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and balafon riffing between thick blasts of brass, and Bamako 2000 invokes ‘70s Latin soul, the watery warblings of Wilson’s Ham- mond organ to the fore (a marmite instru- ment if ever there was one) and balafon fit- ting snugly to the arrangement beneath swaying Mandé harmonies.


Kansala is perhaps the best of the more reflective tracks, a showcase for Diabaté’s darting melodies, and Remercier Les Tra- vaillers stops the album in its tracks to pay due respect to Kandia Kouyaté’s magnifi- cence (presumably recorded some time before her recent bout of ill-health). Wilson’s piano is suitably respectful here, duetting tenderly with Diabaté’s kora.


However, experimental albums such as this usually have off-moments, and some of the kitchen-sink salsa moments on tracks like Ankaben can get wearing. And the sparse three-piece Voyage has some great moments but is spoilt by unnecessarily cocktail-bar piano effects from Wilson.


Not perfect by any means then, but on the whole the funky approach and spirit just about see Mali Latino through.


www.malilatino.com Con Murphy VARIOUS ARTISTS


Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Cumbia And Descarga Sound Of Colombia 1962–72 Soundway SNDWCD026


A collection of hot vintage party sounds from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, this third foray into Colombian music from the exemplary Soundways label focuses on recordings made by Curro Fuentes, youngest son of the Fuentes musical dynasty and something of a bad boy, according to the expansive sleevenotes.


The family F set up Discos Fuentes,


Colombia’s foremost record label from the ‘50s to the ‘80s (it was the subject of an earli- er Soundways compilation). Young Curro set out on his own, initially with his Discos Curro label and subsequently as local in-house pro- ducer for Philips. This selection features tunes from both of those periods, dirty bass-heavy music designed for the dancehall, but with enough variety and high quality musicianship to keep the listener interested.


Compilers Will Holland, Miles Cleret, Sean Uppal and Roberto Ernesto Gyemant have done well to programme a selection that jumps around chronologically and stylistically (moving through cumbia, salsa, porro, mon- tuno, descarga and various other local sub- genres), but all characterised by heavy percus- sion, explosive horns and those basslines! As Gyemant states in his sleevenotes (talking about a tune by Puerto Rico y su Combo), “The first time I heard this track my brain immediately melted out of my ears and drib- bled down my shirt.” You could say the same for much of what is on offer here.


Jamie Renton BABAR LUCK


The Babar Luck World Citizen Folk Band Own label BLWCFB01


Singer-songwriter Babar Luck (see fR274) is one of those idiosyncratic, enig- matic spirits who


operates perfectly well under the radar. This, his seventh CD, finds his guitar and voice part of a new band, backed by bass, percussion and violin. The grouping seems to have ener- gised him; the material is excellent, with some of the best, most incisive songs he’s written, and the aggregation truly sparks –


think Joe Strummer and an acoustic Mescaleros, with a fiddler (say Tymon Dogg) as the powerhouse instrumentalist. Vocally, Luck keeps getting better and better, and on this album (acoustic it might be, but it’s very rock’n’roll at its heart) he sings with emotion, compassion, and real force; the man has grown into his voice. There are several out- standing cuts here, from the opener of Come Home to Easy Money, which connects the dots between politics and business, the ache of Die Free and Sing The Guns To Sleep, about the hope for peace from a soldier’s perspec- tive. Reggae finds its way into things too, not only on World Citizen, but also on Gun Law, where at one point Luck almost sounds to be channelling Marley. Recorded live to ana- logue, this is a collection that marks out the band as something very special. Miss Joe? Then this might be exactly what you need.


www.babarluck.com Chris Nickson VARIOUS ARTISTS


The Bristol Sessions 1927-1928: The Big Bang Of Country Music Bear Family 5 CD Box BCD 16094


Crikey! There are few things to which it is more apt to apply the description ‘a labour of love’ or the aim of ‘doing it properly or not at all’ than Bear Family boxed sets. But even allowing for those givens, this one takes the proverbial biscuit!


Johnny Cash described the recording ses- sions documented here as “the single most important event in the history of country music” and it’s hard to argue with him. In late July 1927, Victor Records’ famed scout/ producer Ralph Peer set up a recording unit on the second floor of a hat company in Bris- tol, Tennessee and invited musicians from the surrounding area to audition. Over ten days he and his engineers recorded over 100 tracks by old time bands, country artists, gospel groups, blues players, evangelists, storytellers and all sorts. As a superb documentary cross- section of folk music being made in the south at that time, this would have been an invalu- able body of work anyway, but the cream on the gateau of country music history was that as well as adding to the existing recorded cat- alogues of the Stoneman Family, the Johnson Brothers and Henry Whitter, these sessions discovered the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Alfred Reed and Alfred Karnes. Then he returned to the same location in 1928 and recorded a whole load more.


The Babar Luck World Citizen Folk Band


So that’s the history, now for this box. Every surviving recording from the sessions is included, 124 tracks with over six hours of music, all remarkably well remastered, and chronologically spread over five CDs. Then there’s a beautiful art-quality printed 120 page, 12” square hardback book with exten- sive notes by Tony Russell and Ted Olson, dozens of archive photos, well researched details of all the artists, contemporary cata- logues, adverts and song sheets, full lyric tran- scripts, discographical session notes including photos of the original documents, and labels and sleeves from the original 78rpm releases.


At 3110 direct from the label in Germany or £115 from Amazon UK it’s certainly not cheap but there’s no earthly reason why something of this quality and into which so many hundreds of hours of painstaking research should be. There’ll be bootleggers out there already planning to rip it all off and put out cheapo cheapo pile-’em-high ver- sions, but if this is music you love and history which fascinates you, I urge you to reward the workers and treat yourself to this set. You won’t be disappointed.


www.bear-family.com Ian Anderson


FOSTER MANGANYI NA TINTSUMI TA TILO


Ndzi Teke Riendzo No. 1 Honest Jon’s Records HJRCD108


Further revelations from recent South Africa following Honest Jon’s recent dance antholo- gy Shangaan Electro. This marvellous record- ing of preacher and congregation in Limpopo shows how mbaqanga has bled into a new amalgam, simplified and a step back into its roots. We hear breathy noises beside modern plasticky instruments: no bass, electro percus- sion and simple keyboard. And, above all, magical voices – the groaning, exhorting pas- tor and flock singing call and response and counterpoint. The result is a transcendent junkyard culture.


www.honestjons.com Rick Sanders


BENGALO Foy Etnisk Musikklubb EM85


NO BORDER ORCHESTRA Arctic Cinema Iboks IBCD 1001


Jovan Pavlovic is a Serbian accordeonist, com- poser and arranger who lives in Norway and has gathered around him a selection of very fine musicians. In fR 309 I wrote a piece on Belgmagi, the Serbian/Bulgarian accordeon trio of Pavlovic, Lelo Nika and Petar Ralchev. The three of them haven’t made an album together, but here are two by other Pavlovic bands, one of which includes Ralchev.


In Bengalo the core trio of Pavlovic, singer Anne Fossen and guitarist Christian Fos- sen has remained constant, among a shifting cast. For Foy (Serbian for something like ‘yuk’), their third album, the other key partici- pants are regular Bengalo participant Norwe- gian-Greek violinist Oluf Dimitri Røe and, delivering a hugely funky, zippy bass drive, one of Norway’s most astonishing bass gui- tarists, Mattis Kleppen. The material and approach varies widely, opening with Fossen’s very strong vocals in her own song Vandring, moving through Pavlovic originals, Serbian tunes and Greek traditional songs, all given full-blooded passion and energy. The only low point is an odd and unsuited choice, a version of Donovan’s First There Is A Mountain.


www.emcd.no www.myspace.com/bengalomusic


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