1 Zinja Hlungwani – Ntombi ya mugaza (Honest Jons)
From the collection “Shangaan Electro” which came out in 2010.
2 Burnt Friedman – Burnt Friedman Meets Zinja Hlungwani (Honest Jons)
From Tzaneen, Limpopo, via Joburg and London to Berlin - Burnt Friedman’s rewiring of the Zinja Hlungwani tune “Ntombi ya mugaza”. All this is under the auspices of London based label Honest Jon’s which in 2010 saw fit to release a bunch of Richard “Dog” Mthetwa’s fast, cheap and nasty, but ultimately charming productions of Shangaan electronica and caused a global sensation. Honest Jon’s commissioned this radical reworking, and several others from some top-drawer international techno/electro soundsmiths – the remixes are released on a double disk, “Shangaan Shake”.
3 James Makhubelo & the Nhlalukweni Sisters – Salani va chiawelo (Fast Move)
Shangaan music has been evolving for centuries. Thanks to the blog Electric Jive, the go-to website for South African music, I can bring you a moment of that history from 1977 – unencumbered by the modern trappings of a drum kit and electric bass – from the collection “Nkulungwani wa nwalungu vol 1”.
4 Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited – Nyati (Afro Soul)
From the mid 70s that was “Nyati”, the B-side of an early single by Thomas Mapfumo, with his backing band of the time, the Blacks Unlimited. Mapfumo and his guitarist Jonah Sithole were forming the modern Chimurenga sound by building onto a skeleton of Shona traditional music. I also got that from a post on Electric Jive.
5 Batida – Tribalismo (featuring Circuito Feixado) Soundway
Angolan/Portuguese DJ Mpula aka Pedro Cequenao with a combination of kuduro (Angola’s equivalent of kwaito) and 70s Angolan latin-infused folk psychedelia.
6 Rocket Juice & The Moon – Follow Fashion (featuring Fatoumata Diawara & M.anifest) (Honest Jons)
Heading back to the future, Rocket Juice & The Moon is a kind of supergroup built around the drumming of veteran afro-beat legend, Tony Allen, with Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Britrocker Damon Albarn. Mark Ernestus, who also features on “Shangaan Shake”, produces and there are a bunch of luminaries as guests.
7 Jenny Scheinman – Ali Farke Touche (Self Produced)
American violinist, Jenny Sheinman’s tribute to Ali Farka Toure. In her band are Nels Cline, the guitarist from Wico, Todd Sickafoose, the bassist from Ani Difranco and Jim Black, who’s a fairly well known jazz drummer. It’s from Scheinman’s 2012 album “Mischief & Mayhem”.
8 Amadou Diagne – Yaro (World Music Network)
From Mali via NYC, to Senegal. Here is a wonderful percussionist, guitarist and kora player who World Music Network have brought out on their “Introducing …” imprint, which they use to break usually great musicians that are well-known in their local areas onto the international stage. Amadou Diagne is from a griot family and has played in the Senegal National Band for decades. “Yaro” is sung in Wolof, and is a kind of restrained version of Mbalax.
9 Emel Mathlouthi – Ma ikit (Not found) (World Village)
From Tunisian Emel Mathlouthi’s celebratory album "Kelmti Horra" (“My Word is Free”), which came out during or shortly after the uprising there. Arab melodies, trip-hoppy rhythms and Bulgarian choral chanting … a bit much, but it kind of works …
10 Googoosh – Pishkesh (Finders Keepers)
Although not a Middle Eastern pro-democracy activist like Emel Mathouthi, veteran singer Googoosh’s songs have become anthems for international Iranian communities. Her songs were banned after the revolution, her records were destroyed and some of her recordings are reportedly lost forever. Finders Keepers have dug out some of the more obscure tracks that are still around – the collection is called “Googoosh”.
11 Ahmad Al-Harazi – Amsi sameer al-nojoom
Oud player and singer, Ahmad Al-Harazi, from Yemen off a wonderful collection of local music styles in the 60s and 70s out on Parlotone called “Qat, Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen”.
12 Yemen Blues – Jat Mahibati (LevGroup)
The Israeli band Yemen Blues under the leadership of Yemenite singer Ravid Kahalani, off their very fine debut album called “Yemen Blues”.
13 Debo Band – Aderetch Arada (Buda Musique)
According to their website, Debo Band is a “Boston-based 11-member group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye”. They’re also flavour of the month on the festival circuit and about to release their debut LP on the ultratrendy Seattle-based label, Subpop.
Hopefully you can hear the connections between Ethiopian and Yemeni music – Yemen is a stone’s throw from the East Coast of Africa and the resonances are ethnomusicologically recognized. I got that Debo Band track off Ethopiques’ latest collection “Various Artists: Noise & Chill Out: Ethiopian Groove Worldwide” – a collection of non-Ethiopian bands playing Ethiopian music ... there’ll be much more from that double album in later shows.
14 Dub Colossus – Stop! In the name of dub (Real World)
One of the bands on the “Noise & Chillout” collection is Dub Colossus. Nick Page, the driving force in Dub Colossus, has released an album of dub-enhanced versions of some of their tunes, with brand new pieces thrown in. The LP’s called “Dub me tender”.
15 Lee Perry & the Upsetters – Natural Dub (Exclusive dub plate mix) (Pressure Drop)
Off the collection of rarities recorded in the Black Ark from the 70s, “The Return of Sound System Scratch on the label Pressure Drop”.
16 Little Axe – Garfield Elementary (On-U Sound)
From Pressure Drop’s sister label, off Skip McDonald’s latest, “If you want loyalty get a dog”.
17 The Happyland Singers – I’ll Fly Away (Excelsior Recordings)
Apparently the earliest recorded version of this 1920’s gospel song is by the Selah Jubilee Singers made in 1941. The Happyland Singers’ version can’t be much younger than that. It’s from a collection of 78 RPMs called incongruously, “Blue Flamingo – Congo Jazz”, which was brought out by the Dutch label, Excelsior Recordings, and includes American hot jazz and gospel and Congolese rumba.
18 James Booker – Slowly but surely (AVES)
Clearly influenced by Professor Longhair, James Booker from New Orleans with his own song, “Slowly but surely”. That was recorded live in Hamburg in 1976. Booker started his career in the 50s, and sessioned for the greats from the early rock n roll New Orleans scene: Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis and Lloyd Price.
19 Dr John – Revolution (Nonesuch)
Another great pianist from New Orleans of the same generation is Dr John or Mac Rebennack (born 1940), in fact Rebennack and James Booker shared backing bands at some point. Dr John is still going strong and, as I mentioned last month, is having a major revival. His latest record, “Locked Down”, is produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who encouraged Rebennack to write material onsite in the studio which was then more or less workshopped with a sterling group of musicians. Here’s “Revolution”, on which he plays the Wurlitzer organ.
20 MAKU Sound System – Si Las Balas (own label)
MAKU Sound System from NYC with one of their own songs “Si Las Balas”, off their fine self-released album available on Bandcamp, “Makumbala”.
21 Los Corraleros De Majagual – El Ascensor (Vampisoul)
A couple of years ago the reissue label Vampisoul brought out a 2 CD collection of Afro-Columbian stuff culled from the more oddball side of the late 60s and 70s catalogue of the label Discos Fuentes.
22 Andrew Bird – Orpheo looks back (Mom & Pop)
American fiddler, whistler and singer-songwriter Andrew Bird’s amazing hybrid music – I’m definitely hearing Irish music in there, perhaps some Cajun fiddle and loads of other stuff too. It’s from his latest album, “Break it yourself”.
23 Gerry Diver – My Margeret (One Fine Day)
Irish fiddler Gerry Diver, who also plays viola, hammer dulcimer, whistle and guitar, released a fascinating record in 2011 that he calls the “Speech Project”. He’s basically taken conversations with some great Irish musicians like Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore and Martin Hayes and set them to music. “My Margaret” is a very moving one with the legendary singer and banjo player, Margaret Barry, who died in 1989, talking about her mother.
24 Martin Simpson – Jamie Foyers (Topic)
Martin Simpson on guitar off his latest “Purpose and Grace”, backing the seriously wonderful Scottish singer, Dick Gaughan, who is a fine guitarist in his own right, on a traditional song. The beautiful pedal steel is by the English player, B J Cole.
25 Alasdair Roberts & Mairi Morrison – Mile Marbhphaisg Air A Ghaol (Drag City)
The Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist Alasdair Roberts has a new album out – an event always anticipated in my part of the world, and this one does not disappoint. He’s teamed up with the Gaelic singer Mairi Morrison (from the Isle of Lewis off the North coast of Scotland) and come up with a very varied album. It’s called “Urstan”, and the opener is a Pentangle-like folk-jazz affair with a title that translates as “A thousand curses on love”.
26 Warsaw Village Band – Traditional Rural Polka (World Village)
From “People’s Spring” which came out in 2003. The Warsaw Village Band’s mission is preserving traditional peasant music from Poland by seeking out and recording older musicians, and incorporating old melodies into new settings.
27 Fanfare Ciocarlia – I’m your gummy bear (Asphalt Tango)
The theme song from the esteemed TV show - “I’m your gummy bear” – by the Romanian brass band, from the album “Balkan Brass Battle”.
28 The Klezmatics – Man in a hat (Xenophile Records)
From “Jews with horns”, one of the first albums in the current klezmer revival. Lorin Sklamberg, who many believe to the best Yiddish singer around, does the vocals.
29 Steven Bernstein – Dybbuk Dub (Tzadik)
Trumpeter and slide trumpeter, Steven Bernstein’s dubbed up version of the traditional tune “Dybbuk”, out on the Tzadik release “Diaspora Soul”. Professor Is-Rea provides the dubbery.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
2 May 2012, World Cafe
1 Galactic – Attack (Epitaph)
Urgent, brooding, almost martial afrobeat infused jazz-funk from New Orleans. Galactic have been around for 18 years, and “Attack” is from their 2012 album, “Carnivale Electricos”.
2 Dr John and the Lower 911 – Big Gap (Proper)
Dr John, long a mainstay of New Orleans music, is having a serious revival at the moment. That was something from his second last album “Tribal” which he wrote with Allen Touissaint, very much with the aftermath of Katrina and the current recession on his mind. His backing band, the Lower 911, is probably called after the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the oldest and most heavily flooded areas of New Orleans, and the birthplace of Fats Domino.
3 The Heavyweights Brass Band – Bad Romance (own label, used with permission)
From Toronto, not New Orleans, that was the Heavyweights Brass Band with their fabulous Preservation Hall type version of the Lady Gaga tune. These guys have only been around since 2009, and have supported Galactic.
4 Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser and Sexto – Orisa (Brownswood)
Last month we heard the Heavyweights Brass Band’s melting together of Cuban and New Orleans sounds curated by Gilles Peterson on his 2 CD collection “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”. From that same collection, that was something more distinctly Cuban (or perhaps Afro-Cuban) by the house band on CD 1, the Havana Cultura Band. Orisa is a Yoruban deity.
5 Ablaye Thiossane – Bouki Ndiour (Discograph/Sterns)
Sticking with the Afro-Cuban, this time sung in Wolof , that was the great veteran Senegalese singer Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane (who sang for Orchestra du Baobab in the 70s) with “Bouki Ndiour” off his debut solo album which is just out. A bunch of former and present Baobabians play with him on the album, including the sax player Thierno Kouyate.
6 Sory Kandia Kouyate – N’na (Sterns)
Cuban sounds ended up being the musical substrate for most of West Africa in the late 60s and 70s, including Guinea. Sterns has just released the fifth set of its double CD reissues of the Syliphone catalogue. Syliphone was the label linked to the government- funded cultural renaissance in Guinea in the 70s. The new CDs collect the music of Sory Kandia Kouyate, an incredibly powerful singer with a massive repertoire of traditional songs, and is called “La Voix de la Revolution”. “N’na” is from volume 1, on which he’s backed by “modern” dance bands and sounding more poppy than traditional.
7 Teta – Ze mahery managnaze (Buda Musique)
Teta plays in the Madagascan Tsapiky style and has been doing so since he was age 8, in the mid 70s. The tune is off his 2012 album called “Fototse Racines Roots”.
8 Damily – Rombo (Helico)
Hailing from the Tulear region in southern Madagascar, that was the great Tsapiky band, Damily, with a short, frenetic percussive piece, pretty typical of the style.
9 Prince Fatty Meets the Mutant HiFi – Across the border (Mr Bongo)
Where the barren, tumbleweed Mariachi plains meet tropical Jamaica. Prince Fatty and the Mutant HiFi are essentially a pair of producers – Mike Pelanconi and Nick Coplowe. Coplowe has done a bunch of work for the British dub label On-U Sound.
10 Augustus Pablo – Black Ants Lane (Goldenlane Records)
A classic track from the late 70s. Black Ants Lane is a rough area off Red Hills Road in uptown Kingston.
11 New Age Steppers – The Worst of Me (On-U Sound)
After about 30 years’ absence here is the great On-U Sound punky-dubby collective The New Age Steppers, with something new. The late Ari Up (from another punky dub band, the Slits) is at the helm, as she used to be back when the New Age Steppers were a regular thing. She was fighting cancer when she was making the last New Age Steppers album “Love Forever”, and it’s probably the last thing she did.
12 Jagmohan - Aji Kahan Gum Ho (Finders Keepers Records)
The 80s and 90s saw a craze in Bollywood for cheap and nasty horror movies, usually scored by some top-drawer Bollywood composers. Finders Keepers has just released a collection of some of the finer musical moments of the genre – “Bollywood Bloodbath: The B-music of the Indian horror film industry”. The song we heard there was composed by Jagmohan – the performers are lost.
13 Anoushka Shankar – Traveller (Deutsche Grammophon)
From a B grade label, to a decidedly A grade one. Deutsche Grammophon have been making forays into the popular of late. The sitar-playing daughter and pupil of Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, has just put out a release with Spanish flamenco producer Javier Limon – most of it is way too polite and fusionesque for my liking. The title track “Traveller” lets rip though.
14 Anda Union – Galloping Horses (Hohhot)
From the Inner Mongolian city of Hohhot, a wonderful, relatively new band off their fine 2011 album “The Wind Horse”.
15 Kurmanjiang Zaccharia – Babulao (Sublime Frequencies)
Also in Northern China, but on the west side in the Xinjiang region (in fact recorded close to the border with Kazakhstan), that was the Kazakh string virtuoso, Kurmanjiang Zaccharia, playing his two-stringed dongbra. It’s on the album “Ethnic Minority Music of Northwest Xinjiang”, recorded in 2009 just before the Uyghur uprising in that region.
16 Neung Phak – Kawp Koon Kawp Koon (Abduction Records)
Neung Phak is essentially a South East Asian tribute group, hailing from nowhere remotely close to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia or Vietman – they’re from Oakland, California. The tune is from their second LP called imaginatively “2”. The connection between this and the Kazakh track? Mark Gergis, a driving force in Neung Phak, collaborates with and collects music for Sublime Frequencies, especially music from SE Asia and the Middle East.
17 Burnt Friedman – Deku No Bo (Nonplace)
While we are on the subject of ethnological forgeries, here’s another one, this time committed by Burnt Friedman, sounding vaguely Javanese or Indonesian. “Deku No Bo” is off his latest album called “Bokoboko”, which is Japanese for “uneven”. He’s playing modified oil barrels, monochord, rubber band guitar and sarod (an Indian stringed instrument).
18 Renata Rosa – Marcha do Donzel (Nascente)
The rabeca violin is a kind of peasant fiddle from the Pernambeco region of northeastern Brazil, and Renata Rosa is one of the best exponents. This comes from a fabulous collection mostly of field recordings produced for the BBC that Nascente brought out last year called “World Routes – On the Road”.
19 Nidi D’Arac – Ronde noe (Tarantulae Management & Production)
For some reason I paired that Brazilian peasant music with this radically updated version of southern Italian peasant music by Nidi D’Arac, now based in Rome. It’s from their latest album “Taranta Container”.
20 Shazalakazoo featuring Wikluh Sky – Plus 49 (Eastblok Music)
From Belgrade, Shazalakazoo with some kind of Balkan ragamuffin, from their latest album called “Karton City Boom”.
21 Balkan Beat Box – Ljepa Mare (Crammed Records)
Very similar to Shazalakazoo, but from NYC, from their 2010 album, “Blue Eyed Black Boy”.
22 La Bottine Souriante – En p’tit boggie (Les Productions Mille-Pattes)
Québecois music at its best: La Bottine Souriante - "the smiling boot" – with the decidedly skanky “En p’tit boggie”. From their 2001 album, “Cordial”.
23 Iarla O’Lionaird – Ta Dha Ghabhairin Bhui Agam (The Goat Song) (Real World Music)
Quebecois includes a healthy slice of Irish music, so I thought I’d head for the Kilkenny countryside with sean-nos (“old-style”) singer, Iarla O’Lionaird, formerly of the Afro Celt Sound System. That was his version of the Gaelic ditty “The Goat Song”. Producer Leo Abrahams is on guitar, and think Leafcutter John is in there providing subtle electronics, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh is on fiddle and hardanger fiddle. It’s off his 2011 release on Real World called “Foxlight”.
24 Seamus Ennis – The Kerry Recruit (Traditional)
The great Irish singer, folk-song collector and piper, Seamus Ennis, with his version of the traditional tune, “The Kerry Recruit”, which dates from the Crimean War in the mid 1850s. Apparently, if you were around during the playing of "The Kerry Recruit" during the Crimean War, you could be thrown in jail.
25 Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll – Coronation Day (Own label)
Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll are a fiddle duo based in the South West of England. “Coronation Day” is a traditional tune from their second album, which came out in 2009 called “Beneath the black tree”.
26 Liz Green – Displacement Song (Pias)
Singer songwriter Liz Green is from Liverpool and relatively new on the folk scene. “Displacement Song” is a kind of Brechtian waltz.
27 Saara Markkanen – Ralli (Solo Tuotanto)
The slightly melancholy sounding Finnish singer-songwriter Saara Markkanen. According to a blog entry I came across, her lyrics are “quite poetic and a bit dark”. From the album “Aina Jossain Sataa”.
28 Hanne Hukkelberg – Erik (Propeller)
Another singer/songwriter, also Scandinavian, but this time from Norway – Hanne Hukkelberg with something pretty marvelous off her very recent album, “Featherbrain”: a duet with her 88 year old neighbour, Erik Vister, who happens to be a classically trained singer, with detuned piano accompaniment.
29 Olafur Arnalds – Everything Must Change (Erased Tapes)
The 25 year Icelandic wunderkind, Olafur Arnald, with some soundtrack music he calls “Everything must change” which is from the 2011 Sam Levinson movie “Another Happy Day”.
Urgent, brooding, almost martial afrobeat infused jazz-funk from New Orleans. Galactic have been around for 18 years, and “Attack” is from their 2012 album, “Carnivale Electricos”.
2 Dr John and the Lower 911 – Big Gap (Proper)
Dr John, long a mainstay of New Orleans music, is having a serious revival at the moment. That was something from his second last album “Tribal” which he wrote with Allen Touissaint, very much with the aftermath of Katrina and the current recession on his mind. His backing band, the Lower 911, is probably called after the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the oldest and most heavily flooded areas of New Orleans, and the birthplace of Fats Domino.
3 The Heavyweights Brass Band – Bad Romance (own label, used with permission)
From Toronto, not New Orleans, that was the Heavyweights Brass Band with their fabulous Preservation Hall type version of the Lady Gaga tune. These guys have only been around since 2009, and have supported Galactic.
4 Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser and Sexto – Orisa (Brownswood)
Last month we heard the Heavyweights Brass Band’s melting together of Cuban and New Orleans sounds curated by Gilles Peterson on his 2 CD collection “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”. From that same collection, that was something more distinctly Cuban (or perhaps Afro-Cuban) by the house band on CD 1, the Havana Cultura Band. Orisa is a Yoruban deity.
5 Ablaye Thiossane – Bouki Ndiour (Discograph/Sterns)
Sticking with the Afro-Cuban, this time sung in Wolof , that was the great veteran Senegalese singer Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane (who sang for Orchestra du Baobab in the 70s) with “Bouki Ndiour” off his debut solo album which is just out. A bunch of former and present Baobabians play with him on the album, including the sax player Thierno Kouyate.
6 Sory Kandia Kouyate – N’na (Sterns)
Cuban sounds ended up being the musical substrate for most of West Africa in the late 60s and 70s, including Guinea. Sterns has just released the fifth set of its double CD reissues of the Syliphone catalogue. Syliphone was the label linked to the government- funded cultural renaissance in Guinea in the 70s. The new CDs collect the music of Sory Kandia Kouyate, an incredibly powerful singer with a massive repertoire of traditional songs, and is called “La Voix de la Revolution”. “N’na” is from volume 1, on which he’s backed by “modern” dance bands and sounding more poppy than traditional.
7 Teta – Ze mahery managnaze (Buda Musique)
Teta plays in the Madagascan Tsapiky style and has been doing so since he was age 8, in the mid 70s. The tune is off his 2012 album called “Fototse Racines Roots”.
8 Damily – Rombo (Helico)
Hailing from the Tulear region in southern Madagascar, that was the great Tsapiky band, Damily, with a short, frenetic percussive piece, pretty typical of the style.
9 Prince Fatty Meets the Mutant HiFi – Across the border (Mr Bongo)
Where the barren, tumbleweed Mariachi plains meet tropical Jamaica. Prince Fatty and the Mutant HiFi are essentially a pair of producers – Mike Pelanconi and Nick Coplowe. Coplowe has done a bunch of work for the British dub label On-U Sound.
10 Augustus Pablo – Black Ants Lane (Goldenlane Records)
A classic track from the late 70s. Black Ants Lane is a rough area off Red Hills Road in uptown Kingston.
11 New Age Steppers – The Worst of Me (On-U Sound)
After about 30 years’ absence here is the great On-U Sound punky-dubby collective The New Age Steppers, with something new. The late Ari Up (from another punky dub band, the Slits) is at the helm, as she used to be back when the New Age Steppers were a regular thing. She was fighting cancer when she was making the last New Age Steppers album “Love Forever”, and it’s probably the last thing she did.
12 Jagmohan - Aji Kahan Gum Ho (Finders Keepers Records)
The 80s and 90s saw a craze in Bollywood for cheap and nasty horror movies, usually scored by some top-drawer Bollywood composers. Finders Keepers has just released a collection of some of the finer musical moments of the genre – “Bollywood Bloodbath: The B-music of the Indian horror film industry”. The song we heard there was composed by Jagmohan – the performers are lost.
13 Anoushka Shankar – Traveller (Deutsche Grammophon)
From a B grade label, to a decidedly A grade one. Deutsche Grammophon have been making forays into the popular of late. The sitar-playing daughter and pupil of Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, has just put out a release with Spanish flamenco producer Javier Limon – most of it is way too polite and fusionesque for my liking. The title track “Traveller” lets rip though.
14 Anda Union – Galloping Horses (Hohhot)
From the Inner Mongolian city of Hohhot, a wonderful, relatively new band off their fine 2011 album “The Wind Horse”.
15 Kurmanjiang Zaccharia – Babulao (Sublime Frequencies)
Also in Northern China, but on the west side in the Xinjiang region (in fact recorded close to the border with Kazakhstan), that was the Kazakh string virtuoso, Kurmanjiang Zaccharia, playing his two-stringed dongbra. It’s on the album “Ethnic Minority Music of Northwest Xinjiang”, recorded in 2009 just before the Uyghur uprising in that region.
16 Neung Phak – Kawp Koon Kawp Koon (Abduction Records)
Neung Phak is essentially a South East Asian tribute group, hailing from nowhere remotely close to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia or Vietman – they’re from Oakland, California. The tune is from their second LP called imaginatively “2”. The connection between this and the Kazakh track? Mark Gergis, a driving force in Neung Phak, collaborates with and collects music for Sublime Frequencies, especially music from SE Asia and the Middle East.
17 Burnt Friedman – Deku No Bo (Nonplace)
While we are on the subject of ethnological forgeries, here’s another one, this time committed by Burnt Friedman, sounding vaguely Javanese or Indonesian. “Deku No Bo” is off his latest album called “Bokoboko”, which is Japanese for “uneven”. He’s playing modified oil barrels, monochord, rubber band guitar and sarod (an Indian stringed instrument).
18 Renata Rosa – Marcha do Donzel (Nascente)
The rabeca violin is a kind of peasant fiddle from the Pernambeco region of northeastern Brazil, and Renata Rosa is one of the best exponents. This comes from a fabulous collection mostly of field recordings produced for the BBC that Nascente brought out last year called “World Routes – On the Road”.
19 Nidi D’Arac – Ronde noe (Tarantulae Management & Production)
For some reason I paired that Brazilian peasant music with this radically updated version of southern Italian peasant music by Nidi D’Arac, now based in Rome. It’s from their latest album “Taranta Container”.
20 Shazalakazoo featuring Wikluh Sky – Plus 49 (Eastblok Music)
From Belgrade, Shazalakazoo with some kind of Balkan ragamuffin, from their latest album called “Karton City Boom”.
21 Balkan Beat Box – Ljepa Mare (Crammed Records)
Very similar to Shazalakazoo, but from NYC, from their 2010 album, “Blue Eyed Black Boy”.
22 La Bottine Souriante – En p’tit boggie (Les Productions Mille-Pattes)
Québecois music at its best: La Bottine Souriante - "the smiling boot" – with the decidedly skanky “En p’tit boggie”. From their 2001 album, “Cordial”.
23 Iarla O’Lionaird – Ta Dha Ghabhairin Bhui Agam (The Goat Song) (Real World Music)
Quebecois includes a healthy slice of Irish music, so I thought I’d head for the Kilkenny countryside with sean-nos (“old-style”) singer, Iarla O’Lionaird, formerly of the Afro Celt Sound System. That was his version of the Gaelic ditty “The Goat Song”. Producer Leo Abrahams is on guitar, and think Leafcutter John is in there providing subtle electronics, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh is on fiddle and hardanger fiddle. It’s off his 2011 release on Real World called “Foxlight”.
24 Seamus Ennis – The Kerry Recruit (Traditional)
The great Irish singer, folk-song collector and piper, Seamus Ennis, with his version of the traditional tune, “The Kerry Recruit”, which dates from the Crimean War in the mid 1850s. Apparently, if you were around during the playing of "The Kerry Recruit" during the Crimean War, you could be thrown in jail.
25 Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll – Coronation Day (Own label)
Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll are a fiddle duo based in the South West of England. “Coronation Day” is a traditional tune from their second album, which came out in 2009 called “Beneath the black tree”.
26 Liz Green – Displacement Song (Pias)
Singer songwriter Liz Green is from Liverpool and relatively new on the folk scene. “Displacement Song” is a kind of Brechtian waltz.
27 Saara Markkanen – Ralli (Solo Tuotanto)
The slightly melancholy sounding Finnish singer-songwriter Saara Markkanen. According to a blog entry I came across, her lyrics are “quite poetic and a bit dark”. From the album “Aina Jossain Sataa”.
28 Hanne Hukkelberg – Erik (Propeller)
Another singer/songwriter, also Scandinavian, but this time from Norway – Hanne Hukkelberg with something pretty marvelous off her very recent album, “Featherbrain”: a duet with her 88 year old neighbour, Erik Vister, who happens to be a classically trained singer, with detuned piano accompaniment.
29 Olafur Arnalds – Everything Must Change (Erased Tapes)
The 25 year Icelandic wunderkind, Olafur Arnald, with some soundtrack music he calls “Everything must change” which is from the 2011 Sam Levinson movie “Another Happy Day”.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
4 April 2012, World Cafe
1 Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa – Tamtakani (General Pattern)
Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui with his band of brilliant Senegambian musicians, University of Gnawa, off his 2011 “Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa”.
2 Yemen Blues – Um Min Al Yaman (LevGroup)
Sticking in the North African, Middle East area, Yemen Blues are from Israel and centred around singer and composer Ravid Kahalani, who is of Yemenite extraction, and bassist and arranger, Omer Avital, who spent many years in NYC, playing mainstream jazz.
“Um min al yaman” was written by Kahalani and is about a dreamed journey up a mountain in which he sees his mother waving to him in greeting, but at the same time hears a voice telling him he is alone. The time signature is derived from a traditional beat called Da’Sa – I really love the arresting interplay between horns and strings. It’s from an album called “Yemen Blues”.
3 Tuneyards – Bizness (4AD)
Tuneyards is Merrill Garbus on ukulele, voice and layers of drum loops, and on their 2011 album, “Who Kill”, bassist Nate Brenner. In “Bizness” they throw everything into the mix including a bunch of African sounds, a bit like American indie pop darlings MIA, the Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, only to my ears, Tuneyards is a more uncompromising and better proposition.
4 Fatoumata Diawara – Kanou (World Circuit)
On the subject of media darlings, that was Malian Fatoumata Diawara off her endlessly terrific debut album, “Fatou”. Distributed in South Africa by Sheer Music.
5 Abdu Owiti - Stephen Opio (Dust-to-Digital)
6 Stonik and Kiprono – Molildo Kiruk-Yuk (Dust-to-Digital)
Two obscure vintage gems from Kenya, the first by Abdu Owiti who is of the Luo people from Western Kenya, and the second by Stonik and Kiprono, who are Kipsigis, a pastoralist group. Both groups’ origins can be traced to Southern Sudan.
These recordings come from a remarkable 4 CD collection of vintage stuff all culled from 78 records commercially released for local audiences all around Africa - a bit like the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music, which came out 60 years ago, only way more diverse. The collection is called “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM”.
7 Alemayehu Eshete – Yeweyn haregitu (Buda Musique)
When we talk about old African recordings, Ethiopia is a serious well-spring. We’ve listened to the great singer Mahoud Ahmed on this show many times, but I think we’ve never heard Alemayehu Eshete, who is in fact just as soulful and scorching a singer. He started out in Addis’s Police Orchestra, which literally was the police band, had his first hit in 1961 and then founded the Alem-Girma Band with pianist, composer and singer Girma Beyene. “Yeweyn haregitu” is an Eshete and Beyene composition, from the early 70s available on the collection “Ethiopiques Vol 9: 1969 to 1974”.
8 Samuel Yirga – Abet Abet (Real World)
Samuel Yirga the keyboardist with the Ethiojazz-dub fusion band Dub Colossus, from his first solo release, the EP “Hegere” which came out last year.
9 Tommy McCook – Far East Dub (Jamaican Recordings)
Sumptuous pentatonic eastern-sounding horn arrangements and dub bring to mind Augustus Pablo and his so-called “Far Eastern” sounds. Tommy McCook recently released a collection of vintage tracks that came out in the 70s, “Dubbing with Horns”. To my ears, on this track McCook’s flute sounds a lot like Pablo’s melodica, although Pablo has nothing to do with this tune as far as I can tell.
10 Little Axe – Grace (On-U Sound)
Little Axe is the stage name for Bernard Alexander aka Skip McDonald - a longtime musician in the stable of the British dub label On-U Sound. McDonald has had a varied musical history which includes playing in the band behind the first ever rap hit song – “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang. Since 94, as Little Axe, he’s been doing a mix of gospel, blues, Americana and dub. “Grace” comes from another great album that On-U Sound put out in 2011, “If you want loyalty, buy a dog”.
11 Anibal Velasquez y su Conjunto – Cumbia Bogatana (Soundway)
From South of the Mason-Dixon Line to Jamaica, let’s carry on heading south to that furious bubbling cauldron of Afro-Caribbean sounds, Columbia. “Cumbia Bogatana” is out on Soundway’s magnificent collection “The Original Sound of Cumbia 1948 to 79”.
12 Maku Sound System – Esclavo Moderno (MAKU Sound System)
NYC-based Columbian fusion band, MAKU Sound System with “Esclavo Moderno” from their 2011 album, Makumbala – available to you on the Bandcamp website http://makusoundsystem.bandcamp.com/ for a price of your picking.
Viviana Benitez, the band’s manager, told me that that Esclavo Moderno was written by M. Llerena and originally done by Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers and released on Curramba Records in 1979. http://www.makusoundsystem.com/
I got to hear about MAKU and Yemen Blues on a podcast about the annual musical festival, Global Fest, at which they played this year. You can get the show on the “All songs considered” website – and I would strongly recommend you do that.
13 Roy Montrell – Every time I hear that mellow saxophone (Specialty)
There is some argument about whether New Orleans and indeed Havana are in the Caribbean, or whether the geographical description the Gulf of Mexico would not be more accurate. What is not under dispute is that both cities are intimately connected, at least musically.
New Orleans guitarist Roy Montrell’s early rock n roll from 1956, heavily infused with mambo, New Orleans style.
14 The Heavyweights Brass Band feat. Edrey from Ogguere – Nueva Orleans (Brownswood)
Cuban rap and NOLA brass band music anyone? The Heavyweights Brass Band, from Toronto, with Cuban rapper Edrey from Ogguere. From the second CD of BBC DJ Gilles Petersen’s latest 2-volume production and compilation adventures in Cuba – “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”.
15 Dr John – When the saints go marching in (Parlophone)
If the HBO show “Treme” set in the music scene in New Orleans is to be believed, requests to play “When the saints go marching in” draw silent and not so silent groans from musicians. The song has been played to death. Well, maybe not … check out Dr John’s version in which he shares vocals with Mavis Staples from his album “N’wlinz: Dis dat or d’udda”.
I read about Dr John’s reclamation of the song in Ned Sublette’s fantastic book “The year before the flood”. He calls it a “dirge-tempo, minor, spiritual-church version”. He says the version “reminds us that jazz is partly rooted in the dirge, which is to say in making sure the ancestors are put away right”.
16 Pine Leaf Boys – La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau (Valcour)
We can’t leave Louisiana without listening to some Cajun music. That was the Pine Leaf Boys with “La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau” – a song by the great veteran songwriter and fiddler, Adam Hebert from Church Point. Many of his songs became classics. By the way, Wilson Savoy, on accordion and fiddle, is the son of the great Cajun revivalist couple – Marc and Ann Savoy. They appear more than a few times in the “Treme” series.
17 Laurie Levine – Not gonna cry (Rhythm Records)
And now to some Americana sounds from up North – north of the Orange River … Jo’burg. Laurie Levine off her fabulous 2011 release, “Six Winters”, and her song “Not gonna cry”. She comes to Cape Town once or twice a year – so go and see her.
18 Mandlakayise Mkhize – Izinombizakithi (Gallotone)
In the second half of 2011 Siemon Allen, the artist and collector, put up a truly heroic bit of crate digging and sonic dot connecting on the blog, “Electric Jive” – which he called “Maskanda Roots 1927 to 1964”. (http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/11/maskanda-roots-1927-1964.html)
Mandlakayise Mkhize with “Izinombazakithi” is from the more recent end of the spectrum.
19 Crocodile Male Voice Choir – Sasingaxabene (Better)
On the other end is the Crocodile Male Voice Choir from 1939. They are one of the oldest isicathamiya groups, helping to invent the style. Allen seems to claim them for Maskanda partly because of the vastrap style of accordion playing, a heavy feature of early Maskanda. He points out that the term “Maskanda” derives from the Afrikaans “musikant”.
20 Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre – Batata dia Bwanga (Dust-to-Digital)
Two vintage choral pieces, the last one from Kantanga Province in the Congo: Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre (Singers of the Copper Cross). Also from the “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM” collection.
If you like the Opika Pende collection check out the website of the compiler, Jonathan Ward: http://excavatedshellac.com/
21 Baloji – A l’heure d’ete Saison Seche (Crammed)
From modern day Congo – Belgian rapper Baloji from his 2011 album recorded in Kinshasa – “Kinshasa Succursale”.
22 Charles Bradley – Golden Rule (Daptone)
62 year old soul shouter Charles Bradley from Gainesville, Florida with something from, believe it or not, his debut album, “No time for dreaming”, which he did for Daptone – home of Sharon Jones and the Daptones. You’re asking what has this to do with world music? Very little, arguably – I just love the razor sharp brass arrangements and that James Brown funky undercarriage. But you can also say those sounds had a huge impact on Africa in the 60s and 70s.
23 Missionary Mamie Sam – This may be my last time singing (Tompkins Square)
A few months ago we listened to something off the collection of obscure independent gospel releases “This may be my last time singing: Raw Gospel 45 Recordings 1957 – 1982”. Here is another track from it.
24 Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Shadrack(Fremeaux and Associes)
The great gospel singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her trademark rock and roll accompaniment on her version of the McGimsey tune from 1953.
25 Kathy & Carol – Carter’s Blues (Elektra)
Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb only put out one record – the 1965 release on Elektra called “Kathy and Carol” – and it’s a real gem of the 60s folk revival. Both played guitar and autoharp and sang. They freely exchange melody and harmony lines in a close, tight but natural way. You have to wonder why this has never been reissued. By the way, Carol still performs and Kathy is an academic at the California College of Arts.
26 Kathleen McPeake – Eileen Aroon (Topic)
From the 1960s folk revival on the other side of the Atlantic, that was Kathleen McPeake with a Gaelic traditional song. Kathleen McPeake was a member of the family-based group from Belfast, the McPeakes. Wouldn’t you know that half the band were called Francis – father, son and grandson – and all Francises were crack Uilleann pipers.
27 Mary Hampton – Benjamin Bowmaneer (Teaspoon)
Mary Hampton shares Kathleen McPeake’s ethereal, mysterious vocal style. Hampton’s version of a mid-17th century folk tune, with added strange improvvy trumpet playing, from her 2011 album “Folly”.
28 Reet Hendriksen – Kui mina alles noor veel olin (Reindeer)
Norwegian singer Reet Hendriksen was a teenager in 1969, when she put out this song from an album of Estonian lullabies.
29 Didier Laloy, Bruno Le Tron, Markku Lepisto, David Munnelly, Riccardo Tesi - Reel Finlandia (Homerecords)
Here is something to take us away from the ethereal for a moment – a supergroup of diatonic accordion players ….. who meld together traditional folk, jazz, pop and classical. Finnish accordionist Markku Lepisto leads the pack on his tune “Reel Finlandia”.
30 Sinikka Langeland – Spring in the mountain (ECM)
The great Norwegian singer and kantele player. The trumpet opening is by genre defying Arve Hendriksen, whom we’ve heard here quite a few times.
Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui with his band of brilliant Senegambian musicians, University of Gnawa, off his 2011 “Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa”.
2 Yemen Blues – Um Min Al Yaman (LevGroup)
Sticking in the North African, Middle East area, Yemen Blues are from Israel and centred around singer and composer Ravid Kahalani, who is of Yemenite extraction, and bassist and arranger, Omer Avital, who spent many years in NYC, playing mainstream jazz.
“Um min al yaman” was written by Kahalani and is about a dreamed journey up a mountain in which he sees his mother waving to him in greeting, but at the same time hears a voice telling him he is alone. The time signature is derived from a traditional beat called Da’Sa – I really love the arresting interplay between horns and strings. It’s from an album called “Yemen Blues”.
3 Tuneyards – Bizness (4AD)
Tuneyards is Merrill Garbus on ukulele, voice and layers of drum loops, and on their 2011 album, “Who Kill”, bassist Nate Brenner. In “Bizness” they throw everything into the mix including a bunch of African sounds, a bit like American indie pop darlings MIA, the Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, only to my ears, Tuneyards is a more uncompromising and better proposition.
4 Fatoumata Diawara – Kanou (World Circuit)
On the subject of media darlings, that was Malian Fatoumata Diawara off her endlessly terrific debut album, “Fatou”. Distributed in South Africa by Sheer Music.
5 Abdu Owiti - Stephen Opio (Dust-to-Digital)
6 Stonik and Kiprono – Molildo Kiruk-Yuk (Dust-to-Digital)
Two obscure vintage gems from Kenya, the first by Abdu Owiti who is of the Luo people from Western Kenya, and the second by Stonik and Kiprono, who are Kipsigis, a pastoralist group. Both groups’ origins can be traced to Southern Sudan.
These recordings come from a remarkable 4 CD collection of vintage stuff all culled from 78 records commercially released for local audiences all around Africa - a bit like the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music, which came out 60 years ago, only way more diverse. The collection is called “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM”.
7 Alemayehu Eshete – Yeweyn haregitu (Buda Musique)
When we talk about old African recordings, Ethiopia is a serious well-spring. We’ve listened to the great singer Mahoud Ahmed on this show many times, but I think we’ve never heard Alemayehu Eshete, who is in fact just as soulful and scorching a singer. He started out in Addis’s Police Orchestra, which literally was the police band, had his first hit in 1961 and then founded the Alem-Girma Band with pianist, composer and singer Girma Beyene. “Yeweyn haregitu” is an Eshete and Beyene composition, from the early 70s available on the collection “Ethiopiques Vol 9: 1969 to 1974”.
8 Samuel Yirga – Abet Abet (Real World)
Samuel Yirga the keyboardist with the Ethiojazz-dub fusion band Dub Colossus, from his first solo release, the EP “Hegere” which came out last year.
9 Tommy McCook – Far East Dub (Jamaican Recordings)
Sumptuous pentatonic eastern-sounding horn arrangements and dub bring to mind Augustus Pablo and his so-called “Far Eastern” sounds. Tommy McCook recently released a collection of vintage tracks that came out in the 70s, “Dubbing with Horns”. To my ears, on this track McCook’s flute sounds a lot like Pablo’s melodica, although Pablo has nothing to do with this tune as far as I can tell.
10 Little Axe – Grace (On-U Sound)
Little Axe is the stage name for Bernard Alexander aka Skip McDonald - a longtime musician in the stable of the British dub label On-U Sound. McDonald has had a varied musical history which includes playing in the band behind the first ever rap hit song – “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang. Since 94, as Little Axe, he’s been doing a mix of gospel, blues, Americana and dub. “Grace” comes from another great album that On-U Sound put out in 2011, “If you want loyalty, buy a dog”.
11 Anibal Velasquez y su Conjunto – Cumbia Bogatana (Soundway)
From South of the Mason-Dixon Line to Jamaica, let’s carry on heading south to that furious bubbling cauldron of Afro-Caribbean sounds, Columbia. “Cumbia Bogatana” is out on Soundway’s magnificent collection “The Original Sound of Cumbia 1948 to 79”.
12 Maku Sound System – Esclavo Moderno (MAKU Sound System)
NYC-based Columbian fusion band, MAKU Sound System with “Esclavo Moderno” from their 2011 album, Makumbala – available to you on the Bandcamp website http://makusoundsystem.bandcamp.com/ for a price of your picking.
Viviana Benitez, the band’s manager, told me that that Esclavo Moderno was written by M. Llerena and originally done by Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers and released on Curramba Records in 1979. http://www.makusoundsystem.com/
I got to hear about MAKU and Yemen Blues on a podcast about the annual musical festival, Global Fest, at which they played this year. You can get the show on the “All songs considered” website – and I would strongly recommend you do that.
13 Roy Montrell – Every time I hear that mellow saxophone (Specialty)
There is some argument about whether New Orleans and indeed Havana are in the Caribbean, or whether the geographical description the Gulf of Mexico would not be more accurate. What is not under dispute is that both cities are intimately connected, at least musically.
New Orleans guitarist Roy Montrell’s early rock n roll from 1956, heavily infused with mambo, New Orleans style.
14 The Heavyweights Brass Band feat. Edrey from Ogguere – Nueva Orleans (Brownswood)
Cuban rap and NOLA brass band music anyone? The Heavyweights Brass Band, from Toronto, with Cuban rapper Edrey from Ogguere. From the second CD of BBC DJ Gilles Petersen’s latest 2-volume production and compilation adventures in Cuba – “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”.
15 Dr John – When the saints go marching in (Parlophone)
If the HBO show “Treme” set in the music scene in New Orleans is to be believed, requests to play “When the saints go marching in” draw silent and not so silent groans from musicians. The song has been played to death. Well, maybe not … check out Dr John’s version in which he shares vocals with Mavis Staples from his album “N’wlinz: Dis dat or d’udda”.
I read about Dr John’s reclamation of the song in Ned Sublette’s fantastic book “The year before the flood”. He calls it a “dirge-tempo, minor, spiritual-church version”. He says the version “reminds us that jazz is partly rooted in the dirge, which is to say in making sure the ancestors are put away right”.
16 Pine Leaf Boys – La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau (Valcour)
We can’t leave Louisiana without listening to some Cajun music. That was the Pine Leaf Boys with “La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau” – a song by the great veteran songwriter and fiddler, Adam Hebert from Church Point. Many of his songs became classics. By the way, Wilson Savoy, on accordion and fiddle, is the son of the great Cajun revivalist couple – Marc and Ann Savoy. They appear more than a few times in the “Treme” series.
17 Laurie Levine – Not gonna cry (Rhythm Records)
And now to some Americana sounds from up North – north of the Orange River … Jo’burg. Laurie Levine off her fabulous 2011 release, “Six Winters”, and her song “Not gonna cry”. She comes to Cape Town once or twice a year – so go and see her.
18 Mandlakayise Mkhize – Izinombizakithi (Gallotone)
In the second half of 2011 Siemon Allen, the artist and collector, put up a truly heroic bit of crate digging and sonic dot connecting on the blog, “Electric Jive” – which he called “Maskanda Roots 1927 to 1964”. (http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/11/maskanda-roots-1927-1964.html)
Mandlakayise Mkhize with “Izinombazakithi” is from the more recent end of the spectrum.
19 Crocodile Male Voice Choir – Sasingaxabene (Better)
On the other end is the Crocodile Male Voice Choir from 1939. They are one of the oldest isicathamiya groups, helping to invent the style. Allen seems to claim them for Maskanda partly because of the vastrap style of accordion playing, a heavy feature of early Maskanda. He points out that the term “Maskanda” derives from the Afrikaans “musikant”.
20 Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre – Batata dia Bwanga (Dust-to-Digital)
Two vintage choral pieces, the last one from Kantanga Province in the Congo: Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre (Singers of the Copper Cross). Also from the “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM” collection.
If you like the Opika Pende collection check out the website of the compiler, Jonathan Ward: http://excavatedshellac.com/
21 Baloji – A l’heure d’ete Saison Seche (Crammed)
From modern day Congo – Belgian rapper Baloji from his 2011 album recorded in Kinshasa – “Kinshasa Succursale”.
22 Charles Bradley – Golden Rule (Daptone)
62 year old soul shouter Charles Bradley from Gainesville, Florida with something from, believe it or not, his debut album, “No time for dreaming”, which he did for Daptone – home of Sharon Jones and the Daptones. You’re asking what has this to do with world music? Very little, arguably – I just love the razor sharp brass arrangements and that James Brown funky undercarriage. But you can also say those sounds had a huge impact on Africa in the 60s and 70s.
23 Missionary Mamie Sam – This may be my last time singing (Tompkins Square)
A few months ago we listened to something off the collection of obscure independent gospel releases “This may be my last time singing: Raw Gospel 45 Recordings 1957 – 1982”. Here is another track from it.
24 Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Shadrack(Fremeaux and Associes)
The great gospel singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her trademark rock and roll accompaniment on her version of the McGimsey tune from 1953.
25 Kathy & Carol – Carter’s Blues (Elektra)
Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb only put out one record – the 1965 release on Elektra called “Kathy and Carol” – and it’s a real gem of the 60s folk revival. Both played guitar and autoharp and sang. They freely exchange melody and harmony lines in a close, tight but natural way. You have to wonder why this has never been reissued. By the way, Carol still performs and Kathy is an academic at the California College of Arts.
26 Kathleen McPeake – Eileen Aroon (Topic)
From the 1960s folk revival on the other side of the Atlantic, that was Kathleen McPeake with a Gaelic traditional song. Kathleen McPeake was a member of the family-based group from Belfast, the McPeakes. Wouldn’t you know that half the band were called Francis – father, son and grandson – and all Francises were crack Uilleann pipers.
27 Mary Hampton – Benjamin Bowmaneer (Teaspoon)
Mary Hampton shares Kathleen McPeake’s ethereal, mysterious vocal style. Hampton’s version of a mid-17th century folk tune, with added strange improvvy trumpet playing, from her 2011 album “Folly”.
28 Reet Hendriksen – Kui mina alles noor veel olin (Reindeer)
Norwegian singer Reet Hendriksen was a teenager in 1969, when she put out this song from an album of Estonian lullabies.
29 Didier Laloy, Bruno Le Tron, Markku Lepisto, David Munnelly, Riccardo Tesi - Reel Finlandia (Homerecords)
Here is something to take us away from the ethereal for a moment – a supergroup of diatonic accordion players ….. who meld together traditional folk, jazz, pop and classical. Finnish accordionist Markku Lepisto leads the pack on his tune “Reel Finlandia”.
30 Sinikka Langeland – Spring in the mountain (ECM)
The great Norwegian singer and kantele player. The trumpet opening is by genre defying Arve Hendriksen, whom we’ve heard here quite a few times.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
1 February 2012, World Cafe
1 Baloji – La Petite Espece (Bumbafu Version) (Crammed)
The Congo-born, Belgium-based rapper, Baloji, from the album “Kinshasa Succursale” - which was recorded in Kinshasa with local musicians. The album was the response to a challenge from his estranged mother to reflect on his roots and the state of the country of his birth. It was essentially recorded in two parts – a full album in 2008 called “Hotel Impala”, and then the extra layers and ironic barbs recorded and added in 2011 to form “Succursale”. You have to love that retro funk feel and the especially Afrobeat brass arrangements here.
“Kinshasa Succursale” is out on Crammed and distributed in SA by Sheer Music.
2 Amadou Ballake et les 5 Consuls – Baden Djougou (Analog Africa)
2011 saw the release of a couple of collections of vintage 70s Afro-funk, rock and jazz by Analog Africa. “Bambara Mystic Soul” brings together some classic tracks from Burkina Faso recorded between 1974 and 1979. There is nothing particularly distictive about the music from Burkina in that period – it’s a mixture of Ivorian, Congolese, Beninese and Malian music – but there were some fine musicians around back then. Perhaps the most famous was Amadou Ballake who cut his teeth playing in Mali and Guinea. You can hear that very clearly on his song “Baden Djougou”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Zoma (Mental Groove)
This totally wonderful Swiss band has a retro-futuristic take on Ethiojazz. They only do reinterpretations of classic tracks. “Zoma” is by Martha Ashagani. Their debut LP, “Mercato”, came out in 2011 and it’s seriously good.
4 Asselefetch Ashin and Getenesh Kebret – Metche New (L’Arome Productions)
In December, we listened to the Paris-based Ethiojazz band Akele Wube with their version of “Metche New”. This is an older version from 1976.
5 Samuel Yirga – The Blues for Wollo (Habasha Mix) (Real World Music Ltd)
2011 was a good year for 25 year old Ethiopian pianist and composer, Samuel Yirga, who plays with Dub Colossus. He played a prominent role on Dub Colossus’s release, and released an EP on Real World and a live album on the “Society of Sound Music” series brought out by a partnership of hi-fi company B&W and Real World called “The Habasha Sessions”. This is a track from “The Habasha Sessions”. Yirga’s backstory is fantastic. He only started playing an instrument, let alone taking formal lessons, at the age of 16 having won a place in the prestigious Yared School of Music in Addis by tapping rhythms out with a coin on the top of a piano. His exploration expands the very important place given to Cuban music in Ethiojazz by its founding father, Malutu Astatke.
6 Evarist and Party – Nambanda (Dust to Digital)
In 2011, an incredible reissue label that I’ve just discovered – Dust-to-Digital – put out a fascinating and disparate 4 CD collection culled from 78s from across the whole of the African continent, called “Opika Pende”. I’ll tell you more about this collection in later months, but here is a taster from Northwestern Tanzania – Evarist and Party with “Nambanda”.
7 African Head Charge – Run Come See (On-U Sound)
The rootsy, mystical vocals of Bonjo I A Binghi Noah of African Head Charge. I’ve been going on about British dub label On-U Sound recently – for me they’re the last bastion of old style rootsy dub and 2011 was their 30th anniversary – so forgive me for belabouring the point. “Run Come See” is from an AHC best of collection called “Shrunken Head”.
8 Lee Perry – God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)
On-U Sound’s 30th anniversary did see some kind of revitalization for them - they put out some lovely new releases last year, including a collection of radical jungle-ist and dubstep remixes of Lee Scratch Perry tunes called “On-U Sound presents Nu Sound and Version”.
9 Buraka Som Sistema – Tira o pe (Enchufada)
Buraka Som Sistema is a sound system from Portugal. They produce an electro version of something called “kuduro”. Kuduro was originally forged in Angola in the 80s by sampling Caribbean and Angolan carnival music like zouk, soca and semba and sticking it to a fast 4/4 beat. Buraka Som Sistema’s 2011 album is called “Komba” which in Angola is a two week long wake for the dead.
10 Abelardo Carbano – La Negra Kulengue (Soundway)
Developing in the Colombian coastal cities of Cartegena and Barranquilla in the 70s and taking its inspiration from the psychedelic Afro, Latin and Caribbean music being pumped out of sound systems on the street - champeta is another kind of Afro-Caribbean music. This is from a Soundway collection “Palenque Palenque” which came out about 2 or 3 years ago.
11 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte (Soundway)
From Colombia, this time from the 1960s when big band cumbia was all the rage. It’s culled from the collection “Cartagena! Curro Fuentes and the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962 to 72”
12 Los Alegres De Valle – Samaria (Soundway)
A fine example of old style cumbia from a 2 CD collection Soundway put out in 2011 “The original sound of cumbia: The history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph 1948 – 79”. There’ll be more from that collection in later shows. Will Holland, who put the collection together, went to great pains to make it definitive, taking 5 years and making numerous fieldtrips into the countryside and small towns looking for old 78s, 45s and LPs.
13 Los Mirlos – Sonido Amazonico (Barbes Records)
Cumbia also took root in Peru, but unlike in Colombia it was more resilient, forming the bedrock for chicha, a fusion of cumbia and psychedelia that arose in slums created by the mass urbanization of people from the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Forest. Here is Los Mirlos with “Sonido Amazonico”.
14 Omar Souleyman – Baghdad Araby (Sublime Frequencies)
Syrian singer Omar Souleyman purveys a style called dakbe but reinforces it with Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi folk traditions. In his band are keyboardist Razid Sa’id and electric sazist – if that’s a word – Ali Shaker. Unknown outside Syria before 2007, he worked parties and weddings and released hundreds of live recordings on cassette. Sublime Frequencies collected these and released some of the highlights and before long he was touring around Europe and North America. In 2011 Sublime Frequencies put out a collection from those concerts, “Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts”.
14 Hakim – Ya Mazago (The Lion of Egypt)
Still in the Arab world but heading to Egypt - sha’abi is a kind of dance music created by the Baladi, a caste of traders and craftspeople including musicians and dancers, who originally came from rural villagers. Hakim is evidently the king of modern sha’abi and “Ya Mazago” is the title of his 2011 release. It means “his mood”. In-your-face, unrelenting, synth driven dance music.
15 Anda Union – Derlcha (Hohhot)
One the great releases of 2011 was by Anda Union, from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. They’re a 10-piece with a more acoustic sound than Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, who got some heavy rotation on this show in 2010. As you would have heard, Anda Union are big on the vocal arrangements too.
16 Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Philosopher (Yat Kha Records)
Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha are from nearby Tuva and this is from their 2010 album “Poets and Lighthouses”.
17 Banda Olifante – Los Peces (Felmay)
Brass bands or banda became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals, and also bringing the music of opera houses and symphony halls into the countryside. This music has recently been revived, often by jazz musicians who have added just about every style. "Los Peces" is a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America. The melody has definite Arabic qualities, and Olifante's rendition brings the song closer to klezmer.
18 Boban Markovic Orchestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia – James Bond Theme (Asphalt Tango)
As part of a publicity stunt put together by the label Asphalt Tango, two of the greatest working brass bands of East Europe, Serbia’s Boban Markovic Orchestra, and Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia had a face off near, possibly inside, Count Dracula’s castle. The stunt was called “Balkan Brass Battle”, and this is one of the results in which they combine forces for a full frontal assault.
19 June Tabor and Oysterband – Son David (Topic)
From June Tabor’s great 2011 album, “Ragged Kingdom”, that she made together with Oysterband.
20 Shirley Collins – Turpin Hero (Topic)
Two songs recorded in the late 50s by two early folk revivalists – one English and one American.
Shirley Collins was one of the first revivalists of the English 60s scene. “Turpin Hero” is from her first LP, “Sweet England”, which came out in 1959 and was co-produced by none other than Alan Lomax. Despite the legend, the real Dick Turpin apparently robbed just about anyone, no matter how rich or poor they were, and never made the famous horseback ride to York.
21 John Jacob Niles – The Lass from the Low Country
The great collector, composer and singer, John Jacob Niles, who was born in 1892 and died in 1980, with the trad song “The Lass from the Low Country”. Niles claims to have collected it in North Carolina, but some people think Niles liberally rewrote some of it. I definitely think Tim Buckley took more than a few pointers from Niles.
22 Jimmy MacBeath – Hey Barra Gadgie (Drag City)
Alan Lomax was living in London when he produced Collins’ album, in fact he had been living there since the early 50s. And while there he went up to Scotland and produced a huge number of fantastic field recordings. In 2011 Scottish singer songwriter and revivalist, Alastair Roberts, compiled some of these into a collection called “Whaur the Pig Gaed on the Spree” to mark the 60th anniversary of when the recordings were first started. Jimmy MacBeath’s famous recording, “Hey Barra Gadgie”, is sung in Thieves’ or Rogues’ cant, a secret language or cryptolect thought to have come from Romany.
23 The Waterboys – The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Puck/Proper)
The Waterboys’ astonishing interpretation of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by the legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats from the Waterboys’ latest, “An appointment with Mr Yeats”.
24 Hiss Golden Messenger – Jesus shot me through the head (Paradise of Bachelors)
Here are three gospel tracks – one new and startling in its imagery and two much older, but no less riveting.
Hiss Golden Messenger, which is the stage name for MC Taylor, had a good 2011, producing two quite different albums, the John Martyn influenced jazz-folk-soul album, “From Country Hai East Cotton”, and “Poor Moon”, which is in a kind of Americana vein. He’s pretty deft at the confessional gospel-blues.
25 Rev Lonnie Farris – Peace in the Valley (Tompkins Square)
Rev Lonnie Farris’ pedal steel driven version of the gospel song, “Peace in the Valley”, written by Georgia-born, Thomas A Dorsey in 1937. It’s from a collection of obscure small label, often self-released 45s, “This may be my last time singing: Raw African American Gospel on 45rpm 1957 – 1982”, brought out by Tompkins Square in 2011.
27 Rev Roger L Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock – Get Back Satan (Tompkins Square)
From a similar earlier gospel collection on Tompkins Square called “Fire in my bones”.
The Congo-born, Belgium-based rapper, Baloji, from the album “Kinshasa Succursale” - which was recorded in Kinshasa with local musicians. The album was the response to a challenge from his estranged mother to reflect on his roots and the state of the country of his birth. It was essentially recorded in two parts – a full album in 2008 called “Hotel Impala”, and then the extra layers and ironic barbs recorded and added in 2011 to form “Succursale”. You have to love that retro funk feel and the especially Afrobeat brass arrangements here.
“Kinshasa Succursale” is out on Crammed and distributed in SA by Sheer Music.
2 Amadou Ballake et les 5 Consuls – Baden Djougou (Analog Africa)
2011 saw the release of a couple of collections of vintage 70s Afro-funk, rock and jazz by Analog Africa. “Bambara Mystic Soul” brings together some classic tracks from Burkina Faso recorded between 1974 and 1979. There is nothing particularly distictive about the music from Burkina in that period – it’s a mixture of Ivorian, Congolese, Beninese and Malian music – but there were some fine musicians around back then. Perhaps the most famous was Amadou Ballake who cut his teeth playing in Mali and Guinea. You can hear that very clearly on his song “Baden Djougou”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Zoma (Mental Groove)
This totally wonderful Swiss band has a retro-futuristic take on Ethiojazz. They only do reinterpretations of classic tracks. “Zoma” is by Martha Ashagani. Their debut LP, “Mercato”, came out in 2011 and it’s seriously good.
4 Asselefetch Ashin and Getenesh Kebret – Metche New (L’Arome Productions)
In December, we listened to the Paris-based Ethiojazz band Akele Wube with their version of “Metche New”. This is an older version from 1976.
5 Samuel Yirga – The Blues for Wollo (Habasha Mix) (Real World Music Ltd)
2011 was a good year for 25 year old Ethiopian pianist and composer, Samuel Yirga, who plays with Dub Colossus. He played a prominent role on Dub Colossus’s release, and released an EP on Real World and a live album on the “Society of Sound Music” series brought out by a partnership of hi-fi company B&W and Real World called “The Habasha Sessions”. This is a track from “The Habasha Sessions”. Yirga’s backstory is fantastic. He only started playing an instrument, let alone taking formal lessons, at the age of 16 having won a place in the prestigious Yared School of Music in Addis by tapping rhythms out with a coin on the top of a piano. His exploration expands the very important place given to Cuban music in Ethiojazz by its founding father, Malutu Astatke.
6 Evarist and Party – Nambanda (Dust to Digital)
In 2011, an incredible reissue label that I’ve just discovered – Dust-to-Digital – put out a fascinating and disparate 4 CD collection culled from 78s from across the whole of the African continent, called “Opika Pende”. I’ll tell you more about this collection in later months, but here is a taster from Northwestern Tanzania – Evarist and Party with “Nambanda”.
7 African Head Charge – Run Come See (On-U Sound)
The rootsy, mystical vocals of Bonjo I A Binghi Noah of African Head Charge. I’ve been going on about British dub label On-U Sound recently – for me they’re the last bastion of old style rootsy dub and 2011 was their 30th anniversary – so forgive me for belabouring the point. “Run Come See” is from an AHC best of collection called “Shrunken Head”.
8 Lee Perry – God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)
On-U Sound’s 30th anniversary did see some kind of revitalization for them - they put out some lovely new releases last year, including a collection of radical jungle-ist and dubstep remixes of Lee Scratch Perry tunes called “On-U Sound presents Nu Sound and Version”.
9 Buraka Som Sistema – Tira o pe (Enchufada)
Buraka Som Sistema is a sound system from Portugal. They produce an electro version of something called “kuduro”. Kuduro was originally forged in Angola in the 80s by sampling Caribbean and Angolan carnival music like zouk, soca and semba and sticking it to a fast 4/4 beat. Buraka Som Sistema’s 2011 album is called “Komba” which in Angola is a two week long wake for the dead.
10 Abelardo Carbano – La Negra Kulengue (Soundway)
Developing in the Colombian coastal cities of Cartegena and Barranquilla in the 70s and taking its inspiration from the psychedelic Afro, Latin and Caribbean music being pumped out of sound systems on the street - champeta is another kind of Afro-Caribbean music. This is from a Soundway collection “Palenque Palenque” which came out about 2 or 3 years ago.
11 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte (Soundway)
From Colombia, this time from the 1960s when big band cumbia was all the rage. It’s culled from the collection “Cartagena! Curro Fuentes and the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962 to 72”
12 Los Alegres De Valle – Samaria (Soundway)
A fine example of old style cumbia from a 2 CD collection Soundway put out in 2011 “The original sound of cumbia: The history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph 1948 – 79”. There’ll be more from that collection in later shows. Will Holland, who put the collection together, went to great pains to make it definitive, taking 5 years and making numerous fieldtrips into the countryside and small towns looking for old 78s, 45s and LPs.
13 Los Mirlos – Sonido Amazonico (Barbes Records)
Cumbia also took root in Peru, but unlike in Colombia it was more resilient, forming the bedrock for chicha, a fusion of cumbia and psychedelia that arose in slums created by the mass urbanization of people from the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Forest. Here is Los Mirlos with “Sonido Amazonico”.
14 Omar Souleyman – Baghdad Araby (Sublime Frequencies)
Syrian singer Omar Souleyman purveys a style called dakbe but reinforces it with Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi folk traditions. In his band are keyboardist Razid Sa’id and electric sazist – if that’s a word – Ali Shaker. Unknown outside Syria before 2007, he worked parties and weddings and released hundreds of live recordings on cassette. Sublime Frequencies collected these and released some of the highlights and before long he was touring around Europe and North America. In 2011 Sublime Frequencies put out a collection from those concerts, “Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts”.
14 Hakim – Ya Mazago (The Lion of Egypt)
Still in the Arab world but heading to Egypt - sha’abi is a kind of dance music created by the Baladi, a caste of traders and craftspeople including musicians and dancers, who originally came from rural villagers. Hakim is evidently the king of modern sha’abi and “Ya Mazago” is the title of his 2011 release. It means “his mood”. In-your-face, unrelenting, synth driven dance music.
15 Anda Union – Derlcha (Hohhot)
One the great releases of 2011 was by Anda Union, from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. They’re a 10-piece with a more acoustic sound than Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, who got some heavy rotation on this show in 2010. As you would have heard, Anda Union are big on the vocal arrangements too.
16 Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Philosopher (Yat Kha Records)
Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha are from nearby Tuva and this is from their 2010 album “Poets and Lighthouses”.
17 Banda Olifante – Los Peces (Felmay)
Brass bands or banda became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals, and also bringing the music of opera houses and symphony halls into the countryside. This music has recently been revived, often by jazz musicians who have added just about every style. "Los Peces" is a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America. The melody has definite Arabic qualities, and Olifante's rendition brings the song closer to klezmer.
18 Boban Markovic Orchestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia – James Bond Theme (Asphalt Tango)
As part of a publicity stunt put together by the label Asphalt Tango, two of the greatest working brass bands of East Europe, Serbia’s Boban Markovic Orchestra, and Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia had a face off near, possibly inside, Count Dracula’s castle. The stunt was called “Balkan Brass Battle”, and this is one of the results in which they combine forces for a full frontal assault.
19 June Tabor and Oysterband – Son David (Topic)
From June Tabor’s great 2011 album, “Ragged Kingdom”, that she made together with Oysterband.
20 Shirley Collins – Turpin Hero (Topic)
Two songs recorded in the late 50s by two early folk revivalists – one English and one American.
Shirley Collins was one of the first revivalists of the English 60s scene. “Turpin Hero” is from her first LP, “Sweet England”, which came out in 1959 and was co-produced by none other than Alan Lomax. Despite the legend, the real Dick Turpin apparently robbed just about anyone, no matter how rich or poor they were, and never made the famous horseback ride to York.
21 John Jacob Niles – The Lass from the Low Country
The great collector, composer and singer, John Jacob Niles, who was born in 1892 and died in 1980, with the trad song “The Lass from the Low Country”. Niles claims to have collected it in North Carolina, but some people think Niles liberally rewrote some of it. I definitely think Tim Buckley took more than a few pointers from Niles.
22 Jimmy MacBeath – Hey Barra Gadgie (Drag City)
Alan Lomax was living in London when he produced Collins’ album, in fact he had been living there since the early 50s. And while there he went up to Scotland and produced a huge number of fantastic field recordings. In 2011 Scottish singer songwriter and revivalist, Alastair Roberts, compiled some of these into a collection called “Whaur the Pig Gaed on the Spree” to mark the 60th anniversary of when the recordings were first started. Jimmy MacBeath’s famous recording, “Hey Barra Gadgie”, is sung in Thieves’ or Rogues’ cant, a secret language or cryptolect thought to have come from Romany.
23 The Waterboys – The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Puck/Proper)
The Waterboys’ astonishing interpretation of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by the legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats from the Waterboys’ latest, “An appointment with Mr Yeats”.
24 Hiss Golden Messenger – Jesus shot me through the head (Paradise of Bachelors)
Here are three gospel tracks – one new and startling in its imagery and two much older, but no less riveting.
Hiss Golden Messenger, which is the stage name for MC Taylor, had a good 2011, producing two quite different albums, the John Martyn influenced jazz-folk-soul album, “From Country Hai East Cotton”, and “Poor Moon”, which is in a kind of Americana vein. He’s pretty deft at the confessional gospel-blues.
25 Rev Lonnie Farris – Peace in the Valley (Tompkins Square)
Rev Lonnie Farris’ pedal steel driven version of the gospel song, “Peace in the Valley”, written by Georgia-born, Thomas A Dorsey in 1937. It’s from a collection of obscure small label, often self-released 45s, “This may be my last time singing: Raw African American Gospel on 45rpm 1957 – 1982”, brought out by Tompkins Square in 2011.
27 Rev Roger L Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock – Get Back Satan (Tompkins Square)
From a similar earlier gospel collection on Tompkins Square called “Fire in my bones”.
Monday, January 2, 2012
4 January 2012, World Cafe
1. Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa – Ana Hayou (General Pattern)
No better way to kick off the new year than with some high octane, high flying fusion from North Africa. Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui, an expert on oud and guimbri, grew up learning gnawa music before branching out in Joe Zawinul’s band and cofounding the Paris-based Orchestre National de Barbes. In 2011 he put out a magnificent solo release with a crack Senegalese band, the University of Gnawa, that makes obvious gnawa’s origins in the Senegambia region.
2. Tamikrest – Aratan N Tinariwen (Glitterhouse)
Northern Mali is the home of a branch of the Berber people, the Touareg, and lies between Senegambia and North Africa. Tamikrest and Tinariwen are probably the two most well-known Touareg rock bands and both released fine records in 2011. The younger of the two, Tamikrest, put out “Toumastin”.
3. Tinariwen – Ya Massinagh (feat. the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) (ANTI-)
Tinariwen, the elder statesmen of Touareg rock, from their 2011 album “Tassili”, which manages both to hark back to their earlier pioneering sounds forged in a Libyan refugee camp about 20 years ago and to take steps in new directions, through a bunch of collaborations. In “Ya Massinagh” they play together with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans” – I think that the fusion really works, but opinion is divided.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band are an extremely important force in New Orleans marching band music, revitalizing the form at a low point in the 60s and early 70s by incorporating bebop and r’n’b styles of playing. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band hail from New Orleans’s Sixth District or Treme which lies next to the French Quarter and, despite the reputation of the latter, is the real hotbed of the musical life of New Orleans.
4. Treme Brass Band - Just a closer walk with thee (Geffen Records)
Going back to one of the earliest tunes played by New Orleans brass bands, “Just a closer walk with thee”, which was probably written in the late 19th century. The tune is culled from the soundtrack to the first season of the HBO series “Treme” set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Among quite a few other things, the series looks at the rich musical world of New Orleans; it’s a fabulous series. The Treme Brass Band is an actual long-time working band.
5. Dr John - My Indian Red (Geffen Records)
Dr John’s rough-and-ready arrangement of “My Indian Red”, also from the sound track to “Treme”. “My Indian Red” is often said to be the hymn or prayer for the Mardi Gras Indians, another vast New Orleans sub-culture. The song was first recorded in the mid-50s.
Where does all this richness in New Orleans come from? Well, New Orleans is really a Caribbean city which has been subject to waves of influence from the colonial powers of Spain and France, and from Africa via the slave trade, not to mention from the syncretic cultures formed in the Caribbean itself. In addition, there were the Cajun migrants from Acadia, in Canada. Afropop have a number of programmes about the history of New Orleans music: http://afropop.org/hipdeep/HipDeep.html#programId=595&view=1
6. Huey Piano Smith & His Clowns – Don’t you know yockomo (Ace Records)
No one knows how the Mardi Gras Indians came about, but troupes or tribes probably started forming in the 1880s and their formation has something to do with the politics of performance culture in New Orleans, the ban on slaves wearing masks or dressing up in costumes and the affinity between slaves and American Indians.
The Mardi Gras Indian patios, which certainly sounds Caribbean, has found its way into a bunch of popular New Orleans musical forms – one reason being that the Indians are happy to latch their tambourine-driven calls and responses onto whatever style can fuel their marching and parading … but also because the words sound so cool. In “Don’t you know yockomo” Huey Piano Smith and His Clowns from the late 50s, combine all kinds of things, including some Professor Longhair type piano-playing, nonsense words from well known tunes at the time including “Minnie the moocher” and a Mardi Gras Indian song, with rock ’n roll.
7. Lil’ Band O’ Gold – I don’t wanna know (Room 609 Records)
New Orleans, and Louisiana more generally, has also seen the combining of Cajun and zydeco with rock ’n roll and soul, to form something called Swamp-Pop. “I don’t wanna know” is a tune by the granddaddy of Swamp-pop, Bobby Charles. It’s the second anniversary of his death round about now. This version is performed by the seriously wonderful, Swamp-pop supergroup, “Lil’ Band O’Band”, from Lafayette, and is from their 2010 release, “The Promised Land”.
8. Wild Tchoupitoulas – Hey hey (Indians Comin’) (Mango)
One of the most celebrated Mardi Gras Indian tribes is the Wild Tchoupitoulas, which were formed in the early 1970s by George Landry, or “Big Chief Jolly”, an uncle to the Neville Brothers. The Neville Brothers and the Meters, which included some of the Neville Brothers, combined with the Wild Tchoupitoulas on a 1975 recording that helped give the Mardi Gras Indians an international profile. “Hey hey (Indians Comin’)” is a mambo infused song from that 1975 album, called “Wild Tchoupitoulas”.
9. Aurelio – Bisien nu (My love for you) (Stonetree Records)
Heading into the deep Caribbean, Aurelio Martinez from Belize is one of the main musicians and songwriters within the Garafuna, a centuries old language and culture founded by shipwrecked slaves. “Bisien un” is based on a traditional song in which a young man asks his sweetheart’s father for her hand. The singers, Bella Sidibe and Rudy Gomes, from the well known Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, guest.
10. Cimarron – Llanero soy (I am a plainsman) (Smithsonian Folkways)
Joropo music is very fast string- and maracas-fuelled music from the Orinoco plains of Colombia and Venezuela. The Colombian band Cimarron, meaning “wild bull”, is one of the best exponents. “Llanero soy (I am a plainsman)” is from their 2011 release out on Smithsonian Folkways.
11. Dino Saluzzi, Anja Lechner, Felix Saluzzi – Son qonati (ECM)
Bandaneon maestro, Dino Saluzzi, normally plays some kind of neuvo tango, but on his 2011 release for ECM “Navidad de los Andes” or “Andean Nativity” he’s taken in a wider palette with long term collaborator, cellist Anja Lechner, and Felix Saluzzi, his clarinet- and sax-playing brother. That was Saluzzi’s wonderful tune, “Son qonati”.
12. Damily – Mahavelo mitaha (Helico)
Madagascar is another place where rural and urban music meet and fuse brilliantly. Tsapiky is a guitar-based style from the south of Madagascar that we’ve listened to before on this show. It was created in the late 60s by newly urbanised musicians in Tulear, who adapted rhythms played at rural dances, mixing them with the African styles in vogue in south-western Madagascar, beamed in via radio from the east coast of Africa. Damily, probably the only musician on the scene with international releases, in 2011 brought out his second LP called “Ela lia”.
13. Jeff Nhore – Afara koa tsy atao (Earthworks)
Jeff Nhore from a great collection of Tsapiky called “Tulear never sleeps” that Earthworks brought out in 2003 and that was largely instigated by the Madagascan guitar superhero, D’Gary. I really like this description of Tsapiky that I came across: “It's as crisp and precise as Congolese guitar, but much more angular and darting. Instead of cycling or sustained melodies, these guys play in fitful, short bursts of start-and-stop action, with speedy, nervous phrasing suggestive of an animal on the run from a predator”.
14. Victoria King’s Jazz – Oscar Obuogo (Pathe Marconi, EMI)
Speaking of guitar-based dance music from the eastern side of Africa, Victoria King’s Jazz from Kenya circa 1977 play benga.
15. Shin Joong Hyun – Pushing through the fog (Light in the Attic)
Shin Joong Hyan is called the grandfather of Korean rock. The tune is from a wonderful retrospective brought out by the label Light in the Attic in 2011, “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea’s Shin Joong Hyun” and dates from the late 60s when Hyun was conducting full scale experiments in psychedelia. This horrified the President of South Korea at the time, who ended up confining and torturing him.
16. Unknown – Blondie in Khmer Camouflage (Sublime Frequencies)
While we’ll on the topic of former war zones of the Far East, Cambodia also has a rich legacy of pop and rock, and modern record companies there have been remixing old classic tunes from the pre-Khmer Rouge era, sometimes pretty crudely, but often to startling effect. Sublime Frequencies put out a collection of the remixes and some of the old original vintage tunes all culled from the radio, called “Radio Phnom Penh”. Many of the artists collected on the CD are unknown.
17. Shankar Jaikishan – Raga Mishra Pilu (EMI India)
Shankar Jaikishan or S/J were Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal who worked together as composers in the Hindi film industry from the late 40s to the early 70s. In 1968 they took a little diversion and came up with the first Indo-Jazz record called “Raga Jazz Style”, in which they created songs based on ragas for western and Indian instruments.
18. Kiran Ahluwalia – Raqba (Avokado)
Indian-born Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia is a modern composer working a similar seam to Shankar Jaikishan, except she uses ghazals (which are themselves the result of a mixing of Indian, Persian and Arabic strands) as building blocks and looks more widely for things to add into the mix. Her 2011 LP “Aam Zameen” or “Common Ground” has all manner of guests, including on this track, Amir El Saffar, on trumpet.
19. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Tighten Up (Clocktower)
From a somewhat obscure late 70s collection “Scratch Attack”, a little gem.
20. African Head Charge – Cattle Herders’ Chant (On-U Sound)
To me, one of the best LPs African Head Charge and, indeed their label On-U Sound put out was called “Songs of Praise” which came out in 1990.
21. Madosini – Hobe Lentaka Ezithandayo (New Cape)
Cape Town based composer and musician Madosini from her recent release called “Eparadesi Nkosi Uzube Nam”, out on guitarist Derek Gripper’s newly launched label, New Cape. Over the years Madosini has written new songs on traditional instruments like the uhadi and isitolotolo which are kinds of jews harps and bows, basically keeping this tradition of playing alive.
22. Spiers and Boden – Haul Away (Navigator)
Relatively well known musicians on the English folk scene, melodian and concertina player John Spiers and singer and fiddler Jon Boden (or Spiers and Boden) celebrated their 10th anniversary of playing together this year. They did this in some style by rerecording their favourite songs from their career rather than bringing out the usual best of. “Haul Away” is a sea shanty.
23. Robin Williamson – Matt Groves and Lady Barnard (Quadrant)
In 2008 Robin Williamson, the Scottish singer-guitarist who was one of the core members of the Incredible String Band, put out a pretty stripped down album called “Just like the river and other songs with guitar” which contains an inspired and gut wrenching version of the traditional song “Matt Groves and Lady Barnard”. Thanks to Steve Bloch for drawing my attention to that song.
24. Fribo – Leaving Reindolsaetr – The Passed Test (Fribo Records)
Fribo (meaning “Open House”) are a collaboration between a Norwegian singer, a Scottish fiddler, a Swedish percussionist and an English guitarist. This is something off their 2011 release, “Happ”.
25. Anne Karin Tonset – Hallingen at’n Nystuen (Plastic Strip)
The Norwegian singer, Anne Karin Tonset, was one of the great innovators on the burgeoning 70s Scandinavian folk-jazz scene. The song is from a collection called “Black is the colour of my true love’s hair: Norwegian Folk Jazz 1977-71”. The sleeve notes trace the first attempt at Scandinavian folk-jazz to 1929 when the Kristian Hauger Jazzorkester came up with something called “Norwegian Jazz fantasy part 1 & 2”.
26. Sinikka Langeland – Triumph of being (ECM)
This year Sinikka Langeland put out another CD of her fusion of folk, jazz and poetry on ECM, “The Land That Is Not”. The title of the CD comes from an epic poem, which many see as the birth of modern Swedish poetry, by Edith Sodergran who died in 1923.
Langeland explains that combining folk and jazz is pretty tricky because the feeling of time is so different in each. Old folk music has organic, idiosyncratic, asymmetric rhythms, and jazz in normally always in 2 or 4.
No better way to kick off the new year than with some high octane, high flying fusion from North Africa. Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui, an expert on oud and guimbri, grew up learning gnawa music before branching out in Joe Zawinul’s band and cofounding the Paris-based Orchestre National de Barbes. In 2011 he put out a magnificent solo release with a crack Senegalese band, the University of Gnawa, that makes obvious gnawa’s origins in the Senegambia region.
2. Tamikrest – Aratan N Tinariwen (Glitterhouse)
Northern Mali is the home of a branch of the Berber people, the Touareg, and lies between Senegambia and North Africa. Tamikrest and Tinariwen are probably the two most well-known Touareg rock bands and both released fine records in 2011. The younger of the two, Tamikrest, put out “Toumastin”.
3. Tinariwen – Ya Massinagh (feat. the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) (ANTI-)
Tinariwen, the elder statesmen of Touareg rock, from their 2011 album “Tassili”, which manages both to hark back to their earlier pioneering sounds forged in a Libyan refugee camp about 20 years ago and to take steps in new directions, through a bunch of collaborations. In “Ya Massinagh” they play together with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans” – I think that the fusion really works, but opinion is divided.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band are an extremely important force in New Orleans marching band music, revitalizing the form at a low point in the 60s and early 70s by incorporating bebop and r’n’b styles of playing. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band hail from New Orleans’s Sixth District or Treme which lies next to the French Quarter and, despite the reputation of the latter, is the real hotbed of the musical life of New Orleans.
4. Treme Brass Band - Just a closer walk with thee (Geffen Records)
Going back to one of the earliest tunes played by New Orleans brass bands, “Just a closer walk with thee”, which was probably written in the late 19th century. The tune is culled from the soundtrack to the first season of the HBO series “Treme” set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Among quite a few other things, the series looks at the rich musical world of New Orleans; it’s a fabulous series. The Treme Brass Band is an actual long-time working band.
5. Dr John - My Indian Red (Geffen Records)
Dr John’s rough-and-ready arrangement of “My Indian Red”, also from the sound track to “Treme”. “My Indian Red” is often said to be the hymn or prayer for the Mardi Gras Indians, another vast New Orleans sub-culture. The song was first recorded in the mid-50s.
Where does all this richness in New Orleans come from? Well, New Orleans is really a Caribbean city which has been subject to waves of influence from the colonial powers of Spain and France, and from Africa via the slave trade, not to mention from the syncretic cultures formed in the Caribbean itself. In addition, there were the Cajun migrants from Acadia, in Canada. Afropop have a number of programmes about the history of New Orleans music: http://afropop.org/hipdeep/HipDeep.html#programId=595&view=1
6. Huey Piano Smith & His Clowns – Don’t you know yockomo (Ace Records)
No one knows how the Mardi Gras Indians came about, but troupes or tribes probably started forming in the 1880s and their formation has something to do with the politics of performance culture in New Orleans, the ban on slaves wearing masks or dressing up in costumes and the affinity between slaves and American Indians.
The Mardi Gras Indian patios, which certainly sounds Caribbean, has found its way into a bunch of popular New Orleans musical forms – one reason being that the Indians are happy to latch their tambourine-driven calls and responses onto whatever style can fuel their marching and parading … but also because the words sound so cool. In “Don’t you know yockomo” Huey Piano Smith and His Clowns from the late 50s, combine all kinds of things, including some Professor Longhair type piano-playing, nonsense words from well known tunes at the time including “Minnie the moocher” and a Mardi Gras Indian song, with rock ’n roll.
7. Lil’ Band O’ Gold – I don’t wanna know (Room 609 Records)
New Orleans, and Louisiana more generally, has also seen the combining of Cajun and zydeco with rock ’n roll and soul, to form something called Swamp-Pop. “I don’t wanna know” is a tune by the granddaddy of Swamp-pop, Bobby Charles. It’s the second anniversary of his death round about now. This version is performed by the seriously wonderful, Swamp-pop supergroup, “Lil’ Band O’Band”, from Lafayette, and is from their 2010 release, “The Promised Land”.
8. Wild Tchoupitoulas – Hey hey (Indians Comin’) (Mango)
One of the most celebrated Mardi Gras Indian tribes is the Wild Tchoupitoulas, which were formed in the early 1970s by George Landry, or “Big Chief Jolly”, an uncle to the Neville Brothers. The Neville Brothers and the Meters, which included some of the Neville Brothers, combined with the Wild Tchoupitoulas on a 1975 recording that helped give the Mardi Gras Indians an international profile. “Hey hey (Indians Comin’)” is a mambo infused song from that 1975 album, called “Wild Tchoupitoulas”.
9. Aurelio – Bisien nu (My love for you) (Stonetree Records)
Heading into the deep Caribbean, Aurelio Martinez from Belize is one of the main musicians and songwriters within the Garafuna, a centuries old language and culture founded by shipwrecked slaves. “Bisien un” is based on a traditional song in which a young man asks his sweetheart’s father for her hand. The singers, Bella Sidibe and Rudy Gomes, from the well known Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, guest.
10. Cimarron – Llanero soy (I am a plainsman) (Smithsonian Folkways)
Joropo music is very fast string- and maracas-fuelled music from the Orinoco plains of Colombia and Venezuela. The Colombian band Cimarron, meaning “wild bull”, is one of the best exponents. “Llanero soy (I am a plainsman)” is from their 2011 release out on Smithsonian Folkways.
11. Dino Saluzzi, Anja Lechner, Felix Saluzzi – Son qonati (ECM)
Bandaneon maestro, Dino Saluzzi, normally plays some kind of neuvo tango, but on his 2011 release for ECM “Navidad de los Andes” or “Andean Nativity” he’s taken in a wider palette with long term collaborator, cellist Anja Lechner, and Felix Saluzzi, his clarinet- and sax-playing brother. That was Saluzzi’s wonderful tune, “Son qonati”.
12. Damily – Mahavelo mitaha (Helico)
Madagascar is another place where rural and urban music meet and fuse brilliantly. Tsapiky is a guitar-based style from the south of Madagascar that we’ve listened to before on this show. It was created in the late 60s by newly urbanised musicians in Tulear, who adapted rhythms played at rural dances, mixing them with the African styles in vogue in south-western Madagascar, beamed in via radio from the east coast of Africa. Damily, probably the only musician on the scene with international releases, in 2011 brought out his second LP called “Ela lia”.
13. Jeff Nhore – Afara koa tsy atao (Earthworks)
Jeff Nhore from a great collection of Tsapiky called “Tulear never sleeps” that Earthworks brought out in 2003 and that was largely instigated by the Madagascan guitar superhero, D’Gary. I really like this description of Tsapiky that I came across: “It's as crisp and precise as Congolese guitar, but much more angular and darting. Instead of cycling or sustained melodies, these guys play in fitful, short bursts of start-and-stop action, with speedy, nervous phrasing suggestive of an animal on the run from a predator”.
14. Victoria King’s Jazz – Oscar Obuogo (Pathe Marconi, EMI)
Speaking of guitar-based dance music from the eastern side of Africa, Victoria King’s Jazz from Kenya circa 1977 play benga.
15. Shin Joong Hyun – Pushing through the fog (Light in the Attic)
Shin Joong Hyan is called the grandfather of Korean rock. The tune is from a wonderful retrospective brought out by the label Light in the Attic in 2011, “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea’s Shin Joong Hyun” and dates from the late 60s when Hyun was conducting full scale experiments in psychedelia. This horrified the President of South Korea at the time, who ended up confining and torturing him.
16. Unknown – Blondie in Khmer Camouflage (Sublime Frequencies)
While we’ll on the topic of former war zones of the Far East, Cambodia also has a rich legacy of pop and rock, and modern record companies there have been remixing old classic tunes from the pre-Khmer Rouge era, sometimes pretty crudely, but often to startling effect. Sublime Frequencies put out a collection of the remixes and some of the old original vintage tunes all culled from the radio, called “Radio Phnom Penh”. Many of the artists collected on the CD are unknown.
17. Shankar Jaikishan – Raga Mishra Pilu (EMI India)
Shankar Jaikishan or S/J were Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal who worked together as composers in the Hindi film industry from the late 40s to the early 70s. In 1968 they took a little diversion and came up with the first Indo-Jazz record called “Raga Jazz Style”, in which they created songs based on ragas for western and Indian instruments.
18. Kiran Ahluwalia – Raqba (Avokado)
Indian-born Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia is a modern composer working a similar seam to Shankar Jaikishan, except she uses ghazals (which are themselves the result of a mixing of Indian, Persian and Arabic strands) as building blocks and looks more widely for things to add into the mix. Her 2011 LP “Aam Zameen” or “Common Ground” has all manner of guests, including on this track, Amir El Saffar, on trumpet.
19. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Tighten Up (Clocktower)
From a somewhat obscure late 70s collection “Scratch Attack”, a little gem.
20. African Head Charge – Cattle Herders’ Chant (On-U Sound)
To me, one of the best LPs African Head Charge and, indeed their label On-U Sound put out was called “Songs of Praise” which came out in 1990.
21. Madosini – Hobe Lentaka Ezithandayo (New Cape)
Cape Town based composer and musician Madosini from her recent release called “Eparadesi Nkosi Uzube Nam”, out on guitarist Derek Gripper’s newly launched label, New Cape. Over the years Madosini has written new songs on traditional instruments like the uhadi and isitolotolo which are kinds of jews harps and bows, basically keeping this tradition of playing alive.
22. Spiers and Boden – Haul Away (Navigator)
Relatively well known musicians on the English folk scene, melodian and concertina player John Spiers and singer and fiddler Jon Boden (or Spiers and Boden) celebrated their 10th anniversary of playing together this year. They did this in some style by rerecording their favourite songs from their career rather than bringing out the usual best of. “Haul Away” is a sea shanty.
23. Robin Williamson – Matt Groves and Lady Barnard (Quadrant)
In 2008 Robin Williamson, the Scottish singer-guitarist who was one of the core members of the Incredible String Band, put out a pretty stripped down album called “Just like the river and other songs with guitar” which contains an inspired and gut wrenching version of the traditional song “Matt Groves and Lady Barnard”. Thanks to Steve Bloch for drawing my attention to that song.
24. Fribo – Leaving Reindolsaetr – The Passed Test (Fribo Records)
Fribo (meaning “Open House”) are a collaboration between a Norwegian singer, a Scottish fiddler, a Swedish percussionist and an English guitarist. This is something off their 2011 release, “Happ”.
25. Anne Karin Tonset – Hallingen at’n Nystuen (Plastic Strip)
The Norwegian singer, Anne Karin Tonset, was one of the great innovators on the burgeoning 70s Scandinavian folk-jazz scene. The song is from a collection called “Black is the colour of my true love’s hair: Norwegian Folk Jazz 1977-71”. The sleeve notes trace the first attempt at Scandinavian folk-jazz to 1929 when the Kristian Hauger Jazzorkester came up with something called “Norwegian Jazz fantasy part 1 & 2”.
26. Sinikka Langeland – Triumph of being (ECM)
This year Sinikka Langeland put out another CD of her fusion of folk, jazz and poetry on ECM, “The Land That Is Not”. The title of the CD comes from an epic poem, which many see as the birth of modern Swedish poetry, by Edith Sodergran who died in 1923.
Langeland explains that combining folk and jazz is pretty tricky because the feeling of time is so different in each. Old folk music has organic, idiosyncratic, asymmetric rhythms, and jazz in normally always in 2 or 4.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
14 December 2011, World Cafe
1 Mercedes Peon – Anacos (Fol Musica)
From the Spanish northwestern province of Galicia, and sung in Gallego, the original language of the region. Peon plays nearly all the instruments on her newish record, “Sos”, which came out earlier this year – in fact about 20 instruments in all, and does most of the singing, producing and composing too.
2 Chet Nuneta – Roseda vieja sirena (Le Chant du Monde)
Shifting a little eastward to France, Chet Nuneta are four singers and a percussionist, who go for very rootsy peasant-sounding fusions. “Roseda vieja sirena” seems to be some kind of amalgam of French and Spanish – possibly Catalan? It comes from the new CD “Pangea” out on the Le Chant du Monde label.
3 Akale Wube – Mètché New (L’Arome Productions)
Akale Wube are a Paris-based French Ethiojazz band set up in 2008 who take their name from a tune by Getatchew Mekurya, the legendary veteran Ethiopian sax player. “Akale Wube” is Amharic for “Beauty of the Soul”. On their 2011 LP they do lovely versions of classic Ethiojazz tracks, mainly by Mulatu Astatke. “Mètché New” was written by the comparatively obscure singer, Téshomé Sissay.
4 Mahmoud Ahmed – Bemin Sebab Litlash (Mississippi Records)
Mahmoud Ahmed was one of the absolute greats of the early 70s Addis scene, and he’s still going strong. A bunch of his stuff from the so-called Golden Age has been available through the series “Ethiopiques” for some time now. “Bemin Sebab Litlash” is from 1978, just after the Golden Age, when the Derg had already started in Ethiopia, from the LP “Jeguol Naw Betwa” just reissued by Mississippi Records. His long-time backing band, the Ibex Band, is full cry on this tune.
5 Addis Acoustic Project – Etitu Beredegn (World Village)
The Addis Acoustic Project is one of the resident bands at the Jazzamba Lounge, Addis’s premier jazz venue which only opened in June this year in a space that had been derelict for 20 years. Their stuff is often a bit too smooth for comfort, but the mandolin playing by veteran Ayele Mamo is worth the entry price. They say that Mamo is the only mandolin player in Addis.
6 Bako Dagnon – Fadeen To (Styllart)
Malian Bako Dagnon is sometimes called the griot’s griot – although she is not very well known in global circles, she is in fact a mentor to Kandia Kouyate, recognized as one of the top jelimusos, or female griots. After an accident early on in her career, Dagnon has largely been working in the background, learning, promoting and preserving singing traditions at a village level, in the Segou area near to Bamako, where her family hail from. After 50 years she’s only produced two internationally-released albums, her second one coming out this year. It’s called “Sidiba”. Check out the flamenco guitar licks on “Fadeen To”.
7 Fatoumata Diawara – Bakonoba (World Circuit)
28 year old, Paris-based Malian, Fatoumata Diawara, exploded as a solo artist on the international stage just this year – although she’s been working as a backing singer and actor for many years. Her debut CD “Fatou”, out on World Circuit, is quite an understated slightly poppy affair, and is pretty wonderful.
8 JuJu – Halanam (Real World)
A few months ago I had several positive responses from listeners when I played something off Juldeh Camara and Justin Adam’s latest CD “In Trance”. Let’s listen to another one – “Halanam”. By the way, they are now calling themselves JuJu, and their CD is available in SA courtesy of Sheer Music – one of the top releases of the year I’d say.
9 Fikret Kizilok - Gozlerinden Bellidir (World Psychedelia)
From Turkey, the hopelessly obscure, cultish early 70s protest singer Fikret Kizilok. I culled the single “Gozlerinden Bellidir” from an underground reissue made in 2005 of his original singles. If you look hard enough, you’ll be able to find his stuff on the web.
10 Georgette Sayegh – Yay, Yay, Ya Nassini (EMI Greece)
When I was researching the next two tracks I turned up this quote by one Jim Knox: “Lebanese popular music was peaking in 1974 but the civil war that started one year later laid it all to ruin”. The Ghost Capital blog dug up “Yay, Yay, Ya Nassini”, recorded in 1973, from a holiday souvenir LP collection for Lebanon brought out by an airline.
11 Fairouz – Ba’adana (EMI)
Nouhad Wadi Haddad, known as Fairuz, is probably the top living singer of the Arab world. She’s now in her mid 70s but still very much performing. “Ba’adana” was recorded in 1966.
12 Brendon Bussy in collaboration with Renee Holleman – If walls could talk would they sing (played with permission of artist)
A few months ago, Cape Town composer and musician Brendon Bussy collaborated with artist Renee Holleman with “If walls could talk would they sing”. The piece was written for the opening of the new premises of the “WhatIfTheWorld” gallery at the old synagogue in Argyle Road, Woodstock – an area that now has a significant Muslim community. Bussy explains in a fascinating blog entry that on Holleman’s suggestion he used a Jewish scale Ahava Rabbah (meaning ‘Abounding Love’ in Hebrew) as a basis for the tune. It turns out that this scale is the same as the Freygish mode used in Klezmer and the Hijaz Makam used in Arabic music. There’s a lot more at work in this piece – and I would suggest checking out Brendon Bussy’s blog entry http://brendonbussy.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/if-walls-could-talk-would-they-sing/#more-616
13 Rashanim – Avodah (Tzadik)
Power jazz trio Rashanim with “Avodah”. Rashanim is one of the groups appearing on Tzadik’s 2003 release “Voices in the wilderness” - a double-disk collection of John Zorn’s free-jazz tinged klezmer compositions interpreted by a whole range of groups.
14 Wolf Krakowski – Drey, Dreydl (Sion Dreydl) (Tzadik)
Toronto-based Wolf Krakowski’s home language is Yiddish. He was born just after the end of WW2 in a camp for displaced persons in Austria, his Russian parents having survived the Holocaust. His countryesque arrangement of the traditional tune “Drey, Dreydl” is also out on Tzadik – on the CD “Goyrl: Destiny”.
15 Norman Blake – Little Sadi (Mercury)
It’s been 10 years since the release of “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and its soundtrack spurred a big resurgence of rootsy Americana. Mercury have just released a deluxe edition in celebration, which includes tracks recorded by producer T-Bone Burnett and not used in the movie, and stuff used in the movie but not released on the first incarnation of the soundtrack. Let’s listen to two tracks only available on the deluxe edition.
Norman Blake’s version of “Little Sadi” was recorded for the movie, but not used.
16 The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling – I’ll fly away (Mercury)
The Kossoy Sisters with 5 string banjo player Erik Darling’s version of “I’ll fly away” recorded in 1956. This was the version actually used in the movie, although a version by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch came out on the official soundtrack. Both versions are great, if you ask me. The Kossoy Sisters are actual sisters – in fact they’re identical twins.
17 June Tabor & Oysterband – Bonny Bunch of Roses (Topic)
June Tabor’s been pretty active this year – she put out a solo record earlier this year called “Ashore”, and we’ve listened to some tunes from that. A few months ago she also put out something with the Oysterband called “Ragged Kingdom”. The trad song “Bonny Bunch of Roses” is quite sympathetic to Napoleon, which means that it’s probably Irish in origin.
18 Bert Jansch – Nottamun Town (Vanguard)
“Nottamun Town” is another traditional song. It might date from the late medieval period and might be about the English Civil War as Charles I raised his army around Nottingham at the beginning of the war. The very great and unfortunately late Bert Jansch died in October. The tune is from Jansch’s classic album, “Jack Orion,” in which he plays with John Renbourne. This album is considered a precursor to the kind of music Jansch and Renbourne played in the folk-rock group Pentangle.
19 Syd Kitchen – Fine Lines (Liaison Music)
Another big loss to folk circles this year was Syd Kitchen. Before he died he was invited to contribute a track to the tribute album to John Martyn. He recorded Martyn’s song “Fine Lines” with Martyn’s most recent backing band in Scotland. The PVC pipe has never sounded this good!
20 Lee Perry & Dub Syndicate – Music + Science Lovers (On U-Sound)
Lee Perry was actually a friend of John Martyn – they hung together in Jamaica in the mid 70s. “Music + Science Lovers” was recorded with the Dub Syndicate with Adrian Sherwood producing. It’s from the mid 80s album “Time Boom X De Devil Dead” – a great creative collaboration and one of the only really great things he’s put out since the 70s.
21 Bob Marley & The Wailers – Reaction (JAD)
In just about every show over the last while I’ve been spinning high points from Lee Perry’s career. Such a review wouldn’t be complete without listening to his production work for Bob Marley done in 1970 and 71. “Reaction” is from the LP “Soul Rebels”.
22 Aldona – You could carry me away (Jaro Medien)
Aldona is Poland-born Aldona Nowowiejska together with a stellar band that features a bunch of string instruments including the guembri, and the bass clarinet against the normal rhythm section. “You could carry me away” is from her 2011 CD “Sonnet”.
23 Olafur Arnalds – 33:26 (Erased Tapes)
From Paris to Poland and now to the Arctic Circle – Iceland has a rapidly expanding and pretty varied music scene, mainly driven by tech-savvy youngsters who do everything on a small DIY scale but come up with sweeping fusions informed by rock, folk, jazz and Western chamber music – but that’s chamber music with attitude and edge. Olafur Arnald is one of the prime movers in Iceland. Thanks to Douglas Gimberg for introducing me to this stuff.
24 Hauschka – Cube (Fat Cat)
Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka is a Dusseldorf-based musician and composer whose main instrument is something called the prepared piano. He has played with a bunch of Icelandic musicians. This is from his 2011 release, called “Salon des amateurs”.
25 Hauschka and Hildur Guðnadóttir – Cool Gray 1 (Sonic Pieces)
Hauschka on the prepared piano and with Iceland’s Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir on cello. “Cool Gray” is from their 2011 release “Pan Tone”.
From the Spanish northwestern province of Galicia, and sung in Gallego, the original language of the region. Peon plays nearly all the instruments on her newish record, “Sos”, which came out earlier this year – in fact about 20 instruments in all, and does most of the singing, producing and composing too.
2 Chet Nuneta – Roseda vieja sirena (Le Chant du Monde)
Shifting a little eastward to France, Chet Nuneta are four singers and a percussionist, who go for very rootsy peasant-sounding fusions. “Roseda vieja sirena” seems to be some kind of amalgam of French and Spanish – possibly Catalan? It comes from the new CD “Pangea” out on the Le Chant du Monde label.
3 Akale Wube – Mètché New (L’Arome Productions)
Akale Wube are a Paris-based French Ethiojazz band set up in 2008 who take their name from a tune by Getatchew Mekurya, the legendary veteran Ethiopian sax player. “Akale Wube” is Amharic for “Beauty of the Soul”. On their 2011 LP they do lovely versions of classic Ethiojazz tracks, mainly by Mulatu Astatke. “Mètché New” was written by the comparatively obscure singer, Téshomé Sissay.
4 Mahmoud Ahmed – Bemin Sebab Litlash (Mississippi Records)
Mahmoud Ahmed was one of the absolute greats of the early 70s Addis scene, and he’s still going strong. A bunch of his stuff from the so-called Golden Age has been available through the series “Ethiopiques” for some time now. “Bemin Sebab Litlash” is from 1978, just after the Golden Age, when the Derg had already started in Ethiopia, from the LP “Jeguol Naw Betwa” just reissued by Mississippi Records. His long-time backing band, the Ibex Band, is full cry on this tune.
5 Addis Acoustic Project – Etitu Beredegn (World Village)
The Addis Acoustic Project is one of the resident bands at the Jazzamba Lounge, Addis’s premier jazz venue which only opened in June this year in a space that had been derelict for 20 years. Their stuff is often a bit too smooth for comfort, but the mandolin playing by veteran Ayele Mamo is worth the entry price. They say that Mamo is the only mandolin player in Addis.
6 Bako Dagnon – Fadeen To (Styllart)
Malian Bako Dagnon is sometimes called the griot’s griot – although she is not very well known in global circles, she is in fact a mentor to Kandia Kouyate, recognized as one of the top jelimusos, or female griots. After an accident early on in her career, Dagnon has largely been working in the background, learning, promoting and preserving singing traditions at a village level, in the Segou area near to Bamako, where her family hail from. After 50 years she’s only produced two internationally-released albums, her second one coming out this year. It’s called “Sidiba”. Check out the flamenco guitar licks on “Fadeen To”.
7 Fatoumata Diawara – Bakonoba (World Circuit)
28 year old, Paris-based Malian, Fatoumata Diawara, exploded as a solo artist on the international stage just this year – although she’s been working as a backing singer and actor for many years. Her debut CD “Fatou”, out on World Circuit, is quite an understated slightly poppy affair, and is pretty wonderful.
8 JuJu – Halanam (Real World)
A few months ago I had several positive responses from listeners when I played something off Juldeh Camara and Justin Adam’s latest CD “In Trance”. Let’s listen to another one – “Halanam”. By the way, they are now calling themselves JuJu, and their CD is available in SA courtesy of Sheer Music – one of the top releases of the year I’d say.
9 Fikret Kizilok - Gozlerinden Bellidir (World Psychedelia)
From Turkey, the hopelessly obscure, cultish early 70s protest singer Fikret Kizilok. I culled the single “Gozlerinden Bellidir” from an underground reissue made in 2005 of his original singles. If you look hard enough, you’ll be able to find his stuff on the web.
10 Georgette Sayegh – Yay, Yay, Ya Nassini (EMI Greece)
When I was researching the next two tracks I turned up this quote by one Jim Knox: “Lebanese popular music was peaking in 1974 but the civil war that started one year later laid it all to ruin”. The Ghost Capital blog dug up “Yay, Yay, Ya Nassini”, recorded in 1973, from a holiday souvenir LP collection for Lebanon brought out by an airline.
11 Fairouz – Ba’adana (EMI)
Nouhad Wadi Haddad, known as Fairuz, is probably the top living singer of the Arab world. She’s now in her mid 70s but still very much performing. “Ba’adana” was recorded in 1966.
12 Brendon Bussy in collaboration with Renee Holleman – If walls could talk would they sing (played with permission of artist)
A few months ago, Cape Town composer and musician Brendon Bussy collaborated with artist Renee Holleman with “If walls could talk would they sing”. The piece was written for the opening of the new premises of the “WhatIfTheWorld” gallery at the old synagogue in Argyle Road, Woodstock – an area that now has a significant Muslim community. Bussy explains in a fascinating blog entry that on Holleman’s suggestion he used a Jewish scale Ahava Rabbah (meaning ‘Abounding Love’ in Hebrew) as a basis for the tune. It turns out that this scale is the same as the Freygish mode used in Klezmer and the Hijaz Makam used in Arabic music. There’s a lot more at work in this piece – and I would suggest checking out Brendon Bussy’s blog entry http://brendonbussy.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/if-walls-could-talk-would-they-sing/#more-616
13 Rashanim – Avodah (Tzadik)
Power jazz trio Rashanim with “Avodah”. Rashanim is one of the groups appearing on Tzadik’s 2003 release “Voices in the wilderness” - a double-disk collection of John Zorn’s free-jazz tinged klezmer compositions interpreted by a whole range of groups.
14 Wolf Krakowski – Drey, Dreydl (Sion Dreydl) (Tzadik)
Toronto-based Wolf Krakowski’s home language is Yiddish. He was born just after the end of WW2 in a camp for displaced persons in Austria, his Russian parents having survived the Holocaust. His countryesque arrangement of the traditional tune “Drey, Dreydl” is also out on Tzadik – on the CD “Goyrl: Destiny”.
15 Norman Blake – Little Sadi (Mercury)
It’s been 10 years since the release of “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and its soundtrack spurred a big resurgence of rootsy Americana. Mercury have just released a deluxe edition in celebration, which includes tracks recorded by producer T-Bone Burnett and not used in the movie, and stuff used in the movie but not released on the first incarnation of the soundtrack. Let’s listen to two tracks only available on the deluxe edition.
Norman Blake’s version of “Little Sadi” was recorded for the movie, but not used.
16 The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling – I’ll fly away (Mercury)
The Kossoy Sisters with 5 string banjo player Erik Darling’s version of “I’ll fly away” recorded in 1956. This was the version actually used in the movie, although a version by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch came out on the official soundtrack. Both versions are great, if you ask me. The Kossoy Sisters are actual sisters – in fact they’re identical twins.
17 June Tabor & Oysterband – Bonny Bunch of Roses (Topic)
June Tabor’s been pretty active this year – she put out a solo record earlier this year called “Ashore”, and we’ve listened to some tunes from that. A few months ago she also put out something with the Oysterband called “Ragged Kingdom”. The trad song “Bonny Bunch of Roses” is quite sympathetic to Napoleon, which means that it’s probably Irish in origin.
18 Bert Jansch – Nottamun Town (Vanguard)
“Nottamun Town” is another traditional song. It might date from the late medieval period and might be about the English Civil War as Charles I raised his army around Nottingham at the beginning of the war. The very great and unfortunately late Bert Jansch died in October. The tune is from Jansch’s classic album, “Jack Orion,” in which he plays with John Renbourne. This album is considered a precursor to the kind of music Jansch and Renbourne played in the folk-rock group Pentangle.
19 Syd Kitchen – Fine Lines (Liaison Music)
Another big loss to folk circles this year was Syd Kitchen. Before he died he was invited to contribute a track to the tribute album to John Martyn. He recorded Martyn’s song “Fine Lines” with Martyn’s most recent backing band in Scotland. The PVC pipe has never sounded this good!
20 Lee Perry & Dub Syndicate – Music + Science Lovers (On U-Sound)
Lee Perry was actually a friend of John Martyn – they hung together in Jamaica in the mid 70s. “Music + Science Lovers” was recorded with the Dub Syndicate with Adrian Sherwood producing. It’s from the mid 80s album “Time Boom X De Devil Dead” – a great creative collaboration and one of the only really great things he’s put out since the 70s.
21 Bob Marley & The Wailers – Reaction (JAD)
In just about every show over the last while I’ve been spinning high points from Lee Perry’s career. Such a review wouldn’t be complete without listening to his production work for Bob Marley done in 1970 and 71. “Reaction” is from the LP “Soul Rebels”.
22 Aldona – You could carry me away (Jaro Medien)
Aldona is Poland-born Aldona Nowowiejska together with a stellar band that features a bunch of string instruments including the guembri, and the bass clarinet against the normal rhythm section. “You could carry me away” is from her 2011 CD “Sonnet”.
23 Olafur Arnalds – 33:26 (Erased Tapes)
From Paris to Poland and now to the Arctic Circle – Iceland has a rapidly expanding and pretty varied music scene, mainly driven by tech-savvy youngsters who do everything on a small DIY scale but come up with sweeping fusions informed by rock, folk, jazz and Western chamber music – but that’s chamber music with attitude and edge. Olafur Arnald is one of the prime movers in Iceland. Thanks to Douglas Gimberg for introducing me to this stuff.
24 Hauschka – Cube (Fat Cat)
Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka is a Dusseldorf-based musician and composer whose main instrument is something called the prepared piano. He has played with a bunch of Icelandic musicians. This is from his 2011 release, called “Salon des amateurs”.
25 Hauschka and Hildur Guðnadóttir – Cool Gray 1 (Sonic Pieces)
Hauschka on the prepared piano and with Iceland’s Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir on cello. “Cool Gray” is from their 2011 release “Pan Tone”.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
2 November 2011, World Cafe
1 Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – African Soldiers (Because) (Rilwan Fagbemi)
Seun Kuti together with his band Egypt 80, the 12-piece band he inherited from his father, Fela Kuti. He’s upped the beats per minute from the normal Afrobeat fare, and the anger’s ratcheted way up there too. “African Soldier” is a tirade against former soldiers who become dictators and keep themselves in power for decades. It’s from their 2011 album, “From Africa with fury: Rise”, which Brian Eno, a long-time Afrobeat enthusiast, co-produced.
2 Vieux Farka Toure – Aigna (feat. Derek Trucks) (Six Degrees)
Speaking of sons of great musicians, Vieux Farka Toure, son of Ali Farka Toure, put out a wonderful record earlier this year, “The Secret”. We listened to a collaboration with John Scofield a few months ago. “Aigna” features the American blues guitar prodigy and Allman Brothers Band member, Derek Trucks, on some sitar-like slide guitar.
3 Bembeya Jazz National – Alalake (Syliphone)
Sekou “Diamond Fingers” Diabate plays some incredible pedal steel. It comes from an album recorded in the mid 70s dedicated to former member, singer and composer, Aboubacar Demba, who died in a car crash in 1973.
4 Gnonnas Pedro and his Dadjes Band International – Fini les pavés (African Songs Ltd)
Gnonnas Pedro is a great singer from the 70s Benin scene. “Fini les pavés” is from the original vinyl LP put out by the label African Songs Ltd in 1977 called “The Band of Africa, vol 3”.
5 Fatoumata Diwara – Nayan (World Circuit)
Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) from Mali has just put out her first album on World Circuit, called “Fatou”– and it’s sort of in the quiet, independent singer-songwriter spirit of Rokia Traore, who is actually a friend of hers, and who inspired Diawara to accompany herself on guitar. But she also draws on the Wassoulou traditions of her parents and of her mentor, Oumara Sangare.
Diawara’s 28 year history has been one of fierce independence – she started out as a film actor in Mali, having been sent to live with her aunt, also an actor, in Bamoko by her parents after she refused to continue with school. Then she became a stage actor, and literally escaped to Paris, after her parents tried to curtail her career. She was discovered as a singer, started performing in stage shows around the world, and has wound up singing with Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, Herbie Hancock and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
“Nayan” is from an EP called “Kanou” that preceded the album. We’ll hear something from the full album in December.
6 Tinariwen – Imidiwan Win Sahara (Anti-)
Tinariwen, probably the most well-known Tuareg band, have a new album out, “Tassili”, named after Tassili N’Ajjer in southern Algeria, where it was recorded. Tassili is a place where Tamashek guerrillas took refuge en route to Mali. Its rocks and caves are a world heritage site. The album is somewhat more acoustic and less overtly political than recent ones. You have to love the group hum on this tune.
7 Genticorum – Reel Circulaire (Roues et Archets)
Québécois music off Genticorum's latest album “Nagez Rameurs”, which is based around the theme of maritime voyages. Québécois is an amalgam of French, Irish, Scottish and Breton traditions.
At the centre of this tune is song collector and fiddler Pascal Gemme , who first heard traditional Québécois music as a child in Huntingdon, Quebec, where his grandfather was the village fiddler.
8 Bee Dehotels - Aux Natchitoches (Cinq Planetes)
Nova Scotia, one of the Canada’s maritime provinces, is just east of Quebec. It used to be known as Acadia, and is where the forbearers of the Louisianan Cajuns came from. In the mid-70s, the label "Cinq Planètes” put out a wonderful set of recordings made in the homes of the musician and Cajun revivalist Dewey Balfa and painter Eraste Fontenot, both of whose families are very well known on the Cajun scene. The recordings were made for a film project on legendary masters of cajun and creole music called “Les haricots sont pas salés” – “the beans are not salted”. Bee Dehotels apparently specialized in old Cajun French ballads.
9 Vielleux du Bourbonnais – Bourrée A Malochet-Bourrée d’Alfred Pommier (Auvidis)
Bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy music was one of the traditions the original French settlers brought with them when they settled in Acadia in the 1600s. French group Vielleux du Bourbonnais take their music from the manuscripts of late nineteenth-century collectors, who in turn collected and transcribed older tunes passed down orally.
10 Andreas Schaerer & Banz Oester – Finger Maxu (Unit Records)
In July Prohelvetia brought vocalist Andreas Schaerer and bassist Banz Oester to South Africa. If you saw them playing at the Fugard Theatre you were probably either perplexed or blown away – actually you were probably both at the same time. As they would say, they “instantly composed” a fusion of a bewildering array of styles and traditions.
11 Vezhliviy Otkaz – Russian song (Zenith/Soyuz)
Vezhliviy Otkaz are from Moscow. Their name apparently means “Polite Refusal”.
12 Jermain Tamraz – Doogle Shapireh (Assyrian)
Jermain Tamraz is another great 70s middle-eastern singer. I know she’s Assyrian, although I’m not whether she came from Syria or Iraq.
13 Gulcan Opel – Tamammi (Bouzouki Joe)
The Turkish singer Gulcan Opel with the tune “Tamammi” reissued in 2011 by Bouzouki Joe on the collection “Turkish Freakout 2: Psych-Folk 1970-78”. The track was produced by Arif Sag, a singer, bağlama virtuoso, Turkish folk music founder and academic, and former MP in the Turkish parliament.
14 The Golden Ring – The Lost (Persianna)
Another Arif or Aref prominent in modern Middle Eastern music is Aref Arefkia. He’s just as famous in Iran as Googoosh, but unlike her left Iran in 1979 at the time of the revolution. In his early days, in the 60s, he was a member of the Tehran garage band, The Golden Ring. “The Lost” off a recent reissue: “The Golden Ring: Iranian Styled 60s Garage and other exotic sounds”.
15 African Head Charge – Throw it away (On U Sound)
Continuing our celebration of 30 years of the British reggae and dub label, On-U Sound, the tune comes from African Head Charge’s fourth album “Off the beaten track” which came out in 1986.
16 Lee Perry – Rise Again (M.O.D. Technologies)
On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood has produced a number of albums by one of dub’s best ever explorers and innovators, Lee Perry. Lee Perry’s most recent effort is a collaboration with bass playing polymath Bill Laswell – called “Rise again.” It’s mostly a little disappointing, but the title track isn’t too bad.
17 Lee Perry and the Upsetters – Kiss Me Mix (Exclusive Dub Plate Mix) (Pressure Sounds)
Lee Scratch Perry at his peak in the mid-70s with the exclusive dub plate mix of “Kiss me neck”. It’s from a truly wonderful collection just out on On-U Sound’s sister label, Pressure Sounds – “The Return of Sound System Scratch: More Lee Perry Dub Plate Mixes and Rarities 1973-1979”. Obtain forthwith if you have any interest in Lee Perry’s music – you will not be sorry.
18 Cyril Diaz & His Orchestra – Voodoo (Soundway)
Another track from a collection of 7” reissues of vintage Columbian music that Soundway brought out earlier this year.
19 Home Service – Battle Pavanne / Peat Bog Soldiers (Fledg’ling)
Eight-piece folk-rock group, Home Service, from the highly politicised mid-80s of Thatcher’s England. The track here is from a recent release called “Live 1986”. “Battle Pavanne” is actually a piece of court music written by Tielman Susato in 1551. “Peat Bog Soldiers” was written by prisoners in a Nazi labour camp in 1933, adopted by the Republicans as an anthem during the Spanish Civil War, and was sung all around Europe during World War Two, and after that as a protest song.
20 Elle Osborne – I’m bound away (Folk Police Recordings)
Elle Osborne, a traditional singer from Lincolnshire, has been around for a few years now. She’s got a new album out on the label Folk Police called “So slowly slowly got she up” with a supporting cast that includes Alasdair Roberts, Cath and Phil Tyler and Alex Neilson, all of whom we’ve listened to before here on this show.
Check out the “Eileen Aroon” mix out on both Holy Warbles and the Ghost Capital blog if you like this sort of stuff – it’s a few entries down from the top. Well worth the download.
21 Sarah Jarosz - Anabelle Lee (Sugar Hill)
20 year old guitarist, banjo player, singer and song-writer from Austin, Texas, Sarah Jarosz, unbelievably off her second album “Follow me down”. That’s her neo-traditional tune “Anabelle Lee”, based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Her band includes a bunch of luminaries on the bluegrass/ newgrass/country scene like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Viktor Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Shawn Colvin and Darrell Scott.
22 Jolie Holland – June (Anti, Ince)
Jolie Holland is also from Texas, but this time Houston. She works a more bluesy, jazzy vein of Americana – a bit like Billie Holliday (who she cites as a big influence) doing country blues. “June” is from her new album “Pint of Blood”.
23 Flower Travellin’ Band – House of the Rising Sun (Philips)
The mind-blowing, lung-bursting singing of Joe Yamanaka of the Flower Travellin’ Band circa 1970. The earliest recordings of “House of the Rising Sun” were by Clarence Ashley in 1933, although the song or something like it is probably much, much older – Ashley claimed that his grandfather used to sing it. Alan Lomax collected a version in 1937 in Kentucky, which it seemed made the song famous. Yamanaka died on 7th August and here’s a ‘believe it or not’ fact: he was a friend of Bob Marley and took his place as lead singer of The Wailers for five years after Marley died.
24 Kuni Kawachi & the Flower Travellin’ Band – Kirikyogen (Capital)
Also from the 1970s, this is Joe Yamanaka with keyboardist Kuni Kawachi.
25 Can – Spoon (Spoon)
Sticking with anti-establishment, counter-cultural 60s and 70s psychedelic scenes in previously highly authoritarian countries, that was the Krautrock group Can with one of their more well-known tunes, “Spoon”. In fact the tune was a German Top 40 hit, from one of their many classic albums, “Ege Bamyasi”, which is Turkish for Aegean okra.
Can apparently actually started out trying to play exotic fusions, but then discovered the Velvet Underground – they did actually return to the exotic a bit later in their Ethnological Forgery Series.
The singer on “Spoon” is Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller who founding members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit found busking outside a café in Munich. Suzuki ended up playing with them for quite a few years.
26 Harmonia – Deluxe (Immer Wieder) (Brain)
Another absolutely classic Krautrock track. Harmonia was a kind of supergroup that included members from the bands Neu, Cluster and Guru Guru.
Check out the wonderful doccie on Krautrock made by BBC4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B89-69icyc&noredirect=1
The label “Krautrock” is contested on the grounds of accuracy and its belittling overtones. There are also recent interviews with the members of Can and Harmonia reflecting how things were in Germany in the late 60s and the 70s.
Seun Kuti together with his band Egypt 80, the 12-piece band he inherited from his father, Fela Kuti. He’s upped the beats per minute from the normal Afrobeat fare, and the anger’s ratcheted way up there too. “African Soldier” is a tirade against former soldiers who become dictators and keep themselves in power for decades. It’s from their 2011 album, “From Africa with fury: Rise”, which Brian Eno, a long-time Afrobeat enthusiast, co-produced.
2 Vieux Farka Toure – Aigna (feat. Derek Trucks) (Six Degrees)
Speaking of sons of great musicians, Vieux Farka Toure, son of Ali Farka Toure, put out a wonderful record earlier this year, “The Secret”. We listened to a collaboration with John Scofield a few months ago. “Aigna” features the American blues guitar prodigy and Allman Brothers Band member, Derek Trucks, on some sitar-like slide guitar.
3 Bembeya Jazz National – Alalake (Syliphone)
Sekou “Diamond Fingers” Diabate plays some incredible pedal steel. It comes from an album recorded in the mid 70s dedicated to former member, singer and composer, Aboubacar Demba, who died in a car crash in 1973.
4 Gnonnas Pedro and his Dadjes Band International – Fini les pavés (African Songs Ltd)
Gnonnas Pedro is a great singer from the 70s Benin scene. “Fini les pavés” is from the original vinyl LP put out by the label African Songs Ltd in 1977 called “The Band of Africa, vol 3”.
5 Fatoumata Diwara – Nayan (World Circuit)
Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) from Mali has just put out her first album on World Circuit, called “Fatou”– and it’s sort of in the quiet, independent singer-songwriter spirit of Rokia Traore, who is actually a friend of hers, and who inspired Diawara to accompany herself on guitar. But she also draws on the Wassoulou traditions of her parents and of her mentor, Oumara Sangare.
Diawara’s 28 year history has been one of fierce independence – she started out as a film actor in Mali, having been sent to live with her aunt, also an actor, in Bamoko by her parents after she refused to continue with school. Then she became a stage actor, and literally escaped to Paris, after her parents tried to curtail her career. She was discovered as a singer, started performing in stage shows around the world, and has wound up singing with Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, Herbie Hancock and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
“Nayan” is from an EP called “Kanou” that preceded the album. We’ll hear something from the full album in December.
6 Tinariwen – Imidiwan Win Sahara (Anti-)
Tinariwen, probably the most well-known Tuareg band, have a new album out, “Tassili”, named after Tassili N’Ajjer in southern Algeria, where it was recorded. Tassili is a place where Tamashek guerrillas took refuge en route to Mali. Its rocks and caves are a world heritage site. The album is somewhat more acoustic and less overtly political than recent ones. You have to love the group hum on this tune.
7 Genticorum – Reel Circulaire (Roues et Archets)
Québécois music off Genticorum's latest album “Nagez Rameurs”, which is based around the theme of maritime voyages. Québécois is an amalgam of French, Irish, Scottish and Breton traditions.
At the centre of this tune is song collector and fiddler Pascal Gemme , who first heard traditional Québécois music as a child in Huntingdon, Quebec, where his grandfather was the village fiddler.
8 Bee Dehotels - Aux Natchitoches (Cinq Planetes)
Nova Scotia, one of the Canada’s maritime provinces, is just east of Quebec. It used to be known as Acadia, and is where the forbearers of the Louisianan Cajuns came from. In the mid-70s, the label "Cinq Planètes” put out a wonderful set of recordings made in the homes of the musician and Cajun revivalist Dewey Balfa and painter Eraste Fontenot, both of whose families are very well known on the Cajun scene. The recordings were made for a film project on legendary masters of cajun and creole music called “Les haricots sont pas salés” – “the beans are not salted”. Bee Dehotels apparently specialized in old Cajun French ballads.
9 Vielleux du Bourbonnais – Bourrée A Malochet-Bourrée d’Alfred Pommier (Auvidis)
Bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy music was one of the traditions the original French settlers brought with them when they settled in Acadia in the 1600s. French group Vielleux du Bourbonnais take their music from the manuscripts of late nineteenth-century collectors, who in turn collected and transcribed older tunes passed down orally.
10 Andreas Schaerer & Banz Oester – Finger Maxu (Unit Records)
In July Prohelvetia brought vocalist Andreas Schaerer and bassist Banz Oester to South Africa. If you saw them playing at the Fugard Theatre you were probably either perplexed or blown away – actually you were probably both at the same time. As they would say, they “instantly composed” a fusion of a bewildering array of styles and traditions.
11 Vezhliviy Otkaz – Russian song (Zenith/Soyuz)
Vezhliviy Otkaz are from Moscow. Their name apparently means “Polite Refusal”.
12 Jermain Tamraz – Doogle Shapireh (Assyrian)
Jermain Tamraz is another great 70s middle-eastern singer. I know she’s Assyrian, although I’m not whether she came from Syria or Iraq.
13 Gulcan Opel – Tamammi (Bouzouki Joe)
The Turkish singer Gulcan Opel with the tune “Tamammi” reissued in 2011 by Bouzouki Joe on the collection “Turkish Freakout 2: Psych-Folk 1970-78”. The track was produced by Arif Sag, a singer, bağlama virtuoso, Turkish folk music founder and academic, and former MP in the Turkish parliament.
14 The Golden Ring – The Lost (Persianna)
Another Arif or Aref prominent in modern Middle Eastern music is Aref Arefkia. He’s just as famous in Iran as Googoosh, but unlike her left Iran in 1979 at the time of the revolution. In his early days, in the 60s, he was a member of the Tehran garage band, The Golden Ring. “The Lost” off a recent reissue: “The Golden Ring: Iranian Styled 60s Garage and other exotic sounds”.
15 African Head Charge – Throw it away (On U Sound)
Continuing our celebration of 30 years of the British reggae and dub label, On-U Sound, the tune comes from African Head Charge’s fourth album “Off the beaten track” which came out in 1986.
16 Lee Perry – Rise Again (M.O.D. Technologies)
On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood has produced a number of albums by one of dub’s best ever explorers and innovators, Lee Perry. Lee Perry’s most recent effort is a collaboration with bass playing polymath Bill Laswell – called “Rise again.” It’s mostly a little disappointing, but the title track isn’t too bad.
17 Lee Perry and the Upsetters – Kiss Me Mix (Exclusive Dub Plate Mix) (Pressure Sounds)
Lee Scratch Perry at his peak in the mid-70s with the exclusive dub plate mix of “Kiss me neck”. It’s from a truly wonderful collection just out on On-U Sound’s sister label, Pressure Sounds – “The Return of Sound System Scratch: More Lee Perry Dub Plate Mixes and Rarities 1973-1979”. Obtain forthwith if you have any interest in Lee Perry’s music – you will not be sorry.
18 Cyril Diaz & His Orchestra – Voodoo (Soundway)
Another track from a collection of 7” reissues of vintage Columbian music that Soundway brought out earlier this year.
19 Home Service – Battle Pavanne / Peat Bog Soldiers (Fledg’ling)
Eight-piece folk-rock group, Home Service, from the highly politicised mid-80s of Thatcher’s England. The track here is from a recent release called “Live 1986”. “Battle Pavanne” is actually a piece of court music written by Tielman Susato in 1551. “Peat Bog Soldiers” was written by prisoners in a Nazi labour camp in 1933, adopted by the Republicans as an anthem during the Spanish Civil War, and was sung all around Europe during World War Two, and after that as a protest song.
20 Elle Osborne – I’m bound away (Folk Police Recordings)
Elle Osborne, a traditional singer from Lincolnshire, has been around for a few years now. She’s got a new album out on the label Folk Police called “So slowly slowly got she up” with a supporting cast that includes Alasdair Roberts, Cath and Phil Tyler and Alex Neilson, all of whom we’ve listened to before here on this show.
Check out the “Eileen Aroon” mix out on both Holy Warbles and the Ghost Capital blog if you like this sort of stuff – it’s a few entries down from the top. Well worth the download.
21 Sarah Jarosz - Anabelle Lee (Sugar Hill)
20 year old guitarist, banjo player, singer and song-writer from Austin, Texas, Sarah Jarosz, unbelievably off her second album “Follow me down”. That’s her neo-traditional tune “Anabelle Lee”, based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Her band includes a bunch of luminaries on the bluegrass/ newgrass/country scene like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Viktor Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Shawn Colvin and Darrell Scott.
22 Jolie Holland – June (Anti, Ince)
Jolie Holland is also from Texas, but this time Houston. She works a more bluesy, jazzy vein of Americana – a bit like Billie Holliday (who she cites as a big influence) doing country blues. “June” is from her new album “Pint of Blood”.
23 Flower Travellin’ Band – House of the Rising Sun (Philips)
The mind-blowing, lung-bursting singing of Joe Yamanaka of the Flower Travellin’ Band circa 1970. The earliest recordings of “House of the Rising Sun” were by Clarence Ashley in 1933, although the song or something like it is probably much, much older – Ashley claimed that his grandfather used to sing it. Alan Lomax collected a version in 1937 in Kentucky, which it seemed made the song famous. Yamanaka died on 7th August and here’s a ‘believe it or not’ fact: he was a friend of Bob Marley and took his place as lead singer of The Wailers for five years after Marley died.
24 Kuni Kawachi & the Flower Travellin’ Band – Kirikyogen (Capital)
Also from the 1970s, this is Joe Yamanaka with keyboardist Kuni Kawachi.
25 Can – Spoon (Spoon)
Sticking with anti-establishment, counter-cultural 60s and 70s psychedelic scenes in previously highly authoritarian countries, that was the Krautrock group Can with one of their more well-known tunes, “Spoon”. In fact the tune was a German Top 40 hit, from one of their many classic albums, “Ege Bamyasi”, which is Turkish for Aegean okra.
Can apparently actually started out trying to play exotic fusions, but then discovered the Velvet Underground – they did actually return to the exotic a bit later in their Ethnological Forgery Series.
The singer on “Spoon” is Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller who founding members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit found busking outside a café in Munich. Suzuki ended up playing with them for quite a few years.
26 Harmonia – Deluxe (Immer Wieder) (Brain)
Another absolutely classic Krautrock track. Harmonia was a kind of supergroup that included members from the bands Neu, Cluster and Guru Guru.
Check out the wonderful doccie on Krautrock made by BBC4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B89-69icyc&noredirect=1
The label “Krautrock” is contested on the grounds of accuracy and its belittling overtones. There are also recent interviews with the members of Can and Harmonia reflecting how things were in Germany in the late 60s and the 70s.
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