61 f


This is an album of riffs, rhythms and roughshod melodies, with elements of coun- try, folk and pop happily co-existing along- side the Berber, chaabi, gnawa, etc. Erraji may not be the most flexible vocalist, but I can’t imagine anyone else doing as much jus- tice to his touching songs of love, travel and hope (plus his daughter Yasmin has a winning way with a wailing backing vocal). The play- ing is tight and the pace racy throughout, with little room for extended solos or reflec- tion, but such things were never the inten- tion of those involved and taken on its own Moroccan rolling terms, this is Erraji’s most consistent yet. www.worldvillagemusic.com


Distributed by Harmonia Mundi. Jamie Renton


RAVI SHANKAR GEORGE HARRISON


Collaborations Dark Horse Records R2–525469


This boxed set contains three out-of-print stu- dio releases associated with Messrs Shankar and Harrison – namely, Shankar Family & Friends (1974), Ravi Shankar’s Music Festival From India (1976) and Chants Of India (1997). But, by way of bait or bonus, its fourth disc is a DVD of evocative, hitherto unseen concert footage from the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) in 1974. The film’s music is somewhat in the style of Ravi Shankar’s Music Festival From India and, not included here, World Pacific’s contemporaneous, double LP Ravi Shankar’s Festival From India.


To dispense with a negative, and since much is being made of the boxed set’s pack- aging – and it is sumptuous visually, especially if spot varnish on images beguiles – it is a shame that its textual content lacks rigour and greater context. It diminishes. By way of example, accessing information is not as easy as it could be. To quibble, on what date in September 1974 was the (incomplete) RAH footage shot? And, without running the DVD, find out who the participating musi- cians were. Musically, it is sounder, though.


In the case of the materials from the


1970s, Collaborations captures another turn on the wheel of Shankar’s experimenting. Chants Of India, with its Vedic inspirations, without whetting the knife too much, sounds more like a re-entrenchment, or a piece of work prompted by final life-quarter meditations. It is Collaborations’ two CDs and one DVD material from the 1970s that, with its experimental flamboyance, draws in the listener the most. It tosses in the bizarre like the Moog work of Paul Beaver and Mal- colm Cecil and more conventional contribu- tions from keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston, drummers Jim Keltner and Ringo Starr, and the ‘soar-away’ winds of Tom Scott, alongside contributions by Shankar’s long-time partner Kamala Chakravarty, flautists Hariprasad Chaurasia and G.S. Sachdev, percussionists T.V. Gopalkr- ishnan, Kamalesh Maitra and Alla Rakha, and santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma. But the star of the show, its living glue is the sublime vocalist, Lakshmi Shankar. This boxed set’s leitmotiv hit is her English-language devo- tional hymn to Krishna, I Am Missing You.


In 1971, reviewing Howard Worth’s doc-


umentary film Raga, New York Magazine’s film critic Judith Crist commented on Ravi Shankar’s “sudden growth into a pop-culture idol” adding in brackets “in large part a result of Beatle George Harrison’s interest.” It was a friendship and professional relation- ship that endured and matured. The Collabo- rations boxed set provides incontrovertible evidence of that.


www.georgeharrison.com Ken Hunt Ravi Shankar & George Harrison


RANNOK Rannok GO’ Danish Folk Music GO1210


A fiddle and piano duo album, and on the face of it, however good, there usually wouldn’t be enough to say about it to make a full-length review. But this one has a special spark that deserves some stand-alone banner-waving.


Fiddler Michael Graubæk, of fine Danish


combo Zar, and pianist Theis Juul Langlands deliver a beautifully varied, bright-eyed set of shapely trad and original tunes drawing main- ly and creatively on the musics of Denmark and Scotland, acutely played and arranged. There’s a swing, skither and wit in their play- ing and the way the piano works so spiritedly with the fiddle that’s Shetland-like and also somehow evokes the fondly-remembered wry twinkle of Fennig’s All-Stars, the New York state band led by dulcimer player Bill Spence that made two joyous albums in the 1970s and still gigs occasionally. And that’s high praise.


www.gofolk.dk www.folkshop.dk Andrew Cronshaw


CERYS MATTHEWS Tir Rainbow City Records RCMCD005


She’s always hinted at the fact that one day she might make a back-to-my-roots collec- tion; since Cerys Matthews left the celebrated collective that was Catatonia, she’s been any- thing but predictable. Consider, she’s flirted with country, Americana, mainstream pop – remember that Tom Jones duet? – singer/ songwriter inspirations and even the odd folk song. Here however she dives in, head first, back to her yesterdays. As I recall, Catatonia were wise, success came their way but they never lost touch with who they were or where they were from and that no doubt kept them sane. Tir is a very personal state- ment with very little to get in the way of that fruity burr of a voice; mostly it’s the simple life, just her and guitar on a selection of Welsh material that runs the line from hym- nals to rugby sing-along via the National anthem and stacks of trad. The packaging is sumptuous, hard cover, sepia-tinted, photo- packed, notes and bilingual lyrics, as well as a century of Matthews family history.


I enjoyed it all immensely, Tir is a window to another time and a place that used to be, both are celebrated in what is equal parts musical and sentimental, however the senti- ment never goes OTT and you’re left half wanting to travel back yourself, to see if there was satisfaction and real happiness in


times with less sophistication and contempo- rary clutter. Cerys Matthews may believe that but she tempers the past with a stamp that is her own both in delivery and interpretation. Having said support is minimal, Bryn Terfel pops up on the blacksmith’s song Migldi Magldi, and there is a spooky keyboard at points, as well as a stray banjo from a couple of mates; chiefly though it’s just yer lass.


Highlights include her reading of Sosban


Fach, a song that she rescues somewhat from triviality, reconnecting it with origins in the tinplate industry; Cwm Rhondda is likewise given new life away from male voice choirs and transformed into a breathy plea for understanding. Top marks however are reserved for the music-box drift on Ar Hyd Y Nos (All Through The Night); partly a cappel- la, here is real sympathy and understanding – in its uncomplicated setting, the old lullaby’s become a minimal delight, the melody and lyric aching with resonance displaying the tune’s true origin as a harp air.


As is often the case, less is more and here is the perfect example; no matter which way you look at it, as an experimental one-off or long-held ambition, it shows both the skills of Cerys Matthews and the continuing adapt- ability of Welsh roots.


www.cerysmatthews.co.uk Simon Jones


TÈSSÈMA ESHÈTE Ethiopiques 27 Buda 860192


A hundred years ago Tèssèma Eshète booked into a Berlin studio and made the first record- ing of Ethiopian music. And here they are, bar a couple, lovingly restored from ancient 78s to a quality of sound that is outrageously clear and close. The years – and the pops and crack- les – have been dissolved, leaving us with a human voice that’s close but strange, like mes- sages beamed from some psychic radio. Feared, revered and also despised, Azmaris were the traditional voice of Ethiopian cul- ture, occupying a role somewhere between jester, griot, troubadour and political analyst, accompanying themselves with a bowed one- string fiddle. It’s a curious style, abrasive yet soulful, sometimes highly emotional. Most of the songs follow a similar pattern, and after a while they seem to merge into a continuum.


Without Amharic, we are of course at a serious disadvantage here, and even native Ethiopians have struggled to make sense of the lyrics of Eshète’s recordings. We’re cer- tainly not going to enjoy the depths of word-


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100