79 f
Maz’s gentler, considered approach to shanties crops up again on Stormalong. This provides just one of three instances on the disc of what seems to be a salient feature of Maz’s treatment of traditional material, that of interweaving existing texts to create a kind of lyric patchwork. Caw The Yowes also proves persuasive in this regard, as does Red Red Rose, which intriguingly marries stanzas from The New Irish Girl to a verse of Maz’s own on the subject of making tea! Which leads me to remark on the impressive quality of Maz’s own songs, pick of these being the charmingly wistful Whitley Bay, which dis- plays an easy lilting confidence, and the per- cipient Songs Of Old, where Maz has clearly taken inspiration from Karine Polwart, while the spirit of Strawbs-era Sandy Denny tum- bles aloft through Rambling Free. Maz also treats us to a plaintive, beautifully melan- cholic cover of Woody Guthrie’s Hard Ain’t It Hard, which sports a delicately inventive musical setting showcasing the gentle air of enterprise that pervades the whole disc. The arrangements primarily involve Matthew Jones (ex-Last Orders) on guitar and double bass, with special appearances from Joe O’Connor (melodeon), Nicola Lyons (fiddle), Sam Sweeney (cello, fiddle) and Jim Molyneux (percussion).
Maz has given us an enchanting debut album, whose occasionally diffident demeanour, while promising much for the future, in itself proves very attractive.
www.mazoconnor.co.uk
David Kidman
DEEP END OF THE FORD An Táin LMM011002
The Táin Bó Cúailnge or Cattle Raid Of Cooley is an ancient Irish epic tale found in the 12th Century Book Of Leinster. It tells the story of the hero Cú Chulainn and his feats in a bloody and harrowing battle among the tribes of Ireland over a stolen bull.
This work came into being as a commis- sion from the Armagh Pipers Club and sets a selection of text fragments from the Táin within a richly illustrated tapestry of sound. Its series of musical vignettes are crafted by improvisatory collective Deep End of the Ford, forming a lucid backdrop for Lorcan Mac Mathúna’s sean-nós singing. His melliflu- ous Irish evokes the character of ancient Gael- ic epic and highlights the intimate union that exists between the language and this often overlooked way of song.
Here the diverse resources of contempo- rary Irish traditional and improvisatory musics are brought to task in the vivid musi- cal imagining of an Iron Age culture. It would be easy for this experiment to err too much on the side of New Age pastiche, yet the crisp instrumentation ensures that any connotations of ‘Celt Synth’ are quickly dis- pelled. The interplay of Seán Mac Erlain’s bass clarinet, Martin Tourish’s accordeon, Eoghan Neff’s fiddle and Flaithrí Neff’s uil- leann pipes creates a sound that contains elements of Irish trad, contemporary jazz, electronica and post-rock, yet cannot be sub- sumed under any of these banners.
This release strikes the rare balance of being both something entirely new and gen- uinely experimental, while simultaneously working to reinvigorate and inspire interest in an ancient form of melodic development and vocal production.
Descriptions of each movement are pro- vided in the sleevenotes and full Irish text and translation can be found on on Mac Mathúna’s website.
www.lorcanmacmathuna.com/antain Fíacha O’Dubhda
Mokoomba
MOKOOMBA Rising Tide Igloo Records IGL235
Mokoomba are actually a group of Zimbab- weans from Victoria Falls, and they say their music is largely based on traditional Tonga folklore, but any sense of region or genre lasts about half a second in the face of this rich and various album. Express-train vivid one minute, gently contemplative the next, from bright kora to the dark smoothness of cello, from Cuba to ska, from unadorned call- and-response to the bendy pitch-bending of hip-hop – here are more styles and strands than any record has a right to attempt. What holds it all together is somebody’s sense of just how far you can push chaos before things start falling off. Producer Manou Gallo, whose bold strokes imaginatively echo Joe Zawinul’s jazzy-Latin work on Salif Keita’s Amen, must be a Nobel contender on this account. And, central to the enterprise, great credit to the outstanding voice of Mathias Mizaza which, avoiding melisma and fuss, consistently dices with death and wins. You may pick up traces of Geoffrey Oryema, Kanda Bongo Man, Baaba Maal, Mahlathini. The sustained intensity this man wrings out of Masangango is practically a spinal experience.
www.makoomba.com Rick Sanders
PIIA KLEEMOLA & CO Fiddle Feast Siba Records SACD-1008
Fiddle albums arrive on the review pile so often that it can be hard to say something new about the next one, even though they’re almost invariably by good players with inter- esting stories to their tunes. But when I got to this CD, I found it’s not another string of dance tunes, and the unevocative title and cover don’t do it justice.
As well as three splendidly developed extended arrangements of traditional tunes from Ostrobothnia, Karelia and Quebec (the last learnt from Chris Wood), there are two major compositions: Work by Timo Alakotila and Jumalantauti – a Finnish word for a dis- ease with no cure – by Eero Grundström of
Sväng, Spontaani Vire et al. Both these guys, well-known as players, arrangers and tune- smiths, are substantial composers in any genre of music, and each of these three-part works is a very fine piece of music that can and should grace and energise the concert halls of the world.
They’re played by the quartet of Piia Kleemola, Emilia Lajunen, Kukka Lehto and Suvi Oskala on four-string, five-string and octave violins, all of them already well- known for playing folk music, who create a vivid palette containing all the life and lift of traditional fiddling coupled with the tonal sophistication and spaciousness of classical violin.
A very advanced piece of writing and
playing, it’s emotional, melodic, subtle, rising to glorious. This is strong, rich, individual music that doesn’t hang on anyone else’s peg, but as an indication think of the melodious- ness of Vaughan Williams, the angular and rhythmic thrill of Bartók, and in the Grund- ström piece, inspiration from the passionate Balkan mode of the Romanian traditional Cintek De Instrainaire.
Produced by Alakotila, Grundström and
Kleemola, it’s in SACD surround-sound too, which in this case might be well worth expe- riencing.
www.siba.fi/sibarecords Andrew Cronshaw
CHRIS SERJEANT Heirlooms WildGoose Studios WGS386CD
Chris is a young singer and guitarist steeped in the folk tradition of the British Isles, and this is his debut commercial recording. You may, however, remember his parents Derek and Hazel (née King), who (following Derek’s prolific solo career in the 1960s) became familiar faces on the British folk scene, during the ’70s and ’80s especially, recording half a dozen LPs as a duo and continuing to per- form right up to Hazel’s tragic death from cancer in 2003. Although Chris trained as a concert pianist, he seems to have inherited his parents’ empathy with Britain’s folk her- itage, rediscovering the music he’d grown up surrounded by.
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