f30
Chartwell Dutiro
Matthaios Tsahouridis Mor Karbasi
Guo Yue
Khyam Allami
The London Bulgarian Choir
Following last year’s state-of-the-art new English folk CD, the one free with this issue (once again courtesy of Arts Council England) spotlights some of the exceptional musicians from other traditions now resident here and enriching our culture. Compiled by Ian Anderson, the sleeve notes here are by Jamie Renton.
E
ngland is a multicultural musical hub and always has been. How could it not be? Wave upon wave of refugees and emigrés have made England their home
since… well since forever. And they’ve always brought their music with them – along with their food, language and cul- ture – which has mixed with what was already here. Add in the stuff English travellers bring back from foreign parts (Moorish dancing anyone?) and you’ve got the mother of all melting pots.
Right now it’s easier to soak up English multicultural music than ever before, with festivals, concert halls, bars and community centres all buzzing to the beats and melodies that nestle on our doorstep. There will always be those who prefer their global music to come from somewhere else (regardless of how good the local talent is) but many are starting to wake up to the appeal of that which has been staring them in the face for decades. There are no air miles, and no exhausting (and increas- ingly fruitless) battles with the authorities over visas either, when the world music artist you’re after lives just down the road.
The diversity of what’s resident here is actually staggering. From badass bash- yer-brains-out Punjabi drum troupes to delicate combinations of stringed and wind instruments, with music played by
Kadialy Kouyate The Dhol Foundation O
and to particular communities, musical ambassadors spreading their culturally specific sounds out to the mainstream and those hardy souls with strong roots who collaborate beyond their own cul- ture (fusion, schmoozian, this is a natural development, always has been – how do you think our tradition got all those polkas, waltzes and squeezeboxes?).
f course this compilation isn’t a definitive record of all the cul- tural ingredients in the English musical soup, you’d need a box-set the size of a house for
such a thing. Here you have a mix of what’s tickled the collective fRoots ear and a panel of expert advisors. It’s a tribute to quite how much good stuff there is out there that London’s pioneering Cultural Co-operation recently released a double CD compilation along similar lines to L4ANE2 of an equally high quality and yet with only one artist in common.
Chartwell Dutiro, the founder and
leader of Spirit Talk Mbira, is as masterly a plucker of the Zimbabwean mbira as you’re likely to get. Back home, he led the mbira section of the legendary Thomas Mapfumo’s Blacks Unlimited. Since moving to England in 1994, he’s divided his time between music teaching and developing STM into the rockin’ multicultural seven- piece trance machine it is today.
Andrew Cronshaw & Tigran Aleksanyan Grupo Lokito
Like Chartwell, Matthaios Tsa-
houridis plays a most singular stringed instrument, in his case the pontic lyra: a three-stringed violin that originates from the Pontos region of Turkey, but is associ- ated with the Greeks who resided there until the early part of the last century. Matthaios was born into a musical family in Veria, Greece and came to London to study at Goldsmiths College, where he obtained a PhD in Ethnomusicology. He’s as happy to perform with symphony orchestras, as traditional musicians from Iran or Afghanistan. Ela Poulim is an origi- nal composition that features Matthaios on vocals, laghouto (Greek lute) and gui- tar, as well as pontic lyra. It’s a taster for his forthcoming album.
The UK’s Jewish community is long established, but is mainly made up of Ashkenazis from eastern and central Europe, whereas the young Israeli singer Mor Karbasi performs the Ladino music of the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Born in Jerusalem of Moroccan and Iranian parents, she moved to London a few years back and has estab- lished herself within the UK global music scene, with rapturously received perfor- mances at Womad and Celtic Connections. Still only 23, she sings with a combination of technical prowess and emotional inten- sity as can be heard on El Pastor.
Modeste Adriano Adewale
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