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the desert blues genre before then there’s a chance this record might pique your interest. For anybody with a passing awareness of Malian music however, this record can best be described as ‘beige’.
From the opening track through to the
last, Akal Warled oozes mediocrity. The music basically layers scratchy guitar over a conser- vative rhythm section comprising bass and calabash. Lead singer Mohamed Issa Ag Oumar El Ensari’s vocals are reedy and uncon- vincing and the whole experience really brings nothing new to the table. There is nothing to distinguish this record from a mass of generally better desert blues artists out there such as Tamikrest, Tinariwen, Etran Finatawa, Bombino etc.
The only track upon which the band seem to deviate from the formula is Ehela Domo- hele. Alas though, even this brief foray into the unknown is horribly misjudged, centring as it does on what sounds like a bee being held very close to a microphone and abused.
www.clermontmusic.com/imarhan/ Liam Thompson
HANNEKE CASSEL
Dot The Dragon’s Eyes Cassel Records HJC2013
MAEVE GILCHRIST
20 Chandler Street Adventure Music AMA10852
These two albums have a number of qualities in common. They are both products of the richly diverse culture of the City of Boston, and of Berklee College of Music in particular. They both owe something to the influence of fid- dler Darol Anger and the music-without-bor- ders philosophy of Windham Hill. Both artists use their mastery of Scottish traditional music as a springboard to explore other forms of music (Americana, new age jazz, and western classical), which has led them to create sophis- ticated, varied and complex musical hybrids that still retain a traditional Scottish frisson.
Dot The Dragon’s Eyes is Hanneke Cas-
sel’s fifth solo album. A Berklee graduate in violin performance, Hanneke plays and com- poses fiddle music in the Scottish and Cape Breton traditions, infusing both with the fruit of her musical life experience. She tours regu- larly with Baroque group Ensemble Galilei, has lived and taught in Shanghai and worked
with street children in Kenya. As on her previ- ous album, she is accompanied here by a range of excellent musicians including Rushad Eggleston (cello) Jeremy Kittel (fid- dle, viola), Mike Block (cello), Keith Murphy (guitar) and Dave Wiesler (piano).
Almost all the tunes here are Hanneke’s, many of them composed for the weddings of friends and family, treating us to thrilling chro- matic modulations and vibrant harmonies, for example in Jig For Christina and the klezmer- flavoured The Important Thing. In composi- tions such as The Captain and Katrina McCoy’s Jig / Girls of Mudzini Kwetu, the contrast of urgent, driving cello and soaring, legato, yearning fiddle will remind many of the work of Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, with whom Hanneke has been a frequent collabo- rator over the years. Religulous and Eliana Grace are sweetly poignant compositions with excitingly unpredictable melodies that weave delightfully through light and shade. Dianne’s Waltz is a gorgeous, wistful composition for fiddle, piano, cello and trumpet – it would make an evocative film soundtrack.
The Marathon (For Boston) is an ener- getic strathspey, composed on the night of the 2013 Boston bombing, and it successfully conveys the shock and nervous restlessness of that night. The whole album is richly-tex- tured, elegantly expressive and rewards repeated listening.
www.hannekecassel.com
Originally from Edinburgh, folk-jazz harpist Maeve Gilchrist spent four formative years learning jazz and improvisation at Berklee College of Music. 20 Chandler Street (her fourth album) is a loving tribute to the City of Boston’s music scene. Produced by Väsen’s Roger Tallroth, the album was record- ed live with a core band that includes Duncan Wickel (fiddle), Aidan O’Donnell (bass) and Roger Tallroth (guitar). Fiddler Darol Anger (who produced Maeve’s 2011 album Song Of Delight) is a guest musician.
The stirring traditional pipe tune In And Oot The Harbour is given a surging, sparkling rendition on harp that is worthy of Alan Stiv- ell in his pomp. Maeve’s lower-register, husky vocal is well-suited to the ancient Scottish ballad Twa Corbies and its darkly-poetic med- itation on the vanity of this world and the impermanence of all things. Her fast-tempo, shimmering arrangement for harp, fiddle, guitar and bass opens atmospherically with GS MacLennan’s Little Cascade and then dra- matically shifts into the Breton tune An Alarc’h, to which Twa Corbies is sung.
Over half the pieces here are Maeve’s own compositions, such as the bright, mod- ern jazz-jig Sandhunter, or the luminous February Bright with its limpid, plangent, semi-classical quality. Her loping rhythmic piece The Explorer takes us on a mellow road trip across America.
Maeve’s warm, sensual, catchy song City
In The North deserves to be adopted by singers in Northern cities everywhere. Beguil- ingly sung in her low, bluesy Edinburgh voice, it is – quite literally – bluegrass with a Scottish accent.
www.adventure-music.com Paul Matheson
NARAGONIA QUARTET Idili Appel Records APR 1352
Previous reviews of Naragonia in these pages have been of albums by the Belgian duo of Pascale Rubens on diatonic accordeon and Toon Van Mierlo on various bagpipes, saxes and flutes. Here these two are joined by multi-instrumentalist Maarten Decombel and fiddler Luc Pilartz. There is also a significant contribution from their guest musician, Grégory Julivet on hurdy- gurdy. All the compositions are by the origi- nal duo with all but one having been writ- ten by Toon and all are written in popular dance tempos, waltz, polka, bourée, ron- deau etc. Generally these are pleasing, tune- ful melodies though there a few that sound like they are practice exercises for an instru- ment and there are times when the playing sounds rather relentless when the pipes are going at full pelt. Toon certainly has a way with three-time and the two waltz tracks and the bourée a trois-temps stand out, par- ticularly when there is interplay between the accordeon and the hurdy-gurdy.
A glance at their gig list shows a pretty full list of dates for the rest of this year within a sort of triangle created by France, Italy and Poland; hardly surprising when the musician- ship is of the quality heard here.
There also ought to be a mention for the eye-catching artwork of Leen Devyver whose drawings grace the digipack and the twelve-page booklet which documents in inspiration of each of the compositions in three languages.
www.innacor.com Vic Smith
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