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+44 (0)20 7501 6683 Editor-in-chief Simon Broughton Publisher Paul Geoghegan Editor Jo Frost Deputy Editor Alexandra Petropoulos Art Director Calvin McKenzie Content & Marketing Executive, News Editor Edward Craggs Advertisement Manager James Anderson-Hanney Reviews Editor Matthew Milton Listings Editor Tatiana Rucinska listings@songlines.co.uk World Cinema Editor Yoram Allon Cover Illustration Andy Potts
Can music save the world?
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provocative and surprising question, but it is one worth asking. Over the years I’ve been involved with world music, and I’ve seen first hand the way it can break down barriers and bring people together. When I was invited to give a talk at the first international TEDx event in Iran, it seemed something worth exploring. I’ve seen the way music opens doors at festivals all over the world and the way it can overcome political borders. This is particularly true of Iran where political relationships have been tense, but where musicians like Kayhan Kalhor and Shajarian have shown the riches of Persian music around the world. While politicians create obstacles, musicians reveal our common humanity. As an old saying goes: ‘An enemy is simply someone whose story you haven’t yet heard.’ And I’d add, ‘or someone whose music you haven’t yet heard.’ In my presentation, entitled Can Music Save the World?, on the Iranian island of Kish, I talk about musicians I’ve met in Romania, India, Morocco and, of course, Iran. Please watch, please comment and please share: www.bit.ly/tedxkish15 One of the nice surprises about the visit to Kish was meeting two superb traditional musicians from Khorasan in north-east Iran. Ali Reza Soleimani I had met before when I visited his father, Haj Ghorban Soleimani, in Aliabad in 2001. Haj Ghorban, a traditional bard and dotar (lute) player was one of the most inspiring musicians I have ever met and Ali Reza plays with the same poise and delicacy, stroking the melodies out of an instrument made by his father. The other musician was Mohammed Yeganeh who recites episodes from the story of Rostam and Sohrab from the Book of Kings. Once again, music that is able to transcend borders. Simon Broughton, editor-in-chief
Contributing Editors Jane Cornwell, Mark Ellingham & Nigel Williamson Assisted this issue by: Elicia Casey-Winter (intern) & Max Broughton
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE INCLUDE
Subscriptions Director Sally Boettcher Publishing Director Sian Harrington Managing Director Jon Benson CEO Ben Allen Chairman Mark Allen Published by MA Business & Leisure Ltd
© MA Business & Leisure Ltd, 2015. All rights reserved. ISSN 1464-8113. MA Business & Leisure Ltd is part of the Mark Allen Group www.markallengroup.com Printing Pensord Press Ltd Record trade distribution WWMD Ltd 0121 788 3112 Newstrade distribution COMAG 01895 433600 The paper used within this publication has been sourced from Chain-of-Custody certified manufacturers, operating within international environmental standards, to ensure sustainable sourcing of the raw materials, sustainable production and to minimise our carbon footprint.
Karen Boswall Karen lived in Mozambique for 15 years working as a journalist, filmmaker and saxophonist. She returned to Maputo in May to report on the AZGO Festival. Read her live review of the festival on p84.
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Christopher Conder Born in Somerset, Christopher’s parents found it cheaper to take him to gigs than pay a babysitter. After immersing himself in English music, he’s now got the travel bug, recently winding up in Latvia (p57).
Kary Stewart A multiplatform journalist, radio consultant and music obsessive, Kary covers music, social change and human rights and produces podcasts for The Guardian. This issue she introduces us to 47Soul (p25).
Songlines was launched in 1999 and is the definitive magazine for world music – music that has its roots in all parts of the globe, from Mali to Mexico, India to Iraq. Whether this music is defined as traditional, contemporary, folk or fusion, Songlines is the only magazine to truly represent and embrace it. However, Songlines is not just about music, but about how the music fits into the landscape: it’s about politics, history and identity. Delivered in both print and digital formats, Songlines, through its extensive articles and reviews, is your essential and independent guide to a world of music and culture, whether you are starting on your journey of discovery or are already a seasoned fan.
@SonglinesMag
facebook.com/songlines
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CONTENTS
27 Gurrumul
UPFRONT
FEATURES
REGULARS
REVIEWS
06 Top of the World CD 08 My World interview
31 A-Z of World Music 38 Totó la Momposina 42 Joe Boyd’s Balkan
52 Beginner’s Guide:
62 64 70 76 77 78 83 84
11 16 21 23 24 27 29
with Jah Wobble What’s New Who’s Touring Letters Soapbox Introducing... Ibeyi & 47Soul Spotlight: Gurrumul Quickfire: Dubulah, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh & Lorin Sklamberg
WIN
Adventures 46 Souad Massi 50 The Great British Song Map
54 57 87 92 94 97 98
Peggy Seeger Festival Pass: Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival Postcard from Riga, Latvia Gig Guide Subscribe Overseas Festivals Dispatch from Tunis, Tunisia Essential Ten: Song Collectors
Africa Americas Europe Asia Middle East Fusion World Cinema Live Reviews
Jah Wobble six-CD box set Redux 08 VIP tickets & accommodation for Fisherman’s Friends gig in Plymouth 11 Tickets to Bellowhead’s last ever London show 15 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence DVD 83
COMPETITIONS Send entries, marked clearly with the competition name, your name, address, email and telephone number to the address on p3 or email: comps@songlines.co.uk. Winners will be chosen at random. Only one entry per household. No cash alternatives. If you would prefer not to be sent details of other Songlines products and services, or products from other carefully selected companies, please state clearly on your entry. Closing date September 11 2015 (unless otherwise stated)
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INTRODUCING...
Ibeyi
Jane Cornwell speaks to the French-Cuban sister duo who are blending Cuban and electronic music
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isa-Kaindé is the sensitive one with the Afro. Naomi has the long dark curls and the attitude. The former plays piano; the latter plays the batá drum and the cajón. Both sing, though Lisa-Kaindé is the lead voice, their vocals swooping and dipping through songs sung in Yoruba and English. Their rhythms are traditional, rooted in Cuba and Africa. There’s jazz in there, too. And beats. Startling, unearthly synth samples skitter and hop. Weave together all the above and you have Ibeyi – a sister act whose self-titled debut has ranked them among the most talked about newcomers on the scene. A gig at Islington Town Hall in May was rammed with hipsters keen to check out the fuss. To experience live the French-Cuban duo whose video for second single ‘The River’ shows the sisters underwater, in close-up, taking turns to have their heads pushed underwater while the other sings. Ibeyi
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deliver over an hour of sometimes patchy, always mesmerising electrosoul, with Naomi straddling and slapping the boxy cajón before leaping up and getting the crowd to clap along. ‘Let’s remember with rhythm our loved ones that are gone,’ they intone. ‘We walk on rhythm and think of you.’ Like many of the tracks on the album, the song ‘Think of You’ is a paean to their late father, the great Cuban conguero Anga Díaz, a one-time member of Irakere and the Buena Vista Social Club who died aged 46, when his twins were 11 years old. To pile tragedy on tragedy, their older sister died a few years later. “Singing saved me,” LisaKaindé has said. “I realised I could lose everyone, but at least I could survive.” Their French-Venezuelan mother and manager, singer Maya Dagnino, encouraged Lisa-Kaindé’s songwriting and their interest in the Yoruba chants, prayers and folk songs of their ancestors; their name is inspired by the Yoruba word for twins, ibeji. “Twins are really important in the Yoruba villages [of Nigeria and Benin] because of mythology and legends,” Lisa-Kaindé again. “Yoruba is important for the two of us. We are
taking religious songs and putting them in our music, which is spiritual. We are doing this because we love this music, we believe it is our identity, we feel it’s our legacy and it’s a way to connect with our ancestors.” Electronica is equally important, say the Paris-based 20 year olds. Twins with twin influences, who grew up in a modern metropolis listening to the likes of English electronic music producer James Blake and American singer and rapper Frank Ocean; they perform a cover of rapper Jay Electronica’s ‘Better in Tune With the Infinite’ in their sets. British indie producer Richard Russell of XL Recordings – home to FKA Twigs and Radiohead – is behind the deft electro touches on the album. It’s these, along with the girls’ stunning looks and justified-and-ancient vibe, which is making the Zeitgeist proud. According to Naomi, “it is who we are. We’re not putting this on. You cannot have Ibeyi without having both of these sides. They’re what complete us.”
+ ALBUM Ibeyi’s debut album was +
reviewed in #109 DATE Ibeyi will perform at WOMAD Charlton Park on July 24
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47Soul
Mixing up Middle Eastern sounds with an urban flare, Kary Stewart reports on the UK and Jordan-based band
W
here in Brazil they have carnivals, we have street weddings which take up a whole week,” explains band member El Far3i as he describes the origins of the 47Soul sound. “It’s like a family rave.” He goes on to describe the urban celebrations of Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, where people gather around traditional instruments, huddling closely and dancing dabke, dipping and bobbing in unison to the half-time beat. It’s in this raw rhythmic clatter of traditional get-togethers that 47Soul find their roots, their music utilising the hubbub to fill the spaces in between yawning dubstep beats. 47Soul’s meeting reads like an online love story with each coming to the others’ music via YouTube videos that friends recommended to them. From there it was an instantaneous connection that they all agree was like finding a missing piece of a collective musical jigsaw. “When I first saw Tareq [aka El Far3i] singing his song on YouTube I fell in love with him as
a brother and as an artist,” says Walaa Sbait. “It’s really cheesy but it was a two way thing,” adds El Far3i. “And when I saw Z the People I said to my friends, what I am trying to tell you about American music is this guy.” Sbait is Palestinian and was a member of a reggae sound system and also a dancer from the age of three. El Far3i and El Jehaz are both from Jordan and each had their own successful rock based acts. Z the People is the only one brought up in the West and was influenced by R&B and the “stuff that American kids listen to.” They all rap, sing and produce to varying degrees. They finally met in person in 2013 in Jordan, tearing the house down with their first gig after only three rehearsals. From there they sidestepped most of the border limitations imposed by the baffling bureaucracy of documents they hold between them and ended up in the UK. Whether or not they label themselves as political, it is something that will always run in the lifeblood of their music as it runs in their own.
Playing Arabic scales on electronic keyboards the band combine electromijwez (single-reed pipe) and chobi and call it ‘shamstep’ in reference to the region in the Middle East that they all originate from known as Bilad al-Sham. Their lyrics, mixing Arabic and English, call for freedom and equality. They sing about injustice and about disenfranchised peoples. “We as young men desire to live life as it is without being concerned about the politics, but the politics always comes back,” admits Waala. As they continue to explain their story they exude the awed excitement of a load of friends who have landed in their dream and are not about to take a single moment for granted. “To be able to sit with these guys here and freestyle any time, compose with them, that’s the nucleus of the dream and everything else comes from that,” says Z the People to emphatic nods from the rest of the others. Already making waves around the UK, the band have recently released their debut EP Shamstep and this summer play at festivals including WOMAD and the Shubbak Festival in London.
+ DATE 47Soul perform at WOMAD +
on Friday July 24 ONLINE www.47soul.com
Ben C Dwyer
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Confused, bewildered and overwhelmed by the mayhem of global sounds? World music is a maze. And what you need is a good map. So here is our A to Z of world music, taking you from Africa Express to Zimbabwe, from Balkan brass to qawwali and from cumbia to WOMAD. After lengthy deliberation, we’ve carefully selected entries to feature a mixture of musicians, genres and instruments that we think are essential. There’s a recommended album for each selection too. WORDS
SIMON BROUGHTON, JANE CORNWELL, NIGEL WILLIAMSON ILLUSTRATION ANDY POT TS
+ PLAYLIST We’ve put together a special A-Z playlist on Spotify. Listen to it here, bit.ly/worldmusicAtoZ + LET US KNOW What would you pick for your A-Z of world music? Write to us at letters@songlines.co.uk
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Toto la Momposina
La Cantadora
Totó la Momposina has dedicated her life to the traditional music of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Chris Moss talks to the godmother of Afro-Colombian rhythm on the eve of her return to the UK
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then” – and went to university later. But by then her family home was attracting local musicians and from 1966 Totó was fronting her own band. When the electronics company Philips organised a singing contest three years later, Totó entered and won, only to have the prize – a recording deal – withdrawn because her material wasn’t commercial enough. Gifted with a rich voice and an impressive range, she might have enjoyed more success with ballads, salsa or boleros. But she kept the faith with her mission to speak for the marginalised and to perform a kind of folk music that was viewed by Colombia’s middle-classes as corroncho – a derogatory term meaning ‘common.’ “I’m a cantadora,” she says. “My role is to connect people with their ancestral roots and to sing for the people politicians don’t think about.” “When you sing about a fisherman, everyone understands you, from China to Timbuktu – there are fishermen all over the world. But they were hard times in Colombia, and it was not easy to get my music heard.” To make ends meet Totó had to do ambassadorial work – playing at overseas events for airlines and the Colombian tourism ministry. But she seized every opportunity to play abroad, making two long tours to the Soviet Union during the 70s and 80s.
Her first significant break came in 1982 when she was asked to perform at Gabriel García Márquez’s Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. Despite having children back in Colombia, she stayed on in Paris, studied at the Sorbonne, and sang on the Métro. She formed a group and began to play around European cities. In 1984, she was invited to play at WOMAD. Eight years later she returned to do a second WOMAD and recorded the album La Candela Viva with Real World. Overseen by American producer Phil Ramone, the album was made across two sessions – an as-live recording in 1991 and a studio recording in 1992, both at Real World Studios. It was very well-received and kicked off Totó’s international career. Acclaim abroad helped garner attention at home – and the album was released locally by MTM. This was, amazingly, her Colombian debut. Totó’s music ranges across drum-based tambor rhythms, Cuban-influenced sexteto, cumbia and less well-known Colombian genres such as chalupa and mapalé. A lot of these forms originated, and continue to flourish, at religious festivals, fiestas and carnivals. Her powerful and tremulous vocal style sounds by turns African and Andean, with tribal song-and-responses spinning around gutsy chants, storytelling and trance-like poems. Thanks to its energetic rhythms and ethnic groove, La Candela Viva was popular with dance music producers and hip-hop artists. Later releases, such as Carmelina (1995), Pacantó (1999) and La Bodega (2009), see Totó further developing folkloric elements, especially the gaita or Native American flute, pushing the bounds of her hybrid art.
Josh Pulman
o one is a prophet in their homeland,” says Totó la Momposina. “I had to travel to get my music heard. But that doesn’t matter anyway – it’s the music that’s famous, not me. I’m just a wanderer, an adventurer.” Sonia Bazanta Vides is known by everyone as Totó la Momposina. She was born in 1940 and raised in Mompós, a riverside island 125km south of Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast. A balmy, beautiful colonial town, it’s the kind of place that fills the pages of Gabriel García Márquez’s novels. “We were amphibians,” she says. “To get anywhere we would travel along the river and then went the rest of the way over land. In its glory days the river was busy. My dad was a well-known percussionist and we’ve had music in our family for generations. My parents loved to play music at home – the rhythms, dances and melodies of the Caribbean coast. When we had to move because of my dad’s shoemaking business, the music travelled with us.” But in 1948, Liberal party presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated, plunging Colombia into the period known as ‘La Violencia’ – a civil conflict that would last for a decade and have repercussions right up to the present-day. “We had to go into exile in Bogotá. My mum worked on a local committee with an affiliation with the Liberal party – so we were persecuted. She was seen as an activist.” Totó has indigenous Chimila roots, as well as African and Spanish blood. Living in the capital she experienced racism. She married when she was 16 – “it was the way you did things back
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S o u a d M a ss i
The Beauty of Words Andy Morgan talks to the Algerian singer-songwriter Souad Massi about her mission to portray Islam’s philosophy of love, peace and tolerance by the way of Arab-Andalusian poetry and calligraphy
A Jean-Baptiste Millot
few weeks ago, an article called ‘What can Ibn Arabi do against Daesh?’ appeared in the pages of the Algerian daily El Watan (one of Souad Massi’s favourite newspapers). The question neatly summarises the ideological struggle that rages in almost every corner of the Muslim world; it also lies at the heart of Souad Massi’s new album El Mutakallimûn, although she might balk at avowing as much in public. Many readers might know the organisation Daesh by the acronyms more commonly used by non-Arabic speakers: ISIS or IS. This latter-day ‘caliphate’ is preparing the ground for the ‘prophesied’ annihilation of all infidels and apostates by occupying large swathes of Syria and Iraq and putting anyone who doesn’t agree with their brutally literalist interpretation of Islam to the sword. Though it professes a desire to rewind the human clock back to the seventh century AD, the organisation has turned a local conflict into a global battle of hearts and
minds with its gruesomely brilliant manipulation of modern digital media; in fact, IS is a paradigm of modernity, as much a part of the age we live in as Grand Theft Auto or Taylor Swift. The name Ibn Arabi requires a little more clarification perhaps. It belongs to a Muslim mystic and philosopher, many would say ‘saint’, who was born in Murcia, southern Spain, in 1165 and died in Damascus 75 years later. Among Ibn Arabi’s many works is the seminal al-Futuhat al-Makkiya (The Meccan Illuminations), which comprises over 7,000 pages of densely packed manuscript that elucidate, in language both complex and beautiful, his metaphysical philosophy of Oneness, the nature of faith and reason, the unknowable essence of God and the divine role of love and mercy in human existence. Ibn Arabi was both venerated and reviled in the centuries following his death; venerated by those who admired the breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his mystical insight, and his conviction that inspiration, even answers to some of
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Africa REVIEWS Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers African Party Freestyle Records (39 mins)
★★★★★
Legendary éminence grise of London’s Afro-jazz scene He died in Lagos 40 years ago and his heyday on London’s music scene is a good 50 years in the past, but George Folorunsho ‘Ginger’ Johnson’s presence is felt to this day. He had a crucial influence on UK rock, jazz and upon West African musicians in the UK – including his young student friend of the 60s, Fela Kuti. His appearances on Honest Jon’s London is the Place for Me compilations of London’s post-war African and Caribbean music scene were stellar. But hopefully this reissue of Johnson’s only album is going to spread the message about his joyful music even wider. He started with Ronnie Scott and Soho beboppers in the late 1940s, flourished through the 50s with the Edmundo Ros Orchestra and his own African Messengers, and then became a ubiquitous 60s presence – he played with Georgie Fame, Brian Auger, and even onstage in Hyde Park with the Stones on ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. His celebratory, percussion-based, jazz-inflected music makes African Party the kind of album you can’t stop listening to again and again: from the Latin soul track ‘I Jool Omo’, through the revelatory Caribbean jazz of ‘Talking Drum’, to the album’s final tune, the infectious ‘Hi Life’. MAX REINHARDT
TRACK TO TRY Talking Drum
London Afrobeat Collective Food Chain Dynamic Music (44 mins)
★★★★★
A crew from the capital who really nail that Fela feeling
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consistency of Mapfumo’s respect for tradition and his commitment to change and innovation. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
TRACK TO TRY Shumba (The Lion)
Monoswezi Monoswezi Yanga World Music Network (47 mins)
★★★★★
Restoring the good name of Afro-Scandi jazz fusion This is the second album from a remarkable collaboration between African and Scandinavian musicians. The name Monoswezi is an amalgamation of the four nationalities of the five-piece band: Mozambique, Norway, Sweden and Zimbabwe. At the centre of their music is the mbira, the Shona thumb piano, and singing of Hope Masike from Zimbabwe. Mozambican Calu Tsemane adds male vocals, percussion and some guitar; and the other three band members, from Scandinavia, play saxophone, bass and drums. Their first album was very well received and this record is equally impressive. It’s a fusion of African tradition and the very relaxed modern jazz of Scandinavia. The songs are mostly reworkings of Zimbabwean
ALEX DE LACEY
TRACK TO TRY I No Be Criminal
Thomas Mapfumo Lion Songs: Essential Tracks in the Making of Zimbabwe Lion Songs (74 mins)
★★★★★
Roar power from Zimbabwe’s mane man As an audio companion to his recent biography of Mapfumo, the American writer and guitarist Banning Eyre has compiled 14 key tracks that chronicle the Zimbabwean legend’s storied career, recorded over almost 40 years. They include early classics such as ‘Ngoma Yarira’ (The Drums are Sounding), recorded with the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band in 1973 and the Acid Band’s ‘Pamuromo Chete’ (It’s Only Talk), a 1977 broadside against Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith that has never previously been released internationally. Then there are the famous chimurenga singles that soundtracked the liberation war and 1987’s classic ‘Corruption’, on which his disillusionment with the new regime was first given voice. There are also recent 21st-century trenchant critiques of Mugabe, recorded in exile in the US. In the style of Bob Marley’s Talking Blues album, the songs are interspersed with nine short excerpts from interviews with Thomas Mapfumo, his deep, reverberating voice filling in the gaps in the story. There are many fine and essential Mapfumo compilations on the market, but this is perhaps the only one that attempts to cover the arc of his entire career on a single disc. Eyre’s selections are spot on, too, conveying both the
traditional folk songs and tales. Hope Masike is a formidable talent with a fine voice that has great range; she also displays tremendous technique on her mbira and marimba (wooden xylophone). Combined with some impressive, understated and unpretentious jazz instrumentation, it makes for a thoroughly enjoyable, totally hypnotic, and utterly unique listening experience. MARTIN SINNOCK
TRACK TO TRY Wadadisa
Joel Sebunjo I Speak Luganda Multicultural Media (30 mins)
★★★★★
Nimble-fingered harp man tests the lyre of the land The endongo is an eight-stringed lyre from the area around the Great Lakes in East Africa. Joel Sebunjo has performed with the instrument from a very young age and has played a part in several Ugandan traditional music ensembles. On his third solo album he fuses his own country’s traditional music with a modern world music style – backed by guitar, bass, keyboard and drums. He also plays an electrified version of the West African kora. There are many parallels between the
Ghanaian Afrobeat and highlife maestro Pat Thomas
N’Krumah Lawson Daku
London Afrobeat Collective are a ten-piece ensemble that bring a taste of Lagos to the UK’s capital. Their new album Food Chain is a strong record, spanning eight tracks that really do capture the spirit of Fela Kuti. It sounds great, too, with Leon Brichard’s characteristically crisp production bringing an extra zing to each sax solo, horn run and cymbal crash. Indeed, Farivar Gorjian’s drum work is one of
the standout elements of this release, the other being Funke Adeleke’s powerful voice. She is a fluent Yoruba speaker, and her tone is alluring. The frenetic pace of ‘Ole (Lazy)’ is equally matched by Adeleke and this is all credit to the collective’s sensitivity. There is a good sense of balance throughout, and the socially conscious lyrics on tracks such as ‘Prejudice’ and ‘Prime Minister’ sound less trite than most attempts at the same effect; both for the sonic palate presented and for their content. There is a compelling sense of conviction here, especially on album highlight ‘I No Be Criminal’; this is powerful stuff from a promising group.
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Africa REVIEWS endongo and the kora – in their repertoires and in their significance within their own respective cultures, for example – and Sebunjo has frequently travelled to West Africa in order to explore their similarities. The music on this short record is pleasant enough and the musicianship accomplished. However, at times the conflict between the traditional instruments and the modern style of backing and arrangements leaves this particular listener slightly confused. Sebunjo’s voice is a little shrill for my taste and I would personally rather have heard much more of his endongo and kora playing in a more traditional ensemble and setting. MARTIN SINNOCK
TRACK TO TRY Africa Express
Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band
TOP
★★★★★
Winding back the highlife clock is a whole lot of fun This is a new recording of old-school highlife and Afrobeat from one of Ghana’s great vocalists, backed by a scorching band. Pat Thomas cut his highlife teeth in 1960s groups like the Broadway Dance Band and Stargazers. In the 80s he was at the centre of the ‘burger-highlife’ movement, the term describing music made by Ghanaian immigrants in Germany for export back home. This new recording, his first in over a decade, was made in Accra and mixed in Berlin, and sees him reunited with a mixture of old colleagues and some younger musicians. The intention for this eponymous album was clearly to make a record in the style of the 70s with pure instrumentation, eschewing any form of digital technology. Guitars, Farfisa organ, brass, percussion and drum kit are all expertly played in a very lively and infectious style. One particular highlight is the drumming of Nigerian guest Tony Allen on three tracks. His deceptively slinky yet highly complex, ostensibly 4/4-time drum style has lost none of its potency. However, the entire ensemble provides a scintillating backing to the confident singing of Pat Thomas on all eight tracks on this excellent release. MARTIN SINNOCK
TRACK TO TRY Odo Adaada
Analog Africa
Strut Records (44 mins)
OF THE WORLD
Amara Touré 1973-1980
TRACK 1
Analog Africa (64 mins)
★★★★★
Legendary lost voice of West African music Born in Guinea-Conakry, singer and percussionist Amara Touré wandered peripatetically across West African music for 20 or so years – and then disappeared. In 1958, he was in Senegal where he became a member of Le Star Band de Dakar. He stayed for a decade before heading to Cameroon, where he formed the Black and White ensemble. By 1980 he had moved on again, this time to Gabon to team up with L’Orchestre Massako. After that, the trail runs cold. He was reported to have returned to Cameroon, but nobody knows today whether he’s still alive. He left behind just ten tracks, all of them included here – six of which were released as singles with Black
and White and four elongated pieces from his 1980 album with L’Orchestre Massako. They’re more than enough to make him a West African legend. On the Black and White tracks his supple voice shimmers and shimmies over classically languid, Orchestre Baobabstyle Afro-Cuban rhythms. The recording quality is basic, even after modern digital remastering; but the atmosphere is scintillating. The L’Orchestre Massako tracks are similarly marinated in swaying Cuban rhythms with a touch of Mande roots, but are more elongated, as Amara and his band stretch out over pieces that are eight or nine glorious minutes long. One of Analog Africa’s best crate-digging excavations to date. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
TRACK TO TRY N’Nijo
GET THIS ALBUM FREE Readers can get 1973-1980 when subscribing or renewing with Direct Debit. See CD flyer
Modou Touré & Ramon Goose The West African Blues Project ARC Music (48 mins)
★★★★★
A Goose gets loose with the Afro-blues The easiest way to describe The West African Blues Project is that it is exactly what it says in its title. The connections between West African
music and the blues have been explored on record many times, and it still manages to produce delicious fruit. British blues guitarist Ramon Goose has certainly put in his time collaborating with West African musicians, having recently worked in projects alongside Diabel Cissokho, Daby Touré, Noumoucounda Cissoko and Atongo Zimba. Here, Goose is joined by Senegalese rising star Modou Touré, whose capable voice works equally well in the soulful Wolof styles as it does on bluesier pieces such as ‘Casamance River Blues’. The
musicians gel very well, and their mutual enjoyment is clearly audible. Some of the tracks on this album feel a little too slick and produced for this reviewer, with the highlights coming in the form of the rootsier, earthier pieces, wherein the blues takes centre stage and Modou’s voice is allowed to flow along with it. This probably isn’t the most effortless African blues album, but it’s impossible to deny that the blues is rarely this upbeat or uplifting. JIM HICKSON
TRACK TO TRY Satan
ISSUE 110
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JULY-AUGUST 2015
Gig Guide
Songlines picks... Raghu Dixit (pictured) (Midlands, July 20) India’s nicest singersongwriter performs in Norwich after hit shows at Glastonbury Festival. Soothsayers meet The Shikor Bangladesh All Stars (London, July 24) London meets Bangladesh. Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club (London, July 30) The Cuban powerhouse brings their Adios tour to London’s Royal Opera House. Piers Faccini & Vincent Segal (South & London, August 27 & 29) The duo perform music from their album Songs of Time Lost. Shrewsbury Folk Festival (Wales & West, August 28-31) This year’s festival line-up includes Richard Thompson, Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita and O’Hooley & Tidow. See p16 for tour highlights Kunal Kakodkar
London 2-25 Jul Highlife: Forward to the Past Majestic Restaurant FREE majestic-restaurant.co.uk; 11-26 Jul Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture shubbak.co.uk; 17 Jul Sly & Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvaer, Eivind Aarset & Vladislav Delay Barbican 020 7638 8891; 17 & 31 Jul, 14 & 28 Aug The Nest Collective’s Campfire Club Bethnal Green Nature Reserve thenestcollective.co.uk;
18-19 Jul Walthamstow Garden Party Lloyd Park FREE walthamstowgardenparty.com; 19 Jul Vaishnavism Through Bengali Folk Music & Dance Rich Mix FREE richmix.org.uk; 20 Jul Long Lankin + Carol Anderson Green Note 020 7485 9899; Funmi Olawumi Purcell Room 0844 875 0073; Madras String Quartet Nehru Centre 020 7493 2019; 20-25 Jul Irakere feat Chucho Valdés Ronnie Scott’s 020 7439 0747; 21 Jul Cambodian Space Project Jazz Cafe 020 7688 8899; The Samois Sessions Pizza Express
Jazz Club Soho pizzaexpresslive.co.uk; Trio Manouche Cadogan Hall FREE 020 7730 4500; Madras String Quartet + Raga Garage Purcell Room 0844 875 0073; Hossam Ramzy Union Chapel 020 7226 1686; Gordon Maisala & NKA Musica Rich Mix 020 7613 7498; 22 Jul Prom 8: BBC Asian Network with Benny Dayal + Palak Muchhal + Naughty Boy Royal Albert Hall 020 7589 8212; Kosmos Ensemble Sands Films, Rotherhithe eventbrite.co.uk; Mahotella Queens + Count Drachma QEH Roof Garden 0844 875 0073; 22-24 Jul Umrao:
The Noble Courtesan The Cockpit thecockpit.org.uk; 22-25 Jul Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández London Coliseum 020 7845 9300; 23 Jul Ranjana Ghatak Club Inégales eventbrite.co.uk; Yat-Kha Rich Mix 020 7613 7498; Niran Obasa Purcell Room 0844 875 0073; Tinariwen Fairfield Halls, Croydon 020 8688 9291; Juan Martín Kings Place 020 7520 1490; Red Baraat Brooklyn Bowl 0844 856 0202; 23-26 Jul IGF Guitar Summit Kings Place kingsplace.co.uk/igfgs; 24 Jul Ester Rada Rich Mix 020 7613 7498;
www.songlines.co.uk/gigs All information correct at time of going to press. Email listings for print and online consideration to listings@songlines.co.uk issue 110
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Choose your free Songlines Music Award-winning album† 10 tracks from this issue’s best new albums + 5 bonus tracks exclusively with the Aug/Sept 2015 issue of Songlines TOP OF THE WORLD SELECTION
01 Amara Touré ‘Cuando Llegare’ (4:25) 1973-1980 (Analog Africa) & © 2015 Analog Africa. Courtesy of Analog Africa
02 Daymé Arocena ‘Madres’ (5:51)
Nueva Era (Brownswood Recordings) & © 2015 Brownswood Recordings. Courtesy of Brownswood Recordings
03 Hindi Zahra ‘To the Forces’ (4:44)
Homeland (Oursoul Records) & © 2015 Oursoul Records under exclusive licence to Parlophone/ Warner Music France. Courtesy of Parlophone/Warner Music France
04 Danú ‘Chicago Set’ (3:56)
Buan (Danú) & © 2015 Danú. Courtesy of Doon Productions/Danú
05 Tom & Ben Paley ‘Didn’t He Ramble’ (3:22)
Paley & Son (Hornbeam Recordings) & © 2015 Hornbeam Recordings Ltd. Courtesy of Hornbeam Recordings
06 Anoushka Shankar ‘Celebration: Raga Manj Khamaj’ (excerpt, 5:33)
Home (Deutsche Grammophon) 2015 Anoushka Shankar under exclusive licence to Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin & © 2015 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin. Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music
07 Totó la Momposina y Sus Tambores ‘El Pescador’ (4:00)
Tambolero (Real World) & © 2015 Real World Records Ltd. Courtesy of Real World
08 Shooglenifty ‘Do Chrochadh a Thoill Thu, Thoill Thu/Nighean Rudh’ Bhàn Bh’aig Dòmhnall Ruadh Piobair/ The Spice of Life’ (4:55) The Untied Knot (Shoogle Records) & © 2015 Shoogle Records. Courtesy of Shooglenifty Ltd
09 Juan Martín & Chaparro de Málaga ‘La Feria’ (3:50)
La Guitarra: Mi Vida (Flamencovision) & © 2015 Flamencovision. Courtesy of Flamencovision
JAH WOBBLE’S PLAYLIST
11 Jah Wobble & the Chinese Dub Orchestra ‘L1’ (3:44) Chinese Dub (30 Hertz Records) & © 2008 30 Hertz Records/Cherry Red Records. Courtesy of Cherry Red Records
12 Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir ‘Mandala Offering’ (3:32) Tibetan Chants for World Peace (White Swan Records) & © 2008 White Swan Records. Courtesy of White Swan Records
13 Salif Keita ‘Sina (Soumbouya)’ (4:53) Soro (Sterns) & © 1987 Sterns Africa. Courtesy of Sterns Music
14 Amida Boussou ‘Boulila’ (3:19)
Gnawa Home Songs (Accords Croisés) & © 2006 Accords Croisés. Courtesy of Accords Croisés
15 Alacran ‘Reflejo de Luna’ (4:20)
Reflejo de Luna (Funky Juice Records) & © 2003 Funky Juice Records. Courtesy of Funky Juice Records, www.funkyjuice.com
10 Emily Portman ‘Darkening Bell’ (3:21)
Coracle (Furrow Records) & © 2015 Furrow Records. Courtesy of Furrow Records
STWCD86 This compilation & © 2015 MA Business & Leisure Ltd info@songlines.co.uk, www.songlines.co.uk Executive producer Paul Geoghegan. Compiled and sequenced by Jo Frost & Alexandra Petropoulos. Design by Calvin McKenzie. Mastering by Good Imprint. CD pressing by Software Logistics Ltd. The producers of this CD have paid the composers and publishers for the use of their music.
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Dispatch from
Tunis
After Tunisia’s first terrorist attack on the Bardo Museum, Simon Broughton reports on a symposium to endorse art and dialogue in the capital
“U
Above: damage in the Bardo Museum and All the World’s a Mosque installation
Simon Broughton
pstairs on the way to the mosaics, you might like to see some of the bullet holes,” suggests the guide at the Bardo National Museum. After the terrorist attack in March, this was going to be no ordinary museum visit. And the guide we’d happened to run into had hidden two Spanish visitors for hours until they were sure it was safe to come out. Since then, there has been another attack on a beach in Sousse on June 26. On March 18, three gunmen killed 21 people, mainly European tourists, when they stormed the Bardo Museum. Some rooms are still closed, but elsewhere you can literally see the gouges in the walls, in the legs of statues and most dramatically in a glass case around a statue of Bacchus. It’s shattered like a stone on a windscreen – the smooth contours of the bronze contrasted with fragmented glass. In the museum, with the best collection of ancient Roman mosaics in the world, it underlines the brutality of the intruders. I’d been invited to Tunis for a symposium on Visual Culture in an Age of Global Conflict, organised by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation right in the Bardo Museum itself. The symposium, in May, was planned before the events in March, but the terrorist attack gave it a focus. Kamel Lazaar, a businessman and avid supporter of the arts, saw it as an opportunity to show the new Tunisia to the world – so far the only success story of the Arab Spring. “We’ve called it Jaou, a Tunisian dialect word meaning a ‘nice atmosphere,’ Lazaar explains. “The idea is to let people know what’s being done here. That dialogue can create a better understanding because ignorance is our worst enemy.” In Tunisia there’s still optimism about the achievements of the Jasmine Revolution, although there are economic and political struggles. But the two terrorist attacks will devastate the valuable tourist industry. Early Saturday morning I go to a Sufi ceremony at the Maghara shrine in the Jellaz cemetery. The Shadhili brotherhood are one of the largest in Tunisia and the atmosphere
Singer Ghalia Benali
“Islam has been hijacked by minorities on both extremes” in the mosque is welcoming and relaxed. In the men’s hall there’s chanting that starts slowly and builds up as people move forward towards the mihrab (niche in the wall indicating the direction of Mecca). When the chant ends there are ululations from the women’s room behind us. In Arabic, the chirping ululations are called zagrata and it’s like a laugh. “They do it when they hear the name of the prophet and are happy,” says Sheikh Mestaoui who’s taken us along. Sufism is very strong in North Africa, but in Tunisia its messages of peace and tolerance are conflicted by those of Islamic State and the civil war in neighbouring Libya. Across the Arab world, humanists are looking to the great philosophers and theologians of the past to inform the present – people like the poet and philosopher Ibn Arabi, as Andy Morgan writes on p46.
The climax of the Jaou symposium is the opening of a brave art installation called All the World’s a Mosque, close to the Carthage National Museum. Curated by Lina Lazaar, it features 22 shipping containers with installations by artists from across the Arab world. As you enter there are three women doing ritual ablutions, then an artwork of old cassette tapes and an installation of women’s shoes. Most striking is a sculpture by an Iraqi artist commenting on the Shia-Sunni conflict. Shia and Sunni daggers were wrought into an angry globe casting a spiky shadow on the wall. This is powerful stuff. As is singer Ghalia Benali’s recording of the muezzin’s call to prayer, the first openly to be done by a woman, resounding through the final section. “The real question is whether it’s even possible to contain the uncontainable,” says Lazaar when I emerge. “But Islam has been hijacked by minorities on both extremes, both secular and extremist. There’s a space for open-minded Muslims to contribute to a message of peace.” Installed in shipping containers, it’s an exhibition that’s made for travel and I sincerely hope it does.
+ ONLINE www.kamellazaarfoundation.org ISSUE 110
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essential
Song Collectors Here’s our selection of albums by people who have made a living collecting traditional songs and also those dedicated to singing them and thereby continuing the traditions W o r d s S i m o n B r o u g h t o n , J o F r o s t, A l e x a n d r a P e t r o p o u lo s
01 Meredydd Evans Merêd (Sain, 2005) A collector and performer of Welsh folk songs, Merêd (as he was better known) was an avid Welsh language campaigner and dedicated his life to collecting songs that were in danger of vanishing since the Methodist revival almost killed off the secular tradition of folk singing in Wales. This double-album contains 50 tracks, including rare recordings of a concert in 1962. In April this year he posthumously won the Good Tradition award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in Cardiff. JF
02 Dom Flemons Prospect Hill (Music Maker, 2015) Nicknamed the ‘American Songster,’ Flemons has devoted a large part of his career to the study of the African-American song tradition. For his solo debut he delves into songs that pre-date the Mississippi Delta blues from various vernacular traditions. There are even some originals here, but ones that sound as if they were written over 100 years ago. Reviewed in #106. AP
03 Julie Fowlis Gach Sgeul – Every Story (Machair Records, 2014) Alan Lomax described the Gaelic song tradition as ‘the finest flower of Western Europe’ and Fowlis has become one of its most high-profile champions. The singer from North Uist has studied and done research into the Gaelic culture of the Highlands and her latest release is an unadulterated collection of traditional songs. Reviewed in #99. JF
04 Sam Lee The Fade in Time (Nest Collective Records, 2015) Mercury-nominated Sam Lee is a modern-day song 98 s o n g l i n e s
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collector extraordinaire. Dedicated to collecting and sharing traditional songs from across the UK and Ireland, Lee has been a key force in breathing new life into these songs – especially those of the Romani and Traveller communities. He also runs the Nest Collective, which hosts folk gigs in London. Reviewed in #107. AP
05 Alan Lomax The Alan Lomax Collection Sampler (Rounder, 1997) Alan Lomax is a song collector like no other; starting his field recording career in 1933, he would go on to spend his life devoted to capturing songs from every corner of the world on tape. This particular release features music he recorded from the American Deep South, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy and Spain. So important to the concept of world music, Lomax has even earned himself a coveted space in this issue’s A-Z of World Music (see p34). AP
06 Thomas
McCarthy
Herself and Myself (Tin Folk Music, 2014)
An Irish Traveller, McCarthy grew up with a long line of traditional singers, including his mother Mary, to whom this album is dedicated. She taught Thomas the sean nós style of singing, and on this he showcases the diversity of his repertoire, with songs about Gypsy evictions and the various people who lived in his community. Reviewed in #105. JF
07 Muzsikás Máramaros: The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania (Hannibal, 1993) Not only collecting, but resurrecting. For this extraordinary album the Hungarian band took tunes from a collection of Zoltán Simon and also collected tunes from Gheorghe Covaci and Árpád Toni, Transylvanian Gypsy musicians who
had performed with klezmer musicians before World War II. The result is a brilliant recreation of Transylvania’s rural Jewish music. SB
08 Janusz
Prusinowski Trio
Knee-Deep in Heaven (Oriente, 2013)
Janusz Prusinowski and his colleagues have been pioneers in the movement that’s revived the interest in traditional music in Poland. They’ve taken tunes collected by the 19th-century collector Oskar Kolberg (18141890) and the Polish Academy of Sciences, but more importantly living old masters they’ve met in the villages. Reviewed in #98. SB
09 Various Artists Cecil Sharp Project (Shrewsbury Folk Festival, 2011) The father of the folklore revival in England, Sharp collected around 5,000 folk tunes across England and North America. This album was the result of a special project to commemorate Sharp’s legacy, in particular his travels to Appalachia. Reviewed in #78. JF
10 Various Artists The Very Best of Hugh Tracey (Sharp Wood Records, 2008) Hugh Tracey (1903-1977) was the father of African ethnomusicology and his recordings preserve an invaluable collection of (mostly) traditional music from the 50s. This Best Of includes one track from each of Sharp Wood’s 21-CD Hugh Tracey retrospective, ranging from the Royal Drum Ensemble of Rwanda to Rhodesia’s Cold Storage Band. A valuable reminder of his vast feat. Reviewed in #54. SB
+ MORE Partake in some song collecting of your +
own with the Great British Song Map, see p50 LET US KNOW Have any other suggestions? Write and let us know, letters@songlines.co.uk
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