7 August 2013, World Cafe

1 Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino - Nu Te Fermere (Puglia Sounds/Discovery)
Album: Pizzaca Indiavolata

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentina, as the name suggests, are from Salentina which is in the Puglia region of southern Italy on the Salento peninsula where a Greek dialect called Griko is spoken.  The group has been going since 1975 and one of the best exponents of pizzica, a trance like style of folk music and dance said to cure tarantula and snake bites. 

The group is run by fiddler and drummer Mauro Durante the son of Daniele Durante who established the group.  Off their fine 2012 release. 

2 Ghetonia – Quandu camini tie (Anima Mundi)

Album: Krifi

Another long standing cultural group from the same tradition as Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

3 Banda Olifante – Barab (Felmay)

Album: Banda Olifante

Sticking in Italy, but from another tradition – the bande – which started in the 1800s with brass bands performing for funeral and religious processions in towns and villages, often in Puglia and Sicily it seems.  The bands’ mission was to bring the music of high culture to villagers and workers, but grew from there.  Over the last 10 years or so, it’s been taking in all kinds of other musical influences. Banda Olifante is a 15 piece based in Romagna in the north, and “Barab” has a Maghrebi influence.  It doesn’t seem like an accident that the band gets its name from a medieval carved ivory horn often made by Arab craftsman, the olifante. 

4 Fanfara Tirana and Transglobal Underground – Aferdita (World Village)

Album: Kabatronics

The current batch of bande often looks to Balkan brass band for inspiration, and Albania being only about 100 km across the Adriatic Sea from Puglia, I dare say is an important source.  Fanfara Tirana which is actually some kind of a offshoot from Albania’s military band recently teamed up with the British global fusion dance band, Transglobal Underground, to come up with a particularly in your face mix they call “Kabatronics”. 

5 A Hawk and a Hacksaw – Witch’s Theme (L.M. Duplication)

Album: You have already gone to the other world

A Hawk and Hacksaw have redone the entire soundtrack to Georgian director Sergei Parajanov’s 1964 movie “Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors”, about Ukrainian mountain villagers.  They’ve called their project “You have already gone to the other world”, and in my book it’s up there with the best of 2013.  From 1965 onwards all Parajanov’s movies were banned in USSR and he ended up in prison between ‘73 and ‘77 for his trouble.

6 Okay Temiz – Dokuz Sekiz (Bouzouki Joe Records)

Album: Turkish Freakout: Psych Folk Singles 1969 – 80

Let’s head across the Black Sea to Turkey.  The fusion jazz percussionist and drummer, Okay Temiz played with a huge number of musicians over the early 70s, including in Johnny Dyani and Mongezi Feza.  “Dokuz Sekiz” is a single from 1975.

7 Selda Bagcan – Yuh yuh (Turkuola)

7” single

Selda Bagcan is one of the greats of Turkish folk and rock music, singer, songwriter baglama -ist and guitarist.  Bagcan started her musical career in 1971 while studying engineering physics at Ankara University and is still going strong running a music production company in Istanbul. 

8 Timur Selcuk – Pireli Sarki (Yonca)

7” single

Timur Selcuk comes from a musical family and studied in Paris in the 60s and perhaps early 70s. After returning from Paris he reeled off a string of songs that turned out to be hits, like this one, from 1975, sounding like some kind of a Russian folk ditty.   

9 Ilaiyaraaja feat P. Susheela – Poo Poo Kkum (Finders Keepers)
Album: Ilectro Euphoric electronics and robotic funk

Ilaiyaraaja is a legendary composer for the Tamil film industry often called Kollywood and based in Chennai. In fact, he may be the only composer for the Tamil film industry.  “Poo Poo Kkum” features the wonderful vocals of P. Susheela and comes from Finders Keepers brand new collection of Ilaiyaraaja culled from stuff he put out in the 80s.

10 Debashish Bhattacharya – Kirwani One 5 + 8 Five (World Music Network / Riverboat Records)

Album: Beyond the Ragasphere

Along with VM Bhatt, whom I hope you saw playing in Cape Town recently, Debashish Bhattacharya is probably most famous slide guitarist in India.  He turns up the fusion on his latest, “Beyond the ragasphere”, with dobra player Jerry Douglas and guitarist John McLauglin enlisted on a few tracks.  “Kirwani one 5 + 8 five” features Battacharya’s teenage daughter, Anandi, doing some great singing. 

11 Dawanggang – Four Ways (JARO)

Album: Wild Tune Stray Rhythm

Thanks to the specialist music mag, “Folk Roots”, I discovered Chinese folk experimentalists, Dawanggang.  Their album, out on the German label Jaro, is called “Wild Tune Stray Rhythm” - which more or less says it all.  Song Yuzhe, who’s played in a bunch of punk bands over the years, and his crack sidemen from inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and central China have  mixed Chinese opera, with a bunch of Asian folk and good old fashioned rock n rock.  It’s not for the faint hearted, that’s for sure. “Four ways” is probably the most user friendly track.

12 Takashi Hirayasu & Bob Brozman – Uruku Tumi Gushiku (Riverboat Records)
Album: Jin Jin/Firefly

Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman with a traditional Okinawan song off their classic collaboration.  Brozman was an inveterate collaborator and had keen fascination for slide guitars of shapes and vintages – which explains his work with Debishish Bhattach over the years -  and music produced on islands which took him all around the world.  He died a few months ago under very tragic circumstances connected to him not being able to play guitar the way he thought he ought to able to.  I think of no better tribute than the music of Jin Jin which is deceptively simple, but incredibly dynamic, textured and heartfelt.  More from Brozman’s later in the show.

13 Shoukichi Kina and Champloose – Shimaguwa Song (Globe Style)

Album: The Music Power from Okinawa

Takashi Hirayasu used to play guitar with Champoose, one of the best rock bands of Okinawa, and incompassing the island’s fiercely independent spirit and its ability to absorb all kinds of culture, including Chinese, Japanese and American.  At centre of Champoose is Shokichi Kina, apparently a pretty erratic fellow, but he’s totally on form on “Shimaguwa Song” from a live set recorded in Okinawa in 1977 which goes under the name “The Music Power from Okinawa”.

14 Phonophani – Gubijinso (Rune Grammafon)

Album: Kreken

Norwegian electronic musician Espen Sommer Eide, aka Phonophani, teamed up with Japanese sound artist, Haco, to produce the tune “Gubijinso”.  It’s from Phonophani’s 2010 set.

15 Cyclopean – Fingers (Mute/Spoon)
EP: Cyclopean

Recently some of the core members of Krautrock group Can i.e. drummer Jaki Liebezeit and keyboadist Irman Schmidt got together with Burnt Friedman and Jono Podmore, called themselves Cyclopean and produced a spacey, dubby slice of ethnological forgery.  So far an EP has emerged, but there’s an album in the making I believe. 

16 Dennis Bovell – Flood of Tears (Pressure Sounds)
Album: Mek It Run

The veteran dub producer and bass player, Dennis Bovell, with something he cooked up recently in the Mad Professor’s studio post neck surgery when he was banned from bass playing and took to finishing off pieces that have long languished in the vaults.  The resulting album is pretty potent.

17 Kobo Town – The War between Is and Ought (Cumbancha)

Album: Jumbie in the Jukebox

Kobo Town takes it name from the old neighbourhood of Port-of-Spain where calypso was reputedly born, even though they all live in Toronto.  Drew Gonsalves was born in Trinidad and came to Canada as a teenager and the calypso he’s come up is infused with dancehall, ska, reggae and a touch of soca, and some nice, heavyish brass.  “Jumbie in the Jukebox” is their debut album.   

18 Bob Brozman – Strange Mind Blues (Ruf/Only Blues Music)
Album: Fire in the Mind

Bob Brozman off the last album he ever made, 2012’s “Fire in the mind”, and a self-penned song.  One the greatest, if not the greatest, Hawaiian guitarists, and one of the most generous collaborators.  The world is a much depleted place without him.

19 Valerie June – The Hour (Sunday Best)

Album: Pushin’ Against a Stone

Valerie June Hockett is from Jackson, Tennessee, and has been paying her dues for a number of years now, brewing up one hell of a concoction of old timey blues, Appalachian folk and classic 60s and 70s soul.  She teamed with the now indomitable Dan Auerbach to flesh some of songs out, and her resultant debut album is a winner

20 Sam Amidon – As I Roved Out (Nonesuch)
Album: Bright Sunny South

Sam Amidon, from Vermont originally, has been working a kind of old Appalachian folk seam for a while, cutting it with lashings of jazzing strings and woodwinds and some off kilter guitar.  He’s sounding more Appalachian these days – perhaps since he’s relocated to Blighty having married Beth Orton.  “As I roved out” is a reworking of a traditional song.  Another classic of 2013, I think.

21 Beth Orton – Magpie (Anti)
Album: Sugaring Season

And speaking of Beth Orton, I did enjoy her album of last year – just on the right side i.e. the rootsy and darker side - of singer-song writer indie folk-rock.  That’s maybe because of collaborations and lessons with Bert Jansch.  Recorded in Portland, by Tucker Martine, whose name seems to be coming up here quite often of late.

22 Bella Hardy – Through Lonesome Woods (Noe)

Album: Battleplan

Bella Hardy specializes in writing new songs that echo traditional songs, and “Through Lonesome Woods” is a very fine example of one of these.  Off her 2013 album, “Battleplan”.

23 Mukunguni – Bamba (Honest Jon’s Records)

Album: New Recordings from Coastal Province, Kenya

From field recordings of the Mijikenda tribes from the coast Kenya.  Bamba is the Mijikenda name for a metal guiro – a percussive scraper.  The music evolved in the early 20^th century based on older forms and is mainly for healing. 

24 Sambe Toure – Awn Be Ye Kelenye (Glitterbeat)

Album: Albala

Sambe Toure is one of the new generation of Songhai guitarists and songwriters emerging after Ali Farka Toure from the around the Timbuktu area of Mali.  His new record is terrific, a real advance on his previous stuff.  Another recorded last year round about when the military coup was occurring.  It’s called “Albala” which is the Songhai word for danger or risk.  “Awn be ye kelenye” is Songhai for “We are all Malian” – a plea for ethnic unity.

25 Rokia Traore – Kouma (Nonesuch)

Album: Beautiful Africa

Something from another classic of 2013. 

26 Segun Bucknor – Adanri Sogbasogba (Strut Records)

Album: Poor Man No Get Brother

Segun Bucknor was one of many great highlife musicians that operated in Nigeria in the late 60s and 70s.  He also had a passion of American soul and funk, and for protesting corruption in Nigeria and singing in English, but his best stuff is in Yoruba and decidedly laidback and funky.  “Adanri Sogbasogba” is culled from a collection of his stuff made between ‘69 and ‘75. 

27 Vicky et OK Jazz – En memoire de Bayon (EMI 1971/1976)

Album: Vicky et OK Jazz

Vicky Longomba, the great Congolese singer associated with Franco.  It seems to have been recorded in 1971.   

28 Bill Frisell – We all love Neil Young (Okeh Records) (Songtone LLC)
Album: Big Sur     

A statement I think we can all endorse.