Song of the week - Weekily by Soznak

From the Newcastle multiculturalists' marvellous debut album Dear Dad Tango, to be reviewed...hopefully within the week, all being well.

NAJMA AKHTAR and GARY LUCAS - Rishte (World Village)

They both possess impressive CVs when it comes to collaborations, and this charming, eloquent mix of Indian and US roots music will surely take its place amongst the most satisfyingly creative results for both artists.
Najma Akhtar is an Anglo-Indian singer who has been recording since the late '80s, when her album of ghazals (love songs), Qareeb, was released to critical claim, and she has been carving an interesting and diverse musical path ever since (including work with Page and Plant). American guitarist Gary Lucas has applied his rootsy, bluesy and often dizzyingly psychedelic fretwork to works by artists including Captain Beefheart, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave, as well as famously contributing to Jeff Buckley's acclaimed Grace.

None of which quite prepares the listener for this elegant and entrancing set of subtly melodic tunes.

Indo-blues would be an easy term to fall back on, but aside from a flighty cover of Skip James's Special Rider Blues, the southern US blues stylings are restricted to the odd slide guitar or electric wig-out and Lucas's trademark bending, winding acoustic notes. Mostly, Lucas provides shuffling rhythmic strums in counterpoint to babbling tabla drum (and violin on two tracks) over which Najma carves out sweeping, swooping vocals. She really does possess the most gorgeous range of vocals, full of colour and playfulness and fluency, and Lucas must take considerable praise for underpinning it all with restraint, plucking out encouragement or driving things on with brisk economy.
The songs are mostly self-written, Lucas providing the guitar parts and Najma the melodies and lyrics (usually in Urdu, but also once or twice in English, a language that does not quite accommodate the full fluent diction of the singer) on songs that possess an almost timeless ethereal quality and ability to sweetly seduce over and over again. A wholly satisfying mix.

OJOS DE BRUJO - Aocaná (Diquela Records)

If you look at the vast array of contributors to Ojos de Brujo's fourth album, you might be forgiven for expecting another over-ambitious and slightly over-egged release in the mould of its predecessor Techari. Such fears prove unjustified. Aocaná finds the Catalan band back in fine form.

Holding a torch for the melting pot that is their home city Barcelona's artistic profile, Spain's finest world music export were guilty of losing their way with their third album, piling ingredient upon ingredient then having to batter their message home through the resultant musical melange. On Aocaná they refocus on the flamenco roots from which they build their sound, pulling back from the relentless rhythmic attack, hip-hop and scratching that marked their previous albums (they're still there, but applied sparingly) and drawing in son, salsa and jazz influences. The acoustic guitar, double-tracked vocals and raps are coloured by piano and trumpet tones and anchored by a far more fluid and restrained rhythmic base reliant more on the incisive pit-a-pat of cajon box drum than kit drum and bass guitar. In places there are still some nods to the Indian rhythmic influence that has crept in recently, but it's applied with a nuance that aids the refined musicality of the songs, never bland but also less forcibly in-yer-face. There's a lightness of melodic touch on the album, bringing out gradations we've never heard before from lead singer Marina La Canillas (has motherhood mellowed her approach? It certainly seems to have led to a less direct vocal attack).

There's a subtlety on this release that Ojos de Brujo will probably never get across live, and I guess many of their young fans wouldn't want it any other way. For those of us who prefer their music to display its roots and a melodic sensibility...well, we've got another Ojos album to soak up on the stereo.

Café de Los Maestros - The Barbican, London June 26th 2009

Bajofondo Tango Club’s Gustavo Santaolalla did a sterling job of bringing together many of the survivors from the great tango era of the mid-20th century on a double CD and film last year, and the whole enterprise was brought to gripping and emotional life on the ensemble’s British debut as part of the Barbican's Blaze summer season.

A regular turnover of personnel is something of a given for this exercise in herding superannuated tango hepcats, and the difference between the recordings and live performance was most felt in the absence of some of the more renowned singers, most notably Virginia Luque. Uruguayan Nina Miranda did her best to fill the great lady’s shoes, attacking her half of the six vocal spots with gusto despite struggling at times to get her rasping, leathery voice above the sound of the orchestra. The frail, be-suited octogenarian singer Juan Carlos Godoy fared better, and was the warmest received performer on a night of emotional connection. The audience’s emotions were certainly pulled this way and that by the man from Buenos Aires as he inched his bent, wiry frame slowly centre stage, only to shrug off the years with a high, melancholic and still-seductive trilling vocal that pierced the air and melted the heart. What emotional damage this soft and mellifluous sound must have done at its peak!

The vocal passages were just one component of a stirring two-hours-plus set in which the “Orquestra Tipica” (base orchestra) was given full rein, discreetly directed by pianist Osvaldo Requena (more than ably replacing Carlos Garcia, who died two years ago). The string section - led with grace and style by violinist Fernando Suarez Paz - swooped and swung with dramatic eloquence. A model of the tension and release of this most theatrical of styles, they provided a sumptuous backdrop to the chattering, wheezy bandoneons in front of them.

The orchestra was flanked to one side by Requena and to the other for three delicate, stripped back numbers by guitarist Anibal Arias and the bandoneon of Miguel Angel Varvello, the latter still just about able to meet the dextrous demands and sympathetic touch required for the more intricate phrases.

But the highlights were probably two other virtuoso performances. The second part of the concert started with a one-off spot for Paris-based bandoneon player Juan José Mosalini, who added Gallic levity to the dark mood of Astor Piazzolla’s Tristeza de un Doble ‘A’. And Requena added fluid piano accompaniment to this and the other high-quality virtuosi segment by violinist Fernando Suarez Paz.

All of this and, for four of the instrumental numbers, the restrained lust and supple evocation of illicit desire of a breathless tango duo, who joined the full orchestra towards the end for a stomping run through the classic tango number La Cumparsita that drew a standing ovation as deserved as it was, admittedly, inevitable.

What a way to keep alive the tango tradition – a “Buena Vista” approach to the nostalgia-soaked genre maybe, but what’s the alternative, to let it die out completely? Santaolalla’s Bajofondo and Gotan Project put the music in a modern setting, and it has a place also in the world of ballroom and Saturday night TV dance shows. But this poignant and moving music is at its best as these Maestros serve it up – a living tradition, breathing glorious moments from the past onto a grateful public.

Café de Los Maestros

In the first of an occasional series, here's a preview of the Argentine veterans in advance of their gig at London's Barbican centre on Friday 26th June.

KHALED - Liberté (Wrasse)

The statement, “if you have to buy one Khaled album, make it 1984’s Hada Raykoum” is surely incontestable. It may well be that the same can now be said for the next best thing to that North African classic.
Hada Raykoum — by the-then Cheb Khaled — was one of the early internationally released African albums that hit an unsuspecting western listening world between the eyes, upturning its preconceptions about Arabic pop music for good. No respecter of traditions, the self-styled Rai King of Algeria couched his raunchy urban Oran style in swirling keyboards and electric guitar as well as the more usual sweeping string arrangements, poly-rhythms and accordion used in this gritty, thrusting genre from the busiest and most eclectic port in Algeria.

Since then, Khaled’s output has been regular and consistent and usually contains fine moments, although often (especially in the ’90s) getting bogged down in ‘modern’ production values such as soulless studio pre-programmed drums, an accent on keyboards at the expense of other instrumentation, and over-production of Khaled’s magnificent, soaring voice. Recent albums have seen a welcome move back to a more organic approach, and in Liberté at last we have a release to compete with that early ground-breaking Triple Earth release. Produced by long-standing colleague Martin Meissonnier, this album shivers and it snaps in funky, organic arrangements, with a real-live sweeping and stabbing string section (recorded in Cairo) that infuses the album with drama and depth. With it comes the return of melodramatic intro tracks in which Khaled unwinds a prelude to the song proper in undulating, pleading vocal tones, with keyboards, accordion, oud twisting and turning higher, ever higher around his voice, before breaking into dense and funky grooves. The Egyptian orchestra strings are the ever-present backdrop, alongside a mixed melange comprising elements of blasting horns, high-voiced backing, chattering percussion, violin, oud, electric guitar, ney flute and electric bass, all of it applied in judicious style in the clear and spacious arrangements.

Uptempo pop-rai is the core, but interest is also maintained by a handful of ballads (all of which avoid tipping over into cheesy bombast for a change) and a few old favourites — including a loose, poppy update on Raikoum itself, which features Rita Marley and friends on backing vocals — and one or two delves into the hypnotic gnawa grooves of Morocco. This ia an album that can be recommended without reservation.

KASSE MADY DIABATE - Manden Djeli Kan (Universal)/ADBOULAYE "DJOSS" DIABATE - Sara (Completely Nuts)

Kassé Mady Diabaté’s album releases tend to reflect his cameos as guest vocalist with Malian groups such as the Symmetric Orchestra and the Mandekalou ensemble, as well as his appearances on landmark world music albums such as Songhai and Kulanjan. Quite content to stand on the sidelines while others take centre-stage, his all-too-brief moments in the spotlight ooze calm authority and a veteran's sense of his place in the musical scheme of things.
Last time he did it with his own album was in 2003 when the back-to-roots affair Kassé Kassi garnered a Grammy nomination, and plaudits a-plenty surely await Manden Djeli Kan, its equally accomplished follow-up.
Manden Djeli Kan is not as resolutely traditional as its predecessor, but the instrumental core remains acoustic. Moriba Koita’s florid ngoni style is the centre - light, melodic, almost kora-like at times - with guitarist Fantamady Kouyaté an ever-present complement. Busy mid-tempo percussion sits high in the mix, adding a rhythmic hardness not always apparent on modern Malian albums rooted in tradition; and bolon, balafon, and diligently placed electric guitar and bass complete the instrumental picture, with a triumvirate of female backing singers adding melodic elasticity throughout.
And over, around and above it all, there's that satin-smooth voice - confident, authoritative, and almost faultlessly spotless in tone. There's an economy to Kassé Mady's delivery - he doesn't hit extremes, even when declamatory is called for. It's all delivered with restraint, a difficult trick to pull off without sounding bland, but something he’s been doing with consummate brilliance since the 1970s.
Highlights include the rolling, sensual opener Bandja, the sparse, percussion-led Allah Doundé and the slow, unfolding Nankoumandjian, which features Toumani Diabaté on kora.
The only bum note is the ill-advised attempt to add 'modern' flourishes of jazzed up electric guitar and watery Hammond organ, although the only number that gets completely submerged in those effects is Kaninba. Skip past that track, and these occasional mild instrumental transgressions are forgivable enough.
Indeed, it all adds a certain charm to an album with a pleasingly unfussy, naturalistic feel.
Abdoulaye "Djoss" Diabaté is Kasse Mady's New York-based brother (Banning Eyre describes him as the best African singer operating in the US). Abdoulaye has a similar vocal style to his brother but with a marginally rougher edge and thinner tone, leaving him slightly lower on the goose-pimple raising scale. But we’re talking very high standards here, and when he really lets go the results are similarly clear and true. His vocals are framed by a deft arrangement of acoustic instrumentation (balafon, kora, ringing acoustic guitars and percussion) played by the group of Americans and ex-pat Canadians and West Africans that also comprise much of Fula Flute. And he's aided - and every so often outclassed by - jalimuso Mai Kouyaté, a powerful, strident female singer from Guinea.
With a pleasantly relaxed production, Abdoulaye's voice clear as a bell and Peter Fand rumbling away on bass, these eight evolving, involving acoustic praise songs might be performed by a disparate band of nationalities, but it’s utterly convincing in its evocation of the relaxed musical empathy that is behind the best West African traditional music. And the title-track, an effervescent ten-minute unfolding of the Mande classic Sara, is about as good as anything I've heard out of West Africa this year.

www.fulaflute.net

VARIOUS - African Pearls: Guinea/Mali/Senegal (Syllart)/RAIL BAND - Belle Epoque 3: Diola (Stern's)

Continuing the excellent African Pearls series digging into Ibrama Sylla's Syliphone recordings from the Congo, Guinea, Mali and Senegal. This is the second raft of compilations covering the latter three countries, taking us into the 1970s and a move away from the state-funded infusion of traditional music (although it's still evident) into a more direct attempt to modernise sounds for the popular market.

The Guinea volume is culled from a number of sources, although as the title suggests chiefly the annual “Discotheque” compilations of the 1970s.
The artists featured were still nodding towards the authenticité cultural programme of President Sekou Touré but unafraid to follow US soul music and Nigerian Afrobeat trends with extended organ and electric guitar wig-outs.
This is the sound of boys playing with their new musical toys, although finessed by the seductive sound of punchy horns, ringing guitar and bright soulful vocals. Most of the greats are represented - Bembeya Jazz, Keletigui et Ses Tambourinis, Super Boiro Band, plus the slightly lesser known Horoya Band National, who are the real revelation. They only released one album and a handful of singles, but are represented by five tracks that shimmer and sway with warmth and joy. Warning: there are two or three overlaps with 2007’s excellent Aunthenticité compilation, but that still leaves over twenty songs to serve as a worthy follow up to that album.

Of the three countries, Senegal was the country to hold onto the Cuban influences the longest, but as seen on Musical Effervescence, its artists threw themselves with some sabar-drum slapping gusto into heavily localised idioms. Much of this compilation is the sound of urban Dakar, where we can hear the burgeoning mbalax scene, where Latin rhythms competed with dense, polyrhythmic grooves and wild keyboards, vibrant guitars and strident bursts of brass exemplified best by Super Diamono de Dakar and their impassioned vocalist Omar Pene, plus the various Star and Etoile bands out of which a young Youssou can be heard heralding a new era for Senegalese music. Orchestra Baobab were caught in the cross-fire, their languid, melodic Afro-Cuban here sounding wonderfully familiar and yet almost wilfully anachronistic in this context.
Modern, experimental, uniquely rooted in tradition but pan-continental in its appeal, the music of Mali in the 1970s was characterised by a move away from the polarisation of short, Afro-Latin songs and lengthy traditional praise songs into slow, winding bluesy songs drawing on the best of both approaches. Electric guitarists push the rhythm; saxophones and electric organ wind their way around kit drum; singers declaim, chant, shout; the ever-present horns remain defiantly off-kilter. Regional orchestras started to split, although they're still here in number (Orchestre Regional De Sikasso, Orchestre Regional De Mopti, Orchestre National de Badema) but Les Ambassadeurs and Rail Band have taken centre-stage, as well as the evergreen and long-standing Super Djata Band (some wild and wailing wah-wah guitar from them). Wide-ranging and expressive, this music has remained as vital and fresh-sounding as the day it was made.
This takes us neatly onto the final volume in the Rail Band retrospective that overlaps and follows on from the period covered by the African Pearls series. This takes us through the band’s most fractious days (from 1977 to 1983) where the loss of Mory Kanté and Djelimady Tounkara (although the latter returned to add his lyrical guitar work to much of the music here) affected the overall standard of output of a band with ever-changing personnel. You wouldn’t know it from the judiciously selected tracks here though, all of which show a band of exceptional ability and verve. Sometimes bright and swinging, other times dense and winding, always pushing the boundaries of what's possible and taking in the influences necessary to do that (Afrobeat, jazz, traditional Mande praise songs). True to form for this series, the compilers have given themselves licence to make the odd musical flashback, perhaps to keep the attraction of Salif Keita and Mory Kanté across all three volumes. This shouldn't detract from a consistently impressive vocal supporting cast - in particular, Lanfia Diabaté sounds hard, soulful and full of clarity throughout.
Ironic to think that all this great music from West Africa predated most of the western world’s interest in music from this region. Who will dare take a step into the next era, where Sylla and his like decamped to Paris to record albums that arguably fail to stand the test of time in quite the way these great moments do.

MAMAN BARKA - Introducing (World Music Network)

Maman Barka is a former malam (teacher) from Niger whose remit in the Ministry of Culture is to support and preserve the traditional music of the nomadic tribes of this landlocked desert-dominated nation from the African mid-west. To wit, he has spent six years becoming the only living master of the near-extinct music of the biram, a boat-shaped five-stringed harp formerly used by the Boudouma nomads and fishermen of eastern Niger. Like the provenance of the music, the sound of this sacred instrument is as dry as the desert, yet at times as difficult to pin down as a free-flowing river. Accompanist Oumarou Adamou lays down a heavy polyrhythmic base on douma, calabash or kalangou (talking drum), alongside which Maman Barka drives out an insistent groove punctuated by short runs of rhythm and light melody. Maman Barka is relatively limited vocally, his voice high, all in the head, but occasionally plangent too, and although he's not incapable of impassioned outbursts it's more a conversational and rhythm-riding style than a dominant force. This two-man ensemble really pushes out a funky, hypnotic sound when heard first hand, but the biram doesn’t cut through the air with great flourishes of notes like other African harp-lutes such as the kora, or possess the polyphonic strum of an oud or ngoni. So pulling the subtle, buzzing sound out of and above the percussion must present a bit of a challenge in the recording studio. Etran Finanatawa producer Paul Borg has made a good job of achieving that, bringing the expected clear and snappy feel to this sparse and elusive sound, and with very few overdubs - the occasional echoed backing vocal, tiny shades of what sounds like un-credited acoustic guitar – there is enough rattle and hum to most of this album to provide a fair approximation of a sound that is possibly always going to require the acoustic space afforded by the live set-up to fully appreciate.

www.worldmusic.net/mamane-barka

EL TANBURA - Friends of Bamboute (30iPS)

Three years ago, El Tanbura impressed with their first international release of infectious traditional Egyptian dance music - Between the Desert and the Sea - and this 20th anniversary follow-up is every bit as seductive. The instrumental set-up is simple but effective, comprising the swinging strains of the five-string simsimiyya harp-lute from the band's Port Said origins; the tanbura, a six-stringed lyre that has a lighter, slightly more intricately melodic sound; the occasional tinge of richly harmonic nay flute; and clattering, chattering hand-drum percussion that pulls the rhythm this way and that, aided when applicable by handclaps and qarqaba finger castanets. The vocals, all-male, range from deep, spritual incantations to sprightly call and response chants, all inspired by mystical Suez Sufism and the swaying dance music of the hasish dens frequented by 19th Century Bambutiyya merchants of Port Said.
If you enjoyed the Bedouin Jerry Can Band's 2007 album Coffee Time (on which members of El Tanbura featured) you'll love the likes of Heela Heela and Afra - brisk, irresistibly catchy, but also expertly delivered with a sophisticated inter-marriage of melody and rhythm. There are slower, more mournful (even spiritual) moments such as Noh El Hamam, a love song delivered with great tenderness by band leader Zakaria Ibrahim against the sympathetic intonations of his backing band. And the lurching Badr Arid is an evocative praise song reminiscent of the best downbeat Tuareg desert blues. All good stuff, although El Tanbura tend to shortern their songs for the recording studio. That's understandable - indeed laudable given how this makes the music so accessible to the Western listener - but it's still advisable to catch them in concert when they hit your town, to bear witness to these songs as they unravel to their full unexpurgated brilliance.

ERSATZMUSIKA - Songs Unrecantable (Asphalt Tango)

The second album from Berlin's Russian émigrés takes us further into a dark and atmospheric world where post-Communist languor meets arch bohemian East German cabaret. This intriguing band possesses a contradictory sensibility that holds appeal for rock, indie, folk and 'world' fans alike. Off-kilter waltz rhythms meet deep growling Joy Division bass; plucked acoustic guitar, smoky accordion and harmonica mesh with angular Ribotesque clanking guitar; xylophone and percussion knock out subtle gypsy rhythms whilst piano and cello lend a ghostly chamber mood.
Vocalist Irina Doubrovskaja has been described as melancholic, such is the nature of the accordionist's deadpan, part Marlene Dietrich, part Nico delivery (the spirit of Velvet Underground is rarely far from the surface). But there's a dry, wry wit too. The (largely) English lyrics - whilst lacking dexterity - possess an endearing mix of callow Hippy platitudes, a naïve idealism and hints of post-modern absurdism (the band's debut album, Voice Letter, was all in Russian, so this move seems to be a marked attempt to broaden their appeal).
And musically, a nostalgia for the '60s pervades throughout - from those far-out lyrics and the Velvets influence, through a tinge of psychedelia, to a smattering of François Hardy's French yé-yé style on basic, rhythmically unkempt tracks such as '(Psilocybin Panic) It's the Russian Beat'. The off-beat Berceuse is the highlight, a European blues with elongated organ and chopping, chiming guitar figures that wouldn't be out of place on Tom Wait's masterpieces of downbeat Euro-centric Americana Blood Money and Alice.
Knowingly ingenuous, melodically off-key, nostalgically modern, sophisticated and yet always looking at the world through the eyes of innocents; Songs Unrecantable is both a yearning for the past sureties of behind-the-Iron-Curtain mundanity and a reflection of modern-day freedoms and fears. A balancing act pulled off with some aplomb.

RETURN TO GOREE DVD (Axiom Films)

Swiss film-maker Pierre-Yves Borgeaud's documentary follows Youssou N'Dour's journey gathering together a group of jazz musicians for a re-interpretation of his songs for a concert on the former slave transit centre off the coast of Senegal, and it's as modest and human a film as the approach to the project of the Senegalese singer himself. There's an affecting layered approach to the narrative with local cultural touches being interleaved with shots of rehearsals and live performances as the repertoire (chiefly comprising established N'Dour songs) is moulded and rearranged for a jazz setting. We are taken first to the island itself and a brief conversation between Youssou and charismatic Gorée museum curator Boubacar Joseph NDiaye about the historical and musical links between Africa and the Americas, and then onwards through Atlanta, New Orleans, New York, Luxembourg and the Senegalese capital Dakar as the various ensemble members are accumulated for the final concert performance on Gorée Island. Musical similarities are investigated (such as the link between West African Assiko rhythms and those of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans) but not over emphasised, and there are some touching 'over the shoulder' glimpses of cultural divides - Atlanta gospel singers who are tasked with toning down mentions of God in their song, and the sudden nervousness of a previously confident New York vocalist Pyeng Threadgill when she is asked for an impromptu off-stage song by a Senegalese girl being two of the more charming vignettes of a gathering of culturally disparate but musically empathetic group of artists. Moncef Genoud is the relatively unsung hero of the film, and of the project as a whole. It was the Swiss pianist of Tunisian birth who ten years ago identified the possibilities available through marrying Youssou's open mbalax style with the similarly loose-structured jazz format, and whose musical sympathies lie most comfortably with the musicians the two men subsequently garner together. A match made in ersatz jazz supper-club hell? It has to be said that not all of it works for the non-jazz enthusiast, but Genoud has a finely tuned ear for identifying musicians that have an African feel to their playing and for giving ample space to all components of an ensemble and his spacious, light-touch arrangements also bring out the soulful side of N'Dour's singing so there is still much left to admire. Naturally, there's a more serious thread running through the narrative, that of the effect of the three-centuries old slave trade on African-American consciousness and what Youssou describes as the loss of demographic equilibrium that has since resulted in stunted development in many parts of Africa. NDiaye and New York writer Amiri Baraka (formerly Le Roi Jones) and others give more visceral, angry vent to those topics, but overall the impression one is left with is a mood of optimism and hope as black America and the Western world as a whole responds to the initiatives of influential Africans such as Youssou N'Dour.There's a bonus DVD which includes extended interviews with many key protaganists as well as the concert performance, which comprises one part straight modern jazz tunes to two-parts re-worked Youssou songs (Fital and Diabaram in particular are impressively reincarnated as jazz numbers), which at 50 minutes in length makes for a pleasant, undemanding diversion down one of the great man's many musical avenues.

www.axiomfilms.co.uk

BA CISSOKO - Séno (Stern's)

From electric griots to eclectic griots; for their third album, the Guinean electro-kora quartet have further pared back the wah-wah kora and beefburger guitar that was the ensemble's initial USP, refining the pop sensibility that crept into Séno's predecessor Electric Griot Land by taking in Latin influences, adding more of the lilting reggae heard on their second album and combining all that with some traditional (but self-penned) rolling Mandé rhythms. But fear not, wah-wah lovers, Ba Cissoko still push the electric envelope at times. On Badinia, Abdoulaye Kouyaté's guitar buzzes away as Sékou Kouyaté’s plugged in kora does its echoing, fed-back bit. And the funky electric guitar that leads feathery flurries of kora on Tamo and Music will please fans of the band's debut album.
There's a lot more going on elsewhere, intertwining kora melodies bubble in and out of syncopated rhythms, subtle - almost Americana-style acoustic guitar - is added to the mix in places, and a touch of flamenco guitar seeps through on tracks such as the funky Chauffeur Taxi.
It all makes for a consistently engaging and varied set, but the most pleasing development of all is the improvement in Ba Cissoko's vocals. One drawback of the previous two Ba Cissoko was in Ba's occasional inability to stretch his relaxed but limited range to meet the more polished and mellifluous arrangements. There are more of those than ever on Séno, but Cissoko's voice is much stronger and flexible too, and therefore better able to cope with the tunes. He's smooth and sure when he needs to be, and helped by a slight echo effect at times when more atmosphere is called for, all of wich enhances a much more nuanced and melodically strong collection of songs than previously.
Overall then, there's a lighter, tighter feel to this third offering from the cousins from Conakry, they're less reliant on guest appearances on an album that benefits from a more sinewy, melodic sound, with a growing tendency towards more wholly 'traditional' tunes. There's a sense that the electricity is gradually being turned down on each successive Ba Cissoko album, but there's a new spark there, one of refined song craft and a wider range of musical possibilities.

www.sternsmusic.com

FULA FLUTE - Mansa America (Completely Nuts Records)

We've heard plenty of reggae, soul, hip-hop and rock artists from all parts of the world singing the praises of Barack Obama in recent months, but Fula Flute do it in proper West African praise-song style, and the stirring Mandé tune Obama opens this consistently excellent second album from the group of North Americans and West Africans. The luminescent Abdoulaye Diabaté - a US-resident Malian singer who can hold his own against any from his native continent - extols the virtues of the new President over a swaying latticework of kora, ngoni, balafon and the breathy, raw sound of Bailo Bah's tambin flute. Fashioned from a conical vine, the instrument has a tremulous, imperfect quality that gives depth to the dozen tunes on Mansa America. Bah sings too, his voice a lighter, airier complement to Diabaté's, and at times a squealing adjunct to the wilder flute forays.
There's a seductive, pulsing rhythm throughout, with French-Canadian member Sylvain Feroux (also flute and vocals) and American Peter Fand (bass, bolon harp) as integral a part of the groove as the West Africans, a credit to the gratifying thread of natural musical empathy that runs through the collection - no attempt to bolt styles together here, this is straight down the line traditional Malian/Guinean fare all the way. With occasional added colour from a small horn section and guest ngoni player Cheikh Hamala Diabaté, Mansa America holds the attention exquisitely from first to last.

www.fulaflute.net

DABY TOURE and SKIP McDONALD - Call My Name (Real World)/SO KALMERY - Brakka System (World Village)

Despite a keen ear for a hook and an enviably wide-ranging instrumental ability, a criticism of Daby Touré in the past has been his tendency to smooth out his catchy tunes with generic singer-songwriter sheen. So hope was raised by recent reports of a more spiky side to the Mauritanian when he teamed up in concert with Skip McDonald, the gruff-voiced Little Axe man from Ohio. Add to that the presence of McDonald's On-U Sound-mate Keith LeBlanc on drums, and with Call My Name we're surely in for a six-song EP of bleeding-edge blues with a finely wrought West African melodic sensibility, right? Not quite, unfortunately. There's some good, grungy chuntering blues guitar here and there, Skip's sandpaper vocals contrasting well at times with Daby's smooth, woody timbre. But there are no real edges here; too much of the music has been smoothed out into a not-quite-blues that verges on the less interesting electric side of Touré's blander album fare. There can be no complaints about a lack of tunes - Touré probably reads the telephone directory at perfect pitch, and McDonald is a guitarist with a fine feel for whichever mood is required. But that mood is too often one of safety-first. The final, funky track Riddem offers the best clue as to the chance missed, a chunky blues that finds Daby much deeper in tone and LeBlanc hammering away for all he's worth. Next time, take these guys out of Realworld and into the other world of LeBlanc and McDonald's Tackhead dubscapes and we might have something worth talking about. Good, but could have been much better.

www.realworldrecords.com

Daby Touré guests as bass player on the irresistible sing-along Calling, the closing track on So Kalmery's latest album titled after the urban dance style he practises. The former Papa Wemba guitarist is originally from the Congo, but there's nothing of that country's chiming soukous sound here, and in many ways the first few tracks arguably deliver what the Touré/McDonald combination promises - a straight out of the blocks blues-soul groove based on electric guitar and a tough percussive drive. Hey! Mama Liza has big, funky electric guitar lines, tough beats with a rhythmic similarity to New Orleans second-line strut, and a storming blues-rock hook. The next track Regea maintains the appeal, with soulful female backing harmonies adding variance to Kalmery's forceful vocal. The party fun continues in this vein pretty well all the way through, albeit the appeal of what is a relatively limited form takes its toll over a whole album (some rather tacky English-language lyrics don't help matters).The only exception is Kamitik Soul, which finds So Kalmery playing (quite beautifully) an oud backed by guimbri (Gnawa acoustic bass) and an Arabic backing vocal. A fascinating diversion on an interesting, upbeat set of urban dance songs.

Distributed in the UK by Harmonia Mundi www.harmoniamundi.com

HANGGAI/MAMER – Union Chapel, Saturday 16th May 2009

An absorbing evening of Chinese music with central Asian folk origins in London’s delightful Union Chapel to close The Barbican’s intriguing Beyond The Wall programme of new Chinese music. Headliners of an evening billed as ‘Voices from the Grasslands’ were Beijing-based ensemble Hanggai, who perform traditional Inner Mongolian music that is as evocative of its provenance as, say, the camel-gait drive of desert blues Tuareg bands. In Hanggai’s case, it’s in the form of verdant ballads and galloping up-tempo songs that propel towards the audience in waves of internal rhythm and overlapping overtone singing. The band released an intriguing album under the World Music Network Introducing imprint last year, allying their rustic sound with modern instrumentation and production effects. But for this performance we got the six-piece alone, and stripped of its studio sheen the music was far more earthily engaging and energetic. All-seated, dressed in traditional garb, with the imposing but gentle-natured Ilchi sat centre-stage – his side-shaved hairstyle perhaps a remnant of his punk days – they drive out rolling country songs for a Central Asian hoe down performed on morin khuur (a box horse-hair fiddle sawed away at with energy by rasping overtone throat singer Hugejiltu), tobshuur (a strummed two-string lute), acoustic guitar and drums. At one point the ever-playful Ilchi performed a slightly gauche Mongolian dance, but he can be serious too, when performing the ballads that punctuate proceedings. Hugejiltu’s morin khuur is beautifully expressive and mournful on these, the sharp, plangent notes making full use of this snug venue’s natural acoustics. Earlier, Mamer – an ethnic Kazakh from Xinjiang in the west of China - warmed the audience with his reflective rural balladry. He once had a brief flirtation with world music fame with his group IZ when he drew the attention of DJ Andy Kershaw, and his new solo CD, the accomplished Eagle, continues their folk feel, featuring acoustic guitar and dombra, a traditional Kazakh lute with two strings that possesses a pleasing earthy whine when strummed. His Union Chapel performance featured just one song featuring dombra alone – or rather, Mamer in a duet with colleague Ibrahim on a wonderful bucolic folksy romp that was all too brief in its thrilling cross-play. The rest of the time Mamer – seated, taciturn, almost hiding his boyish visage hiding under a beige cap – was backed by electric guitar, bass and drums, with many of the songs starting with taped atmospheric backing and building on wailing guitar, bass and kit drum over his deep, undulating voice, jangling guitar and jaw’s harp, the highlight of which was Blackbird, one of those songs with a the kind of nagging melody that the audience takes with it into the post-gig night.

MALAM MAMAN BARKA

One of the ironies of the increased urbanisation of the developing world is the tendency for such movement to trigger the urge in some of those who have departed to re-evaluate, revive and consequently preserve the localised traditions and arts of their former communities.

Malam Mamane Barka is one such example. He's a Toubou by birth, from one of the semi-nomadic livestock-raising tribes that are scattered throughout the eighty percent of desert that makes up the landlocked West African nation of Niger. He moved to the country's capital Niamey to study (the first Toubou to receive a formal education), and his mission now is to draw our attention the sound of the biram, a five-stringed boat-shaped harp-lute originally played by the Boudouma people of eastern Niger. “It is shaped like a boat because it was a fisherman's instrument,” explains Mamane, “the Boudouma live near Lake Chad, and I heard this sacred music being played in a Boudouma village, but learnt that it was becoming extinct. I felt it was my job to keep the tradition going for the people of that region, and for my country.” Mamane is talking literally here, because his subsequent three-year devotion to becoming the sole living master of the biram is congruent with the aims of his day job working at the Ministry of Culture in Niamey. “I work for le Centre de Formation et de Promotion Musicale (CFPM), working to preserve all the traditional music of Niger - it's of the utmost importance as the population moves more and more into the city, because this music tells our story, where we come from. The sound of the biram reflects its geographical provenance, possessing the parched, dusty tone of western African instruments such as the ngoni allied to the melodic possibilities and insistent drive of instruments like the Egyptian simsimiyya. It’s a funky and urgent sound, backed by traditional Nigerian percussion (a rhythmic enhancement to the original practice of tapping away at the 'prow' end of the instrument) with a charming spontaneity to the performance as Mamane's rich, penetrating voice calls and responds with percussionist Omar Adamou. There's a spare, relatively dry spirit to the music, but it has an absorbing, hypnotic effect on the listener. Prior to his work with the biram, Mamane played a long-necked two-stringed lute called a gurumi, an instrument that he started playing in 1978 when aged sixteen, at around the time he became a primary school teacher (‘Malam’ means teacher in the Hausa language). “When I finished my studying I immediately became a primary school teacher. We were obligated because not many teachers in the ‘70s were from Niger; they mainly came from Benin and Togo. The President said ‘enough, we must get our own teachers, all young men now in college must become teachers'. But I always wanted to be a musician too, and I saw a guy called Warsou playing the gurumi in a place called Kaouboul. He played so well I asked him to teach me. "I began by singing traditional songs," he continues, "and recorded two albums of traditional music. Then I began composing, mainly love songs and political songs. By political I mean that I write only to tell people what I see, what everyone sees, observing rather than criticising.” These albums of earthy, gnawa-like gurumi music are cassette-only releases and difficult to source outside of Niger (although if you googling 'Malam Mamane Barka + Guidan Haya' you may have some success at finding online extracts), however Mamane and Omar have recently recorded an album of biram music for World Music Network's admirable Introducing series, which is due for general release in Spring 2009. With Etran Finatawa producer Paul Borg at the helm, it promises to be one of the more exciting debuts of the coming year. Meanwhile Mamane continues his role as civil servant, musician, teacher (he has a half a dozen or so biram students in Niamey) and broadcaster, presenting a regular weekday three-hour slot called “Bonjour le Niger". “It's a private radio show, it's not run by the Government. Each day I will do animations [entertainment], and play as much of the music that's found throughout Niger as I can, as well as telling the city people what's going on elsewhere. My grandparents still live in the desert so I still have a connection there, but these days the desert is not like it was before, it has changed because nomads are not there so much, they spend two to three days in the desert, then they come to the village, for schooling for their children, and for healthcare. I would never criticise that, because I have succeeded by coming to the city. But I hope that, like me, people who do move keep their heart in the culture that made them what they are.”

BAKA BEYOND - Beyond the Forest (March Hare)

For the past seventeen years Su Hart and Martin Cradick have been quietly and assiduously building a collection of recordings based around the Baka tribes of the Cameroonian rainforest. Albums such as Beyond the Forest could probably only have been made through this kind of long-term approach, with the husband-and-wife team from the UK gradually getting to know the Baka people to the point that the Cameroonian forest dwellers are willing to see their indigenous music bent and shaped in these sonically inventive ways. The subject this time is a handful of Baka women who sing ritual "yelli" yodelling songs, which were field-recorded on 8-track tapes then manipulated in the UK. The result: a musical collage of Baka Beyondisms and traditional fare. Instruments such as the ndong (single string bamboo flute), iloung (thumb piano) and ngombi (harp lute) mix with guitar, flute, bass, echoed keyboards effects around the lush, rough harmonies of the Baka women. Deep, undulating yodels, almost ghostly at times, interweave around subtle, almost reggae-lite, grooves with the trademark Baka Beyond admixture of Gaelic folk (Su sings on a couple of tracks, and Uillean pipes make their melodic mark). Think Raincoats when they discovered world music, with a dash of Celtic soul for good measure - occasionally a bit too New Agey perhaps, but on the whole engaging stuff.

Baka Beyond are touring this fascinating fusion in May, and are rather admirably also releasing the unadorned yelli recordings around the same time.

Meantime, as ever proceeds will go towards the collective's Baka preservation charity. A good cause supported by some good music.

GANGBE BRASS BAND - Assiko (Contre Jour)

Benin's brass band blow up another storm with their latest tight and funky album. An exuberant combination of colonial military brass music and West African juju and assiko rhythms, Gangbé Brass Band manage to sound a whole lot better than their description looks on paper. Marrying joyously bright horns and syncopated rhythms - held down by a raunchy tuba bass beat - the spirit of this music is geared for dancing not marching.

It's a sound that could tend to sameness, yet sufficient influences abound to keep it all bubbling along, from vibrant trumpet lines that are reminiscent of the '70s Afro-Caribbean disco sound of Osibisa, through dramatic film-score flourishes (the excellent Sofada) to improvised syncopated beats that underlie soaring European folk melodies.
And although Assiko is largely instrumental, there's plenty of rousing call-and-response vocalising to infuse it all with a social, almost spiritual, feel.

It all comes together most agreeably on Un étè à Vodelée, which possesses a touch of Caribbean sunshine, some hard and heavy West African percussion, storming horn bridges and the merest hint of a mambo beat, all topped off with French (or French Antilles)-style accordion wheezing in and out of the gaps.
Upbeat, melodic, vibrantly rhythmic stuff.

CHANGO SPASIUK - Pynandi : Los Descalzos (World Village)

The versatile accordionist from Argentina delivers his most alluring set of chamamé tunes yet.

If we count The Charm of Chamamé -- the compilation album that sparked broad interest in Chango's bucolic North-East Argentine folk music -- as his nominal debut, this latest release represents the point at which the world music third album itch syndrome often sets in, when fickle listeners such as yours truly keep our date with the artist only to find ourselves casting furtive glances at the alluring new genre across the other side of the room. Not this time with Pyandi -- Los Descalzos, his most well-rounded work yet and a further step closer to a recorded reflection of one of the best live ensembles currently operating on the scene. Chango is still at the centre of things with his inventive musicianship, contrastingly swooning, lyrical, jaunty or attacking with fiery bellowing bursts of energy. But he's as often as not in ringmaster mode, a constant presence but holding equal billing with his fellow musicians (violin, cello, acoustic guitar, cajon, and some beautiful plaintive vocal excursions by Sebastián Villalba), who waltz around him on a suite of arrangements subtly imbued with reflective jazz and classical tones, and often reminiscent of the java/musette café; music of Paris, a well as the more familiar strains of tango, ranchero and polka that blend so seamlessly with the rusticity of chamamé.

These guys can paint pictures and moods with music like no other ensemble around right now, and -- like its predecessor, Tarefero De Mis Pagos -- Pyandi -- Los Descalzos is a real grower, and one of those rare albums that just has to be played from start to finish.

GORAN BREGOVIC - Alkohol (Mercury)

There's no letting up for the Serbo-Croat superstar as he gathers his Wedding and Funeral Band for a mighty blast of Romany polyphony.
Although Bregovic came to fame in world music circles many years ago with film scores such as the powerful soundtrack the Emir Kusturica movie 'Time of the Gypsies', it's only latterly that his name has truly broken through via his contribution to the Borat soundtrack and his ensemble's fine (if largely ignored in the UK) folky wig-out at Eurovision 2008.

Recorded live in and around the Serbian capital Belgrade, Alkohol is a raucous, light-hearted party album and tribute to the drinking exploits of Goran's father. And it promises to consolidate Brogovic's profile even further.
The controversy around the Kusturica soundtrack -- and much of Goran's approach to the appropriation and reworking of traditional Roma music -- is unlikely to go away anytime soon, but whether authentic and original or not it's difficult to resist the tough, rumpety-pumping horns, crackling snare drum and call and response between Goran and Alen Ademovic and their whooping, wailing female backing vocalists.

Streets are Drunk has the Borat feel, its inebriated catchiness marked by a wild trumpet that sways in and out of the rest of the brass over a bouncy bouncy fun fun fun tigger-rhythm. Great fun. Tis Agapis Sou To Risko will appeal to fans of Berlin brass-meisters 17 Hippies, a rollicking beer-hall sing-along the lurches in and out of about three disparate jaunty rhythms.

Paradehtika rattles along to a 12/8 signature, driven by female vocalists Ljudmila Ratkova and Daniela Ratkova manic chants, and Gas Gas Gas is another highlight, with chugging acoustic guitars and guest German producer/DJ Shantel's subtle programmed beat bringing a slightly less organic approach than the rest of the album.

Love him or hate him, Goran Bregovic does bring great appeal and popularisation to this funky, honking Balkan gyspy genre (Romania's Fanfare Ciocarlia or Kocani Orkestar from Macedonia might be the next stop for those new to this stuff) and so long as he makes it so irresistibly attractive (while acknowledging the source where applicable) what's not to like?

KAL - Radio Romanista (Asphalt Tango)

They call it Rock and Roma - a frenetic gypsy-rock that recreates the energy of Kal's popular live performances in their native Serbia.
The eponymous 2006 debut by the band was a sprawling, organic affair, recorded in band leader Dragan Ristic's home studio with a shifting array of guest artists and taking in elements from Balkan gypsy to German cabaret music. The turbo-charged follow-up is built from the same template of violins, wild swooning clarinet, brass and accordion, but the band is tighter - in numbers (although there are numerous guest vocalists), style and approach. Tough rock-star vocals and relentlessly rocking squared-off beats lend an urban, strident edge to what is a less subtle collection of songs, betraying the agit-prop influence of the Clash and the manic, uptempo side of Manu Chao. The French/Spanish troubadour's influence is all over the part-English I'm Gypsy, an in your face defiant fight for Roma recognition. Romozon rocks out too, as does the title track, which contains a vibrant klezmer thread throughout, and the hard-nosed rhythmic attack becomes almost oppressive on tracks such as Pour Enfants et Personnes Sensibles and Oh Ma Cherie. There are softer moments though - Laj Laj rides a nice bumping beat with mournful textures provided by tuba and violin; Madame Boucxereaux is a French cabaret style diversion; and Luna closes the album with raunchy female vocal, accordion and acoustic guitar.

Radio Romanista is tight, taut and hard-edged. It rocks more than its predecessor, and thus if it's to break the world music market outside Eastern Europe, it will probably be as a slightly folkier Gogol Bordello. If you like Manu when he's plugged in and revved up, and Gogol when they let their roots show, this could be for you.

African Soul Rebels - The Anvil, Basingstoke 12th March 2009

Spring has sprung and so once again a young (oh alright then, middle-aged) world music fan's fancy turns to the theoretically incongruous but in practice pretty successful agglomeration of disparate artists that make up the African Soul Rebels concept. This is the fifth year running for the brand that was presumably named for the initial triumvirate of artists billed in 2005 when soulful rappers Daara J (whatever happened to them?) were sandwiched between genuine former gun-toting desert blues rebels Tinariwen and faux rebellion of the leather-trousered variety in Algeria's Rachid Taha. Since then, despite featuring big West African hitters such as Salif Keita, Amadou and Mariam, and Femi Kuti, there has been a feeling of diminishing returns about the impact of the set-up. On paper the line-up doubts resurfaced again this year, especially as the recent UK performances of the best know artist, Senegalese singer-songwriter Baaba Maal, were full of eye-catching Lion King antics visually but had a going-through-the-motions air about them musically. Opening act Extra Golden compounded the fears, with a US-Kenyan blues-rock mix that was more barroom than benga. What melody existed tended to be drowned out by the four-square thump of drums and unimaginative indie electric guitar riffing. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps (but not in retrospect, as will become apparent) Baaba Maal was second on the bill, and the contrast could not have been greater. Here was the soul we'd been promised, Baaba in acoustic mode for this tour and sounding sure and strong. Opening with a couple of ballads, then ratcheting up the energy, he promised an African dance party and that was duly delivered with aplomb during a perfectly-paced hour-long set. As soon as Oliver Mtukudzi appeared onstage to jig along with Baaba, it was clear that the line-up order had been set with good reason, and from the moment the veteran Zimbabwean and his band kicked off the sizeable Zimbabwean community that had turned out to see their hero were up shimmying and singing along to every word. Tuku's sunny electro-jit - featuring guitar, marimba, mbira and rumbling bass alongside two syncopated percussionists - can at times be a too-smooth mix on CD, but it all comes together in a sinuous, dance-friendly fashion in concert, Mtukudzi's rough sandpapery vocals dovetailing with sweet female harmonies and his light, undulating lead guitar lines. Approaching sixty tears of age, Tuku is almost ancient by the standards of his native country, blighted as it is by the actions of the tosspot despot Robert Mugabe. And he certainly cuts a skeletal (if encouragingly energetic) figure as he shivers and shakes across the stage. There's no "chimurenga" about this music, no rebellion from a man who has chosen to remain in Africa, just pure, subtly persuasive pop music. And with that, he might just have produced the most consummate set yet of the fifteen that have now appeared under the African Soul Rebel banner.

OUMOU SANGARE - Seya (World Circuit)

The briefest of percussive rattles kicks off Sounsoumba, giving way to a buzzing balafon ripple supported by the merest shiver of shaker. The band kicks into a dense, bubbling groove as the crack of kit drum heralds a flute that drifts in and out of light, sensuous female harmonies. And then it arrives, that golden, commanding voice confidently moving through the intricately woven instruments, at times a stylish bantering response to the call of the backing singers, at others graceful, almost haughty in the way it glides over shifting rhythms.
Yes, Oumou Sangare's back at last, with her first new international release this century. She’s still not shy of tackling heavy subjects alongside the usual Malian tributes and tales (Sounsoumba calls for more respect for women, the high-tempo Wele Wele Wintou rocks against forced marriages) and still framing those themes in a rich, intense layering of sound (an organic yet markedly contemporary setting realised with unerring clarity by production/arrangement team Nick Gold and Cheikh Tidiane Seck).
Some tracks are delivered in a straight group configuration, whilst containing flavors of Oumou’s Wassoulou roots. The title-track is driven by kit drum and horns, but leaves plenty of space for the entwined acoustic chatter of bolon and ngoni. Elsewhere there are hints of jazziness, notably on Kounadya, where silky backing vocals and Seck's flighty Hammond organ fills rub along agreeably with guest Zoumana Tereta’s earthy soku fiddle and one of Sangare’s more soulful, teasing deliveries.
That track is one of a handful that feature the incongruous sound of a slightly screechy electric guitar buried almost apologetically in the mix. A welcome new element for some maybe, but to this listener it runs against the melodic grain. It’s employed sparingly enough not to spoil matters, and far more in keeping is the cleaner, bluesy electric guitar line and plugged ngoni on Donso, which - with its use of male backing vocalists and a part-talking, part-singing lead vocal delivery - is the most ambitious track on the album. Mogo Kele is the best example of the sparser numbers, a dusty kamele n’goni, acoustic guitar and percussion the only ornamentation required. But Iyo Djeli is where it all comes together most satisfyingly. An undulating Manding rhythm (the Iyo Djeli roll?) is laid out on a bed of strings, the female backing singers a playful counterpoint to Oumou's sonorous, echoing vocal. A punchy horn section (shades of Toumani's Symmetric Orchestra) and ringing plucked guitar are added as the song resolves in a luxurious, swaying instrumental finish; pitch-perfect with everything in the right place.
So, there it is: Oumou’s bravura return, the Songbird of Wassoulou as imperious to behold as ever as she stands proudly above all competition.

World Circuit

LINDIGO - Lafrikindmada (Lindigo Music/Cobalt)

Lindigo are from La Réunion and play a heavily rhythmic maloya that makes more that a passing reference to the Creole styles of the island and its neighbour Madagascar. A simple template of call and response chants set against high tempo, very bassy percussion leaves this listener wishing he could understand Malagasy in order to be able to better appreciate the differences between the first five in-yer-face tracks (lead singer Olivier Araste has lungs as powerful as any I’ve heard from this region). Thereafter, the rhythmic attack is punctuated by a number of more subtle tunes that blend a goodly selection of Indian Ocean instrumentation to ear-catching effect. Accordion, kabosy (Madagascan box guitar), harmonica, some subtler percussion and the gritty blues vocals of Lauriane Marceline all add welcome variety to the mix, all of which is bewitching enough to have me resolving to seek out the ensemble’s first two releases.

Myspace

I Sowed Pearls: Hungarian World Music 1972-2006

A hugely informative and impressively packaged compilation of Hungarian folk, roots and ethno-Jazz music put together by composer, musician and all-round champion of everything Carpathian, Ferenc Kiss. It's on his Etnofon label through Hangveto, and available on Amazon and Passion. CD One is centred around the táncház (dance house) music that originated in Transylvania in the early '70s, and features amongst others the wonderfully rich, melodic sound of Muszikas featuring Marta Sebestyén (who some will remember as one of the East European hits from the early days of the "world music" boom) and a great track featuring Sebian violinist Félix Lajkó. There's much great work from early purveyors of the Hungarian Balkan/folk music explosion (or renaissance) of the '70s and '80s on this first CD - violins, cimbaloms, accordions and sweet vocals a-plenty. All good stuff. CD Two covers those artists who "used folk as point of departure", as the excellent sleeve notes tell us, marked by the appearance of Kolinda and Makam on the scene, experimental groups that mixed in jazz, rock and Slav styles with traditional sounds (not always to my particular taste, it has to be said). Often verging on the experimental, I guess a lot of this might be called folk-rock, ie rock in arrangement, tightness and energy rather than instrumentation, the music still being played on acoustic/traditional instruments. Kiss himself comes to the fore as an excellent arranger and multi-instrumentalist, and we hear an early appearance of legendary cimbalom maestro Kálmán Balogh on Ferenc's inventive Euro-Argentine clash Kés és kereszt tango. This volume is just about more hit than miss for me, certainly well worth investigating, because where it's good it's very good. Where it's bad.... well, it's '80s European folk-rock bad. CD Three is the best of the four volumes: called "From Rivulet to Ocean", it covers the music of minority groups in Hungary, which of course includes the Roma - Besh o droM (I think they're gypsy: certainly Balkan anyway), Andro Drom (featuring a track - Csi Lav Tu - that has the best vocal I've ever heard from a pre-squeaky, almost Esma-esque Mitsoura), that man Kálmán Balogh again with his Gypsy Cimbalom Band, and many more, including a great band called Söndörgö who were spawned from the veteran Serb-Croat troupe Vujjicsics (or "pronounced voy-chitch", as I've always known them). I'm delighted to see the latter are still putting across their great music as well as ever, their track here probably the best on the whole collection, an extraordinarily plaintive instrumental tune of farewell introduced to their repertoire during the mid-'90s as the ex-Yugoslav republic tore itself apart. With some decent klezmer tracks thrown in for good measure (including the ubiquitous Ferenc Kiss' Odessa Klezmer Band), this third CD is consistently engaging, and you can't help wondering why some of the exceptional bands that are still performing never seem to make it over to the UK to play. CD Four is devoted to Hungarian ethno-jazz music and is called "Fresh and Sparkling". At times it feels more Dense and Challenging to this listener on the earlier tunes, with a heavy leaning towards improvisation and extemporisation - certainly the early movers and shakers like Syrius and Ràkfogo were nothing better than Prog Jazz bands to my ears. Things seemed to start to improve in the mid-'90s as ensembles swung back towards including traditional instruments, and some of the later recordings by the likes of Ferenc Kovacs, that bring violin, double-bass and clarinet back in favour of dull atonal sax and silly keyboard solos, slowly break down defences as the listener gets a handle on the way these musicians are pulling their love of modern jazz together with the táncház music showcased on the first CD. Trust a man like Ferenc Kiss to bring us full circle and open out new avenues of musical interest in such an arresting way. A challenging fourth CD, but one that's beginning to bring its rewards.

Highly recommended.

JAYME STONE & MANSA SISSOKO - Africa to Appalachia (own label)

Another addition to the recent plethora of projects exploring the common ground between the banjo and the stringed instruments of West Africa. It's a deftly arranged collaboration of seemingly effortless ease between Canadian banjo-player Jayme Stone and Quebec-based Malian griot Mansa Sissoko. There’s a gratifying sense of balance between the two main instruments, Sissoko's disciplined yet always melodically satisfying kora playing is never over-ostentatious, and the generous use of space allows Stone to fill these crisply arranged songs with grainy touches of old Appalachia.
The duo have subtly re-worked a set of traditional songs (one exception being the Stone-composed Dakar which features some vivacious rootsy acoustic guitar picking from Grant Gordy), Mansa sharing his sinewy vocals with another Canada-based singer, griotte Katenen Dioubaté (yet another gloriously full-throated female Guinean singer). There also support from a fine cast of guitarists, percussionists and ngoni master Bassekou Kouyaté – evocatively sprinkling his standard issue scratchy but melodic fairy dust over the album - as well as American fiddler Casey Driessen and trumpeter David Travers-Smith, who respectively add rustic C&W lustre and brassy colour to a confidently delivered, finely judged album with no boundary-crossing joins showing.

Jayme Stone website

MALICK PATHE SOW - Maayo Men (Muziekpublique)

This is an album of all-acoustic Senegalese music by the hoddu (lute) playing Fula and former member of Baaba Maal's Dande Lenol band. There's some clue to that rocking past on the upbeat mbalax of Abdou Aziz Daabax, although the rest of the album is more nuanced, a nicely varied mix of straightforward modern acoustic ballads and mid-tempo tunes in the mould of Daby Touré. There's a more traditional approach to Malick, though, one that utilises hoddu, kora, acoustic guitar, njarka violin, some good wholesome vocals and the influence of the rolling groove of Manding music from neighbouring Mali. Other highlights on an album full of seductive melodies and top-class musicianship are Malick’s intricate acoustic guitar work on the jaunty opener Jeeri Bona and when alone accompanying himself on the hoddu on Sama. Kora player Bao lights up three contributions, and percussionist Octave maintains metronomic coherence throughout on what is a very catchy, agreeably arranged set of tunes. All that's really missing is a decent package to put it in. What looks like an admirable attempt to use recycled cardboard for the CD sleeve proves to be counter-productive as regular handling leads to the need for an environmentally unfriendly plastic replacement. There must be a green middle ground!

Muziek Publique

ABLAYE CISSOKO & VOLKER GOETZE - Sira (ObliqSound)

German film-maker and trumpeter Volker Goetze brings a plaintive, understated tone to what is already a serene delivery by Senegalese griot Ablaye Cissoko on their collaboration, Sira. Cissoko's feather-light touch on the kora is matched by his own high, almost falsetto voice, and the considered approach to his art can tend to lead to his solo work feeling one-paced and in danger of floating away on its fragile, airy arrangements. On Sira, Goetze (who is also producer) pulls the dry, reflective side of the tunes back down earth by working his cool, jazz-tinged trumpet tones between the kora notes, or echoing Cissoko's mellifluous phrases with an assured articulacy that brings welcome added depth to the tender, gossamer-thin arrangements. It all makes for a pleasant, undemanding listen (only one track, Faro, sees Cissoko break into some robust improvisation) which won't have you rocking – or even swaying in time for that matter – but might just creep up and help calm the nerves at the end of a strenuous working day.

Obliqsound

CESARIA EVORA - Radio Mindelo (Tumbao)

This well-presented record of the Barefoot Diva's earliest recordings offers a fascinating taste of the early development of Cape Verde's most celebrated singer. Still only in her early 20s when she recorded this series of songs for Radio Barlavento in her home town of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente, Cesaria had already been singing for half a dozen years or so, and there's already a confidence to her delivery, the maturity already evident in the way she holds the long, mournful notes or playfully dances over the lighter rhythms. The recording quality is reasonable if slightly muted in places, these recordings originally having been made live to reel-to-reel tape in front of a single microphone. Known as Cize at the time (the title of one of the highlights of the collection), Cesaria's repertoire is split between the uptempo "coladeiras" that were popular in this era (the early 60s), and what was considered a more old-fashioned style - morna - with which she became world famous.
No details remain of the exact dates of the recordings, and the musicians on the songs remain largely anonymous (only scant contemporaneous details were kept), but the instrumental template is familiar enough - simple light percussion, guitar (usually acoustic) and Evora's rich, assured vocal the main elements in these twenty-two short, timeless numbers (about half of which were written by the legendary Ti Goy).
Terezinha is the highlight, it was Cesaria's first big hit, an uptempo Latino dance number with a catchy mambo rhythm, light electric guitar and a beguiling, playful chatty vocal from Cize. Other tracks are more redolent of the singer's later shifting midtempo music, as well as the more downbeat, sodade-sodden stuff that have become such an indelible part of the musical landscape.
It's all delivered in a nicely packaged CD (with early pictures of an an unmistakeable cherubic Cesaria, young, pretty and relaxed) and with enough musical heft and variety to appeal to fans of the singer's later work. A successful recording career soon followed these radio performances, and it's not difficult to see why when you hear this charming folk-rooted music and the friendly, soulful tone with which it is being delivered.

The Roll Call For 2008

Dec 29: Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (70); trumpeter and bandleader; 'Empyrean Isles' (Herbie Hancock); Indianapolis USA
Dec 28: Vincent Ford (68); songwriter; 'No Woman, No Cry';
Dec 27: Delaney Bramlett (69); singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer; 'Comin' Home'; Pontotoc County, Mississippi USA
Dec 25: Eartha Mae Keith (pka Eartha Kitt); singer, actress; 'The Day That the Circus Left Town'; North, South Carolina USA
Dec 23: Clinton Conger Ballard Jnr (77); songwriter; 'You're No Good'; El Paso, Texas USA
Dec 15: David Michael Gordon Graham (68); guitarist, arranger and composer; 'Anji'; Leicester UK
Dec 3: Derek Wadsworth (69); trombonist, composer, conductor and arranger; 'I Only Want to be With You' (Dusty Springfield); Aynho, Northamptonshire UK
Dec 2: Odetta Holmes (77); singer, actress and civil-rights campaigner; 'Jack O'Diamonds'; Birmingham, Alabama USA
Nov 26: Robert John Partridge (60); journalist, public relations executive and band manager; Plymouth, Devon UK
Nov 22: José Antonio ("Nico") Rojas Beoto (87); guitarist, songwriter and hydraulic engineer; 'Suite Cubana Para Guitarra'; Havana Cuba
Nov 21: Luderin Darbone (85); fiddle player, vocalist and bandleader; 'One Step De L'Amour'; Evangeline, Louisiana USA
Nov 17: Guy Peellaert (74); artist, painter, designer and photographer; Brussels Belgium
Nov 13: Wenzell Baird Bryant (80); film-maker (Gimme Shelter) and writer; Columbus, Indiana USA
Nov 12: John "Mitch" Mitchell (61); drummer; 'Purple Haze'; Ealing, Middlesex UK
Nov 10: Gerald Pine (pka Geraldo Pino) (69 )The godfather of Afro funk who was a great influence on Fela - born in Sierra Leone.
Nov 10: Willy Cecile Johannes Van de Velde (pka Wannes Van de Velde) (71); singer, songwriter and poet; Antwerp Belgium
Nov 9: Zenzile Miriam Makeba (76); singer, songwriter and activist; 'The Click Song'; Prospect Township, Johannesburg South Africa
Nov 4: Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee (73); bandleader, bassist, composer, producer, entrepreneur; 'Jamaica Ska'; Christiana, Manchester parish Jamaica
Nov 1: Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo (pka Yma Sumac) (86); singer; Ichocan Peru
Nov 1: James Inkanish Jnr (pka Jimmy Carl Black) (70); drummer, singer and songwriter; 'Big Leg Emma'; El Paso, Texas USA
Oct 29: Mary Ruth Mercer (76); singer and actress; 'Great Googa Mooga'; Battleboro, North Carolina USA
Oct 18: Delia Mae Warrick (pka Dee Dee Warwick) (63); singer; 'We're Doing Fine'; Newark Heights, New Jersey USA
Oct 17: Levi Stubbles (pka Levi Stubbs) (72); singer; 'Reach Out' (Four Tops); Detroit, Michigan USA
Oct 14: Mark Bryant Raymond Lowry (64); cartoonist, designer and painter; Cadishead, Lancashire UK
Oct 11: Ronald Hulme (pka Russ Hamilton) (76); singer and songwriter; 'Rainbow'; Liverpool UK
Oct 11: Neal Hefti (85); trumpeter, composer and bandleader; '"Batman" theme tune'; Hastings, Nebraska USA
Oct 10: Alton Nehemiah Ellis (70); 'Cry Tough'; Kingston, Jamaica
Oct 1: Nicholas Wells Reynolds (75); singer and guitarist; 'Hard Travellin' (Kingston Trio); San Diego, California USA
Sep 29: Patrick John Crumly (66); saxophonist and bandleader; Oxford UK
Sep 27: George "Wydell" Jones Jnr (71); singer and songwriter; 'Rama Lama Ding Dong'; Richmond, Virginia USA
Sep 27: Mahendra Kapoor (74); musician; Amritsar, India
Sep 27: Bryan Anthony Morrison (67); manager, music publisher, entrepreneur and polo club owner; London UK
Sep 20: Napoleon Brown Culp (pka Nappy Brown) (78); singer and songwriter; '(Night Time Is) The Right Time'; Charlotte, North Carolina USA
Sep 19: Earl Palmer (83); drummer; 'Long Tall Sally' (Little Richard, drummer); New Orleans USA
Sep 19: Richard Merrill Sudhalter (69); cornettist, author, journalist; Boston, MA USA
Sep 15: Richard William Wright (65); musician; 'Us And Them' (Pink Floyd); London UK
Sep 12: Charles Levi Walker (81); singer and disc jockey; 'Pick Me Up On Your Way Down'; Copeville, Texas USA
Sep 9: Bhekumuzi Hyacinth Mseleku (53); musician and composer; Durban, South Africa
Sep 8: Pierre Job (pka Hector Zazou) (60); musician, composer, record producer and journalist; 'Malimba'; Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria
Sep 7: Richard Wayne 'Popcorn' Wylie (69); musician, songwriter and producer; 'Move Over Babe (Here Comes Henry)'; Detroit, Michigan USA
Sep 2: Arne Domnérus (83); alto saxophonist, clarinettist and bandleader; Stockholm Sweden
Sep 1: Jerry Reed Hubbard (71); singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor; 'When You're Hot, You're Hot'; Atlanta, Georgia USA
Aug 27: Jeremy Bird (50); singer, songwriter and guitarist; 'Poison Ivy' (Lambrettas); Lewes, East Sussex UK
Aug 24: Jack Hutton (80); journalist and musician; Sydney Australia
Aug 21: Jerry Finn (39); record producer; 'Enema of the State' (Blink 182, producer);
Aug 21: Murrey Mizell Harman (pka Buddy Harman) (79); drummer; 'Oh, Pretty Woman' (Roy Orbison); Nashville, Tennessee USA
Aug 18: Pervis Jackson (70); singer; 'Working My Way Back To You' (Detroit Spinners); New Orleans, Louisiana USA
Aug 16: Norman Jesse Whitfield (65); songwriter, producer; 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'; New York USA
Aug 16: Ronnie Drew (73); singer and guitarist; 'Seven Drunken Nights' (Dubliners); Dún Laoghaire Ireland
Aug 16: John Arlington Moore (69); trumpeter, composer and arranger; 'Confucius' (Skatalites); Kingston Jamaica
Aug 16: Dorival Caymmi (94); singer and songwriter; 'O Que É Que A Bahiana Tem?'; Salvador Brazil
Aug 15: Gerald Wexler (91); record producer; 'Respect' (Aretha Frankin, producer); New York, New York USA
Aug 14: Lilian Patricia Roza (pka Lita Roza) (82); singer; 'How Much is that Doggie in the Window'; Liverpool UK
Aug 11: Donald Hugh Helms (81); steel guitarist; 'Cold, Cold Heart'; New Brockton, Alabama USA
Aug 10: Isaac Hayes (65); singer, songwriter, producer and instrumentalist; 'Theme From Shaft'; Covington, Tennessee USA
Aug 5: Robert Rimato (pka Robert Hazard) (59); singer, songwriter and guitarist; 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' (Cyndi Lauper, songwriter); Philadelphia, PA USA
Aug 3: Erik Darling (74); singer, songwriter, guitarist and banjo player; 'Tom Dooley'; Baltimore, Maryland USA
Jul 31: Leonidas Raymond "Lee" Young (91); drummer, vocalist and bandleader; New Orleans, Louisiana USA
Jul 28: Antoine Kalosoyi (pka Wendo Kolosoy) (83); musician and songwriter; 'Marie-Louise'; Mushie, Belgian Congo
Jul 25: Hiram Law Bullock (52); guitarist and songwriter; Osaka Japan
Jul 25: John Arnold Griffin (80); tenor saxophonist; 'Wade in the Water'; Chicago, Illinois USA
Jul 20: Artie Traum (65); guitarist and folk singer; 'She's Gone'; New York, New York USA
Jul 13: Gerald Foster Wiggins (86); pianist; New York USA
Jul 12: Earl Lee Nelson (79); singer and songwriter; 'Harlem Shuffle' (Bob & Earl); Lake Charles, Louisiana USA
Jul 7: Hugh Rees Christopher Mendl (88); record producer; 'Rock Island Line' (Lonnie Donegan, producer); Torbay, Devon UK
Jul 6: Bobby Durham (71); drummer, vocalist and bandleader; Philadelphia, PA USA

Jul 3: Colin Francis Richard Cooper (68); singer, instrumentalist and songwriter; 'Couldn't Get It Right' (Climax Blues Band); Stafford, Staffordshire UK
Jul 1: Melville Galley (60); guitarist, singer and songwriter; 'Give Me More Time' (Whitesnake); Cannock, Staffordshire UK
Jun 26: Clifford Samuel Hall (82); singer and guitarist; 'The Family Of Man' (The Spinners); Adelaide, South Australia
Jun 24: Ira B. Tucker (83); singer and songwriter; 'Loves Me Like a Rock' (Dixie Hummingbirds); Spartanburg, South Carolina USA
Jun 14: Esbjörn Svensson (44); pianist; Västeras Sweden
Jun 14: José Bispo Clementino dos Santos (pka Jamelão) (94); singer; São Cristóvão Brazil
Jun 8: Saban Bajramovic (72); singer and songwriter; 'Jasmina '; Nis Yugoslavia (Serbia)
Jun 4: William James Finegan (91); arranger, composer, bandleader and teacher; arranger, 'Little Brown Jug' (Tommy Dorsey); Newark, New Jersey USA
Jun 2: Ellas Otha McDaniel née Bates, pka Bo Diddley (79); singer, guitarist; 'Bo Diddley'; McComb, Mississippi USA
May 31: Hugh Jarrett (78); singer, the Jordanaires; 'Hound Dog' (with Elvis Presley); Atlanta, Georgia USA
May 30: Campbell Crichton Mackinnon Burnap (68); trombonist, vocalist, bandleader and broadcaster; Derby, Derbyshire UK
May 29: Dennis "Danny" Moss (80); tenor saxophonist and clarinettist; Redhill, Surrey UK
May 28: Jerald Edward Kolbrak (pka Jerry Cole) (68); guitarist; 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' (Beach Boys); Green Bay, Wisconsin USA
May 25: David Gahr (85); photographer; Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
May 24: Sonny Okosun (61); singer, songwriter, producer and preacher; 'Fire in Soweto'; Enugu Nigeria
May 24: James Harrell McGriff (72); organist; 'I've Got a Woman'; Philadelphia, PA USA
May 23: Bruce Duncan Phillips (pka U. Utah Phillips) (73); singer and songwriter; 'Orphan Train'; Cleveland, Ohio USA
May 15: Robert Chase Florence (74); pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader; 'How Deep is the Ocean'; Los Angeles, CA USA
May 11: Joyce Reba "Dottie" Lutrell (pka Dottie Rambo) (74); singer, songwriter and guitarist; 'He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need'; Madisonville, Kentucky USA
May 8: Eddy Arnold (89); singer; 'Chained to a Memory'; Henderson, Tennessee USA
May 7: Larry Levine (80); recording engineer; 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' (engineer); Los Angeles, CA USA
May 6: Franz Jackson (95); saxophonist, clarinettist and bandleader; ; Rock Island, Illinois USA
May 4: Kishan Maharaj (84); tabla player; Benares India
Apr 25: Humphrey Lyttelton (87), trumpeter, humorist; 'Bad Penny Blues'; Eton, England
Apr 24: Jimmy Giuffre (76); clarinettist, saxophonist, composer and bandleader; 'The Train and the River'; Dallas, Texas USA
Apr 22: Paul Davis (60), singer-songwriter; 'I Go Crazy'; Meridian, Mississippi
Apr 21: Al Wilson (68); singer and songwriter; 'The Snake'; Meridian, Mississippi USA
Apr 15: Mahinarangi Tocker (52) Maori singer-songwriter; West Auckland, New Zealand
Apr 8: Cedella Marley Booker (81); singer and writer and mother of Bob Marley; Rhoden Hall Jamaica
Mar 30: Sean Levert (39); singer, songwriter and producer; 'Casanova'; Cleveland, Ohio USA
Mar 29: Allan Ganley (77); drummer, composer and arranger; Tolworth, Surrey UK
Mar 28: Steven Howlett (pka Froggy) (58); disc jockey; London UK
Mar 23: Neil Stanley Aspinall (66); businessman, Beatles' 'Mr X'; Prestatyn, Flintshire UK
Mar 22: Israel 'Cachao' López (89); bassist, composer, bandleader; 'Mambo'; Havana Cuba
Mar 21: Shansi Assar (pka Shusha Guppy); singer, writer; 'The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian childhood' (autobiography); Tehran Persia/Iran
Mar 20: Klaus Dinger (61); drummer, guitarist, keyboard player and singer; 'Hallogallo' (Neu!); Scherfede Germany
Mar 19: Sam Weiss (81); record label owner and wholesaler; 'Remember Then' (The Earls); ?? Romania
Mar 15: Michael George Campbell (pka Mikey Dread) (53); DJ, broadcaster, producer and singer; 'Bankrobber' (The Clash, producer); Port Antonio Jamaica
Mar 14: Bill Bolick (90); singer and mandolinist; 'I'm Just Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail' (The Blue Sky Boys); Hickory, North Carolina USA
Mar 6: Lili Boniche (86), singer; Algiers, Algeria
Mar 3: Norman Smith (85); record producer, engineer, singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and pilot; 'See Emily Play' (Pink Floyd, producer); London UK
Mar 2: Jeff Healey (41); singer, guitarist, radio presenter and record collector; 'Confidence Man'; Toronto, Ontario Canada
Feb 28: Mike Smith (64): singer and keyboard player; 'Glad All Over'; Edmonton, Middlesex UK
Feb 26: George Allen Buddy Miles (60); drummer and singer; 'We Gotta Live Together'; Omaha, Nebraska USA
Feb 21: Joe Gibbs (64); record producer; 'Uptown Top Ranking' (producer); Montego Bay Jamaica
Feb 20: Bobby Lee Trammell (74); singer and politician; 'You Mostest Girl'; Jonesboro, Arkansas USA
Feb 19: Igor Fyodorovich "Yegor" Letov (43); musician and songwriter; 'Everything's Going According to the Plan'; Omsk Siberia

Feb 10: Chris Townson (60); drummer, guitarist and social worker; 'Go Go Girl' (John's Children); London UK
Feb 10: Ferdinando Dominick Bello (pka Freddie Bell) (76); bandleader and singer; 'Giddy-Up-A Ding Dong' ; Philadelphia, PA USA
Feb 4: Federico Soto Alejo (pka Tata Güines) (77); percussionist; Güines Cuba
Jan 20: Tommy McQuater (93); jazz trumpeter; Maybole, Ayrshire UK
Jan 19: Andy Palacio (47); singer, songwriter and cultural campaigner; 'Watina'; Barranco Belize
Jan 19: John Stewart (68): singer and songwriter (The Kingston Trio); 'Daydream Believer' (writer); San Diego, California USA
Jan 11: Steve Harris (59); percussionist and composer; Nottingham UK
Jan 10: Rodney Bainbridge (pka Rod Allen) (63); singer and guitarist with The Fortunes; 'You've Got Your Troubles'; Leicester, Leicestershire UK
Jan 10: Dave Havlicek (pka Dave Day) (67); banjo player, guitarist, singer and songwriter; 'Boys are Boys' (The Monks);
Jan 8: Clyde Otis (82); songwriter and record producer; 'This Bitter Earth'; Prentice, Mississippi USA
Jan 6: Ken Nelson (96); talent scout and record producer; 'Wild Side of Life', 'Be Bop a Lula' (producer); Caledonia, Minnesota USA
Jan 4: Keith John Smith (67); trumpeter, bandleader and impresario; Isleworth, Middlesex UK

MY FAVOURITE NEW ALBUMS OF 2008

Natacha Atlas - Ana Hina
Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One
Eliza Carthy - Dreams of Breathing Underwater
Chiwoniso - Rebel Woman
Devotchka - A Mad & Faithful Telling
Mamadou Diabaté - Douga Mansa
Etran Finatawa - Desert Crossroads
The Garifuna Women's Project - Umalali
Kasai All-Stars - In the 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy
Ivo Papasov - Dance of the Falcon
Rajery, Ballaké Sissoko, Driss El Maloumi - 3MA
The Roots - Rising Down
Taksim Trio - Taksim Trio
Huong Thanh - Fragile Beauty
Rokia Traoré - Tchamantché

JAH WOBBLE AND THE CHINESE DUB ORCHESTRA - Chinese Dub (Hertz Records)

Eclectic former PiL bass man Jah Wobble teams up with wife Zi Lan Liao to produce his best post-Invaders of the Heart album yet, a dubby yang to the yin of Damon Albarn’s Journey to the West Chinese opera. Chinese Dub does exactly what it says on the tin, although the listener has to wait till the album is five tracks in before hearing that familiar Wobble bass rumble and (not so heavy this time) reggae dub sound, encasing a mellifluous mix of guzheng (Chinese zither), flute, pipes and various liquid keyboard arrangements and contributions from two excellent female Chinese vocalists (Wang Jinqi and Gu Yinji). Prior to that, we are treated to a spacey, atmospheric overture that has little real bearing on the sharp, sweet and sexy mix of Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian folk melodies and modern beats to come. The accent is definitively Chinese (there are excellent contributions from Liverpool’s Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra), with Wobble and his regular band restrained in their framing of the Eastern elements, a carefully honed appreciation of the roots of the mix inherent in every arrangement. Wobble toured the full orchestra in the summer of 2008, with the band’s performance at WOMAD generally considered to be one of the highlights (and surprises) of the festival, and it’s worth buying (rather than downloading) the album for the full story of how Wobble (and family: his father-in-law and sons also play a part) developed this fascinating collaboration between Eastern and Western cultures.

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB - At Carnegie Hall (World Circuit)

Ten years ago, with the help of Juan de Marcos González and support of Ry Cooder, a bunch of elderly Cubans dusted off their instruments, cleared their throats and, with seemingly effortless ease, delivered arguably the most acclaimed album in world music history. And a decade on from an exultant (and to most of these veteran performers, previously unthinkable) New York performance, comes a timely reminder of the vitality and breadth of appeal of this old-school son, bolero and danzon music that sent sales of the original album into the stratosphere and sparked a franchise that still seduces to this day, despite the sad loss of many of its core members. One such loss being pianist Rubén Gonzalez, such a vital part of the sound here, and given many opportunities in concert (and hence this double CD) to add an improvisational flair that was (necessarily) reined in on the original recording (particularly on a number of fluid and richly textured solo spots). Compay Segundo is here too of course, and the gorgeous Omara Portuendo, as well as the delilghtfully playful tones of Ibrahim Ferrer on vocals, with sterling support from the likes of Eliades Ochoa (his guitar playing as lyrical as ever), Manuel Mirabal on trumpet and the incomparable Cachaito on double bass. I guess the question on the lips of many of the eight million purchasers of the original album is whether this live recording has enough differences to justify purchase? Well, the answer’s a resounding yes; eight of the eighteen tracks weren’t on the original album but hold their own amongst the many favourites-turned-classics that are — Chan Chan, El Cuarto de Tula, Dos Gardenias and Candela all sparkle and shine in a familiar yet subtly different, livelier way than the ‘originals’. And Cooder’s production sounds great, too — the audience’s waves of applause washing up on the shores of each pause between each immaculately delivered song. A perfect way to mark the tenth anniversary.

CHIWONISO - Rebel Woman (Cumbancha)

A small ray of Zimbabwean musical sunshine peeps out from the country ravaged by political and economic turmoil. Chiwoniso Maraire has a radiant, optimistic voice even when — as she puts it — she is holding up a mirror to the extraordinary ruptures within her blighted country, although rather than couch her voice in unattractive rock instrumentation as she did on her debut album, Rebel Woman possesses a sound that is eerily reminiscent of the infectious optimism and lively beat of the early work by Chiwonisa’s compatriot Oliver Mtukudzi. There’s a similar brew of bubbling bass and driving percussive rhythm, with fizzy mbira thumb piano interjections that evoke the hope expressed in these songs of female independence and social ills. Blasting horns and choppy electric guitar help place the songs in an agreeably modern setting, and Chiwoniso surrounds herself with funky, harmonious backing singers with a rich, gospel edge. But it’s the ethereal, other-worldly tone of that mbira that underpins it all, the inter-leaving of its melodies redolent of Chiwonisa’s Shona background, and framing her confident, vigorous vocals in a setting that is at once timeless and thoroughly, resolutely of the moment. The handful of English-language songs give some clue as to the poetic nature of Chiwoniso’s lyrics, further proof that this artist has a subtly rebellious yet powerful part to play in the future direction of her country.

MOUSSU T E LEI JOVENTS - Home Sweet Home (Le Chant Du Monde/Harmonia Mundi)

The third album of roots-based Provençal pop from the Marseille trio is as engaging and as accessible as its predecessors.

The truth is that there are probably only three basic song templates by the band formed by former Masilia Sound System founder Tatou - the laid-back, lilting blues-and-reggae-tinted tunes (dare we say chanson?) that begs to be the soundtrack to whichever is the latest Brits-up-sticks-to-France TV documentary; the salty-as-a-seadog sing-along, almost nursery rhyme-like in its simplicity as it bounces along on the jaunty rhythm of Blu’s plucked banjo; and the gruff, electric-guitar led rockier mode that deals with the deeper, serious side of the band’s underlying desire to celebrate the multi-cultural melange of the Mediterranean port. However, there’s mileage yet in these charming, simple arrangements, the melodies keep on coming, delivered in a timeless, languid music-hall style and sung in a mix of French, English and the local, almost defunct, Occitan language. Whichever tongue is chosen, sing-alongs a-plenty are guaranteed, whether it’s the celebratory Ma Rue N’Est Pas Longue, the repetitive weekday recitation of Labour Song or the nostalgia-laced sound of Il Fait Beau, a glorious pre-war seaside promenade of a song and one of the band’s best moments to date. The latter song is filled out with female backing vocals and slide guitar, illustrative of a slight upping of the complexity of arrangements at times, and there’s a more reflective, almost wistful tone in places, too; Desamarra in particular is given a mournful, street-corner feel by the inclusion of plaintive accordion. But in typical fashion, that’s immediately followed by a flighty celebration of the southern city of our hosts, a darker, gruff-voiced number, and then straight back into the smiling, catchy Provençal dish. Another seductive cosmopolitan collection from a consistently likeable bunch.

ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU - Volume One: The Vodoun Effect 1973-1975 (Analog Africa)

More extraordinary, and previously inexplicably unknown, vintage West African funk unearthed by the diligent Afo-enthusiasts at Analog Africa. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou were from Benin, the small coastal country to the west of Nigeria, and they remained a relatively obscure band outside their native country (with as few as 500 pressings a time for some of their recordings) which seems astonishing when listening to the vibrant, heavy and enticingly polyrhythmic sound (the name doesn’t lie!) that they were plying at the time. Built around snappy, clipped guitar lines and a satisfyingly loose rhythm section, with pumping blasts from the horn section and watery organ adding a swaying, psychedelic texture to the sound, the sound (derived from the traditional Vodoun - or voodoo - rhythm called ‘sato’) is a perfect, gritty fit between the more sophisticated jazz-influence of Afrobeat and the dance friendly highlife music of Ghana and Nigeria. It’s rough and ready stuff at times (most of this music was originally recorded onto reel-reel-tape recorders using just a couple of mikes), and the vocalists are functional at best - chanting, pushing the beat on rather than being a focal point to the songs. However, it’s the intense drive of the instrumentation that appeals, with horns and guitars coming in and out of focus whilst the drummer beats out a strong, resolute beat over a babbling, bubbling bass roll. It’s ideal music for a dank and sweaty club set where groove trumps gloss, and there’s yet more of it to come - this is Volume One of Two, and given that it’s three decades since this music had even a very limited exposure, the time is ripe for the Vodoun effect to take full funky centre stage for a much wider audience.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Ibimeni: Garifuna Traditional Music from Guatemala (Sub Rosa)

An awakened interest in the unique music of a small Central American community has led to this fascinating re-release of traditional Garifuna music from the Gulf of Honduras. The late lamented Andy Palacio and producer Ivan Duran are the men to thank for bringing a sensitively rendered modernity to the music of a people who are spread over Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize as a result of their ancestors’ deportation over a century ago from St Vincent in the Caribbean, from which they’d arrived via a 17th Century slave ship which crashed off the coast of the island. The Duran-produced releases Watina and Umalali (on the Cumbancha label) were based on the Garifuna songs of Palacio’s home country of Belize, and the roots of that music are laid bare here in the traditional songs of neighbouring Guatemala. The whole range of Garifuna music is here - to the now familiar raw, appealingly off-centre female call-and-response vocals and loping reggae-lite rhythms, are added rocking horn-led “bandas” songs, deeply expressive liturgical mantras (there’s a strong thread of Catholicism amongst the Garifuna people) and oodles and oodles of polyrhythmic dance music, the West Africa-meets-Caribbean-mento punta style being the most common. There isn’t as much acoustic guitar on Ibimeni as there is on Watina (although when it arrives, it’s usually twanging good fun) but apart from that, you can draw a direct line between this and those acclaimed albums. It’s tuneful, rhythmic, life-affirming stuff and redolent of the unique Afro-Amerindian culture in which it is steeped. If you’re sufficiently intrigued by the Cumbancha albums to want to seek out their rawer antecedents, here it is in all its raw, rootsy glory, a recording to make the late great Andy Palacio proud to have opened the door to its re-release.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Highlife Time (Vampisoul)

A primer of some of the greatest of ’60s and ’70s highlife — the electrifying dance sound of Nigeria and Ghana — in a high quality, very personal selection by long time collector, compiler and DJ John Armstrong. It’s personal in that Armstrong has not resorted to objectively spreading the exposure amongst artists when making his pick of the output from the legendary Premier Studios in Nigeria’s capital Lagos, the major source for this gritty, enduringly popular guitar-based pop, and home of some of the greatest purveyors of the style. Five of the twenty tracks, then, are deservedly awarded to Rex Lawson’s mellifluous mix of ringing rhumba guitar lines, jazzy horn breaks and lyrics that mix pidgin English with the local languages, a blend that is still highly influential locally and of huge crossover appeal to fans of the Western and pan-African sounds that infuse his music. The influence of the popular, sax-playing ‘Evil Genius of Highlife’ (not a bit of it! This is tender, laid-back, seductive stuff) Dr Victor Olaiya pervades the collection as well, in his own band-leader guise (and alongside the immortal plangent tones of the Highlife King E T Mensah on the opener) and through the soulful, foot-tapping “ekassa” strain of highlife with which genius multi-instrumentalist and former Olaiya guitarist Sir Victor Uwaifo took the genre off into a whole, rhytm and blues based direction. But whether it be these famous band-leaders and musicians with their jazz-infused big band dance music and vivid, shuffling guitar rhythms, or the later, arguably more obscure artists such as funketeers Opotopo and the lead in to a possible Volume Two through the ’80s zouk track by Akana Man that closes the collection, this is heady, vibrant music that will light up any open-minded party crowd.

BARA SAMBAROU - Gambari 79 (Totolo)

Re-mastered from a three decades-old TDK cassette - and managing to retain the atmospheric echo of a late '70s Bamako ghetto blaster whilst being clean enough for every breath, string strike and background sound to be heard - Gambari is Peul griot Bara Sambarou's earthy, loquacious folk song in praise of the tradesmen who return from their travels with the high quality fabric of that name as a gift for their wives.
This 1979 live recording is renowned in Mali as much for its lyrical wit and poetry as for its music, but we non-Peul speakers have to let the hypnotic, shifting circular phrases and tapped rhythm of Bara’s rasping hoddou (a four-string lute that’s the Peul equivalent of the ngoni or xalam) and powerful declamations speak to us, which they do with a resonance that is ultimately as seductive as it is initially challenging.
It’s no real surprise to learn of the influence this rambling groove had on Ali Farka Touré – there’s more than a trace of similarity between this unadorned, bucolic music and the Ali Red and Green albums that brought him to our attention, the same flexible vocal style (from reedy, uncomplicated soulfulness to deep, sonant gravitas) and eerie resemblance to American acoustic blues (although there’s no clue that Bara had heard any of that music when this recording was made).
Two more recordings of the same song make up the rest of the album. There’s a second, ‘laid-back’ version that stretches the song a further five minutes to a whole half hour of arguably even more sharply struck and powerfully delivered narrative. And a modern ‘soul’ mix rounds off the album slightly incongruously, although the beats and horns do ride the hoddou groove in a surprisingly effective way.
Accompanying the CD is a DVD detailing how journalist Jean Ducasse tracked down Bara Sambarou to his village in the Mopti region 750km north of Bamako, having heard Gambari playing in a Bamako market. Sambarou’s well into his 60s now and still full of vitality, making a decent living out of his praise songs, with the dexterity and vocal authority thankfully undiminished by age.

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LOS DESTERRADOS - Miradores (Crusoe Records)

Los Desterrados are to be found where Sephardic music meets its flamenco and balkan neighbours and that’s a vibrant, spicy place to be as they mature their contemporary rendering of a traditional repertoire for their third album.

The group has recently appeared in an American documentary alongside such literary luminaries as Isabel Allende and Doris Lessing, and even those of us who have no understanding of Ladino (the previously near-defunct language of the Sephardic Jews that has been famously revitalised by Yasmin Levy), these sensitively arranged songs - covering such timeless themes as war, love, family and evil mothers-in-law - have a musical lyricism that connects as well as any first-language narrative.
Acoustic guitar, violin, percussion and the striking, soulful timbre of main lead vocalist Hayley Blitz weave a sumptuous, multi-textured sound (sometimes smooth and reflective, sometimes briskly ear-catching) that carries hints of a Jewish Ojos de Brujo, the flightier end of klezmer music, hints of jazz, and a rich, percussive Middle Eastern stew of call and response and plaintive intonation.
With help from the impassioned cry of extra vocalists Daniel Jonas, Mark Greenfield and Andrew Salilda and timely interjections from mandolins, ouds and flute that give a distinct eastern Mediterranean tinge to proceedings, Miradores is a rich and heady brew.

Oumou Sangare – Seya (single)

Is it really twelve years since the Songbird of Wassoulou's last studio album? Incredible as it seems, I think it is, and although we've been witness to some great concert performances by this most exhilarating of performers in the meantime - not to mention a 2004 retrospective of the lady's work that is one of the essential single artist compilations of the decade - the imminent CD (to be released in February 2009) feels well overdue (from a Western perspective, that is. In Mali, she has continued to release new cassettes). So what can we expect, judging by the teasing release of this single and title-track? Well, producer Nick Gold is once again at the helm, so we have a gritty, as-live sound. Cheikh Tidiane Seck's involved as well, so a tingling mesh of traditional instruments is laid over a lush, funky back-beat. And Oumou's in fine soulful form, that familiar honeysuckle voice rolling over infectious pentatonic rhythms and vivid female backing harmonies. This single is full of such vibrant, seductive appeal that mainstream radio stations such as BBC 6 are already on the case. February can't come soon enough.

ISSA BAGAYOGO - Mali Koura (Six Degrees)

Album number four from the Malian singer who earned the nickname 'Techno-Issa' by combining the rolling riffs of his kamele ngoni with programmed rhythm tracks and electronic effects, and it’s probably his best, most accessible yet.
In fact, the 'Techno' prefix appears to have been sensibly dropped by Issa's PR team in the publicity for Mali Koura, reflecting the softening of the beats by producer Yves Wernert, utilising them as a more organic-sounding support framework for the interplay between dry, scratched ngoni, electric guitar (Mama Sissoko again on excellent form) and horns rather than relentlessly driving the songs as they have done at times on past Bagayogo albums.
French multi-instrumentalist Gael Le Billan takes major credit for employing warm, sympathetic arrangements, adding soulful horn arrangements and jazzy piano as well as an array of surreptitiously employed traditional and electronic instruments. Issa's gritty baritone voice – which to these ears suffered from a tendency towards monochrome repetitiveness in the past - sounds more varied than ever, helped in large part by backing singer Pamela Mapaha's bright colourful timbre, which is brought to the fore time and again to add melodic lustre to Issa's part-spoken, repeat-phrase vocal technique.
With a combination of the downbeat (Issa always seems to manage to relax without recourse to entering the lounge), one or two out-and-out bouncy floor fillers, and a series of consistently engaging, intricately blended shimmering mid-tempo songs, Mali Koura is Issa Bagayogo's high-water mark album to date, and a further fulfilment of his complex and original talent.

Six Degrees

TINARIWEN - Live in London DVD (Independiente)

It has long been acknowledged that an appreciation of the tale behind the emergence of desert blues rebel-rockers Tinariwen adds a piquancy to their already highly appealing music, so a visual package that complements their three excellent albums, which captures the band at their animated best whilst simultaneously filling out their ‘back story’, is most welcome.
The image of guitarist and founder member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib dominates the cover of this DVD, towering over his band just as his story towers over the band's gestation. An hour-long al fresco fireside chat with Tinariwen manager Andy Morgan sets out Ibrahim’s extraordinary journey, from the death of his father in the first Tuareg rebellion through to his own role in the second Tuareg rebellion, and taking in childhood exile, tailoring, carpentry, more family tragedy, prison, training in the Ghadaffi camps to what might ultimately be deemed his salvation through music. All the features written on the band over the last few years could no doubt be stitched together to tell much of this story, but Ibrahim opens up as never before under gentle probing to reveal the tight bind between the music and the cultural strength of the Tuaregs themselves. Possibly the only obvious question remaining is when or whether Ibrahim would ever re-join the armed wing of what appears to be a continuous struggle for recognition and freedom for the Tuaregs, but that answer remains implicit in what remains true rebel music, devoid of spoilt Western rock star posturing.
The concert itself finds the band on fine form, the Shepherd's Bush Empire gig of late 2007 truncated to a tight, seventy minute twelve-song set of tracks mostly comprising – and evenly divided between – the band's last two albums. The band is in particularly spirited form, their stagecraft improved beyond measure from their early, static appearances, and there's the option of concurrent subtitled song explanations for added depth.
In addition, there is a brief interview with producer Justin Adams about the relationship between himself and the band, a fifteen minute documentary chiefly comprising interviews with individual members of the entourage that sheds further light on the group and its cultural context, and you can even learn how to tie a shesh (Tuareg turban).
All in all, a well put-together, informative package which doesn‘t outstay its welcome.

Independiente
Tinariwen website

AMADOU AND MARIAM - Welcome to Mali (Because)

The question “how on earth do they follow this?” has hung in the air almost since the very moment Amadou and Mariam released Dimanche a Bamako, their award-hoovering collaboration with Manu Chao in 2005. Although Welcome to Mali doesn't quite have the same easy charm or proliferation of hook-laden nuggets as that album, thanks to the continued involvement of Dimanche co-producers Marc-Antoine Moreau and Lauren Jais the Malian couple continue to expand their earthy rhythm and blues into pop crossover territory.
Without Manu, there is a little less of the found sounds and languid laid back grooves, and a bit more of the basic Amadou and Mariam R 'n' B template of guitar, rhythm section and those charmingly limited vocals, although the palette of sound is expanded at requisite moments – to the horns, keyboard and balafon of Dimanche are added ngoni, njarka fiddle and kora, and they even manage to pull off a couple of string arrangements on the title track and the ballad I Follow You.
However, if Welcome to Mali lacks the sense of momentum and cohesion of its predecessor, it's in part down to over-dependence on guest appearances. Clearly the couple are hot property at the moment, but there's an air of tokenism to the superfluous additions of the likes of K'Naan and Juan Rozoff to songs that would stand up perfectly well without them. An exception is Damon Albarn, who is admirably restrained in support of Ce N'Est Pas Bon and, as guest producer, infuses Sabali with a sweet sound that's mercifully closer to Gorillaz than The Good, The Bad and The Queen.
Overall then, a satisfactory and place-cementing follow-up that consolidates and expands their appealing pop-meets-roots sound.

Amadou and Mariam website

TERAKAFT - Akh Issudar (IRL)

It’s no coincidence that this spare, soulful recording feels like a natural bedfellow for Tinariwen’s atmospheric debut album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions, because Terakaft founders Kedou Ag Ossad and Diara are former Tinariwen band members themselves and thus deploy a similar clanking reverbed electric guitar sound backed by itchy acoustic guitar strums, droning bass and eerie, swaying call and response vocals. This is a sombre campfire session of an album, one song seeding satisfyingly into the next in a sonic framework that evokes the enveloping blanket of desert darkness rather than the loping camel gait drive that's to be heard on the two most recent Tinariwen releases.
From the haunting, murmured introduction to the cool, acoustic guitar and bass driven closing track, this is a coherent collection of songs that possess deep, bluesy tones and a natural rhythm (there's no percussion other than a restrained use of hand-claps), and at its best it's about as good as Tuareg desert blues gets.
Amdagh in particular deserves to join the pantheon - the guitars swim and swirl round Kedou's dense, dry vocals with a rumbling bass groove driving a powerful circular, accelerating rhythm. And Leg Assistane Dagh Aitma is typically Tuareg in both sound and philosophy (“Question to my brothers: shall we remain passive or take action?”). This and much else on Akh Issudar will probably appeal most to listeners who prefer where Tinariwen have come from to where they are headed – on the desert blues spectrum, Terakaft sit around midpoint between the rebel rock of the desert blues brand leaders and the spacious spirituality of Tartit – but wherever you put them, this tight and moody album is an assured and welcome addition to the genre.

KILEMA - Mena (Snail Records)

A sunny, upbeat tone is to be heard on the new album by Madagascan marovany player Kilema, who teases chiming, skittish notes from his twelve-string box-zither on fifteen busy, breezy tunes that fly by on a blend of strummed or picked acoustic guitars, kabosy (another Madagascan box guitar), and percussion. You probably won’t hear a catchier melody than that on Vali-Babe, which zips along on that familiar, chugging Madagascan 6/8 rhythm. Raha Loza also has a recognisably summery Indian Ocean vibe, with Kilema trilling over flamenco influenced guitar and a pit-a-pat rhythm. At times the delicacy of Kilema’s vocals need buttressing by stronger singers, although its soft, harmonious timbre matches the tender nature of the music, and there are pleasing diversions into samba and various Malagasy flavours to keep it all interesting. With melodica and calabash added to the mix and the occasional slower track bringing a welcome breather to what could have run the risk of being a one-paced album, you can start Mena at any point (or iPod shuffle it) and be sure of high-quality effervescent music every time.

Snail Records

Distributed by Coast to Coast

SEPREWA KASA - Seprewa Kasa (Riverboat Records)

Seprewa kasa – “the seprewa speaks, the guitar answers” – is about as self-explanatory an album title as they come as the light and airy call of the Ghanaian five-string box harp-lute is answered by the delicate phrasing of veteran guitarist and Osibisa member Kari Bannerman (or Banaman, as his surname is spelt for the purposes of this release). Described as the soul of highlife, the seprewa was traditionally played as a solo instrument, but Kasa Baffour Kyerematen and Osei Korankye have tuned, teased and interwoven its style to produce a chatty, irrepressibly upbeat dual harmony that gives only the merest hint of the funkier genre to which it ultimately led. There's a bright, sunny feel to the seprewa, and although it has been described as a relative of the kora, it has more of the resonance of the lighter sound of the ngoni, and with Banaman's brisk acoustic (and occasionally electric) guitar fills, a lilting back-beat and high, satin-smooth vocals, this is understated but attractive music that seduces in a gentle, unfussy manner.

World Music Network

MADERA LIMPIA - La Corona (Out Here)

A soulful blend of Cuban roots and contemporary Latin pop that shows the brighter, warmer and more welcoming face of a controversial corner of the Caribbean. Madera Limpia ("pure wood") are Cuban duo Yasel Gonzalez Rivera and Gerald Thomas Collymore who hail from Guantánamo, home of the notorious US military base and fulcrum of that country's war against terror. There's no sign of that dark and controversial subject in this youthful, organic music where a pleasing mix of rap and smooth soulful vocals are mixed with Latino pop and arranged on a subtly-woven blanket of programmed beats, tres guitar, percussion and horns (including some beefy big band tuba at times). It's a poppier, more naturally rhythmic version of Cuban urbanistas Free-Hole Negro, with welcome diversions into a straight, sunny pop sound.
Against a relaxed backbeat that contains shades of reggae as well as the local beat, changui (which possesses a similar languid charm to the Jamaican rhythm), the group intone on the usual universal concerns of love and living as well as more local concerns such as poverty and the travails of locals who go to Havana to seek their fortune. A reflection of the well-honed combination of modern musical sounds and roots music to be found in this consistently catchy and edgy album.

JALI FILY CISSOKHO

If you’ve been fortunate enough to witness one of the recent UK performances by Toumani Diabaté, you might have noticed the great Malian kora player coax a tall, slim man on-stage for the encore to sing praises and join in the on-stage celebrations. That gentle giant with the modest gap-toothed smile is Jali Fily Cissokho, a UK-based Senegalese kora player and yet another member of the clan of Casamance griots that gave us wild electro-kora family band Jalikunda.
Jali Fily followed the familiar griot path, learning to play the kora from the age of six, as he explained to me after a sunny Sunday morning performance in Oxford with his latest band. “It was always the first thing I did when I got home from school, even when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. Then I played at weddings and ceremonies in Africa, as my parents did before me, when my father would play kora with my mother accompanying him. After playing around my home region of Ziguinchor for a few years, I came to England in 2003 to play in Jalikunda with my brothers. It was a great experience, playing the kora in ways that we never imagined we would back home, and when I met my wife [and now manager] Christine, I decided I would settle in England. Ever since then, I’ve been teaching and playing here.”
Fily has recorded two albums to date, his first being a solo recording released in 2004, and there’s another solo kora album in the pipeline for 2009. His latest album, Doumajoulo, is a larger ensemble affair recorded with a number of fellow Senegalese musicians on electric guitar, keyboards and bass with sister Adama supplementing Fily’s soft, almost self-effacing, vocal style. Whilst not quite hitting the heights of either Toumani’s Symmetric Orchestra or the heady, funky days of Jalikunda, Doumajoulo is a smartly played, energetic collection in a similar roots-meets-big band vein as those groups.
“I was encouraged by my good friend Toumani Diabaté to play with anybody and everybody that I can,” explains Fily. “He believes in the limitless possibilities of music, and pushing our music as far as we can. Although I’m not copying what he does with his band, he is a great influence. I tend to arrange the songs from keyboard,” he continues, “and originally I was going to record the album alone, playing all the instruments and doing all the vocals myself. When the word got round, several old Senegalese musician friends approached me to play. Meanwhile my sister and nephew Seckou got involved. One day’s sessions became three months of recording and mixing!”
With the artists on a limited budget and with the producer and engineer desperately trying to mix disparate sessions together, the album’s production values tend to suffer somewhat on Doumajoulo’s busier numbers. Despite gaining good reviews, valuable airplay and steady sales, the occasionally opaque production does not do full justice to the ensemble’s live performances, where the instrumental elements separate out into a more satisfying, natural groove.
There’s certainly a lot to admire on album tracks such as Jalia and Umbalafeyle Tetambulo, but it’s only when you hear them lurch into shape in concert that you can appreciate the full potential of the ensemble. Fily sits imperiously centre-stage, poised and smiling whilst the band twist a circular, extended jam around his undulating notes, with guest Juldeh Camara adding winding rustic rasps on his riti (one-string fiddle) to the mix. And it’s all lit up by some stylish electric guitar work by Barthelemy Atisso look-and-sound-alike Sylvain Ndiaye. It's a sight and sound that's currently largely restricted to events local to Jali Fily Cissokho's home in Oxfordshire, and has impressed visitors to the Oxford and Wychwood Festivals as well as no less a luminary than whispering Bob Harris at the Truck Festival in Steventon. But it's one that deserves the recognition gained by wider ranging gigs and those Toumani guest spots.
“I'm hoping to take my Coute Diomboulou Band on tour soon but because we invested all our money in producing the Doumajoulo CD, we need sponsors to help us on our way,” says Fily. “I also need to stay in touch with my people back home. My local radio station in Ziguinchor is helping to promote Doumajoulo and I have linked up with main Radio Television Dakar in Senegal. I also have an ongoing family project in Ziguinchor, The Ziguinchor Music Centre. We want to offer the experience of living with a griot family and provide rehearsal and recording facilities. The building is funded solely by the family, and hopefully the children of Ziguinchor will benefit from this work.” For more information on this and Jali Fily Cissokho's increasingly high profile closer to home you can check his Myspace site.

KASAI ALLSTARS - In the 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of his Enemy by Magic (Crammed Discs)

The third in the Crammed Discs series of mesmeric traditional trance rhythms and urban do-it-yourself din showcases a cong(o)lomeration of artists that assemble under the name Kasai Allstars, a shifting line-up of twenty-five artists (including six different lead vocalists) from a number of disparate ethnic Congolese groups. “Play it loud” is the exhortation on the album cover, which gives rise to the suspicion that the only way this music can truly appeal is by battering down the listener's defences, creating a thunderous wall-of sound by closing off all other sensory avenues. This might well have been a requirement for the somewhat repetitive, atonal attack of Konono No 1 (subject of the first Congotronics album), but despite the use of similar sonic components – buzzy, distorted likembe thumb pianos, chiming guitars, improvised percussion and chanted vocals, all delivered through ageing amplifiers – with the Allstars there's more purpose and melody under the general organised cacophony.
If the turn-it-up instruction works at all, it's in the way it reveals a surprisingly sophisticated, multi-layered approach to the group’s song craft. Each tune starts with the guitar laying down a liquid melody or the likembes beating out a dry, dusty hum, over which a thick mesh of instrumentation and voices builds its insistent, frenzied momentum, with various dissonant sounds and wild vocal declamations drifting in and out of focus, before coalescing into a trance-like rhythm which resolves itself in a just-short-of-shambolic way half a dozen or so minutes later. It's a gorgeous, eerily sumptuous sound, and when they slow the pace on the charming, airy title track or enhance their melodic side with rich, layered vocals on the album's exultant highpoint Analengo, the results are irresistibly compelling. Visa restrictions recently prevented the Kasai Allstars from bringing this magnetic sound to Europe, a massive loss for both them and audiences already seduced by the unique Congotronics sound. Judging by In the 7th Moon, there was more seduction to come, so let's hope that the appropriate authorities extract the requisite digits from over-stuffed orifices soon because this is a sound that cries out to be witnessed in the flesh.

BAABA MAAL - On the Road (Palm Pictures)

As the long wait continues for a new Baaba Maal studio album, and as his full-band concert performances start to edge into going-through-the-motions territory, this collection of live acoustic performances from the past ten years is a welcome reminder of the Senegalese singer at his intimate, unadorned best.
The configuration where one or two picked acoustic guitars and kora or xalam create a natural, spacious swing to Baaba's songs is one of the most pleasing musical frameworks in music, enabling Maal's soaring force of nature of a voice to ring out with clarity and passion. Established concert favourites such as Baayo - a tender, hypnotic mainstay of Baaba's live performances – and Cherie from 1998's Nomad Soul album (here in improved, rawer form) exemplify this, but as you’d expect from an album that is proclaimed as a “Bootleg Edition “, there are rare and previously unreleased tracks too for hardcore Maal fans to savour. The best of these is the previously cassette-only Farba, a gratifyingly raw and rough-edged xalam-led offering with call and response vocals. Is that the rich timbre of long-time collaborator Mansour Seck on this track? Unfortunately, the CD notes are as sparse as the instrumentation, with scant information about accompanists or dates and locations of performances, so we can't be sure. It's easy to recognise the sharp, melodic kora work of the late great Kaouding Cissoko though, and on Koni it's locked down by a characteristic Baaba Maal circular guitar-picking rhythm, and it’s lit up by a judiciously restrained Ernest Ranglin solo electric guitar spot.
At nine tracks and under forty minutes in length, On the Road serves as a decent enough stop-gap release, but with Baaba Maal tied up on so many worthy projects in his native Senegal, one wonders when he'll find time to lay down a full, original studio album. When he does get round to it, musical fare along the lines of the simple, stripped back, melodic songs showcased here would be most welcome.

Baaba Maal Website

N'FALY KOUYATE AND DUNYAKAN - Tunya (Galileo)

The second album from the former Afro-Celt Sound System balafon and kora player from Guinea treads a sunny, upbeat path through a modern European take on West African music, his sprightly way with tunes producing a set of songs that are easy listening in the best sense of the phrase. Having put together a smart mixed African/European band (joined by very 'authentic' sounding female backing vocalists from Belgium), a whole range of musical styles are tried out, usually underpinned by funky rhythm guitar, percussion and N'Faly on kora or balafon and vocals. His voice is smooth without being overly impressive (hence its wise use as additional instrument rather than as a focal point) and he gives ample space to the other instrumentalists and singers, allowing tracks like the dance number Anyafo and the ambitious up-tempo re-working of traditional Mandé song Mali Sadio – here translated rather too literally as “Love Hyppo” - to stake out territory that is neither reliant on traditional norms nor too contrived in its modernity.
If there's a complaint, it's that the sheer variety of styles means Tunya sags somewhat midway through as acapella gospel-lite clashes with an over-long drum track, although the experimental approach is rewarded on the album's closer Kora Ballade, on which Kouyaté frames his instrument in a sweeping chamber orchestra setting that's admirably restrained in its ambition. Kouyaté has a fine ear for a melody and an impressive group of musicians in support, and if he over stretches himself and them at times on Tunya, the rewards of that approach are worth the occasional risk taken.

Dunyakan

RAJERY, BALLAKE SISSOKO, DRISS EL MALOUMI - 3MA (Madagascar, Mali, Maroc) (Contre-Jour)

Let's get the dreaded 'f' word out of the way before we start – yes, this is a fusion of sounds from disparate parts of western, northern and south-eastern Africa, but the pieces on this sumptuously produced album have been carefully honed to produce a coalition rather than a clash of styles (it would have been quite something to witness the early improvisational sessions and concerts that led to these sympathetically structured arrangements).
Comparisons have been made in the past between the valiha – the tubular bamboo zither of Madagascar - and the kora, and the two instruments dovetail well here. Malian kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko largely restrains from embarking on rippling, improvisational runs, giving space to Rajery's bright, chiming phrasing on the valiha. The result is a flowing, delicately-spiced tunefulness, which by definition compromises the individuality of these two great musicians but in favour of an unforced, intuitive union between the two. Two instruments become one in the most satisfactory way, but left to their own devices they might well have lacked a weighty, deeper tone, which is where the striking oud work of Morocco's Driss El Maloumi comes in.
There's a strong virtuoso feel to his playing as he drives out a dry, fretted bass groove whilst picking out notes that flit around the melodic base provided by Rajery and Sissoko. The result is a pleasing variety of approaches - slow, reflective numbers are mixed with ringing mid-tempo tunes; subtle Arabic flavours, Manding rhythms and summery Indian Ocean melodies are given an airing; and each musician embarks on constrained, well-timed solos. They all get an occasional opportunity to stretch their vocal chords as well (Rajery's soulful falsetto is always a welcome sound), and each takes a solo piece too, which teasingly serve to underline the excellence of the individual elements deployed on this exquisitely put-together album. Three master musicians, one masterful collection of beautifully rendered harmonic interplay.

Contre Jour

NATACHA ATLAS AND THE MAZEEKA ENSEMBLE - Ana Hina (World Village)

A gorgeous album laid out on a sumptuously arranged base of small-ensemble strings. Could this be Natacha's best album yet?
There was some claim to the British singer of North African descent's last album deserving that description and, as appealing as that album was, Mish Maoul was something of a mish-mash in styles that worked well but in retrospect lacked the focus of a consistent style or approach.
Contrastingly, this is by far the most traditionally 'Arabic' of Natacha's albums, feeling like the end of a path that has taken her from framing a unique interpretation of Arabic pop with modern beats, through tributes to some of the great North African pop divas past and present, to this her most acoustic of recordings (oud, accordion, violins and the shuffling rhythm of the darbucka being the main instruments).
Lush (but not overbearing) covers of classic artists Fairuz and Abdel Halim Hafez sit alongside well-judged original compositions (usually stripped back, no risk of over-ambition spoiling the mood). A smouldering reprise of Mish Maoul's Hayati Inta (complete with a nod to Booker T and the MGs) sums up the intimate but arresting mood, and on La Vida Callada (The Unspoken Life), Atlas is joined by Clara Sanabras, the two vocalists weaving their voices around each other with Sanabras drawing a vibrant performance from her counterpart.
Indeed, on previous albums this marriage might not have worked, because there was always the danger that Natacha's breathy but lightweight vocals would be blown away by the instrumentation. Here, they rest exquisitely within subtly enhancing arrangements, and it's only the overly-reverential cover of Nina Simone's version of Black Is The Colour that prevents Ana Hina from being that rare creature, an album that works perfectly from start to finish.

World Village

IVO PAPASOV - Dance of the Falcon (World Village)

The great Bulgarian clarinet blower is back with a set of fiery, experimental instrumental numbers that mix snaking Thracian melodies and complex rhythms with subtle jazz tones. Some Papasov fans might be slightly disappointed at the absence of vocals from Ivo's mercurial wife, Maria Karafizieva, but there's a real focus to these blistering, Balkan-flavoured tunes. Papasov's playing is sometimes broiling and spicy, sometimes considered (almost ethereal) in its reflection, but it's always at the centre of arrangements that illustrate the power of putting together a sterling set of support musicians and enveloping them in a big, spacious production sound.
Highlights include the rip-roaring opening track, and on this and the more melodic Tinner's Dance, Ivo's dazzling virtuoso runs are underpinned by percussion that crackles with energy. Sunrise is moodier, almost menacing in tone and positively begs for inclusion on an arty East European cinema verité soundtrack.
Speaking of films, there's a nice oriental nod in the direction of Henry Mancini on Pink Panther, the smooth tone invigorated by Papasov's innate tendency to stray adventurously into wild and soaring improvisational runs.
Technically brilliant but with a fresh, energetic approach, the only real drawback to Dance of the Falcon is that some of the jazz tinges (especially the guitar and keyboard flourishes) seem superfluous, and in fact at times they're buried almost apologetically in the mix. There is also a danger that the sheer breathless virtuosity will become overwhelming for some - don't expect to be humming too many catchy melodies after hearing this album. But with Paposov's wild gypsy past rushing like an invigorating whirlwind through this recording, Dance of the Falcon is one of the most thrilling - if challenging - releases of the summer.

World Village

SIR VICTOR UWAIFO - Guitar-Boy Superstar 1970-76 (Soundway)

The wallet-busting flood of diligently researched and expertly packaged compilations of top-class West African music continues.
The subject of Soundway's admirably focused dig into the archives is Nigerian polymath Sir Victor Uwaifo’s self-styled ekassa music of the early ‘70s. Sculptor, inventor, poet and – as the title of this collection suggests – super-charged guitarist and band leader, Uwaifo is best known for mid ’60s hits with his band the Melody Maestros, such as Joromi and Guitar Boy. A few years on from those records, we find Sir Victor integrating the relaxed, shuffling folkloric music of his native Benin region into a rhythmic, funky dance sound centred round deep, dirty bass and busy rhythm guitar chops that parallel much of the American soul recordings of the period - think Betty Wright session guitarist Little Beaver’s clipped style or those hugely influential early James Brown records, the influence of the latter partially extending to the use of horns (in the form of judicious use of saxophone fills here and there). Over the top of all that, Uwaifo calls and responds with his band in his local Edo language whilst firing out some wild borderline-psychedelic wah-wah lead guitar. The result is a slightly weird, occasionally manic, always funky Nigerian dance genre to file right between your Afrobeat and highlife albums.

Soundway Records website

RAIL BAND - Belle Epoque Volume Two - Mansa (Stern’s)

Volume Two of the Rail Band Belle Epoque series continues its slightly wayward but always intriguing path through the great Malian band's early years (1970-1983) and this time focuses mainly on what is termed the second period, post-Salif Keita and at a time when Djelimady Tounkara wove his languorous, kora-like guitar figures around horn fanfares and Mory Kanté's high, declamatory vocals. Magan Ganessy and Djelimady Sissoko add less exalted but no less effective vocals, and the band swings between urgent dance tunes lightly dusted with the remnants of earlier Cuban influences and the rolling, slower-paced, unfolding epics that went on to dominate the repertoire of later period Rail Band. A couple of those later tracks feature here, one of which (Konowale) features Congolese rumba guitar by Tounkara that wouldn't be out of place on a Franco track. The compilation is rounded off by a handful of 'first period' Rail Band tracks that mark out the astonishing development of Keita as a vocalist, from his raw, almost nervous contributions in 1970 to the more recognisable soulful wail of Kankoun, recorded in 1973. The one and only complaint about this excellent series is that we are not able to follow these developments chronologically. That's what iPod playlists are for I suppose, although you wouldn't want to deny yourself the full package offered here, informative sleevenotes and evocative photos being the stock in trade of these fondly put together Stern's releases.

Stern's website

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Café de los Maestros (Universal)

The CD of the film of the meeting of many of the great Latin-American music stars of the past. Sound a bit familiar? If there is a touch of the tango Buena Vista about the idea of getting together some of the greatest purveyors of the '40s and '50s era of this dark and dramatic Argentinian dance form for a re-recording of their past material, there's nothing contrived or trend-following about the approach. Here are twenty-seven gorgeous new interpretations of classic material by some of the great surviving artists of the '40s and '50s tango scene, turning the clock back to a time when this was a living breathing popular dance form in the tea-rooms and bars of Buenos Aires.
The nearest the project has to a Ry Cooder is Grammy award-winner film-score composer Gustavo Santaolalla, co-producer of this recording and the inspiration behind the Bajafondo Tango Club. You can certainly hear the influence of this intense, dramatic music in the work of Gotan Project and Bajofondos, as orchestras sweep grandiose string arrangements around deep, intense piano phrases, bandoneon that in turn stabs out blood-curdling crime passionel squeals or long, elongated notes that cry of lost love, and delicate guitar phrases that speak of lighter, happier times.
Anibal Arias, Oscar Ferrari and Alberto Podesta are three of many new names to non-tangoistas but they will send chills of familiarity down the spines of many fans of the old-school orchestras and singers. Lágrima Ríos is another. She's actually from Montevideo, Uruguay and on two tracks it's just her and her cool, high vibrato and a lively plucked guitar.
At the other extreme, Emilio Balearce y Orquestra bring a portentous, cinematic style to their full, emotive everything-including-the-kitchen-sink orchestration. The songs are all agreeably traditional, as are the interpreters, although octogenarian Juan Carlos Godoy is joined by rising young star Cristobal Repetto for a theatrical, baroque delve into the '20s and '30s heritage of the great early Argentine radio stars such as Calos Cardel.
All in all, Cafe de Los Maestros showcases some of the great music of the 20th Century in a beautifully packaged and annotated double CD.
Now all that's left is to track down the documentary to see these treasures of times past in glorious up-to-date action.

WATCHA CLAN - Diaspora Hi-Fi (Piranha)

"File under World / France/ Algeria/ Mediterranean" is the advice given on Marseille-based Watcha Clan's latest album, and you could well add Balkan / Hip-Hop/ Sephardic/ Reggae to that list as the fiery collective from France's cultural melting po(r)t stretch a host of disparate genres to modern-beats-driven breaking point.
Suprem Clem is the programmer and sampler, Matt Labesse the funky bassist, but vocalist Sista K is the focal point, a multilingual Franco-Algerian Ashkenazi Jew who is at home in a variety of styles, notably the strident Sephardic rocker Marashtein, jaunty Balkan party piece Balkan Qoulou and the Arabic-Andalusian acoustic ballad Ch'ilet La'yani.
However, the inclusion of a multitude of musical flavours is hard to sustain consistently over a whole album, and there are times when the modern beats swamp melodies too fragile to hold their own.
But it all clicks into place more often than not, and it's well worth sticking around all the way to the adventurous closing track Oued El Chouli, where Sista K is joined on vocals by guitarist Nassim Kouti on a lazy reggae skank that switches into a brooding dubbed-up gnawa groove. Compelling.


Piranha Records

VARIOUS ARTISTS - The Rough Guide to Mali (World Music Network)

If you’ll pardon the football analogy for a moment, putting together a Rough Guide to the music of Mali must be the musical equivalent of naming a best ever Manchester United XI – with so much talent to choose from, how do you keep a decent balance without omitting any of the obvious greats?
Compiler Marisa Lassman's tactics are to centre the selection around the traditional Malian sound and its blues-based derivatives, with a passing nod to the golden age of grand orchestral bands and a look into the future direction of roots-based popular music in the country, the latter in the form of Issa Bagayogo's appealingly rough “techno-Issa” sound and Vieux Farka Touré's driving electric blues. Vieux is joined by father Ali Farka on Tabara, and although it's a pity that there's no place for an Ali solo effort on the compilation, his considerable influence sees him also appear on excellent form with kora master Toumani Diabaté and as the subject of nephew Afel Bocoum's earthy contribution to the collection. Elsewhere, the essential sirens of Malian music are mostly present and correct – from griotte Kandia Kouyaté's intense, declamatory shout to Oumou Sangaré's soulful, proudly feminine southern Malian Wassoulou music. Rokia Traore's here too, as are two recent mainstream media favourites, Tinariwen and Amadou and Mariam. Some compromise was always inevitable, and favourites will inevitably be missed. Kasse Mady Diabaté sneaks in as guest vocalist on the contribution from the extraordinary ngoni quartet put together by Bassekou Kouyaté, and although Salif Keita is represented in his role with Les Ambassadeurs Internationales (the token '70s big band track), there's nothing from his essential recent back-to-basics albums, or indeed his ground-breaking albums of the mid-'80s. A minor quibble that, and on the assumption that licensing issues may have contributed to omissions such as this, it has to be acknowledged that this is about as close as you could hope to get to a first-choice primer for the music of a country that's right at the top of the musical league table.

World Music Network website

WOMAD Charlton Park 2008

Have there ever been two more contrasting Womads than the first two at its new, expansive home in the back garden of the Earl of Two-Counties (Suffolk and Berkshire, curiously) amongst the rolling hills of the Wiltshire countryside? No glutinous mud this year, no traipsing three miles to finally reach a sign that points you back in the direction whence you came, no un-briefed stewards and pitiful on-site communication. Womad is back, as sunny, friendly and ear-nose-and-stomach-nourishing as ever – in fact, now that the floods have cleared, we can finally see how much roomier, grassier, shadier and less dusty it is than the tired old Rivermead rec by the Thames.

The Open Air (Main) Stage kicked off on Friday to the unfortunate sound of the Tashi Lhunpo Monks of Tibet’s reflective, reverential songs being backed by the heavy Cubano thud of the Rumberos de Cuba, who were sound-checking in the neighbouring Siam Tent. It was like all your worst Realworld new-age fusion nightmares had come to haunt the new site set-up. The problem never got quite as extreme as that again in my experience, but sound bleed from (and between) the three main stages was an issue for many, especially the patrons of the smaller Speakeasy and Little Italy stages; one of the few small wrinkles to iron out for next year.

The Radio 3 Stage suffers no such problems, as it is sited away from the main arena amongst the lovely little glades and arboretums that house the various alternative therapy and “wellness” traders. This stage is where the lesser-spotted Womad Anyman can be found – fifty-something years young, grey-haired and bespectacled, these creatures park their spreading bottoms on folding chairs about three rows from the front, head buried impassively in their Guardian arts pages (am) or Dean Koontz novel (pm), stirring only to take a snap of each artist for the photo album. Such serenity in the face of polyrhythm was severely tested this year by the Bedouin Jerry Can Band. There's something about their name that seems to imply novelty - they use jerry cans (or jerkans as they call them) and ammunition boxes as percussion in addition to the traditional frame drum, flutes, simsimiyya and wolf skin fiddle - but even though there's a lightness of touch to the music and a jollity to the delivery, there's genuine musical artistry there as well, and a fine sense of the role the music (and coffee making) plays in the Bedouin community of the Sinai desert in Egypt. Hips shook, heads nodded, and Friday was off to a stormer.

Justin Adams has gone a considerable way towards filling the Strummer-sized hole that exists in the area where contemporary British rock music meets its past American influences and the music of the world today, and he’s found his Tymon Dogg in Gambian riti (single-string fiddle) player Juldeh Camara. They rocked the Radio 3 stage on Sunday with their Bo Diddley-meets-buzzsaw-violin, although clumsy scheduling had them up against last year’s festival darlings (and multi-World Music Award-winning) Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba, who once again proved themselves to be just about the grooviest band in the world today. Niger’s Malam Mamane Barka is trying (with a more traditional approach) to do for the biram what Bassekou has achieved with the ngoni, bringing the evocative sounds of the rarely seen 5-string harp-lute to a wider global audience. Judging by his impromptu performance in (and outside) the ever-excellent Taste the World tent (which surely needs no explanation), he has the charm and (more importantly) voice to pull that off, and will be back to beguile the UK again later in the year.

Other African highlights included veteran Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab who performed a Sunday evening seduction on the Main Stage, although the real treat was to come an hour later as a stripped back version of the Afro-Cuban ensemble reprised three tunes for Charlie Gillett’s World on Three radio show. Gillett also showcased Zuzana Novak, an Anglo-Czech who qualifies as honorary African for her convincing study in Zimbabwean mbira thumb-piano music, and her solo set was a welcome encore to her performance at the admirably intimate (but sound-bleed afflicted) Saturday evening Speakeasy session. And Malian Mamani Keita looks finally to have begun building up the recognition she deserves for her excellent 2006 album with French guitarist/producer Nicolas Repac, their punchy Saturday afternoon Sicily Tent performance leading to a sell-out run on Yelema the next day.

The strong African showing was arguably not reflected in other broad geographical areas. Eastern Europe and the Middle East seemed particularly badly served, although the little I caught of Serbian siren Svetlana Spajic’s set with the implausibly-talented British folkie Andrew Cronshaw seemed to suggest that I missed a real belter. Heart-stoppingly soulful vocals were also to be heard on the Sufi night session, with Uzbek vocalist Monajat Yulchieva every bit as sparsely affecting as fellow-Uzbeki Sevara Nazarkhan was enchanting a couple of Womads ago.

Enchantment is Mor Karbasi’s game, particularly so at the Speakeasy session, backed by partner Joe Taylor. Astonishingly beautiful, with a stirring album of Sephardic songs receiving plaudits in all the right places, expectations were high for the UK-based Israeli’s performance in full ensemble (and multiple dress-changing) mode in the Siam Tent the previous day. The jury remains out on this one, the set being impressive without fully engaging, maybe the result of a performance that was almost too well-staged and deliberate. Sa Dingding from China also delivered a staged, costume-varying performance, ambitious in its theatricality but slightly disappointing in sound, her sweet, frail voice too often lost in the heavy, multi-instrumental mix.

Shane MacGowan lost his voice years ago – in alcoholic mixers rather instrumental mixes – and as admiring I am of his timeless canon of London-Irish songs, his way-beyond-tiresome cartoon drunken Mick performance was an (albeit extremely well-received) blight to Sharon Shannon's ground-shaking Friday night ceilidh. From folk-based dance to the ragga-soul of Mista Savona - the Australian funkateers cooked up two horn-honkingly sweaty boogiesome sets to delight the under-30s (and many of we over-40s to boot), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a younger Womadian age-group than that at the front of Main Stage for the Niles Rodgers self-tribute band masquerading as Chic (Rodgers-composed Sister Sledge songs in abundance) for their perfectly-judged showbizzy set that tapped right into the audience up-for-a-party mood. Contrastingly, Squeeze turned up, ran through an uninspiring greatest hits set and left having barely made a mark on the festival.

The great Toumani Diabaté left a permanent mark on the Womad world when he was just a cherubic twenty-something kora ingénue, and he represents the durability of the unique event’s mark on its extended family. Performing on Friday evening in the Siam tent with a smaller, tighter Symmetric Orchestra than usual (the kitchen sink must have been held at customs), Toumani introduced his kora-playing son Sidike (who himself is barely out of his teens), local UK-based Senegalese friends Seckou Keita and Jali Fily Cissokho, and perhaps the greatest master Manding vocalist of them all, Kasse Mady Diabaté. Youth, experience, family, friends. And great music. A perfect summation of the essential elements that went into another great Womad weekend.

ROKIA TRAORE - Tchamantché (Tama)

There's no better definition of critically acclaimed than winning the Critics' Award for album of the year for your previous two CDs. Having managed that feat, Rokia Traoré's new one could have gone either way, with either a laurel-resting repeat of Bowmboï's busy, multi-layered intricacy or yet another sharp stylistic change of the magnitude of that between the 2003 winner and its more reflective, rooted predecessor, Wanita.
The adventuresome Malian has opted for the latter approach on Tchamantché, slowing the pace, stripping the sound right back, generally favouring bluesy electric guitar over the ngoni as lead instrument, and bringing the sultry, breathy side of her vocals right to the fore.
There's a nice crisp feel to the production, reflecting the move to a simpler, understated instrumental arrangement (one ngoni, two guitars, a light dusting of percussion), which serves to bring an intimacy to Rokia's increasingly soulful voice. On Zen (one of two French-language songs) it's almost disconcertingly up close and personal (Carla Bruni's debut CD was surely an influence here), and there's a welcome light, natural touch to her phrasing on the sparsely set A Ou Ni Sou. One potential disappointment for fans of Rokia’s energetic side is that there are no new real belters, although the Zap Mamaesque Tounka is lively and rhythmic, with ngoni-player Mamah Diabaté to the fore and Traoré twisting her voice into new, exciting shapes (almost to a growl at one point, in fact).
Instead, what’s offered is a moody, absorbing and subtly melodious complement to Youssou NDour’s Rokku Mi Rokka release of last year. Like Youssou, Rokia defies categorisation, continuing to take West African music into areas where tradition is merged into what is essentially a Western pop sound - witness the occasional griot-style praise lyric, circular ngoni riff, and appearance of harp as surrogate kora that all fit very naturally with the overall feel of the album. All of which results in often challenging but always rewarding results.
Oh, and look out for a bonus track where Rokia takes on Gershwin in English. She can do conventional too!

Rokia Traoré website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

GABI LUNCA - Sounds From a Bygone Age Volume 5 (Asphalt Tango)

Another top-notch addition to specialist Balkan music label Asphalt Tango’s widely acclaimed series of classic Romanian music.

Gabi Lunca was known as the silken Gypsy woman - as much for her florid dresses and showy earrings as for her music - and was a national star much sought after for weddings, concerts and television appearances during the peak years covered by the recordings showcased here, the late ’60s and ’70s (she’s still alive, but sings only in Pentecostal churches these days). Delivering a melancholy, organic popular music style which was redolent of the times - all jaunty accordion and yearning violin, with a backdrop of cymbalom and percussion flourishes - she intoned soulful, heartfelt narratives in a smokily seductive, slight nasal voice that may not have quite matched Romica Puceanu (subject of Sounds of a Bygone Age Vol 2) in depth or artistry, but which spoke eloquently of the lives and loves of Communist-era East Europeans.

Highlights include the delicately nuanced, deliberate rhythms of Rau E, Doamne, Bolnavioara (with great stabs of accordion from Lunca’s musician husband, Ion Onoriu); the lurching Da, Mama, Cu Biciu-n Mine!, all wheezing beat, squealing violin, and with a deeper vocal from Gabi with Onoriu’s accordion dancing between the cracks of the verses as Lunca almost breaths sad, almost sobbing notes into the microphone; and Azi E Nor, Maine-i Senin, where Gabi is uncharacteristically deep and powerful, stretching the notes out to full, emotive effect.

The Sounds of a Bygone series is as lovingly-annotated and packaged as the recent Golden Afrique series, and is as eerily seductive as the much-cclaimed Ethiopiques releases. As such it deserves equal credit. Start here, and work backwards, you will not be disappointed.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

BALLA ET SES BALLADINS - The Syliphone Years (Stern's)

Balla et Ses Balladins were one of the big four Guinean orchestras of the post-independence era, bringing a grandeur to President Sékou Touré's ‘authenticité’ programme of cultural realignment with their majestic recordings for the Syliphone label under the leadership of trumpeter Balla Onivogui and trombonist Pivi Moriba.
The seemingly out of tune (but extraordinarily seductive) horn sections were something of a signature sound for this era of Guinean music, and the Balladins' brass arrangements exuded a dreamy quality, bending and swaying in and out of focus over what were initially simple Latinised popular tunes which became progressively more ambitious in scope as the band looked to traditional Mandinka influences for inspiration.
This exceptional double-CD compilation (the third in what is proving to be an essential series of adroitly mastered and packaged releases) joins the band at a peak that lasted from the late '60s (as L'Orchestre du Jardin du Guinée) through to 1980 and their final, momentous Syliphone release, Objectif Perfection.
Traces of the Latin influence were still there at the start of this period, vocalists Emile "Benny" Soumah and Manfila "Soba" Kané heartily intoning over dance numbers driven by those off-centre horns, Cuban rhythms and the ringing electric guitar breaks of Sekou “Le Docteur” Diabaté.
By the early '70s, Diabaté - one of the great lyrical guitar players to come out of Africa - and rhythm guitarist Kemo Kouyaté were the key components in the move to epic, griot-inspired pieces. On the first of these, Sara 70, the guitarists pick their mellifluous way between vocals, percussion and elongated horn breaks to produce ten minutes of music as mesmerising as just about any produced by the great West African orchestras of the period. And by 1980 - with tracks like Bambo and the near-perfect harmonic interplay of Paulette from Objectif Perfection - Balla et Ses Balladins have reached an understated, instinctive sophistication that places them squarely between (and arguably right up there alongside) the brass-led dance music of compatriots Bembeya Jazz and the dry, dense sound of Mali's Super Rail Band. Yes, that good. Highly recommended.

Stern's website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Living is Hard: West African Music in Britain, 1927-1929 (Honest Jon's)

Following the excellent London is the Place For Me series that covered the role of Caribbean and African music in post-war London life, the admirably assiduous Honest Jon's have taken a plunge into the EMI Records archive to stitch together another fascinating, evocative part of roots music’s rich historical tapestry, and the city's role in it.
These late '20s Zonophone recordings were made in London by West African artists resident in (or visiting) Britain, and sold back to their home market (record players as well as the discs themselves were part of the deal), and thus little of this music contains influence from outside the British colonial nations of their origin (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast/Ghana).
It’s mostly raw and elemental folkloric fare which has the resonance of field recordings (albeit with a clear, cleanly-mastered sound), with singers either unaccompanied or backed by rudimentary percussion, and with much in the way of call and response, possession or trance songs, and spirituals.
However, melody does have its place alongside tracks heavy on rhythm and mood, the presence of acoustic guitar pointing the way to later, more recognisable genres like Ghanaian highlife and the palm wine music of Sierra Leone. Harry E Quashie pushes the known provenance of the latter genre back a couple of decades with the Ghanaian standard Anadwofa, and there’s enough of a countrified twang to The West African Instrumental Quartet’s elaborately arranged instrumental to suggest the early shoots of the musical intermarriage with Europe and the Americas that was so important to the region’s popular music in later decades.
What little biographical detail that compiler Mark Ainley has managed to unearth suggests that few of these artists went on to greater musical achievements, and the socio-economic backdrop to the period in which these recordings were made - Africans who came to Britain to work were subject to the typical vagaries of immigrant labour (low pay, poor living conditions and racism) - suggest this collection might be both the starting and stopping place for our knowledge about them. So Living is Hard is a fine a way as any to mark these mysterious, unfamiliar voices of a newly discovered past.

Honest Jon's website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

BAKO DAGNON - Titati (Syllart)

For three decades and more, Bako Dagnon has stood imperiously over the music scene in Mali as a past member of the influential Ensemble Instrumental du Mali, fixture on the wedding party circuit, mentor to celebrated singers such as Kandia Kouyaté, and cultural guru to the late Ali Farka Touré.
All of which makes it slightly mystifying that she's remained relatively unheralded outside of West Africa, with none of her previous five solo albums seeing the light of day outside her native country.
Her commanding appearances on the Ibrahima Sylla-produced Mandekalou recordings went some way towards addressing that oversight, and that correction continues on this impressive showcase of songs covering the full history of Bako's career, recorded last year by Sylla and stalwarts of the legendary Bogolan studios of Bamako, François Bréant and Yves Wernert.
Bako's no untarnished siren like a Rokia Traore, nor does she possess the soulful tone of an Oumou Sangare, but her rough-hewn voice is the perfect instrument for these part-sung, part-spoken narratives, all delivered across a pulsing Mandé groove. Malian session musician mainstay Mama Sissokho and cohort Fantamady Kouyaté are the acoustic guitar-playing hub around which revolve the rest of the ensemble, and there's an mature control in Dagnon's vocals that cuts through the serene ensemble playing and sweet female harmonies (including those of Hadja Kouyaté, another singer well overdue further exposure). On the difficult-to-get-past Donsoké, a melodic, interweaving repeat-play of an opening song, we get the full range, from talkative through to declamatory (Kerfala Konte guests beautifully on this track), and there's passion in the voice too, at times, most notably when working against a dramatic string arrangement on Salimou (tunes are prudently coloured by violins, flute and wafts of bluesy harmonica throughout the album) and when driving against rousing female harmonies on Bélébélé, a song that reaches all the way back to the start of Bako's career in 1972. Every song's a gem, in fact, and the lady delivers them all with understated authority, aided by a sterling backing band and production team. Long-justified and well-overdue recognition awaits.

UK distribution via Discovery Records

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

ETRAN FINATAWA - Desert Crossroads (Riverboat)

Part of the appeal of the desert blues music from West Africa is its sheer simplicity, with circular guitar lines, handclaps and call and response vocals all buttressed by a lurching camel-gait drive that feels like the very essence of the peripatetic, communal lifestyles of the artists involved.
So, with Tinariwen having buttoned down the electrified Hendrix-inspired trance-rock end of the spectrum, Tartit the traditional end, and Toumast making a sterling attempt at filling a more experimental gap somewhere in between, where does that leave Niger’s Etran Finatawa, whose impressive debut album Introducing ran the risk of being crowded out of this relatively narrow field?
The answer, judging from this follow-up, is in a place where a lighter, peppier take on the genre is punctuated by a series of more traditional, meditative tunes. Allying Tuareg rhythms with the call and response vocals of the Wodaabe tribe from which a number of members come, the band employs acoustic instrumentation (percussion, flute, acoustic guitar) around a single crisp, melodic electric guitar line. The result sounds more spacious and unfussy than the band’s debut release, with many a catchy hook raising the up-tempo numbers into best-in-class territory. Kel Tamashek in particular has everything a desert blues addict needs - a snaking electric guitar motif, chunky acoustic guitar rhythms, a bouncy, rocking beat and a chorus to draw the most reluctant of phonetic singers-along out of their shells.
The stripped back but catchy Amidinine also begs audience participation, and on the more traditional side, the three snapshots entitled Tea Ceremony I, II, and III allow an ambient, atmospheric peek into a simpler past where music and mealtimes drew nomads together in communal contemplation.
With many of the lyrics reflecting similar deep concerns to those on Tinariwen’s recent offerings (the community's place in the world now seemingly as important as the everyday boy-meets-girl stories of Etran Finatawa's debut), there’s a sense of a group determined to put across weighty messages in as accessible a manner as possible, and those listeners who have yet to reach their personal Tuareg tipping point will find much here to savour.

Worldmusic website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

SECKOU KEITA SKQ - The Silimbo Passage (World Artventures)

The Seckou Keita Quartet's 2006 album, Afro-Mandinka Soul, bravely (and rewardingly) placed the Senegalese griot's vigorous, melodic kora playing in an experimental framework of violin (or riti, Gambian single-string fiddle), double-bass and calabash.
Subsequent concerts throughout the UK, continental Europe and West Africa served to tighten the group's dynamic further, and The Silimbo Passage reflects the resultant increased confidence, improvement in song-craft and rounding out of their hybrid (but entirely, convincingly organic-sounding) mix of traditional-yet-modern Afro-European music.
A couple of slight tweaks in personnel have given the album added focus and appeal. Juldeh Camara, the Gambian riti player who featured on half of the previous album's songs, has moved on, so violinist Samy Bishai's lyrical playing now shares the focal point with Seckou's kora on all ensemble tracks (there are two Seckou-only moments amongst the ten tracks, one of which - Missing You - is a touchingly rendered instrumental lament for two recently-deceased friends).
And Seckou's sister Binta Suso adds sumptuous soulful vocals that not only round out tunes that might otherwise be in danger of escaping the casual listener's immediate attention (the quartet-cum-quintet is nothing if not bold, opening the album with three tracks, all around six minutes long, all demanding patience as they gradually reveal their considerable charms layer by layer), but appear to have brought an improved, deeper tone to Seckou's voice as he strives to complement his new co-vocalist. Fonding Ké in particular sees the pair alternately harmonising and calling-and-responding with sibling intuitiveness over an agreeably jazzy groove.
But it's when Binta sings with elegant authority on Miniyamba, as Bishai weaves mournful notes around Keita's adroit kora playing, and rhythm section Davide Mantovani (double-bass) and Surahata Susso (percussion) shift the tempo back and forth in myriad subtle ways, that the ensemble truly excels. If you want a test of where a group is at, there's possibly no better song than this ubiquitous West African standard, and on this rendition - and The Silimbo Passage as a whole - the Seckou Keita SKQ passes with flying colours.

Seckou's website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

VARIOUS - Desert Blues 3 (Network Medien)

Compilers Christian Scholze and Jean Trouillet have taken their time in putting together the third of these excellent compilations of African blues-tinted balladry (forgiveness comes easily - they've been busy furnishing us with the similarly well-packaged and engaging Golden Afrique series in the meantime), and in so doing have managed to maintain the exemplary standard and seamless sequencing of the album's predecessors.
The title "desert blues" must be taken with an even larger pinch of sand this time round, as the compilers stretch what had already become a loose theme beyond West and North African countries all the way as far as Ethiopia, even making a brief foray across the Atlantic (American Markus James sounding like a worthy surrogate for desert blues champion Robert Plant).
But the mood is set in the familiar confines of Mali, Djelimady Tounkara's playful Manding acoustica flowing naturally into the cool spaghetti-Western vibe of another ex-Rail Bander Idrissa Soumaoro. And Mali is heavily represented throughout as you might expect, from the best-known (Oumou, Toumani, Ali Farka), to the less-known (guitarist N'Gou Bagayoko, upstaged by guest singer and daughter Ramata Doussou). Senegal and Niger are well represented too, and there's a welcome dash of North African cool (Souad Massi's aching, knee-weakening Raoui gets well-overdue inclusion), and that trip out East pays dividends with two Gigi tracks, plus the Sudanese song Eywat Setenafegagn, interpreted by Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya (it might have been better to have dropped one of the Gigi tracks for a bone fide Sudanese artist, but that's a minor gripe).
If the choices are representative of any trends in this broad musical area, then there has been a move recently to a more experimental approach. Rokia Traoré glides through Bownboï ably supported by the avant garde string ensemble Kronos Quartet; Tunisian oud maestro Dhafer Yousef floats delicate notes around trumpeter Markus Stockhausen and vocals so delicate they might break; and UK-based Senegalese artist Seckou Keita weaves kora, violin and double-bass in and out of the plaintive, bluesy tones of sister Binta Susso. All of which fit in neatly with the more straightforward tracks around them - the mark of a successful compilation, consistently engaging from start to finish.

Network Medien website

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE BARBES - Alik (Wagram)

If ever there was a group that reflected the area from which they hail, it's Orchestre National de Barbès, the collective which claims the multicultural Parisian quarter after which they are named as a nation in its own right and pays tribute to the area's tough, bustling diversity with a thick stew of spicy Arabic-French rock music.
North Africa provides the main foundation for the sound, more specifically Algeria (where the principle members' roots belong), so rock clashes with chaâbi, soukous guitars augment tight gnawa grooves, whilst Rai's urban rebellion and a streak of inner-city radicalism run like threads through most of the songs (the semi-acerbic anti-ID cards attack song Residence hits its target with a particularly satisfying Congolese-guitar-led élan).
The album opens at ninety-miles-an-hour with the hard-rockin' Civilise and speeds up from there, rattling between Arabic and French language songs driven by relentless beats and the twin electric guitar attack of Fathellah Ghoggal and Khlif Miziallaoua.
Most songs work from a Taha-esque dark-glasses-and-leather-trouser rai-rock template - although Fatah Benlala' vocals are more cool Khaled than rough Rachid - but there's a distinct Parisian influence as well, not least on La Rose on which a waltzing java accordion pushes along a jaunty, ironically delivered sing-along-a-love-song.
There's only one real bum note (if we pass over a barely-passable French-language cover of the Stones' Sympathy for the Devil) in Madame, more shabby than chaâbi in its crude plastic punkiness, and it is to be hoped that this song (and the album's general leaning towards a more rock-orientated edge than previously) doesn't signal too much of a change in future direction. It's true to say that admirers of the Orchestre National de Barbès of old might be slightly disappointed at the loss of many of the rootsier elements of the band's sound (there's nothing on the album that comes close to the gloriously hypnotic desert blues title-track of Poulina, for example) but with the flame of originality still burning strong, there's plenty here of interest for now.

UK distribution via Discovery Records

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

MOR KARBASI - The Beauty and the Sea (Mintaka/New Note)

Myspace does the business again as London-based Israeli singer Mor Karbasi blossoms from internet rumour to new and exciting prospect in one highly-accomplished step.

A handful of well-received live performances have helped as well, but a test of this rich, passionate music that’s drawn from the Jewish Ladino tradition of Spain is how to get it onto disc without losing its emotional power.

With her highly promising debut release, Mor Karbasi manages this more often than not, her lithe vocals (relatively high-pitched, and with none of the Arabesques associated with compatriot Yasmin Levy) riding a beautifully-arranged bed of instrumentation — acoustic and electric guitar, oud, mandolin, bass, violin and percussion, with harmonium and harpsichord played by Mor herself — on a set that ranges across mournful balladry, light, peppy folksiness and high-charged, full-throated intensity.
It’s when Mor tackles the latter styles that this CD really works — opening track Roza makes dramatic use of flamenco rhythms, there’s a touch of spry Balkan playfulness on Mansevo Del Dor (the squeaky voiced Roma singer Mitsoura springs to mind) and the emotive double-tracked vocal on Komo El Pasharo Ke Bola brings some Sephardic lustre to a sparse, percussive backdrop.

Mor Karbasi can do mournful too — En La Kaye De Mi Chikez has deep pangs of cello that bottom out what could have been a thin vocal performance, the drama of La Pluma is all thrusting flamenco guitar and wailing violin, and Mor’s harpsichord adds a medieval flavour to La Galana I La Mar.

At times the album can veer ominously towards a schmaltzy, daytime Radio 2 feel, particularly on tracks furnished with string arrangements, but with songs split evenly between those written by Mor (alongside partner and guitarist Joe Taylor, who also produces) and more traditional numbers, there’s enough variety and strength of purpose here for the album as a whole to work with remarkabl consistency. The Beauty and the Sea is a stirring debut from a very talented new name on the Ladino scene.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

SARA McGUINNESS

Midway through my conversation with Sara McGuinness we’re interrupted by a couple who have ventured over to express their thanks for her help in a recent project of theirs.
"It was an exercise in communication through music with a bunch of refugees from Yemen, Afghanistan, and various parts of Africa", Sara explains when the clearly very grateful couple have departed, "15- and 16-year olds who have only been in the UK about six months. We had this lad from the Ivory Coast, he hadn't said two words since he got here, but by the end we had him up singing a whole Craig David song."
When she’s not persuading hapless new arrivals to imitate doe-eyed beigebeat crooners, Sara McGuinness can be found employing her wide-ranging talents as sound engineer, producer, songwriter, keyboardist, band manager, teacher (knowledge-spreading trips to Cuba and Mali swiftly followed our interview) and all-round feisty fixture on the UK Latin and Congolese scenes, which she stumbled into nearly twenty years ago. “I did my degree in engineering, which led to a friend asking if I could have a go at doing the sound for his soul band. Somehow I ended up as their keyboard player, and started playing in various soul and reggae bands. I found that a lot of the music I listened to had Latin styles in it, so I took lessons in Cuban and Latin piano. That was about eighteen years ago, and I was really lucky to meet and work with people like the Afro-Cuban All Stars, Sierra Maestra and my mentor [the late Paris-based Cuban piano player] Alfredo Rodriguez."
Eventually McGuinness formed El Equipo with ex-pat Cuban Jimmy Martinez and ace Colombian timbalero Roberto Pla, as well as a number of British-born players. They released an album on their own Malecon label in 2001, and have since been consolidating their place on the live circuit. But it's getting progressively harder for bands to make a living this way, according to Sara: "The live scene has changed quite a lot over the years; it's tougher to get Arts Council touring grants. Salsa dance seems to have contributed to the drop in demand for live music. Only Europeans could take music and dance and separate them”, she jokes, “but many people do only want to dance to the tracks they've already learnt to dance to. So, a lot of musicians feel quite negative about it, but I can see the good side because finally people are starting ask about hearing the music played by a live band."
Sara’s latest project is Latin-Congolese band Grupo Lokito, which she formed two years ago with Kinshasa-born singer Jose Hendrix Ndelo. “I met Jose at a course at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and we started writing songs together. The Congolese scene in the UK is not entirely underground, but it is a long stronger amongst Africans than locals these days. I play sebene [the guitar-led gear change that ratchets mid-tempo Congolese rumbas up into hip-shaking dance tunes] with these guys for hours and it’s great, all cheesy chords, lovely marimba lines and stabs of horn, with guys in their designer gear and bling dancing away. It’s a scene that’s dominated by Africans of all nationalities, but everybody who is part of it welcomes me as part of the family; I’m sure they asked who that funny white woman was when I first started playing, but now when they see me on the bus or tube its ‘ah, there’s Sara keyboardy’!”
The natural link between Cuban and Congolese styles is well-documented of course, but Grupo Lokito have their own, unique Anglo-Afro-Cuban approach to the music; there’s a charming sweetness to their sound, one that's infused with El Lokito’s international take on Latin music but which will readily appeal to admirers of fans of acoustic rumba veterans Kékélé and Kanda Bongo Man alike. With a shifting line-up around core members Ndelo on vocals, McGuinness on keyboards, guitarists Burkina Faso and Limousine (“fantastic musicians, with a great groove”, enthuses McGuinness) and drummer Eugene Makuta, Grupo Lokito can be found rocking the regulars at their Sunday night (make that Monday morning: they rarely start before midnight) residency in Canning Town, East London, as well as branching out into less niche venues.
"We are working hard for more exposure, which we are getting more and more from the World Music scene, getting gigs via people like Jamie Renton and his Chilli Fried night in Clerkenwell. But some people seem to value musicians more if they come from abroad,” she claims, “there’s a bit of an authenticity problem, people booking gigs want to know if the musicians are based in Africa. I say the bands are made up of musicians who have chosen to make London their home, why not give them a chance here? And when they know that I’m a white English woman, that’s even more of a problem. Maybe I should stress my Irish-American-Lithuanian-Jewish background more!”

Myspace site for Grupo Lokito

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.

VARIOUS - Theme Time Hour With Your Host Bob Dylan (Ace)

When Bob Dylan was given his own series of weekly hour-long programmes on American radio, each containing songs based around a certain theme, even the most blinkered worshipper of His Bobness might not have anticipated quite how engaging a DJ he would be, or the treasures mined as he and his researchers used conveniently generic topics as a mechanism to cherry pick American popular music’s rich heritage (“weather”, “mother” and “drinking” were the initial subjects of the fifty-episode first series).
The show is akin to tuning in to an iPod shuffle of Bob’s musical memories, a fragmented succession of aural snapshots as he might have encountered them over the airwaves, filtered largely on the blues and country music radio stations of his youth and laced with a more than liberal smattering of gospel, soul, reggae, pop, jazz, conjunto and rock music from the ‘20s to the present day.
All of which has been expertly sampled, deftly sequenced and rolled up into a knowledgeably annotated two-CD package by Theme Time producer Eddie Gorodetsky, Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen and Ace records’ Roger Armstrong. Bookending the collection with songs that extol contrasting virtues of the wonderful world of radio (as religious conduit on Grandpa Jones’ ‘40s country hit Turn Your Radio On, as urban automobile jukebox on Jonathan Richman's loose-limbed classic Roadrunner from 1976), the compilers weave together a tapestry of venerated artists (from Billie to Bo Diddley and beyond) and unheralded gems (including a treat for lovers of the recent Krauss/Plant album by Li'l Millet and His Creoles), with the odd foray away from the USA (the militaristic, scattergun roll of The Clash’s searing Tommy Gun, Celtic Cajun Geraint Watkins at his bluesy best, some soulful ska from Jamaica) dovetailing into the broad theme of succinctly delivered, timeless nuggets of everyday American life.
The only obvious difference from the shows themselves (apart from an absence of hip-hop tracks) is the absence of Bob’s dry, laconic delivery. No corny jokes punctuate the tunes here, no surreal, rasping diversions into his meandering thought processes, no homespun wisdom or comic erudition. Just fifty prime cuts from one of the choicest radio shows of recent times.

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

LE TRIO JOUBRAN

"Silence is power. It's the place where you breathe, and just as you cannot see the stars at night without the darkness, so you need the silence to feel the full force of the music."
So speaks Samir Joubran, eldest brother, leader and musical director of Palestinian oud ensemble Le Trio Joubran, describing the precious moments when the group hold a tune in silent suspended animation before plucking notes out of the still air as they embark on another weaving, cascading run, skilfully improvising around each other to produce moments where Middle Eastern roots meet flamenco and Mediterranean styles with an energy not usually seen when the instrument is played solo. "The oud is not just for small halls,” Samir claims, “It can be played in a cosy room in front of ten people, or at festivals with 100,000 people - why not? This instrument is the father of the guitar; it’s not a museum piece."
It’s a subtle form of power, though, built in waves of increasingly intricate rhythm and melody, pushed along in an understated manner by recently-added percussionist Yousef Hbeitsch.
"I felt we needed more energy after our first album, something to play off, although Yousef's very gentle in the way he plays," says Samir. That album, Randana (released in 2005) was the first to feature all three brothers - they are the first to deploy the instrument in a trio, according to Samir - the two younger Joubrans, Adnan and Wissam, having joined Samir as they matured as performers (Wissam is also the trio’s luthier, hand-crafting the instruments just as their father Hatim did before him).
“Mâjaz means “Metaphor,” explains Samir of the latest, recently released, album’s title, “The songs have metaphorical titles - Process, I Wish, Maybe - that leave the audience open to ideas, to make up their own mind what the songs are about. On the album we tried to break some of the rules in Arabic music such as always starting and ending in the same scale. I prefer to be freer in playing, my joy comes from composing to different scales, and I try to see how I can make the music more international, more effective for both the younger and older generations."
There's a drama to this music, a cinematic quality that betrays Samir's film scoring pedigree (he worked closely with director and compatriot Rashid Mashawari's acclaimed documentary of Israeli occupation Ticket to Jerusalem, in 2002) and work with celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Laytana in particular has a wide-screen, lyrical feel, perceptibly Middle Eastern but with a hint of Texan twang, and possessing a well-honed sense of craftsmanship married to improvisational techniques, which is typical of the album as a whole.
"I always start with a picture in my head when I compose," explains Samir "and often, we will start to improvise and after six to seven hours we’ll catch one idea and start to build on it. Sometimes you don't find anything, you practice again and again for four or five days, and there's nothing..."
You must hate each other by then.
"Yes, it can get very difficult! But I need to surprise my brothers, and they try to surprise me. Sometimes it happens very quickly, we don't play for a week and suddenly we play and the melody is there. It's a very nice moment to catch the idea as it forms. But this instrument is part of us; we are not dealing with the music as a subject, it's like breathing to us, a natural process that we don't even think about. For the album, we worked nine hours a day for three months solid. It's a matter of working, working, working till the album is done. Maybe I'll sleep in one of my brothers' houses, or he’ll sleep in mine, but we work without any relationship to time or anything else."
That closeness is reflected by the fact that all the Joubran brothers are now resident in Paris, Samir having moved to the French capital four years ago.
"It's complicated - I left Palestine because of my career, it's easier to travel and our management is there. But also, my wife is from Ramallah and has Palestinian and American passports. I am from Nazareth and have an Israeli passport. I cannot live with my wife there because she is a Palestinian married to an Israeli and the Israeli Government would not allow her to return to Ramallah to see the rest of her family. So Paris is not just where I built my career but also where I can be with my wife and daughter. For sure it's bothered me as musician,” he adds reflecting on the way the situation impacts his work and family, “the whole thing has affected my career, but I always try to do concerts in Palestine, the people deserve to share our success. We are losing everything, our country, our houses, our careers, everything. But one day we will be back."

www.letriojoubran.com

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.

TOUMANI DIABATE - The Mandé Variations (World Circuit )

Twenty years - and many fascinating diversions - after a cherubic twenty-something Toumani Diabaté stunned us all with his sparkling debut solo kora album Kaira, comes the long-awaited follow-up.
If you've seen or heard the man before, you'll know what to expect - a mastery of his instrument that's darned near unrivalled in roots music, a flowing, breathless lyricism to his playing, and a rhythmic sophistication that leaves the listener doubting the sleeve-notes' claims about the album having been recorded without overdubs.
But as the title suggests, there's a strong improvisational flavour to The Mandé Variations, traditional melodies are often briefly flirted with (at least two Kaira tunes are revisited) before Toumani embarks on one of his rippling melodic runs, or (as often as not) brings a subtle, introspective mood to proceedings.
There is no concession to time here, the shortest track clocking in at just under six minutes, and it takes opener Si Naani ten and a half to unfold, shower the listener in delicate, pulsing waves of notes and counter-rhythm, before resolving itself into a tender 'solo' finish.
In contrast, El Nabiyouna is all extemporisation, a Diabaté duet where he pulls out a sequence of fluid descending lines in answer to his own sombre, reflective prompts.
Elsewhere, Ismael Drame is more familiar in style, a straight, rolling blues that takes a neat diversion into the Mandé standard Miniyamba; and Ali Farka Touré is reminiscent of Diabaté‘s mellow duets with the great Malian guitarist.
Aside from a playful extract from the theme from The Good, the Bad and The Ugly that opens final track Cantelowes, this is a serious, almost classical recording that constantly brings to mind adjectives such as “magisterial” and “stately“, with the potential detachment of artist from listener that could be implied by those words. And it is the case that The Mandé Variations requires the undivided attention of the listener (it doesn’t creep up and seduce in the way that In The Heart of the Moon did, for example) - it's mood music, albeit of the very highest order.

World Circuit

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

ALY KEITA - Akwaba Iniséné (Contre-Jour)

Aly Keïta is a virtuoso balafon player from the Ivory Coast with an expressive, relaxed approach to playing that cries out to be framed by musicians and singers sympathetic to the sound he makes, and that is exactly what the Germany-based percussionist has achieved on this impressively varied album of original songs.
Guitar, bass, drums and a funky brass section are deployed to fill out songs of everyday African life, the tunes heavily influenced by the jazz styles to which Keïta has been exposed in Europe (with ensembles such as Trio Ivoire), but which contain a joyful swing that keeps the music firmly rooted in his native West Africa.
The highlight is the appearance of fellow-Ivorian Dobet Gnahoré as vocalist on five of the thirteen numbers. The former Awards For World Music nominee has a rich, soulful voice (similar at times to Malian Rokia Traore) that she revels in trading with Keïta’s improvisations. On Akan - the only track featuring electric guitar, and with a lovely buzzy balafon sound throughout - Gnahoré is at her wide-ranging best, sweeping from a deep and moody croon to a playful, childlike purr. And on the album’s highlight - the gorgeously atmospheric paen to Aly‘s grandmother, Forêt Sacrée - Gnahoré’s pleading vocals make for an emotive contrast to Keïta’s flowing melodies.
The rest of the album is largely made up of instrumentals, some designed to show off the leader’s abilities, others being fuller band arrangements. Made in C.F.P.M is a particular highlight, with brass-blowing brothers Martial and Magloire Ahouandjinou deservedly taking centre stage on an extended funk workout.
Akwaba Iniséné is a consistently engaging album - up-tempo, free-flowing, full of catchy tunes and hip-swinging rhythms, with that magical balafon sound dancing in and out of the grooves to deliver a deliciously Afro-funky brew.

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

LES AMAZONES DE GUINEA - Wamato (Stern's)

It's been quite a while, but Africa's first-ever all-female group are back with a vengeance - retour en force! as they announce at the start of the album - with a funky, feisty collection of old-style Guinean big band grooves. This was the original girl-power group, coming together in the early '60s (whilst serving in the National Police) and by the early '70s they were blasting out a high-energy blend of vocals, interweaving electric guitar, throbbing bass lines and brass arrangements to get you off your feet and onto the dance-floor.
The line-up of the orchestra has been changed regularly over the years, but Wamato finds it retaining all the familiar elements of a sound that must surely be the loosest, most life-affirming music on the planet performed by an orchestra that includes Commandants, Captains and Lieutenants in its line-up.
Those officers get us off to a rocking start on the opener (and title-track), Yaya Kouyaté's ever-shifting guitar lines underpinning a snappy beat while the singers trade bluesy vocals with each other and with saxophonists Djenabou Ba and Mariama Cissé (the latter's alto sax is a satisfyingly beefy presence throughout the album). Guitarist Kouyaté is a revelation throughout, whether it be delivering a jaunty soukous vibe on Deni Wana (ably supported by rhythm guitarist N'Sira Tounkara) or ringing embellishments to songs such as the standout praise song Kania.
A couple of the songs don't work quite so well - particularly when the orchestra strays into less familiar territory such as the French-language cha-cha-cha, Meilleurs Voeux - and the horn arrangements start to verge on the samey over a dozen or so tracks. But with the constant presence of half a dozen seductive vocalists (M'Mah Sylla's clear, powerful tone probably the best of the lot) riding a consistently invigorating sound, it's easy to overlook the reservations and just let the celebratory atmosphere take over. Welcome back, girls!

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

TITINA - Cruel Destino (Astral)

Comparisons with Cape Verde’s Queen of morna, Cesaria Evora, are inevitable and hard to avoid. But if there’s one thing better than having one evocative interpreter of the islands’ soulful folk music, that’s being blessed with two of them.

The similarities between Abertina ‘Titina’ Rodrigues Almeida and her illustrious compatriot are plentiful — well past the first flush of youth, she possesses a smooth, yearning, laid-back vocal style that sings mournful songs of love and longing for the Cape Verde islands over guitar, piano and bass backing. Just the occasional mid-tempo number is dropped in to remind the listener of the islands’ links with the bossa-nova and samba of Brazil.

Titina, too, looks like receiving worldwide favour at a relatively late stage of her career, having ditched recording for live performances over the last decade, before eventually being persuaded to record this lushly arranged (by guitarist Bau) set of Cape Verdean standards.

The differences? Well, much more use of clarinet, played with understated mellifluousness by Daniel Salomé, particularly on the jaunty, mid-tempo Saia Travada where he weaves his notes over a stop-start piano rhythm as Titina croons about her desire to return to her country of origin. There’s real feeling in that song, not least because Titina is now based in Lisbon, and the Portugese influence is apparent on tracks such as Desgosto Profundo, with its light dusting of fado guitar work by Osvaldo Dias.

If I’m allowed one more comparison with Cesaria it’s that if you like that great lady’s smoother recordings, where the light, lilting rhythms and subtle acoustic guitar or piano fills are ridden by her voice of limited range but bottomless feeling — and the sound of that being mixed with snaking, soulful clarinet and violin appeals to you — then Cruel Destino is an album that comes highly recommended.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

YASMIN LEVY - Mano Suave (Network Medien)

The third album from the Israeli singer whose aim is to keep the Spanish-Jewish Ladino tradition alive, is another small step closer to the classic album we are waiting for.

This time Lucy Duran is on board as producer, so you know you’re guaranteed beautifully arranged songs with a warm, sympathetic texture. Levy’s emotional phrasing is deployed in a range of styles that circle the central Sephardic sound - Paraguayan harp, kora, flamenco guitar, Arabic instruments such as oud, ney flute and qanun all feature - with a noticeable inclination towards Turkish and North African influences (Anglo-North African singer Natacha Atlas is another guest artist).

Una Noche Mas is the highlight, and has the feeling of an instant World Music classic. Set to a waltz-like rhythm, the track builds in intensity against an echoing (almost ’60s sounding) production, with Yasmin at her emotional, sultry best. Elsewhere, there are one or two moments where Yasmin could be accused of playing things too safely, in particular when the roots influences are moved to the background in favour of lush strings and a smoothed out, emotionless vocal tone (not so much Moorish as MORish?), leaving the album a couple of tracks short of being the truly great album of which she is surely capable.

That’s a minor gripe, however, and if Yasmin Levy’s first album, Romance and Yasmin, was a remarkable statement of intent, and the follow-up, La Juderia, a worthy exercise in marrying traditional Spanish modes — especially flamenco — with the music of the Sephardic Jews, then Mano Suave takes Ladino one step further into a diverse and at times thrilling mix of emotive singing and evocative roots music. This is one to enjoy while awaiting the next step with eager anticipation.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

17 HIPPIES - Heimlich (Hipster)

After ten years and eight albums of varying quality, Berlin’s 17 Hippies - one of global music culture’s best-kept secrets operating under possibly its worst name — have produced their most accomplished set yet of likeable acoustic big-band music.

There must be a joke in that name somewhere. The band’s early wild, Brecht/Weill-inspired cabaret performances certainly couldn’t have been less ‘hippy’, and over the years they have developed their mix of German cabaret, chanson, polka and more to the point where Heimlich emerges as just about the most sophisticated and varied collection of European roots-pop tunes that you could wish for. It’s joyous, life-affirming, yet with a subtle hint of Germanic melancholy that preserves an edge, a tone of light-hearted seriousness that always intrigues, and at times can even unnerve, the listener.

Singing in French and English as well as German, the ensemble actually numbers about thirteen members, deploying a shifting array of guitars, accordions, violins, ukulele, wind instruments and, perhaps crucially, not a drum in sight.

Schattenman (Shadowman) is a breathless opener — a madcap, 90-mile-an-hour theme tune for what could be a Balkan Keystone Cops scene, with a furious posse of violins, harmonica, flute and harmonica chasing a chugging amalgam of brass and acoustic instruments over the horizon, with the vocalists shouting encouragement over the top. Son Mystère, by contrast, is a haunting French-language gem seductively delivered by Kiki Sauer, with an evocative oboe line and an acoustic guitar, accordion and string base that gradually builds a ’60s French film-noir-style tension. Less seriously, Tick Tack is a jaunty ukulele-led sing-along that evokes thoughts of what Marseille’s Moussou T e Lei Jovents might come up with were they to decamp to Berlin’s alternative music scene. Despite all these swings of mood and style — there’s a Cajun hoe-down and a ballad with a hint of Velvet Underground and Nico amongst it all — Heimlich rolls along in a cohesively entertaining manner. It’s the dream quirky soundtrack to every Euro-cinephile’s imagined favourite comedy, and it deserves to be number one throughout the continent.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

WENDO KOLOSOY - On The Rumba River (Marabi)

After more than 60 years of making music, octogenarian Congolese singer and guitarist Antoine “Wendo” Kolosoy is still going strong, and this half-retrospective/half-soundtrack is a welcome primer on his remarkable career.

The album is named after the 2004 film made about the ex-boxer who became one of Congo’s early recording stars with the 1948 rumba classic Marie-Louise, the song on which many claim guitarist Henri Bowane introduced the sebene, the point at which slow to mid-tempo soukous numbers are ratcheted up into speedy dance tunes. A delightfully fluid 1993 acoustic version of that classic track opens proceedings, and the collection then weaves its seductive way between live recordings from the film and highlights of Wendo’s resolutely old-school Congolese rumba albums of the past.

Wendo frequently takes a back seat on the live numbers as various cohorts and colleagues work their way through a series of rudimentary praise songs, likembe (thumb piano)-led improvisations and horn-led rumbas. But thankfully his frail but still affecting voice is to the fore on the best of the 2004 batch, and although Kolosoy has never been the greatest of African singers — lacking the sweetness of many rumba singers or the power and poise of the more declamatory West Africans — there’s a delicate woody timbre to his singing that suits the earthy yet beguiling nature of the music.

The older tracks swing blissfully around that voice, an uplifting marriage of horns, acoustic guitar and percussion that bring a welcome levity to the album as a whole. All we really need now is a truly definitive collection of the great man’s work.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

FIONA SOE PAING - No Man's Land

A short, intriguing debut release of world music electronica from a talented new singer from Scotland, by way of Burma.

Fiona Soe Paing is a Scottish producer, arranger and musician of Burmese extraction who marries electronic beats to an unearthly, ethereal vocal style on an atmospheric, at times downbeat, set of self-penned songs. The opening track Tamin Sah Pade — the only song in the Burmese language (the others being a mix of English and a made-up ‘No Man’s’ language) — is a stunningly lush, pulsing slab of whispered electronic instruments and a nagging multi-tracked vocal, with a melody that follows you around for days. A hint of the enormous potential here.

But if Soe Paing has a simple but subtly effective voice, it can sometimes be swamped in the mix of belching, squeaking instruments and dramatic synthesised sounds. In fact, it’s hard to tell which language she is singing in on Tah Stin Koh Mpo, such is the way her disembodied voice is buried in the mix; is it English? Probably not, given the title of the song. But Piece of You certainly is, and is surely the way to go for Fiona on future recordings — stark, minimalist, with just the merest hint of a groove and a sensual, bluesy vocal. This and the opener (and one or two of the other of the nine songs) are evidence of a performer with the potential for an enormous future in the fascinating area where roots music meets modern sounds.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

MAHMOUD FADL - For Oriental Dancers (Piranha)

Ostensibly conceived to take advantage of the latest vogue for ‘bellydance’ music, this snappy set of Arabic instrumentals is a rhythmic delight from start to finish.

Mahmoud Fadl is the renowned percussionist with the Egyptian Drummers of the Nile, and over the years he has recorded many songs from the classic Arabic songbook, weaving traditional Arabic instrumentation (oud, nay, qanun and violin) around a multi-faceted array of percussion instruments.

Many of those recordings appear here as part of a dance-orientated series of full band arrangements punctuated by short, brusque passages of all out controlled percussive mayhem.

Some of the greats of the Arabic music world are represented - Oum Kalthoum (including a 14-minute version of her classic unfolding drama Aghadan Alkak) and Mohamed Abdel Wahab amongst them — as well as traditional numbers and original compositions. And it all works surprisingly well, the only drawback being that some of the more lush, orchestral backings are crying out for a great vocalist to finish off the emotional feeling that they invoke.

The bonus club mix track at the end of the CD is an incongruous way to round of an organic and rootsy set of songs, but everything else on From Cairo With Love has much to appeal to dancers and listeners alike.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

SHE'KOYKH KLEZMER ENSEMBLE - Sandanski's Chicken (ARC)

The She’koyokh Klezmer Orchestra are an invigorating fixture on London’s live scene, and Sandanki’s Chicken is is a vibrant, energising showcase of this band of many talents. The ensemble comprises artists with a disparate range of expertise and interest drawn from the UK classical (violinist Meg Hamilton and clarinet player Susi Evans) and jazz (Robin Harris on trombone) spheres, plus the far flung corners of the Balkan/Jewish roots diaspora (the rest of the eight-piece hail from the USA, Europe and even Zambia). If that sounds like it might make for a disorderly sound, then rest assured these musicians have honed a spirit and respect for the music over many performances, while simultaneously maintaining the spark required for this at turns playful, emotional and spirited form of music. Mahmutköy Karilamasi — inspired by a recording by Turkish clarinet star Selim Sesler — opens with a beautiful mournful trade-off between mandolin and clarinet on a slow Ottoman dance, before bursting into a delightful mid-tempo Yiddish jaunt, Evans’ clarinet snaking between the rest of the ensemble’s rhythmic interplay. In contrast, the Ukrainian folk tune Dem Rebns Nign sees Hamilton’s violin playing at its emotive, intricate best, scraping along on a wheezy bed of accordion bursts from Jim Markovitch. And Greek music also gets a look-in, via the exquisitely-rendered Mediterranean melodies on mandolin and clarinet on Amarantos. Romanian, Syrian and Bulgarian instrumental tunes are also covered, and there’s a delightfully light-hearted original composition to round off proceedings — the jaunty, music-hall Wedding Song is an anarchic tale of the gig of every wedding band’s worst nightmares. So much more than just another klezmer album, then, Sandanki’s Chicken is an album of pan-European roots music — eminently danceable in most places (the band have performed at many Jewish weddings) but always possessing a considered, soulful approach to the music and its traditions, all of which serves well to demonstrate what a great evening is had at their concerts.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

DJIVAN GASPARYAN - Portrait: The Soul of Armenia (Network Medien)

Djivan Gasparyan won the Radio 3 Awards for World Music audience award in 2003 for his exquisite, soulful playing on the duduk (double-reeded oboe). Portrait is as fine a showcase for the Armenian’s versatile musicianship as you could wish for, as he approaches his 80th birthday. Network Medien’s lavish double-CD package runs to a daunting 140 minutes in length, but is sequenced such that you can either relax and let the haunting, subtly melodic instrument take centre stage as its spacious, flowing notes transport you to Gasparayan’s mountainous native country; or you can marvel at the sheer breadth of music — both traditional and modern — within which he deploys its rich, airy sound. The traditional manner of playing the instrument is as a duo, one instrumentalist providing a deep-seated drone over which the lead player blows soft, emotional notes. The improvised piece Improvisation and Antsa Gnatsi, which Gasparyan recorded with his son especially for this collection (one of a number of new interpretations recorded in 2007), is a tenderly delivered, mournful example of that approach. But the instrument is also framed in a number of different, and variously-sized, ensembles right up to the majestic, free-flowing 23-minute Armenian all-star suite that closes the collection - a folksy, life-affirming clash of wind instruments, ouds, traditional percussion and a host of bewilderingly talented Gasparyan family members. The experimental side of Djivan’s work is well represented here too, notably with Real World records’ master of the modern soundscape Michael Brook, and in an interesting marriage with the Avedis String Orchestra that accentuates the classical dimension of the instrument. The occasional vocal track, and some weaving, small-ensemble tracks that possess a sense of rhythm right out of the Orient (Gasparyan has worked with many noted Turkish, Iranian and Tuvan artists) make for a rich array of music that can be enjoyed in bite-sized chunks or one sumptuous feast.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

KAUSHIKI CHAKRABARTY - Kaushiki (Sense)

She won a BBC Award for World Music in 2005 for her breathtaking Sense Records album Pure, and now Kaushiki Chakrabarty is back with a follow-up every bit as stunning as that live album. Kauskiki is a triple CD set, the second and third volumes again being live recordings, performed at India’s Saptak festival and centred around two epic, weaving renditions of classical Indian ragas, Kaushiki’s pure yearning voice swooping round tabla, harmonium and tanpura backing. ‘Backing’ being the key word here, as the instruments are expertly played but sparsely set in order to provide the merest space, emotion and rhythmic backdrop for Kaushiki’s impressively poised vocals.
But it’s the studio recordings that make up the first CD which are the real revelation this time round. These are larger ensemble pieces featuring the full range of Indian classical instrumentation, and Kaushiki has chosen an impressively wide range of tunes from the North and South Indian repertoires, a range which serves to accentuate the emotional range of the singer, and (perhaps crucially for a musical form often seen as staid) her youth, as she playfully pushes her vocals back at the staccato prompts of violin and tabla on the varnam Raga Swarashtam, and delivers lively flights of melody over the rhythmically intricate, almost Qawwali style taran, Raga Nat Bhairav. Is there even a hint of a giggle from Kaushiki and she unravels her high-speed improvisation against the frenetic tabla rhythm on the latter track? If so, this underlines the young singer’s innate ability to humanise often very serious and reflective traditional songs while remaining true to the years of classical training that honed her cool, natural approach to singing. The popularisation of this emotionally stirring music continues through a uniquely articulate performer.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

YOUSSOU NDOUR - Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)

Africa’s greatest superstar and elder statesman of global sounds wears his crossover obligations lightly in a back to basics, stripped down pop album. There’s very little in the way of Youssou’s famous rocking mbalax sound on Rokku Mi Rokka, and none of the elegant Sufi soul of his previous album Egypt. Instead just guitar, drums, bass, that cut-glass voice and the occasional hint of horn or organ create a series of snappy, hook-laden pop tunes. It doesn’t always work well — tracks such as Africa Calling (a return duet with Neneh Cherry, who recorded the remarkable 7 Seconds hit with Ndour) and the opener 4-4-44 are too self-conscious in their aim of attracting a Western audience, and guest appearances from members of Orchestra Baobab can’t rescue Xel from being a heavy, clodding beat-burdened mess of a song. But Youssou’s aim is true elsewhere, as he weaves myriad influences from throughout Senegal into the collection. Sama Gàmmu is probably the best example of this, a shuffling beat and subtly effective electric guitar figure supporting N’dour’s stirring duet with Ousmane Kangue, who hails from near the Mauritanian border in the north of the country. And man of the moment Bassekou Kouyaté from Mali brings a welcome light touch with his airy ngoni playing on the album’s five best tracks, most notably the celebratory Baaye Faal (dedicated to the leader of the Sufi clan of that name); the laid-back, catchy Dabbaax; and the highlight of the album, Létt ma, where Kouyaté adds earthy ngoni fills to a jauntily bucolic tune, with Youssou at his soaring, soulful best. Some great moments, then, but overall Rokku Mi Rokka doesn’t feel like the classic return to form that some people are suggesting. Hopefully, a more relaxed approach throughout will deliver that next time round.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

MAYRA ANDRADE - Navega (Stern's)

Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade has just been named as a nominee for Best Newcomer in the 2008 Awards For World Music, and her classy album Navega has a musical depth and consistency to more than warrant that honour. At first it’s quite difficult to get past the opening track on the album, Dimokransa (Democracy), a light and airy song of dashed democratic hopes and one of the defining world music moments of 2007. Possessing a seductive lusaphone swing one expects from the music of the Cape Verde islands (situated off the West coat of Africa, but with a strong relationship to Brazil), the song is spiced with an extra lyrical bite and one of those hooks that immediately feel as if they have been around forever. Andrade has a strong, smoky voice, not as blues-soaked or evocative as fellow Cape Verdean Cesaria Evora, but with enough depth of expression to carry off the range of styles employed on the album. Further investigation reveals touches of samba, jazz, the occasional morna piece (Poc Li Dente E Tcheu a particular highlight), chanson (the catchy French-language Comme S’Il En Pleuvait) and the rootsier Cape Verdeane styles, funana and batuku (the best example being the funky Lua, which is similar in name and style to Mayra’s compatriot and batuku stylist Lura). Scattered throughout the collection also are what might be termed straight “world” music songs which reflect Myra Andrade’s international background (Cuba, West Africa and — currently — Paris have all been home for a songstress still in her early 20s) — soft-focus, mostly-acoustic music with accordion and horns colouring in the percussion, bass and acoustic guitar, all providing a framework for the effortless, confidently cool (but never too languid) vocals of a highly talented young woman. Always charming but never boring, this is an impressive introduction indeed.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

BEDOUIN JERRY CAN BAND - Coffee Time (IPS)

Yes they are Bedouins, and yes they really do use jerry-cans as a percussive instrument, alongside clay jugs, coffee grinders, ammunition boxes and anything else that will add rhythmic value to their addictive North African dance music. Semi-nomadic Sufis from the Sinai, the Bedouin Jerry Can Band base their earthy Arabic sound around the simsimiyya (5-string Egyptian lyre), the assorted percussive detritus of the Sinai desert, magroona (reed pipe), rababa (single-stringed fiddle), call-and-response vocals and a deeply rooted sense of tradition. Despite the reference to jerry cans, this isn’t a jumble of sounds gathered haphazardly together, it’s a carefully-crafted traditional sound draped in years of steady musical refinement that falls somewhere between the bluesy hand-clapped call and response songs of acoustic Tuareg bands like Tartit and the up-tempo popular chaabi music prevalent throughout the Maghreb. Fellow Egyptian Sufis El Tanbura add vocal lustre to three of the best tracks, Am Ye Gamal, Drobie and Black Coffee, the latter a rousing contemporary folk song in praise of the coffee making rituals around which the Bedouin tribes of the Sinai revolve. There’s plenty of variety to the tunes as well, in sound if not theme (this being desert pop music of yore, most songs are on a love-related theme). On the instrumental Debaka, various wind instruments exchange playful melodic passages over sparse handclap and tabla support, and female vocalist Rana Awad adds gorgeously sweet, yelping vocals that are every bit as contemporary and seductive as the best modern Arabic pop chanteuses on what is possibly the album’s highlight, Wesh Melek (“a tragic tale of mismatched desire between two young lovers” according to the sleeve-notes). All in all, an infectious, educational gem of an album.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

MARZOUG

It wasn’t easy tracking Marzoug down at this year’s Womud festival at Charlton Park. Their top-to-toe all-white desert garb makes for an impressive visual focal point in an energetically mobile stage performance, the eight band members twirling and swirling their robes to the spiralling notes of leader Jelloul Soudani's checkwa (Algerian bagpipe) with vigorous support from tabla drums and qarqaba castanets.
But the striking get-up was not exactly conducive to getting about in the six inches of gloopy mud that bedecked the festival site, although whatever oasis of grass they managed to colonise clearly did the trick because they remained immaculate throughout their two high-octane performances, and I finally caught up with them after the second of those performances as they perched on the backstage steps of the Siam Tent waiting for one of the overworked artists' buggies to take them back to dry land.
"We come from Biskra, which is to the south of Algeria, from what they call the doors of the desert," they explain (the conversation is as head-spinning as their performance, each member chipping in with thoughts and observations, translated from French and Arabic by manager Halim). "The neighbourhood we live in is called Sudanese El Alia, which helps explain the African rhythms. This is ancient music that we play in Biskra, which we call 'durs'. Our culture takes many influences from all around because Biskra is such a vital commercial centre, caravans have always come from everywhere carrying Berbers, Bedouins and Africans - so, the influences are Arabic, African and even Barbarian! Some people say the music itself has been around since the first century, but we think that the chekwa might have originated in the Middle Ages during the Christian Crusades when the Franks came to Palestine to force the Muslims out. They will have brought the cornemuse (bagpipe) with them."
The chekwa is at the centre of the Marzoug sound, winding its wailing notes around rhythms clearly derived from sub-Saharan Africa, and although it's not that unusual to see an instrument such as this in the Maghreb – there's the mizwid music of Tunisia, for example - this particular instrument and its sound seem unique to this part of Algeria. Comprising two reed tubes tied together at the tip with one part fixed to the inside of the air pouch, at the top end of the bag is the blow-reed and two small gazelle horns, the latter giving the incongruous impression that the musician is blowing into an animal's head. The master of the instrument and leader of the Marzoug troupe is the elegant and eloquent Jelloul Soudani:
"My father played checkwa and created the band in 1962, but I learnt from my uncle who preceded me in this group. Marzoug is our family name, we are all related, cousins, uncles, brothers. The chekwa was traditionally made of goat skin, but we use synthetic materials these days. It used to be played in unison with others, but my uncle’s father decided to make it the instrument of the soloist. We added the two extra reeds to give the instrument a richer, more varied sound that can be integrated with the drums. We call the instrument a chekwa to differentiate it from the cornemuse mezoued found elsewhere in North Africa.”
As for the sound produced by the checkwa, it is a distinctly high Arabic homophonic tone but there are echoes of the Celtic and possibly even Balkan roots in the melodies produced by those extra reeds.
"Yes it is a bit similar," agrees Jelloul, "but technically it's not the same, our modes are unique and we don't have the drone sound you get with Scottish bagpipes, for example. But everywhere we play people love what we do and say that they can hear similarities in the music. We've played in Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Ireland and the reception is always great. In Brest we played with [legendary Breton pipe player] Patrick Molard. He asked to meet us after picking up some records in Algeria. His biniou looks and sounds very similar to the checkwa, it is clear that here is a common history."
It's not all wailing bagpipes - there's a rocking backdrop to each song, an exuberant, polyrhythmic attack that grows in an intensity matched step by step by the organised chaos of the constantly interchanging dance steps of each band member. The boys really know how to make full use of a stage unencumbered by cables (a microphone for the occasional vocal track being the only plugged-in instrument).
"The tradition of the drums come from the family Diwan [traditional devotional ceremony with song and dance]," they explain, "where we sit around and play drums, all day all night, seven days at a time, until we are in a trance. The songs are love songs and ones about the saints, some traditional, some written by the family. We like to mix things up a bit."

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.

JALI FILY CISSOKHO - Doumajoulo (Kaira)

The second album from UK-based Senegalese griot Jali Fily Cissokho (brother of Solo, he of Ellika and Solo renown) is a smartly played but uneven affair.Cissokho’s robust kora playing and soaring vocals are aided by sister Adama (also on vocals), multi-talented nephew Sekou Keita on percussion and a talented backing band from his native Casamance on a mixture of traditional griot songs and new compositions. Binta Jagn is an example of the group at their best, with a charming duet between the two singers and some delicate touches on kora from Jali Fily. And Demba Walimagn features a series of ringing electric guitar lines from Zacharia Diatta that dance around energetic talking drum from Keita. The closing instrumental, Dunia, appeals too, guest David Lord adding atmospheric washes of keyboard to the unfolding lines of melody from Cissokho's kora.
But there's a rough edge to the production that doesn't do justice to some of the busier tracks, causing the instruments to coalesce into a disappointing sonic murk at times. This is a pity, because Jali Fily Cissokho was part of the electro-kora big band Jalikunda, and some of the up-tempo moments on this recording hint at the rocking Mandé sound produced by that. Cissokho delivers his vocals with a passionate intensity (although his range is limited) to which Adama lends expressive support, so with clearer production values, perhaps a bit more support on vocal and a spruced up presentation (the CD sleeve photography in particular has an air of cheap and cheerful to it), you get the feeling that Jali Fily Cissokho and his Coute Diomboulou Band are capable of producing something really quite special next time round.

www.kaira-arts.co.uk

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER

How ‘up’ are you on your modern jazz divas? Me neither, so I wouldn’t blame you if the thought of American singer Dee Dee Bridgewater getting in touch with her 'roots' by dabbling in the music of West Africa prompts no more than a sceptical “oh yeah?”.
But forget such cynicism, the album (Red Earth – a Malian Journey) features a stellar list of guests from the world-class end of the musical spectrum and an immersive approach to recording that finds Bridgewater weaving her impressive jazz phrasing around a number of griot songs and those chosen from the repertoires of her distinguished Malian guests (Oumou Sangaré, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Tata Bambo Kouyaté and Bassekou Kouyaté all feature).
The album was recorded at the legendary Bogolan studios in Bamako and arranged (both musically, and in terms of personnel) by Cheick Tidiane Seck. "I'm an ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and I've been out to Africa a few times. I always keep my ears open to the music there, and Mali really stood out“, explains a jolly-but-jetlagged-sounding Dee Dee Bridgewater on the phone from Los Angeles. "I first heard Cheick Seck on a Hank Jones album, and as soon as I decided to record an album with Malian musicians, I thought of him. So we got in touch with his manager, and he got the ball rolling with all these great artists."
I wonder if Dee Dee has any identifiable lineage back to Mali? "No, and I would not claim that, but when I first arrived in Bamako with the river Niger there in front of me and the red earth below, I felt a connection, I felt I was home. Later, when I was speaking to my mother about it, she said 'of course there’s a connection, you've always loved red earth - even when you were a baby in Memphis you would roll around in the red dirt there', so it all feels quite natural."
Natural or not, the musical results feel organic enough to this listener, although years of nestling ever further into the ‘not having to bother trying to understand the words’ comfort zone makes the sudden arrival of English lyrics into this particular idiom something of an aural jolt initially. But the trouble Bridgewater has taken to remain faithful to each song's original theme becomes ever more apparent as ears are tuned in.
Dee Dee: “I guess you would call them loose translations. Cheick translated the original words, and I would adapt them to make sure they made sense in terms of lyrics. Sometimes it’s almost a word for word translation, others there’s more of an ad-libbed approach. I think there's a similarity to jazz in many of the songs chosen, with the social resonance, the emotion and defiance of them.”
That’s a good description of Tata Bambo Kouyaté’s classic Bambo (No More), a song relating Malian women’s fight against forced marriages. Mention of the call-and-response duet between the two produces a crackle of admiration that fizzes down 5000-plus miles of phone line. “The stature of that woman - amazing! You know, women are changing things in Mali, men no longer dictate the rules. With Tata leading the way, what chance have they got! And for her to open up the subject of forced marriages with the Government - it shows the power she has.”
That song is delivered in Dee Dee's standard soulful tone, which contrasts well with Tata Bambo’s strident blues. On the Bassekou Kouyaté song, Demissènw (Children Go 'Round), Bridgewater really lets herself go, belting out a vibrant, gospel-edged blues over a performance which perfectly captures the live sound of Kouyaté’s thrilling ngoni quartet.
“That was the only track on the album that was recorded live. We started to work together with a different, more modern set-up, but with Bassekou’s acoustic band, Ngoni Ba, the whole thing just took off.”
A call to Bassekou Kouyaté confirms the mutual respect between the performers. “When we started rehearsing, Dee Dee immediately became part of my family: she is my sister, she even looks very Malian,” he enthuses. “I love the album - it is of excellent quality musically, and this is a really positive way to approach African music, by involving it with experiments with jazz, an expression that has African music at its roots. Everyone who took part feels very positive about the collaboration and will be glad to work with her in future. For me, I know it is just the start of a very fruitful collaboration, and I hope she will come back and do further albums with Ngoni Ba.”
"Yes, I may have another album coming with Bassekou," confirms Dee Dee, "He is writing the songs at the moment, and we'll maybe add even more traditional instruments like the bolon.” Meanwhile, Dee Dee has been touring Red Earth with some of the lesser-known (but still impressive) names that feature on the album (Mamani Keita and Baba Sissoko amongst them), with the possibility of a visit to the UK early in 2008. So, this is some commitment to the music of West Africa, and its relationship to American jazz and blues. I suggest to Dee Dee that there must be an element of indulgence on the part of her record company Universal, given the time she is spending in what is very much a specialist genre. “Oh, I have been producing myself since 1993 - I do whatever I please, I cannot have a record company dictating what I do. I'm a 21st Century girl!”

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.

MASSUKOS

A pop band that uses music to spread a message promoting clean water, decent sanitation and Aids-awareness must be filed under the heading “worthy but dull”, right? Not so in the case of Massukos, the exuberantly catchy force for good and uplifting musical torch bearer for one of the poorest parts of Africa. Situated in the north of the country, Niassa is Mozambique's most sparsely populated province, with a population of about one million spread over an area roughly the size of England. For many years, it has also been the poorest, ravaged by civil war, Aids and water sanitation problems.
Enter one Feliciano dos Santos, a journalist working for Radio Mozambique in the early ‘90s, reporting on the country's attempts to get back on its feet as peace took tentative hold in the region. Feliciano: "We were producing programmes that talked about social problems, water sanitation, that kind of thing. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to get more involved in what we were reporting about."
In dos Santos’s world - where he has spent most of his life dealing with the physical constraints caused by a childhood bout of polio - practicalities are addressed head on, so involvement led to the founding of the Estamos NGO in 1996, where he set about introducing an integrated water supply and improved sanitation, as well as home-based care for people with HIV.
“I’d say about 80% of my time is spent on Estamos projects. As director of Estamos I’m busy working in the office most of the time, planning and running projects. Then we go out and use music at the time we want to spread the message. The rest of the band members also work for Estamos or on other social programmes."
The medium for the message is a sunny, effervescent guitar-based music, a kind of soulful, socially-conscious equivalent of Zimabwe's Bhundu Boys, augmented by keyboards and with a dance-friendly rhythm based on the traditional music of the Niassa area. "When the civil war finished [in 1992], we wondered how we could celebrate people's feeling of relief at surviving, and their return from Malawi and Tanzania where they had been refugees. So, we decided we needed to record our culture, to get our traditional sound back, putting it with electronic instruments to give it the power to get our message across.”
Massukos was formed in 1994, and after becoming popular in Niassa, they recorded their first album, Kuimba kwa Massuko in Maputo in 2002. “That was because there were no decent studios in Niassa," explains dos Santos. "And despite travelling 2,000 kilometres to record the album, we didn't realise our music would be so popular, we were not even fully professional. But the album spread all over Mozambique - it just took off like crazy, and now we’re one of the best-selling bands in the country."
In 2004, British musician Dean Brodrick’s band Empty Boat toured Africa as part of Poo Productions, a London-based media company dedicated to promoting clean water in Africa. Feliciano: “The Empty Boat project came to Niassa, and we worked really well together. Dean suggested that we record an album in the UK, with him as co-producer. There is good recording quality in some studios in Maputo,” explains dos Santos, “but in London we found acoustics to fit the more universal sound that we were looking for.” Anybody who witnessed the breezy performance by Massukos at this year’s mud-caked WOMAD festival at Charlton Park will find the resultant album, the aptly-titled Bubbling, to be a satisfyingly upbeat reflection of the band’s appealing live sound, with added funky brass interjections by Brodrick’s jazz musician friends Harry Beckett and Steve Buckley.
I wonder how Massukos reconcile their resolutely cheery approach with the serious subject matter of the songs. "Sometimes a message is too shocking for people to take in at first,” he replies. “We are talking about serious social themes, but we invite people to dance first, we try to win people over to the music, then they'll get the message later. Plus, there are more than twenty languages in Mozambique, so we have to communicate first through the music!"
And with something over 80,000 copies of Bubbling already sold in their native country, Massukos are clearly communicating very successfully, inevitably attracting the interest of politicians and other public figures (such as Gordon Brown and Sir Bob Geldof) who are keen to be seen showing an interest in Africans’ welfare. Feliciano remains admirably diplomatic about such image-enhancing meetings. “The people we meet are generally open and willing to hear the issues we have, and what we do about them. But I can’t do anything else but just tell them the way things are and what we are doing about it - it's up to them to decide what they do next.” Welcome to the new, pragmatic face of African activism...with guitars.

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.

HABIB KOITE - Afriki (Cumbancha)

Singer and guitarist Habib Koité plays a superior blend of smooth, melodic pan-Malian music that has arguably been a mite too restrained on previous albums compared to his live performances, and his voice - although a perfectly fine instrument - can lack the emotional depth of many of his famed countrymen.
But there's a real sense of progress about his carefully-crafted new album Afriki, with an extra rhythmic and traditional instrumental edge to most songs, and the addition of female backing harmonies to set off Koité's smooth vocals. Liberal use of balafon, ngoni, djembé drum and other traditional percussive instruments provide a grit to songs which might in the past have been smoothed out by Western arrangements.
Barra works particularly well, possessing a rolling Mande groove and the melancholy tone of sokou (traditional violin) playing by the late Hassey Sarré. Nta Dima takes the traditional approach even further through the entrancing, other-worldly sound of five antelope horns, rudimentary percussion and call and response vocals. All this plus Koité's famed guitar playing, a sing-song blend of African and Western acoustic pop/rock music with a strength of melody and rhythmic purpose which means that the result is rarely as bland as that description might sound, in particular when Koité dances around the rockier moments from the rhythm section. The delightful Massaké is one such example, a track which also benefits from some joyful vocal interplay between Koité and his backing singers. There are a number of tracks where Koité reverts to a straight, Westernised African sound, but even these usually work well, the title track being the only time when the album retreats too far into the safe territory of pleasant but all too generic Afropean pop. Overall, though, Afriki has the makings of being the album that sees Habib Koité break further into the top division of roots-based Malian music.

www.cumbancha.com
www.habibkoite.com

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

HABIB KOITE

Go anywhere in Mali and people will fall over themselves to tell you how great Habib Koite is. Whether on guitar, flute, vocals or one of the seemingly hundreds of other instruments he plays, he is a musician to the core. He has the charisma to match so why is it so few people outside Mali know his name? Malian singer and guitarist Habib Koité’s new album, Afriki, has been a long time coming. It’s been six years in fact since his sophisticated pan-Malian album Baro, the critically well-received release that saw him break through in a big way in America, playing in front of packed houses and receiving plaudits from some of that country’s leading commentators and artists, including Bonnie Raitt (with whom Habib worked). There was even a slightly incongruous comparison by Raitt between Koité’s warm, eloquent acoustic guitar picking and Jimi Hendrix in Rolling Stone magazine.
Habib confessed to me, “I’m very honoured of course and I consider Bonnie Raitt as my sister so I’m very moved. I grew up listening to pop and rock so it’s a wonderful compliment. I wouldn’t compare my style to Hendrix technically speaking and people who listen to my guitar playing might not make the link with Hendrix’s playing, but he had a huge influence over all guitarists around the world of course as he opened news horizons for the instrument.” I ask Habib if his popularity in the States is a deliberate strategy, because although he does well in Europe, he is often considered a lesser artist to big West African guns such as Salif Keita and Youssou N’dour in the UK. “It’s true in fact, but this wasn’t planned,” he replies. “It’s probably due to the fact that my manager is in Europe. it naturally got me to widen my horizons and play in Europe and then in the States more often. My relationship with the American label Putumayo, who had released some of my previous albums obviously helped spread my music in North America. It’s hard to say with the UK — it’s true that the UK is one place where I toured in the past, but not as much as in other European countries and now the situation forcing Malian musicians to go to Dakar to get their work visas makes it difficult for Malian musicians to tour in the UK. Let’s hope it gets solved soon.”
If there’s one album that might see Habib Koité break through in the UK, it’s the carefully-crafted Afriki, which sees Habib taking on the more traditional approach that appeals to British audiences, and the welcome addition of female-backing harmonies to set off Koité’s smooth vocals. “Afriki has a lot of different elements from the great Malian tradition of music because this is the music I grew up with,” explains Habib. “Even if my music contains other influences like jazz, rock, pop, Latin, tradition is also an essential influence and I listen to a lot of traditional music so you will not always hear it as I blend it with other influences, but it’s definitely there. In my previous albums, I didn’t incorporate female vocalists at all but I wanted to broaden the spectrum of my music with Afriki. So I added these to try new experiences with these female griots from the the Mandinka tradition — to bring a new flavour to my music.”
And what a satisfying flavour it is, easily the most interesting and varied album yet from Koité, with some great rolling Mandé grooves but with Habib retaining the smooth, melodic, Westernised values that’s a result of his multifaceted background.
“I was actually born in Senegal as my father was working for the train industry there. When I was one, my family moved to Kaye in Mali [near the border with Senegal] and two years afterwards, the whole family moved to Bamako — this is where I grew up. My music is made of several influences as I spent fifteen years playing in clubs in Mali and got in contact with many different styles, not only from Mali, but from Africa, also from rock, pop, Latin music. All these different influences have blended into my music.”
That blend works particularly well on Nta Dima on the new album, through the use of the entrancing, other-worldly sound of five antelope horns. What prompted their use? “I wanted to have this horn section in one of the songs in Afriki,” Habib explains. “These voices of five horns are very interesting and play cyclically. It’s a very old tradition from Mali. I talked to the musicians and they told me that the new generation is not learning how to play these so there is a risk that this tradition will disappear, unfortunately. This is also why I wanted to preserve them through my record.”
Another traditional sound is the melancholy tone of sokou (traditional violin) playing by the late Hassey Sarré on Barra. “Hassey was a great musician from Niafunke and he died too soon, sadly. He died before being able to listen to the finished album. Hassey opened my ears to the music of Niafunke and I spent a lot of time with him. He enabled me to understand this music which has been popularised by such greats as Ali Farka Touré and Afel Bocoum and in which sokou — a traditional violin he was playing — plays an important role. In concert, I play Hassey’s parts myself with the guitar as an homage.”
I ask Habib about the themes of the songs on the album. Many appear to be about love and family. “Yes, but I would say I wanted to focus on my land, Africa and its evolution more generally. I talk about Mali of course and I wanted to analyse Africa’s forces and weaknesses. I want to understand how we could solve the problems that the continent is facing. So many African people are risking their lives to emigrate to Europe or the USA and my goal is to change mentalities and see how we could work on building a new stronger Africa.”
With that outlook, some wonderful musical moments and a planned promotional tour that will take in the UK early in 2008, Afriki has the makings of being the album that sees Habib Koité really break into the top division of roots-based Malian music. I politely request that we don’t wait six years till the next one. “I promise — I am working on finding a way to tour and work on new projects at the same time. I now have some software that enables me to work on my music on the laptop while I’m travelling so that should speed up the process. After the last album I started to get very busy touring and time has flown too quickly, I was out of Mali for long periods of time and I’m also trying to have a family life, so these elements combined left me with little time to record music. The ideas were there but I’ve had little time to implement them and record Afriki. We basically recorded the album over several months and we used different locations following my schedule. I recorded in Mali with the local Malian musicians of course and I also used a studio in Europe — where my manager is based — as it was more practical. And also Cumbancha’s [Habib’s record label] studios in Vermont. But I’m sure you won’t have to wait another 6 years for the next one!”

This feature first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

SINA SINAYOKO - Boula (Wanda)

The influence of donso music on Keita's Moffou and Mbemba is more apparent in the music of Keita's 'spiritual father', sexagenarian Sina Sinayoko. There's much in common between Boula and those great albums - the same languid pulse, the same use of sweet female harmonies (supplied here by Keita's three sisters), the same exquisite, shifting interplay between the natural, elegant rhythms of the instruments, all of which benefits from the spacious production of which Keita has become such a master. Like Coulibaly, Sinayoko is a master of the simbi, but rather than being percussive, his songs tend to be built around the subtle sound of the bolon and seem designed to seduce rather than entrance (in fact this is 'Donso-foly' music, traditionally used to purify hunters before and after their hunting treks). At a tantalising half an hour's length, Boula is that rare creature in today's more-is-less world of 60-minute-plus albums, in being a song or two shorter than it could be. A pity, because the addictive combination of Sinayoko's strong but gentle voice and those sinuous backing vocalists, all set against softly fluctuating rhythms, puts Boula just a couple of unforgettable tunes short of being a contender for traditional African album of the year.

www.emarcy.com

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

ADAMA COULIBALY - Baba (Wanda)

The first two albums out of the stable of Salif Keita’s new Wanda studio and label illustrate the singer’s commitment to traditional Manding music by showcasing two performers of the donso (hunter) music of Mali.
The Coulibaly clan is pre-eminent amongst the ancient hunter families of Mali, the name every bit as noble and prestigious as that of the Keitas in the rest of the country. Adama Coulibaly plays a griot-style rôle in the culture, driving stark, insistent rhythms with his donso ngoni (the hunters' six-stringed version of the ngoni, also known as the simbi), alongside bolon (bass kora), karigan (metal scraper) and calabash as he declaims lyrics about the key facets of hunting life (friendship, prudence and respect for elder hunters) in a deep, rich tenor with suitably resonant male backing vocal support. The result is atmospheric, hypnotic, and with the timeless but contemporary quality which was a hallmark of Salif Keita's back-to-roots albums. The songs here possess a harsher, less immediate edge than Keita's recordings, however, with circular, trance-like rhythms and incantations holding atavistic sway within Djely Moussa Kouyaté's discreetly contemporary arrangements, with a sprinkling of nagging melodies and judicious inclusion of electric guitar from Kouyaté helping to retain interest in this faithful recreation of a fascinating brand of traditional West African music. One warning for anyone thinking of checking the album out at their nearest listening post: the cruellest of tricks has been played on Adama, as the album opens with what is ostensibly a duet with Salif Keita, but which would not sound out of place on any of Keita's recent works. Adama Coulibaly is a fine singer, but nobody should be made to follow the Golden Voice of Mali on their own album.

www.emarcy.com

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

LES FRERES GUISSE/LEONI JANSEN BAND - Nina (Noon Records)

Les Frères Guissé are three brothers from Senegal with a light, harmonious approach to music-making. Siré appears to have been recorded a couple of years ago and is full of pleasant, melodious music, the brothers' combined voices possessing a sweet tone which floats over gentle, mid-tempo acoustic rhythm guitar and percussion. A guest appearance from American jazz singer Jennifer Chase adds a welcome bluesy edge to Anta Majigen Ndiaye, but more changes of pace and timbre would help maintain interest, a point underlined by the stirring sound of the a cappella song P'tit ecolier, which comes marching out of the speakers to round off proceedings.
There's plenty of variety to the brothers' collaboration with Dutch folk singer Leoni Jansen and her band. From delicate arrangements of traditional folk tunes (Swallow, Redwinged Blackbird from Europe, Slaves Lament from Senegal) to Guissé originals spiced with elements of jazz, Cuban son and rock (including some ear-shatteringly horrible wailing jazz-rock guitar on Canto del Amor, unfortunately), the combination of the Senegalese singers' tight harmonies and Jansen's vivid vocals (similar in tone but slightly lighter than that of the Mekons' Sally Timms) makes for an interesting - if only intermittently successful - experiment.

www.freresguisse.com
www.mundialproductions.nl
www.onnokrijn.com

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

KINOBE - Soul Language (Multicultural Music)

Twenty-four year-old Kinobe Herbert is from Uganda in the East of Africa, and has studied kora with Malian Toumani Diabaté as well as working with Baaba Maal in Senegal. As a result, on Soul Language he has brought West African instruments together with traditional ones from his native country to build a set of sparse but colourful songs with the help of guitarist Michael Ouma (the tingle of kalimba thumb piano and buzz of the Ugandan harp in particular working to good effect). Kinobe has that elusive knack of producing melodies that wheedle their way into the brain over time, and although the overall feel to this album is somewhat unrefined and rough around the edges (his vocals are good, but unremarkable), his will definitely be a name to watch out for in the future.

www.nomadroots.com

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

HALLELUJAH CHICKEN RUN BAND - Take One (1974-79) (Analog Africa)

In what has been an astonishing year for African compilations, this collection of mid-’70s singles from Zimbabwe’s ground-breaking electric mbira group must rank as one of the most vital. Thomas Mapfumo was a member of the original incarnation of a band formed by trumpeter Daram Karanga on behalf of the Mangura copper mine company in order to entertain the workers. Mapfumo left in a dispute over wages having recorded just one session with the band, but not before leaving his mark with the provenance of their name (he and other another band member worked at a local chicken coop, which prompted the mine boss to inexplicably shout “Hallelujah!”) as well as the light, catchy “Zimpop” sound the band produced - the crisp interchange between mbira-mimicking electric guitars that pre-dated Mapfumo’s chimurenga style, the driving rhythms and that distinctive, soulful Mapfumo vocal style. But his involvement only accounts for four of the 18 tracks here, and although the band only managed to last another four years, there’s no sign of an artistic decline in their output. Mwana Wamai Dada Naye - released towards the end of their existence in 1979 — is wonderful evidence of that, presaging the infectious, guitar-driven pop of the Soul Brothers and Bhundu Boys with irresistible interweaving electric guitar, funky brass and some fine vocals by Lovemore Nyamasviva. There’s much more in that vein, but elements of traditional Shona styles as well (on Murembo and Mukadzi Wangu Ndomuda) and a finely-tuned awareness of the appeal of the hybrid pop/soul/jazz horn arrangements evident in South African kwela music at the time. With contemporary subject matter that sadly still rings true - concerns about education, the price of commodities and struggle for liberation sit with familiar day-to-day concerns about love and family matters — and a light, dance-friendly feel throughout, Analog Africa have come up with the perfect companion to the Green Arrows’ 4 Track Recording Session collection from earlier in the year.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

AKIM EL SIKAMEYA - Un Chouia D'amour

The cover of the album doesn’t augur too well — Akim looks like a young Bill Murray who’s just got lucky in a tart’s boudoir. So it’s a relief to hear his extraordinary voice and violin playing gratifyingly wrapped in some sweet and catchy tunes. Akim El Sikameya astonished Womad audiences a couple of years back with a voice that seems bereft of all masculinity, ranging from a choirboy’s alto to that of a husky female. It’s always a beautiful sound, however, and the light and airy Mediterranean pop songs here are a delight to behold. Violin, accordion, charango, bouzouki, mandolin, piano, percussion and guitar come together in a mellifluous blend of French-style (and quite often French language) chanson, flamenco, tango, and the chaabi Arabic pop style more familiar in Akim’s native Algeria. Highlights include the jauntily catchy opener and title track, which would do well on the continent’s more discerning dance floors. The Arabic-language Le Sultan Tyran makes superb use of Aster Piazzolla’s Libertango motif, with mournful, eloquent phrasing from Akim on violin dovetailing with Philippe Eidel’s accordeon. And the jazzier, more reflective second half of the CD opens with Cahwa et Fleur D’Oranger, which features some delightful bouzouki work from Taofik Farah, funky brass figures and Akim El Sikameya’s voice at its best - part Smokey Robinson, part French-Algerian pop-rai star Faudel. A handful of the tracks don’t work quite so well, veering a bit to close to lounge pop at times. But the best moments make this a very rewarding collection indeed, with or without the tacky album cover.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

JUSTIN ADAMS AND JULDEH CAMARA - Soul Science (IRL/Wayward)

As Jeff Bridges might once have said: Rock ‘n’ Riti - phew! Put Justin Adams’s Bo Diddley-meets-buzzsaw blues guitar with Juldeh Camara’s hyperactive single-string violin playing and you’ve got one of the most exhilarating boundary crossing releases of the year.
In world music circles, Adams is probably best known as the producer of bands Lo’Jo and Tinariwen and creator of the well-received Arabaseque-meets-desert-blues album Desert Road. But he’s also got an interesting side hobby as Robert Plant’s guitarist, and (the occasional acoustic guitar or tehardant lute appearance apart) that rockier influence is very apparent on Soul Science as Adams thrashes, picks, distorts, strums and generally stretches his instrument in all sorts of interesting blues-based rock guitar directions. Around all these effects dances the rootsy fiddle work of Juldeh Camara, a Fulani from Gambia and ex-member of Ifang Bondi (and more latterly guest on kora player Seckou Keita’s Afro-Mandinka Soul album). But we’ve never heard Camara quite like this before, his performances ranging from manic spirit-raising screeches to swift, elaborate melodies (at times it’s hard to believe are being pulled from such a simple instrument).
His voice is a remarkable surprise as well — rich, confident and assured in contrast to Adams’s less convincing vocal on Blue Man Returns (Camara handles all the rest of the vocals). And a note too about the musicians whose contributions underpin a consistently engaging sound — Salah Dawson Miller on drums and Billy Fuller on bass provide a rhythmic drive more than equal to the thrilling ride on which Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara take the listener. Thrilling stuff.

SA DING DING - Alive (Wrasse)

One of the hardest things to get right in this non-existent genre that we insist on calling ‘world music’ is the marriage between modern arrangements and traditional instrumentation and melodies. On Alive, China’s multi-million selling singer Sa Ding Ding has achieved just such a marriage with exceptional style and grace.
If she were singing in English, Sa Ding Ding might already be a global superstar. Her striking voice is unmistakably East Asian, but with an elegance and soulful poise with which a broader audience should easily be able to connect.
The songs (sung in Tibetan, Mandarin, Sanskrit or Sa Ding Ding’s own self-created language) are built around traditional Chinese folk music but exquisitely executed with refined use of programmed electronic sounds and beats in tandem with Chinese instrumentation -gu zheng zither (sounding particularly effective on the title track), ma tou qin violin and bamboo flute.
Haunting is a word that comes constantly to mind, especially on the aforementioned title track and another highlight Lagu Lagu, on which Sa Ding Ding really pushes her voice to its emotional limits, one moment delicately, playfully dancing over washes of keyboard and ethereal backing vocals, the next stretching her voice out almost to a shout against a thudding percussion backbeat.
An exceptional track but the centrepieces of the album are the pair of tracks that appear in two forms on the album (delivered first in Tibetan, then Mandarin). Holy Incense is delicately flavoured, hauntingly melodic and with atmospheric male backing.
Contrastingly, the title track is magnificent in its brooding, stalking defiance, with Sa Ding Ding’s voice at its sweet but unyielding best as programmed beats and guitar crash against traditional instruments. A great brace of songs on a very impressive album.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

LA XULA - In Xile

A funky, gothic mix of London metro-cool and fiery Madrilena, LaXula’s Monte PalafoX has been one of the most alluring acts on the UK gig circuit in 2007, and after months of growing internet interest, her band LaXula’s intriguing debut CD is at last getting a full UK release.
Opening with La Boulette - a dynamic, hard-hitting hip hop flamenco number of which Ojos de Brujo would be proud — and followed by the glorious, stalking tango-meets-gypsy track Soberbia (which has already been featured on Charlie Gillett’s Sound of the World compilation), In X-ile gets off to an attention-grabbing start. If the album thereafter struggles to match the heights of the band’s seductive stage show, there’s enough good work here to make this is a very impressive debut overall.
In truth, Monte doesn’t have the greatest voice — limited in range, it sometimes sounds flattered by appearing on the same bill as great singers such as Mariza and Cesaria Evora, as she did this year at WOMAD — but she makes best use of its dark, sultry tone as part of brooding song structures like the urgent accordeon, violin and marching drum rhythm that make up Semilla, or when dancing lightly around soft acoustic guitar and teasing accordeon fills on the seductive title-track. And La Luna sees Monte and the band at their epic, intricate best, with large tambourine, flute, guitar and Moorish male backing vocals spilling out new nuances and hidden details with each airing. This and the first two tracks alone make this an album well worth investigating, although the feeling remains that you really need to see this fascinating band and its captivating lead singer live in order to really get the best of them.

This review first appeared on www.flyglobalmusic.com

MANU CHAO - La Radiolina (Because)

It’s been a long time coming (half a dozen years since Próxima Estación: Esperanza, and nearly ten since Clandestino), but Manu Chao is finally back in solo mode, and on La Radiolina he's certainly firing on all cylinders.
The album was recorded in Chao’s adopted home city, Barcelona, and comprises sixteen short snapshots of multi-lingual pop-rock built around the French-born Spaniard’s simple acoustic guitar strumming and deceptively likeable semi-spoken double-tracked vocals. His global pop sensibility remains finely tuned, with lilting beats, fragments of flamenco, Spanish guitar, sumptuous horn refrains, the habitual recycling of motifs from past songs, ubiquitous police sirens and other assorted sonic accoutrements variously deployed to ear-catching effect.
Same old, same old Manu, then? Well, not quite because liberally scattered throughout the album is a series of fast, guitar-driven rock songs that hark back to the days of Chao’s previous band, Mano Negra, and the agit-prop of early Clash records.
These tracks are rattled through with an urgency that has them almost bumping up against each other, or shocking their mellower neighbours out of their cosy catchiness. Politik Kills, for example - an exquisite, off-beat brew of country guitar twang, mariachi trumpet and a melodic refrain that nags at the brain for hours after hearing it – suddenly gives way to the thudding, power-chord-driven rebel-rock of Rainin in Paradise (on which Chao rails against corrupt and hypocritical leaders everywhere). And the sweet and loose Mundorèvés relaxes incongruously between a plodding The Bleedin Clown (surely Manu's worst 110 seconds ever?) and El Hoyo, a manic clash of wailing electric guitar, sirens, punchy dubbed-up brass, Marleyesque vocals and wild, disembodied voices.
Five sketchy 'bonus' tracks at the end of the CD arguably threaten the cohesion of the album, but there’s always been a sense of work in progress about Manu Chao’s recordings and, whether by accident or design, the scatter-gun approach to styles on La Radiolina somehow manages to gel into a pleasing whole, signalling a welcome, delightful return to form.

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.

ORCHESTRA BAOBAB - Made in Dakar (World Circuit)

Five years ago Orchestra Baobab made about as fine an argument as you could wish for in support of a band sticking to what it's good at, with their perfectly judged comeback album of laid-back retro Afro-Cuban dance music, Specialist in All Styles.
The band have since been honing that effortlessly relaxed and seductive style at the Just 4 U Club in Dakar, and having decamped to the Senegalese capital’s Xippi studios with World Circuit über-producer Nick Gold, they’ve fashioned another enchanting suite of old favourites and occasional new composition.
As ever, tunes are woven around the crystalline guitar lines of Barthélemy Attisso and snaking tenor saxophone of Issa Cissoko, with a clear, snappy production and the addition of the arresting crack of the sabar drum adding invigorating rhythmic sharpness to the overall sound.
It all works spectacularly well on the reworked Ndéleng Ndéleng, with Assane Mboup faithfully reproducing Thione Seck’s original soaring vocal style, and Attisso at his lyrical guitar-playing best. The early ‘70s Baobab classic Nijaay (featuring Youssou NDour on vocals) is another real treat, Issa Cissoko and alto saxophonist Thierno Koite trading sinuous licks with Attiso over a funky, almost jammed backing. And the lilting, snaking Cabral is pushed and pulled into interesting new shapes by a shifting Cuban guajira rhythm and doo-wop backing vocals.
The band wisely avoid straying too much from their timeless Latin-tinged grooves, but it's pleasing to see one or two interesting steps taken towards the Baobab stylistic experimentation of old - Jirim in particular gallops along on a rhythmic cross between rumba and ska, and the closing track Colette is a perfect evocation of the '70s Latin soul vibe.
So, more of the same but slightly different from the boys, and if you enjoyed Specialist in All Styles you'll be more than ready for another dose of understated Afro-Cuban soul.