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TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND
Digging The Underground Nation Records NR2032D
Back in the 1990s, I acquired a mortgage and a family. For the first time in my life I couldn’t afford to buy music. But there was an excep- tion to this rule – one band for whom I’d save up my pennies to buy each new release.
London’s Transglobal Underground (for it was them) were ringing in the new, com- bining all kinds of global and dance music influences to create something altogether their own and I certainly didn’t want to miss out due to poverty. They may have stopped being flavour of the month when the lumpen little Englanders of Britpop took hold, but they never stopped making exhilarating, innovative music (and still do to this day).
This twelve-track compilation features rare and previously unreleased material from their sojourn on Nation Records, for whom they recorded four albums between 1991–98. Much of the global-meets-dance-music of that era has dated badly, but pretty well everything on offer here sounds surprisingly fresh and fine.
There’s a heavy accent on dub, Asian and Middle Eastern influences, some JBs-style funk, some Giorgio Moroder-style electro throb and contributions from such TGU stal- warts as Count Dubulah, TUUP and Neil Sparkes. I’m particularly taken by the trio of early collaborations with sometime lead vocalist Natacha Atlas, which show off both parties at their best.
TGU spawned a slew of lesser imitators and the whole ethno-techno/global dance genre soon disappeared up its own tabla samples. But Transglobal did it first and did it best and this compilation offers a reminder of this. A treasure trove of undiscovered gems for the initiated, as well as a good a place to start for those who’ve never encountered them before.
www.transglobalunderground.net Jamie Renton
SAMPO LASSILA NARINKKA In Strange Lands Narinkaattori NARI002
Normally in reviewing I tend to listen to the music before fully reading the booklet. But this is an album where writing and music need, deserve, to be taken together for the complete picture.
For Narinkka’s 2012 CD Suomiklezmer, bassist and leader Sampo Lassila wrote of people whose international life stories inspired the music. He continues that concept here, with a set of stories of individual migrants over the years; beautifully, humane- ly expressed, reflective, tinged with both warmth and gentle sadness. Finns who made their lives abroad – Sicily, Argentina – and others who came to Finland from abroad – Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Germany.
Here’s just a flavour, about a couple who emigrated to Argentina to set up a communi- ty but found the land they’d bought was poor and stony: “After some time, Matilda and Matti dance shyly on a quiet street out- side the dance hall, where the voice of Carlos Gardel is gently carried. They dance simply and rigidly, focusing on each other, and weep. In the swirling Argentine tango, they finally let go of their disappointments and can live for a moment in the paradise that the Colonia FInlandesa never became.”
The music is instrumental, on double bass, five-string viola pomposa (Aleksi Santavuori), accordeon (Harri Kuusijärvi), with touches of a range of non-standard items and utensils used
for subtle, colour-adding sound effects, it uses the techniques and shapes of klezmer but not the “Hey we’re wild and quirky and noisy” sort; it combines the twilight souly end of klezmer with the quietness, airiness and unshowiness of Finland and its music.
Text and music combine in vivid filmic images so sensitively expressed they evoke heart-stirring empathy.
www.narinkka.com Andrew Cronshaw
ORCHESTRA BAILAM Taverene, Café Amán E Tekés Felmay 2016
Rembetiko is mostly sung in Greek, some- times in Turkish, but hardly ever in any other language. I would have assumed that a rem- betiko album in Italian (with one song sung in Arabic) would not work very well. Wrong assumption. Taverene, Café Amán E Tekés is a lovely album (Orchestra Bailam’s seventh), and if you understand Italian but not Greek or Turkish then even better.
The press release says that the band have been courageous to translate the songs (mostly originally Greek, but also Turkish, Armenian and more) into Italian; I would say that’s not where the courage lies, rather the courage is in singing Italian as though it were Greek. And it works. Especially delightful is when they approach the songs fully like Ital- ian musicians – for example on Iaroubi, where the chorus vocals don’t sound in the least in the tradition to me, rather they sound com- pletely Italian, and they work beautifully; or on the instrumental Çeçen Kızı where the the courtliness seems as much baroque as Ottoman; or To Proï Me Ti Dhrosula which manages to be perfectly Greek and Italian at the same time.
The playing is all good (and all acoustic) and the group plays like an ensemble where the parts weave rather than layer. Likewise the lead vocals which are shared between four (I think) singers. The production is taste- ful. The lyrics are reproduced in English as well as Italian. The choice of songs emphasis- es variety. All in all, a most pleasant album and one to have for both rembetiko and Ital- ian music lovers.
www.felmay.it Nick Hobbs Transglobal Underground in Nation days
TEN STRINGS AND A GOAT SKIN Auprès Du Poêle TSAAGS TS04113
Four of the strings are on a fiddle; the other six are on a guitar and the goat skin, unsur- prisingly, is on a bodhran. The bow is held by Rowen Gallant, the beater by his brother Caleb and the plectrum by Jesse Périard. They are three of Prince Edward Island’s most tal- ented young musicians and as a trio they have already turned a lot of heads all over North America.
They have grown up with the rich fiddle
tradition of PEI that incorporates tunes of Scottish, Irish and French origin and moved on to their own take on this heritage, incor- porating elements derived from other sources. They play them with great attack and verve and are probably at their best when they are playing flat-out reels, especially the ones that conclude the album, but there are also good moments in their slower playing.
The songs are something of a mixed bunch. They make a good unaccompanied job of Kay Sutcliffe’s Coal Not Dole and of a local song to them which is well known on this side of the Atlantic, When First I Came To Caledonia sung to nice pizzicato fiddle. Their own compositions leave less of an impression,
www.tenstringsandagoatskin.com Vic Smith
VILLE OJANEN Kameleontti Own label VOCD001
I put this on without checking what, who or from where it was. A quiet start, then burst- ing into a surprising, massive instrumental onslaught.
I check the title: ‘Chameleon’ in Finnish. And under it in small letters the name: Ville Ojanen. I’ve known him since he was a teenager, as a very impressive and creative fiddler from Kaustinen who became a mem- ber of Troka, Folkkarit, composer and player for dance group Ottoset and then creator of folk music based theatrical productions.
Now in his 40s – where did those years
go? – he’s still a fiddler, now living away from Kaustinen, but this, coming six years after his last CD, the already large-scale Hero, is a
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