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Orchestre Tout Pouissant Marcel Duchamp
It’s a near-faultless introduction to the music and the era, wisely including a number of rarities and leftfield choices in addition to more familiar names. So there’s Rosa Eskanazi, of course, and Markos Vamvakaris. There’s Stratos, the iconic rembetiko ‘godfa- ther’, with his hoarse and tender love song of addiction. But there’s also Vulkana Stoyano- va’s template for all the Mystère Des Voix Bul- gares phenomena of decades later. And there’s a 1936 rarity from Annitsa Nikolaou, her only release and prescient in its dark res- ignation and lyrical fragility.
David Prudhomme’s recent award-win-
ning Rebetiko bande dessinée (being that rare beast, a work of fiction that successfully evokes music) details these magical and inde- terminate rembetiko hours on the edge. The novel, which features Vamvakaris, Stratos and others, now has a soundtrack, in a compi- lation of haunting, fevered, belligerent and confusingly poetic music. Lament In Deep Style is the original English title of one of the dramatic tracks here, which says it all really.
www.jsprecords.com John Pheby
ORCHESTRE TOUT PUISSANT MARCEL DUCHAMP Rotorotor Moi J’Connais MJCR027
Liz Moscarola’s sultry voice intones a half-spoken melody over a subtle rhythm section of double bass and percussion. Ripe trombone fills in while brittle notes from an ngoni push it along: then Aida Diop’s balafon rises up in the mix. Beautiful.
Then we’re into a second track with a punkier vocal, Vincent Bertholet’s urgent and spiky guitar, bustling drums from the Dog Faced Herman’s Wilf Plum, a welling cacophony of more marimba and brass and backing vocals – something almost Beefheartian about it. The third track is called The Sheep That Said Moo… (all the songs are in English). It Looked Shorter On The Map has a graunchy NE Brazilian tinge. We are in the land of the desirably unclassifiable. Art rock meets the globe, maybe… Oh, I just looked on their Facebook page and they describe themselves as “tropical postpunk” and “afro avantpop”. Those’ll do nicely.
A multicultural outfit based in Switzer- land and on the same label as Cajun punka- billys Mama Rosin, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp were one of the most invig-
orating bands I stumbled on by lucky chance last year. Recommended by a friend, I wan- dered down to see them play on a cramped stage in the bowels of a converted barge and, as they say, they blew me away. It turned out they were here in Bristol to record this album with PJ Harvey’s sidekick John Parish as pro- ducer. I wasn’t that keen on what he did with Rokia Traoré’s most recent album but in this case he’s absolutely nailed it… a record every bit as good as the live band.
They play nothing like anything you’ll hear on a folk festival this summer (which is the festivals’ loss) but they’d burn it at Womad. They’re included in these pages because gut feeling says they fit. Several other Brissle folkpersons were at last year’s aforementioned gig and were similarly excit- ed. Will that do?
www.moijconnais.com/catalog/rotorotor Ian Anderson
KACY & CLAYTON The Day Is Past & Gone Sask Music
“In recent decades, too many folk songs have been burdened by over-sung vocals and cluttered arrangements.” That’s quite an opening statement to the PR blurb that accompa- nies this CD, but Kacy Anderson and Clayton
Linthicum – second cousins who grew up a short distance from each other in a ranching community in southern Saskatchewan, Cana- da, deliver where it counts.
Like their UK counterparts, Stephanie Hladowski & C Joynes, this duo exudes a level of deep, emotional connection which enables them to inhabit old, familiar songs like The Cherry Tree Carol, Green Grows The Laurel (heard on last issue’s fRoots 49 compilation) and The Dalesman’s Litany and render them fresh and distinctive, while seamlessly inte- grating their own, newly-built songs – Rocks And Gravel, The Downward Road and Wood Viewinto this evocative musical landscape. Anderson’s voice – plaintive, yearning and strong – summon to mind monochrome images of Jean Ritchie in some half-remem- bered Alan Lomax movie to mind, while Linthicum’s guitar triggers flashes of both Davy Graham and Doc Watson.
Supplementary instrumentation is deployed sparingly and effectively, like the
sonorous pump organ that opens Pretty Saro. Linthicum adds splashes of fiddle and auto-
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