69 f
playing with his plaintively soulful singing and razor-sharp songwriting skills. Also here are the uncompromisingly strident Straw Bear Band and the more four-square, 1970s folk rock-infused Owl Service with various mellifluous female vocalists at centre stage.
It is Nancy Wallace who is at the core of their alternative mix of Lal Waterson’s stark Fine Horseman. Her poppy-delicate vocals are always set in such neat musical arrangements, such as the village-hall plunky piano of Through The Morning, Through The Night or rich guitar-textures underpinning the beauti- ful Walking Into Walls. Totally different vibes: the loose-limbed, Canned Heat-esque Robert Sunday, complete with breathy flute and chaotically strummed guitars; The A Lords’ spangly bells and open-spaced harp instru- mental interlude complete with bird song; Alasdair Roberts’ wee mediaeval troubadour number and Roshi’s rich emotive Iranian song.
Whilst I have strong leanings towards
the Steel/Wallace sound as a personal prefer- ence, it would be a lesser beast without rep- resentation from the other acts. The sum of The Inner Octave’s diverse parts is its success.
www.rifmountain.com Sarah Coxson
SMOD SMOD Because BEC 5772583
Consider the evidence for the prosecution. The press release talks of the Smodlads’ obsession with the
usual suspects of American hip-hop, a tenden- cy which has rapidly palled into predictability on African soil in recent years. And this album was produced by the diminutive, daft- trousered Manu Chao, who doesn’t seem to have come up with a single fresh idea since Clandestino, instead endlessly recycling his own clichés like a veritable musical oozelum bird. So there’s not much chance of this album escaping incarceration in And The Rest with the key lobbed into the undergrowth, eh?
How wrong can you be? It’s utterly charming, comes over like a cheery breath of Malian summer air, the best record Mr Chao’s not made himself since the big C. If it came on the radio, you’d immediately know it’s one of his, though his charges more than hold their
SMOD
own and put their individual stamp on it. The back story is that SMOD are a trio including Sam Bagayoko, son of Amadou & Mariam, who Chao met in Bamako when producing his parents’ massive crossover seller Dimanche À Bamako. Chao, we learn, used to take himself up to the cool air on the family’s roof terrace, where the threesome were hard at work rehearsing every evening, and the rest is here.
Chao-esque tunes abound – stronger than the producer man himself has turned out of late – with lots of not-shouty hip hop, plenty of throbby acoustic guitar-propelled delights with good harmonies, a bit of buzzy indie rock and all sorts. It’s all stitched togeth- er subtly and with a tangible but not over- whelming West African ambience, one which seems forward-looking rather than obviously referencing the classic Malian bands and gui- tar styles of yesteryear – so a logical genera- tion change progression from the A&M album in many ways.
It all comes wrapped in an eye-catchingly
cheery, colourful triplefold digipak with an equally colourful booklet. I suppose that the reason it doesn’t come with lyrics and transla- tions is that they’re aiming it away from the ‘world music’ audience who might like to know a little more about the song subjects. The press release hints that these are a mod- ern version of the griot tradition, talking about the marginalised, hungry and ghet- toised youth of modern Africa rather than praising the nobles. Without that baggage, us linguistically-challenged listeners just get to hear as catchy a chunk of Afro-pop as we’re likely to encounter this year, and that’s hard to argue against!
www.because.tv Ian Anderson
BATTLEFIELD BAND Line-Up Temple COMD 2104
“Forward with Scotland’s Past” has the Bat- ties’ motto for a long time, and in some sense they’ve always been greater than the sum of the individual members who have moved in and out over the last 30-plus years. However, with the departure of Alan Reid it’s ‘George Washington’s Axe’ time, and that difficult first album without any original members. Highlander Ewen Henderson steps into the breach with fiddle, pipes, piano and shares the vocals with Sean O’Donnell.
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