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Cantareiros Do O Fiadeiro, with Budiño join- ing on gaita, in the unadorned traditional songs that make up the track Riamonte, but even that is so compressed it doesn’t leap out as it could.
I yearn for him to make the bold, stripped-back, gutsy, wide-dynamics album, not necessarily forsaking the technology but using it to intensify the rawness. I know he can do it.
www.folmusica.com Andrew Cronshaw
SUN ARAW & M GEDDES GENGRAS MEET THE CONGOS
FRKWYS Vol 9: Icon Give Thank RVNG Intl FRKWYS09
For once, here at fRoots we weren’t the first off the mark picking up on this album. I was first alerted to it via its high placing in the 2012 end-year lists in the admirable online music mag, The Quietus. I’m always interest- ed in right-up to-date productions that nev- ertheless keep a sense of roots, and this album fits that description perfectly. The FRK- WYS series (‘Freakways’, being a homage to the Folkways label) from the RVNG label “pairs contemporary artists and their progen- itors”. In this case, American experimental musicians Sun Araw and M Geddes Gengras went to join long-established roots reggae group the Congos in their compound in St Catherine, Jamaica to record Icon Give Thank.
It is a triumph. A genuine collaboration, Sun Araw and Gengras use their modern techniques and the influence of contempo- rary music to expand on the spacey, dub sound the Congos pioneered in their work with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, whilst still leaving room for conventional instruments like hand drums and guitar. Lyrically, the Congos draw on Rastafarian themes, praising Jah through- out, as well as raising social concerns, such as in Food, Clothing And Shelter. Jungle incor- porates the traditional ‘fly away from home’ chant, variants of which are found in so many Jamaican songs (not least Bob Marley’s Rasta- man Chant). Declaiming through the echoey murk, the harmonies of the Congos may be the finest thing about the album, reaching across the octaves with deep rumbling growls set against straining falsetto.
The album comes with a DVD documen-
tary, Icon Eye by Tony Lowe and Sam Fleischn- er, a disjointed and compelling (or preten- tious and irritating, depending on your patience for such things) documentary cap- turing the recording of the album and the home life of the Congos and their extended families. Both documentary and album would no doubt be even better under the influence of the stuff the musicians are shown to have been smoking throughout the recording.
igetrvng.com Christopher Conder
VARIOUS ARTISTS Zambia Roadside 2 SWP SWP041
This is the second volume of down-home rural Zambian recordings produced by Dutch- based drummer and musicologist Michael Baird – volume one appeared in 2003 – and exhilarating is the word. Like Vol 1, most of these recordings are from Southern Province. Many different styles feature xylophone, home-made bass, pennywhistle, ref’s whistle, mbira, a modified bicycle wheel, shaker, and a wide array of drums. Baird brought one performer – Enock Mbongwe Haciwa and his kalumbu bow – to play at the Albert Hall, where he got a standing ovation. Just goes to
show the power of this supposedly humble music. It’s all acoustic, but it’s got real drive, and every now and then you can hear traces of the magic that went into kalindula, the stratospheric dance music played by electric Zambian bands. This CD is powerful indeed, jolly, complex, strange sometimes, unremit- tingly alive – and well furnished with great photos and fascinating commentary.
www.swp-records.com Rick Sanders
JOHN B SPENCER Bluesman Irregular IRR085
Some of us believed John Spencer was on his way to serious stardom and in a way he got it… though it was more as a novelist than singer. With that distinctively gruff, hoarse voice, some lovely chunky guitar and a pow- erful bluesy bias, he was in the John Martyn ball park – or, perhaps more accurately, Michael Chapman – at a time when the dis- tinctions between folk, blues, rock and coun- try weren’t so finely drawn, a much-loved fig- ure who had admirers and clearly still does. Martin Simpson, Reg Meuross, Graeme Taylor, Pete Cooper, Danny Thompson and Tom Spencer are among those who’ve contributed to this affectionate compendium.
It’s lovely to hear him again, recalling exactly why his songs – covered variously by Norma Waterson, Johnny G and Martin Simp- son, with whom he once shared a band, Flash Company – were so well regarded. Whether playing with his bands The Louts and Spencer’s Alternative or head down in deter- mined solo mode, his ruggedly edgy songs often sounded bruised and warped and occa- sionally a little perverse. But they had many gentler qualities too, whether reflecting rue- fully on falling out with mates (Old Friends), betrayal (Judas), the jagged romance of musi- cal dreams (The Band), bar-room philosophy (E For Everly) or damaged souls (Bits & Pieces In The Mirror) on which he quotes from the Beatles’ She Loves You. There is even a won- derfully mournful version of Memphis Ten- nessee to underline his individuality.
He died in 2002 at the age of 58, but this vital living memory is extremely welcome.
www.johnbspencer.com Colin Irwin John B. Spencer
MAIREARAD & ANNA Doubling Shouty Records SHOUTYCD02
This is an exuberant, beautifully-recorded album of mainly Scottish (but also Irish, Swedish and Northumbrian) traditional tunes and compositions, from a likeable, tal- ented, young multi-instrumentalist duo. Mairearad Green plays accordeon, highland pipes and keyboard. Anna Massie plays gui- tar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, tenor guitar and makeshift ‘percussion’.
After their debut album (which was recorded live) this second album features many-layered multi-instrumental tracks (though still just from the two musicians), cre- ating a richer, more complex sound this time around. There is good variation between soul- ful expression and full-on up-tempo joyous- ness. The duets between Highland pipes and banjo are exhilarating (the Miss Proud set and the Pipe Jigs are standouts). The duo’s playing is crisp, clean and crystalline throughout.
mairearadandanna.bandcamp.com Paul Matheson
ES REVETLERS Va De Per Llarg Discmedi Blau BLAU CD 603
This is refreshing. It reminds me of the Span- ish village groups that Pedro Vaquero record- ed around mainland Spain for his Sonifolk Cantes Del Pueblo series from the 1970s until his untimely death in 1997. In a one-man cru- sade he was documenting, and making avail- able as inexpensive cassettes in the local bars and bus stations, the folk music that he could see disappearing as the car took the place of the horse or the foot for travelling to rome- rias, and children were indoors with the TV rather than playing around the oldsters in the street and sharing songs.
He didn’t record in Mallorca, home of this group who are, Pedro would doubtless be pleased to hear, the offspring of the previous generation’s singers, players and dancers; a good time singing, playing and dancing is always going to be a good time no matter what the technological or economic distractions.
Raw, real, characterful female and male voices, self-accompanying on up to six insis- tent, rhythmically finger-strummed guitars and smaller guitarrós, a fiddle, bass drum,
Photo: Dave Peabody
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