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BVSC introduced listeners to the distinc- tive artistry of figures often marginalised or thought past their prime in their native land. Among its virtues, the project documented for all time the artistic verve of its now- departed originals: Compay Segundo, Rubén González, Ibrahim Ferrer, Orlando ‘Cachaíto’ López, Miguel ‘Angá’ Díaz, Manuel Galbán, Pedro Depestre. Meanwhile, their confreres continue to carry forward the essence: Juan de Marcos González, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Barbarito Torres, Guajiro Mirabal, Jesús ‘Aguaje’ Ramos, Carlos Calunga.


Two decades on, these pristine recitals by now-legendary figures, heretofore incanta- tions unknown, are as new and spirited as ever, not so much lost as inadvertently, mom - entarily misplaced. Habanera, son, danzón, bolero, trova, big band salsa, Afro-Cuban jazz, it’s all here, as vital and engaging as the original audition, all the more bittersweet for memorialising the voices that emanate now from the spirit world beyond. Repudiating the imperial-romantic cliché of an island lost in time, this graceful mix of live concert tracks and intimate studio encounters is both time- less and thoroughly contemporary, a rare after-hours set that will transport aficionados and move new audiences to interrogate the source.


www.worldcircuit.co.uk Kepa Junkera & Sorginak


KEPA JUNKERA & SORGINAK


Trikitixaren Historia Txiki Bat – Una Pequeña Historia De La Trikitixa Fol Música 100FOL 1082


Kepa’s doing some welcome revisiting of roots, those of Galicia on his previous album Galiza, and here of his own Basque music in a retrospec- tive set of his own composi- tions, with traditional copla lyrics sung in lively unison by a specially-formed teenage


female vocal septet, Sorginak (‘witches’).


It’s refreshingly simple: the instruments are just his trikitixa (melodeon) with pandero (tambourine) and other skin and metal per- cussion, and Kepa mostly plays everything himself by multitracking.


The CD is in a slip-case stuck inside the back cover of an elegantly designed, profuse- ly illustrated hefty nine-inch square hardback book that’s as essential a part of the package as the music. There’s an intro by Kepa, several pages of his bio, an interview with his mum, tribute quotes and a lot of posed and archive photos, but more than half the text is the tit- ular “a small history of the trikitixa”. Written by Joxean Agirre, it describes the evolution of trikitixa music in its heartland regions of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia, largely via the life sto- ries of leading trikitilariak, pandero players and singers, such as the wild-voiced woman singer and panderojole Maurizia (whom I rec- ommend tracking down, particularly with alboka master Leon Bilbao on the 1988 album Maurizia, Leon Eta Basilio).


Kepa and his then panderojole accompa- nist Jose María Santiago, known as ‘Motriku’, both non-Euskara speakers born in Bilbao in the Basque province of Bizkaia, were a couple of the first Biskaians in their generation to enter the competitions in Gipuzkoa. Kepa and Gipuzkoa’s Joseba Tapia became the top pair of young competition rivals of the late 20th Century, not just pushing the bound- aries of technique, but rule-breaking innova- tors who wrote ever-smarter tunes for them- selves. Their tunes and styles have caught on with other players, leading the tradition on.


These days Kepa seems to favour a rounded, controlled recorded triki sound in


his often large-scale recording projects. The word trikitixa is onomatopoeic, and I miss the brash, bright key-stuttering flash and clatter of edgy accordeon and pandero jin- gles that makes trikitixa music so thrilling live. Though that sound makes some return on this album, there’s nevertheless a disci- plined, studio-bound maturity in comparison to the rawness of the period he’s looking back on, for example the youthful and still uplifting skittering energy of 1987’s Kepa, Zabaleta Eta Motriku album.


Multitracking oneself, particularly on


lively, up-tempo music, can lose the interac- tive spark and inspiration of playing with other people; there’s a noticeable energy- boost when Kepa is joined by others, such as the penultimate track’s massed pandero- joleak, who include Motriku and also Tapia’s partner Leturia. The latter for me has always been the personification of infectious tambourine delight and, though not one of those who do it here, he’s a doyen of something else that mightily ani- mates trikitixa music: the long, wild, rising vocal ululation known as irrintzi (which my Euskara dictionary describes as “a popular yodel-like cry of happiness”).


It’s a CD full of memorably catchy tunes, in another impressive Fol Música package. The text, by the way, is in Euskara and Castel- lano only, but an English translation exists and will, I assume, be made available online.


UK distribution by Discovery Records.


www.discovery-records.com Andrew Cronshaw


BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB


Lost And FoundWorld Circuit WCD–090


Over the past twenty years Afro-Cuban gen- res have become so integral to the global musical vernacular that one forgets how essential the mid-1990s Buena Vista Social Club endeavour was to bringing the island’s dynamic traditions to worldwide notice. What remained in the vaults was more an accident of the project’s relentless touring demands and its amazing creative momen- tum than anything else. So as a second take, Lost And Found is a welcome and illuminat- ing encore that’s been a long time coming.


Michael Stone


PAUL BRADLEY Banish Cherish Own label TD5


If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that Paul Bradley is guitarist with Three Cane Whale, creators of ambient and acoustic fas- cination; but he’s also been in a Belfast punk band and Bristol bands ME and the Organelles, and mainly works as an improvis- ing musician and with dance and theatre groups. None of which quite prepares one for this solo album, the overall feel of which can only be described as seriously retro with a hyper-modern tinge. To explain a bit, some of the songs, such as All Generalisers (on fRoots 53) and The Last Sunny Day, wouldn’t be out of place on early Village Thing albums, with guitar playing not unlike Dave Evans allied to an extraordinary high tenor voice that mean- ders, elides and swoops à la Tim Buckley at his peak. But there’s more than these facile com- parisons: Bradley has made a genuinely psychedelic album that conjures up the spirit of adventure and no boundaries better than pretty well anyone since the heady 1960s. The staccato piano rhythms and elegiac tone of One Of My Favourite Weathers – “the air’s so thick with the cries of the dead” – rub shoul- ders with the low-drone menace of Little Genociders and the gentle Good Things Hap- pen To Bad People, with its descent into glos- solalia and treated vocals grinding to a halt.


It’s not all sweetness and light by any means – sensitive listeners may wish to avoid the improvised sections with guitar squalls and explosions, and the wilful mistreatment of unoffending keyboards – in Whitehead Beach the tinkling glockenspiels (you knew they’d be in here) are slowly overwhelmed by bowed bass instruments that rise to a crescen- do of industrial noise; and even the closing song, Like Holiday, isn’t a straightforward love song as it appears on the surface, but hints at a hidden mystery behind it. The longest track, The Overreachers, is the icing on the cake, all psych-folk-rock moving into a groovy swirling organ part and back again, all held together by that amazing voice.


The whole thing is very atmospheric and in places moving, and unlike anything else you’re likely to hear. A brave and successful venture.


www.paulbradleymusic.com Ian Kearey


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