembles. In 1960 he joined Sean O Riada’s…

Tommy Khosla is a young British sitarist and composer whose recent debut album, Vignettes, offers ‘little glimpses’ into explorations of identity through the stories, pictures and feelings of family. It is an intensely personal approach to music making that is clearly key to the artist. Brought up in Devon, with parents hailing originally from India and France, Khosla found himself negotiating between different worlds from an early age. Initially receiving musical training on piano, around the age of 11 they discovered a huge, intriguing case brought back by their father from India: “I opened up this box and there was this sitar, it was just the most awesome thing I’d ever seen, I just saw it and I was like, I have to learn how to play this.” They found…

Lockdown lifesavers Thank goodness for Songlines during the difficult 18 months we’ve had! Providing dependably fresh, quality music reviews and info, you’ve been a lifesaver. I can’t thank you enough! I was so pleased to see the review of Caamano & Ameixeira’s album Aire! [November 2021, #172]. The sheer quality of musicianship alone made it worth more than the two stars your reviewer gave it, though. ‘Mercedes y Dolores’ and ‘Se Souberas’ are two of the most thrilling, haunting songs you could ever hear. Hilary Owen, Sheffield Saami discovery In regards to your Beginner’s Guide to Ian Brennan [November 2021,#172], despite the producer’s love of claiming discovery, he didn’t record Ustad Saami’s first album. Under his real name, Naseeruddin Saami, he’d made at least one album previously, The Lyrical Tradition…

Bela Fleck is on tour somewhere in Maryland when I eventually manage to track him down to talk about his new album, My Bluegrass Heart. The previous night he and his touring band had played in North Bethesda. Tonight, they’re playing 100 miles up the road in Cumberland, although the bland anonymity of his hotel room as we talk via Zoom renders his exact location largely immaterial. He’s just come out of the shower and he’s rubbing his wet and tousled hair with a towel, but there’s a broad smile on his face that comes from the joy of playing in front of a live audience again for the first time in 18 months. The last time I talked with Fleck it was to discuss his exploration of the banjo’s…

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Nagtaba Que du Bonheur en Son/Vlad Production/RFITalents/Inouïe Distribution (43 mins) Bold Burkina rhythms with a global message Kandy Guira is an Ivory Coast-born singer and dancer from Burkina Faso, an erstwhile member of the supergroup Les Amazones d’Afrique, and a charismatic, politically informed performer due international stardom. Having defied parental demands to pursue a life in music, she’s been Paris-based for several years, her backing vocals gracing work by Oumou Sangare, Cheick Tidiane Seck, Esperanza Spalding and the late Manu Dibango. Guira’s 2019 EP Tek-La-Runda (‘Take the Reins’) was a statement of intent on which this debut delivers. Nagtaba means ‘Together’ in Dioula, and the album is both a rallying call for female solidarity and a plea for global understanding, underpinned by a mix of traditional Burkinabe rhythms such as…

Boula Buda Musique (46 mins) Percussion-led tribute to voodoo deities Gaston Jean-Baptiste – he prefers ‘Bonga’ – is a Haitian drummer, multi-instrumentalist and painter of vivid, colourful canvasses that capture the celebration and transformation at the heart of voodoo – the syncretic faith in which he was raised next to the family’s peristil ceremonial room in historically rich La Plaine. Like his father before him, 60-something Bonga is a houngan, a voodoo priest who honours spirits and heals maladies via the Lwa, the panoply of deities who can be summoned by mizik rasin (roots music). And does Bonga – a traditional drum-maker as well as a maestro – play the best mizik rasin ever. But we know that already; the drums of the (since 1991) US-based Bonga have graced shows…

It Wasn’t Hard to Love You Asphalt Tango (42 mins) Romanian brass magicians go out with a bang Is this the last album we will hear from Fanfare Ciocarlia? The world’s foremost Balkan brass band are not retiring from performing but, it seems, may not return to the recording studio: the decline of CD sales means its no longer financially feasible to continue recording – this album was partially crowdfunded so to ensure that Fanfare Ciocarlia’s 25th anniversary gets properly celebrated. Other funds came via the band’s appearance on the soundtrack of last year’s Borat film and it is with a tune commissioned for that movie that the album begins. ‘Just the Two of Us’ – once a Bill with ers soul hit – gets a suitably comic makeover, reminding…

Laroye Oshu Records (55 mins) Stellar celebration of Afro-Brazilian heritage This debut album by Hungarian producer and multi-instrumentalist Szabolcs Bognar (aka Abase) is exactly what its title means in the West African Yoruba language: a collaboration. On his previous EPs, Invocation and Body Mind Spirit, Abase also played alongside a large cast of musicians, from his hometown of Budapest as well as from Brazil and Africa, espousing his drive to forge new sounds from mixing genres and styles. Now, spending five months in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador to record Laroye, Abase has brought together veteran and rising Brazilian musicians such as Letieres Leite, Jadson Xabla, Afrojazz and others. The resulting album is a high-energy outpouring of traditional Brazilian MPB (Musica Popular Brasileiro), samba and jazz, with hip-hop, Afro-funk and…

Indecent Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre, September 14 Songlines doesn’t often cover theatre, but the play Indecent features music and portrays real incidents in European and American history that might be of interest to our readers. Indecent is a play within a play, telling the story of Polish Jewish playwright Sholem Asch’s production Got fun Nekome (God of Vengeance). It begins in Warsaw in 1907 as the young Asch hosts a reading in Yiddish, which – considering the play represents the passionate love between two young women – outraged some and impressed others. Got fun Nekome was a success across much of Europe and transferred to the US (where Asch had settled in 1914), enjoying favourable reviews when performed in Yiddish in New York City. An English translation and a move…

For those who are not yet familiar with Amsterdam Klezmer Band, the name itself has little to offer in terms of fully describing the group. It’s true that the band’s founding musicians played mainly klezmer music when they started busking on the streets of Amsterdam 25 years ago, but their story is much larger than that. Job Chajes bought his first saxophone at the age of 20 and his goal back then was to learn how to play jazz and funk. After practicing for a few weeks, he started playing solo on the streets of his hometown, Amsterdam. To his amazement, he made more than 30 guilders in a few hours on his first day, which inspired him to become a frequent street musician. It was only because Don Munzer…