17 February 2010, World Cafe

1 Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou – Se We Non Nan (Analog Africa)

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou were the giants of the Benin music scene in the mid-70s. Taking the raw energy of James Brown and rock instrumentation, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo honed a number of the traditional rhythms from the region into highly infectious precision African funk. Rhythms that failed to sit still, shifting, pulling in and out. They recorded a mass of stuff all over Benin, and a number of collections have recently been released on Soundways and Analog Africa. The track, “Se We Non Nan”, comes from a collection of stuff they recorded for small labels in Benin in 1972 and 1976 that came out on Analog Africa in 2009, titled “Volume One: The Vodoun Effect”.

Tonight’s programme will cover:
• Fusions of western rock and pop with Arabic music
• Central Asian mixings and collaborations with American musics and musicians
• Folk rock from England and Scotland
• And a bunch of other of stuff

We continue with some recent releases from West Africa, mainly Mali.

Juldeh Camara from Gambia and Justin Adams produced a great record in 2009, “Tell no lies”. They build their meshing of one-string fiddle, African banjo and guitar on a chassis of old style Chicago-based r’n’b.

2 Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara – Banjul Girl (Real World)

3 Oumou Sangare – Donso (World Circuit)

Oumou Sangare released her first recording in 13 years in 2009. The song we listened to was called “Donso” which means “hunter”. It’s based on the rhythm of a traditional hunter’s song from the Wassoulou region from which Sangare hails.

Rokia Traore is a much quieter and more restrained singer than Sangare. From her 2008 release, this is “Aimer”. Listen out for how the ngoni interlaces with the rhythm guitar played in buffed reggae style and the way this all floats on a cushion of rubbed percussion. Enough to give you goose flesh.

4 Rokia Traore – Aimer (Nonesuch)

5 Tinariwen – Bismallah (Wayward Records)

6 Group Bombino – Boghassa (Sublime Frequencies)

Two great Touareg rock tracks. The first is from Tinariwen’s debut international release, “The Radio Tisdas Session”, recorded in 2000 but only coming out in 2002. The song features Kheddou Ag Ossad, who is not in Tinariwen’s current line up. Kheddou leads the group Terakaft, a very fine Tinariwen off-shoot. Justin Adams, who we heard earlier, produced the Tisdas Session.

After Kheddou, we listened to the young up and coming Touareg player, Oumara Al Moctor (aka Bombino) and Group Bombino, from Niger in full electric cry. A rough and ready recording made by Hisham Mayet of Sublime Frequencies.

We now go to Addis Ababa…

7 Either/Orchestra – Antchim Endelela (Buda Musique)

In January 2004 the Either/Orchestra from Boston, after years of playing Ethio-jazz, collaborated with a number of veteran musicians from the Addis scene in 1970s in a series of concerts given at the third Ethiopian Music Festival. That was the tune “Antchim Endelela” from that concert. It featured Bahta Gebre-Heywet on vocals.

The Devil’s Anvil album “Hard Rock from the Middle East”, originally released in 1967, was reissued in 2009. The group, a collection of Americans of Arabic extraction living in Greenwich Village New York, was the brainchild of Felix Pappalardi, who went on to become a successful rock producer, putting together Cream’s “Disraeli Gears” at New York’s Atlantic Studio. Unfortunately, its release coincided with the Arab-Isreali War, and the record sunk more or less without a trace. Here is the traditional song “Selim Alai” from “Hard Rock from the Middle East”.

8 Devil’s Anvil – Selim Alai (Song Music Entertainment / Rev-Ola)

9 Holger Czukay – Persian Love (Mute Corporation)

Holger Czukay, the bassist from the Krautrock group Can, composed that last piece around clips of an Iranian singer he found while trawling the short waves. Some of the members of Can provide the backing. The singer alas went uncredited on the original release which came out in 1980. And from what we can gather, the singer still remains unknown. If you want to read an entertaining extended riff on the song, go to Julian Cope’s “Headheritage” website – it’s in the “unsung” category.

The hyperactive, bass-playing polymath Jah Wobble has worked with Czukay a number of times. In one of his latest projects Wobble has put together what he calls “The Chinese Dub Orchestra”. Basically this is a collection of his usual band, which includes his wife, Zi Lan Liao, a guzheng player, and some Chinese singers, dancers and mask changers whom he found in China, and the Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra from Liverpool, where he now lives. “The Kang Ding Love Song” features the singer Gu Yinji from the Sichuan Province. She sings in a Mongolian style on this track.

After Jah Wobble, we’ll listen to the guitarist and singer, Mamer, who hails from the Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China, dueling with the great American banjo player, Bela Fleck.

10 Jah Wobble & The Chinese Dub Orchestra – The Kang Ding Love Song (30 Hertz)

11 Mamer (with Bela Fleck) – Celebration (Real World)

12 Kongar-ol Ondar & Paul “Earthquake” Pena – Kaldak Hamar (The other side of the mountain) (Genghis Blues Music)

In the mid to late 90s Paul Pena, a veteran blues singer of serious pedigree, worked with Tuvan master-singer, Kongar-ol Ondar. Their collaboration was captured in the documentary movie “Genghis Blues”, which is available in Cape Town for hire if you look hard enough. Pena got deeply into Tuvan singing and won the world title in the kargyraa division of Tuvan throat singing in 1995.

Staying in Tuva, which is part of the Russian Federation, here is Yat Kha from their 1995 release, “Yenisei-Punk”, with the traditional song “Karangailyg Kara Hovaan (In the endless black steppe)”.

13 Yat Kha – Karangailyg Kara Hovaan (Global Music Centre)

14 Debashish Bhattacharya & Bob Brozman – Sujan Re (World Music Network)

Both Debashish Bhattacharya and Bob Brozman are fabulous slide guitarists – and we use that adjective advisedly. They play here with Debashish’s siblings, Subhashis on tabla and percussion and Sutapa, who sings. The song, “Sujan Re,” was written by Debashish.

Now to three disparate pieces that we’ve strung together, because basically they sound related. Tune one is fiddle-based; two is built around the fiddle and accordion; and three, the mouth organ and guitar.

15 Laurie Lewis – Sophie’s House (Spruce and Maple Music)

16 Mawkin: Causley – Todos los bienes del mundo (Navigator)

17 Dizu Plaatjies Ibuyambo Ensemble – Idresi (Straight Line) – composer: Nokuthembela Maka (Mountain Records)

Bluegrass fiddler Laurie Lewis, who has played with Ralph Stanley, first gave us a fiddle tune from her latest CD, “Sophie’s House”.

Mawkin: Causley is a co-joining of the English traditional group, Mawkin, and the singer Jim Causley. The second piece we heard was a Spanish song “Todos los bienes del mundo” and it comes from their 2009 release, “The Awkward Recruit”.

The third track was by the Dizu Plaatjies Ibuyambo Ensemble, from Cape Town. It was called “Idresi” and featured Nokuthembela Maka, who wrote the song, on mouth organ and Ntombetongi on guitar.

From the first volume of the Sterns collection of the music of Congolese musical giant, Franco, this is “Kinsiona”. Volume 2 has just been released and we’ll playing from it in March.

18 Franco – Kinsiona (Sterns Africa)

19 Dave Rawlings Machine – Bells of Harlem (Acony Records)

We also think that the Franco track and the track we played after that by the Dave Rawlings Machine are somehow sonically related. Dave Rawlings is Gillian Welch’s guitar playing and harmonising partner. That was “Bells of Harlem”, which they wrote together. The great music writer, Barney Hoskyns, suggests in a review in Uncut music magazine, that it “feeds discreetly off Dylan’s ‘Girl from the North Country’”.

Tim Hart was one of the founding members of Steeleye Span. He died in January, aged 61. To honour him and the folk rock he helped invent, here is the traditional ballad, “The Female Drummer”, by the early 70s version of Steeleye Span, when Martin Carthy was part of the band.

20 Steeleye Span – The Female Drummer (Libra Music/Sparta Florida) – trad arr Hart/Hutchings/Prior/Carthy/Knight

Over the last year, we’ve played a lot of Scottish folk on this programme and we see no reason to stop. From Alasdair Roberts’s utterly fantastic 2005 collection of traditional songs, “No Earthly Man”, here is “Admiral Cole”, which seemed to have first appeared in 1670 as a broadside.

After that we’ll listen to the Black Flowers’s version of “Polly on the Shore”. Amongst Black Flower’s personnel are the same Alasdair Roberts and his long-time drummer, Alex Nielson.

21 Alasdair Roberts – Admiral Cole (Drag City)

22 Black Flowers – Polly on the shore (Bo’Weavil Recordings)

23 Ray Fisher – The twa corbies (Topic)

That was Ray Fisher’s version of the Scottish ballad “The twa corbies” recorded by Topic Records, which celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2009. A 7 CD collection “Three score and ten: A voice to the people” was released to mark this event. That track is on the collection.

We’ll go now to something off the first Unthanks album, when they still called themselves Rachel Unthank and the Winterset. The song “20 long weeks” is from the North East of England and is written by Alex Glasgow. It features Jackie Oates on five string viola and some stunning piano playing by Belinda O’Hooley.

The Rosenberg 7 from Sweden will end the show with the traditional hymn, “Pris vare Gud” (Praise be to God).

24 Rachel Unthank & The Winterset – 20 long weeks (Rabble Rouser)

25 Rosenberg 7 – Pris vare gud (Drone Music AB)