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by, some who’ll surprise you and a bunch of theatre companies singing heartily about the delights of smashing a power loom to smithereens with an iron bar. A right old pick and mix then.
Chumbawamba – somehow you knew they’d be involved – give a couple of party pieces, while Steeleye offer up the final movement of Rick Kemp’s suite Ned Ludd. These are the most accessible. Amongst the turn ups for the book are Torture The Flag with a right old punk’n’oi shout handily titled Ned Ludd as is the track by former Melody Maker hack Karl Dallas. Way out in the weird, Robert Calvert, he of Hawkwind, does a poet- ry reading over bleeps and bloops, and Ark B actually put the whole rigmarole into a decent rock’n’roots vehicle with The Tazzling Mill (imagine the Stranglers with a sudden injection of Albion inspiration!).
It’s all served up in a humble, recycled cover and with admirable quotes from the 1812 originals. You can get it from
http://luddites200blog.org.uk/luddite-music- cd-and-poetry/
Forward the cropper lads! Simon Jones
HARRY MANX Om Suite Ohm Dog My Cat DMCR00874
Mr Harry Manx doing what he does best here, singing his stuff and playing his slide guitar and Mohan veena (a multi-string lap steel invented by Indian guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt). I once attended a symposium in Hong Kong where someone presented a paper explaining how the Indian classical music community were not happy with Mr Bhatt and his shameless self-promotion after having recorded A Meeting By The River with
Ry Cooder. I also had the pleasure of spend- ing an evening with Vishwa’s son Salil one night in Rome when, after appearing at a festival here, he discovered he had nowhere to stay. Salil invented and plays the Satvik veena, another version of the same thing his father ‘invented’.
Harry reckons this is his ‘Bollywood’ CD although to be quite honest I personally (having a vast collection of Indian film music played on Hawaiian guitar) can’t see the connection.
Of the ten tunes, eight are original but Harry also tackles John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme which, with added lyrics, he turns into a piece of driving music. A Love Supreme is an iconic piece of music described as “…a suite about redemption, a work of pure spirit and song, that encapsulates all the struggles and aspirations of the 1960s.” That is a lot to mess with and if you do it had better be some messing.
Harry holds the record for the most CDs sold after a concert at Woodford Folk Festival in Australia and so if you are a Harry Manx fan and own one or more of the thousands of CDs he has already sold you will want this one as well of course… and why not?
harrymanx.com Mike Cooper
CASS MEURIG & NIAL CAIN Oes I Oes own label
An album that’s a delicate tracery of tune and voice, woven carefully by two of the most sensitive and precise musicians currently delv- ing into Welsh sources. That this is a work of a conscientious mind comes across when you’re listening to something as all consuming as
The Clychau Aberdyfi/Bells of Aberdyfi. Here, both voice and guitar combine in an arrange- ment of utter simplicity yet total atmosphere. Whilst their previous CD Deuawd was a bit of a slow burn, this one is double the intensity, the space, the ambience; a knuckleduster in a velvet glove. Oes I Oes does all this without a hint of resignation, loss, complicity or regret unless you count some lyrics which wish all manner of perils on those who destroy birds’ nests… and I should think so too!
You could be forgiven for thinking this was a recording of old Welsh nursery rhymes and folk whimsy if you just lend a casual ear. In fact, within its understatements there lies more strength and concentration than in many bands who try to be too clever by half or turn up the volume to impress. Here frag- ile strings and hushed vocals tread a deliber- ately elusive and tantalising path through ten hypnotic tracks. Some are wilfully obscure but all open and accessible, from the nonsense lullaby Saith Rhyfeddod/ Seven Wonders to Mari A Mi/Marie & Me. On this, there is a tumble of familiar licks with a jazz edge as Nial Cain picks carefully a descending guitar countered by a warm vocal and sweet violin. Again the two are in perfect unison on the self-composed and trad blend Margiad Ych Ifan, which points the way to locality through tunes, Llanberis, Snowdon, Llantrisant all crowding round a comely melody.
Produced by Meurig and Cain along with engineer Jens Schroeder at Dreamworld stu- dios, set in a fantastic period cover, you really can’t find fault with a recording so unadorned and down to earth yet so com- pelling and undeniably convincing. Destined to remain a favourite for many a moon.
www.cassmeurigandnialcain.band-
camp.com Simon Jones
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