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chirpy three-minute (wannabe hit-single?) Wild Rover (fear not: this is the Whitchurch, Hampshire version!), with Jackie on backing vox. Following which, notwithstanding a delectable chiming setting of Thresherman, the disc rather lacks unity: that is, until the lads have played the joker, Primus Hornpipe. This fairly threatens to stove the whole CD in; though a well-meaning attempt to reproduce the on-stage zany humour, it rather misfires (I can only liken it to a twist on the old Bonzos chestnut Intro And The Outro that unlike its celebrated role model just does not with- stand even a second playthrough).


Once they’ve got that out of their system, though, the Pauls raise the stakes of the game and play for serious money, dealing us all the aces from the pack. Our winning hand contains four instrumental cards – the ornate, stately pleasure of Lull Me Beyond Thee (from The Dancing Master) and the slightly sinister cyclic melody of Circle Of Biscuits contrasting with the rumbustious thumpery of Royal Flush/ Ele- phant Stairs and the delicious metrical irregu- larity of Bloomsbury Hypermarket – as well as three gorgeous songs, on which Mr Sartin is in particularly fine voice. Queen Of The May is truly lovely, and the plaintive Turtle Dove even has Sartin familial connections. But the power- ful finale Home Lad, Home, in pure inspiration, finds Sartin returning us to the original C. Fox Smith text and restoring its rightful sentiments, well distanced from the ‘folk process’ version trotted out by indifferent floor singers on autopilot and wantonly stretched to eight min- utes or more. And yet that’s the same length as Sartin’s own impassioned understated reading, set to Hutchinson’s sublime yet minimal back- ing where incidental details and subtle chord- ings are all the more telling in their skilful underlining of the blinding poignancy of the text. In the end, then, Find The Lady should come up trumps for every listener, not just the duo’s card-carrying fans.


www.onelittleshop.com www.belshazzarsfeast.co.uk


David Kidman


VICENTE, PALOMA & RAFAEL PRADAL Herencia Accords Croisés AC 132.33


The Pradal family fled the Franco regime and settled in Toulouse where Vicente Pradal’s main link to Spain was language and culture, especially Lorca’s poetry. Herencia is a cele- bration of some of the poetry that is impor- tant to Vicente and his family and is recorded live with his vocalist daughter Paloma and his pianist son Rafael.


The first six songs are devoted to Lorca with the rest of the concert drawing material from different periods of Spanish literature, including poems by Miguel Hernandez, Gus- tavo Adolfo Bécquer and Jorge Luis Borge, plus a couple of traditional pieces. Vicente is an accomplished flamenco guitarist, but mainly concentrates on singing on this album and only plays guitar on a couple of tracks. He has an excellent voice that intertwines well with his daughter’s and suits the sparse accompaniment provided by Rafael and cel- list Emmanuel Joussemet. The piano playing is stylish and inventive and includes a couple of interesting interludes.


The album is beautifully packaged with a DVD of the concert, a short documentary and a lavish booklet with illustrations by Vicente’s artist father Carlos Pradal. Although Vicente’s past was in flamenco, this concert has more of a classical recital flavour. This suits the materi- al and generally works well, although the per- formances are occasionally a little staid.


www.accords-croises.com Distributed by Harmonia Mundi.


Michael Hingston VARIOUS ARTISTS


World City Music Village 2010 Cultural Co-operation WCMV10


For over two decades now the London-based charity Cultural Co-operation has been sup- porting and celebrating UK-based artists from diverse cultures, archiving their art, music and stories and promoting them through a range of performances and events. This is one of the occasional CDs they put out as a souvenir of their summer World City Music Village festival which mainly takes place in the capital’s parks. You’ve missed this year’s fest, but not to worry, this CD compila- tion features 32 of the artists who performed and stands up well as both a barometer of the UK’s global music scene and a consistently entertaining album in its own right.


Some names will be familiar from these pages, including Sephardic songsters Los Desterrados, Congo-Cubists Grupo Lokito, the eastern Euro double-fiddle attack of Mukka and Colombian accordeon kings Fuerza Vallenata. But there are new discov- eries to be made here too, I’m particularly taken with Sudan’s Adel Elbrary, The She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble and Gypsy swingers Hai La Drum. Cultural Co-operation have always been happy to embrace the con- temporary and the maverick, so conscious female rappers/ poets Poetic Pilgrimage and funky jazz Andean flautist (I kid you not) Mauricio Velasierra also get a look-in. These are all fine examples of their genres (there’s also Afrobeat, salsa, qawwali, Irish folk, tango…) and both discs are well progammed to point up some unlikely connections, Afghanistan to klezmer anyone?


www.culturalco-operation.org Jamie Renton


HOSSEIN ALIZADEH & PEJMAN HADADI Monad Hermes Records HER-041


This live recording presents two weighty per- formances in the musical modes of Avaz-e- Dashti and Avaz-e-Isfahan from two contem- porary masters of Iranian art music. Hossein Alizadeh plays the setar, the fretted, three- stringed Persian lute, while Pejman Hadadi plays the tombak, a goblet-shaped drum carved from a single piece of mulberry wood.


Throughout Monad we can easily hear why Alizadeh is considered to be one of the foremost setar players alive; his playing is con-


Lobi Traore


sistently overwhelming, ranging from moments of intimate and profound subtlety to furious intensity. He is complemented by Hada- di’s equally impressive tombak; its flourishes succinctly supporting the setar’s phrases, teas- ing out their flavour with rhythmic nuance. Together they produce a crisp and captivating musical narrative that passes swiftly before the ear in bewilderingly intricate ways.


Often when confronted with contempo- rary recordings of Iranian art music it is hard to believe that the performers are not engaging in some masterful and subtle stu- dio trickery; it is hard to suspend scepticism and comprehend that human fingers can actually be so deft, nimble and precise. This recording reaffirms that the breathtaking melding of virtuosity and deep musical sensi- tivity characterising much of this music springs from a rare live communion of musi- cian and listener in the act of performance.


This is music for those who enjoy the sus- tenance of a long narrative thread; a gradual unwinding of melody from its basic elements into an intricate mosaic of flavours and forms. Some may find the musical modes cho- sen for this recording a little too serious, intri- cate or heavy, yet those who brave this initial hurdle will soon discover the slowly unfurling nature of it all to be captivating indeed.


www.hermesrecords.com – via Egea UK. Fíacha O’ Dúbhda


LOBI TRAORE


Rainy Season Blues Glitterhouse Records GRCD 711


Lobi Traore hadn’t managed to complete his fifth decade before his sudden and untimely death in June, and such was his popularity amongst his peers that tributes flowed in from across the musical spectrum – from Damon Albarn on Radio 3, through Bassek- ou Kouyate to Banning Eyre, the latter recalling the vibrancy and charm that the diminutive “Bambara bluesman” brought to the author’s breakout Malian musical travel tome In Griot Time.


Most of those plaudits were no doubt


for Traore’s dynamic, uncompromising elec- tric guitar work in his multiple collaborations and solo work, none of which can have pre- pared us for anything quite like this record- ing on Dirtmusic’s Glitterhouse record label. With no overdubs and no treatments, this is just Lobi, his acoustic guitar and vocals in a stark, simple series of talking blues, his pick- ing as clear and resonant as his voice is rough and untutored; never one of the most sophis- ticated vocalists, Lobi’s cracked, occasionally off-centre, voice contains a raw retrospective melancholy even if valediction was not on the agenda at the time. And no doubt had he had his way, this album would have been a full-blown band recording, rocking in the leg- endary voluminous Bamako bar-room style for which Traore was renowned. But placed in a position where it was a solo acoustic set or nothing, serendipity took hold and ten pearls of time-honoured philosophy and feel- ing came tumbling from those magic fingers and world-weary throat.


It’s all too easy to succumb to the temp- tation to imbue posthumous releases with meanings that weren’t originally intended, and thence to hail them as an artist’s great- est bequest. Lobi Traore’s musical contribu- tion was strong enough to leave a mark even without the existence of Rainy Season Blues, but there’s no doubt that this record- ing sheds a whole new, emotional light on his talent. Let’s leave it at that and let pos- terity judge its legacy.


www.glitterhouse.com – distributed in the UK by Shellshock.


Con Murphy


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