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IVA BITTOVÁ Iva Bittová ECM 2275


The Czech vocalist-violinist Iva Bittová oper- ates across musical territory more sound-rich and diverse than any other solo or ensemble musician likely to cross your path. Of Central European crossroads bloodlines, amongst other styles and genres, she has sung the body electric with Mozartian opera, Moravian tra- ditional songs in folk-jazz settings, Slovak-lan- guage liturgical song, Roma holocaust and traditional narratives, and improvised music of many stripes. She is the perfect antidote to the figurative white bread musical diet.


Iva Bittová, recorded in February 2012 in Switzerland with ECM’s Manfred Eicher pro- ducing, is broken into a dozen solo tracks entitled Fragments I-XII, largely improvised in the studio. They field her voice, violin and kalimba (thumb piano) in varying permuta- tions. I and XII are wordless vocal improvisa- tions against kalimba patterns that are, thanks in part to Eicher’s echo-tinged produc- tion, tonally reminiscent of water dripping off stalactites in a cave. The solo vocal piece VI has a distant ring of hymnody, distant because her inflexions position it in some indeterminate place – and time – between Bohemian Jan Hus’ reforming Protestantism, European Orthodox Christianity and Ottoman-era Islam.


Numbering the pieces sequentially obscures the fact that III is a Gertrude Stein setting; VII a setting of an unpublished poem by Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow, the Art Bears and suchlike); and VI a vocal setting of a com- position by Joaquin Rodrigo of Concierto De Aranjuez glory. Irritatingly, the booklet notes decline to title these three pieces; for exam- ple, the Gertrude Stein piece is actually titled I Am I. This is the release that – setting her Zvon with the Prague Philharmonia and Morava with the Škampa Quartet aside – best captures the immediacy of her contemporary solo repertoire, or better put, one sliver of it. Even though I have written about her for decades, and write songs with her, having nothing to do with this project, I can say that with objectivity.


www.ecmrecords.com Ken Hunt SPIDER JOHN KOERNER


What’s Left Of Spider John Hornbeam Recordings HBR 0002


Hornbeam Record- ings’ first release, Roll On, Roll On by Tom Paley’s Old-Time Moonshine Revue


(the first entry on my list for last year’s fRoots Critic’s Poll) saw Paley enjoy something of a career renaissance, with numerous media appearances, including a delightfully unex- pected BBC TV performance with Sir Tom Jones. Whether that trick can be repeated with the same level of success for another veteran American folk hero remains to be seen, but any attempt to raise the profile of Spider John Koerner is very welcome indeed.


The self-deprecatingly titled What’s Left


Of Spider John sees Koerner (vocals, 12-string guitar, harmonica) and Chip Taylor Smith (vocal, fiddle, bones, piano) captured in time- honoured, direct-to tape fashion, in glorious, living mono, with no post-mixing. The only overdubs are the addition on three tracks of the double bass of Jonny Bridgwood, whose elegant playing also graced the Paley album.


Koerner is still an exciting singer, as he demonstrates right from the get-go on The Dodger, spitting out the traditional rhymes over no more than a bones and harmony vocal accompaniment (a trick repeated later on Days


Of ’49 and Rattlesnake.) Instrumentally, Koern- er’s lost nothing of his legendary drive, with his twangin’ and clangin’ 12-string guitar and Taylor Smith’s propulsive fiddle operating like the V-twin cylinders of an old Indian motorcy- cle, carrying the songs relentlessly forward. The pair swing like the clappers across Mem- phis Minnie’s What’s The Matter With The Mill, American folk staples like Ezekiel and Delia’s Gone, and a great, Lead Belly-style version of Stewball which, as Koerner notes, “definitely has undergone a change since that other ver- sion, which is more English.”


There’s a well-chosen selection of Spider


John’s own compositions, from Good Time Charlie (which first appeared on Koerner, Ray & Glover’s Blues, Rags & Hollers in 1963), Run- ning, Jumping, Standing Still (title track of his 1969 duo album with Willie Murphy), to the very recent Last Lonesome Blues, passing through Phoebe, Everybody’s Goin’ For The Money, Creepy John and Nightbird Eyes (which features some great piano from Taylor Smith) along the way.


Listening to Spider John relating the background to the old songs, and reading his notes about the old books he’s found them in, it becomes apparent that Koerner is some- thing very rare and precious indeed – a knowledgeable folk song academic and vis- ceral folk song performer in one package. With hot air about ‘authenticity’ expelled by folk scene fakers and flim-flammers of all denominations, it’s thrilling to hear some- thing that sounds so entirely spontaneous and uncontrived, performed by someone who’s actually had to learn this stuff. There’s nothing extraneous, nothing wasted, and I’ll be very surprised if anything keeps this from being among the first entries on my Critic’s Poll list this year.


Hear a track on this issue’s fRoots 44


compilation. www.hornbeamrecordings.com


Steve Hunt MUKUNGUNI


New Recordings From Coast Province, Kenya Honest Jon’s Records HJRCD068


A rare collection of unadorned and undeco- rated Kenyan village music blows in like a clear breeze from another space and place. Everything about this record, packaging included, is modest and calm. It starts with a simple figure played on metal rings –music to heal sick people in the village. Next, there’s a rattle and humming voices – again healing music, light and elusive. In comes a sort of


Spider John Koerner


ARHAI Eastern Roads Balkanworlds Records BW 001


This fine record is ill-served by its press release, which name-checks nearly all the mainstream crossover champions of newage- fusion-world music. So we are told that there are discernable traces of Enigma, Enya, Dead Can Dance, Nitin Sawhney and Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus projects (about which we are informed that Adiemus fans, already well used to “pseudo medieval languages” might well be up for “the strange tongues” of the Balkans on display here).


“If the comparison turns into a fraction of the commercial success, ArHai won’t mind,” the release concludes. So that’s alright, then. The “strange tongues” and musical influences appear to include Serbia, Bulgaria, Scandinavia, Asia, the Middle East, Turkey and even Ireland and Spain. But what the band have really given us is an arresting, thoughtful and inventive commitment to source material, but also a sensible rejection of musical and geographical borders.


The album is primarily about Adrian


Lever’s tambura, sensitively revealed against a wash of technology, as both endlessly fasci- nating and adaptable. Its pre-eminence is immediately stressed on opening track East- ern Road against echoey and intriguingly brittle vocals from Jovana Backovic.


In reaching out to all points “east of Nor- wich and east of Belgrade” the band employ predictable and comforting samples, in the form of Bulgarian Voices Angelite, for exam- ple. Everything stays just the right side of back- ground music, though, as they dig deeply into the heart of Serbia’s traditional rural music.


But it’s the Jewish song from seven- teenth century Spain, Morena, that is the poetic focal point of the album. Backovic stir- ringly evokes lyrics obsessed with colour and material, hiding behind veils and shadows and mystery, failing to grasp at love, making ineffectual promises about the future.


oboe – strident and beast-like – along with bells, drums, soothing chorus and a struck metal tray. Translate this track to amps and bass and drums and you’d have something close to Ornette Coleman. As the CD contin- ues, the voices come to prominence, and the picture widens out. This apparently simple music, designed expressly to fit the require- ments of its community – well, most decent music is – might well fit yours too.


www.honestjons.com/label Rick Sanders


Photo: Judith Burrows


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