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homa, LaFave made his name in Texas, and one listen absolutely pinpoints the music; it couldn’t have come from anywhere else. His voice, broken and cracked (evidently a tumour was pushing against his windpipe by this time), is desperately honest and com- manding, with just a couple of originals among a wide-ranging selection of covers.
He’s known for the music he’s put to Mehmet Polat
MEHMET POLAT Ageless Garden Aftab Records
The cover is striking – Polat tenderly holding his ud, looking beatific (his long silver hair haloed against an adobe wall), yet also a lit- tle concerned, as if a meditating saint had just noticed a snake sneaking up in the grass and wonders if God will step in.
The compositions are all by Polat within the Anatolian genre of Türk sanat müzigi (Turkish art music). The music is all acoustic and the production is classical and without audible studio embellishments. There are some sparse guest musicians (mostly light percussion) and no vocalists. The appearance of an Afghan tabla (Yama Sarchar) on Some- thing Is Moving sounds fresh and deserving of more exploration, though Polat and Sar- char don't quite hit it off. Similarly fresh – and a satisfying pairing – is the Malian kora (Zoumana Diarra) on Embrace It.
I like the concept – uncompromising compositions in a traditional style, the embodiment of living tradition. What grabs me less is that I am not carried very far by most of the pieces. I’m intrigued, but not moved much emotionally or rhythmically. I find the project rather dry, rather studied, as if it needed a dragonish producer to egg Polat on to charge the performances with sweat, blood and tears. There’s a place for cerebral music but this album falls between two stools for me – neither cerebral enough nor gritty enough; perhaps also something to do with having too much respect for one’s own compositions.
mehmetpolat.net Nick Hobbs
DOBRANOTCH 20 Years CPL-Music CPL024
This celebration of a great band’s two decades of musical adventures commences with an “acoustic techno version of a rare Russian urban folk song from the twenties.” The “techno” groove in Miljonochek, howev- er, is provided by Grigory Spiridonov’s trom- bone and Alexey Stepanov’s tuba, while Ilya Gindin’s clarinet supplies the bleeps. Band leader, singer and violinist Mitia Khramtsov’s spoken word narration – through the tale of a double-crossing young wide boy – is rumi- nating and rakish and strangely warm. In
such tales, as performed by Dobranotch, nothing ever quite resolves properly or ends up in any expected musical or narrative space.
This troupe of musicians from St Peters- burg began by playing a shared love of Jew- ish, Balkan Roma and Irish folk music, from an often precarious existence in a far-from- home France at the turn of the millennium. To explore such music authentically, the band adopted an openness and “wanderlust” that took them on journeys from west to east to west, collecting, honing, learning from and collaborating with wonderful traditional musicians along the way.
But they are still probably most famous for their Rammstein cover, Du Host, a new studio version of which is presented here. It’s a wonder, stubborn warmth injected into the original doom-laden fear, translating it into Yiddish and celebration without ridiculing its intense beginnings, Gindin’s clarinet making tendrils of serpentine grace around its per- cussive heart.
There are cuts from their easily experi- mental, mellifluous collaboration with singer Natalya Smirnovskaya. Elsewhere, through breezy and nostalgic sets of tunes and songs from Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, klezmer, an Odessa dreamscape, classical Ottoman music, all is electric, eclectic and evocative, plangent atmospheres smoulder- ing within majestic slow burns and uptempo blazes. Legendary trumpeter Frank London guests. And you can hear a hint of their long- ago France in the lilting Vyjdu Za Vorota, actually a Russian song, but arranged around the rhythm, melodies and wistfulness of the Breton dance, Ridée Six Temps.
An elegantly packaged repertoire of confusion, often intense beauty and loud dance.
nordic-notes.de John Pheby
JIMMY LAFAVE Peace Town Music Roads MRR 030
Not long before his death from cancer last year, singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave assem- bled a crew of musicians and went into the studio for a final mammoth session – three days that produced one hundred songs, recorded live and mostly first take. The twen- ty tracks that make up Peace Town all come from that, and they’re superb. Born in Okla-
Woody Guthrie lyrics, and a couple show up here, including the wonderful, hopeful title cut. He’s also done some glorious Dylan cov- ers over the years, and those here are the stars in this night sky, especially his interpre- tation of My Back Pages, which opens up the song in a way it’s never been shown before, with LaFave bringing a weary heartbreak to it. Chuck Berry, J.J. Cale and Butch Hancock are all in good, caring hands here, while Rob- bie Robertson’s It Make No Difference becomes a thing of wonder. Musically, though, the version of Leon Russell’s Help Me Through The Day is the standout, thanks to the guitar solo from John Inmon (possibly), the type of playing that stops time. The album really is that good, that powerful, and that intense. There may well be more epi- taphs, but this is sturdy, in granite, music for the ages.
jimmylafave.com Chris Nickson
AALLOTAR Ameriikan Laulu Nordic Notes NN111
Finnish button-chromatic accordeonist Teija Niku and Minnesota Finnish violinist Sara Pajunen are well matched, extremely ele- gant, rich-toned players. With nothing to prove in skill terms, they make music, both trad and original, that, while strongly Finnish, is given a wider perspective and rationale by the transatlantic connection.
Their tunes aren’t snappy-flash, they’re melodious and lyrical, with back stories and meaning, and their songs in Finnish and English, their calm voices blending, embrace the nostalgia of later generations of emigrants without the oft-attendant symbolic kitsch.
nordic-notes.de Andrew Cronshaw
YVES LAMBERT TRIO Tentation La Prûce Libre PRU2-4818
Yves Lambert made his recording debut as a founder member of La Bottine Souriante in 1976; forty-two years, this larger-than-life character is still a dominating force and his exciting, stuttering accordeon playing and singing are full of vitality on this most recent recording as a member of his own trio.
The two others are younger musicians;
Tommy Gauthier is a fine fiddler who also provides the essential Quebecois foot-tap- ping or podorythmie. The guitarist is Olivier Rondeau, who uses a modified process which enables a new way of playing guitar and bass simultaneously. On the tracks where this is used, a heavier, rocky sound is achieved, but the fundamental components that have made the group such compelling, exciting lis- tening are all there. Some of the tracks that they include here even go back to the core repertoire of this genre – even if the titles have been slightly changed, as La Poule À Jean-Paul and V.I.P. Pour L'Enfer show
After he left La Bottine Sourainte, the next main musical venture for Yves was one where he was clearly the central figure, the
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