f108 MOSTAR SEVDAH


REUNION presents SRETA The Balkan Autumn Snail Records SR66027


Mostar Sevdah Reunion albums should be the very first recourse for anyone who wishes to dip their toe into the velvety, melancholy state that is sevdah, but the group also pro- duce a series of interim side projects like this one, albums that highlight their love of the great masters of Bosnian music, or works that spotlight musicians who should really be more widely known. Milutin Sretenovi Sreta is one such musician, possessing as he does one of the truly great voices and stories of Central European and Balkan music.


And what a story. When his father was murdered by nationalists, the baby Sreta and his mother were arrested. They escaped, but were banned from their hometown and migrated southwards. As a young boy he was saved from this traumatic start in life by his discovery of music. However, the thirteen- year-old Sreta, loaded from his first pay day, was marched into yet another police station by his mother, who simply could not believe that anybody, least of all a child, could be paid such serious money for merely singing. His legendary status was assured.


Fulya Özlem (right) FULYA ÖZLEM &


AKUSTIK KABARE Mânidar Busluk: The Conspicuous Abyss Z Muzik/ Kalan CD108


I suppose the easy introduc- tion for historic fRoots UK readers would be to say that if you like Cigdem Aslan you’ll conceivably like this. Singer Fulya Özlem is from Istanbul and the two musi- cians in Akustik Kabare are both Greek, Asineth Fotini


Kokkala on qanun and Marina Liontou- Mohament on oud. Other guest musicians are similarly a mixture of Greek and Turkish.


The oud (that’s a big fat-bellied fretless lute) and quanun (a huge plucked zither played flat) of the Eastern Mediterranean rim, Arabia and beyond are one of those great made-in-heaven traditional music com- binations in the same league as the kora and balafon of West Africa or the English melodeon and hammered dulcimer pairing, together offering a perfectly complete melodic and percussive range and the chance for virtuoso flights. Fulya’s singing is just right in there, mellifluous, ever so slightly classical but not plummy, traditional but not hardcore, playful, sometimes surprisingly ori- ental. Her catchy, compelling songs, she says, “have a retro feel, greatly influenced by the musical styles and performance of the gramophone era of Ottoman/Turkish music.” Istanbul and Smyrna. But she’s clearly no stranger to British folk music and can also turn in some splendidly imaginative and dis- tinctly non-trad lyrics.


All those are translated and housed in another of the typically high-quality digipaks that you expect from the Kalan stable. It even survived the best attempts by the interna- tional postal services to drown it (whether in the Bosphorus or the English channel isn’t known), thus rendering Fulya’s charming hand-written accompanying letter a bit of a runny blur – though not so degraded I could- n’t decipher her entry-level error of assuming I was a certain one-legged flautist. Reader, I forgave her! (And put a track on fRoots 70.)


zmuzik.net / kalan.com Ian Anderson (no, not that one)


JACKIE OATES The Joy Of Living ECC 018


A lot of love and emotion – and, I suspect, quite a few tears too – have clearly been expended in the making of this rather beauti- ful album.


Recorded in her own kitchen, with baby daughter in attendance, making occasional contributions, it was made in the aftermath of her own illness and the sudden death of her father, the effect of which is poignantly reflected in closing track Rolling Home, Jackie accompanying a recording of her dad singing the John Tams song.


The emotional counter is high through- out. With John Spiers’ accordion to the fore, My Shoes Are Made Of Spanish is a lovely piece of nonsense reflecting the exhilaration of new life, an integral element of the album underlined by the children’s rhyme Rosy Apple, to gurgling accompaniment. Yet a sig- nificant initiative is an inspired amalgama- tion of John Lennon’s stark Mother with her own children’s ditty Spring Is Coming Soon and the counterpoint of charm and despair is a constant and exceedingly powerful theme of the whole album.


For melancholia is never far from the surface, especially in tracks like Davey Steele’s The Last Trip Home and Ewan Mac- Coll’s title song, an autobiographical epitaph given an interesting dimension by Matt All- wright’s pedal steel. We even get a typically dark and obscure Lal Waterson song The Bird, while Jackie’s whispery closeness brings out the full engrossing mystery of Bill Cad- dick’s classic Unicorns.


A Barney Morse-Brown cello pops up on occasion, with piano and percussion fleshing the whole thing out, but its greatest strength is its bareness and simplicity, and in Jack Rut- ter’s intimate guitar accompaniment she has the perfect foil.


An album she will surely come to regard with bitter sweetness, but for the rest of us, we can but admire the rawness of its emo- tion and the striking contrasts of the feel- ings it evokes.


jackieoates.co.uk Colin Irwin


His rich, melodious roar of a voice is allied to the group’s gentle sevdah sensibili- ties and gleeful embracing of late-night jazz tropes, to produce a record of intoxicating and atmospheric music. The “Balkan Autumn” of the title is more accurately an album of Balkan Soul. Through unhurried, timeless, retro and all-consuming shades, there is even room made for electric guitar jangle, big power chords and some lovely trumpet in Skitnica, though Sreta’s path through these unexpected blasts remains idiosyncratic, resolute and deep. Adornment is more usually a sad duende of violin, piano and accordeon, swooning Sreta’s weary poet- ry and his profoundly transporting baritone.


mostarsevdahreunion.com John Pheby SHARRON KRAUS


Joy’s Reflection Is Sorrow Nightshade NSR001


Sharron Kraus’s latest solo album unravels the tangled skeins of joy and sorrow, life and death, through eight iridescent songs. Organ, recorder, slide guitar and synths cre- ate a dreamy psych-folk sheen, intensified by plush vocal harmonies from Nancy Wallace and Jenny Bliss Bennett. Dedicating the album to the memory of her father, Kraus evokes loss and uncertainty on the searingly poignant The Man Who Says Goodbye and conjures grief’s sharp sting on the dusky sound-bath of Sorrow’s Arrow.


Yet this album also celebrates our ability to find magic in the everyday, to question the world, to heal and love again. This paean to human resilience is echoed in the lyrics’ organic, seasonal imagery. “Winter is ending and spring is coming in”, proclaims the title track, while in the shimmering Figs And Flow- ers (Oh Sweet Dawn), Kraus’s bell-clear voice rises against ecstatic baroque swells to pro- claim “My heart is open again.” Nick Taylor’s magnificent cover art may depict Kraus wielding the Reaper’s sickle, but Death’s malevolent boasts are vanquished in the clos- ing track’s affirmation that “your power is worth less / Than a single loving kiss.” Addressing life’s big questions with intelli- gence and humanity, this may be Kraus’s most ravishing and accessible album to date.


sharronkraus.com Clare Button


Photo: Mihriban Demicran


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