63 f
Backovic has actually been pursuing her ArHai project for fifteen years now, starting out as a ten-piece acoustic big band perform- ing complex versions of traditional music from Serbia. There is much less of the accom- plished composer on show here, though, and a more improvisational feel.
Lever, known for his early music projects, makes a profound contribution to proceed- ings, his excellent playing on the swirling Dance Of The Bacchants being mashed into a faltering chaos of furious dance.
www.arhai.com John Pheby BRUCE MOLSKY
If It Ain’t Here When I Get Back Tree Frog Music (7 00261 37499 4)
APRIL VERCH
Bright Like Gold Slab Town Records STR 13- 01 |(7 00261 376130 4)
Two Americans who major in traditional music, play fiddle remarkably well, but also have other strings to their bow. Molsky is well known in the UK through his appearances on Transatlantic Sessions tours and TV as an interpreter of old fiddle and banjo tunes and songs. This time he stretches himself even fur- ther by adding guitar to his repertoire includ- ing a superb version of Joseph Spence’s Bimi- ni Girl. More familiar are versions of Cumber- land Gap and Shady Grove, banjo and vocal, and unaccompanied fiddle tunes, Bona- parte’s Retreat, Last Of Callahan and others. Molsky treats the music with respect without fossilising it, feels no need to change his voice to affect a southern accent and all in all plays authentic old-time American music in a way that proves the genre has never died.
brucemolsky.com
April Verch also adds variety to her fiddle playing. I have to say her playing is quite breathtaking and tunes like Big Eared Mule, Dusty Miller, Jeff Sturgeon and many more are as good as it gets. Verch also writes and sings, and if her own singing is a little quirky it does grow on you as do her songs. For good measure she has Mac Wiseman sing a couple of songs, whose voice has naturally aged but is still captivating, and has another song per- formed and written by Hayes Griffin, one of her band, that is a dead ringer for the Hot Club of Cowtown. I keep coming back to the fiddle playing though, great tone, feel and nothing short of exciting.
To keep the link between the two, Mol-
sky joins Verch on fiddle to play Evening Star Waltz on her CD. A great reading of a little- heard tune.
In summary, two classic interpreters of
old-time American music with recordings that are not only valuable in their quest to keep the old times going, but are both highly enjoyable.
aprilverch.com John Atkins
LUMIERE My Dearest Dear IRL IRL075
SUSAN McKEOWN Belong Hibernian Music 708434060859
My Dearest Dear is the second offering from Kerry-based female vocal duo Lumiere. Eilis Kennedy and Pauline Scanlon are two intelli- gently gifted singers with solo albums behind them. Combining forces in Lumiere they have attracted big praise and serious notice but sacrifice individuality for a low-fi vocal har- mony approach combined with instrumental
lushness that zooms just underneath the Celtic twilight radar. It’s radio friendly and the right side of lovely but devoid of person- ality until increased exposure reveals an iden- tity. Eilis Kennedy’s west Kerry Gaelic singing shines on Bo Na Leathadhairce and Pauline Scanlon adds a wistful touch to The Silver Tassie. Who Knows Where The Time Goes is given an ambient ’60s pop treatment à la Nouvelle Vague and guest Sinead O’Connor’s force initially clashes with the pastel vocal atmospherics but fuses into an effective threesome. My Dearest Dear is Irish folk chas- ing the ambient gravy train – it may not move mountains but will certainly turn heads.
www.lumiere.com
Dubliner and long-time New York resi- dent Susan McKeown exhibits a power and authority that is unshaken by marketing demands. Belong, her first self-written album in years, is stylistically American-flavoured musically borrowing more from the Joni Mitchel and Lucinda Williams schools of style and delivery than the traditional canon. It mixes full band tracks with stripped-down acoustic backings in a mixed bag of vignettes of life, love etc. Guest vocalists Declan O’Rourke and James Maddock help stretch her capabilities – O Rourke’s Jansch-like con- tribution to On the Bridge To Williamsburg adds a welcome Celtic touch while James Maddock’s guest spot highlights the Ameri- cana nature of Everything We Had Was Good. Susan’s dash of Gaelic vernacular on The Cure For Me is refreshingly effective and the resigned Our Texas is a gently evocative romantic song comparing relationships and travel. McKeown’s impassioned richly stoic soprano gels best with a simplistic backing but when subjected to complex backing arrangements as on the Brechtian Lullaby Of Manhattan the results are unevenly awk- ward. That is the sole sonic blot on an impres- sive landscape. Susan McKeown in full flight can still deliver in spades and Belong succeeds for its humanity and flawed greatness.
www.susanmckeown.com John O’Regan VARIOUS ARTISTS
Classic Celtic Music Smithsonian/Folkways SFWCD 40560
Right! Let’s get the moans over first. ‘Celtic Music’; what does it mean? Well, rather like Americana, the term is not properly defined and seems to mean different things accord- ing to who is using it, rendering it less than useful. What most people on this side of the Atlantic would agree is that it does not include English performers – and yet here there are five (six if we argue that Ewan Mac- Coll is English),
One of these is Shirley Collins and she knew nothing of her inclusion here. It is prob- able that these recordings are all out of American copyright, but it would have been a courtesy for a company of this stature to at least inform her.
Having said that, the songs and the music are of the highest quality that the tra- dition and the early revival can offer. It is as if someone has loaded the best of the tradition on to an iPod and then put it in random play. Now, if the listener is as dedicated to the tra- dition as this reviewer is, then they will have many of the items on other collections, but it is never a bad thing to be reminded of Joe Heaney, Margaret Barry & Michael Gorman, Willie Clancy, Lucy Stewart, Harry Cox etc.
Almost as enjoyable as hearing many old favourites again is reading the highly infor- mative 40-page booklet and seeing the fasci- nating archive photos.
www.discovery-records.com Vic Smith
Yasmine Hamdan
YASMINE HAMDAN Ya Nass Crammed Discs CRAM 201
Whilst Ya Nass isn’t going to set the world alight, it is in places a haunting, boldly cine- matographic and
achingly pretty record. Yasmine Hamdan seamlessly blends influences from her native Lebanon and her adopted France. Thus, in places, as on the dramatic La Mouch, the record reminds of Serge Gainsbourg and else- where, as on opening track Deny, contempo- rary French pop-folksters like Rose come to mind. Elsewhere though, as on Hal, the record is far more traditionally Middle East- ern in sound.
Throughout Ya Nass has the definite sound of a record put together by a cinephile. Nediya sounds like an ’80s romance whilst Aleb has Bladerunner/Vangelis overtures. Often times this approach is reminiscent (and Yasmine might well hate me for saying this) of Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die.
It’s a hit and miss sound. When it works, the cinematic vibes and loungy pop balance well with the delicate vocals and acoustic gui- tar though in places the songwriting isn’t strong enough to stand up to it and some- how gets lost in the mix.
It has all the elements of a great piece of work, and on tracks like Bala Tantanat, you really hear Yasmine getting into a stride and carving a niche. Sometimes, though, the songs are forgettable and hence Ya Nass comes close, but doesn’t quite deliver. The Twin Peaks-style melancholia, however, and enchanting folk pop elements, mean that Yasmine Hamdan is definitely one to watch.
www.yasminehamdan.com Liam Thompson
GENERAL PAOLINO feat. MAMA CELINA South Sudan Street Survivors IRL IRL074
Following his success with the Malawi Mouse Boys, here’s another challenging but reward- ing recording from producer Ian Brennan. “All recordings are field recordings,” he has stated, and this one, recorded in an unfin- ished building on a construction site in Juba, certainly doesn’t test the rule. Rudimentary accompaniment, voice that seems to fade in and out of focus, fluctuating energy levels, songs that hesitate, jump and usually end unpredictably – this is ultimately unglossy
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