53 f


XOSÉ MANUEL BUDIÑO Volta Falcatruada FAL-691


Over the years since his innovative and beautifully-judged 1997 debut album Paralaia, Galician


piper Xosé Manuel Budiño has taken things onward and bigger, in a way that doesn’t real- ly exist in Britain. In Spain, with its more reli- ably clement weather and night-time paseo socialising, outdoor music shows in the main square of a city are common, and quite a few folk-rooted bands, particularly in Galicia and its north-coast neighbours, enlarge what they do to suit a big stage with high-powered sound and lights. Small-scale subtlety doesn’t work well for an outdoor, standing crowd who could be in the bars behind them; big, loud, energetic with flashing, scanning lights does.


Youssou N’Dour 1988


jova’s imperious A Lambkin Has Commenced Bleating. There’s no soca either, no King Sunny Adé or Fela and none of the accordeons that shook the ‘world’ world. No matter, this essential snapshot has so much wealth on offer it can afford the occasional unavoidable omission.


www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/nascente Con Murphy VARIOUS ARTISTS


Something Is Wrong: Vintage Recordings From East Africa Honest Jon’s HJRCD 50


Honest Jon’s are doing a superb job of mining EMI’s priceless collection of early world music. This new release is the best yet, a double CD of 35 recordings made on site between the 1930s and early 1950s by visiting European engineers, capturing the music of various East African cultures at a time when it was still essentially traditional, but beginning to undergo the first transformations brought about by records and radio.


There is a stunning intensity to many of these performances that emotionally, if not stylistically, reminds me of early Delta blues. People are singing directly from unfiltered souls and giving it all they have. Like the early blues singers, they probably understood that this was their one shot at immortality.


As the accompanying press release points out, there are songs here covering top- ics as varied as murder, drunken fighting, tirades against the rich, loneliness and other issues that all humanity experiences.


I know from my days at the EMI archives in the 1990s that Honest Jon’s are using essentially unplayed file copies of these extremely rare records. EMI had the foresight to archive a mint copy of every 78 they pressed in a library-quality waxed storage sleeve. What this means for the listener is that the sound is simply incredible. Originally distributed copies of these discs are now almost impossible to find in any condition except at EMI.


The format of this issue is a hardback CD- sized booklet with 26 pages of in-depth and informative contextual essay illustrated by vintage photos. The only thing remotely like it is Yazoo’s Music Of East Africa issue in their Secret Museum Of Mankind series. If you have that, you know you want this. If you don’t, then you will once you’ve absorbed this thoroughly recommended new release. Timeless, beautiful music presented in the manner that it deserves.


Paul Vernon


Volta is a CD and DVD made largely at one such show in Galicia, not actually in a plaza but at the big Festival Internacional Do Mundo Celta in Ortigueira in 2009. Drawing mainly on material from his three studio albums, Budiño fields an eight-piece band of fiddler Alfonso Merino, guitarist Miguel Seoane, keyboardist (and Mercedes Peón’s long-time co-producer) Nacho Muñoz, and a wall of five percussionists. One of the latter stands in as a male dep for Mercedes Peón performing the songs she sang on Paralaia, another comes up front for a couple of bursts of rap. Budiño bestrides the stage, rock moves and all, before a seething, acclaiming audience.


As Mercedes Peón – whose first appear- ance on a commercially distributed CD was on Paralaia – says in one of the DVD’s rather unnecessary tribute clips made by musicians Budiño has worked with, he’s “a tremendous gaiteiro and a tremendous composer”. So he is, and while there’s a strong feeling of the big sell here (Spanish ways being rather dif- ferent from our more northern European sensibilities), he’s deeply and modestly steeped in traditional music and, well, it’s good to see him having so much fun and being a bit of a star; how many bagpipers get the chance? A piece of folk/rock-stagery indeed, but it’s an exciting show to watch; for pure audio pleasure, though, I still find myself turning back to the freshness, melodi- ousness and variety of Paralaia.


www.xosemanuelbudino.com Andrew Cronshaw


JULIE FOWLIS


Live at Perthshire Amber Machair MACH002


After three highly acclaimed studio albums, a live one from Julie Fowlis that makes it abun- dantly clear why she has achieved such widespread success while still singing princi- pally in Gaelic. Recorded on the opening night of Dougie MacLean’s autumn festival in front of an enthusiastic audience, with every- thing well-honed after a summer’s touring, the album genuinely conveys the feel of a great live gig. No second takes, with nothing added or taken away, unlike many so-called ‘live’ albums. Drawing material largely from her previous studio albums, Julie’s singing and playing is a joy as always, ably and sym- pathetically augmented by her band: hus- band Éamon Doorley (bouzouki), Duncan Chisholm (fiddle), Tony Byrne (guitar) and Martin O’Neill (bodhrán).


Whether singing the quiet unaccompa-


nied opener Hò Bha Mi, Hé Bha Mi, the delightfully familiar Lon-Dubh (a translation of Paul McCartney’s Blackbird) or gently get- ting everyone joining in on the bouncy Biodh An Deochseo ‘N Làimh Mo Ruin, there’s an unforced and intimate laid-back charm about


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