57 f
beginning, then underpinning other themes at the end. It’s really quite majestic. Often subtle, with many colours and shadings (the careful use of a female choir, for example), and not something digested in a single sitting.
It’s certainly something which expands
the band’s range and reach. They’re so differ- ent from the outfit that released Retrograd twelve years ago, and charting the growth has been a pleasure. They’ve shaken off their influences to become something unique, straddling the lines between musical genres – actually oblivious that the divisions even exit. The musicianship is exquisite, the arrange- ments deliciously detailed without turning into something rococo. It’s most definitely an opus. Gradually, the band has become a tow- ering force in modern Nordic music.
www.afenginn.com Chris Nickson
BOMBINO Azel Partisan B01BJH46TI
IMARHAN Imarhan City Slang SLANG50094P
KEL ASSOUF Tikounen Igloomondo IGL289
Azel, the third record from Niger’s Bombino, picks up where his previous album Nomad left off. Tracks like Iyat Ninhay and Inar are classic Bombino and make for a heart-felt record from an artist coming of age. But while emi- nently listenable, Azel lacks some of the punch of his first two records. Tunes like Inar and Ashuhada, though charming, float somewhat under the radar when contrasted with some of the big anthemic moments that set Bombino’s first two records apart. He does explore some interesting new directions though, which hint that there are more to come. Timtar for exam- ple, with its soulful underpinnings and sub- dued backing vocals, moves beyond the con- fines of traditional Tuareg arrangements and feels like Bombino taking his music to a much wider audience in a natural way.
www.bombinomusic.com/
Imarhan is the debut album from a band of the same name. Hailing from near the Malian border in Southern Algeria, the six- piece claim to bring a West African twist to the Tuareg tradition. And they certainly do, with pieces such as Tahabort and the title track sounding like Tinariwen jamming with Amadou & Mariam. Elsewhere, they stay much closer to their roots. Ibas Ichikkou sounds like early Tinariwen but with stripped back mid-sections and effects-laden guitar parts. On other tracks – such as Tarha Tadagh – the sound that the band are carving for themselves gets somewhat lost in the lo-fi. Overall, though this is a promising debut from a band looking to establish their own version of the Tuareg sound.
www.imarhan.com Tikounen translates as ‘surprise’, and Kel
Assou’s record does indeed contain some sur- prises, some better than others. The produc- tion is deliberately grungy and distorted and it’s a style that can begin to grate after a while. The opening track Ahile Lamma cer- tainly doesn’t offer the listener an easy road into the record. Elsewhere, however, the song-writing is enough to distract from the production somewhat, such as is the case on Toumast which rocks like the Tuareg-Euro- pean fusion that the record aims to be. Over- all though, this record feels a bit laboured, as if it’s trying to be clever or edgy for the sake of it. Europa in particular is an example of this tendency, and it sounds like the band lost track of what they were trying to do.
kelassouf.com Liam Thompson
Golfam Khyam & Mona Matbou Riahi
GOLFAM KHAYAM & MONA MATBOU RIAHI Narrante ECM 6025 4779440
The guitarist Golfam Khayam and the similarly Teheran- born clarinettist Mona Mat- bou Riahi are collectively the Naqsh Duo – though they are only credited thus within the CD booklet. In Farsi ‘naqsh’ refers to a (musical) orna- mentation or figure but in
other contexts can also refer to a design or pattern in, for example, textiles. Whichever way one looks at it, naqsh works as a state- ment of intent. There is a surefooted ele- gance and grace to this female duo’s Iranian tradition-based but not necessarily tradition- true music. They create soundscapes the like of which, personally, I’ve never heard coming from any contemporary Iranian, or indeed other, source. Their combination of guitar and clarinet sonorities is transporting.
Narrante was recorded in July 2015 in Lugano, a place smiled upon by ECM’s head Manfred Eicher, being the Italian-region Swiss town in which he recorded Iva Bittová’s eponymous album for the label. Golfam Khayam and Mona Matbou Riahi come trail- ing clouds of study and performance experi- ence. Khayam’s studies include time at the College-Conservatory of Music at the Univer- sity of Cincinnati. Riahi’s music has been steered and shaped by studies at the Univer- sität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (Vienna’s University for Music and Performing Arts). Narrante, however, is defiantly not an exercise in academia. It mines depths and ascends to heights. The way Narrante trans- ports reminds how first listening to the French- Algerian guitarist Pierre Bensusan transport- ed. To translate, that is the highest of praise.
The catalogue number quoted is for the UK; other numbers are available for its release outside this territory on ECM and Her- mes in Iran.
www.ecmrecords.com www.golfamkhayam.com www.monamatbouriahi.com
Ken Hunt
STEVE CRAWFORD & SABRINA PALM In Balance Steve Crawford & Sabrina Palm
GILLIAN FRAME Pendulum Cheery Groove CHEERY005
MOIRA CRAIG & CAROLYN ROBSON
Both Sides The Tweed Reiver Records RVRCD12
Debut album from Aberdeenshire singer Steve Crawford and German fiddler Sabrina Palm – and a damn fine one it is too. Crawford is an impressive singer, and a very competent acoustic rhythm guitarist who matches Palm’s creative fiddle just perfectly. On the singing side, a couple of thoughtful contemporary songs (one by Crawford) sit happily alongside several Child Ballads, including Mill O’Tifty’s Annie and a macaronic Twa Corbies/ Raben- ballade which combines versions of the famil- iar tale from the duo’s respective heritages.
On the up-tempo instrumental sets, old and new tunes (influenced by both Scottish and Irish fiddle traditions) are pushed along with great vitality, while on the slower ones Sabrina Palm plays with expressive sensitivity. On occasions they are joined by fiddler and producer Jonny Hardie and piper Jarlath Hen- derson – now that would make a pretty good festival act – and it’s worth buying the album just for the Farewell Rory showstopper set. All in all a remarkable debut – can’t help think- ing this duo could go far if they wanted to.
www.crawfordpalm.com
Can it really be fifteen years since Scot- tish fiddle-singer Gillian Frame was the inau- gural Young Traditional Musician of the Year? A founder member of Back Of The Moon and The Barroom Mountaineers, and well known as a session musician and teacher, Pendulum is her first solo album, featuring a collection of favourite songs and tunes from those years. Opening with husband Findlay Napier’s Rothes Colliery (rhythmically it could almost be a waulking song), she also tackles better known songs such as The Lass Of Glen- shee, and duets beautifully with Adam
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
