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can still tug the heart strings in a ‘foreign’ language too, as in Karen’s album-closing Lament For John ‘Garve’ MacLeod Of Raasay. Donald Shaw’s title track (the only song in English) sums it up: “At the heart of it all… for our salvation … is a song for the common man”. Even after this time Capercaillie are still a seriously class act with interesting new ideas to contribute, and this album indu- bitably proves it. Let’s hope that it’s less than ten years before they can get together again for another.
www.capercaillie.com.uk Bob Walton
TAL NATIONAL Kaani FatCat Records 130701
Something valuable here – a top-quality orchestra from Niamey, Niger, an ancient cultural cross-
roads in the Sahel from which little music reaches the outside world. Tal National have never left the country and now, signed to a British label and with gigs in the USA waiting, they stand on the verge of worldwide expo- sure. Is the world ready?
I suppose a reference point might be
Tuareg blues, but here we have a wider, more sophisticated style. Tal National consists of Songhai, Fulani and Hausa as well as Tuareg musicians, and this is a full, big-sounding band. On stage there are six men, but, with the band playing five-hour gigs five nights a week, a squad system is used. There are no fewer than fifteen in the pool.
The music is eloquent and various with a succession of brain-bending time signatures, crackling with density and thrust. Restless, involved melodic lines are repeated over a succession of unusual and intricate rhythms, with solo and choral voices coming and going in one great melée. It’s trance/dance music – exuberant, teetering on the edge of disorder, sure of itself, powerful. A special note for the central guitar playing by leader Hamadal ‘Almeida’ Moumine which is quite spectacu- lar – a masterly display of control and release. Not lead, not rhythm – more like a helmsman leading the band.
www.fat-cat.co.uk Rick Sanders
COCOS LOVERS Gold Or Dust Smugglers Records
Gold, if you’re one of those who’d add a question mark to the end of the title.
Cocos Lovers
arrived through the door at a singular moment, as a very well-known DJ on an equally well-known radio station was espousing Starship’s We Built This City as a perfect summer record! Seeking respite from such obvious idiocy and preferring my sum- mer records to be rooted in home ground rather than San Francisco, I hurriedly placed Gold Or Dust into the CD player. What flowed out was rather wondrous: a light, harmonic-based tumble, Roots Of Willow rid- ing a galloping banjo riff and bubbling Afro guitar line. Not sure what the lyrics are about, but I’m lost already among a fascinat- ing conglomerate of influence. It gets better yet. Walk Among The Ghosts reminded me of a more acoustic-orientated Vampire Week- end, a gorgeous jit-jive lead break enlivening proceedings. Just when I think I’ve got a han- dle on them, Dea Matrona rolls out in a mix- ture of sagebrush rhythms and effects, a breezy oh-so-English flute floats through the
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