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high-ranking Casamance family, he sounds at other times as though he has been influ- enced by some of the leading singers from the modern mbalax bands from Dakar. It comes as little surprise to check out his biog- raphy and find that he sang with such bands as a young man.
The kora playing is always interesting, it is inventive whilst being firmly rooted in the tradition with plenty of the licks that he shares with other kora players. His use of accompanying musicians is sparing. A long- term associate, percussionist Amadou Diagne from Dakar makes a supportive unobtrusive presence on most tracks and the English guitarist Dave Noble features on a couple.
At first play this sounds a very fine album. This impression grows with every playing.
www.kaira-arts.co.uk Vic Smith
C W STONEKING Gon’ Boogaloo King Hokum KHR-03
CW Stoneking is as much of a fake as any boy band or tal- ent show pop star, a young Aussie musician who self- consciously reinvented him- self as a blues and hokum playing oldtimey king of the jungle. This really shouldn’t convince. But the odd thing
is that he seems to have grown into the role he made up for himself. Here on his third album he sounds relaxed, as though the dis- tance between who he is and who he wants to be has become no distance at all.
It’s a more of a stripped-down affair
than previous releases, just CW, a chorus of four female backing singers plus bass (upright and electric), drums and percussion. For the first time, Stoneking accompanies his grainy wail of a voice with electric guitar (there’s not a banjo in earshot), moving the sound away from ragtime and calypso towards revival-tent gospel and the gnarlier end of early electric blues. All recorded live and un-overdubbed in a couple of days on battered old instruments, using battered old recording equipment.
And you know what? It sounds good. Current favourites include the Beat Genera- tion stomp of Get On The Floor (in which the ghost of Lord Buckley is pleasingly evoked) and wig-flipping, good rockin’ closer We Gone Boogaloo. There are songs about zombies, songs about doing the jungle swing. Even a lovely, lazy bit of southern-style balladry.
Stoneking’s become the real thing.
www.cwstoneking.com/
Jamie Renton
IYATRA QUARTET This World Alone Iyatra Quartet
Iyatra Quartet play roots- based, improvised music on orchestral instruments using global sources as a starting point. If you need a parallel they are a little like the Ele- ments era Third Ear Band (when they were at their least noodly) or, at odd moments,
Nigel Kennedy playing with John Etheridge.
Unusually for improvised music, there is very little evidence of jazz structures or sounds in the mix and surprisingly, for instru- ments which were developed by and for the classical tradition, it all sounds very… well… ethnic. Much of this is due to each musician’s exploration of the sound potential of their
individual instrument and to the choice of percussion instruments used by Will Roberts, singing bowls and other tuned percussion giving the proceedings an other-worldliness. I particularly like the track Mad Molly which very much reminds me of Lol Coxhill or John Surman doing Caithness To Kerry. Another favourite is 1426 which invokes the Kronos Quartet on their CD Early Music.
Improvised music is notoriously difficult to catch in flight in the studio and engineer Les Mommsen has done a good job in captur- ing and reproducing a great sound. Our musi- cal culture increasingly demands that musi- cians design worlds of predictable consistency so it is really good to encounter a band who live by their wits and have the confidence to produce something different each night. I would like to catch this band live.
www.iyatraquartet.com Mark T
OUMAR KONATÉ Maya Maya Clermont Music CLE014CD
On his second album, Oumar Konaté serves up some clas- sic Malian sounds, infused with psychedelic guitars and raging, politically charged lyrics. Throughout Maya Maya, it is clear that this is a lament for a country still in turmoil. Despite the heavy
context however, the record remains upbeat and intensely catchy.
Alongside the politics, it is Konaté’s musi- cal dexterity that really drives Maya Maya. On tracks such as Djama and the title track, Konaté exhibits the kind of hypnotic and acrobatic guitar playing that the Malian tra- dition seems to have in abundance. Else- where on the record Konaté leaves tradition behind and experiments with other styles, with the album’s final instrumental track Hinchi sounding like a cross between prog rock and delta blues.
These ventures have mixed results but there is enough here to maintain Konaté’s position as an interesting new artist taking up the Malian mantle.
www.clermontmusic.com/oumar-konate/ Liam Thompson
Iyatra Quartet C.W. Stoneking
SOLARFERENCE Locks & Bolts Solarference
Magpie-like intentions and thoroughly mod- ern instincts make Solarference a one-of-a- kind outfit, actually taking technology and application a step beyond, merging it with ancient source material and thereby conjur- ing a synthesis which is unique. It wasn’t so long ago that folk and electronics were more than just partners, some predicted yesterday becoming tomorrow through today – if you follow my drift. Rightfully ignoring what’s going on around them, Sarah Owen and Nick Janaway simply got on with refining their trad gothic creation by soundtracking the original 1920s Jekyll And Hyde film through computers, strings and – on the spur of the moment – found sounds. All of which proba- bly led to Locks & Bolts becoming a live recording with art house audience and a spe- cially created ten tracks. The album screams the importance of reimagining folk song for now while the songs themselves have to be rough and tough enough to stand up to Solarference’s reworking. I offer Lucy Wan as a perfect example, here done as darkest mini- malism with a heaps of folk noir, their vocals almost relish the violence and tragedy as brother cleaves sister in three.
Photo: Gerard Collett
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