Katawa Singers - Ufulu 1991-1997

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 157, May 2020.

Katawa Singers
Ufulu 1991-1997
1000HZ (54 mins)

In urgent need of a bucketful of wholesome joy with none of the risks of eternal damnation? Katawa Singers have you covered.

The group, from Mzuzu in Malawi, changed the face of gospel in their country. Their tight harmonies are based in the tradition of the East African church choir, but they stand out for two reasons: their use of sounds from the region’s three main cultural groups (the Tonga, the Ngoni and the Tumbuka); and the all-pervading Yamaha keyboards which provide cheap-and-cheerful synth backdrops to it all.

Although the songs speak of piety, prayer, self-control and asceticism, the musical settings exude an unbridled happiness with a minimal amount of schmaltz. Even their take on ‘Kum-ba-yah’ raises the song from its usual dread-inducing campfire dirge into an earnestly cheerful and hallelujah-filled grin-along.

This compilation spans Katawa Singers’ first seven albums and from the sounds of it, the tracks have been taken from copies of copies of cassette tapes. The sound quality is therefore rather poor, even cutting out abruptly on the last track, and the distortion and fuzziness across all the tracks toe the line between endearing and frustrating. If you can get over that though, there’s a lot to love in this music, be that God or otherwise.

Large Unit Fendika - Ethiobraz

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 157, May 2020.

Large Unit Fendika
Ethiobraz
PNL Records (65 mins)

The traditional Ethiopian musicians of Addis Ababa’s Fendika azmaribet have joined forces with Paal Nilssen-Love’s pan-Scandinavian group Large Unit and members of Dutch punks The Ex to create one almighty 22-piece avant garde Ethio-trad-punk, free jazz, big band noisefest. Now there’s a collection of adjectives that will either get you salivating or reaching for the ear-plugs.

I was all up for it – which is why I was a bit stumped at the quiet opening. It’s not until the middle of the third track that it really kicks up a gear, and even then, it feels as though there is something lacking. Musically, the group works really well. The Zappa-like jazz rock freak-outs and Ethiopian vibes complement each other as well as contrasting, and the best moments come when chaos threatens – but never quite manages – to take over completely. All the elements are there to make it an exciting musical explosion, but the end result falls a bit flat. Even though the album is a live recording from 2018, it lacks that passionate live energy – an important factor when the noise becomes challenging.

Ethiobraz is a successful proof-of-concept and the group tour Europe in June (COVID-19 depending) – maybe two years of percolating will have imbued Large Unit Fendika with that extra added spark.

Kerekes Band - Müpa Palace of Arts, Budapest, Hungary

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 156, April 2020.



Kerekes Band
Müpa Palace of Arts, Budapest, Hungary
12th January 2020

On a freezing January evening in Budapest, Kerekes Band certainly knew how raise the temperature. They should do, too – they’ve been going for 25 years. This was the first in a whole year of celebrations from Hungary’s premier ‘ethno-funk’ group, and it had been months in the planning. Across two hours, they presented music spanning every step of their career, from their beginnings as a traditional táncház band to the high-octane disco-roots that makes them stand out above the rest.

It started slow and acoustic, one instrument at a time, first with just end-blown shepherd’s flute, joined by viola and kobza lute and eventually bass guitar and drums to round off the quintet. From there, it just ramped up and up. Traditional melodies transformed into wild psychedelic headbangers, and covers from ‘Voodoo Child’ to ‘Jungle Boogie’ become folkified alongside pieces from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Norway.

A particularly inspired addition to this anniversary concert were special guests PásztorHóra, doubling the size of the ensemble on stage. The young, all-acoustic folk group linked past and present, sometimes literally; the most exciting moments of the concert came when PásztorHóra’s jaunty, cimbalom-led pieces flowed seamlessly into Kerekes’ biggest hits.

The eternal problem with concert halls is that they’re seemingly designed to discourage dancing. It was the same tonight, with Kerekes Band playing music that practically screams for bodily movement in front of a happy but resolutely seated audience. Until the encore. For those last 20 minutes, the floodgates truly opened and I don’t reckon there was an occupied seat in the house. After 25 years, no audience can resist Kerekes Band’s deep grooves – they provided a heat that lasted long into the cold, foggy night ahead.


Photo: Kerekes Band with PásztorHóra live at Müpa Palace of Arts, Budapest, 2020, by Kotschy Gábor.

Obituary: Bruno Nettl (1930-2020)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 156, April 2020.

Teacher, mentor, writer and pre-eminent ethnomusicologist

From fleeing the holocaust from Czechoslovakia to the US as a child, to being a founding member of the Society of Ethnomusicology, to being one of that field’s most well-respected figures, Bruno Nettl’s life and work is nothing short of remarkable.

In terms of musical study, Nettl wrote on subjects as diverse as the indigenous traditions of North America and the classical music of Iran, but he is perhaps best known for his studies of the field of ethnomusicology itself. No budding ethnomusicologist can avoid his book The Study of Ethnomusicology, a work he first published in 1983 and updated continuously throughout his life, which lays out the essential thought processes and discussions that scholars should undertake before, during and after their research.

Writing at length about the intricacies and philosophies behind study itself is one of those things that can quickly get very dense and very dry, but Nettl’s particular talent was presenting his thoughts in an in-depth and authoritative way while remaining easily accessible and even down-right entertaining. I don’t think I’ve read another ethnomusicologist who is as comfortable making puns and dad-level jokes as Nettl.

Across any field, and certainly within ethnomusicology, it would be hard to come across a person whose work has consistently defined and redefined the meanings of the discipline throughout such a long career as Bruno Nettl. He will be missed, but his work and words will echo on. A memorial concert will be held for Nettl on May 10 at the University of Illinois in Urbana.


Photo: Bruno Nettl, by L. Brian Stauffer.

Super Parquet - Super Parquet

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 156, April 2020.

Super Parquet
Super Parquet
Route 164/Pagans (46 mins)

Super Parquet were first profiled in Songlines two years ago (in #134); now they’re finally here with a debut album to follow their 2015 EP. They’re part of the new school of French folk that are taking things into exciting – and sometimes strange, barely-recognisable – places. Their roots are in the old music of Auvergne but, in Super Parquet’s hands, it becomes an entirely different monster. The acoustic instruments are there – cabrette (bagpipe), banjo, the boîte à bourdon (a self-invented drone-only hurdy-gurdy) – and there are samples from folk song recordings, but all of it is refracted within dark, dirty electronica.

EDM and trip-hop are taken to surreal edges with never-ending loops, unrelenting dissonances and inexorable drones, all with a whole load of acidic noise. Each part shifts and evolves gradually, creating Steve Reich phasing that plays tricks on the mind’s ear. Everyone seems to play in their own time signature, weaving together sonic tapestry while the irresistible drone carries on and on. All the while, no track drifts so far off-piste as to negate the folk at its very core.

It’s overwhelming. It’s claustrophobic. It does weird things to your brain and I love it. This long-awaited debut is not an easy listen, but it’s an incredible experience.

Various Artists - Léve Léve: São Tomé & Príncipe Sounds 70s-80s

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 156, April 2020.

Various Artists
Léve Léve: São Tomé & Príncipe Sounds 70s-80s
Bongo Joe (78 mins)

São Tomé and Príncipe isn’t exactly known as a musical powerhouse nation – Songlines has only reviewed one other São Toméan album in the past 20 years – which makes this particular rare groove compilation such an unexpected delight.

The country (the second smallest in Africa) is made up of a series of islands in the Gulf of Guinea. It’s perfectly placed to absorb all the sounds from both West and Central Africa, and the music on this album shows a lovely combination of Cuban-influenced Congolese guitar music and Ghanaian highlife with its own unique twist arising from its past as a Portuguese colony.

When I listened to this album, I was in the middle of a deep midwinter gloom, but by the end of the first track – ‘Mino Bô Bé Quacueda’ by Africa Negra – I was already walking with a bounce in my step. It’s brilliant music for feeling cheery, all sunshine guitars and major third vocal harmonies with just occasional dips into cheesiness.

Featuring nine artists across 16 tracks, Léve Léve presents the glorious and little-known sound of the equatorial Atlantic islands. The front cover is also intriguingly marked ‘Vol. 1,’ so here’s hoping we get to hear more São Toméan music very soon…

Mazaher - Mazaher

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 156, April 2020.

Mazaher
Mazaher
Abaju! (72 mins)

Zar is a ceremony found in various forms across north-east Africa and beyond that involves communicating and pacifying spirits for mental and physical healing and purification – accompanied, naturally, by music.

Mazaher present the music of zar as it exists in Egypt: a female-dominated rite with hypnotic vocals joined by percussion and drums and underpinned by the low-pitched tamboura lyre, which sounds very reminiscent of the Gnawa guimbri from Morocco. In fact, there are many similarities between the rituals and music of the zar and Gnawa – it can be heard most evidently on the track ‘Amna’.

This album aims to capture the feeling of the ceremony as closely as possible, but nothing can truly replicate it without the sights and smells and 3D loudness, not to mention the changes your body and mind go through across the six or seven hours of the full ritual. Mazaher is an interesting and well-presented introduction to the Egyptian zar from some of its few remaining practitioners. It remains several steps too removed from the real thing to convey the real impact of the ritual, but the music within remains an enjoyable – if perhaps not transcendental – listening experience.