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their music in a more contemporary style. The original Kuwaiti brothers were unknown in Israel and music from the Jewish diaspora was frowned upon so the brothers had a hard time of it after relocating. A single taken from Dudu's self-titled first album was the first Arabic song to be playlisted on a major radio station.
Talisk
TALISK Beyond Talisk Talisk02CD
This is the second album from Talisk, the Glas- gow-based, award-winning trio of Mohsen Amini (concertina), Hayley Keenan (fiddle) and Graeme Armstrong (guitar). They have toured widely, appearing at Denmark’s Tøn- der festival, Celtic Colours in Cape Breton, and UK folk festivals such as Cambridge, Cropredy and Celtic Connections. Talisk’s travels have inspired the music on this album, which is almost entirely composed by members of the band. Their compositions evoke their emo- tional engagement with the places they’ve been; tone-poems that use traditional musical idioms to conjure and capture the memory of a particular place at a particular time.
Rations is a darkly sonorous, powerfully rhythmic composition that is reminiscent of the work of Basque diatonic accordeonist Kepa Junkera. Crooked Water Valley was composed after being on tour in the US with the folk band We Banjo 3. It combines Scot- tish, Americana and classical influences, with dramatic shifts in tone and tempo and a lush violin/viola string accompaniment (provided by Greg Lawson, principal second violinist in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), mak- ing this piece a mini-travelogue in its own right. Serbian Dreams creates a trance-like atmosphere through eerie fiddle and hypnot- ic phrases on concertina and guitar, against a pensive wash of richly textured string accom- paniment. Montreal is an autumnal inter- twining of fiddle, concertina and guitar that builds into a joyous, effervescent jig, painting in music the powerful emotions of the real- life family reunion that inspired it.
talisk.co.uk Paul Matheson
ROBB JOHNSON Ordinary Giants Irregular IRR223
Here’s a true magnum-opus-cum-labour-of- love from one of our nation’s most prolific songwriters. Several years in the planning, Ordinary Giants logically follows on from Robb’s widely acclaimed earlier themed song- suite Gentle Men, itself staged in a variety of different incarnations between its 1997 origi- nal, 2013’s revision and 2015’s solo perfor-
mance. Gentle Men used Robb’s grandfather’s biography to explore World War One and its consequences; now Ordinary Giants moves on a generation, taking the life of Robb’s father Ron as a focal point for the retelling of events from the 1920s to the 2000s.
Like its predecessor, though inevitably on a more expansive canvas, Ordinary Giants celebrates the aspirations, endurance and achievements of ordinary people living in extraordinary times. Fittingly for its epoch- spanning nature, it takes up a full triple album, containing 54 items (songs and spo- ken-word pieces) and clocking in at a little short of three hours. In addition to Robb him- self, it features a wide range of contributors: Roy Bailey and Jenny Carr (both of whom had worked on Gentle Men), John Forrester, Arvin Johnson, Rory McLeod and Bobby Valentino, with crucial cameos from (among others) Miranda Sykes, Phil Odgers, Boff Whalley, Matthew Crampton, Claire Martin, Tom Robinson and Dennis Skinner MP.
This epic chronicle of “unremarked yet remarkable lives” is created and dedicated with love and maximum respect. It’s present- ed with pride, housed in clamshell case with ample booklet (synopsis, lyrics, photos and credits). It can surely be heralded as some- thing of a masterwork in its powerful, and often very moving, portrayal of the inextrica- ble connection between personal life and the era’s complex political issues.
robbjohnson.co.uk
David Kidman DUDU TASSA & THE
KUWAITIS El Hajar Nur Records
Most albums have a backstory, but few as interesting as this. Dudu Tassa is an Israeli rock musician who is the grandson of the great Iraqi-Jewish musician Daoud Al- Kuwaiti. The original Kuwaiti brothers (Saleh on oud and Daoud on violin) moved to Israel in the 1950s after Saddam Hussein discovered that despite the popularity of their music in Baghdad they were not actually Arabic, although the Kuwaiti brothers played Iraqi music in the maqam style and their music is still fondly remembered around the Arabic world. Dudu has chosen to revive some of
The opening songs on El Hajar are very rock-oriented and the first thing that may hit you is the bass. This bombastic approach can be an initial hurdle but explains why the band toured with Radiohead and played the Coachella festival in California. Only later in the album do the songs start to really take on a more balanced sound with a measured syn- cretic line. The songs are all from composi- tions by Saleh Al-Kuwaiti, but in Dudu's ver- sion they switch regularly between hard rock (with something of a rock-the-casbah influ- ence) interspersed with Arabic influences and interludes. Dudu sings in an acquired Iraqi Arabic accent that gives some of his vocals a more reflective and atmospheric feel. Other vocalists that widen the appeal include Nas- reen Qadri (a Sunni Muslim born in Haifa), and on the final song, Yair Dalal (himself of Iraqi-Jewish descent). Traditional is never quite the word here, although qanun, ney and string sections feature; one song uses Daoud's original vocal and another has a brief snatch of the original Baghdadi orchestra. Something of a dichotomy, but Dudu's plural- istic approach is promising and the original Al-Kuwaitis’ story keeps it interesting.
el-hajar.com Phil Wilson
DAWDA JOBARTEH I Met Her By The River Sterns STCD1130
Jali Sherrifo Konteh was talking about two of the greatest kora players – his father Alhaji Bai Konteh and his dad's great friend Amadu Bansang Jobarteh; they lived about three miles apart in the Brikama area of The Gam- bia. "They were very close, but when Amadu married my half-sister they became even clos- er." Sherrifo never mentioned a son, but by the time this conversation took place, Dawda, son of Amadu, grandson of Bai had been liv- ing in Denmark for quite a few years.
Stylistically there would seem to be more of the sound of his famous forebears in this album than in his previous, Transitional Times, and this is particularly noticeable in the superb Karung Folo but also in Sidi Yella. It is noticeable when he is interpreting tradi- tional pieces that he is somehow gentler and more contemplative in his kora playing than the two previous generations but then his life has been that of a performer with a PA rather than one who had to make himself heard acoustically at events in compounds. One of the roles of the Manding jalis is, or has become, to comment on contemporary ills in society and we hear this in Begging Boys.
There is a sudden change when we get to the penultimate track where he switches to the electric kora with wah-wah and we are reminded that Dawda earns his living as a musician touring Europe and America playing the sort of music to please a large western audience. Then he wraps up the album with his solo kora take of Adele's Hello.
It was, however, quite difficult to get to the end of the album with fingers stretching for the repeat button every time track 6 was reached; the superb delicacy of the solo Malian piece The Red Desert is exquisite.
sternsmusic.com Vic Smith
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