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devotional feel is offset by an almost palpa- ble sense of the Holy Island’s remote bleak- ness, broken up by jubilant strands of melody and odd flights of fancy as fiddles and con- certina dance stealthily in a manner you fondly imagine represents the spirit of those medieval islanders.
To this end, he has supplemented his concertina with some of those musicians who’ve undoubtedly drawn inspiration from him – the fiddles and viola of Sophy and Emily Ball (of 422), the cello of Fiona Beyer (New Tyneside Orchestra), the harp of Rachel Newton (The Shee, Emily Portman Trio) and, most tellingly, Andy May’s Northumbrian pipes. Instruments weave naturally through the piece to create a compelling montage of Anderson’s colourful vision of both an his- toric event and a lost community.
www.alistairanderson.com Colin Irwin
AZIZA BRAHIM Soutak Glitterbeat GBCD008
This second album from Spanish based Saharawi (Western Saharan) singer Brahim more than fulfils the promise of her debut, 2012’s Mabruk (Reaction). Where that earlier release featured her lovely passionate voice in settings at time too slap-
bang rocky to really allow it to shine, there’s no danger of such a thing happening on this semi-acoustic recording, which features a pared-down instrumental line up of Kalilou Sangare’s acoustic guitar, Guillem Aguilar adding light electric bass and percussionist Nico Roca, plus backing vocals from Badra Abdallahe.
These are songs of protest and longing (the Saharawi were exiled into refugee camps almost 40 years ago), simple self-penned melodies given haunting arrangements, sensi- tively produced by Glitterbeat head honcho Chris Eckman at Barcelona’s Tostadero Studio. Julud and La Palabra are particularly hypnotic; the opener Gdeim Izik cropped up on the last fRoots compilation, and Aradana strips it all down to just the two voices and percussion.
It’s impossible to separate the message, the struggle, the cultural context from the music, but it’s equally important that it isn’t lost in all of that. I first listened to this album without having read the lyrics or sleevenotes and appreciated it as pure sound. The fact that those plaintively passionate vocals tell an important story adds another dimension. Either way, this one puts Ms Brahim in the desert blues premier league.
www.aziza-brahim.blogspot.com Jamie Renton VARIOUS ARTISTS
Haiti Direct: Big Band, Mini Jazz & Twoubadou Sounds, 1960–1978 Strut STRUT093CD
One thing can be said for dic- tatorships: they rarely suc- ceed for long in staging, co- opting or suppressing music to political ends, and the Duvalier regime was no exception, promoting an ide- alised ‘Pearl of the Antilles’ ideology antithetical to the
thuggish reality inaugurated with the rise of Papa Doc Duvalier in 1957, and perpetuated by son Baby Doc’, who ruled from 1971 until his popular ousting in 1986.
Radio broadcasting broadened the musi- cal palette after WW2, bringing Dominican
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