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roots musics with long-established perform- ers like Loretta Lynn (outstanding on the opening, banjo- and fiddle-accompanied Take Your Gun And Go, John), Ralph Stanley, Dolly Parton, David Grisman, Chris Hillman and (the recently deceased) Cowboy Jack Clement rubbing shoulders with newer hot- shots including Pokey LaFarge, Shovels & Rope and (representing Oldham, Lancs!) Karen Elon (with a smouldering Dixie.)


The songs and tunes range from the very


familiar – Marching Through Georgia (Old Crow Medicine Show), When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Angel Snow), Wildwood Flower (Sam Amidon), to more obscure (to these ears) gems like a sparkling American version of The Mermaid Song (Jorma Kauko- nen and the splendidly-titled Hell’s Broken Loose In Georgia (Bryan Sutton).


Everything here is of absolutely the very Andy Irvine


The background information cites such influences as the Tamil singer-songwriter MIA and US voice artist Meredith Monk, and studies with the bansuri (bamboo flute) play- er GS Sachdev and sarodist Aashish Khan. It also refers to American blues and jazz and her mother teaching at Naropa University at Boulder, Colorado – once home of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. It’s an intriguing backcloth.


Jazz influences creep in on Peacock (based on an Assamese folksong) and Saraswati with wafts of cool jazz trumpet (played by Clinton Patterson, the album’s producer). On both she sings and plays western harp. Mainly though, the music steers towards devotional Hindu music, principally kirtan praise song. Her Kham- maj, credited to her and Patterson (nothing unusual or untoward about taking credit for a composition in a r¯ag), is a deft instru- mental with her bansuri against Masood Ali Khan’s hang (a UFO-shaped idiophone of Swiss origin). There are times when a nar- rower or sharper focus might have suited better. The Mahishasura Mardini Stotram (‘Prayer to the Goddess [Durga] who killed [arura or power-bent anti-god] Mahisha- sura’) gets some distracting Balkan-beat wind instrumentation; it feels as if it loses the plot. Nevertheless, a thought-provoking debut where sparks fly with a real feeling for Hindu divinity.


www.sheelabrini.com Ken Hunt


ANDY IRVINE with RENS VAN DER ZALM Parachilna Andy Irvine AK4


No huge surprises here and, given such a proud track record from one of acoustic music’s most consistently consummate performers, nor would we want any. From Sweeney’s Men to Planxty to duets with Paul Brady, Donal Lunny, Mick Hanly and Dick


Gaughan to Patrick Street to Mosaic to LAPD, the voice of Andy Irvine has been a constantly reassuring and reaffirming thread in the jour- ney of modern Irish folk song… with various forays into America and Eastern Europe along the way. A man whose never-tire-of- the-road philosophy remains an inspirational beacon and vindication of almost the whole folk music ideology.


Here we find our hero in company with his long-term Mosaic collaborator, Dutch multi-instrumentalist Rens Van Der Zalm, camping out in the Australian outback among desert and mountains recording in various woolsheds, shearers’ huts and school rooms. This is, thus – and will probably become recognised as – Andy’s Australian album with the mix of, mostly, traditional and two self-composed songs reflecting the stories and environment around him. For all that, the sound is hardly primitive – this is no Michelle Shocked Texas Campfire Tapes –and it sounds like a studio recording, but the feel is appropriately relaxed and sparse. This, of course, is invariably Irvine’s way: the ultimate troubadour, still infused with the spirit of Woody Guthrie, telling real stories of real people, and while the geography may change, the ethos is unwaveringly true.


The title is the name of a tiny town in South Australia and the songs here resonate with a sense of remoteness and alienation, often mournfully reflecting the tribulations of the traveller in a strange land. I Wish I Was In Belfast Town, for example, is a gloriously melancholic opener… so simple, so telling, so familiar to the Irish psyche, so Andy Irvine. Parallel themes of emigration, travel and dis- orientation emerge on hefty story songs like Farewell To Kellswater, The Dandenog, the Depression song Sergeant Small and two original Irvine compositions Billy Far Out and Douglas Mawson – true tales respectively of a mischievous car and an intrepid Antarctic explorer – but so naturally crafted they wield an indivisible link with the tradition. With another heart-wrenching song, the late Alis- tair Hulett’s deeply affecting lament He Fades Away thrown in for good measure, it’s a pow- erfully affecting set. Refreshingly unfussy arrangements and the warm sincerity of Irvine’s own delivery make it all sound so easy… and that, at its heart, is the incompa- rable majesty of both the man and his music.


www.andyirvine.com Colin Irwin VARIOUS ARTISTS


Divided & United. The Songs Of The Civil War Ato Records


This two- CD set, marking the 150th anniver- sary of the American Civil War, is the vision of movie music supervisor Randall Poster, acclaimed for his soundtrack work for a string of big name directors including Martin Scors- ese and Wes Anderson. The list of featured artists reads like a who’s who of American


highest quality, with not a single duff track among the 32. That being said, it’s notable that among the vast legion of Grammy award-winning artists represented on Divid- ed & United, the African-American acts num- ber precisely two (Taj Mahal and Carolina Chocolate Drops). For a project of this magni- tude and importance, and one that comes with an accompanying John Cohen essay stat- ing: “This record aspires to erase the legacy of segregation and through music seeks rec - on ciliation instead, in order to celebrate a great musical heritage of America, born in pain, war and prejudice,” that feels like a missed opportunity in an otherwise laudable achievement.


atorecords.com Steve Hunt


CHALACHEW ASHENAFI & ILILTA BAND Fano Terp Records AS-24


BAHRU KEGNE


In Memory of Ethiopia’s Greatest Azmari Terp Records AS-23


Even without the language, these CDs con- tain glorious and physically affecting music. It won’t sound strange to anyone who has enjoyed the Éthiopiques series on Buda. But you need Amharic to unravel the layers of meaning sung by Ethiopian azmaris, of whom Ashenafi – born 1966, died 2012 – was an out- standing recent example. Azmaris are singers and composers of sharp and witty songs, per- formed in more or less disreputable cabarets called azmaribets. Their songs are made up on the hoof in response to what’s going on in the room, in the town, on the planet. The style is immediate and abrasive, Ashenafi’s voice blazing and ripping in call and response with his one-string masinko fiddle. Support- ing are krar lute and kabero drum – a tiny orchestra that generates a huge surge of energy. Sometimes female backing singers smooth and soothe the paint-stripping feroci- ty of his vocals.


Both CDs come with an excellent book- let, all the information you need on this musi- cal tradition, its role as the voice of free speech in Ethiopia, a country not always free with such commodities.


When Chalachew Ashenafi was the young pretender, Bahru Kegne was the old master. The two did actually play together. ‘You’re almost as good as me,’ said Kegne reportedly. On the strength of these recordings, recorded


between 1988 and 1966 for cassette release, Bahru Kegne may be not as instantly grab- bable as Chalachew Ashenafi: his songs take a little longer before ignition happens, built


Photo: Jak Kilby


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