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There are flaws, but part of the consider- able charm of any Kate & Anna McGarrigle live show was always its happily shambolic nature and this fits a similarly engaging tem- plate. Bow to Kate’s wondrous legacy.
www.nonesuch.com Colin Irwin OANA CATALINA CHITU
Divine Asphalt Tango Records CD-ATR 3913 / LP-ATR 4013
In yet another of their unique takes on the music of Central and Eastern Europe, Asphalt Tango continue to make the case for albums as physical objects, with a wealth of elegant design, illustration and background.
We’re in modern Berlin, a meeting point and ending-up point in a Europe without borders, where musicians travel and collabo- rate between traditions with ease. DJ Robert Soko grabs the headlines here, mashing the Balkans into huge beat-heavy raves, but sub- tler and more profound work is also coming to the fore, such as this homage, of sorts, to the great Romanian singer Maria Tanase.
Tanase, her crack band of lautari musi- cians and her highly theatrical personal repertoire, was widely celebrated for her pas- sionate updating of traditional song and cabaret, while her Bucharest in the 1930s, was certainly comparable with today’s Berlin, a melting-pot of international music, much of it at its very formative stage.
When, post-war, Europe split itself in
two, what Tanase stood for as a musician seemed to have no place. She effectively dis- appeared. Her funeral, in Bucharest in 1963, was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners. And then she disappeared again.
Until now. Oana Catalina Chitu, once of northern Romania but now a Berliner, sur- rounded by the whole gamut of musical adaptability and virtuosity that the city can summon, appropriates these songs with respect, sophistication and sensuality.
There’s a daringly understated version of
Lume, Lume, for example, that resists the temptation to dramatise the almost suicidal resignation in lines about running out of booze and leaving the stage. Here, the wist- ful guitar of Alexej Wagner leads us into a fearful near-silence.
Album closer, Cine Iubeste Si Las˘a, sees the original deconstructed through ten min- utes of frankly terrifying vocals and hyper- ventilating accordeon from Dejan Jovanovic. The singer berates the world and her false lover, cursing him and deploring her Christian community, resigned at first, before lyrically and vocally asserting her strength as a force of nature. As her voice finally breaks down, the matter is left unresolved but the experimental point of the album is dramatically made.
www.asphalt-tango.de John Pheby
MELROSE QUARTET Fifty Verses Own Label MQCD02
Second recording by a newish alliance between two established duos – Nancy Kerr and James Fagan with Jess and Richard Arrowsmith – to enhance Sheffield’s reputa- tion as the centre of the English folk universe. Combining fiddles, melodeons and bouzouki, they are instrumentally strong on well- worked tune sets – Tom Tolley’s Hornpipe is especially striking – but, rather surprisingly, they seem less assured when pitching into vocal harmonies, mixing traditional material like The Wanton Wife Of Castlegate and Shepherds Song with modern material mod- elled on the tradition, including two Sandra Kerr songs and one by Jess Arrowsmith.
Melrose Quartet The unaccompanied stuff, in particular –
Sandra Kerr’s Santa Georgia, Paul Wilson’s Bampton Fair, Jess Arrowsmith’s Wedding Bells, the traditional Come & I Will Sing You – seem tailor-made as rousing set pieces yet never get near the sort of lift-off you might anticipate. Despite the tight harmonies, the spiritual Bright Morning Star is taken at fune- real pace which may be appropriate lyrically but does nothing for any sense of vibrancy. The Watersons, it ain’t.
It’s hard to be critical of an album that contains four such prodigious talents – and anything featuring the sublime singing and blossoming songwriting of Nancy Kerr will always be worth hearing – but this sounds functional rather than inspirational.
www.melrosequartet.co.uk Colin Irwin
YUNGCHEN LHAMO & ANTON BATAGOV Tayatha Cantaloupe Music CA21090
Despite being something of a departure there’s much to recommend in this unlikely collaboration between the Tibetan singer Yungchen Lhamo and minimalist pianist/ composer Anton Batagov. Yet it would be hasty to suggest that this meeting of New York-based artists achieves real synthesis. Both artists seem committed to the project which arose through a mutual friend, but the gap appears to have been bridged more from a joint Buddhist sense of offering than any musical common ground.
Batagov’s role is undoubtedly the key. A classically-trained pianist, his style embraces Terry Riley, elements of Keith Jarrett and there’s even a suggestion of Nina Simone in his intro to White Palace (a reference to both the Potala and the White House). So the duo’s balance is crucial both in the mix –where piano tends to dominate – and in the perfor- mance where Batagov’s minimalist approach is invariably better suited to Yungchen’s mantras than his more classical flourishes.
Yungchen appears to lead on some tracks and follow on others. Her voice is occa- sionally more husky than on the Real World albums but remains natural despite any extemporisations to match Batagov. And con- trary to limitations the most successful tracks are undoubtedly the longest. The sixteen- minute Your Kindness develops a more satis- fying interplay between Yungchen’s soaring vocal line and Koln Concert-style piano, while
the closing My Mother’s Words sees Yungchen at her exhilarating best after receiving more subtle support from both Batagov and the mixing desk.
www.cantaloupemusic.com Phil Wilson
ERIC BOGLE WITH JOHN MUNRO A Toss Of The Coin Greentrax CDTRAX375
BATTLEFIELD BAND Room Enough For All Temple COMD 2106
Nowadays Scottish emigrant Eric Bogle only tours in the Antipodes but he continues to write and record potent songs about the world which – like it or not –we find our- selves in. On this album, two songs are writ- ten and sung by his long-standing oppo John Munro, and three feature songwriting contri- butions from other friends.
The subject matter is hardly a barrel of laughs: two songs, Ashes and Reg Evans’ Cra- dle, relate to the terrible bush-fires of Black Saturday, while Song For James tells about an Irish man’s efforts to keep alive the memory of his son after his early accidental death. Bogle also sets John MacRae’s WW1 poem In Flanders Fields to music very effectively; Home Is The Hero shows that nothing has changed about the way damaged servicemen are treated on their return, and Roll Call mas- terfully tackles US gun control, school mas- sacres and NRA conspiracy theories in a few short verses.
The heaviness of the subject matter is leavened by the singable tunes, a light touch from Munro’s guitar, mandolin and ukulele accompaniments and equally tasteful contri- butions from a few other musician friends. I’m not sure there are any ‘show stopper’ songs on this album, but time may well prove me wrong, and this collection will surely go a long way to satisfying Bogle’s European and Ameri- can fans who can no longer catch him live.
www.greentrax.com
A Scottish institution that shows no sign of stopping touring worldwide, albeit with many personnel changes, Battlefield Band open their latest album with a tremendous setting of Louis MacNeice’s wonderful poem Bagpipe Music to a traditional bagpipe tune (hence providing another tenuous link to the previous album). The poem is loosely about the cultural decline of the Highlands and
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