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FRANK YAMMA UncleWantok Music W0014

The indigenous Australian singer and song- writer Frank Yamma is said to be a man of very few words. One might say he lets his songs do the talking, but they’re hardly loquacious either. The lyric of the charming final track on Uncle consists of little more than the contented repetition of “Ahh, Sun- day morning” over a gently-strummed guitar and bird calls. A song without words almost. Rather, Frank’s power lies in the spell cast by his directness and intensity. His gritty vocals and insistent guitar groove bear some com- parison with Richie Havens although his influ- ences are probably closer to home. And like Havens, his breakthrough was also totally unexpected, with his previous album Country - man trampling on barriers just as dramatical- ly as Havens famously had at Woodstock.

His raw, emotional songs were not Abo- riginal music as we knew it and to hear a song with the naked pain of She Cried played on radio was initially a shock. Not sur- prisingly, there’s nothing with quite that same raw intensity on Uncle which has the feel of a slightly more rounded album – as intense, gripping and close to the bone as Countryman in many ways; but also more expansive. Frank’s bilingual songs (English and Pitjantjatjara) frequently express the intertwined complexities of alienation and belonging that are the nexus of Aboriginal experience today. They’re about loss, longing and loneliness: but also about what they call “country” – the complex relationships that bind Aboriginal people to their spiritual roots and ancestral lands.

And he doesn’t shy away from difficult

subjects. A Blackman’s Crying is a hard-hitting plea about dispossession, alienation and insti- tutional racism. One Lonely Night is about alcoholism – the scourge of many indigenous communities, although others, such as Begin- ning Of The Day and Sunday Morning, cele- brate the quieter joys of living, and producer David Bridie has added a pared-down mood and dynamic to songs like Sand Dunes that suits Frank’s style.

www.frankyamma.com Phil Wilson THE SOIL

Nostalgic Moments Native Rhythms CDNRP004-EU

Funky plainsong jive from three glorious voic- es from Soweto, recently heard at Womad. The message is love and harmony of heart – and how strongly they exemplify and convey it. No well-meaning soap here – The Soil is a class act with roots. The nostalgia in the title refers to the rich and exciting bohemian black culture of Sophiatown – Johannesburg’s Left Bank – before the apartheid hammer came down and put an end to it.

www.nativerhythms.co.za Rick Sanders

MOIRAI Sideways Wildgoose WGS410CD

Look at the gig list on Jo Freya’s website and you will see that she has a full diary of appear - ances in a wide range of groups. Clearly, she is not a woman who is going to let health problems interfere with a busy musical life.

In this, her most recent venture she is joined by two other excellent female multi- instrumentalist/singers Sarah Matthews and Melanie Biggs. The combination brings rich variety to their debut album. There is some powerful, beefy tune playing with Jo’s saxo-

phones matching Melanie’s melodeon, mixed in with some that are given a more reflective approach with the tunes drawn from a vari- ety of modern and traditional European sources. The one that remains in the memory is the delightful Cellar Door Key, a three/two hornpipe closely related to the song tune of Cam Ye O’er Frae France?

The songs are also diverse in their appeal. There are a couple of light, humorous items composed by themselves and they make a fine job of Dave Walters’ setting of William Blake’s Garden Of Love, though the song that makes the biggest impact is the final track. Sarah’s Candlelight is a very fine song and the compelling three-part harmony singing does it justice.

The name Moirai comes from Greek mythology and means something along the lines of goddesses of Fate or Destiny. With the range of talents that these three display here, we can only say that this version of Moirai is destined for great things.

www.wildgoose.co.uk Vic Smith BIRD RADIO

Oh, Happy England Strike Force Entertainment SFE 042

“Come Death, I’d have a word with thee…” Devised as both a recording and stage

show, this second album by Bird Radio (aka Mikey Kirkpatrick) is collection of fourteen song settings of poems by Walter de la Mare, arranged for an ensemble of piano, flute, cello, guitar, bass and percussion. It was creat- ed during the Open Space Residency at Alde- burgh Music, 2013-2014.

Walter de la Mare (an influence on HP Lovecraft whose Drinking Song From The Tomb was tackled by Lynched on their bril- liant 2014 album Cold Old Fire) was a writer of dreams and visions.

The titles alone – Fear, Drugged, I Sit

Alone, The Song Of Shadows are nightmar- ish, while even a cursory glance at the lyrics (printed in white on “black with night,” page) reveals an abundance of words like: “terror”,” torture,” “insanity,” “disgust.” “The dark…”

This, then, is folk-horror of the darkest

hue, yet the effect is thrilling, rather than alienating. Bird Radio inhabits these super- natural texts with theatrical relish, his voice soaring like Scott Walker over the simmering intensity of Laura Moody’s cello, while his eloquent flute wordlessly conveys the charac-

The Soil

ter’s inner torments. The musical settings are subtle, percussive and dramatically dynamic and Bird Radio fulfils his early promise as a musical storyteller of rare power.

Released in a limited edition digi-pack with a twenty-page booklet.

www.birdradio.co.uk Steve Hunt

CUPOLA Roam CoTH Records COTHCD009

Derbyshire-based Cupola are a trio compris- ing Doug Eunson, Sarah Matthews and Oli Matthews, a very together unit whose stock in trade is a vital and purposeful blend of English and European dance music and English song, laced with a number of well- appointed self-penned items. There’s a real sense of enjoyment and commitment in their playing, and the richly interwoven tapestries of sound conjured by just these three musi- cians prove very satisfying indeed.

Instrumental versatility is only the half of

it – Doug’s a proven exponent of melodeon and hurdy gurdy, while Sarah brilliantly wields a variety of fiddles (including octave violin and viola) and Ollie delivers almost inexhaustible energy on sundry wind instru- ments (clarinet, whistle and three varieties of sax) as well as percussion – and also happens to be a rather good melodeon player! The trio seems to have developed a special feel for the impact of juxtaposing major and minor in the context of lively tempos, while preserving a companionable intimacy in their performances. The disc’s repertoire quite effortlessly takes in everything from specially composed dance processional tunes (Sarah’s Dancing Derby Dragon) to fun descriptive pieces (Oli’s Down Dale Road/Chasing The Bus), with a side-diversion into the realms of Elizabethan music (Sellinger’s Round).

All members of Cupola are also very capable singers, both in terms of taking the lead and creating well-managed harmonies. Particular highpoints of this set are a lusty, yet nicely measured take on Tony Deane’s Follow ing The Old Oss (aka the Padstow May Song), also Sarah’s convivial anthem Gather- ing Round and her piquant character study of John Bright, singer-chronicler of a fictional expedition to the north of Canada (as featured in Caroline Small’s play The Unknown Land), which clearly also inspired Roam’s appealing compass-rose-focused artwork. Cupola’s life’s- long-song absorption in the music of Jethro Tull gives rise to an inventively-yet-sensitively-

Photo: © Judith Burrows