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does the fingerstyle Ruckus Rag, which would have been quite at home on an early Ry Cooder album while Ragtag Rag could easily have been performed by any of the pre-war blues fingerstyle paradigms. As well as the high quality musical content the CD is memo- rable for the quality of recording. As pure a transcription of acoustic guitar and voice as you will hear.
www.maryflower.com John Atkins
IAN CARR & THE VARIOUS ARTISTS Who He? Reveal Records (Reveal 046CDX)
There’s a fine line between musical genius and a vortex of chaos and Ian Carr has long danced along it like a reckless Highland dancer with his laces undone.
fRoots’ own Andy Cronshaw once described him as “the most innovative… and sympathetic guitarist that Britain has pro- duced in years, in any genre…” Since the 1980s, Carr has been widely revered for forg- ing his own path (and providing inspiration for others) in his own musical projects such as Swåp and Timber and as a collaborative musi- cian with Kathryn Tickell, Kate Rusby, Eddi Reader, Kris Drever and others. A bold rhyth- mic innovator, a master of harmony, and dia- mond-fingered melody maker, he’s a one-off.
He’s not one to blow his own trumpet
(unless he’s blowing his own trumpet, as he does indeed do on Who He? along with play- ing guitars, bass, mandolins, singing etc) but Carr possesses a rare warmth and inner sparkle that matches his exemplary guitar picking. That warmth courses through the veins of this uplifting and long-overdue debut solo album: a gem, crammed with left-field ideas and soundscapes, but at its heart, simplicity and beauty. It is quite an emotional listen.
It’s an outward-looking and diversely- influenced piece of work (Carr is resident in Sweden, so the Scandinavian flavours of Who He? are tangible) enhanced by a won- derful cast of ‘Various Artists’ including his talented wife Maria Jonsson on viola (and viola d’amore) and vocals. One of my high- lights here is Just Nu, a meltingly beautiful Swedish song with minor key twists, featur- ing Carina Normansson’s vocal and fiddle. Tumbling strings and playful birdsong fiddle lines are juxtaposed with dissonant bell-peal- ing electric guitar chords. Absolutely nothing sits still for long!
The CD kicks off with the bright-toned I’ll
Call You with its vocodered lyrics and way- ward jangling chords and then builds into a lushly-layered string anthem, underpinned by magical omnichord and quirky clicks and trumpet lines. Title-track Who He? opens with a simple one-tone guitar loop, before wash- ing into a harmonium-driven, minimalist instrumental with cinematic effect, evocative of passing clouds and rolling landscapes. Road Drill, a jaunty, spiralling dance, opens into an expansive mid-section with Maria Jonsson’s vocals. And this is the form: each original piece grows and heads off at unexpected tan- gents, but without ever feeling contrived.
Carr is magnanimous as a musician: he is of course capable of coruscating melodic lines (check out I’ve Never Been To Oxford (Or Is That Cambridge)) and rhythmic devilry, but he’s also as comfortable here in the playful guitar / viola duet The Beans War or provid- ing a setting for other players to the fore eg the brittle kora of Lamine Cissokho on spo- ken word experiment Talking Frances.
Who He? He’s a bloody wonder, that’s
who he is.
www.iancarrguitar.com
Sarah Coxson Dorsaf Hamdani
DORSAF HAMDANI Barbara Fairouz Accords Croisés AC 159
It’s a brave person who takes on the reper- toires of two legendary artists, especially when they are from such different styles as Lebanese singer Fairouz and French chanteuse Barbara. Here, Dorsaf Hamdani is that person.
The liner notes to the disc imagine this album as a fictional meeting between the French and Lebanese singers, and that’s basi- cally a perfect description of the music with- in. The tracks alternate between the French and Arabic, and, at the beginning of the album, sound close to the original style. As the tracks and the ‘meeting’ progress, however, each style begins to seep into the other until, by the end, each piece presents a beautiful fusion, an Arabic chanson.
Hamdani trained to sing malouf music from her native Tunisia, but has expertise in many styles from around the Arab world as well as French, Persian and jazz music, all of which give her the skills to work her voice around, through and between the songs and styles of her heroes with ease.
Credit should also go to the project’s musical director. Daniel Mille leads the musi- cians – a quartet of guitar / oud, violin / oud, percussion and himself on accordeon – through the same journey as Hamdani, slowly bringing the Arabian influences to the French, and the French to the Arabian in a subtle, sympathetic and accomplished manner.
It is when the styles blend that Hamdani and her musicians create their best music, and the musical creation of a hypothetical meet- ing between Barbara and Fairouz is what makes this album more artistically and musi- cally interesting than just a set of covers.
www.accords-croises.com/en Jim Hickson
SHAWN PHILLIPS Faces Talking Elephant TECD268
This album was first released in 1972; I lis- tened to it quite a lot at the time but can’t have heard it for over 30 years so this CD release came as a welcome surprise. Although at times I still find the music a bit florid and over-arranged, the voice is remarkable. It must cover three octaves, but also with an incredible dynamic range. The opening song Landscape (describing a journey from Naples to Phillips’ home in Positano) starts with him singing quite softly but gradually builds to an astonishing vocal crescendo. I once saw him
STEVE BROOKES Vintage Troubadour Own label SB92014
Way back in 1972, Steve Brookes got togeth- er with one of his mates at school to form a band. That schoolfriend was Paul Weller, the band was The Jam and, although Brookes quit before their In The City debut, he’s been sighted on-stage with the Modfather again in recent months. The two men have done sev- eral charity gigs together, and Brookes also plays guitar on Weller’s upcoming new album.
You’d never guess any of that history from the CD I have here, however. It’s a gen- tle acoustic blues album, written very much from the perspective of a middle-aged man. In songs like Moments Wished Away, One Good Summer and Footnotes, Brookes reflects on whatever wisdom he’s been able to gather along the way and emerges deter- mined not to undervalue life’s small plea- sures. “One good summer’s all you need to see your sail unfurl,” he sings. “Feel the warmth and smell the breeze before your petals curl”.
All eleven of the songs are Brookes’ own compositions, and he performs most of them solo too. His warm, slightly throaty voice and expert playing give the songs a congenial, relaxed setting. Decoration is provided by quick, intricate little Spanish guitar patterns or a sudden flurry of notes in a well-deployed blues fill. At the end of almost every phrase, he adds a reggae-ish chop at the strings to keep the rhythm driv- ing along. The only other musician present is Hugh Budden, whose snakey harmonica playing adds atmosphere and texture to the three songs on which he plays.
Two of the Budden tracks – Tough Guys
and Barfly Brotherhood – are among the album’s best. In these songs and a couple of others (A Dog’s Life, Vitamin M), Brookes employs a touch of sardonic humour which is absent elsewhere. This gives the songs a more vivid life than the more earnest numbers gen- erally achieve, and also helps to lift his lyrics from what can be a rather workmanlike level. Take this couplet from Vitamin M’s hymn to the joys of marijuana: “Vitamin M when your outlook is bad / If it won’t make you happy sure sweetens the sad”.
Another highlight is the drowsily horny
Feels So Good, whose late-night ambience and low-toned slide makes it an ideal make- out song for more mature listeners. A glass of wine, a roaring fire, someone you love and this song on the stereo – you could do worse.
www.stevebrookesmusic.com Paul Slade
do a tremendous solo set – at the Round- house in Chalk Farm, I think – when it was clear just how far he had to pull back from the mike when he went into vocal overdrive. He must have presented an interesting chal- lenge for the sound engineers. A must-hear for anyone interested in the power of the human voice, I’d say.
Strange, I thought, that I’d heard noth- ing of such an impressive musical talent since that time, so I was wondering where he had got to. Even stranger was that in the same random week I finally got round to watching Searching For Sugarman. When the music journalist in the film agrees to help with tracking Rodriguez down, he pulls out a little pencil-written to-do list of musical puzzles he wants to solve. I forget what numbers one and two on the list were; but although num- ber four was “Find Sugarman”, number three on his list was.....”Find Shawn Phillips”!
www.talkingelephant.co.uk www.shawnphillipsmusic.com
Maggie Holland
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