2 November 2011, World Cafe

1 Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – African Soldiers (Because) (Rilwan Fagbemi)

Seun Kuti together with his band Egypt 80, the 12-piece band he inherited from his father, Fela Kuti. He’s upped the beats per minute from the normal Afrobeat fare, and the anger’s ratcheted way up there too. “African Soldier” is a tirade against former soldiers who become dictators and keep themselves in power for decades. It’s from their 2011 album, “From Africa with fury: Rise”, which Brian Eno, a long-time Afrobeat enthusiast, co-produced.

2 Vieux Farka Toure – Aigna (feat. Derek Trucks) (Six Degrees)

Speaking of sons of great musicians, Vieux Farka Toure, son of Ali Farka Toure, put out a wonderful record earlier this year, “The Secret”. We listened to a collaboration with John Scofield a few months ago. “Aigna” features the American blues guitar prodigy and Allman Brothers Band member, Derek Trucks, on some sitar-like slide guitar.

3 Bembeya Jazz National – Alalake (Syliphone)

Sekou “Diamond Fingers” Diabate plays some incredible pedal steel. It comes from an album recorded in the mid 70s dedicated to former member, singer and composer, Aboubacar Demba, who died in a car crash in 1973.

4 Gnonnas Pedro and his Dadjes Band International – Fini les pavés (African Songs Ltd)

Gnonnas Pedro is a great singer from the 70s Benin scene. “Fini les pavés” is from the original vinyl LP put out by the label African Songs Ltd in 1977 called “The Band of Africa, vol 3”.

5 Fatoumata Diwara – Nayan (World Circuit)

Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) from Mali has just put out her first album on World Circuit, called “Fatou”– and it’s sort of in the quiet, independent singer-songwriter spirit of Rokia Traore, who is actually a friend of hers, and who inspired Diawara to accompany herself on guitar. But she also draws on the Wassoulou traditions of her parents and of her mentor, Oumara Sangare.

Diawara’s 28 year history has been one of fierce independence – she started out as a film actor in Mali, having been sent to live with her aunt, also an actor, in Bamoko by her parents after she refused to continue with school. Then she became a stage actor, and literally escaped to Paris, after her parents tried to curtail her career. She was discovered as a singer, started performing in stage shows around the world, and has wound up singing with Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, Herbie Hancock and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.

“Nayan” is from an EP called “Kanou” that preceded the album. We’ll hear something from the full album in December.

6 Tinariwen – Imidiwan Win Sahara (Anti-)

Tinariwen, probably the most well-known Tuareg band, have a new album out, “Tassili”, named after Tassili N’Ajjer in southern Algeria, where it was recorded. Tassili is a place where Tamashek guerrillas took refuge en route to Mali. Its rocks and caves are a world heritage site. The album is somewhat more acoustic and less overtly political than recent ones. You have to love the group hum on this tune.

7 Genticorum – Reel Circulaire (Roues et Archets)

Québécois music off Genticorum's latest album “Nagez Rameurs”, which is based around the theme of maritime voyages. Québécois is an amalgam of French, Irish, Scottish and Breton traditions.

At the centre of this tune is song collector and fiddler Pascal Gemme , who first heard traditional Québécois music as a child in Huntingdon, Quebec, where his grandfather was the village fiddler.

8 Bee Dehotels - Aux Natchitoches (Cinq Planetes)

Nova Scotia, one of the Canada’s maritime provinces, is just east of Quebec. It used to be known as Acadia, and is where the forbearers of the Louisianan Cajuns came from. In the mid-70s, the label "Cinq Planètes” put out a wonderful set of recordings made in the homes of the musician and Cajun revivalist Dewey Balfa and painter Eraste Fontenot, both of whose families are very well known on the Cajun scene. The recordings were made for a film project on legendary masters of cajun and creole music called “Les haricots sont pas salés” – “the beans are not salted”. Bee Dehotels apparently specialized in old Cajun French ballads.

9 Vielleux du Bourbonnais – Bourrée A Malochet-Bourrée d’Alfred Pommier (Auvidis)

Bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy music was one of the traditions the original French settlers brought with them when they settled in Acadia in the 1600s. French group Vielleux du Bourbonnais take their music from the manuscripts of late nineteenth-century collectors, who in turn collected and transcribed older tunes passed down orally.

10 Andreas Schaerer & Banz Oester – Finger Maxu (Unit Records)

In July Prohelvetia brought vocalist Andreas Schaerer and bassist Banz Oester to South Africa. If you saw them playing at the Fugard Theatre you were probably either perplexed or blown away – actually you were probably both at the same time. As they would say, they “instantly composed” a fusion of a bewildering array of styles and traditions.

11 Vezhliviy Otkaz – Russian song (Zenith/Soyuz)

Vezhliviy Otkaz are from Moscow. Their name apparently means “Polite Refusal”.

12 Jermain Tamraz – Doogle Shapireh (Assyrian)

Jermain Tamraz is another great 70s middle-eastern singer. I know she’s Assyrian, although I’m not whether she came from Syria or Iraq.

13 Gulcan Opel – Tamammi (Bouzouki Joe)

The Turkish singer Gulcan Opel with the tune “Tamammi” reissued in 2011 by Bouzouki Joe on the collection “Turkish Freakout 2: Psych-Folk 1970-78”. The track was produced by Arif Sag, a singer, bağlama virtuoso, Turkish folk music founder and academic, and former MP in the Turkish parliament.

14 The Golden Ring – The Lost (Persianna)

Another Arif or Aref prominent in modern Middle Eastern music is Aref Arefkia. He’s just as famous in Iran as Googoosh, but unlike her left Iran in 1979 at the time of the revolution. In his early days, in the 60s, he was a member of the Tehran garage band, The Golden Ring. “The Lost” off a recent reissue: “The Golden Ring: Iranian Styled 60s Garage and other exotic sounds”.

15 African Head Charge – Throw it away (On U Sound)

Continuing our celebration of 30 years of the British reggae and dub label, On-U Sound, the tune comes from African Head Charge’s fourth album “Off the beaten track” which came out in 1986.

16 Lee Perry – Rise Again (M.O.D. Technologies)

On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood has produced a number of albums by one of dub’s best ever explorers and innovators, Lee Perry. Lee Perry’s most recent effort is a collaboration with bass playing polymath Bill Laswell – called “Rise again.” It’s mostly a little disappointing, but the title track isn’t too bad.

17 Lee Perry and the Upsetters – Kiss Me Mix (Exclusive Dub Plate Mix) (Pressure Sounds)

Lee Scratch Perry at his peak in the mid-70s with the exclusive dub plate mix of “Kiss me neck”. It’s from a truly wonderful collection just out on On-U Sound’s sister label, Pressure Sounds – “The Return of Sound System Scratch: More Lee Perry Dub Plate Mixes and Rarities 1973-1979”. Obtain forthwith if you have any interest in Lee Perry’s music – you will not be sorry.

18 Cyril Diaz & His Orchestra – Voodoo (Soundway)

Another track from a collection of 7” reissues of vintage Columbian music that Soundway brought out earlier this year.

19 Home Service – Battle Pavanne / Peat Bog Soldiers (Fledg’ling)

Eight-piece folk-rock group, Home Service, from the highly politicised mid-80s of Thatcher’s England. The track here is from a recent release called “Live 1986”. “Battle Pavanne” is actually a piece of court music written by Tielman Susato in 1551. “Peat Bog Soldiers” was written by prisoners in a Nazi labour camp in 1933, adopted by the Republicans as an anthem during the Spanish Civil War, and was sung all around Europe during World War Two, and after that as a protest song.

20 Elle Osborne – I’m bound away (Folk Police Recordings)

Elle Osborne, a traditional singer from Lincolnshire, has been around for a few years now. She’s got a new album out on the label Folk Police called “So slowly slowly got she up” with a supporting cast that includes Alasdair Roberts, Cath and Phil Tyler and Alex Neilson, all of whom we’ve listened to before here on this show.

Check out the “Eileen Aroon” mix out on both Holy Warbles and the Ghost Capital blog if you like this sort of stuff – it’s a few entries down from the top. Well worth the download.

21 Sarah Jarosz - Anabelle Lee (Sugar Hill)

20 year old guitarist, banjo player, singer and song-writer from Austin, Texas, Sarah Jarosz, unbelievably off her second album “Follow me down”. That’s her neo-traditional tune “Anabelle Lee”, based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Her band includes a bunch of luminaries on the bluegrass/ newgrass/country scene like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Viktor Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Shawn Colvin and Darrell Scott.

22 Jolie Holland – June (Anti, Ince)

Jolie Holland is also from Texas, but this time Houston. She works a more bluesy, jazzy vein of Americana – a bit like Billie Holliday (who she cites as a big influence) doing country blues. “June” is from her new album “Pint of Blood”.

23 Flower Travellin’ Band – House of the Rising Sun (Philips)

The mind-blowing, lung-bursting singing of Joe Yamanaka of the Flower Travellin’ Band circa 1970. The earliest recordings of “House of the Rising Sun” were by Clarence Ashley in 1933, although the song or something like it is probably much, much older – Ashley claimed that his grandfather used to sing it. Alan Lomax collected a version in 1937 in Kentucky, which it seemed made the song famous. Yamanaka died on 7th August and here’s a ‘believe it or not’ fact: he was a friend of Bob Marley and took his place as lead singer of The Wailers for five years after Marley died.

24 Kuni Kawachi & the Flower Travellin’ Band – Kirikyogen (Capital)

Also from the 1970s, this is Joe Yamanaka with keyboardist Kuni Kawachi.

25 Can – Spoon (Spoon)

Sticking with anti-establishment, counter-cultural 60s and 70s psychedelic scenes in previously highly authoritarian countries, that was the Krautrock group Can with one of their more well-known tunes, “Spoon”. In fact the tune was a German Top 40 hit, from one of their many classic albums, “Ege Bamyasi”, which is Turkish for Aegean okra.

Can apparently actually started out trying to play exotic fusions, but then discovered the Velvet Underground – they did actually return to the exotic a bit later in their Ethnological Forgery Series.

The singer on “Spoon” is Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller who founding members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit found busking outside a café in Munich. Suzuki ended up playing with them for quite a few years.

26 Harmonia – Deluxe (Immer Wieder) (Brain)

Another absolutely classic Krautrock track. Harmonia was a kind of supergroup that included members from the bands Neu, Cluster and Guru Guru.

Check out the wonderful doccie on Krautrock made by BBC4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B89-69icyc&noredirect=1
The label “Krautrock” is contested on the grounds of accuracy and its belittling overtones. There are also recent interviews with the members of Can and Harmonia reflecting how things were in Germany in the late 60s and the 70s.