1 Erick Manana – Zanamalala (Une voix…une guitare…)
The guitar and voice of Bordeaux-based Madagascan Erick Manana from his album “Une voix … une guitare”. Like probably all the Madagascan musicians we’ve featured on this show, Manana is interested in preserving the gutsy integrity of the rural music of Madagascar -- but he is also keen on cutting it with all kinds of Western folk music. He uses open tunings like the ba-gasy tuning – something indigenous to Madagascar.
2 Mahaleo – Vaonala (Playa Sound collection Africa)
Erick Manana, who we just heard, has been on the scene for around 30 years and played in many bands including the longstanding, well-known band Mahaleo – sometimes brilliantly blending pop with traditional Madagascan. Formed in the early 70s, the band members have gone on to become doctors, sociologists and government officials. Here is something quite lovely off their 1976 album “Madagascar” called “Vaonala”.
3 NY Malagasy Orchestra – Mila omby (Cinq Planetes)
Cutting-edge Antandroy music – music from the cattle farming territory of the southernmost part of Madagascar. The singing from this area often emulates cattle wheezing and bellowing and the calls of cattle herders. The NY Malagasy Orchestra is pretty large - almost a Madagascan supergroup - under the direction of valiha star-player, Justin Vali. They are evidently a touring show and their tie-in album is called “Masoala” which came out last year on the wonderful French label, Cinq Planetes.
4 Damily – Talilio (Phantom Sound and Vision)
Tsapiky (pronounced “tsapeek”) is another popular brand of music from south Madagascar, in fact the Tulear area – and it’s pretty frantic. There are apparently loads of informal, pick up bands in the Tulear area. Damily, named after its founder, is probably the most well known Tsapiky band. This song comes from their 2008 album, “Ravinahitsy”.
5 Gege Mahafay Monja – Manontolo tromba (Cinq Planetes)
Sticking to the south of Madagascar, the incredible marovany player Gege Mahafay Monja. His mother, a healer, taught him to play. She used to take him to “tromba” – the general name for divinations, treatment sessions and exorcisms. The tune is from another Cinq Planetes release – Monja’s 2005 album called “Marovany”.
6 Babata – Soma motomay (instrumental) (Long Distance)
The west coast of Madagascar is the most remote part of the island, large parts of which are only accessiblle by boat. Josephin Herisson, or Babata as he’s known on stage, is a fisherman, diver and musician who has traveled up and down that coast. He plays the mandaliny, a small 4 string guitar related to the ukulele, which is usually homemade in Madagascar and has strings made from anything going. It’s usually subjected to many idiosyncratic styles of playing.
7 Eliza Carthy – War (Hem Hem)
Besides being a wonderful fiddler and interpreter of traditional English music, Eliza Carthy also writes her own songs, and her new album of original songs, “Neptune”, is probably her best so far of this kind. In “War” she flits across a bunch of styles in her best Yorkshire accent.
8 Bella Hardy – The Herring Girl (Navigator)
Another traditionalist who’s had a good go at writing her own stuff is Bella Hardy (also a fiddle player – but from Derbyshire). Her latest album, “Songs Lost & Stolen”, is also a collection of her own songs, like Carthy’s.
9 Dolina Maclennan – Fil Uo Ro Hu-O (Topic)
Dolina Maclennan is from the island of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland. This song was recorded in the 60s, but was passed down through generations of her family. It’s a waulking song – a song to accompany the communal multi-stage work of shrinking tweed. Each stage is done to a specific rhythm and has different accompanying songs. It’s off a 1965 collection on Topic Records called “Bonny Lass Come O’er the Burn”.
10 Jeannie Robertson – My rovin’ eye
Jeannie Robertson lived much of her life in Aberdeen. This version of the traditional song “My rovin’ eye” was recorded in the 50s by Alan Lomax. She’s widely recognized as one of the greatest Scottish ballad singers and well known for giving performances of the full epic songs.
11 Tud – Heuliad dansou plinn (Plinn ton simpl) (Celtic America Llc)
Sticking to places that made up the old Celtic world, Tud is a super slick, super dextrous modern Breton folk band.
12 Soig Siberil & Nolwen Korbell – Padal (Coop Breizh)
Breton guitarist Soig Siberal and singer Nolwen Korbell with a song off their 2007 album called “Red”.
13 Amador Garcia - El Ramo (Saga)
The Spanish province of Zamora in the Castilla and Leon region in Western Spain near the Portuguese border has a fabulous music tradition, well explored by the Spanish label, Saga, which made field recordings in the 1980s (Zamora Musica Tradicional Vol 1). Here are two of those recordings – the first is “El Ramo” by Amador Garcia on flauta and snare drum.
14 Marina Martin and Abel Martin - Arbolito Florido (Saga)
The second is “Arbolito Florido” with Marina Martin singing and on tambourine, and Abel Martin on castanets.
15 Maleem Mahmoud Ghania & Pharoah Sanders – Moussa Berkiyo-Koubaliy Beriah La’foh (Axiom)
The Moroccan master guimbri player Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, whose father was actually an immigrant from Guinea, and his troop with American tenor sax player Pharoah Sanders.
I don’t know whether it’s my imagination but I’m hearing resonances of gnawa music in that peasant music from west central Spain, or maybe it’s the other way around. This despite the fact that gnawa music was only supposed to have started with the movement of the Fulani slaves from the Mali-Guinea region into Morocco in the 16th century, way after the Moors were expelled from Spain. But gnawa and whatever Moorish music found its way into Spain may have similar roots in that as early as the 700s the cultures of the Ghanaian Empire and the Berbers began to blend in Mauritania. In 1000 Mauritania broke away from the Ghanaian Empire and its people, known as Al-Moravids, began to push north into Morocco and Spain.
16 Radio Morocco – The Medina Sound (Sublime Frequencies)
Staying in Morocco … one of the many things that the visionary label Sublime Frequencies does is country-based radio collages - mixes of recorded radio transmissions made in a particular country. They started doing this in 1983 in Morocco. “The Medina Sound” off their CD “Radio Morocco” comes from a range of stations across Morocco.
17 Dimi Mint Abba – Song 4 (World Circuit)
Dimi Mint Abba, a veteran of the Mauritanian music scene, died tragically in early June this year. “Song 4” is from a World Circuit collection released in 2006 to mark its 20th anniversary, called “World Circuit Presents…”.
18 Bombino – Tigrawahi Tikma (Bring us together) (Cumbancha)
The Touareg are found in Eastern Mali, Western Niger, Algeria and Western Libya and form part of the Berber people. The musician Bombino, named for his early musical ability, comes from the city of Agadez in the centre of Niger. He was forced to leave in 2007 after two of his band members were killed in the violence following a Touareg uprising. The album he released earlier this year on Cumbancha, called “Agadez,” was part of his contribution to the post-rebellion restoration of the city which he returned to in 2010.
19 Dub Colossus – Feqer Aydelem Wey (Real World)
Dub Colossus, bass player and producer Nick Page’s collective of Ethiopian and English musicians with a somewhat dub-infused Ethio-jazz tune, off their latest album “Addis through the looking glass.”
20 King Tubby – Roots Dub (Jigsaw Music)
King Tubby’s warmly echoey dub version of some vintage reggae jazz by the Skatalites released in 1976. The album is “Herb Dub-Collie Dub”.
2I Dunkelbunt – Smile on your face (Brian May Remix) (PID)
I don’t normally go for modern electro-dub, but that tune by Austrian DJ and producer, Dunkelbunt, aka Ulf Lindemann, is suitably rootsy, and the Klezmer and Balkan fusions work very nicely even though they are just a little too smooth.
22 Lee Perry – Scratch The Dub Organiser (Clocktower)
If you need an antidote to Dunkelbunt, Lee Perry is probably perfect. The tune comes off a really great, rather mysterious collection called “Chapter 1: The Upsetters” which is a collection of previously unreleased stuff from 1970 to 76 brought out by Clocktower – originally a New York based reggae label, now based in Canada.
23 Nguyen Le – Mina Zuki (ACT)
Nguyen Le is a French guitarist of Vietnamese ancestry. On “Mina Zuki” he plays with Mieko Miyazaki on koto, Pradhu Edouard on tabla and percussion and the great veteran bansuri player, Hariprasad Chaurasia, doing what I suppose can be called global fusion – and giving it a good name.
24 Huun Huur-Tu – Agitator (Shanachie)
From South Asia and the Far East to Central Asia … Tuvan group Huun Huur Tu put out their second album recorded in New York and Moscow, “The Orphan’s Lament”, in 1994, and from that here is “Agitator”.
25 Hosoo – Zombon Tuuraitai (Own production)
Hosoo is from the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia.
26 Svang – Tajukankaan Polkka (Comatoscene Polka) (Aito Records)
Does ensemble harmonica sound like a “naff” proposition, a heavy, fat slice of novelty kitsch? Then you haven’t heard the Finnish harmonica quartet, Svang, letting rip on the chromatic, diatonic, chord and bass harmonicas.
27 Chateau neuf spelemannslag – Halling after Thorvald Tronsgard (Grappa)
Chateau Neuf Spelemannslag are a large band from Norway who like to cross Norwegian folk tunes with all kinds of things – jazz, swing, Manhattan Transfer type vocals, funk. A “halling” is a kind of rural Norwegian dance usually done by men and is pretty acrobatic and competitive.
28 Hardellin, Hallberg, Hertzberg, Stabi – Tar du e’ dellboska (Westpark Access)
Hardellin, Hallberg, Hertzberg, Stabi are a Swedish collective of established singers, each of whom also plays with their own bands, including Ditt Ditt Darium, who we’ve heard on this show before. “Tar du e’ dellboska” is off their album “Love Letters and Russian Satellites”.
29 Nils Okland – Biberslatt (Rune Gramofon)
Nils Okland, a Norwegian hardanger fiddle player, is equally at home playing early music, folk and improv music, and often plays all three at the same time. The hardanger fiddle is similar to a normal fiddle except for the 4 or 5 sympathetic strings that run under the regular four strings over the body. The oldest one we know about dates from 1650. On “Biberslatt”, Okland plays with Ole Henrik Moe on a fiddle, or flat fiddle as it’s sometimes called in Norway.
30 Trygve Seim/Andreas Utnem - 312 (ECM)
An arrangement by sax player, Tygve Seim, and pianist, Andreas Utnem, of the traditional Norwegian tune from the town Aseral, from their 2010 ECM release, “Purcor: Songs for Saxophone and Piano”.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
6 July 2011, World Cafe
1 Zim Ngqawana – Dirge (Sheer Music)
Ngqawana died in May. He was a fearless multi-instrumentalist, mostly on various reeds, and a composer – always crossing boundaries between cultures, and between structure and freedom. “Dirge” comes off his 2003 album, “Vadzimu” on Sheer Music. It’s one you should get if you haven’t already.
2 Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou – Von Vo Nono (Strut)
We’ve listened to Poly-Rythmo on this show many times, mainly drawing on recent reissues of the mid 70s stuff when they were at their peak, brought out by small specialist labels like Analog Africa. Orchestra Poly-rythmo had the wind taken out of their sails by the advent of the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Benin in 1972, which lasted until 1990, and began to bite from the late 70s. But they’re now back almost at full intensity on Strut Records with a core of original players (Loko Pierre, Vincent Ahehehinnou, Bentho Gustave, Melome Clement), largely thanks to the success of those reissues. This is their take on fellow Beninese music veteran Gnonnas Pedro’s classic tune “Von Vo Nono”. Pedro died in 2004, so I guess it’s a kind of tribute. Their new release on Strut Records is called “Cotonou Club”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Etu Gela (Mental Groove Records)
The Imperial Tiger Orchestra is from Switzerland. They basically only play blistering, genre-crunching Ethio-jazz. You might have seen them in Cape Town round about September last year. The tune “Etu Gela” comes off their 2010 EP, “Addis Abeba”.
4 Teshome Meteku - Mot Adeladlogn (Buda Musique)
That we’re hearing that sort of furious Ethio-jazz fusion is in no small part due to Francis Falceto’s reissue series “Ethiopiques”, which he started in 1997, 10 years after the end of the Derg and six years after the end of communism in Ethiopia. The imprint mainly profiles music from the mid 60s till the military coup in 1974. There are now about 24 CDs in the series.
“Mot Adeladlogn” by keyboardist, Teshome Meteku (or Mitiku), is from Ethiopiques 1. Mitiku’s brother, Theodros, is on sax, and Seifu Yohannes sings. Mitiku emigrated to the US during the Derg, like many Ethiopian musicians. Since the Derg ended, he’s been back a number of times.
5 Dub Colossus – Guragigna (Real World)
The totally wonderful Ethiopian/British collective, Dub Colossus, thankfully have a new album out - “Addis through the looking glass”. “Guragigna”, is from an EP linked to the album called “Rockers meet Addis Uptown”. The pianist in Dub Colossus is a youngster, Samuel Yirga Mitiku, and I couldn’t help wondering if he’s related to Teshome, who we heard before Dub Colussus, but I couldn’t find anything confirming that he was.
Sheer Music bring out Dub Colussus in South Africa, and thanks to them for making the EP available.
6 Sidi Toure and Friends– Bera nay wassa (Thrill Jockey)
Sidi Toure is based in his city of birth, Gao, on the Niger River in Eastern Mali. Like Salif Keita he defied his noble family to become a musician. His latest record, “Sahel Folk”, only his second western release, is a collection of duets recorded in his sister’s house in Gao. On “Bera nay wassa” he plays the kurbu (a three-stringed instrument with a skin resonator which can be struck percussively) and sings, while Douma Cisse plays the guitar. The title means “Honour goes straight to the heart”.
7 Mamadou Diabate – Humanity (World Village)
New York-based Mamadou Diabate is the cousin of Toumani Diabate. “Humanity” is from his brand new album “Courage” which he went back to Bamako to record. All the musicians are Malian, except for his usual NY bass player, Noah Jarret. The wonderful balafon player (technically the instrument is a bala and balafon refers to the musician) is Lansana Fode Diabate.
8 Miriam Makeba - Dakhla Yunik (Stern’s Africa)
Miriam Makeba’s version of the Lebanese traditional song “Dakhla Yunik” which she recorded in the mid-70s during her exile in Guinea for well known Guinean label, Syliphone. The band contained some top flight Guinean players, like Seckou “Diamond Finger” Diabate, from Bembeya Jazz National. You can find that on Stern’s collection called “Miriam Makeba: The Guinea Years”.
9 Alexander Maloof and the Maloof Oriental Orchestra – Fatima (Rounder)
Syrian pianist, composer, orchestra leader, publisher and producer Alexander Maloof and the Maloof Oriental Orchestra with his tune “Fatima”. Maloof was very much part of the New York music establishment, especially in the 20s and 30s, when he played Carnegie Hall for the likes of Albert Einstein. His blend of western form, harmonies and orchestration with Arabic folk songs and classical music was widely embraced. That’s on Rounder’s collection of 78s from 1916 to the early 50s, called “Music of Arab Americans”.
10 Ferrante and Teicher – El Cumbanchero (Westminster)
Over the last few months we’ve been listening to all kinds of “possible musics” and “ethnological forgeries”, but studiously avoiding a closely related cousin – “lounge exotica” or “easy listening” – inventive but often maudlin, with highly plastic, droopy kinds of sounds – queasy listening. But I’ve come across something pretty exciting of late – the spiky, off-kilter sounds of Ferrante and Teicher, Julliard graduates active in the 50s and 60s. As one reviewer puts it, a “Dimension-X version of easy listening” – the influence of Joe Meek, John Cage, and Moondog writ large. “El Cumbanchero” is some kind of a Caribbean-Mexican mix. It’s from their 1956 LP, “Soundproof”.
11 Lucho Bermudez y Su Orquesta – Fiesta de negritos (Soundway)
Lucho Bermúdez y Su Orquesta with a mix of US big band music and Columbian cumbia. Bermúdez’s career spanned from the 1930s through to the 1960s, and the orchestra toured throughout the US and Cuba. They did some lovely stuff with Trinidadian calypso singers that we’ll listen to in the coming months.
12 Pedro Laza y Sus Pelayeros – La Picua (Soundway)
We listened to some Disco Fuentes stuff from Columbia last month, and there’s a lot more to come.
Both of these tunes come from a series of limited edition 7” vinyl only reissues just released by Soundway.
13 Bienvenidos – Systema Solar (Trikont)
I must say I find the Discos Fuentes sound of the modern rooted in the old, rural and peasant extremely compelling. Popular amongst students in Columbia, Systema Solar do the same in a post-hip hop kind of way.
14 Lee Perry – Better Days (Trojan)
A Lee Perry production of the Carlton & His Shoes single “Better Days” from 1973. “Carlton & His Shoes” are Carlton Manning, a founding member of the reggae roots group, the Abyssinians, and his brothers Donald and Lynford, who also joined the Abyssinians.
15 Atilla the Hun & Lord Executor – Jim Congo Meyer (Rounder)
Trinidadian calypso giant Attila the Hun was born Raymond Quevedo. Apart from touring all around the US and the Caribbean, he was active in local politics in the 40s and 50s, and even wrote a history of calypso. “Jim Congo Meyer” comes from the Rounder collection “Shango, Shouter and Obeah: Supernatural Calypso from Trinidad 1934 - 40”.
16 Snooks Eaglin – St James Infirmary (Smithsonian Folkways)
Playing different versions of “St James Infirmary” is turning into some kind of a custom on this show. A few months ago Sean O’Connor spun Allen Toussaint’s recent instrumental version, and we’ve heard versions by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans. Veteran guitarist and singer Snooks Eaglin’s lovely version was, I think, used in a UK Budweiser TV ad, horrible as that might seem. Incidently, Eaglin was in Allen Toussaint’s 1950s band, the Flamingoes.
17 David Johansen and Larry Saltzman – The Last Kind Words (Luaka Bop)
In the early 2000s David Johansen, the singer for the glam rock, proto-punk band, The New York Dolls, reinvented himself pretty convincingly as an old-time blues singer. This is his version of Geeshie Wiley’s fine song, “The Last Kind Words”. It’s from the soundtrack to the 2003 documentary “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus”.
18 Ola Belle Reed – High on the Mountain (Smithsonian Folkways)
“High on the Mountain” is probably Ola Belle Reed’s most famous song. Ola Belle Reed was a singer-songwriter and banjo player from North Carolina very rooted in Appalachian music and culture. Smithsonian Folkways brought out a wonderful collection of her stuff last year, “Rising Sun Melodies”.
19 Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard –- Working Girl Blues (Rounder)
Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard with a classic Dickens’ song “Working Girl Blues”. As I mentioned last month, Hazel Dickens, an old timey West Virginian singer-songwriter – one of the best, from what I’ve heard – died a few months ago. She met Alice Gerrard, Mike Seeger’s wife, when she moved from Mercer County to the Baltimore-Washington area to seek factory work, and their musical partnership lasted 20 years, although they played some reunions in the 90s.
20 John Wright – Dornoch Links - The Shepherd Crook – Iochiel’s Awa to France (Topic)
John Wright is a pretty obscure English folk musician who’s lived in France for decades now – so long that he was very much part of the French folk revival of the 70s. Here’s a medley of three traditional tunes played on the jew’s harp and recorded for Topic. The track appears on the LP “Unaccompanied: vocal-jew’s harp-fiddle-mouth organ”.
21 unknown – Gamelan Gabor # 2 (Sublime Frequencies)
From the Sublime Frequencies release “Night recordings from Bali”. Apparently Balinese Gamelan music is faster, tighter, and louder than their mighty neighbours to the west, the Javanese. Gamelan music is played by the Hindu minority in Bali.
22 Bo Hein and Bo Mein – Master of the nine cities (Sublime Frequencies)
This is a “nat pwe” from Burma. A “nat” is the spirit of a historical figure who met a tragic or violent death, and if recognized can either assist or devastate a person’s life. And a “pwe” is a ceremony to appease a nat. Pwes happen all the time in Burma - for success in business, happy marriage and good health. It’s from “Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol 3”.
23 The Son of P.M. – Asava Leela (Sathit Tra Kon Khu)
From Thailand in the 60s. At the beginning of their career, PM stood for Payong Mukda, the driving force behind the band, and then later Pocket Music. The band was key to the development of “glassic” music or “progressive classical music” aka “Thai Modernised Music” aka “Shadow Music”, after the Shadows. The song is from the LP “Glassic Goes Modern Dance” and that particular dance rhythm is a “guaracha”.
24 Sun City Girls – Black Orchid (Abduction)
I was talking about “ethnological forgeries” earlier, and the Sun City Girls are prime proponents. “Black Orchid” is something from their last ever album, “Funeral Mariachi”, which came out last year, and is built posthumously around the drum tracks of Charles Gocher, who died some time ago. “Black Orchid” is some kind of Indonesian rock thing.
25 Bijan Chemirani with Ross Daly - Makrinitsa (L'empreinte Digitale)
The magnificent teaming of zarb or frame drum maestro, Bijan Chemirani, and Ross Daly on a lyre of his own invention (a cross between a Cretan lyre and an Indian sangari), on Daly’s tune, “Makrinitsa”. Bijan comes from the great dynasty of Iranian percussionists, the Chemirani. His father Djamchid and brother Keyvan also play on the tune. Daly is an Irishman who been living in Crete for over 35 years.
Earlier in the post I referred to Zim Ngqawana’s adventurous openness – he actually played with Djamchid Chemirani in Rylands a few years ago at the Galaxy, I think it was, with, strangely enough, another Irishman transposed from Ireland, Christy Doran.
26 Emily Portman – Two Sisters (Furrow)
From the lyre to the harp, Emily Portman’s version of a traditional song from her 2010 release, “The Glamoury”.
27 Martin Carthy – Bold General Wolfe (Topic)
Martin Carthy has just turned 70; actually he pipped Bob Dylan to the post. Martin Carthy has been at the forefront of the English folk revival since its inception, more or less, and helped introduce loads of important sonic innovations (percussive acoustic guitar playing, mysterious unaccompanied polyphonic singing, droney electric guitar, brass) and literally spawned a key mover in the current folk scene, fiddler, singer and songwriter, Eliza Carthy. Toby Shippey provides the trumpet, Ben Ivitsky, the trombone and Eliza Carthy the melodeon or was it the harmonium? It’s from his 2004 album, “Waiting for Angels”.
28 June Tabor – Jamaica (Topic)
About three months ago I played you one of the two instrumentals from June Tabor’s new album, “Ashore”, an album of songs which contemplate from the safety of the shore the sea and its crossing. “Jamaica” is the second instrumental from the album. It features Andy Cutting on accordion, Mark Emerson on violin, Tim Harries on bass and Huw Warren on piano.
Ngqawana died in May. He was a fearless multi-instrumentalist, mostly on various reeds, and a composer – always crossing boundaries between cultures, and between structure and freedom. “Dirge” comes off his 2003 album, “Vadzimu” on Sheer Music. It’s one you should get if you haven’t already.
2 Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou – Von Vo Nono (Strut)
We’ve listened to Poly-Rythmo on this show many times, mainly drawing on recent reissues of the mid 70s stuff when they were at their peak, brought out by small specialist labels like Analog Africa. Orchestra Poly-rythmo had the wind taken out of their sails by the advent of the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Benin in 1972, which lasted until 1990, and began to bite from the late 70s. But they’re now back almost at full intensity on Strut Records with a core of original players (Loko Pierre, Vincent Ahehehinnou, Bentho Gustave, Melome Clement), largely thanks to the success of those reissues. This is their take on fellow Beninese music veteran Gnonnas Pedro’s classic tune “Von Vo Nono”. Pedro died in 2004, so I guess it’s a kind of tribute. Their new release on Strut Records is called “Cotonou Club”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Etu Gela (Mental Groove Records)
The Imperial Tiger Orchestra is from Switzerland. They basically only play blistering, genre-crunching Ethio-jazz. You might have seen them in Cape Town round about September last year. The tune “Etu Gela” comes off their 2010 EP, “Addis Abeba”.
4 Teshome Meteku - Mot Adeladlogn (Buda Musique)
That we’re hearing that sort of furious Ethio-jazz fusion is in no small part due to Francis Falceto’s reissue series “Ethiopiques”, which he started in 1997, 10 years after the end of the Derg and six years after the end of communism in Ethiopia. The imprint mainly profiles music from the mid 60s till the military coup in 1974. There are now about 24 CDs in the series.
“Mot Adeladlogn” by keyboardist, Teshome Meteku (or Mitiku), is from Ethiopiques 1. Mitiku’s brother, Theodros, is on sax, and Seifu Yohannes sings. Mitiku emigrated to the US during the Derg, like many Ethiopian musicians. Since the Derg ended, he’s been back a number of times.
5 Dub Colossus – Guragigna (Real World)
The totally wonderful Ethiopian/British collective, Dub Colossus, thankfully have a new album out - “Addis through the looking glass”. “Guragigna”, is from an EP linked to the album called “Rockers meet Addis Uptown”. The pianist in Dub Colossus is a youngster, Samuel Yirga Mitiku, and I couldn’t help wondering if he’s related to Teshome, who we heard before Dub Colussus, but I couldn’t find anything confirming that he was.
Sheer Music bring out Dub Colussus in South Africa, and thanks to them for making the EP available.
6 Sidi Toure and Friends– Bera nay wassa (Thrill Jockey)
Sidi Toure is based in his city of birth, Gao, on the Niger River in Eastern Mali. Like Salif Keita he defied his noble family to become a musician. His latest record, “Sahel Folk”, only his second western release, is a collection of duets recorded in his sister’s house in Gao. On “Bera nay wassa” he plays the kurbu (a three-stringed instrument with a skin resonator which can be struck percussively) and sings, while Douma Cisse plays the guitar. The title means “Honour goes straight to the heart”.
7 Mamadou Diabate – Humanity (World Village)
New York-based Mamadou Diabate is the cousin of Toumani Diabate. “Humanity” is from his brand new album “Courage” which he went back to Bamako to record. All the musicians are Malian, except for his usual NY bass player, Noah Jarret. The wonderful balafon player (technically the instrument is a bala and balafon refers to the musician) is Lansana Fode Diabate.
8 Miriam Makeba - Dakhla Yunik (Stern’s Africa)
Miriam Makeba’s version of the Lebanese traditional song “Dakhla Yunik” which she recorded in the mid-70s during her exile in Guinea for well known Guinean label, Syliphone. The band contained some top flight Guinean players, like Seckou “Diamond Finger” Diabate, from Bembeya Jazz National. You can find that on Stern’s collection called “Miriam Makeba: The Guinea Years”.
9 Alexander Maloof and the Maloof Oriental Orchestra – Fatima (Rounder)
Syrian pianist, composer, orchestra leader, publisher and producer Alexander Maloof and the Maloof Oriental Orchestra with his tune “Fatima”. Maloof was very much part of the New York music establishment, especially in the 20s and 30s, when he played Carnegie Hall for the likes of Albert Einstein. His blend of western form, harmonies and orchestration with Arabic folk songs and classical music was widely embraced. That’s on Rounder’s collection of 78s from 1916 to the early 50s, called “Music of Arab Americans”.
10 Ferrante and Teicher – El Cumbanchero (Westminster)
Over the last few months we’ve been listening to all kinds of “possible musics” and “ethnological forgeries”, but studiously avoiding a closely related cousin – “lounge exotica” or “easy listening” – inventive but often maudlin, with highly plastic, droopy kinds of sounds – queasy listening. But I’ve come across something pretty exciting of late – the spiky, off-kilter sounds of Ferrante and Teicher, Julliard graduates active in the 50s and 60s. As one reviewer puts it, a “Dimension-X version of easy listening” – the influence of Joe Meek, John Cage, and Moondog writ large. “El Cumbanchero” is some kind of a Caribbean-Mexican mix. It’s from their 1956 LP, “Soundproof”.
11 Lucho Bermudez y Su Orquesta – Fiesta de negritos (Soundway)
Lucho Bermúdez y Su Orquesta with a mix of US big band music and Columbian cumbia. Bermúdez’s career spanned from the 1930s through to the 1960s, and the orchestra toured throughout the US and Cuba. They did some lovely stuff with Trinidadian calypso singers that we’ll listen to in the coming months.
12 Pedro Laza y Sus Pelayeros – La Picua (Soundway)
We listened to some Disco Fuentes stuff from Columbia last month, and there’s a lot more to come.
Both of these tunes come from a series of limited edition 7” vinyl only reissues just released by Soundway.
13 Bienvenidos – Systema Solar (Trikont)
I must say I find the Discos Fuentes sound of the modern rooted in the old, rural and peasant extremely compelling. Popular amongst students in Columbia, Systema Solar do the same in a post-hip hop kind of way.
14 Lee Perry – Better Days (Trojan)
A Lee Perry production of the Carlton & His Shoes single “Better Days” from 1973. “Carlton & His Shoes” are Carlton Manning, a founding member of the reggae roots group, the Abyssinians, and his brothers Donald and Lynford, who also joined the Abyssinians.
15 Atilla the Hun & Lord Executor – Jim Congo Meyer (Rounder)
Trinidadian calypso giant Attila the Hun was born Raymond Quevedo. Apart from touring all around the US and the Caribbean, he was active in local politics in the 40s and 50s, and even wrote a history of calypso. “Jim Congo Meyer” comes from the Rounder collection “Shango, Shouter and Obeah: Supernatural Calypso from Trinidad 1934 - 40”.
16 Snooks Eaglin – St James Infirmary (Smithsonian Folkways)
Playing different versions of “St James Infirmary” is turning into some kind of a custom on this show. A few months ago Sean O’Connor spun Allen Toussaint’s recent instrumental version, and we’ve heard versions by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans. Veteran guitarist and singer Snooks Eaglin’s lovely version was, I think, used in a UK Budweiser TV ad, horrible as that might seem. Incidently, Eaglin was in Allen Toussaint’s 1950s band, the Flamingoes.
17 David Johansen and Larry Saltzman – The Last Kind Words (Luaka Bop)
In the early 2000s David Johansen, the singer for the glam rock, proto-punk band, The New York Dolls, reinvented himself pretty convincingly as an old-time blues singer. This is his version of Geeshie Wiley’s fine song, “The Last Kind Words”. It’s from the soundtrack to the 2003 documentary “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus”.
18 Ola Belle Reed – High on the Mountain (Smithsonian Folkways)
“High on the Mountain” is probably Ola Belle Reed’s most famous song. Ola Belle Reed was a singer-songwriter and banjo player from North Carolina very rooted in Appalachian music and culture. Smithsonian Folkways brought out a wonderful collection of her stuff last year, “Rising Sun Melodies”.
19 Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard –- Working Girl Blues (Rounder)
Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard with a classic Dickens’ song “Working Girl Blues”. As I mentioned last month, Hazel Dickens, an old timey West Virginian singer-songwriter – one of the best, from what I’ve heard – died a few months ago. She met Alice Gerrard, Mike Seeger’s wife, when she moved from Mercer County to the Baltimore-Washington area to seek factory work, and their musical partnership lasted 20 years, although they played some reunions in the 90s.
20 John Wright – Dornoch Links - The Shepherd Crook – Iochiel’s Awa to France (Topic)
John Wright is a pretty obscure English folk musician who’s lived in France for decades now – so long that he was very much part of the French folk revival of the 70s. Here’s a medley of three traditional tunes played on the jew’s harp and recorded for Topic. The track appears on the LP “Unaccompanied: vocal-jew’s harp-fiddle-mouth organ”.
21 unknown – Gamelan Gabor # 2 (Sublime Frequencies)
From the Sublime Frequencies release “Night recordings from Bali”. Apparently Balinese Gamelan music is faster, tighter, and louder than their mighty neighbours to the west, the Javanese. Gamelan music is played by the Hindu minority in Bali.
22 Bo Hein and Bo Mein – Master of the nine cities (Sublime Frequencies)
This is a “nat pwe” from Burma. A “nat” is the spirit of a historical figure who met a tragic or violent death, and if recognized can either assist or devastate a person’s life. And a “pwe” is a ceremony to appease a nat. Pwes happen all the time in Burma - for success in business, happy marriage and good health. It’s from “Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol 3”.
23 The Son of P.M. – Asava Leela (Sathit Tra Kon Khu)
From Thailand in the 60s. At the beginning of their career, PM stood for Payong Mukda, the driving force behind the band, and then later Pocket Music. The band was key to the development of “glassic” music or “progressive classical music” aka “Thai Modernised Music” aka “Shadow Music”, after the Shadows. The song is from the LP “Glassic Goes Modern Dance” and that particular dance rhythm is a “guaracha”.
24 Sun City Girls – Black Orchid (Abduction)
I was talking about “ethnological forgeries” earlier, and the Sun City Girls are prime proponents. “Black Orchid” is something from their last ever album, “Funeral Mariachi”, which came out last year, and is built posthumously around the drum tracks of Charles Gocher, who died some time ago. “Black Orchid” is some kind of Indonesian rock thing.
25 Bijan Chemirani with Ross Daly - Makrinitsa (L'empreinte Digitale)
The magnificent teaming of zarb or frame drum maestro, Bijan Chemirani, and Ross Daly on a lyre of his own invention (a cross between a Cretan lyre and an Indian sangari), on Daly’s tune, “Makrinitsa”. Bijan comes from the great dynasty of Iranian percussionists, the Chemirani. His father Djamchid and brother Keyvan also play on the tune. Daly is an Irishman who been living in Crete for over 35 years.
Earlier in the post I referred to Zim Ngqawana’s adventurous openness – he actually played with Djamchid Chemirani in Rylands a few years ago at the Galaxy, I think it was, with, strangely enough, another Irishman transposed from Ireland, Christy Doran.
26 Emily Portman – Two Sisters (Furrow)
From the lyre to the harp, Emily Portman’s version of a traditional song from her 2010 release, “The Glamoury”.
27 Martin Carthy – Bold General Wolfe (Topic)
Martin Carthy has just turned 70; actually he pipped Bob Dylan to the post. Martin Carthy has been at the forefront of the English folk revival since its inception, more or less, and helped introduce loads of important sonic innovations (percussive acoustic guitar playing, mysterious unaccompanied polyphonic singing, droney electric guitar, brass) and literally spawned a key mover in the current folk scene, fiddler, singer and songwriter, Eliza Carthy. Toby Shippey provides the trumpet, Ben Ivitsky, the trombone and Eliza Carthy the melodeon or was it the harmonium? It’s from his 2004 album, “Waiting for Angels”.
28 June Tabor – Jamaica (Topic)
About three months ago I played you one of the two instrumentals from June Tabor’s new album, “Ashore”, an album of songs which contemplate from the safety of the shore the sea and its crossing. “Jamaica” is the second instrumental from the album. It features Andy Cutting on accordion, Mark Emerson on violin, Tim Harries on bass and Huw Warren on piano.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
1 June 2010, World Cafe
1 Khaira Arby – Goumou (Clermont Music/Lusafrica)
Khaira Arby has been part of the music scene in Mali, especially around Timbuktu from whence she hails, for decades but only brought out her first international release, “Timbuktu Tarab”, last year. Like Oumou Sangare, she’s a women’s rights activist and an inspiration for women singers around Mali. She’s also Ali Farka Toure’s cousin. We’ve just listened to “Goumou”, the opening track from “Timbuktu Tarab”.
2 Tamikrest – Tarhamanine Assinegh (Glitterhouse)
Tamikest is a band of twenty-something Tuaregs who formed in 2006 around the city Kidal, NE of Timbuktu and relatively close to the Algerian border. Tinariwen are their total heroes. The song comes from their second LP, just released, called “Toumastin”.
3 Ricky and Mbasalala – Biby Neny (Haus der kulturen der welt)
Ricky and Mbasalala sing a vocal style that comes from the Antandroy, the “people of the land of thorns” - the dry, low lying southern region of Madagascar. Legend has it that the people of this region are descendents of Arabs who landed there in the 5th century. The area, like the rest of Madagascar, is a serious melting-pot. However, the culture of the area is apparently quite unified and based on hunting and animal breeding. There are stylistic elements in the singing that bear this out, like the rough, breathy singing in imitation of wheezing cattle that you heard in this song. “Biby Neny” is a legendary nocturnal monster, deployed by parents to terrify their children into submission.
4 Vaovy – Angira (Indigo)
Staying in Antandroy, Vaovy are a mainly vocal group. “Angira” is an invitation made to neighbouring villages to sing and revel. Vaovy is the brainchild of the songwriter and choral composer, Jean Gabin Fanovana, who sings the lead vocal parts on this track. There are imitations of cattle and cattle herding sounds here too.
5 Daniel Tombo – Tsara Ny Manam-Pahaizana (Buda)
Daniel Tombo, a marovany maestro, lives in the eastern part of Madagascar, a monsoon forest area in which grow the hardwoods used to produce the marovany box resonator. Containing the first big port of Madagascar, it’s also a very multicultural area. The marovany is a descendent of the valiha, a bamboo harp that originates in Upper Vietnam and Malaysia. The song, very soberly, but probably not very traditionally, advises against sacrificing education for early marriage.
These three Madagascan recordings each come from separate albums, and were all recorded in the mid to late 90s. If you’re interested in getting them, check out the Freedomblues blog.
6 Aurelio – Yurumie (Stonetree Records)
The super-rich mélange that is Madagascan music, for some reason always reminds me of Garifunan music, from the Caribbean.
“Yurumai” is another name for the island of St Vincent which is a kind of promised land for the Garifuna people. It’s the place where the Garifuna culture was originally born 200 years ago, from the interaction between shipwrecked slaves from West Africa and Caribbean Indians. The Garifuna people were expelled from the island by the British and wound up in Honduras and Belize. The tune gives this history, and expresses a longing to return. It comes from Aurelio Martinez’s new album, “Laru Seya”.
7 Curro Fuentes & the Big Band – Yolanda (Soundway)
Sticking to the Caribbean, “Yolanda” is from vintage Columbian label Discos Fuentes, founded in 1934 in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. Curro Fuentes, the youngest brother in the original founding family, produced a mass of material for the label in the 60s and 70s, and Soundway recently put out a collection of this stuff. The tune “Yolanda” is by Orlando Fortich. One key feature of Curro’s sound is a studious avoidance of the drum kit. So on “Yolanda” instead of the hi-hat on the upbeat, you get the guiro – a washboard – which makes things funky, but not Funky with a capital F. It comes off the album “Cartagena Curro Fuentes & the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72”.
8 Bill Frisell & Vinicius Cantuaria – Mi Declaration (Entertainment One Music)
American jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and Brazilian guitarist, singer and percussionist, Vinicius Cantuaria, have pushed musical boundaries in the past as part of the Intercontinentals. Their 2011 teaming up, “Lagrimas Mexicanas”, takes various kinds of Latin music as the starting point, but moves thing a lot further.
9 Miguel Aceves Mejia – El jinete (RCA Victor)
Miguel Aceves Mejia, the “king of the falsetto”, was one of Mexico’s most popular singers, especially in the 50s and 60s, and is known for his interpretations of various Mexican folk styles, like ranchera. But he was also a composer and a movie actor. He died at the age of 91 in 2006. “El jinete” (“The horseman”) was one of his biggest hits. It comes from the LP “Canta canciones de Jose Alfredo Jimenez”.
10 Professor Longhair and his Blues Scholars – Tipitina (Proper)
The city of New Orleans fronts onto the Gulf of Mexico, and is a site of great cultural mixing and musical innovation. Here are two great New Orleans pianists.
Professor Longhair, in the words of journalist Tony Russell, developed a kind of “vivacious rumba-rhythmed” piano blues and “choked singing” style that spawned a whole sub-genre of New Orleans rhythm and blues. This version of “Tipitina” was recorded in 1953.
11 Allen Toussaint – Whirlaway (RCA)
Allen Toussaint is one of the Professor’s followers, who eventually took things in a polished and sophisticated soulful, almost orchestral, singer-songwriter direction – but not here. This version of “Whirlaway” was recorded in 1958 under the name A. Tousan, when he was 20.
12 Mayos Muana Ngombo – Nalembi-kotuna (Eddy’Son Consortium Mondial)
Speaking of the rumba, “Nalembi-kotuna” is a quite obscure, but very infectious Congolese rumba. The red hot drumming is by Nole Ti-Paul, and Eddy Gustave, who is also the producer, supplies the sax.
13 Sunny Ade & his Green Spot Band – Gbe mi debute ogo (African Songs Ltd)
Sunny Ade & his Green Spot Band from the mid 60s with his pre-juju Nigerian brand of hi-life. It’s from his 1966 collection “The Master Guitarist vol 1”.
14 Mahmoud Ahmed – Kulun Mankwelesh (Buda Musique)
Some absolutely classic Ethiopean funk circa 1973. “Kulun Mankwelesh” is a wedding song. The title means “Who put the kohl on your eyes?”. It comes from “Ethiopiques vol 6: Almaz”.
15 Sim Sisamouth – Don’t let my girlfriend tickle me (Sublime Frequencies)
Last month we listened to a classic Cambodian 60s and 70s folk and rock singer, Ros Sereysothea, who died during the Khmer Rouge. Sim Sisamouth was one of her musical partners, and a singer-songwriter, who also died during the Khmer Rouge. Sublime Frequencies in another one of their daring acts of exhumation and resurrection – the niceties of hi-fi and copyright be damned – has rescued for posterity his music and the music of others from 150 ageing cassettes found at the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library in California. They put it out on “Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol 1”.
16 Mar Mar Aye – Beautiful Town (Sublime Frequencies)
Sublime Frequencies are also active with their gonzo acts of restoration in another South East Asian hotspot of repression, Burma. The track comes from “Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol 1”. There is some exquisite, subtle piano playing here. The SF blurb puts it eloquently “What the Burmese have done with a piano is so precise in the adaptation to their existing form and melody that one would think they invented it [the piano]”.
17 Saing Saing Maw – Lake Thay Mah Shoke (Sublime Frequencies)
“Lake Thay Mah Shoke” is taken from “Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk & Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma), Vol 2”. The Golden Triangle was a poppy-growing area in Burma in the Shan State when this was recorded (it now also produces masses of methamphetamine), and Saing Saing Maw was a legendary singer-songwriter/electric guitarist from this area.
18 Natacha Atlas – Hayati Inta Reprise (Hayatak Ana) (World Village)
“Hayati Inta (Hayatak Ana)” means “You’re my life and I am your life” and is off the 2008 release “Ana Hina”.
19 Googoosh – Gol Bi Goldoun (Caltex)
Faegheh Atashin, or as she is better known, Googoosh, is a legendary singer from Iran, very well known throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Her father was partly of Azerbaijani extraction, and besides her silken voice, she is known for her ability to sing in several Central Asian languages. She was forced to stop singing in public after the revolution in 1979, but remained in Iran until 2000. Since then she’s given concerts in America, where she now lives, and the Middle East – people come from far and wide to see her. The song comes off “The Best of Googoosh, Volume 3”.
20 She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble – Rampi Rampi (ARC music)
Cigdem Alsan is a Turkish singer based in Britain who forms part of the large and sprightly band, the She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble. She leads them in the Turkish tune “Rampi Rampi” which seems to be about different kinds of personal resilience: “on the top of my tent the rain went shpp shpp; Allah did not take my soul away”.
21 Masada – Hekhal (DIW) (Disk Union Japan)
From John Zorn’s power jazz quartet, Masada, that was “Hekhal”, which was part of the Temple in Jerusalem, near the Holy of Holies… and that brings us to the sort of folk-jazz section of this show. Folk-jazz, for purposes of this show, being the intrusion of folk elements (melodies, harmonies, rhythms even instruments) into various kinds of jazz, but especially free jazz. The 70s appears to be the high point for this kind of stuff.
22 Francois Tusques/Sonneur Traditionnels /intercommunal free dance music orchestra - Les racines de la montagne (Le Chant du Monde)
Pianist and composer Francois Tusques is a pioneer of free jazz in France. In 1979 with his Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, consisting of French, Corsican and North and West African musicians, he put together an album called “Apres la maree noire (after the oil slick): towards a new Breton music”. The track features the bombarde, a popular contemporary conical bore double reed instrument widely used to play traditional Breton music.
23 Ken Hyder’s Talisker – The men of Barra know how to drink but the women know how to sing (Japo)
Two tunes that either come from the Hebrides or are inspired by Hebridean music.
Ken Hyder’s Talisker, a free jazz group active in the 70s, often appropriated traditional Scottish elements. On the tune “The men of Barra know how to drink but the women know how to sing” they teamed up with free (improvisational) singers Maggie Nichols, Frankie Armstrong, Brian Eley and Phil Minton.
24 Mary Morrison – Pipe Imitations (Tradition TLP 1047)
Mary Morrison, who came from the Barra area, recorded her imitations of pipe music for musicologist Alan Lomax in the 50s. It’s on a collection called “Heather and Glen – A collection of folk songs and folk music from Aberdeenshire and the Hebrides”.
25 Marry Waterson & Oliver Knight – The Loosened Arrow (One Little Indian)
Marry Waterson and Oliver Knight are the daughter and son of Lal Waterson – from the legendary English trad group, the Watersons. Daughter and son have apparently been playing their own tunes for years, drawing inspiration from their mother’s unconventional approaches to writing, but only formally released the stuff this year on the album, “The Days that Shaped me”. “The Loosened Arrow” has their cousin, Eliza Carthy, supplying the fiddle.
26 Frank Proffitt – Satan, your kingdom must come down (Rounder)
Two musicians based in North Carolina.
Frank Proffitt was raised on a farm in the Appalachian mountains and lived on the farm for his whole life – growing tobacco, working wood, labouring in a spark plug factory and making his own banjos. This tune was recorded in the field by John Cohen and came out on the 1975 Rounder compilation “High Atmosphere”. Proffitt is most known for his version of “Tom Dooley” which he learnt from his aunt, Nancy Prather, who had actually known Tom Dula. The Proffitt version of the tune wound up in John and Alan Lomax’s 1947 print anthology “Folk Song USA”.
27 Hiss Golden Messenger – Super Blue (Two Days Clean) (Blackmaps)
Hiss Golden Messenger is basically Michael Taylor, originally of San Francisco, who apparently works as a folklorist. That’s from his recent album, “Bad Debt”.
28 Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny Hawker – Times are not what they used to be (Rounder)
One of the touchstone singers and songwriters of Southern mountain music, Hazel Dickens, died in late April. Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia, and lived a good deal of her life in West Virginia, although she wound up in the Baltimore area in the 50s and 60s (where she formed a musical partnership with Alice Gerrard - more about that in July). The track might have been from her last recording to be released – the album “Heart of the Singer” from 1998, which she did with singers Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny Hawker.
Khaira Arby has been part of the music scene in Mali, especially around Timbuktu from whence she hails, for decades but only brought out her first international release, “Timbuktu Tarab”, last year. Like Oumou Sangare, she’s a women’s rights activist and an inspiration for women singers around Mali. She’s also Ali Farka Toure’s cousin. We’ve just listened to “Goumou”, the opening track from “Timbuktu Tarab”.
2 Tamikrest – Tarhamanine Assinegh (Glitterhouse)
Tamikest is a band of twenty-something Tuaregs who formed in 2006 around the city Kidal, NE of Timbuktu and relatively close to the Algerian border. Tinariwen are their total heroes. The song comes from their second LP, just released, called “Toumastin”.
3 Ricky and Mbasalala – Biby Neny (Haus der kulturen der welt)
Ricky and Mbasalala sing a vocal style that comes from the Antandroy, the “people of the land of thorns” - the dry, low lying southern region of Madagascar. Legend has it that the people of this region are descendents of Arabs who landed there in the 5th century. The area, like the rest of Madagascar, is a serious melting-pot. However, the culture of the area is apparently quite unified and based on hunting and animal breeding. There are stylistic elements in the singing that bear this out, like the rough, breathy singing in imitation of wheezing cattle that you heard in this song. “Biby Neny” is a legendary nocturnal monster, deployed by parents to terrify their children into submission.
4 Vaovy – Angira (Indigo)
Staying in Antandroy, Vaovy are a mainly vocal group. “Angira” is an invitation made to neighbouring villages to sing and revel. Vaovy is the brainchild of the songwriter and choral composer, Jean Gabin Fanovana, who sings the lead vocal parts on this track. There are imitations of cattle and cattle herding sounds here too.
5 Daniel Tombo – Tsara Ny Manam-Pahaizana (Buda)
Daniel Tombo, a marovany maestro, lives in the eastern part of Madagascar, a monsoon forest area in which grow the hardwoods used to produce the marovany box resonator. Containing the first big port of Madagascar, it’s also a very multicultural area. The marovany is a descendent of the valiha, a bamboo harp that originates in Upper Vietnam and Malaysia. The song, very soberly, but probably not very traditionally, advises against sacrificing education for early marriage.
These three Madagascan recordings each come from separate albums, and were all recorded in the mid to late 90s. If you’re interested in getting them, check out the Freedomblues blog.
6 Aurelio – Yurumie (Stonetree Records)
The super-rich mélange that is Madagascan music, for some reason always reminds me of Garifunan music, from the Caribbean.
“Yurumai” is another name for the island of St Vincent which is a kind of promised land for the Garifuna people. It’s the place where the Garifuna culture was originally born 200 years ago, from the interaction between shipwrecked slaves from West Africa and Caribbean Indians. The Garifuna people were expelled from the island by the British and wound up in Honduras and Belize. The tune gives this history, and expresses a longing to return. It comes from Aurelio Martinez’s new album, “Laru Seya”.
7 Curro Fuentes & the Big Band – Yolanda (Soundway)
Sticking to the Caribbean, “Yolanda” is from vintage Columbian label Discos Fuentes, founded in 1934 in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. Curro Fuentes, the youngest brother in the original founding family, produced a mass of material for the label in the 60s and 70s, and Soundway recently put out a collection of this stuff. The tune “Yolanda” is by Orlando Fortich. One key feature of Curro’s sound is a studious avoidance of the drum kit. So on “Yolanda” instead of the hi-hat on the upbeat, you get the guiro – a washboard – which makes things funky, but not Funky with a capital F. It comes off the album “Cartagena Curro Fuentes & the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72”.
8 Bill Frisell & Vinicius Cantuaria – Mi Declaration (Entertainment One Music)
American jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and Brazilian guitarist, singer and percussionist, Vinicius Cantuaria, have pushed musical boundaries in the past as part of the Intercontinentals. Their 2011 teaming up, “Lagrimas Mexicanas”, takes various kinds of Latin music as the starting point, but moves thing a lot further.
9 Miguel Aceves Mejia – El jinete (RCA Victor)
Miguel Aceves Mejia, the “king of the falsetto”, was one of Mexico’s most popular singers, especially in the 50s and 60s, and is known for his interpretations of various Mexican folk styles, like ranchera. But he was also a composer and a movie actor. He died at the age of 91 in 2006. “El jinete” (“The horseman”) was one of his biggest hits. It comes from the LP “Canta canciones de Jose Alfredo Jimenez”.
10 Professor Longhair and his Blues Scholars – Tipitina (Proper)
The city of New Orleans fronts onto the Gulf of Mexico, and is a site of great cultural mixing and musical innovation. Here are two great New Orleans pianists.
Professor Longhair, in the words of journalist Tony Russell, developed a kind of “vivacious rumba-rhythmed” piano blues and “choked singing” style that spawned a whole sub-genre of New Orleans rhythm and blues. This version of “Tipitina” was recorded in 1953.
11 Allen Toussaint – Whirlaway (RCA)
Allen Toussaint is one of the Professor’s followers, who eventually took things in a polished and sophisticated soulful, almost orchestral, singer-songwriter direction – but not here. This version of “Whirlaway” was recorded in 1958 under the name A. Tousan, when he was 20.
12 Mayos Muana Ngombo – Nalembi-kotuna (Eddy’Son Consortium Mondial)
Speaking of the rumba, “Nalembi-kotuna” is a quite obscure, but very infectious Congolese rumba. The red hot drumming is by Nole Ti-Paul, and Eddy Gustave, who is also the producer, supplies the sax.
13 Sunny Ade & his Green Spot Band – Gbe mi debute ogo (African Songs Ltd)
Sunny Ade & his Green Spot Band from the mid 60s with his pre-juju Nigerian brand of hi-life. It’s from his 1966 collection “The Master Guitarist vol 1”.
14 Mahmoud Ahmed – Kulun Mankwelesh (Buda Musique)
Some absolutely classic Ethiopean funk circa 1973. “Kulun Mankwelesh” is a wedding song. The title means “Who put the kohl on your eyes?”. It comes from “Ethiopiques vol 6: Almaz”.
15 Sim Sisamouth – Don’t let my girlfriend tickle me (Sublime Frequencies)
Last month we listened to a classic Cambodian 60s and 70s folk and rock singer, Ros Sereysothea, who died during the Khmer Rouge. Sim Sisamouth was one of her musical partners, and a singer-songwriter, who also died during the Khmer Rouge. Sublime Frequencies in another one of their daring acts of exhumation and resurrection – the niceties of hi-fi and copyright be damned – has rescued for posterity his music and the music of others from 150 ageing cassettes found at the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library in California. They put it out on “Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol 1”.
16 Mar Mar Aye – Beautiful Town (Sublime Frequencies)
Sublime Frequencies are also active with their gonzo acts of restoration in another South East Asian hotspot of repression, Burma. The track comes from “Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol 1”. There is some exquisite, subtle piano playing here. The SF blurb puts it eloquently “What the Burmese have done with a piano is so precise in the adaptation to their existing form and melody that one would think they invented it [the piano]”.
17 Saing Saing Maw – Lake Thay Mah Shoke (Sublime Frequencies)
“Lake Thay Mah Shoke” is taken from “Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk & Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma), Vol 2”. The Golden Triangle was a poppy-growing area in Burma in the Shan State when this was recorded (it now also produces masses of methamphetamine), and Saing Saing Maw was a legendary singer-songwriter/electric guitarist from this area.
18 Natacha Atlas – Hayati Inta Reprise (Hayatak Ana) (World Village)
“Hayati Inta (Hayatak Ana)” means “You’re my life and I am your life” and is off the 2008 release “Ana Hina”.
19 Googoosh – Gol Bi Goldoun (Caltex)
Faegheh Atashin, or as she is better known, Googoosh, is a legendary singer from Iran, very well known throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Her father was partly of Azerbaijani extraction, and besides her silken voice, she is known for her ability to sing in several Central Asian languages. She was forced to stop singing in public after the revolution in 1979, but remained in Iran until 2000. Since then she’s given concerts in America, where she now lives, and the Middle East – people come from far and wide to see her. The song comes off “The Best of Googoosh, Volume 3”.
20 She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble – Rampi Rampi (ARC music)
Cigdem Alsan is a Turkish singer based in Britain who forms part of the large and sprightly band, the She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble. She leads them in the Turkish tune “Rampi Rampi” which seems to be about different kinds of personal resilience: “on the top of my tent the rain went shpp shpp; Allah did not take my soul away”.
21 Masada – Hekhal (DIW) (Disk Union Japan)
From John Zorn’s power jazz quartet, Masada, that was “Hekhal”, which was part of the Temple in Jerusalem, near the Holy of Holies… and that brings us to the sort of folk-jazz section of this show. Folk-jazz, for purposes of this show, being the intrusion of folk elements (melodies, harmonies, rhythms even instruments) into various kinds of jazz, but especially free jazz. The 70s appears to be the high point for this kind of stuff.
22 Francois Tusques/Sonneur Traditionnels /intercommunal free dance music orchestra - Les racines de la montagne (Le Chant du Monde)
Pianist and composer Francois Tusques is a pioneer of free jazz in France. In 1979 with his Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, consisting of French, Corsican and North and West African musicians, he put together an album called “Apres la maree noire (after the oil slick): towards a new Breton music”. The track features the bombarde, a popular contemporary conical bore double reed instrument widely used to play traditional Breton music.
23 Ken Hyder’s Talisker – The men of Barra know how to drink but the women know how to sing (Japo)
Two tunes that either come from the Hebrides or are inspired by Hebridean music.
Ken Hyder’s Talisker, a free jazz group active in the 70s, often appropriated traditional Scottish elements. On the tune “The men of Barra know how to drink but the women know how to sing” they teamed up with free (improvisational) singers Maggie Nichols, Frankie Armstrong, Brian Eley and Phil Minton.
24 Mary Morrison – Pipe Imitations (Tradition TLP 1047)
Mary Morrison, who came from the Barra area, recorded her imitations of pipe music for musicologist Alan Lomax in the 50s. It’s on a collection called “Heather and Glen – A collection of folk songs and folk music from Aberdeenshire and the Hebrides”.
25 Marry Waterson & Oliver Knight – The Loosened Arrow (One Little Indian)
Marry Waterson and Oliver Knight are the daughter and son of Lal Waterson – from the legendary English trad group, the Watersons. Daughter and son have apparently been playing their own tunes for years, drawing inspiration from their mother’s unconventional approaches to writing, but only formally released the stuff this year on the album, “The Days that Shaped me”. “The Loosened Arrow” has their cousin, Eliza Carthy, supplying the fiddle.
26 Frank Proffitt – Satan, your kingdom must come down (Rounder)
Two musicians based in North Carolina.
Frank Proffitt was raised on a farm in the Appalachian mountains and lived on the farm for his whole life – growing tobacco, working wood, labouring in a spark plug factory and making his own banjos. This tune was recorded in the field by John Cohen and came out on the 1975 Rounder compilation “High Atmosphere”. Proffitt is most known for his version of “Tom Dooley” which he learnt from his aunt, Nancy Prather, who had actually known Tom Dula. The Proffitt version of the tune wound up in John and Alan Lomax’s 1947 print anthology “Folk Song USA”.
27 Hiss Golden Messenger – Super Blue (Two Days Clean) (Blackmaps)
Hiss Golden Messenger is basically Michael Taylor, originally of San Francisco, who apparently works as a folklorist. That’s from his recent album, “Bad Debt”.
28 Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny Hawker – Times are not what they used to be (Rounder)
One of the touchstone singers and songwriters of Southern mountain music, Hazel Dickens, died in late April. Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia, and lived a good deal of her life in West Virginia, although she wound up in the Baltimore area in the 50s and 60s (where she formed a musical partnership with Alice Gerrard - more about that in July). The track might have been from her last recording to be released – the album “Heart of the Singer” from 1998, which she did with singers Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny Hawker.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
4 May 2011, World Cafe
1 Aurelio Martinez – Nuwerun (Stonetree Records)
The Caribbean has long been a kind of aqueous crucible in which Africa meets Europe. Aurelio Martinez, singer and guitarist from the Honduras, doing an incredible job of preserving, growing and popularizing Garifuna music all at the same time. Aurelio, as he is now becoming known, is generally seen as taking over the baton from Andy Palacio who died suddenly a few years ago, way before his time. The tune “Nuwerun” is from his 2004 album, “Garifuna Soul” which he made with a crew of top flight Belize studio musicians. Martinez is generally down as someone who innovates in pandara rhythms and punta rock, but he says in this interview, things are a lot more complicated:
http://afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/97/Aurelio+Martinez%2C+2006
He has a brand new album that I hope to bring you next month.
2 Oz Kiezos – Comboio (Analog Africa)
The influence of Caribbean music is pretty widely felt, although one place you don’t hear about much is Angola. Samy Ben Redjeb’s stunning new collection, “Angola Sound 1968 – 1976” out of his label, “Analog Africa”, goes some way to correct this. Oz Kiezos, which means “The Broom” (after all the dust they stirred up in one of their first gigs), were formed in the early 60s. In an interview that Redjeb conducted last year with Vate Costa, the singer and a founding member of Oz Kiezos, Costa says the song, “Comboio”, which we’re about to hear, is traditional and is about a farmer who goes back to his homeland by train. The song speaks about the hardships of life and is built around the indigenous Angolan semba rhythm. The interview with Costa was conducted just two months before he died in May 2010.
3 Shiyani Ngcobo – uDadewtha (World Music Network)
February and March 2011 brought two sudden deaths to the South African music scene. Two of the greatest guitarists South Africa has known were taken from us. Both were not recognized to the extent that they should have been.
Traditional acoustic Maskanda stalwart Shiyani Ngcobo died on 18th February. uDadesame”, and it comes off the only album he officially released, one he made for the British label, World Music Network. They sent in a crack producer, Ben Mandelson, who did a great job. So at least the album we have is a 5 star one, and one that you should all own. Go out and get it, if you haven’t already.
4 Bafo Bafo – Zimpi Zombango (Bafo Bafo)
The other guitarist is Syd Kitchen, who died on 22nd March. Kitchen was a fabulous songwriter to boot, often in an acerbic, biting satirical vein. You need to get some of his records too. “Zimpi Zombango" is about the craziness of war and violence and it comes off an EP he did with Maskanda musician, Mandala Kunene, called “Bafo Bafo”.
5 Debademba – Ma Cherie (Naïve Classique)
Debademba to my ears sound a lot like a stripped version of Thione Seck’s Malian Mande meets South Indian karnathak. I’m hearing bansuri and clay pot percussion in there, on their tune “Ma Cherie”. The press blurb says echoes of Arab-Andalusian, so maybe those clay pots are actually daraboukas or Maghreb drums. The core of Debademba, which means “big family”, is the Paris-based duo of Abdoulaye Traore, who was born in Bakino Faso and cut his musical teeth in the Abidjan national ballet in Cote d’Ivoire, and Mohamed Diaby, who seems to have an Ivorian and Malian background – his mother was a griot from Cote d’Ivoire. I haven’t been able to find out much else about this bunch.
6 Majid Bekkas – Makendba (Igloomondo)
Moroccan Majid Bekkas is a classically trained guitarist and oud player and a music academic, but he’s also a multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for high octane Gnawa-jazz crossovers who spends a lot of this time somewhere between Morocco and the jazz scene in Europe. Here on his latest album “Makenba” he opens up spaces with his guimbri bass for the fabulous French reeds player, Louis Sclavis.
7 Ahmud Abdul-Malik – El Haris (Anxious) (Original Jazz Classics)
Last month we listened to Salah Ragab’s magnificent “Egypt Strut”. I mentioned there were American counterparts to this fusion of Middle Eastern music and jazz. One of them, the bassist and oud player Ahmud Abdul Malik, was perhaps the first American jazz musician to try something like this. “El Haris”, which means “Anxious”, was recorded in 1958. Johnny Griffin supplies the scorching tenor sax.
8 Yusef Lateef – The Three Faces of Bilal (Prestige/OJC)
Yusef Lateef is almost synonymous with this kind of Middle Eastern imbued jazz. From his 1961 album, “Eastern Sounds”, here is “The Three Faces of Bilal”. On an incredibly restrained piano is Barry Harris.
9 Ahmad Adaweya – Salametha Omm Hassan (SHB 536) (SACEM)
Moving onto Egypt, Ahmad Adaweya, was very popular in Egypt and England in the 70s and early 80s, with his working class slang and double entendres. Hopefully his apparently borderline risqué sounds are wholesome enough for a family radio station. I have no idea what he was singing about, except for the song titles and they’re in phonetic Roman-script Arabic, the sleeve notes being totally in Arabic. The style of vocal improvisation is on the track is called mawal.
10 Iness Mezel – Respect (Wrasse)
Relatively new on the North African/European tasteful world pop fusion block, Iness Mezel, of Algerian and French extraction, has just released her album, “Beyond the Trance”. It’s a great collection of mostly self-penned songs, often in the Berber language of Amazigh. Justin Adams, who we’ve heard on this show many times, produces and plays an array of instruments including guitar, banjo and guimbri. Well known kora player, Seckou Keita, is also in there.
11 Jah Wobble – Port Said (30 Hertz)
Jah Wobble from his global dub mash-up album “Welcome to My World” with his song in praise of Port Said, on the Suez Canal.
12 Mikey Brooks – Psalms of Blessing (Tabou 1)
The somewhat obscure singer Mikey Brooks with his “Psalms of Blessing” backed by the Upsetters and recorded in Lee Perry’s Black Ark studios in 1976.
13 Horace Andy & King Tubby – Zion Gate (Spectrum Audio)
The inimitable roots singer, Horace Andy, with his song, “Zion Gate”, off a nice collection that came out last year, “Trojan Foundation Dub”. Trojan Records is a British label which started out in the 60s licensing and distributing Jamaican music, often ska and rocksteady in handy collections, but in the 70s branched out into doing their own distinctive dubs. They’ve re-issued masses of their stuff over the last few years.
14 Hijaz – Mr JPS (Zephyrus Records)
Last month we listened to vintage karnathak chamber jazz from TK Ramamoorthy. Belgium-based Hijaz produce a similar kind of Eastern favoured chamber jazz, albeit with a more international flavour. Included in this largish band are musicians from Tunisia, Morocco and Armenia as well as musicians from all around Europe, in all its hybrid multi-cultural glory.
15 Erkin Koray – Hop Hop Gelsin (Dogan/World Psychedelia Ltd)
We listened to the grandfather of Turkish psych last month, Erkin Koray. The single “Hop Hop Gelsin” came out in 1968. Koray really lived the rock lifestyle when it was seriously unfashionable in some quarters, getting stabbed at one point for having long hair. Legend has it that he was the first to play rock in Turkey – and that was in 1957, when he played covers of Elvis.
16 Nahid Akhtar – Mera Mehbob Hai (Finders Keepers)
Pakistan has its own film industry with its own playback singers – to whom the starlets have to lip synch. At the pinnacle of playback singers in the 70s and 80s was Nahid Akhtar, with her massive range of expression – melancholy, devotional, lewd and sultry, peppy. “Mera Mehbob Hai” is culled from a lovely collection out on Finders Keepers, “B Music: Drive In, Turn On, Freak Out”. Finders Keepers is a similar kind of label to Sublime Frequencies, and we’ll get to hear more from it in months to come.
17 Ros Sereysothea – Jah Jou Aem (Old Sour and Sweet) (Lion Productions)
Ros Sereysothea is widely recognized as the greatest modern Cambodian singer – despite or maybe because of her relatively early death. She died in 1977 at 29 during the reign of the Khmer Rouge – although no one’s certain of the circumstances, they are thought to be grim. She started her career in 67 doing pretty pure and folky stuff for the National Radio, but in the 70s moved to experiment with rock. “Jah Jou Aem (Old Sour and Sweet)” comes off the new collection “Groove Club Vol 3: Cambodia Rock Intensified”, which is out on Lion Productions.
18 Sun City Girls – Kal El Lazi Kad Ham (Annihaya)
To continue more explicitly with the theme of “ethnographic forgeries” or “possible music”, that I brought up a few months ago, here is the Sun City Girls, from an LP of stuff from their archives when Charles Gocher, their drummer was still alive, and which they released in Lebanon last year – “Gum Arabic”. Mostly covers of stuff they heard on the radio without knowing titles and composers or anything really about the songs. They’ve rearranged the tunes and given them new titles. The Sun City Girls were the Bishop Brothers, Alan and Richard, together with Gocher. If their aesthetic seems familiar, it’s no coincidence – Alan Bishop is one half of the team which runs the unsurpassable Sublime Frequencies label.
19 Le Trio Joubran – Nawwar (World Village)
Three brothers from Nazareth toting 33 strings amongst them (basically three ouds), play without cluttering things up. Yousef Hbeisch, also Palestinian, supplies the percussion.
20 Rolf Lislevand – La Perra Mora (ECM)
Perhaps this is a thin stretch, but I had to find a way of sneaking this in. Norwegian lute player, Rolf Lislevand, does his version of the anonymous Spanish renaissance tune “La Perra Mora”, the Moorish Dog. It’s in a weird timing – 5/2 - and if you think I’m trying to make links between so-called Western classical music and Arabic music, you’d be right. David Mayoral supplies the light-touch, yet ultra-groovy, percussion. It comes off Lislevand’s ECM release, “Diminuito”. And if you don’t know what dimunitions are, like I didn’t, you need to check out the concept – it’s pretty cool to say the least.
21 Kimmo Pohjonen & Kronos Quartet – Uniko: III Sarma (Ondine)
The accordion is a much-loved instrument in Finland – mainly deployed for dance music, often the tango. Kimmo Pohjonen has always taken things in other directions, mostly aided by sampling and programming sidekick, Samli Kosminen. In 2002 they started collaborating with serial collaborators, the Kronos Quartet, and their new album, “UNIKO”, is the product of that long partnership. Live and sampled and mixed up, and drawing on stuff from all over, if the label “possible music” applied sensibly to anything, it should be this.
22 Pekko Kappi – Ristilukki (Peippo)
The jouhikko, or bowed lyre, or more correctly, the bowed kantele, is indigenous to the Karelia region of Finland, and some of the surrounding areas in Sweden and Estonia, and its presence in Finland goes back at least to the 14th century. Pekko Kappi has made it his life’s mission to track down and preserve the music composed on the jouhikko. Most of the music he’s collected goes back to the 18th century. Judging from the movies of Aki Kaurismaki they sure get the blues in Finland, but Pekko Kappi shows that they have authentic ways of expressing it. “Ritilukki” is off “Jos ken pahon uneksii” released in 2007.
23 Koichi Makigami – Tundra (Tzadik)
From Finnish blues to Japanese Tuvan blues. In 2010 multi-hat wearing composer, experimental singer, instrumentalist and general performer, Koichi Makigami teamed up with two Tuvan musicians (or as Tzadik would have it, Mongolian/Russians) for his “Tokyo Taiga release”.
24 Kim Doo Soo – Bohemian (Blackest Rainbow)
At one time banned in South Korea for being too gloomy, Kim Doo Soo is a dyed-in-the-wool folk singer-poet who had to defy his banker father to take up music. One of his most well known songs is “Bohemian” – a song that apparently has both saved people from suicide and caused them to do it. He retreated from public music playing for 10 years after he heard about the suicide, but since then has resurrected the song as a song of hope. This is the latest version of the song out on his latest release, “Evening River”, which came out in 2009, although it was released onto Western markets this year.
The Caribbean has long been a kind of aqueous crucible in which Africa meets Europe. Aurelio Martinez, singer and guitarist from the Honduras, doing an incredible job of preserving, growing and popularizing Garifuna music all at the same time. Aurelio, as he is now becoming known, is generally seen as taking over the baton from Andy Palacio who died suddenly a few years ago, way before his time. The tune “Nuwerun” is from his 2004 album, “Garifuna Soul” which he made with a crew of top flight Belize studio musicians. Martinez is generally down as someone who innovates in pandara rhythms and punta rock, but he says in this interview, things are a lot more complicated:
http://afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/97/Aurelio+Martinez%2C+2006
He has a brand new album that I hope to bring you next month.
2 Oz Kiezos – Comboio (Analog Africa)
The influence of Caribbean music is pretty widely felt, although one place you don’t hear about much is Angola. Samy Ben Redjeb’s stunning new collection, “Angola Sound 1968 – 1976” out of his label, “Analog Africa”, goes some way to correct this. Oz Kiezos, which means “The Broom” (after all the dust they stirred up in one of their first gigs), were formed in the early 60s. In an interview that Redjeb conducted last year with Vate Costa, the singer and a founding member of Oz Kiezos, Costa says the song, “Comboio”, which we’re about to hear, is traditional and is about a farmer who goes back to his homeland by train. The song speaks about the hardships of life and is built around the indigenous Angolan semba rhythm. The interview with Costa was conducted just two months before he died in May 2010.
3 Shiyani Ngcobo – uDadewtha (World Music Network)
February and March 2011 brought two sudden deaths to the South African music scene. Two of the greatest guitarists South Africa has known were taken from us. Both were not recognized to the extent that they should have been.
Traditional acoustic Maskanda stalwart Shiyani Ngcobo died on 18th February. uDadesame”, and it comes off the only album he officially released, one he made for the British label, World Music Network. They sent in a crack producer, Ben Mandelson, who did a great job. So at least the album we have is a 5 star one, and one that you should all own. Go out and get it, if you haven’t already.
4 Bafo Bafo – Zimpi Zombango (Bafo Bafo)
The other guitarist is Syd Kitchen, who died on 22nd March. Kitchen was a fabulous songwriter to boot, often in an acerbic, biting satirical vein. You need to get some of his records too. “Zimpi Zombango" is about the craziness of war and violence and it comes off an EP he did with Maskanda musician, Mandala Kunene, called “Bafo Bafo”.
5 Debademba – Ma Cherie (Naïve Classique)
Debademba to my ears sound a lot like a stripped version of Thione Seck’s Malian Mande meets South Indian karnathak. I’m hearing bansuri and clay pot percussion in there, on their tune “Ma Cherie”. The press blurb says echoes of Arab-Andalusian, so maybe those clay pots are actually daraboukas or Maghreb drums. The core of Debademba, which means “big family”, is the Paris-based duo of Abdoulaye Traore, who was born in Bakino Faso and cut his musical teeth in the Abidjan national ballet in Cote d’Ivoire, and Mohamed Diaby, who seems to have an Ivorian and Malian background – his mother was a griot from Cote d’Ivoire. I haven’t been able to find out much else about this bunch.
6 Majid Bekkas – Makendba (Igloomondo)
Moroccan Majid Bekkas is a classically trained guitarist and oud player and a music academic, but he’s also a multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for high octane Gnawa-jazz crossovers who spends a lot of this time somewhere between Morocco and the jazz scene in Europe. Here on his latest album “Makenba” he opens up spaces with his guimbri bass for the fabulous French reeds player, Louis Sclavis.
7 Ahmud Abdul-Malik – El Haris (Anxious) (Original Jazz Classics)
Last month we listened to Salah Ragab’s magnificent “Egypt Strut”. I mentioned there were American counterparts to this fusion of Middle Eastern music and jazz. One of them, the bassist and oud player Ahmud Abdul Malik, was perhaps the first American jazz musician to try something like this. “El Haris”, which means “Anxious”, was recorded in 1958. Johnny Griffin supplies the scorching tenor sax.
8 Yusef Lateef – The Three Faces of Bilal (Prestige/OJC)
Yusef Lateef is almost synonymous with this kind of Middle Eastern imbued jazz. From his 1961 album, “Eastern Sounds”, here is “The Three Faces of Bilal”. On an incredibly restrained piano is Barry Harris.
9 Ahmad Adaweya – Salametha Omm Hassan (SHB 536) (SACEM)
Moving onto Egypt, Ahmad Adaweya, was very popular in Egypt and England in the 70s and early 80s, with his working class slang and double entendres. Hopefully his apparently borderline risqué sounds are wholesome enough for a family radio station. I have no idea what he was singing about, except for the song titles and they’re in phonetic Roman-script Arabic, the sleeve notes being totally in Arabic. The style of vocal improvisation is on the track is called mawal.
10 Iness Mezel – Respect (Wrasse)
Relatively new on the North African/European tasteful world pop fusion block, Iness Mezel, of Algerian and French extraction, has just released her album, “Beyond the Trance”. It’s a great collection of mostly self-penned songs, often in the Berber language of Amazigh. Justin Adams, who we’ve heard on this show many times, produces and plays an array of instruments including guitar, banjo and guimbri. Well known kora player, Seckou Keita, is also in there.
11 Jah Wobble – Port Said (30 Hertz)
Jah Wobble from his global dub mash-up album “Welcome to My World” with his song in praise of Port Said, on the Suez Canal.
12 Mikey Brooks – Psalms of Blessing (Tabou 1)
The somewhat obscure singer Mikey Brooks with his “Psalms of Blessing” backed by the Upsetters and recorded in Lee Perry’s Black Ark studios in 1976.
13 Horace Andy & King Tubby – Zion Gate (Spectrum Audio)
The inimitable roots singer, Horace Andy, with his song, “Zion Gate”, off a nice collection that came out last year, “Trojan Foundation Dub”. Trojan Records is a British label which started out in the 60s licensing and distributing Jamaican music, often ska and rocksteady in handy collections, but in the 70s branched out into doing their own distinctive dubs. They’ve re-issued masses of their stuff over the last few years.
14 Hijaz – Mr JPS (Zephyrus Records)
Last month we listened to vintage karnathak chamber jazz from TK Ramamoorthy. Belgium-based Hijaz produce a similar kind of Eastern favoured chamber jazz, albeit with a more international flavour. Included in this largish band are musicians from Tunisia, Morocco and Armenia as well as musicians from all around Europe, in all its hybrid multi-cultural glory.
15 Erkin Koray – Hop Hop Gelsin (Dogan/World Psychedelia Ltd)
We listened to the grandfather of Turkish psych last month, Erkin Koray. The single “Hop Hop Gelsin” came out in 1968. Koray really lived the rock lifestyle when it was seriously unfashionable in some quarters, getting stabbed at one point for having long hair. Legend has it that he was the first to play rock in Turkey – and that was in 1957, when he played covers of Elvis.
16 Nahid Akhtar – Mera Mehbob Hai (Finders Keepers)
Pakistan has its own film industry with its own playback singers – to whom the starlets have to lip synch. At the pinnacle of playback singers in the 70s and 80s was Nahid Akhtar, with her massive range of expression – melancholy, devotional, lewd and sultry, peppy. “Mera Mehbob Hai” is culled from a lovely collection out on Finders Keepers, “B Music: Drive In, Turn On, Freak Out”. Finders Keepers is a similar kind of label to Sublime Frequencies, and we’ll get to hear more from it in months to come.
17 Ros Sereysothea – Jah Jou Aem (Old Sour and Sweet) (Lion Productions)
Ros Sereysothea is widely recognized as the greatest modern Cambodian singer – despite or maybe because of her relatively early death. She died in 1977 at 29 during the reign of the Khmer Rouge – although no one’s certain of the circumstances, they are thought to be grim. She started her career in 67 doing pretty pure and folky stuff for the National Radio, but in the 70s moved to experiment with rock. “Jah Jou Aem (Old Sour and Sweet)” comes off the new collection “Groove Club Vol 3: Cambodia Rock Intensified”, which is out on Lion Productions.
18 Sun City Girls – Kal El Lazi Kad Ham (Annihaya)
To continue more explicitly with the theme of “ethnographic forgeries” or “possible music”, that I brought up a few months ago, here is the Sun City Girls, from an LP of stuff from their archives when Charles Gocher, their drummer was still alive, and which they released in Lebanon last year – “Gum Arabic”. Mostly covers of stuff they heard on the radio without knowing titles and composers or anything really about the songs. They’ve rearranged the tunes and given them new titles. The Sun City Girls were the Bishop Brothers, Alan and Richard, together with Gocher. If their aesthetic seems familiar, it’s no coincidence – Alan Bishop is one half of the team which runs the unsurpassable Sublime Frequencies label.
19 Le Trio Joubran – Nawwar (World Village)
Three brothers from Nazareth toting 33 strings amongst them (basically three ouds), play without cluttering things up. Yousef Hbeisch, also Palestinian, supplies the percussion.
20 Rolf Lislevand – La Perra Mora (ECM)
Perhaps this is a thin stretch, but I had to find a way of sneaking this in. Norwegian lute player, Rolf Lislevand, does his version of the anonymous Spanish renaissance tune “La Perra Mora”, the Moorish Dog. It’s in a weird timing – 5/2 - and if you think I’m trying to make links between so-called Western classical music and Arabic music, you’d be right. David Mayoral supplies the light-touch, yet ultra-groovy, percussion. It comes off Lislevand’s ECM release, “Diminuito”. And if you don’t know what dimunitions are, like I didn’t, you need to check out the concept – it’s pretty cool to say the least.
21 Kimmo Pohjonen & Kronos Quartet – Uniko: III Sarma (Ondine)
The accordion is a much-loved instrument in Finland – mainly deployed for dance music, often the tango. Kimmo Pohjonen has always taken things in other directions, mostly aided by sampling and programming sidekick, Samli Kosminen. In 2002 they started collaborating with serial collaborators, the Kronos Quartet, and their new album, “UNIKO”, is the product of that long partnership. Live and sampled and mixed up, and drawing on stuff from all over, if the label “possible music” applied sensibly to anything, it should be this.
22 Pekko Kappi – Ristilukki (Peippo)
The jouhikko, or bowed lyre, or more correctly, the bowed kantele, is indigenous to the Karelia region of Finland, and some of the surrounding areas in Sweden and Estonia, and its presence in Finland goes back at least to the 14th century. Pekko Kappi has made it his life’s mission to track down and preserve the music composed on the jouhikko. Most of the music he’s collected goes back to the 18th century. Judging from the movies of Aki Kaurismaki they sure get the blues in Finland, but Pekko Kappi shows that they have authentic ways of expressing it. “Ritilukki” is off “Jos ken pahon uneksii” released in 2007.
23 Koichi Makigami – Tundra (Tzadik)
From Finnish blues to Japanese Tuvan blues. In 2010 multi-hat wearing composer, experimental singer, instrumentalist and general performer, Koichi Makigami teamed up with two Tuvan musicians (or as Tzadik would have it, Mongolian/Russians) for his “Tokyo Taiga release”.
24 Kim Doo Soo – Bohemian (Blackest Rainbow)
At one time banned in South Korea for being too gloomy, Kim Doo Soo is a dyed-in-the-wool folk singer-poet who had to defy his banker father to take up music. One of his most well known songs is “Bohemian” – a song that apparently has both saved people from suicide and caused them to do it. He retreated from public music playing for 10 years after he heard about the suicide, but since then has resurrected the song as a song of hope. This is the latest version of the song out on his latest release, “Evening River”, which came out in 2009, although it was released onto Western markets this year.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
6 April 2011, World Cafe
Two of South Africa’s greatest guitarists died in March 2011 – Shiyani Ngcobo and Syd Kitchen. I’ll be playing some of their music in the May show.
1 Afrocubism – Nima Diyala (World Circuit)
The musics of Cuba and West Africa have had a strong interconnection for centuries, particularly in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when Cuban rhythms, melodies and even lyrics became the springboard for an explosion of styles in West Africa, including Congolese rumba and Senegalese mbalax. Even so, to me the Afrocubism project, which we’ve just listened to, sounds exploratory – and I think that is mainly because it combines the older, more traditional Mande courtly music of Mali (played on kora, ngoni and balafon) with modern urban Cuban music. As the musicologist Banning Eyre points out, the arrangements are busy, with the Cuban and Malian instruments falling into a similar frequency range, and so the hierarchical distribution of musical roles in those two styles tends to break down.
Anyway, the stellar players in the project, including Djelimady Tounkara (guitar), Toumani Diabaté (kora), Bassekou Kouyaté (ngoni), and ex-Buena Vista Social Club member, Eliades Ochoa (guitar and vocals), pull things off. The customary clear but full bodied World Circuit production, courtesy of Nick Gold, also helps.
Thanks to Sheer Music, the distributors in South Africa, for the disc.
2 Amparo Sanchez – Hoja en Blanco (Blank Sheet) (Wrasse)
Amparo Sanchez is the singer for the mestizo band Amparanoia – mestizo being a fusion of reggae, salsa and hip-hop with Spanish music. Last year she departed from her formula and teamed up with American band Calexico for the album “Tucson Habana”, which describes their approach in a nutshell – surf music, mariachi brass, Cuban son with some seriously mournful Spanish lyrics. “Hoja en Blanco” translates as “blank sheet”.
3 Los Wembler’s de Iquitos – Lemento del Yacuruna (Barbes Record)
Classic chicha from 70s Peru, Los Wembler’s de Iquitos hail from the land-locked oil boom town of Iquitos, on the border of the Amazon jungle. Chicha is actually a pejorative term in Peru – but one that has began to be worn with pride and defiance – generally referring to the music of the slums of Lima created by rural migrants from the Andes. But the style goes way beyond Lima, as this track illustrates, way beyond fusions of cumbia and rock, and way beyond the working classes – indeed many of the most famous players of chicha are schooled musicians, specializing in the more established style of criollo – music played on Spanish guitar, castanets and cajon. Check out the “Roots of Chicha 2 – Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru” for more tunes and a discussion of the lineage.
4 Angel Viloria y su Conjunto Tipico Cibaeno – Merengue cerrao (Ansonia Records)
Last month we listened to some merengue from the Dominican Republic. Merengue is actually an old Spanish dance, but was given a thorough reworking in the 50s in South America, especially the Dominican Republic. Accordionist Angel Viloria was one of the prime movers. On “Merengue carrao” he is joined by saxist Ramon Garcia and singer Dioris Valladares, who also produces scraping sounds on the “gourd”.
5 Dimba Diangola – Fuma (Analog Africa)
In the 60s and 70s, the inhabitants of Luanda’s “musseques” (shanty towns) started to create a Mardi Gras culture distinct from that of their colonial masters, centred around the two week carnival period and its year-long preparations. They combined the rural sounds of Angola with imports – Congolese rumba, Caribbean merengue, Cuban son and rock. “Fuma” sounds like some kind of a son to me. It came out in around 1968. Fuma are the worrying rumours about a person spread around town by a liar, who then vanishes when family from the villages arrives in consternation. It comes from a fabulous collection out on Analog Africa – “Angola Soundtrack: the unique sound of Luanda 1968 – 1976”.
6 Orchestra du Bawobab – Digone nga ma (Musicafrique)
The Orchestra du Bawobab (also Baobab) from Senegal is one of the great West African fusers of Cuban, African, rock and a lot more. “Digone nga ma” comes from an apparently impossibly rare LP, “Une nuit au Jandeer”, which came out in 1978. Check out the Global Groove blog if you’re interested in getting it.
7 Vicky et OK Jazz – En memoire de Bayon (EMI)
Vicky Longomba was one of Franco’s top singers and a founding member of OK Jazz. “En memoire de Bayon” is a song in memory of Bavon Marie Marie, Franco’s brother. The song came out just after he died in a car crash in late 71.
8 Timbila – Zvichapera (Timbila)
Perhaps you’d expect a New York group to produce a cutting edge combination of Chopi marimba or timbila music from Mozambique with Shona mbira music from Zimbabwe. But you’d probably not expect all the musicians to be American – which they are as far as I know. At least one of them, Banning Eyre, has serious pedigree, having spent some time in the American incarnation of Thomas Mapfumo and the Black Unlimited.
9 Bela Fleck & D’Gary – Kinesta (Rounder)
A D’Gary tune played with the virtuoso American banjo player Bela Fleck, who has tried his hand, largely successfully, at just about everything – bluegrass, new grass, funk, baroque, folk, jazz, Indian classical music. D’Gary is from Madagascar. In about 2008 Fleck traveled around Africa playing with just about every African string-playing luminary. His half brother Sascha Paladino documented all this and produced a movie, “Throw Down Your Heart”, and there’ve been a bunch of CD tie-ins around this. This song is from “Throw Down Your Heart, Tales from an acoustic planet: Africa Sessions Part 3”.
10 Ataratu - Ludu Parinna – excerpt (Smithsonian Folkways)
Madagascan culture is a serious melting pot, with one of the key ingredients being Indonesian music. This lovely version of the song “Ludu Parinna” from the island of Sumba is played on the guitar-like four-stringed jungga by Ataratu. The song is played during the threshing of the rice harvest and dispenses, in improvised verses, advice to the young including not to listen to gossip or spread rumours. It comes off the Smithsonian Folkways release, “Music of Indonesia vol 20 – Indonesian Guitar”, which was recorded in the field between 90 and 97. Ataratu originally sang a 35 minute version, but you might be pleased to know this has been shortened, first by the compiler and then by me.
11 Bounthong Keoboboula – Lam Saravane (Inedit/Maison des Cultures du Monde)
The bamboo mouth organ is probably the national instrument of Laos. It’s made of 16 pipes fitted with free reeds and arranged in a raft shape. The pipes pass through a hardwood wind chamber, each pipe with a playing hole which when covered activates the reed. This design creates a wall of sound which can be varied subtly to rhythmic and harmonic effect. Bounthong Keoboboula plays a courtship song in combination with a flute player and singer. The wooer extols the virtues of the Pakse region, near the Cambodian border. The song was recorded in 2005.
12 Meas Hokseng – Jomnes ji kor aung (Sublime Frequencies)
Here is Meas Hokseng from Cambodia, from a tie-in to the documentary “My Friend Rain” which presents musical segments, fleeting glimpses and odd sounds captured in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar/Burma. The blurb on the CD that accompanies the movie states that the music is culled from various damaged and indecipherable cassette and LP sources purchased in SE Asia. Vintage Sublime Frequencies, then.
13 The Panthers – Simmi Dance (Sublime Freqencies)
From another Sublime Frequencies collection, “Pakistan Folk & Pop Instrumentals 66-76”, which came out last year. The 10 year period 66 to 76 was one of wild rock’n’roll-propelled invention, which was snuffed out by the coup in June 77 that led to the establishment of an Islamic state governed by Sharia law. Sadly a period never to be repeated in Pakistan – there was a mass exodus of musicians to America, Canada and England.
14 TK Ramamoorthy – Sahana (EM Records)
TK Ramamoorthy was a South India based film music composer of note in the 50s, 60s and 70s. In 1969 he came up with an extremely smooth and seamless joining of the karnatak classical music and jazz. As the on-line music shop, Weirdo Music, puts it: “a sly, syncretic combination of karnatak raga and bachelor-pad lounge”.
15 Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band – Egypt Strut (Art Yard)
Salah Ragab, a major in the Egyptian army in the 60s and a jazz drummer, founded the first jazz big band in Egypt in 1968, the Cairo Jazz Band. “Egypt Strut” is a fusion of American jazz and Arabic music, similar to that played in the US at the same time by the likes of Yusef Lateef and Ahmud Abdul-Malik. We’ll be getting to some of that music in the May show.
Ragab is also well known for his friendship with Sun Ra. He helped Ra out with instruments and venues in Ra’s first pretty shambolic tour of Egypt in 1971, when the band’s instruments were held up at the border post. He also toured with Ra in the 80s around Egypt and Europe. The tune comes from a lovely 2006 Art Yard album called “Egyptian Jazz 1968 – 73” in which Ragab’s key tunes were compiled for Western consumption.
16 Diaspora (featuring Amina Annabi) – Elhem 1 (Green Queen)
Pity about the bland name, but the music of Diaspora is far from bland. The core of the band is Italian-born Luca Gatti and Frenchman Stephane Rene – they came together to work on film soundtracks in the early 2000s, and later worked with Asian Dub Foundation on the music for an opera about Gaddafi. They recently combined with Egyptian Baheeg Ramzy Mikail, a veteran violinist and vocalist who worked with Oum Kalthoum, and with French Tunisian singer Amina Annabi to come up with the album “A Jamaican in Cairo”.
17 Augustus Pablo – East of the River Nile (Original Rockers)
An alternative dub version of “East of the River Nile”. It comes off the killer 3 CD box set “The Definitive Augustus Pablo”.
18 Lee Perry (featuring Roots Manuva and LSK) – International Broadcaster (On-U-Sound)
A couple of months ago we listened to something from the recent Lee Perry collaboration with Adrian Sherwood, “Dubsetter”. “Dubsetter” is actually the dub version of “The Mighty Upsetter”. “International Broadcaster” is from the latter album and features two British rappers, Roots Manuva and LSK.
19 Erkin Koray – Turku (Dogan Plakcilik or World Psychedelia Ltd in 1999)
Turkey has long had a vast psychedelic rock scene, in which Turkish folk elements, often played on sazes (distorted to hell and gone) coexist very happily with the normal rock tropes. Erkin Koray is one of the granddaddies of the scene. “Turku” is from one of his classic albums, “Electronik Turkuler”, from 1974.
20 Arif Sag – Osman Pehlivan (Bouzouki Joe, 2010)
Arif Sag is another veteran from the Turkish psych scene. “Osman Pehlivan” is a well-known Turkish song, I believe. It comes from the collection “Turkish Freakout: Psych-folk singles 1969 to 80”.
21 Hayvanlar Alemi – Bahar Patlatan (Sublime Frequencies)
Hayvanlar Alemi (Animal Kingdom) is a current band from the Turkish pych scene. They have a bunch of free downloads on their “My Space” page. “Bahar Patlatan”, the tune we’ve just listened to, comes off the Sublime Frequencies LP “Guarana Superpower”, released a few weeks ago. Pretty Western-sounding, this track.
22 Stimmhorn – Pilgerfahrt (Traumton)
BBC’s Radio 3 has a new series Music Planet presented by Andy Kershaw and Lucy Duran, which hopefully you know about. You can stream it from Radio 3’s website, and although all the episodes have already been broadcast, all are still available for streaming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sggq0.
One of the regional styles featured on the show about mountains is yodelling. Yodelling developed in Switzerland mainly to communicate over distances, and to call and herd animals, but it has an expressive life of its own. Check out: http://www.furious.com/perfect/yodel.html for more on yodelling.
Stimmhorn are one of the great recent Swiss yodelling innovators, alas not featured on Music Planet. The track comes from the collection “Heimatklange”.
23 Henry Parsons - Rolling Waters Holler (Rounder Records)
Hollerin’ is an American cousin of yodelling. Henry Parsons with “Rolling Waters Holler”, from 1975 recorded at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, home of the National Hollerin’ Competition.
24 Tanya Tagaq Gillis – Surge (Jericho Beach Music)
Music Planet’s Arctic and desert programmes feature fantastic examples of throat singing, including Inuit singing from Canada by Tanya Tagaq Gillis from Cambridge Bay. The Inuit singers are keen on imitating sounds from their environment – from kittens to snowmobiles. Not sure what Tagaq is imitating on the track, “Surge” though.
25 Ayuo – Izutsu 11 (Tzadik)
New York-raised composer Ayuo wrote the “Izutsu” sequence in 11 parts for singer Mikiko Sakurai. He combines the Irish harp with the koto and a Gaguku wind section – a wind section used in ancient Japanese court music. “Izutsu” is based on a Noh play written by the 15th century writer Zeami (1363 – 1443). Old childhood friends marry, but then become estranged – the man has an affair with the empress. Part 11 deals with the woman looking into a well where she and her husband played as children and seeing her reflection changing into his likeness. Ayuo admits he is striving for an image of the old Japan, that might not ever have existed.
26 Mountain Man – River (Partisan Records)
Three university housemates got together to form Mountain Man a few years ago. Apparently only one of them had any background in the stuff, and she was forced to teach others.
27 Carolina Chocolate Drops – Snowden’s Jig (Nonesuch)
Carolina Chocolate Drops are currently one of the most exciting old-timey Americana bands. Their music comes from the Piedmont region in the foothills of North Carolina. They’ve been working under the tutelage of nonagenarian fiddler player Joe Thompson to reclaim tunes. “Snowden’s Jig” is one of those tunes and comes off their 2010 album “Genuine Negro Jig”.
28 June Tabor – I’ll go and enlist for a sailor (Topic)
A veteran of the English folk scene, June Tabor has just released her umpteenth LP, “Ashore”. The track is an instrumental, played by accordionist Andy Cutting, one of my favourite traditional players. Bassist Tim Harris is in there too.
1 Afrocubism – Nima Diyala (World Circuit)
The musics of Cuba and West Africa have had a strong interconnection for centuries, particularly in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when Cuban rhythms, melodies and even lyrics became the springboard for an explosion of styles in West Africa, including Congolese rumba and Senegalese mbalax. Even so, to me the Afrocubism project, which we’ve just listened to, sounds exploratory – and I think that is mainly because it combines the older, more traditional Mande courtly music of Mali (played on kora, ngoni and balafon) with modern urban Cuban music. As the musicologist Banning Eyre points out, the arrangements are busy, with the Cuban and Malian instruments falling into a similar frequency range, and so the hierarchical distribution of musical roles in those two styles tends to break down.
Anyway, the stellar players in the project, including Djelimady Tounkara (guitar), Toumani Diabaté (kora), Bassekou Kouyaté (ngoni), and ex-Buena Vista Social Club member, Eliades Ochoa (guitar and vocals), pull things off. The customary clear but full bodied World Circuit production, courtesy of Nick Gold, also helps.
Thanks to Sheer Music, the distributors in South Africa, for the disc.
2 Amparo Sanchez – Hoja en Blanco (Blank Sheet) (Wrasse)
Amparo Sanchez is the singer for the mestizo band Amparanoia – mestizo being a fusion of reggae, salsa and hip-hop with Spanish music. Last year she departed from her formula and teamed up with American band Calexico for the album “Tucson Habana”, which describes their approach in a nutshell – surf music, mariachi brass, Cuban son with some seriously mournful Spanish lyrics. “Hoja en Blanco” translates as “blank sheet”.
3 Los Wembler’s de Iquitos – Lemento del Yacuruna (Barbes Record)
Classic chicha from 70s Peru, Los Wembler’s de Iquitos hail from the land-locked oil boom town of Iquitos, on the border of the Amazon jungle. Chicha is actually a pejorative term in Peru – but one that has began to be worn with pride and defiance – generally referring to the music of the slums of Lima created by rural migrants from the Andes. But the style goes way beyond Lima, as this track illustrates, way beyond fusions of cumbia and rock, and way beyond the working classes – indeed many of the most famous players of chicha are schooled musicians, specializing in the more established style of criollo – music played on Spanish guitar, castanets and cajon. Check out the “Roots of Chicha 2 – Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru” for more tunes and a discussion of the lineage.
4 Angel Viloria y su Conjunto Tipico Cibaeno – Merengue cerrao (Ansonia Records)
Last month we listened to some merengue from the Dominican Republic. Merengue is actually an old Spanish dance, but was given a thorough reworking in the 50s in South America, especially the Dominican Republic. Accordionist Angel Viloria was one of the prime movers. On “Merengue carrao” he is joined by saxist Ramon Garcia and singer Dioris Valladares, who also produces scraping sounds on the “gourd”.
5 Dimba Diangola – Fuma (Analog Africa)
In the 60s and 70s, the inhabitants of Luanda’s “musseques” (shanty towns) started to create a Mardi Gras culture distinct from that of their colonial masters, centred around the two week carnival period and its year-long preparations. They combined the rural sounds of Angola with imports – Congolese rumba, Caribbean merengue, Cuban son and rock. “Fuma” sounds like some kind of a son to me. It came out in around 1968. Fuma are the worrying rumours about a person spread around town by a liar, who then vanishes when family from the villages arrives in consternation. It comes from a fabulous collection out on Analog Africa – “Angola Soundtrack: the unique sound of Luanda 1968 – 1976”.
6 Orchestra du Bawobab – Digone nga ma (Musicafrique)
The Orchestra du Bawobab (also Baobab) from Senegal is one of the great West African fusers of Cuban, African, rock and a lot more. “Digone nga ma” comes from an apparently impossibly rare LP, “Une nuit au Jandeer”, which came out in 1978. Check out the Global Groove blog if you’re interested in getting it.
7 Vicky et OK Jazz – En memoire de Bayon (EMI)
Vicky Longomba was one of Franco’s top singers and a founding member of OK Jazz. “En memoire de Bayon” is a song in memory of Bavon Marie Marie, Franco’s brother. The song came out just after he died in a car crash in late 71.
8 Timbila – Zvichapera (Timbila)
Perhaps you’d expect a New York group to produce a cutting edge combination of Chopi marimba or timbila music from Mozambique with Shona mbira music from Zimbabwe. But you’d probably not expect all the musicians to be American – which they are as far as I know. At least one of them, Banning Eyre, has serious pedigree, having spent some time in the American incarnation of Thomas Mapfumo and the Black Unlimited.
9 Bela Fleck & D’Gary – Kinesta (Rounder)
A D’Gary tune played with the virtuoso American banjo player Bela Fleck, who has tried his hand, largely successfully, at just about everything – bluegrass, new grass, funk, baroque, folk, jazz, Indian classical music. D’Gary is from Madagascar. In about 2008 Fleck traveled around Africa playing with just about every African string-playing luminary. His half brother Sascha Paladino documented all this and produced a movie, “Throw Down Your Heart”, and there’ve been a bunch of CD tie-ins around this. This song is from “Throw Down Your Heart, Tales from an acoustic planet: Africa Sessions Part 3”.
10 Ataratu - Ludu Parinna – excerpt (Smithsonian Folkways)
Madagascan culture is a serious melting pot, with one of the key ingredients being Indonesian music. This lovely version of the song “Ludu Parinna” from the island of Sumba is played on the guitar-like four-stringed jungga by Ataratu. The song is played during the threshing of the rice harvest and dispenses, in improvised verses, advice to the young including not to listen to gossip or spread rumours. It comes off the Smithsonian Folkways release, “Music of Indonesia vol 20 – Indonesian Guitar”, which was recorded in the field between 90 and 97. Ataratu originally sang a 35 minute version, but you might be pleased to know this has been shortened, first by the compiler and then by me.
11 Bounthong Keoboboula – Lam Saravane (Inedit/Maison des Cultures du Monde)
The bamboo mouth organ is probably the national instrument of Laos. It’s made of 16 pipes fitted with free reeds and arranged in a raft shape. The pipes pass through a hardwood wind chamber, each pipe with a playing hole which when covered activates the reed. This design creates a wall of sound which can be varied subtly to rhythmic and harmonic effect. Bounthong Keoboboula plays a courtship song in combination with a flute player and singer. The wooer extols the virtues of the Pakse region, near the Cambodian border. The song was recorded in 2005.
12 Meas Hokseng – Jomnes ji kor aung (Sublime Frequencies)
Here is Meas Hokseng from Cambodia, from a tie-in to the documentary “My Friend Rain” which presents musical segments, fleeting glimpses and odd sounds captured in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar/Burma. The blurb on the CD that accompanies the movie states that the music is culled from various damaged and indecipherable cassette and LP sources purchased in SE Asia. Vintage Sublime Frequencies, then.
13 The Panthers – Simmi Dance (Sublime Freqencies)
From another Sublime Frequencies collection, “Pakistan Folk & Pop Instrumentals 66-76”, which came out last year. The 10 year period 66 to 76 was one of wild rock’n’roll-propelled invention, which was snuffed out by the coup in June 77 that led to the establishment of an Islamic state governed by Sharia law. Sadly a period never to be repeated in Pakistan – there was a mass exodus of musicians to America, Canada and England.
14 TK Ramamoorthy – Sahana (EM Records)
TK Ramamoorthy was a South India based film music composer of note in the 50s, 60s and 70s. In 1969 he came up with an extremely smooth and seamless joining of the karnatak classical music and jazz. As the on-line music shop, Weirdo Music, puts it: “a sly, syncretic combination of karnatak raga and bachelor-pad lounge”.
15 Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band – Egypt Strut (Art Yard)
Salah Ragab, a major in the Egyptian army in the 60s and a jazz drummer, founded the first jazz big band in Egypt in 1968, the Cairo Jazz Band. “Egypt Strut” is a fusion of American jazz and Arabic music, similar to that played in the US at the same time by the likes of Yusef Lateef and Ahmud Abdul-Malik. We’ll be getting to some of that music in the May show.
Ragab is also well known for his friendship with Sun Ra. He helped Ra out with instruments and venues in Ra’s first pretty shambolic tour of Egypt in 1971, when the band’s instruments were held up at the border post. He also toured with Ra in the 80s around Egypt and Europe. The tune comes from a lovely 2006 Art Yard album called “Egyptian Jazz 1968 – 73” in which Ragab’s key tunes were compiled for Western consumption.
16 Diaspora (featuring Amina Annabi) – Elhem 1 (Green Queen)
Pity about the bland name, but the music of Diaspora is far from bland. The core of the band is Italian-born Luca Gatti and Frenchman Stephane Rene – they came together to work on film soundtracks in the early 2000s, and later worked with Asian Dub Foundation on the music for an opera about Gaddafi. They recently combined with Egyptian Baheeg Ramzy Mikail, a veteran violinist and vocalist who worked with Oum Kalthoum, and with French Tunisian singer Amina Annabi to come up with the album “A Jamaican in Cairo”.
17 Augustus Pablo – East of the River Nile (Original Rockers)
An alternative dub version of “East of the River Nile”. It comes off the killer 3 CD box set “The Definitive Augustus Pablo”.
18 Lee Perry (featuring Roots Manuva and LSK) – International Broadcaster (On-U-Sound)
A couple of months ago we listened to something from the recent Lee Perry collaboration with Adrian Sherwood, “Dubsetter”. “Dubsetter” is actually the dub version of “The Mighty Upsetter”. “International Broadcaster” is from the latter album and features two British rappers, Roots Manuva and LSK.
19 Erkin Koray – Turku (Dogan Plakcilik or World Psychedelia Ltd in 1999)
Turkey has long had a vast psychedelic rock scene, in which Turkish folk elements, often played on sazes (distorted to hell and gone) coexist very happily with the normal rock tropes. Erkin Koray is one of the granddaddies of the scene. “Turku” is from one of his classic albums, “Electronik Turkuler”, from 1974.
20 Arif Sag – Osman Pehlivan (Bouzouki Joe, 2010)
Arif Sag is another veteran from the Turkish psych scene. “Osman Pehlivan” is a well-known Turkish song, I believe. It comes from the collection “Turkish Freakout: Psych-folk singles 1969 to 80”.
21 Hayvanlar Alemi – Bahar Patlatan (Sublime Frequencies)
Hayvanlar Alemi (Animal Kingdom) is a current band from the Turkish pych scene. They have a bunch of free downloads on their “My Space” page. “Bahar Patlatan”, the tune we’ve just listened to, comes off the Sublime Frequencies LP “Guarana Superpower”, released a few weeks ago. Pretty Western-sounding, this track.
22 Stimmhorn – Pilgerfahrt (Traumton)
BBC’s Radio 3 has a new series Music Planet presented by Andy Kershaw and Lucy Duran, which hopefully you know about. You can stream it from Radio 3’s website, and although all the episodes have already been broadcast, all are still available for streaming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sggq0.
One of the regional styles featured on the show about mountains is yodelling. Yodelling developed in Switzerland mainly to communicate over distances, and to call and herd animals, but it has an expressive life of its own. Check out: http://www.furious.com/perfect/yodel.html for more on yodelling.
Stimmhorn are one of the great recent Swiss yodelling innovators, alas not featured on Music Planet. The track comes from the collection “Heimatklange”.
23 Henry Parsons - Rolling Waters Holler (Rounder Records)
Hollerin’ is an American cousin of yodelling. Henry Parsons with “Rolling Waters Holler”, from 1975 recorded at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, home of the National Hollerin’ Competition.
24 Tanya Tagaq Gillis – Surge (Jericho Beach Music)
Music Planet’s Arctic and desert programmes feature fantastic examples of throat singing, including Inuit singing from Canada by Tanya Tagaq Gillis from Cambridge Bay. The Inuit singers are keen on imitating sounds from their environment – from kittens to snowmobiles. Not sure what Tagaq is imitating on the track, “Surge” though.
25 Ayuo – Izutsu 11 (Tzadik)
New York-raised composer Ayuo wrote the “Izutsu” sequence in 11 parts for singer Mikiko Sakurai. He combines the Irish harp with the koto and a Gaguku wind section – a wind section used in ancient Japanese court music. “Izutsu” is based on a Noh play written by the 15th century writer Zeami (1363 – 1443). Old childhood friends marry, but then become estranged – the man has an affair with the empress. Part 11 deals with the woman looking into a well where she and her husband played as children and seeing her reflection changing into his likeness. Ayuo admits he is striving for an image of the old Japan, that might not ever have existed.
26 Mountain Man – River (Partisan Records)
Three university housemates got together to form Mountain Man a few years ago. Apparently only one of them had any background in the stuff, and she was forced to teach others.
27 Carolina Chocolate Drops – Snowden’s Jig (Nonesuch)
Carolina Chocolate Drops are currently one of the most exciting old-timey Americana bands. Their music comes from the Piedmont region in the foothills of North Carolina. They’ve been working under the tutelage of nonagenarian fiddler player Joe Thompson to reclaim tunes. “Snowden’s Jig” is one of those tunes and comes off their 2010 album “Genuine Negro Jig”.
28 June Tabor – I’ll go and enlist for a sailor (Topic)
A veteran of the English folk scene, June Tabor has just released her umpteenth LP, “Ashore”. The track is an instrumental, played by accordionist Andy Cutting, one of my favourite traditional players. Bassist Tim Harris is in there too.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
2 March 2011, World Cafe
Anyone who’s checked out the Electric Jive blog will have marveled at its greatness - a huge resource for anyone with an interest in South African music. If you are not a regular visitor, I suggest you check it out now. The site has just expanded its pool of contributors, and there’s even more stuff being dug up and aired. There is a link to Electric Jive from this blog.
1 Natacha Atlas & Mazeeka Ensemble – Beny Ou Benak (World Village)
Although born in Europe, as an Arab singer, Atlas is inexorably drawn towards Egyptian music. Her 2008 album “Ana Hina” is a celebration of two of the greatest modern Arab singers – Lebanese singer, Fairuz, and Egyptian, Abdel Halim Hafez. I’m not sure if “Beny Ou Benak Eih” was sung by Hafez, but it could well have been as it was co-written by one Hafez’s collaborators, the composer Kamel Al Taweel. The magnificent accordion there is courtesy of Gamal Al Kordy, who is apparently a veteran of the Egyptian scene.
2 Abdel Halim Hafez – Zay El-Hawa (Like the wind) (Soutelpan Records)
3 Oum Kalthoum (Umm Kulthum) – Arooh le Meen Prt 4 (To whom should I go) (Arabian Diamond Records)
Two of the greatest Egyptian singers … both pieces are extracts from pretty extended live versions of epic love songs.
4 Omar Khorsid – Alf Layla wa laya (A thousand and one nights) (A. Chahine & Fils)
Guitarist Omar Khorsid, whom we heard on last month’s show with his brand of Arabic surf music, worked in Oum Kalthoum’s orchestras. He did a sort of tribute LP of instrumental versions of classic Oum Kalthoum songs (“Tribute Oum Koulsoum”), sometime in the 80s.
5 Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara – Ngamen (No Limit) (Real World)
Justin Adams partly cut his musical teeth living in the Middle East and immersing himself in Arabic electric guitar music. I’m pretty sure he must have played along to Omar Khorsid records. He’s played with Natacha Atlas over the years, and over the last decade he’s played with a number of African musicians and has infused what is often called “desert blues” into his sound. Desert blues is actually pretty diverse and probably has some Arabic bits and definitely some American delta blues bit (via Chicago). One of Adams’s best partnerships has been with Gambian, Juldeh Camara, where he really lets rips, Chicago style. “Ngamen” (No Limit) comes off their very fine 2010 EP, “The Trance Sessions”.
6 Group Doueh – Badbada (Sublime Frequencies)
Group Doueh from Western Sahara have been on the show a number of times. Over the last few years the label Sublime Frequencies have been bringing out a CD per year by them, most of them culled from home recorded tapes. 2010’s release, “Beatte Harab”, slightly better recorded, draws more on classical Mauritanian music, and uses Moorish instruments like the tinidit (a three-stringed Mauritanian lute), the ardin (a kora-like harp played traditionally by women), the tbal (a clay drum) and the kass (tea glasses) alongside the guitar and Korg synth.
7 Ream Daranoi – Fai Yen (Soundway)
Soundway, like Sublime Frequencies an expert crate-digging label, in 2010 released a fabulous collection of Thai tunes from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, “The Sound of Siam”. It includes Ream Daranoi’s take on sultry Bollywood love songs. It’s called “Fai Yen” (Cold Fire), and it’s actually from the sound track for the movie “The magical love of the common people”.
8 Bich Loan and CBC Band – Con tim va nuoc mat (Saigon Rock & Soul) (Sublime Frequencies)
This song is culled from the collection, “Saigon Rock & Soul” – basically a collection of music produced during the Vietman war, in Saigon. “Overheated entertainment set up to distract grunts on leave”, the on-line mag, Dusted, puts it.
9 The Skatalites – Ghost Town (You can’t sit down) (Top Deck)
The Skalalites with their pre-reggae ska-jazz sound from mid-60s Jamaica.
10 Horoya Band National – Daba (African Pearls – Guinee 70) (Styllart)
11 22 Band – Sin Kon Mina (Mankan (Syliphone SLP 68)
In the 60s and 70s there were a number of post-independent West African governments who promoted and bankrolled Authenticité movements. Perhaps the best resourced and organized was in Guinea. The Guinean state set up the Syliphone record label to release the best of the best stuff that came out of villages and towns across the country. These two lovely recordings seem to come from the mid to late 70s. The first is on the Styllart collection “African Pearls: Guinee 70”.
12 Bavon Marie Marie & Negros Succes – Libangana libumu (Congo 70 – Rumba Rock) (Syllart)
I’ve been punting the Global Groove blog for ages on this programme – and if you can, you should really check it out. In January they put out a 7 volume collection of out-of- print stuff from the Congo (“Congo, Tours de Force”), and boy, is it fabulous. Listen to this track from Volume 1 by Bavon Marie Marie and Negros Succes. Bavon is actually Franco’s younger brother. He died in 1970 in a car crash, allegedly after a fight with Franco over a mutual girlfriend.
13 Sammy Izy – Tomany ny tamny (The Owner of the Earth) (Network)
From Sammy Izy’s wonderful 2010 release “Tsara Madagasikara”. Rageorge, a veteran musician beloved in Madagascar, plays the flute. He’s one of the veterans who have never recorded before and whom Samy features on the CD.
14 Alberto Beltan y su Conjunto Tipico – Cana brava (Ansonia)
Sammy Izy brings to mind gutsy and dextrous accordion playing. From the Dominican Republic circa 1975 here is some meringue.
15 Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun – Kaldak-Khamar (Divine Music from a Jail) (Friend Records)
Tuvan Oudupaa Vladimir Oiun spent 33 years in Soviet work camps apparently for singing protest songs, although the authorities said he was a murderer and corruptor of minors. That’s a long time to hone a sound – and it’s a pretty singular one. He describes throat singing as the sound and speaking of the spirits. He apparently still performs today.
16 Albert Kuvezin & Yat Kha – The Cry (Yat Kha Records)
From Albert Kuvezin’s new album.
17 The Wackies Rhythm Force – Betrayers Call (Wackies/Basic)
18 Harry Mudie & King Tubby – Where Eagles Dare (Moodisc)
From two series of dub encounters: The Harry Mudie and King Tubby tune comes from “Dub Conference Vol 3”, from 1978; Wackies is a New York based dub studio and collective and “Betrayer Call” comes from the LP “African Roots Act 1” made in 1980.
19 Missing Brazilians – Crocodiles Court (Warzone) (On-U Sound)
This show very often documents the largely organic, spontaneous and enthusiastic
infusion of so-labelled Western musical forms into non-Western music or world music, if you like, to create dynamic and unsettled hybrids, but what about the other way around? Like musicians everywhere if they get half a chance, musicians in the West have been mixing this up for a long time - in classical music, jazz, pop, arty rock etc. Think of Debussy, Sun Ra, Martin Denny and his lounge exoticisms … and there are many more. I’m not sure where this idea for some kind of a focus is going to go over the next few shows – but I’ll start things off in this show in psychedelic and experimental music of the late 60s and early 70s and its jazz, funk and even, perhaps, dub off-shoots into the 80s – the kind of mix one of its most well known instigators, Brian Eno, called “possible musics”, and part of something that music writer, David Toop, has called the “ocean of sound”.
In January I mentioned how Eno and Byrne’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” was an inspiration for Adrian Sherwood and Bonjo I A Binghi Noah to soundtrack their visions of a psychedelic Africa and form African Head Charge. Missing Brazilians was another one of their collaborations, and is certainly harsher and more extreme than Head Charge.
20 Chicago Underground Duo – Funeral of Dreams (Thrill Jockey)
Jazz has seen all kinds of exotic disruptions since Sun Ra. That Chicago Underground Duo track comes from their 2006 release “In praise of shadows”. Its lineage can be found in Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Miles Davis, Don Cherry … we’ll be listening to those in months to come.
21 Brian Eno & David Byrne – A Secret Life (Nonesuch)
Speaking of the touchstones of these kind of fusions, infusions, diffusions – here is something from “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”. “A Secret Life” is built around a fragment from a tune by Egyptian singer, Samira Tewfik, that Eno and Byrne found … some time we’ll listen to the original.
22 Can – Smoke (Ethnological Forgery Series No. 59) (Mute)
Can had a franker, more self-deprecating name for “possible musics” – “ethnological forgeries”. This one comes off their 1976 LP “Flow Motion”.
23 Ewan McLennan – As I Roved Out (Rags and Robes) (Fellside)
Newcomer Scottish trad singer Ewan McLennan’s version of “As I Roved Out” – harking back to classic Dick Gaughan, although perhaps slightly more ornate and mannered than Gaughan.
24 Nils Okland – Rite (Monograph) (ECM)
From Norway, the improvvy, neo medievalist, hardanger fiddler and violist off his “Monograph” album, out on ECM
25 Supersilent – 10.6 (Rune Grammafon)
Norway’s Supersilent with the sixth track off their tenth album, “10.6”.
1 Natacha Atlas & Mazeeka Ensemble – Beny Ou Benak (World Village)
Although born in Europe, as an Arab singer, Atlas is inexorably drawn towards Egyptian music. Her 2008 album “Ana Hina” is a celebration of two of the greatest modern Arab singers – Lebanese singer, Fairuz, and Egyptian, Abdel Halim Hafez. I’m not sure if “Beny Ou Benak Eih” was sung by Hafez, but it could well have been as it was co-written by one Hafez’s collaborators, the composer Kamel Al Taweel. The magnificent accordion there is courtesy of Gamal Al Kordy, who is apparently a veteran of the Egyptian scene.
2 Abdel Halim Hafez – Zay El-Hawa (Like the wind) (Soutelpan Records)
3 Oum Kalthoum (Umm Kulthum) – Arooh le Meen Prt 4 (To whom should I go) (Arabian Diamond Records)
Two of the greatest Egyptian singers … both pieces are extracts from pretty extended live versions of epic love songs.
4 Omar Khorsid – Alf Layla wa laya (A thousand and one nights) (A. Chahine & Fils)
Guitarist Omar Khorsid, whom we heard on last month’s show with his brand of Arabic surf music, worked in Oum Kalthoum’s orchestras. He did a sort of tribute LP of instrumental versions of classic Oum Kalthoum songs (“Tribute Oum Koulsoum”), sometime in the 80s.
5 Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara – Ngamen (No Limit) (Real World)
Justin Adams partly cut his musical teeth living in the Middle East and immersing himself in Arabic electric guitar music. I’m pretty sure he must have played along to Omar Khorsid records. He’s played with Natacha Atlas over the years, and over the last decade he’s played with a number of African musicians and has infused what is often called “desert blues” into his sound. Desert blues is actually pretty diverse and probably has some Arabic bits and definitely some American delta blues bit (via Chicago). One of Adams’s best partnerships has been with Gambian, Juldeh Camara, where he really lets rips, Chicago style. “Ngamen” (No Limit) comes off their very fine 2010 EP, “The Trance Sessions”.
6 Group Doueh – Badbada (Sublime Frequencies)
Group Doueh from Western Sahara have been on the show a number of times. Over the last few years the label Sublime Frequencies have been bringing out a CD per year by them, most of them culled from home recorded tapes. 2010’s release, “Beatte Harab”, slightly better recorded, draws more on classical Mauritanian music, and uses Moorish instruments like the tinidit (a three-stringed Mauritanian lute), the ardin (a kora-like harp played traditionally by women), the tbal (a clay drum) and the kass (tea glasses) alongside the guitar and Korg synth.
7 Ream Daranoi – Fai Yen (Soundway)
Soundway, like Sublime Frequencies an expert crate-digging label, in 2010 released a fabulous collection of Thai tunes from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, “The Sound of Siam”. It includes Ream Daranoi’s take on sultry Bollywood love songs. It’s called “Fai Yen” (Cold Fire), and it’s actually from the sound track for the movie “The magical love of the common people”.
8 Bich Loan and CBC Band – Con tim va nuoc mat (Saigon Rock & Soul) (Sublime Frequencies)
This song is culled from the collection, “Saigon Rock & Soul” – basically a collection of music produced during the Vietman war, in Saigon. “Overheated entertainment set up to distract grunts on leave”, the on-line mag, Dusted, puts it.
9 The Skatalites – Ghost Town (You can’t sit down) (Top Deck)
The Skalalites with their pre-reggae ska-jazz sound from mid-60s Jamaica.
10 Horoya Band National – Daba (African Pearls – Guinee 70) (Styllart)
11 22 Band – Sin Kon Mina (Mankan (Syliphone SLP 68)
In the 60s and 70s there were a number of post-independent West African governments who promoted and bankrolled Authenticité movements. Perhaps the best resourced and organized was in Guinea. The Guinean state set up the Syliphone record label to release the best of the best stuff that came out of villages and towns across the country. These two lovely recordings seem to come from the mid to late 70s. The first is on the Styllart collection “African Pearls: Guinee 70”.
12 Bavon Marie Marie & Negros Succes – Libangana libumu (Congo 70 – Rumba Rock) (Syllart)
I’ve been punting the Global Groove blog for ages on this programme – and if you can, you should really check it out. In January they put out a 7 volume collection of out-of- print stuff from the Congo (“Congo, Tours de Force”), and boy, is it fabulous. Listen to this track from Volume 1 by Bavon Marie Marie and Negros Succes. Bavon is actually Franco’s younger brother. He died in 1970 in a car crash, allegedly after a fight with Franco over a mutual girlfriend.
13 Sammy Izy – Tomany ny tamny (The Owner of the Earth) (Network)
From Sammy Izy’s wonderful 2010 release “Tsara Madagasikara”. Rageorge, a veteran musician beloved in Madagascar, plays the flute. He’s one of the veterans who have never recorded before and whom Samy features on the CD.
14 Alberto Beltan y su Conjunto Tipico – Cana brava (Ansonia)
Sammy Izy brings to mind gutsy and dextrous accordion playing. From the Dominican Republic circa 1975 here is some meringue.
15 Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun – Kaldak-Khamar (Divine Music from a Jail) (Friend Records)
Tuvan Oudupaa Vladimir Oiun spent 33 years in Soviet work camps apparently for singing protest songs, although the authorities said he was a murderer and corruptor of minors. That’s a long time to hone a sound – and it’s a pretty singular one. He describes throat singing as the sound and speaking of the spirits. He apparently still performs today.
16 Albert Kuvezin & Yat Kha – The Cry (Yat Kha Records)
From Albert Kuvezin’s new album.
17 The Wackies Rhythm Force – Betrayers Call (Wackies/Basic)
18 Harry Mudie & King Tubby – Where Eagles Dare (Moodisc)
From two series of dub encounters: The Harry Mudie and King Tubby tune comes from “Dub Conference Vol 3”, from 1978; Wackies is a New York based dub studio and collective and “Betrayer Call” comes from the LP “African Roots Act 1” made in 1980.
19 Missing Brazilians – Crocodiles Court (Warzone) (On-U Sound)
This show very often documents the largely organic, spontaneous and enthusiastic
infusion of so-labelled Western musical forms into non-Western music or world music, if you like, to create dynamic and unsettled hybrids, but what about the other way around? Like musicians everywhere if they get half a chance, musicians in the West have been mixing this up for a long time - in classical music, jazz, pop, arty rock etc. Think of Debussy, Sun Ra, Martin Denny and his lounge exoticisms … and there are many more. I’m not sure where this idea for some kind of a focus is going to go over the next few shows – but I’ll start things off in this show in psychedelic and experimental music of the late 60s and early 70s and its jazz, funk and even, perhaps, dub off-shoots into the 80s – the kind of mix one of its most well known instigators, Brian Eno, called “possible musics”, and part of something that music writer, David Toop, has called the “ocean of sound”.
In January I mentioned how Eno and Byrne’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” was an inspiration for Adrian Sherwood and Bonjo I A Binghi Noah to soundtrack their visions of a psychedelic Africa and form African Head Charge. Missing Brazilians was another one of their collaborations, and is certainly harsher and more extreme than Head Charge.
20 Chicago Underground Duo – Funeral of Dreams (Thrill Jockey)
Jazz has seen all kinds of exotic disruptions since Sun Ra. That Chicago Underground Duo track comes from their 2006 release “In praise of shadows”. Its lineage can be found in Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Miles Davis, Don Cherry … we’ll be listening to those in months to come.
21 Brian Eno & David Byrne – A Secret Life (Nonesuch)
Speaking of the touchstones of these kind of fusions, infusions, diffusions – here is something from “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”. “A Secret Life” is built around a fragment from a tune by Egyptian singer, Samira Tewfik, that Eno and Byrne found … some time we’ll listen to the original.
22 Can – Smoke (Ethnological Forgery Series No. 59) (Mute)
Can had a franker, more self-deprecating name for “possible musics” – “ethnological forgeries”. This one comes off their 1976 LP “Flow Motion”.
23 Ewan McLennan – As I Roved Out (Rags and Robes) (Fellside)
Newcomer Scottish trad singer Ewan McLennan’s version of “As I Roved Out” – harking back to classic Dick Gaughan, although perhaps slightly more ornate and mannered than Gaughan.
24 Nils Okland – Rite (Monograph) (ECM)
From Norway, the improvvy, neo medievalist, hardanger fiddler and violist off his “Monograph” album, out on ECM
25 Supersilent – 10.6 (Rune Grammafon)
Norway’s Supersilent with the sixth track off their tenth album, “10.6”.
Monday, January 31, 2011
2 February 2011, World Cafe
(1) Mercedes Peon – Deroran (Do Fol)
Mercedes Peon draws mainly on peasant music from the Galician region, in NE Spain. Her singing and tambourine (or pandeireta) playing is distinctively Galician. “Deroran” comes off her latest CD, “Sos”, which means “alone” in Gallego. On the cover of the CD, Sos is given another meaning by translation into Morse code – SOS. Peon is also keen to emphasise the connections with Portuguese, Moroccan and Berber music.
2) Gaiteiros de Lisboa – O Fim da picada (Sony UK/Zoom)
Wizard vocal polyphony, clattering farm-implement peasant percussion, early music and jazz are all grist to Gaiteiros de Lisboa’s mill – and they also bring in instruments of their own invention. “O fim de picada” literally means “the end of the pinprick” and comes off their 2006 release, “Satiro”. The bass line is provided by something Cape Town’s The Honeymoon Suites used to play and called the “Plastic Fantastic” - basically PVC pipes of different lengths, hit end on with beaters that look like the soles of flip flops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_KKFb-b1Ws&feature=related
3) Dupain – Au Jovent (Virgin France)
On a slightly heavier note than Gaiteiros de Lisboa, Dupain hail from the Occitan-speaking city of Arles in Southern France, and are proud of it. “Au Jovent” is Occitan for “To the youth”, and is hurdy-gurdy and snare drum propelled.
4) Andrew Bird & Sobanza Mimanisa – Ohnono/Kiwembo (Crammed Discs)
“Tradi-mods vs Rockers” is basically a 2 CD collection of post-rock and electronica luminaries’ reinterpretations of tunes from the Congrotronics stable. Congrotonics was a bunch of Kinshasa street bands brought to the global market by the Belgian label Crammed Discs … bands like Konono No 1. “Ohnono” is Andrew Bird’s take of the same tune we heard in January – Konono No 1’s “Kule Kule”.
5) The Good Ones – Eduia (Dead Oceans)
The Good Ones are from Rwanda. Africa has recently become the hunting ground for new gritty, unaffected, edgy urban sounds – probably sparked by the success of Congrotronics, and the plethora of boutique reissue, crate-digging labels, like Analog Africa. US-based independent Americana and folk-rock label, Dead Oceans, recently sent crack producer Ian Brennan to Rwanda to see what he could find. According to the press release, he looked long and hard, and towards the end of his stay, stumbled across a 3 piece band called The Goods Ones – a pretty destitute, often instrumentless, group. Their CD is called “Kigali Y’Izahabu”.
Both “Kigali Y’Izahabu” and “Tradi-mods vs Rockers” hit the shops this month. Thanks to Sheer Music for sending through the review copies.
6) Tiyiselani Vomaseve – Vanghoma (Honest Jons)
Another of bit of African grit which came to the global market in 2010 hails from South Africa and has been given the handle Shangaan Electro. It’s basically Shangaan pop music, the raw and soulful singing still intact, and the guitar, bass and drum stripped out and replaced with some of the cheesiest, trashiest, obnoxiously in-your-face electro pop I’ve heard in a long time – mostly created by producer “Dog” for a new generation of urbanizing rural Xitsonga-speakers strung out between Jo’burg and Limpopo and Mozambique. Over the last while some of the tunes became global viral hits on Youtube, one thing led to another, a record deal ensued, and the collection, “Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa”, came out, much to the horror of some people who seem to consider themselves insiders. The Mail & Guardian published a story about it towards the end of 2010.
For more of the story, also check out:
http://www.thefader.com/2010/02/24/ghetto-palms-90-new-styles-shangaan-electro-south-africa-road-epic/
and
http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/curio-dance-music/
7) Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood – All will be well in the garden (On-U Sound)
Since Lee Perry burned down his legendary Jamaican studio The Black Ark in the late 70s and more or less went into decline, Adrian Sherwood (the driving force behind one of the bastions of roots reggae and dub, British label “On-U-Sound”) has probably been responsible for nearly all the quality stuff coming out from Perry. “All will be well in the garden” comes off “Dubsetter”, the dub version of 2009’s “The Mighty Upsetter”.
8) Dub Syndicate – Dubaddisababa (On-U-Sound)
In David Katz’s tome on Perry, “People Funny Boy”, Sherwood tells how he’s got into the habit of recording Perry’s gnomic utterances, which he says are often way stranger, wittier and insightful than what is formally recorded for albums. In the mid-90s he wove some of these utterances into Dub Syndicate’s ultra icy, clinical reggae on “Dubaddisababa”.
9) Dub Colossus – Habasha Dub (Real World)
Very much in the spirit of Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, that was Dub Colossus, producer Nick Page’s collaboration with a bunch of Ethiopian musicians. It’s from their 2009 EP “Return of Addis”.
10) Muluken Mellesse – Ete endenesh gadawo (Buda Musique)
From the Ethiopiques’ very first release, “Golden Years of Ethiopian Music 1969 – 1975”.
11) Omar Khorsid – Sabirine (Sublime Frequencies)
Egyptian Omar Khorsid is often called the greatest Arab guitarist, but is not very well known in the west. Sublime Frenquencies’ 2010 “Guitar El Chark” (“Guitar of the Orient”) collects some of the stuff he put out in Beirut between ’72 and ’78, and from that collection, we just heard “Sabirine”, the guitar heavily cloaked in really sumptuous synthy strings. Half the glory of the tune is probably due to sound engineer Nabil Moumtaz, who has managed to weld together very rootsy, multilayered Arabic percussion to synth, organ and guitar. Prior to the heady days in Beirut, Khorsid had formed a beat group in Cairo and played in orchestral settings with Oum Kalthoum.
12) Los Beltons – Cumbia Pop (Vampi Soul)
Cumbia is popular South American dance music. 1960s Peruvian cumbia is perhaps an unlikely place to find some of the most scorching surf guitar you’ll hear anywhere. Besides Hank Marvin, think Link Wray. The tune comes from Vampi Soul’s 2010 collection “Cumbia Beat Vol 1: Experimental Guitar Driven Tropical Sounds from Peru 1966 to 1976”.
13) Manzanita – Agua (Roots of Chicha 2 – (Crammed Discs)
Peruvian Cumbia played on guitar and other pop instruments is also often called chicha. Crammed Discs also put out a fine collection of 60s and 70s cumbia in 2010, “The Roots of Chicha 2: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru”.
14) Franco – Mario (Sterns)
In 1985 Franco released what would become his biggest hit in the DRC and beyond, “Mario”. Its success was surprising for several reasons. Firstly, the tune wasn’t rhumba or soukous, for which Franco was best known. It was something of Franco’s invention which he called “odemba”, which he claimed came from a kind of ritual dance, although no one has been able to trace it. Secondly, there were two versions of the single released, which thinned out record sales, and, thirdly, both versions were in excess of 13 minutes long, which didn’t make them radio friendly. Lastly, the song was told from a woman’s point of view – in the song a rich woman of independent means complains about her over-educated slacker boyfriend. People have looked for hidden meanings that reflect Franco’s life in the lyrics, but according to Ken Braun’s notes in Stern’s “Francophonic vol 2” collection, the song is just an example of what he calls Franco’s “social portraiture”.
15) Mayaoula Mayoni – Potopotoville (Disc’orient)
Mayaoula Mayoni is clearly a great Congolese singer and guitarist, although there’s not much information out there on him, besides the fact that he sang in Franco’s band at some point. “Potopotoville” is also not standard soukous or rumba. It was released on the LP “Le Grand” and is long out of print. You can find it on the Global Groove blog.
16) Celestine Ukwu and his Philosphers National – Ebemi (Phillips Nigeria)
Heading briefly into some laidback highlife territory, this is Celestine Ukwu and his Philosphers National from Nigeria, off a fantastic LP “Ndu Ka Aku”, which you can also find on the Global Groove blog.
17) Ruth Theodore – Overflow (River Rat)
Relatively new on the scene and invoking all sorts of comparisons to Lili Allen and other lippy London widegirls and boys, Ruth Theodore brought out a new CD in 2010 – “White Holes of Mole Hills”. She’s much folkier, jazzier, and generally wittier, quirkier and darn right more inventive. That was her single “Overflow”. Something to do with evolution, communication and effluent – who knows, but it’s pretty infectious
18) Andy Cutting – Edges/Thin Waltz (Lane)
Andy Cutting has long been on the cutting edge of button accordionists. His 2010 release was his first solo one, and it’s just called “Andy Cutting”.
19) Dalla – Gannel Crake/ Cribbar/ Two Borders (Dalla Records)
Staying with traditional dance music from British Isles that was Dalla from Cornwell, who actually sing in Cornish. Hilary Coleman provides the wonderful bass clarinet on the tune we’ve just heard “The Gannel Crake”, and that comes off their 2010 release “Cribbar”. Buried in the mix is the crowdy crawn, which is kind of Cornish bodhran or frame drum.
20) Huun Huur Tu – Kozhamyk (World Village)
Tuvan band Huun Huur Tu return to a more traditional sound on their new CD “Ancestors Call”. It’s a fine CD, possibly their best.
21) Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Way my Poetry should Go (Yat Kha Records)
Tuvan Albert Kuvezin’s latest CD, “Poets & Lighthouses”, was recorded on a remote Scottish island and is just out on Kuvezin’s own label, Yat Kha Records. On the album Kuvezin sings texts and translations of Japanese, Russian and Tuvan poetry. The wonderful clarinet playing there is by Sarah Homer.
22) Moondog – Fog on the Hudson (425 W 57th Street) (Honest Jons)
New York street musician, Moondog, demonstrates his love for non-Western timings, with something clearly recorded in the field, the totally atmospheric, in-the-place, “Fog on the Hudson (425 W 57th Street)”.
23) Yim Yames and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band – St James Infirmary (Preservation Hall Recordings)
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans (which both preserves New Orleans jazz and helps support aging musicians from the scene) put out what they call a benefit and outreach album in 2010. Basically it’s an album of pairings between the band and well known guests, largely from the current Americana scene. Yim Yames is also Jim James, the singer from My Morning Jacket. Some people credit the song “St James Infirmary” to 19th century songwriter Irving Mills (aka as Joe Primrose), although it seems to be based on the 19th century English song, “The Unfortunate Rake”.
Mercedes Peon draws mainly on peasant music from the Galician region, in NE Spain. Her singing and tambourine (or pandeireta) playing is distinctively Galician. “Deroran” comes off her latest CD, “Sos”, which means “alone” in Gallego. On the cover of the CD, Sos is given another meaning by translation into Morse code – SOS. Peon is also keen to emphasise the connections with Portuguese, Moroccan and Berber music.
2) Gaiteiros de Lisboa – O Fim da picada (Sony UK/Zoom)
Wizard vocal polyphony, clattering farm-implement peasant percussion, early music and jazz are all grist to Gaiteiros de Lisboa’s mill – and they also bring in instruments of their own invention. “O fim de picada” literally means “the end of the pinprick” and comes off their 2006 release, “Satiro”. The bass line is provided by something Cape Town’s The Honeymoon Suites used to play and called the “Plastic Fantastic” - basically PVC pipes of different lengths, hit end on with beaters that look like the soles of flip flops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_KKFb-b1Ws&feature=related
3) Dupain – Au Jovent (Virgin France)
On a slightly heavier note than Gaiteiros de Lisboa, Dupain hail from the Occitan-speaking city of Arles in Southern France, and are proud of it. “Au Jovent” is Occitan for “To the youth”, and is hurdy-gurdy and snare drum propelled.
4) Andrew Bird & Sobanza Mimanisa – Ohnono/Kiwembo (Crammed Discs)
“Tradi-mods vs Rockers” is basically a 2 CD collection of post-rock and electronica luminaries’ reinterpretations of tunes from the Congrotronics stable. Congrotonics was a bunch of Kinshasa street bands brought to the global market by the Belgian label Crammed Discs … bands like Konono No 1. “Ohnono” is Andrew Bird’s take of the same tune we heard in January – Konono No 1’s “Kule Kule”.
5) The Good Ones – Eduia (Dead Oceans)
The Good Ones are from Rwanda. Africa has recently become the hunting ground for new gritty, unaffected, edgy urban sounds – probably sparked by the success of Congrotronics, and the plethora of boutique reissue, crate-digging labels, like Analog Africa. US-based independent Americana and folk-rock label, Dead Oceans, recently sent crack producer Ian Brennan to Rwanda to see what he could find. According to the press release, he looked long and hard, and towards the end of his stay, stumbled across a 3 piece band called The Goods Ones – a pretty destitute, often instrumentless, group. Their CD is called “Kigali Y’Izahabu”.
Both “Kigali Y’Izahabu” and “Tradi-mods vs Rockers” hit the shops this month. Thanks to Sheer Music for sending through the review copies.
6) Tiyiselani Vomaseve – Vanghoma (Honest Jons)
Another of bit of African grit which came to the global market in 2010 hails from South Africa and has been given the handle Shangaan Electro. It’s basically Shangaan pop music, the raw and soulful singing still intact, and the guitar, bass and drum stripped out and replaced with some of the cheesiest, trashiest, obnoxiously in-your-face electro pop I’ve heard in a long time – mostly created by producer “Dog” for a new generation of urbanizing rural Xitsonga-speakers strung out between Jo’burg and Limpopo and Mozambique. Over the last while some of the tunes became global viral hits on Youtube, one thing led to another, a record deal ensued, and the collection, “Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa”, came out, much to the horror of some people who seem to consider themselves insiders. The Mail & Guardian published a story about it towards the end of 2010.
For more of the story, also check out:
http://www.thefader.com/2010/02/24/ghetto-palms-90-new-styles-shangaan-electro-south-africa-road-epic/
and
http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/curio-dance-music/
7) Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood – All will be well in the garden (On-U Sound)
Since Lee Perry burned down his legendary Jamaican studio The Black Ark in the late 70s and more or less went into decline, Adrian Sherwood (the driving force behind one of the bastions of roots reggae and dub, British label “On-U-Sound”) has probably been responsible for nearly all the quality stuff coming out from Perry. “All will be well in the garden” comes off “Dubsetter”, the dub version of 2009’s “The Mighty Upsetter”.
8) Dub Syndicate – Dubaddisababa (On-U-Sound)
In David Katz’s tome on Perry, “People Funny Boy”, Sherwood tells how he’s got into the habit of recording Perry’s gnomic utterances, which he says are often way stranger, wittier and insightful than what is formally recorded for albums. In the mid-90s he wove some of these utterances into Dub Syndicate’s ultra icy, clinical reggae on “Dubaddisababa”.
9) Dub Colossus – Habasha Dub (Real World)
Very much in the spirit of Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, that was Dub Colossus, producer Nick Page’s collaboration with a bunch of Ethiopian musicians. It’s from their 2009 EP “Return of Addis”.
10) Muluken Mellesse – Ete endenesh gadawo (Buda Musique)
From the Ethiopiques’ very first release, “Golden Years of Ethiopian Music 1969 – 1975”.
11) Omar Khorsid – Sabirine (Sublime Frequencies)
Egyptian Omar Khorsid is often called the greatest Arab guitarist, but is not very well known in the west. Sublime Frenquencies’ 2010 “Guitar El Chark” (“Guitar of the Orient”) collects some of the stuff he put out in Beirut between ’72 and ’78, and from that collection, we just heard “Sabirine”, the guitar heavily cloaked in really sumptuous synthy strings. Half the glory of the tune is probably due to sound engineer Nabil Moumtaz, who has managed to weld together very rootsy, multilayered Arabic percussion to synth, organ and guitar. Prior to the heady days in Beirut, Khorsid had formed a beat group in Cairo and played in orchestral settings with Oum Kalthoum.
12) Los Beltons – Cumbia Pop (Vampi Soul)
Cumbia is popular South American dance music. 1960s Peruvian cumbia is perhaps an unlikely place to find some of the most scorching surf guitar you’ll hear anywhere. Besides Hank Marvin, think Link Wray. The tune comes from Vampi Soul’s 2010 collection “Cumbia Beat Vol 1: Experimental Guitar Driven Tropical Sounds from Peru 1966 to 1976”.
13) Manzanita – Agua (Roots of Chicha 2 – (Crammed Discs)
Peruvian Cumbia played on guitar and other pop instruments is also often called chicha. Crammed Discs also put out a fine collection of 60s and 70s cumbia in 2010, “The Roots of Chicha 2: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru”.
14) Franco – Mario (Sterns)
In 1985 Franco released what would become his biggest hit in the DRC and beyond, “Mario”. Its success was surprising for several reasons. Firstly, the tune wasn’t rhumba or soukous, for which Franco was best known. It was something of Franco’s invention which he called “odemba”, which he claimed came from a kind of ritual dance, although no one has been able to trace it. Secondly, there were two versions of the single released, which thinned out record sales, and, thirdly, both versions were in excess of 13 minutes long, which didn’t make them radio friendly. Lastly, the song was told from a woman’s point of view – in the song a rich woman of independent means complains about her over-educated slacker boyfriend. People have looked for hidden meanings that reflect Franco’s life in the lyrics, but according to Ken Braun’s notes in Stern’s “Francophonic vol 2” collection, the song is just an example of what he calls Franco’s “social portraiture”.
15) Mayaoula Mayoni – Potopotoville (Disc’orient)
Mayaoula Mayoni is clearly a great Congolese singer and guitarist, although there’s not much information out there on him, besides the fact that he sang in Franco’s band at some point. “Potopotoville” is also not standard soukous or rumba. It was released on the LP “Le Grand” and is long out of print. You can find it on the Global Groove blog.
16) Celestine Ukwu and his Philosphers National – Ebemi (Phillips Nigeria)
Heading briefly into some laidback highlife territory, this is Celestine Ukwu and his Philosphers National from Nigeria, off a fantastic LP “Ndu Ka Aku”, which you can also find on the Global Groove blog.
17) Ruth Theodore – Overflow (River Rat)
Relatively new on the scene and invoking all sorts of comparisons to Lili Allen and other lippy London widegirls and boys, Ruth Theodore brought out a new CD in 2010 – “White Holes of Mole Hills”. She’s much folkier, jazzier, and generally wittier, quirkier and darn right more inventive. That was her single “Overflow”. Something to do with evolution, communication and effluent – who knows, but it’s pretty infectious
18) Andy Cutting – Edges/Thin Waltz (Lane)
Andy Cutting has long been on the cutting edge of button accordionists. His 2010 release was his first solo one, and it’s just called “Andy Cutting”.
19) Dalla – Gannel Crake/ Cribbar/ Two Borders (Dalla Records)
Staying with traditional dance music from British Isles that was Dalla from Cornwell, who actually sing in Cornish. Hilary Coleman provides the wonderful bass clarinet on the tune we’ve just heard “The Gannel Crake”, and that comes off their 2010 release “Cribbar”. Buried in the mix is the crowdy crawn, which is kind of Cornish bodhran or frame drum.
20) Huun Huur Tu – Kozhamyk (World Village)
Tuvan band Huun Huur Tu return to a more traditional sound on their new CD “Ancestors Call”. It’s a fine CD, possibly their best.
21) Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Way my Poetry should Go (Yat Kha Records)
Tuvan Albert Kuvezin’s latest CD, “Poets & Lighthouses”, was recorded on a remote Scottish island and is just out on Kuvezin’s own label, Yat Kha Records. On the album Kuvezin sings texts and translations of Japanese, Russian and Tuvan poetry. The wonderful clarinet playing there is by Sarah Homer.
22) Moondog – Fog on the Hudson (425 W 57th Street) (Honest Jons)
New York street musician, Moondog, demonstrates his love for non-Western timings, with something clearly recorded in the field, the totally atmospheric, in-the-place, “Fog on the Hudson (425 W 57th Street)”.
23) Yim Yames and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band – St James Infirmary (Preservation Hall Recordings)
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans (which both preserves New Orleans jazz and helps support aging musicians from the scene) put out what they call a benefit and outreach album in 2010. Basically it’s an album of pairings between the band and well known guests, largely from the current Americana scene. Yim Yames is also Jim James, the singer from My Morning Jacket. Some people credit the song “St James Infirmary” to 19th century songwriter Irving Mills (aka as Joe Primrose), although it seems to be based on the 19th century English song, “The Unfortunate Rake”.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)