My Instrument: Cätlin Mägi and her Parmupill

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.



When most musicians play a concert, they usually stick to one instrument, maybe two or three if they’re multi-instrumentalists. When Cätlin Mägi takes to the stage, she brings no fewer than 50: all different versions of the Estonian parmupill.

The parmupill is a jaw harp: a metal tongue held in a steel frame that is plucked using the mouth as a soundbox. The instrument has existed in Estonia since at least the 13th century, and was once a staple accompaniment to folk dance parties. Over time, it was replaced by louder and more fashionable instruments such as the fiddle and accordion, and the traditional style of playing – where the player creates an overtone melody by changing the shape of their mouth and throat – was lost. Its death knell came during Soviet rule. “In Russian times, we couldn’t have our own traditional music,” Mägi explains. “They took it to the stages and they only played a small amount of tunes, so it changed. The village people didn’t play it because it just was not familiar to them anymore.” As the folk music and dances became standardised, so did the instrumentation, and the parmupill survived only as a novelty.

It was in Norway, during her time as an exchange student, that Mägi discovered a thriving jaw harp tradition. “The old players there knew how to get the clear melody from the jaw harp, so I studied with them. When I came back to Estonia I thought, maybe we had the same technique in our history? I went to the archives and suddenly there were 20 old recordings that had the same clarity of melody!” The most recent of those recordings was from 1938; that style of playing had not been heard in Estonia for more than half a century. Now, through her research as a scholar, her performances as a musician and her teaching as the head of folk music at the famous Viljandi Culture Academy, Mägi has pioneered the resurrection of this once lost technique. When it comes to the parmupill, she literally wrote the book: Eesti Parmupill / Estonian Jew’s Harp was published in 2011.

But why do her gigs involve 50 parmupills? Well, she doesn’t play them all individually. Using specialised clamps, she stacks several instruments together to create ‘courses.’ Each parmupill in a course twangs a different note, and she can easily swap between them as she plays. That way, she changes the pitch of the drone as well as the overtone harmonics, meaning that she can play a bassline and a melody simultaneously. “When I make my music, I have to have exactly the right pitches ready for every tune. I can’t make a course during a concert, it takes too much time, so I can’t just have one harp for each note. I have 20 ‘A’ harps at home because I have to spread them out – that’s why I have so many!”

When she performs, Mägi’s 50 parmupills are transformed into more than just metallic twangs and whistling overtones. Their traditional West Estonian repertoire is glitched and warped through electronics: distortions, echoes, delays and loops turn their sound into a vast monster machine – and it helps that jaw harps already sound inherently electronic. Most impressive is the octave pedal, which turns the reediness of the parmupill into a rumbling, powerful bass over which folk songs and melodies can play.

Mägi is not content with reviving the techniques of playing the instrument, she’s making new methods and contexts for the parmupill to flourish in modern musical spheres. EDM, contemporary jazz and traditional folk music; state-of-the-art gadgetry and 50 ancient instruments coming together as one. A wondrous collaboration of old and new made from just two pieces of twisted metal.


Photo: Cätlin Mägi live at WOMEX 19, by Jacob Crawfurd.

Ann O’aro - Longoz

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Ann O’aro
Longoz
Cobalt/Buda Musique (59 mins)

A brooding trombone blaring single, mournful tones; then, on top, a voice made of silk and smoke conjures an image of a deserted jazz club in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And what a voice it is. From the first moments of this album’s title-track opener, you can tell you’re about to be stunned.

To describe Ann O’aro’s music as maloya would perhaps be incorrect, but it’s undeniable that La Réunion’s iconic creole style is deeply embedded in its heart. She takes maloya’s bluesiest elements and most passionate rhythms to inform a stark, emotional jazz that also draws on ideas of bal-musette, waltz, sega and zouk. Such intensity is especially impressive when the ensemble only ever expands to a trio of O’aro on vocals, Teddy Doris on trombone and Bino Waro (son of Danyèl) on percussion.

While O’aro’s voice and music are hauntingly beautiful, her lyrics are another matter. Sung mostly in Creole, they reflect and examine her own trauma as a survivor of child abuse and incest. They make for important but difficult listening. Powerful and harrowing, delicate, sad, angry and utterly beguiling – Longoz is an album that will stay in the ears, mind and stereo for a long time.

Rüstəm Quliyev - Azerbaijani Gitara

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Rüstəm Quliyev
Azerbaijani Gitara
Bongo Joe (44 mins)

As well as a hot contender for this year’s Most Charmingly Naff Cover Photo award, the inside of this album is just as fun and fascinating as what’s on the outside.

This career retrospective introduces the world to the late Rüstəm Quliyev, the electric guitarist who set the standard for open-eared instrumental pop in Azerbaijan. He developed his own sound from his first instrument, the tar (hourglass-shaped long-necked lute): with fast tremolo picking and melodies played up and down a single string, Quliyev gives the electric guitar a distinctive Azeri flair. Only ever backed by a keyboard and a drum machine, the retro timbres accompany Quliyev through the music of Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan and India, and provide a neat disco shimmy while they’re at it.

It’s all good stuff here, but the highlights come when Quliyev points his plectrum towards traditional repertoire: ‘Əfqan Musiqisi’ is a particular treat based on Afghan folk melodies, and ‘Yanıq Kərəmi’ has a compelling two-and-a-half minute introduction before he kicks it up a notch for some fully-distorted twang, all derived from the music of Azerbaijan’s aşıq bards.

If you’ve been looking for the centre of that Venn diagram between Bahram Mansurov, Dick Dale and Omar Souleyman, you’ve found the perfect album.

Tune In - Atlas

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Tune In
Atlas
Tune In Crew (29 mins)

French production duo (and brothers) Harry and Xavier Veynand have chosen an appropriate title for their first album: it feels like a good chunk of the world’s music is represented across its eight fully-instrumental tracks.

In just the opener, ‘Stella Marina’, one can discern elements of reggae, salsa, Afrobeat, Ethiojazz and something of a Manu Chao-meets-Amadou & Mariam vibe, all within a nest of cool funk. The rest of the album carries on in a similar fashion. Among lots of dub and synthedelic grooves there are blues licks, Indian and Arabic rhythms, chicha, mambo, Beatlesy raga-rock, and much more besides. A recurring focus is on assouf, the guitar sound pioneered by Tinariwen; Tune In’s version works well paired with the dub production, but lacks the desert isolation that makes the style so intoxicating in Tuareg hands.

There are lots of good ideas here, but perhaps there are just too many. Fitting it all into less than half an hour gives the effect of being bombarded by global influences in a way that can get a bit exhausting after a while. A debut of enjoyable tracks, but best appreciated in small doses.

Hossein Alizadeh and Rembrandt Trio - Same Self, Same Silence - Liner Notes

First published as liner notes to Hossein Alizadeh and Rembrandt Trio’s album Same Self, Same Silence (Just Listen Records, 2020).



These are sounds of the ancient and the modern.

Echoes of jazz solidify among the chromatics of the dastgāh, adorned by ornaments both Persian and Baroque.

Musical instruments that were nearly lost to history resonate with those that are the first of their kind.

The art music of three continents swirl together as sweet-scented vapour and become one.

Hossein Alizadeh

Few musicians in contemporary Iran are as respected as Hossein Alizadeh. He is the leading master of Persian lutes: the tar (the hourglass-shaped lute), the setar (a long-necked lute with variants across Central Asia and the Middle East), and, as you can hear on Same Self, Same Silence, the shurangiz, an instrument built to his own specifications that serves as a midpoint between the two.

Born in Tehran in 1950 to mixed Persian-Azeri parentage, Alizadeh quickly became immersed in the tradition of musiqi-e assil – the classical music of Iran that can be traced back many centuries. He became a professional musician aged just 15, and was soon noted for his powerful yet delicate performance style and his virtuosity in improvisation within the classical structures.

Aside from strict interpretations of classical and traditional music, Alizadeh has also been at the forefront of innovative music in Iran, and has expanded the possibilities of what is thinkable within the realms of Persian music. He has been particularly celebrated as a composer, with notable works including a concerto for ney (end-blown reed flute) and string orchestra entitled NayNava (1983) and scores for the films Gabbeh (1996) and Turtles Can Fly (2004).

Hossein Alizadeh is without a doubt one of the most important figures in the field of art music in Iran and beyond – as an educator, as a composer, as an exponent of old traditions and new talent and, foremost, as a true master in his performance of Persian classical music.

Rembrandt Trio

The Rembrandt Trio, from the Netherlands, are masters of their own classical traditions. At first glance, they appear to have the set-up of a standard jazz piano trio – piano, double bass and drums. But look closer. Rembrandt Frerichs’ piano is actually a fortepiano, built to the specifications of Mozart’s own instrument from 1790, or else an antique harmonium, bridging the gap between Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Tony Overwater’s double bass is a violone, a bass viol with six strings and frets. Vinsent Planjer’s drums are a whisper kit, a unique personal curation of drums and percussion from across time and geography.

Fine jazz players each, but together, their music represents a journey to a different sound. When they play together, influences abound and their historical instruments reflect an alternative vision of contemporary jazz. They edge towards the unattainable third stream, blurring European classical and jazz styles to render both nearly meaningless. J.S. Bach, Keith Jarrett, Claude Debussy, Ornette Coleman: these legacies are inextricable in the music of the Rembrandt Trio.

And their boundaries don’t stop at jazz or European art music. The strings of Frerichs’ fortepiano connect their player not only with 18th century Vienna, but also with the players of the Arabic qanun (plucked zither) and the Persian and Hindustani santur (hammered dulcimer). The music of the Middle East becomes integral to the trio’s sound, whether through the strains of an Arabic maqam scale, a suggestion of an iqa’ rhythm, or through direct work with celebrated Iranian artists such as Kayhan Kalhor, Mahsa Vahdat… and Hossain Alizadeh.

The music

Together, Hossein Alizadeh, Rembrandt Frerichs, Tony Overwater and Vinsent Planjer represent three art music traditions – Persian, European and jazz – and make from them a unified creation.

Same Self, Same Silence is an exploration of Nava, one of the seven principle dastgāhs – or modal systems – in Persian classical music. A dastgāh is defined by a particular set of notes, and so each has its own distinct emotional colour and personality. Nava is one of the oldest in the dastgāh system, known for its serenity and the meditative qualities it imbues. Yet, it remains among the least performed in the Persian repertoire.

Each piece here uses Nava as its base, anchoring the music solidly in the classical tradition. Most of the pieces are based on gushehs, short canonical melodic fragments upon which ideas can take flight; others are specially composed by Alizadeh; and still others are solo improvisations on the dastgāh from Alizadeh and Frerichs.

The serenity embodied by Nava can also be heard in the performances themselves. Alizadeh and the Rembrandt Trio first met in 2016, and performed together for the first time that same year at the November Music festival in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. When recording this album, Alizadeh said “I’ve known these guys for a year now and I already feel we have known each other for fifty years, because we have grown so close musically so fast.” This collaborative closeness gives the ensemble a relaxed enjoyment that can be heard clearly in the music, a feeling that only adds to the emotional depth on display.

To make Same Self, Same Silence, each musician has adapted their playing to the others’. Musical minds are tuned to each other’s thinking, and musical instruments are re-tuned to ring in sympathy with another culture – Nava is a dastgāh that requires the use of quarter-tones not usually found in European music. This reorientation allows each musician to approach on an equal footing, to build new sonic possibilities. “When we start to play,” says Alizadeh, “we become like sculptors who create a shape on stage and, bit by bit, we carve out a sculpture.”

Where else could this music be heard than the here-and-now? The jangling buzz of the shurangiz complements the dampened tones of the fortepiano; rhythms from Iran played on a whisper kit are elaborated on the violone; improvisations glide seamlessly between Asia, Europe and America. Classical music cultures from the far past meet in the present.

These are the sounds of the modern and the ancient.


Photo: Tony Overwater, Rembrandt Frerichs, Hossein Alizadeh and Vinsent Planjer, by Floris Scheplitz.

Martin Carthy + David Delarre - The Round Chapel, Hackney, London

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 163, December 2020.



Martin Carthy + David Delarre
The Round Chapel, Hackney, London
16th October 2020

In a year where ‘live music’ has mostly meant sitting around a computer screen, it was an utter delight to gather with real-life human beings to witness music being made in the flesh. This was the second of the Fire in the Belly concert series, set in Hackney’s beautiful Round Chapel. The converted church was spacious enough to accommodate a socially-distanced audience, and what was lost in cosiness was made up for in camaraderie.

Support came from David Delarre, Eliza Carthy’s regular guitarist, playing an enjoyable set built around traditional repertoire from his twin homes of Hackney and Essex. ‘I've missed having applause,’ he grinned near the end of his set, and the audience obviously relished giving it.

Then, framed by a magnificent arch, lit by fairy lights and with a church organ as the backdrop, Martin Carthy gave his first live performance in seven-and-a-half months. Perhaps there was a little rust to be shaken off, with some verses taking a little while to come to mind, but the high spirits of the evening kept everything running with alacrity. With his aging but soulful voice and nimble, meaty guitar playing, Carthy’s songs brought us from the beginnings of his career all the way up to his Imagined Village days.

For many present, it was the first real concert for a long time and, with new restrictions brought in just an hour after it finished, maybe the last one for a while too. But what a joy it was while it lasted!

Qwanqwa - Volume 3

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 163, December 2020.

Qwanqwa
Volume 3
Qwanqwa (45 mins)

If you’ve been paying attention to Ethiopian tradi-modern music over the past five-odd years, you will have come across the names of Qwanqwa’s musicians. Mesele Asmamaw (krar), Anteneh Teklemariam (bass krar), Endris Hassen (masenqo) and Misale Legasse (kebero) have cropped up as sidemen in so many projects; here, together with Addis-based American violinist Kaethe Hostetter, they all get their own time to shine.

Qwanqwa are, for the most part, an instrumental group. The interplay created between the krars and fiddles mean that they’re adept at playing traditional or contemporary music, and with the help of electronic effects (not to mention Anteneh’s slap bass on the krar) they’re more than capable of making it funky. However, there is a tendency for the group’s textures to feel a bit static after a while, like something is missing – that’s all solved whenever Mesele picks up the microphone and freshens everything up with his voice. It’s a pity that only happens on two tracks.

The shredding krar and dubtronic violin of ‘Sewoch’ are delightful, but it is the epic 18-minute finale, ‘Serg’, a brooding, groove-laden medley of wedding songs, that you want to look out for here. When Qwanqwa strike the right balance, they can be absolutely irresistible.

Mónika Lakatos - WOMEX 20 Artist Award

First published online as part of the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2020 Awards announcement.



When Mónika Lakatos was crowned the winner of the Hungarian TV talent show Ki Mit Tud? in 1996, she wasn’t blasting out pop covers to pre-recorded backing tracks. Instead, she sang the traditional music of her own community, the Olah Romani people. The strength and passion of her voice made her a stand-out performer, and the win provided her first big break. Thus began an impressive professional career, championing the people and culture of the Olah every step of the way.

Within Hungary, the Olah Romani are a minority of a minority, with only around 30,000 people still practicing their language and way of life. Mónika has her roots in Nagyecsed, a village famous for its music, at the heart of the Olah community in north-eastern Hungary. With music and songs all around her, she has been singing for as long as she can remember, allowing her to imbue her own work with heartfelt emotion.

Now the leader of prominent ensembles including The Gipsy Voices and Romengo, Mónika always keeps her family’s vast repertoire of lyrical hallgató and danceable pergető songs to the fore. Within a very traditional setting, she pushes boundaries, celebrating the voices and experiences of women in a society often focused on the masculine, and providing space for Romani youths to make themselves heard, too.

It is for her commitment to the Olah people and their music, for her mission to ensure that female Romani voices can be heard on the world stage and for her highest personal artistry as a performer that Mónika Lakatos is presented with the WOMEX 20 Artist Award.


Photo: Mónika Lakatos and this Gipsy Voices, by András Farkas.

L’Atelier des Artistes en Exil - WOMEX 20 Professional Excellence Award

First published online as part of the WOMEX – World Music Expo 2020 Awards announcement.



The mission statement for l’Atelier des Artistes en Exil – the Agency of Artists in Exile – contains a particularly powerful phrase: ‘being a refugee is not a profession.’ People in exile are not defined by their exile. When people leave their homes to flee instability, war or persecution, they do not leave their humanity behind, nor their experiences, nor their skills. When artists leave their homes, they remain artists.

A grassroots initiative right in the heart of Paris, l’Atelier supports artists that have been exiled from homelands as distant as Syria, Venezuela, DR Congo or Kazakhstan. The shape that this support takes is wide-ranging and invaluable, whether it is providing one-on-one advice regarding funding applications or CVs; facilitating workshops, training courses or meetings with industry professionals; or just as simple as giving a space in which to work in peace. Volunteers at l’Atelier offer everything from French tuition to legal advice to acting lessons.

Although the organisation has only run since 2017, the blossoms of their work are many and beautiful. Just a handful of l’Atelier’s 200-plus artists showcase at its annual festival, Visions d’Exil, but still their outputs span the worlds of theatre, dance, calligraphy, films, comedy, storytelling, graphic and performance arts, literature and music, all exploring the lived realities of exile from many different perspectives.

In honour of their role in giving artists in exile the tools and the space to reaffirm their humanity powerfully in their own way and their own words, we are delighted that L’Atelier des Artistes en Exil will receive the WOMEX 20 Professional Excellence Award.


Photo: Just some of the members of l’Atelier des Artistes en Exil, by Sara Farid.

Pedro Lima - Maguidala

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 162, November 2020.

Pedro Lima
Maguidala
Bongo Joe Records (36 mins)

After the success of their compilation Léve Léve: São Tomé and Príncipe Sounds 70s-80s earlier on in the year, Bongo Joe Records follow up with a reissue of an album by one of the islands’ most popular post-independence musicians.

Maguidala was first released in 1985 at the height of singer Pedro Lima’s career. His honeyed voice dances effortlessly among the puxas and rumbas as Angolan and Congolese grooves mix with traditional São Toméan rhythms. Lima’s band, Os Leonenses, are on similarly top form: the razor-sharp twin guitars of Leopoldino ‘Gúndu’ Silva and Rafael ‘Pety-Zorro’ Zuza tickle the dancing muscles while the close-thirds vocal harmonies massage the ears.

The album may only have four tracks, but it makes them count. Each track reaches towards the ten-minute mark, and each brings a slightly different flavour. The hot is balanced with the cool, the energetic with the relaxed, and everyone has just a lovely time.

When Pedro Lima died last year, his state funeral was attended by thousands of fans and admirers. His music and outspoken politics made him a hero in São Tomé, but what a shame that his music is only now reaching a wider international audience.

Captain Planet - No Visa

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 162, November 2020.

Captain Planet
No Visa
Bastard Jazz Recordings (48 mins)

Globetrotting producer Captain Planet calls his personal style ‘gumbo funk’ – all manner of flavours brought together and bubbled into one rich and ever-changing vat of deliciousness. For his fifth full-length album, his base layer of funky hip-hop, synthwave, house and reggae is bolstered by a panoply of continent-spanning African sounds, with healthy amounts from South America, the Caribbean and the Middle East too.

No Visa is built up through a typically wide range of samples (balafon, kalimba, washint, highlife guitar, even Libyan pop) and a big bunch of guests (this time including stars such as Alsarah, Shungudzo and Chico Mann among many others) together with synths and beats galore – there’s a lot going on. With all these different elements at play, Captain Planet’s sense of style never sits still throughout the album. Every track sounds unique, but it’s all held together by an undeniable cool, a chill retro vibe that harks to the 80s and 90s without drenching everything in a syrupy nostalgia.

The overall feel of No Visa is utopian: the music of a borderless land where sans-papiers is the natural state of things and everyone is invited to join the party. Captain Planet’s recipe is tried, tested and true – and there’s enough to go around.

Modou Touré - Touki

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 162, November 2020.

Modou Touré
Touki
ARC Music (39 mins)

Senegalese singer Modou Touré has big shoes to fill as the son of Ousmane Touré, lead singer of the legendary band Touré Kunda, but he’s become a staple on the UK scene since settling in London in the late 00s. After success with guitarist Ramon Goose as part of the West African Blues Project, he now presents his debut solo album, Touki (A Journey).

The album’s theme comes from Touré’s life of travel, and his lyrics in four languages (Wolof, Mandinka, Soninke and English) talk about weighty topics such as development in Africa, poverty and famine, ancestors and faith. It can’t be said, however, that the music is similarly weighty. Touré’s lyrics are set to a soft’n’easy mix of soul-funk, reggae, rock and Senegalese rhythms that blend into something generic and inoffensive, further marred by frequent wailing rock guitar solos that never stop sounding out-of-place.

Here and there, moments do stand out with interesting Wolof melodies, influences from mbalax or the occasional darker and more atmospheric track (such as ‘Yeurmande’) but those moments are exceptions to the whole. Touré’s skills as a singer are evident, but are let down by uninspired backing. A missed opportunity.

A Life's Work: Ssewa Ssewa

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 161, October 2020.



Air travel can be a fraught experience for musicians. There are many heart-breaking stories of delicate and priceless instruments arriving at their destination in irreparable pieces. For Ugandan musician Ssewa Ssewa, though, a brush with customs officials eventually led to the invention of a whole new instrument and a determination to bring Uganda to the world stage.

James Ssewakiryanga Jr, known on stage as Ssewa Ssewa, was always going to be a musician. His childhood was filled with music: “It was easy for me to pick up music because that’s the kind of language that was around me in my growing days as a little boy. Everyone that came into my home was a musician.” The start of Ssewa Ssewa’s musical education came from his mother, a dancer, who made sure to teach her son the basics and sent him to attend music schools. It also helped that his father was a master of the engoma drums and an accomplice to the late Albert Ssempeke as he rebuilt the ancient royal music of the Buganda Kingdom after the fall of Idi Amin.

Starting off by playing the large communal xylophone, the amadinda, Ssewa Ssewa soon moved on to study the engoma with his father and then the adungu (bow-harp). “From then I kept on adding different instruments!” As he became a professional musician, Ssewa Ssewa’s music was rooted in the traditional. With the adungu as his instrument of choice, he began touring the world with various ensembles. But he was exasperated at how little Ugandan culture was known in Europe. People knew the West African kora but not the adungu; they knew the Zimbabwean mbira but not its Ugandan cousin, the akogo. This cultural ignorance came to a head in 2014, at Copenhagen airport, where he was stopped from boarding a plane to Switzerland. His prized adungu, which used large nails as tuning pegs, was labelled as a security risk and couldn’t be brought on board. It was a frustration, but Ssewa Ssewa was equal to it, and understanding: “The reality stands that if you’re going into a culture where they don’t know this kind of instrument, and they’re looking at sharp objects, at some point you’re going to have trouble having this instrument go through.” Nevertheless, it was a problem he didn’t want to encounter again.

Over the next few years, an idea took shape and solidified. He would create his own instrument that could become known both inside and outside Uganda, one that could be both modern and traditional at once, and one that could tour the world uninhibited by unfair hostility. Working together with carpenters Mubiru Deo and Steven Kibombo, Ssewa Ssewa created the janzi. Although based on the adungu, the janzi is clearly a modern invention. The adungu’s skin soundboard is replaced with polished wood; the nails replaced with mechanical tuning pegs. Where the adungu has one set of strings, the janzi has two. “We worked through different tunings and we ended up with two different scales,” Ssewa Ssewa explains. “The uniqueness of the instrument is that I tune a Western diatonic scale on my left and an African pentatonic scale on my right. I describe it as collaboration, because I am bringing worlds together.”

By using two different tunings, the janzi itself becomes a metaphor for Ssewa Ssewa’s music and his whole outlook on life. He can switch effortlessly between the Ugandan and the international, and create music that speaks to people, whatever culture they’re from. It’s also reflected in the name: janzi comes from ‘ejanzi’, the Luganda word for grasshopper, an insect that flies from one place to another with ease. The imagery spoke to Ssewa Ssewa so strongly that he’s built his life around it: it’s the name of his instrument, his band, his recording studio, his charity (helping children with disabilities through music) and his youngest daughter. Janzi is his life’s work.

Ssewa Ssewa’s first worldwide release is a perfect representation of the Ugandan and the international. Nva K’la means ‘From Kampala,’ and it’s a love letter to the sounds of his home city. Kampala is a hub, attracting people from all over the country, each bringing with them their own rich musical heritage. When he plays, Ssewa Ssewa is making the music of the whole of Uganda, not just one set of people. “I want to explain through my music that if you come to Uganda, you’re going to listen to different kinds of sound. We have so many cultures here, and every culture has their own sound, their own style of playing music. When you come to Kampala you feel it, you feel and hear all those different cultures.” Nva K’la reflects that metropolitan hustle and bustle. Starting with the popular baksimba dance rhythm, he adds influences from many different traditional musics from Uganda and overlays them with modern sounds from the local and the global, including soul and reggae. Traditional instruments such as the adungu, akogo, endingidi (one-string fiddle), endongo (lyre), amadinda and engoma sit alongside a legion of guitars, basses and keyboards, all brought together and mediated by the new-traditional janzi. This is how Ssewa Ssewa wants people to think of Ugandan music: as an exciting plurality, a range of music spanning from the centuries-old to the freshly-made-this-morning but that could only come from one place. He wants to stoke pride in the Ugandan nation, where all its people, with their many cultures, can contribute to a united identity to share with the world.

At their core, however, the reasons for his innovations stem from European ignorance: ignorance of customs officials about the make-up and meaning of an ancient instrument, ignorance of the music-listening public about Ugandan music as its own, identifiable culture. It should shame us that this collective ignorance has led musicians to feel the need to create entirely new instruments and ways of playing just to get heard. But necessity is the mother of invention, and Ssewa Ssewa’s ambitions and achievements are important, potentially long-lasting, and very danceable. Stay tuned to hear more Ugandan music in the future, under Ssewa Ssewa’s watch: “I want to lead audiences to take note of our sounds from Uganda. We have so much talent here that the world has not seen. ”


Photo: Ssewa Ssewa and his janzi, by Walter Keys.

My Instrument: Pekko Käppi and his Jouhikko

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 161, October 2020.



Lyres are found in various shapes and sizes all over the world, but they are usually plucked with fingers or strummed with a plectrum. The bowed lyre is a much rarer beast. There are only three varieties that still exist today, including the Welsh crwth and the Estonian hiiu kannel. The third is the jouhikko from Finland, a fantastic instrument that came very close to extinction during the 20th century. Pekko Käppi has been at the forefront of its revival for the past 20 years.

The word jouhikko comes from jouhi – horsehair – which makes up both the instrument’s strings and bow. Traditionally with two strings and now as many as four, it is held between the knees and played by stopping one string with the finger knuckles while the bow also vibrates a second string as a drone. The player’s four fingers, held in a fixed position, mean that each string can only play five notes. The jouhikko’s scratchy, hair-on-hair timbre, constant drone and restricted range give it a guttural, throaty and naturalistic sound. It conjures in the mind smells of earth and woodsmoke, helped along by an evocative Nordic repertoire. It’s a sound that entranced Käppi from the start. He enthuses, “the first jouhikko I found, I plucked it, and it still gives me goosebumps to remember it. I hadn’t heard anything like that before. It sounded so old and otherworldly. It still sounds like that.”

No-one really knows how old the jouhikko is. It’s probably one of Europe’s oldest bowed instruments and there are theories that it evolved from Viking instruments, but, as Käppi laments, “there are lots of empty spots in the story of the jouhikko.” What is known is that by the turn of the 20th century, folk musicians had abandoned the instrument in favour of the more versatile fiddle and accordion. “There was only one family in Finland that kept playing,” he explains. “The fathers taught their children. The lineage was still going, but it wasn’t used in weddings or folk music any more. It had no functional use. It was practically dead.” It clung on, though, and a revival began in the 1980s amid renewed interest in the old Finnish music. It was pulled from the brink, but only just. By the time Käppi picked it up, there were still only a small handful of players, but that’s changing: “When I started to play jouhikko in 1997, there were maybe ten active players. I knew them all. But nowadays I don’t know all of them by name! It’s like the golden age of the bowed lyre, it starts to be again.”

A lot of that is down to Käppi and his contemporaries proving the range that the humble instrument can reach. Käppi himself, while also a scholar of the jouhikko’s folk repertoire, also turns it in the direction of heavy metal and punk – he even has a personalised instrument in the shape of a skull with flashing eyes. There is also Ilkka Heinonen, who finds space for the instrument among Baroque, jazz and avant-garde electronics, and Rauno Neimenen, now the premiere jouhikko maker in Finland. Together with Marianne Maans, they make up the Jouhiorkesteri, the first-ever all-jouhikko group.

The story of the past 20 years is encouraging, and Käppi has certainly played his part. He’s under no illusions, however, that the jouhikko is completely saved. For the instrument to be truly secure, it needs a next generation. Most players nowadays start in their 20s, and Käppi is searching for solutions. “There are not young kids playing jouhikko, because the jouhikkos are all too big! But a couple of years ago, we designed with Rauno a children’s jouhikko. It works really well, and my daughters have started to play. If it’s possible to start earlier, that’s a good thing for the future. That’s what makes the tradition living again, if there are younger people carrying it on. But we’ll see.”


Photo: Pekko Käppi live at WOMEX 19, by Jacob Crawfurd.

The Zonke Family - At the Studio

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 161, October 2020.

The Zonke Family
At the Studio
Lokalophon (39 mins)

The Zonke family hail from Nyampanda, a small border town on the Zimbabwean side of the boundary with Mozambique. They are also the knowledge bearers and masters of the matepe, a large mbira of the Marembe people. Here, three of the family – Anthony Zonke, Crispen Zonke and Chief Boyi Nyamande – share this age-old knowledge with the world.

So often mbira music is mixed with guitars, drum kits and synths, but its true power is most evident when it is allowed to stand alone, as it is here. It’s very refreshing to hear the music presented in this way – just the interlocking lines of the matepe, the polyrhythms of the hosho (rattles) and the overlapping yodels from all three participants. The power remains even when the musicians put down the matepe: ‘Tinotengana Kuipa’ is all ngoma (drums) and voice and is just as enchanting and entrancing.

It’s a sound that reflects back your own headspace. Light and airy, heavy and deep; it all depends on how much you choose to fall into the music. It’s a shame the album is so short. The force of the music is so irresistible that it feels like it could go on unabated for hours and hours on into the infinite.

Jacob Young / David Rothenberg / Sidiki Camara - They Say Humans Exist

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 161, October 2020.

Jacob Young / David Rothenberg / Sidiki Camara
They Say Humans Exist
Oslo Session Recordings (33 mins)

Three musicians from three continents get together in a studio in the woods outside Oslo for two days of collective improvisation. The sounds that coalesce could be from a different place altogether, an unknown realm.

Jacob Young is a Norwegian guitarist and electronicist best known for his forward-thinking releases on ECM Records; American zoomusicologist, philosopher and author David Rothenberg gets back to his roots as an out-jazz clarinettist; Sidiki Camara, from Mali, is an in-demand percussionist who also contributes balafon, kamalengoni and voice.

The music that the trio make together is, for the most part, calm and meditative; it is the feeling of an ethereal forest as spoken through wind, string and wood. Within that forest lie bluesy licks, unexpected jazz chromatics and West African melodies, as well as many other influences that float on the breeze.

Through improvisation, Young, Rothenberg and Camara maintain their own musical personalities while attaining a universality that joins them together. They Say Humans Exist is an album of atmospheres, but it contains enough spikey edges to never quite dip into New-Age-iness. A more solid sense of direction wouldn’t go amiss, though.

Dandana - Free the System

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 161, October 2020.

Dandana
Free the System
Rebel Up Records (40 mins)

About this album, Dandana say ‘the old system can’t easily deal with young or new ideas.’ In a time where people are rising up against old systems all over the world, it is a message that is being heard more – and louder – than ever.

This is the music of generation gaps. Dandana are made up of traditional musicians who are not afraid to look above and beyond, and of contemporary musicians eager to delve into the depths of musical lore. Often those people are one and the same. With members from the Netherlands, Gambia and Senegal, the group journey across Senegambian soundscapes with electronica as their vehicle – and gather many guests along the way.

It’s an unusual mix – inspirations from the region’s classic psychedelic dance bands such as Guelewar and Ifang Bondi sit very easily alongside electronica production – but it’s one that yields a surprising depth. The result is full of chill dance vibes, ecstatic beats that lend themselves to peaced-out nodding just as well as full-body dancing.

Whether Free the System can help to unite old ways with new ideas and bridge generation gaps remains to be seen. With it, however, Dandana add their voice to a burgeoning international movement that is changing the way of the world as we know it.

Pentatonic Pursuits: Afropentatonism

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 160, August/September 2020.



You can make a lot of music with five notes. From East Asia to the Andes, British folk to the blues: pentatonic scales form the bedrock of musical traditions all across the world, each imbued with their own cultural personality. For two guitarists from opposite ends of Africa, five notes are all that are needed to create an all-new pan-African sound that aims to change how music is made across the continent.

Alhousseini Anivolla is a Tuareg guitarist and singer from Niger, best known for his time with pioneering Saharan group Etran Finatawa; Girum Mezmur is the go-to jazz guitarist in Ethiopia and the director of Addis Acoustic Project. Both Tuareg and Ethiopian music are unmistakably distinct and immediately recognisable, but both share the use of pentatonic scales. After a series of chance meetings and revelatory jam sessions, Anivolla and Mezmur unite the styles separated by more than 2,500 miles of desert. With a debut album, Afropentatonism just released, their journey has only just begun.

The roots of the Afropentatonism project go back to 2005, to the Afrika Festival in Hertme, the Netherlands. Anivolla was there with Etran Finatawa and Mezmur was performing with legendary Ethiojazz singer Mahmoud Ahmed. Watching each other play, there was shared amazement: it was the first time either had heard the music of the other and both were struck by the uncanny parallels between them. “We were stunned by the similarity of the cultures,” explains Mezmur. “Like the usage of the pentatonic scale and how similar all that is. We could easily relate to that.”

The excitement of that co-discovery made a long-lasting impact, but it was another 12 years before the two would meet again. At a gig in Addis Ababa in 2017, Anivolla’s trio Anewal invited Mezmur on stage for an impromptu set; afterwards, in a meeting together with mutual friend Sandra van Edig, the foundations of the long-pondered collaboration became a real prospect.

Over the next two years, meetings and discussions took place alongside the unavoidable jam sessions (“Whenever we meet, we just pick up our guitars and start jamming,” says Mezmur) and soon the realisation of even more links. A crystallising moment came as the musicians bonded over the music of Ali Birra, an Oromo musician from the Harar region of Ethiopia. “When he plays acoustic guitar it is so similar to how the Tamashek play acoustic guitar,” says Anivolla. “When we listened to Ali Birra, it was very easy for us to blend our styles.” The project was well and truly underway.

Around the core of the two guitarists, a band was handpicked from the best of musicians from Addis: Habtamu Yeshambel on one-stringed masenqo fiddle, Anteneh Teklemariam on bass krar (lyre), Misale Legesse on percussion and 78-year-old Swinging Addis veteran Ayele Mamo on mandolin. As a six-piece, the road led them to concerts, workshops and residencies in Ethiopia, Niger, Djibouti and Kenya.

Neither guitarist is a stranger to cross-cultural collaboration, each having played with many musicians of many different styles from across the world. Finding common sounds across cultures was also at the heart of Anivolla’s Etran Finatawa, a musical meeting of Tuareg and Wodaabe musicians. But there is something different about playing together as Afropentatonism. “The Tuareg and Wodaabe, we live very close together, our campsites can be right next to each other,” Anivolla describes, “but Tuareg music is much closer to Ethiopian music than Wodaabe music. I feel my own musical heritage when listening to different Ethiopian styles. There is a dance there that is the same dance we do. It’s as if there is one origin, one root with different branches.” Anivolla’s face lights up whenever he talks about playing with Mezmur. It’s obvious that there is something special in this collaboration.

The music they make together is a seamless blend, as heard on the album recorded live during their concert in Nairobi. Rolling rhythms play host to endless, circular riffs that spiral out into passionate solos, or groove-laden sections where multilingual conversations are enacted through reverberating strings. Most of the time it is impossible to pinpoint the fusion – to say which element comes from Ethiopian music and which from Tuareg. Each musician brings the whole force of their tradition behind them, as well as, crucially, a real empathy and understanding of the other’s.

The connection between the two cultures wasn’t just felt by the musicians. A special moment came during their time in Niamey, where Yeshambel became the unexpected star of the show. His masenqo is similar in many ways to the imzad, the Tuareg’s own one-string fiddle, which serves an important role in traditional Tuareg society. “The people in Niamey got crazy about the masenqo!” Annivola chuckles. “They wanted him to play all the time! They were shouting and crying, it was like the sound of the masenqo went directly to the soul of the people.”

In touching the souls, the musicians are also hoping to touch minds. The project’s Afrocentrism runs much deeper than its sound; it is built into the way that the project is run. Often cross-cultural collaborations are curated by world music industry figures to culminate in a record or a big European tour, with the money coming from the West and the music therefore geared towards Western ears. Afropentatonism is pan-African music made for Africans – and with African money.

It is often easier for African artists to gain funding to tour across Europe than it is Africa. A series of crowdfunding campaigns, however, freed the Afropentatonism project of the need to please a single rich donor and opened up more unorthodox performance avenues. “It came in bits and pieces,” says co-creator van Edig, “and we were really proud because over 50% of the funding came from Africa. It was so important that we were creative and that’s how we were able to travel in Africa.” By finding other funding options, Anivolla and Mezmur have brought their cultures to audiences that would otherwise have never had that contact – and in doing so, make music not solely beholden to European tastes.

The hope is that the initial success of the project can inspire a new generation of African musicians to do things their own way, looking beyond the restrictive power structures of Western funding and leading to wider audiences and increased creative freedom. It was a message the musicians stressed during workshops in each country. “This is what we promoted during the tour,” van Edig explains, “encouraging young artists not to wait for big funding, to go and try being creative. It was so authentic because we weren’t coming with big funding.” That the group even existed and could travel to spread this message was proof in itself that another way was possible.

Afropentatonism isn’t just a one-time experiment. The live album is a successful proof-of-concept, evidence that after just a few meetings, the musicians are capable of mining a deep seam of continental connections. With more and more experiences under their belt, the more those connections are explored, and the more the music percolates into one heady, unique sound. More tours are in the works, to other African countries – Sudan, Tanzania and South Africa have been mentioned – as well as Europe, and studio albums will surely follow. Together, Alhousseini Anivolla and Girum Mezmur are bringing people together over thousands of miles, all while forging new African music and new ways of making African music, five notes at a time.


Photo: Girum Mezmur and Alhousseini Anivolla, by Sandra van Edig.

Groupe RTD - The Dancing Devils of Djibouti

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 160, August/September 2020.

Groupe RTD
The Dancing Devils of Djibouti
Ostinato Records (48 mins)

The ‘world music’ scene has woken up to the wondrous delights of Somali music over the past few years through reissues of classic ensembles from the 70s and 80s. This time, Ostinato Records brings the sound of live Somali music today with the premiere group of Djibouti.

The music of the Somali-majority port country on the mouth of the Red Sea is little known outside the Horn of Africa, and this is actually the very first album of Djiboutian music ever released by a foreign label. So, for a big first release, why not go to the very best?

Groupe RTD are the house band for Djibouti’s national broadcasting company and the one called upon to perform at any official ceremonies in the country. They are part of the great legacy of Somali pop music, with elements from traditional music shining through among retro dance-band arrangements while keeping an open ear to the synth-dominated modern styles. Theirs is a real Red Sea sound, a musical midpoint between African and Arabic. Add in Bollywood influences, lots of reggae and disco funk with a heavy swagger, and you have some serious party music. Good vibes only.

Gnawa Youmala - Dounya

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 160, August/September 2020.

Gnawa Youmala
Dounya
Global Sonics (50 mins)

Gnawa Youmala are a multinational, multigenerational Paris-based six-piece, and with this debut album, they reshape Moroccan Gnawa music with their own refreshing twist.

Where the Sufi ceremony of the Gnawa is often loud and intense, Gnawa Youmala turn it into something light and airy, without actually changing all that much. Alongside the traditional guimbri (bass lute) and qaraqab (metal castinets), the group add violin and banjo, which fill the upper register of the music and add a uplifting element, helped along by colourful percussion and the ensemble’s all-acoustic nature. Across ten tracks, the group also bring in influences from Berber and Arabic music and further afield into reggae and jazz, but it never strays too far from the source to raise any confusion of what is most important here. For all their innovation, Gnawa Youmala lose none of the enchanting depth that makes Gnawa so powerful.

Featuring alumni from Global Gnawa and legendary Moroccan outfit Nass El Ghiwane, Gnawa Youmala have pedigree when it comes to creating feel-good, lightly poppy music from traditional sources. This is an impressive debut, respectful of the roots while being an easy, breezy listen.

Touki - Right of Passage

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 160, August/September 2020.

Touki (Amadou Diagne & Cory Seznec)
Right of Passage
Captain Pouch Records (47 mins)

Franco-American guitar and banjo player Cory Seznec and Senegalese guitarist-turned-kora player Amadou Diagne first met while busking on the streets of Bath – a musical rapport came easily and, over the next decade or so, blossomed into a fully-fledged collaboration and now a debut album recorded at the renowned Real World Studios.

This set is full of easy Americana and Wolof vibes, taking blues from both sides of the Atlantic as starting points for extended tours around the music of both regions. Layers of strings build up rippling, twinkling patterns, out of which blossom forth Diagne’s light, high-pitched voice, or maybe Seznec’s throaty fretless gourd banjo or palmwine guitar. Guests including Ethiopian masenko player Endris Hassen and accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman broaden the scope further and add different textures without sounding out-of-place.

It is clear that Diagne and Seznec click musically, but it also feels as though their repertoire lacks risks and the fireworks that can happen as a result. Right of Passage goes along smoothly with several cool moments, but it stops short of having a ‘wow’ factor that would put it above the rest.

The Beginner's Guide to April Verch

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 159, July 2020.



Somewhat paradoxically, April Verch has long been seen as a bright new talent of Canadian folk music. However, with 13 albums stretching all the way back to 1992 and the April Verch Band celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, her position at the forefront of her craft is undeniable.

As it flows forth through her fiddle, her feet or her mouth, Verch’s music is anchored in the folk tradition of the Ottawa Valley, with a style that reflects the region’s diverse roots. European settlers arrived from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France and Poland to work in the area’s lumber camps, and brought with them the jigs, reels, polkas and waltzes of their home countries. In that small corner of Canada blossomed a pan-European folk music with an unmistakable North American flair.

That connection to her region’s own traditions has been with Verch basically since birth. Growing up in a small township in rural Ontario, it was full immersion: her father’s band played at all the local dances and her mother was a keen attendee. Surroundings like that leave their mark. “I grew up around it, and wanted to be a part of it, and honestly I figured that everybody was a part of it,” says Verch, “It didn’t occur to me that not everyone learns to dance and fiddle! It’s just something you do when you live there.” The induction into that world came early, as she began step-dancing at the age of three and fiddling at six.

As natural curiosity developed into natural talent, the drive to make music her life’s work struck quickly. “I decided around the age of ten that it was something I wanted to do for a living, which seems odd now that I’m grown up and looking back!” As well as learning the music and dance, her place in the world opened her eyes to the wider realities of music making. Her teacher would bring his pupils to perform at fairs and conventions, passing on the bug for live performance while introducing Verch to some of the biggest names in their field who were more than happy to advise a young star.

With a made-up mind, why wait? Verch made her first album, Springtime Fiddle, when she was just 13. Those bright early years got the ball rolling, and a steady stream of albums, instructional books and DVDs has continued ever since, charting her path via the prestigious Berklee School of Music and on through JUNO nominations, Canadian fiddle championships and even an appearance on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.

In Verch’s hands, folk music gets a spring in its step. Her nimble fingerwork is often balletic and mischievous, with swoops and leaps that put dance in your feet and a grin on your face, and when that means venturing out of the Valley into the realms of bluegrass, hot jazz, Eastern European and even Brazilian music, it all gets added to the pot. The quality of her musicianship make it clear that this is serious business, but it’s all made with a wholesome heart and a winsome wink.

Even with an impressive and acclaimed discography, Verch’s first love remains playing live: “Recording happens once every couple of years and it’s great because it’s a snapshot of where you’re at, but I love sharing the music in person. I wouldn’t be happy staying home and releasing music from afar. I feel like that’s where I should be – on stage!” It’s there that every aspect of Verch’s art gets to shine. As with many choreo-musical traditions, no album can ever fully recreate her astonishing step-dancing, which is just as important as her fiddle. The pièce de résistance is when she does them both simultaneously, a breathtaking and complex display of rhythm and swinging melody amid jumps, twirls and flourishes of feet that leaves one open-mouthed for a long time afterwards. Her live performances also led to her personal career highlight in 2010, when she was featured in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Kitted-out like a Celtic goth, she took centre-stage and let rip in front of 60,000 people in the stadium and up to a billion worldwide.

Celebrating two decades with the April Verch Band gives a good opportunity to look back over the years. The ranks and make-up of the band have changed significantly since 2000, reflecting and influencing Verch’s musical evolutions with its ebbs and flows, but when it comes to her main aim, things have stayed just the same: “I have always played what I like,” she says, “that hasn’t changed. If it speaks to me and I get super passionate about it, and it happens to be not from my tradition, I’m willing to try it. That’s the one thing that has remained consistent, if I love playing it, that’s going to come across.” Thus explains the success of her latest album, where she takes on a very different beast to equally splendid results.

2019’s Once a Day is a fully-fledged country album, a loving and authentic homage to the 50s and 60s Nashville sound that brings her uniquely bright and girlish voice to the fore. Those funny, sad and schmaltzy country songs had been with her from the very beginning, and were always as much a part of her heritage as Canadian roots. “The two went hand-in-hand. If there was a country band playing a dance, maybe the fiddler would let loose and there’d be a square dance, and they’d be playing Ottawa Valley dance tunes.” Elements of country had crept into Verch’s music for a long time, and it was always the plan to let that aspect flourish eventually: “It’s something that I would have done sooner if I thought I could pull it off, but I wasn’t ready as an artist. It was so important to me to get it right. I’m so connected to that music and I love it so much so that’s why I waited.” The wait paid off – she more than does the style the justice it deserves.

No longer the gregarious young upstart on the Canadian scene, April Verch is now the experienced and respected master. Country-tinged folk dance music or folk-tinged country music; fiddle, step-dancing or singing; solo, with her band or with a growing number of collaborators, Verch and her music can always bring a sunshine and a smile to every occasion.


Best albums

April Verch
Verchuosity (Rounder Records, 2001)
The first album after the formation of the April Verch Band, this stunning instrumental release announced Verch to the world and earned her first JUNO nomination for Best Roots & Traditional Album in 2002.

April Verch
From Where I Stand (Rounder Records, 2003)
This album features stately, sweet and fun sets that visit styles from across Canada and further afield together with Verch’s own compositions.

April Verch
Bright Like Gold (Slab Town Records, 2013)
Verch starts to stretch her fingers into bluegrass while never leaving the music of the Ottawa Valley far behind, with lovely contributions from bandmates Cody Walters and Hayes Griffin and a handful of guests.

Joe Newberry & April Verch
Going Home (Slab Town Records, 2018)
In this collaboration with clawhammer banjoist Joe Newberry, from the Missoura Ozarks, the duo explore folk music from their respective homes and the thousand-odd miles in between.

April Verch
Once a Day (Slab Town Records, 2019)
Verch takes off in a different direction for her most recent album, finding full voice among a repertoire of classic 50s and 60s country songs by the likes of Loretta Lynn and the Louvin Brothers.



If you like April Verch, try…

Vishtèn
Horizons (Les Productions Takashoun, 2018)
From the French-speaking community of Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Vishtèn play Acadian music that reflects influences from France and the UK and well as from across the southern US, with bonus electronics and step-dancing.



Photo: The April Verch Band, by Parker J. Pfister.

Spotlight: Kerekes Band

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 159, July 2020.



A lot can change in 25 years. For Kerekes Band, that means turning a tradition entirely on its head.

Back in 1995, they were Kerekes Ensemble, a true died-in-the-wool folkloric group from Eger in northern Hungary. Their music was of the táncház, the dance houses of the country’s rural villages. Completely acoustic, their set-up was built around shepherd’s flute player Zsombor Fehér’s journey to the deepest roots of the culture. “I learnt the music exactly as it was played by the village musicians. I was soaking everything up, not just the music, but the lifestyle. We tended the soil and cut the grass and harvested together. We wanted to get the whole vibe, how it all fits together.” And so it went, learning the old ways and playing the old music. But eventually the táncház started to grow suffocating. So they invented. Maybe Csaba Námor would play an unexpected chord on the koboz lute, or Zsombor would add a bluesy lick on his flute – and then all bets were off.

Kerekes Ensemble were now Kerekes Band, and they went wild. The traditional gardon (a cello-like percussion instrument) became a drum kit, a bass guitar joined the viola and the koboz, and Zsombor took his shepherd’s flute to the next level, creating a one-of-a-kind chromatic version and adding any electronic effects he could – distortion, delay, wah-wah, chorus. They kept the repertoire the same, but their sound was now as much inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Kool & the Gang as by the fields and folk of Hungary. It wasn’t actually too much of a leap. Drummer (and Zsombor’s brother) Vikor Fehér felt the connections come naturally: “We realised that the energy in táncház is exactly the same as rock music. The way they beat the drum is the same way we beat the gardon, how we blow the flute has exactly the same strong energy. It has to be loud, and you have to dance!”

Like when Dylan went electric in ’66, people took some persuading. “Everyone was looking at us suspiciously,” says Zsombor. “The folk musicians said ‘what are you doing with our music?’ and on the other hand, the rockers were unsure too. We created a genre between genres. It gave our music a sort of outlaw feeling that we’re doing something very new and very different.” The gamble paid off: their first album as Kerekes Band, 2006’s Pimasz, was an explosion of funk, punk, disco and folk – and still a classic today. That spirit never left them. Now with 25 years and nine albums under their belts, Kerekes Band are one of Hungary’s most popular folk groups, and kings of their own flavour of ‘Ethno-funk.’

2020 was going to be an extravaganza year for the group. It started strong with a sold-out, career-spanning barnstormer in Budapest in January, and there were shows booked from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Isle of Wight and a converted mill in the Hungarian countryside, before COVID-19 put paid to those best laid plans. No matter, though. Kerekes Band’s music is a colourful riot full of fun, flute and funk. After 25 years, there’s no slowing down; the celebrations will continue for a long time to come.


Photo: (l-r) Ákos Csarnó, Viktor Fehér and Zsombor Fehér of Kerekes Band live at Müpa Palace of Arts, Budapest, 2020, by Kotschy Gábor.

Coronavirus Comforts: Grim Fandango

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 159, July 2020 as my contribution to the article 'Coronavirus Comforts.'

During lockdown, I’ve been replaying one of my favourite video games, Grim Fandango. It’s originally from 1998 but it was remastered to look and sound all shiny in 2015. That’s ancient in terms of video games, but as a work of art, it’s not aged a bit. It’s an adventure game set in the Mexican Land of the Dead as seen through the lens of film noir and bebop. You play as Manuel Calavera, a low-level grim reaper, as he uncovers a vast conspiracy of organised crime and corruption at every level. The visual style is equal parts Mesoamerican folk art, art deco and golden age Hollywood, and the soundtrack by Peter McConnell is a fantastic mix of huge, late Romantic orchestras, jazz of all sorts, Mexican sones, Andean music, tango, surf rock and even Karnatic violin. Along with ingenious puzzles and a sharp wit throughout, it’s basically perfect. Deservedly regarded as a classic.

Chouk Bwa & The Ångströmers - Vodou Alé

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 159, July 2020.

Chouk Bwa & The Ångströmers
Vodou Alé
Bongo Joe (38 mins)

Chouk Bwa were a revelation upon their debut album, 2015’s Se Nou Ki La!, a wonderful set of simple but hard-hitting Haitian Vodou religious roots made up of thumping drums and joyous harmonised vocals. Their follow-up takes things in a different direction as they team up with Belgian production duo The Ångströmers.

The result is dark, dirty and dubby. Although impactful, the production work leaves ample space for the Haitians to breathe without threatening to submerge their sound completely. It may be as subtle as the addition of a bubbling, droning underbelly to a song; the best moments come when the focus is rhythmic, the heavy synth beats mixing alongside the Vodou drums.

However, this musical meeting feels less like a hands-on collaboration than a sort of remix project, as if Chouk Bwa did their thing separately before the Ångströmers came in to chop and change and add their electronic flourishes later. As such, there’s a slight distance between performance and production that stops the project short of achieving that sublime cross-cultural connection I’d hoped it would be. Vodou Alé is a little less than the sum of its parts.

Sigurd Hole - Lys / Mørke

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 158, June 2020.

Sigurd Hole
Lys / Mørke
Elvesang (2 CDs, 80 mins)

Avant-garde bassist Sigurd Hole recorded Lys/Mørke on the island of Sørværet in the Norwegian Arctic. If it was recorded anywhere else, it would sound completely different, such is its connection to the ground from which it grew. Using only his double bass, Hole has made improvised acoustic sound-art that is intimately inspired by the sounds, colours and landscape of Sørværet. By recording out in the open, the ambient sounds of birds, rain and wind in grass become integral to the music and meanings of the album.

Dividing the double album into light (Lys) and darkness (Mørke), Hole explores the ever-important themes of ecology and the philosophical unity of humanity and nature through the language of sound. He uses the whistling sounds of the bass’s harmonics to form mimesis and mimicry, stirring reminiscences of throat-singing and Sámi joik alongside more traditional jazz and Scandinavian folk.

The atmosphere here is sparse and calm, if occasionally unsettling in its vastness. Even moments of musical turmoil are appropriate and magical elements of the sonic ecosystem. The result is so personal and introspective as to feel perhaps a little intrusive, but it serves perfectly to allow our ears to visit the cold scenery of Sørværet and to hear Hole’s soul.

Gwendoline Absalon - Vangasay

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 158, June 2020.

Gwendoline Absalon
Vangasay
Ting Bang (48 mins)

A vangasay is a type of mandarin orange from Madagascar and Vietnam popular in the islands across the Indian Ocean in between. It’s sweet and refreshing – the perfect name for Gwendoline Absalon’s second album.

Absalon is one of the young talents creating the contemporary culture of La Réunion. On Vangasay, she takes the music of her island on a tour around the world, accreting the most soulful styles into her global musical creole. On this journey, she takes the sounds of bossa and samba from Brazil, morna from Cape Verde, piano montuno from Cuba, bèlè from Martinique and Bollywood from India and brings them together with those of La Réunion into a breezy, feel-good pop. Top marks to pianist Hervé Calcal, whose arrangements tie all these influences together seamlessly.

The best thing about Absalon’s music, though, is her voice: clear and fragrant, a little jazzy and full of smile. The album is at its most delightful when her voice is given undivided attention, such as in ‘Binda’ or ‘La Diva de la Morna’, her tribute to Cesaria Evora that starts with a whole two minutes of beautiful solo a capella. Vangasay is a sweet treat, a light and airy listen to clear the cobwebs.

Rabii Harnoune & VB Kühl - Gnawa Electric Laune

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 158, June 2020.

Rabii Harnoune & VB Kühl
Gnawa Electric Laune
Tru Thoughts (67 mins)

This is an album that has me very much in two minds. It’s a fusion between Gnawa music from Morocco remixed for the European club dancefloor. Rabii Harnoune is the Gnawi responsible for the thumping guimbri and soulful wailing, and VB Kühl is the German producer who recontextualises it among all things electronic.

It’s not the most original idea out there – Gnawa x club fusions have been around for a long time and there are better examples of it than this. In accommodating the African groove, the club music seems tamped while the raw and heady energy of the Gnawa ceremony dissipates upon association with the frivolous beats’n’bleeps and cool R&B. And yet, and yet! There’s no denying that this album is really fun. It’s light-hearted and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The DIY nature of the production gives it a natural feel and the fusion flows on unforced.

Gnawa Electric Laune may not blow your mind with originality or sheer power, but as long as you approach with the right frame of mind – up for a good time without too much overthinking – it’s still an album that will be able to move your body to its own beat.

Hailu Mergia - Yene Mircha

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 158, June 2020.

Hailu Mergia
Yene Mircha
Awesome Tapes from Africa (42 mins)

After Awesome Tapes from Africa reissued three of his old tapes to wide acclaim, Ethiopian keys player Hailu Mergia – by then a taxi driver in Washington, DC – made his comeback in 2018 with his first new album for 15 years, Lala Belu. That album was a showcase of classy, intelligent jazz infused with the customary Ethiopian flavour. Yene Mircha does not reach the same heights as its predecessor. It has such a different vibe that it’s actually quite bizarre. While still firmly in the Ethio-jazz mould, this time around it seems to have lost all of the edge that made the last one so exciting.

The first track, ‘Semen Ena Debub’, is smooth, poppy and anodyne, and the rest of the album carries on in much the same vein. A lot of it feels akin to muzak or even, at times, a cheap karaoke backing track. A slight reprieve comes in the form of ‘Bayine Lay Yihedal’, a piece originally written by Asnakech Worku changed up into a swaggering Ethio-dub, but it’s not enough to save the whole set.

To follow an album so good with one like this is astonishing and disappointing. Hopefully it’s just an anomaly and Hailu will be back to his wizarding ways sooner rather than later.

My World: David Rothenberg

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 157, May 2020.



Nightingales, cicadas, whales, lyrebirds: the list of David Rothenberg’s collaboratiors makes it obvious that he thinks and feels music in a different way to most. Across his books, albums and films, Rothenberg has examined the sounds of the natural world and their inherent musicality. Although he tackles these projects with an academic eye (he is the Distinguished Professor of Music and Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology), he does not do so as a stoic, distanced researcher, but as an active and passionate participant. With his clarinet, he creates fascinating inter-species jams that span the realms of jazz, ambient music and electronica, all the while tapping into worlds that are ultimately beyond our understanding.

To understand the sonic beauty of nature, Rothenberg has his own deep relationship to music of human origin. One of his key inspirations as a musician and musical thinker is the output of the iconic jazz and art music label ECM. “What interests me in ECM artists is that everyone is such an individual. Everyone has a unique quality that’s not super-fast or constant, in-your-face showing-off.” For Rothenberg, the profundity of the label’s output is distilled in his first playlist track, Sinikka Langeland’s 2011 piece ‘What is Tomorrow?’. “This to me is like the ultimate ECM track, it has everything and it’s unique,” he says. “Some people say that ECM sounds are kind of blurry, generic, too much reverb – this does not have any of that. It really stands out because it mixes jazz improvisers with folk music. When I lived in Norway after college, I heard her sing and play the kantele, and what was remarkable about that performance was that she cried in the middle of it. She was performing this Finnish folk music that brings you to tears as you play and sing. She has a very special tone of voice, it’s unusual, compelling. In her band, she has these great soloists who don’t solo, it’s this beautiful understated style. You couldn’t find anyone else to play just like that.” As is the ECM speciality, it’s an intense but calm sound full of emotion, and one that is easy to draw comparisons to the transcendental.

Taking that vibe to the next level, another next playlist pick, ‘Prayer and Despair’, was composed by spiritual leader and esotericist GI Gurdjieff. “I learnt about [him] in high school and college, mostly. We were into all this spiritual stuff, we saw Peter Brook’s film Meetings with Remarkable Men, and read Gurdjieff’s autobiography that it was based on. What’s remarkable about him is, who knows what he did? Was he part-explorer, part-charlatan, part-mystic teacher?” As a composer, Gurdjieff’s work was no more ordinary than his teachings. “He wandered around and grabbed bits of the world’s music and put them together. He’d have these ideas and then Thomas de Hartmann wrote them down as Gurdjieff improvised them at the piano. With de Hartmann playing, it’s this beautiful historic sound. This music cuts through towards something really deep. You do not want to play it in the car, you’ll start to space out! There’s something special going on in this music. You can’t quite say what it is, and that’s why I keep coming back to it.”



Just as he undertakes his research with humour and joy, Rothenberg’s playlist isn’t solely populated by the cerebral or ethereal. “I’m not such a serious person, you know!” Which takes us to the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest entry for Israel, Teapacks’ ‘Push the Button’. An unusual pick for an American, perhaps? “This was from the first few years after I met my wife, who’s from Estonia. She’s really excited about the Eurovision Song Contest, which of course I’d never heard of. We were in Estonia when it was on, and this one song really stood out. It didn’t win, but it was by far the best. It doesn’t sound like Eurovision – that’s why it’s good! These guys are rapping in different languages, Arabic, Hebrew, French, and it’s all about nuclear war coming. If you find the video, this guy’s playing a double-necked oud, which I think is pretty funny. It’s just making fun of everything, it’s a very fun song.” Holding space for both the serious and the silly seems like an important quality for Rothenberg, but they don’t necessarily have to be polar opposites. “I guess there is something that holds this in common even with Gurdjieff, in this way of finding what’s most universal about the world’s music and putting it together. Not turning it all into this global pop mush where everyone really wants to sound the same, but something authentic, something that can grab you.”

And when music grabs you, it grabs you – and it can come from some of the most unexpected places, as it did with Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux’s ‘1977’. “I first heard this song on Breaking Bad, probably the only long-running TV show where it’s actually worth watching all the episodes. It’s brilliantly done. It was this scene where they use sped-up time-lapse photography and this weird song comes on. It’s not music I know too much about, but I like the whole mixture of things, cutting and pasting different fragments of all these different styles.” Rothenberg even uses Tijoux’s Spanish-language rap as a teaching aid. “I often teach music classes for undergraduates who don’t specialise in music, and a lot of them want to write papers on how hip-hop has conquered the world and how it brings everyone together, but many of them have no idea that anyone raps in any language but English. It doesn’t even occur to them that it could happen. I’m kind of astonished as to why that is; this dominance of English is not a good thing.”

One thing that English is near-perfect for, though, is telling stories about England. Simon Emmerson’s Imagined Village project updated the meaning of English folk music to represent the country as it exists today, and Billy Bragg’s reworking of the traditional ‘Hard Times of Old England’ sums up that goal for Rothenberg. “That’s just a really great song. It takes a classic old song but turned into what’s going on in modern-day England. What I like about it that is the spirit of it and how it’s put together, and how it gets to an optimistic possibility in the future, like there’s going to be a different England someday. I’m sure that’s a message you definitely need to hear now!”

Although this optimism reflects Rothenberg’s own work and music, for an artist primarily known for his connection with nature, I expected his playlist to feature more tracks of an animalian bent. But, of course, they all are – the unavoidable fact is that we are but animals ourselves. By helping us to remember and embrace this, Rothenberg says that music can help us make a difference: “Every musician should listen to the sounds of nature and all things around us. There’s so much awe and beauty, and the more we value this stuff the more we’ll work to save this natural world that is under siege. I have no illusions that music is going to save the world, but it can do its own little part. Sound is an incredible part of the world around us, and we’re just one of many creatures. That’s why I make music with nightingales.”


Photo: Still from the film Nightingales in Berlin (2019, dir. Ville Tanttu).