Bored Drummers - Songlines Soapbox

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 188, June 2023.



Drummers: we love ‘em. They are – quite literally – the heartbeat of much of the world's music, whether they’re holding down an ensemble in a groove or whipping up the audience with a frenzied battery. There are few more intoxicating experiences than those led by polyrhythms blasted from drum-skins, and for that, drummers, we humbly thank you. But over the past decade or so, I’ve slowly become aware of an on-going epidemic that is sweeping the rhythmic community with frightening effect… I'm talking of course about the plight of Bored Drummers in Quiet Sections of Concerts. It really is a worrying trend. The most easily infected are kit drummers who play in bands, but players of single drums and percussion sets are definitely not immune.

You may have noticed some of the symptoms yourself. They manifest whenever the tempo slows and the ensemble quietens to a hush; maybe it’s during a subdued solo, an introductory a cappella section, or perhaps a stripped back mid-piece breakdown that renders a drummer's usual soundcraft unsuitable. Without a strong pulse to solidify, the drummer starts to get bored and, in an effort to keep their attention on the job at hand, they start to make vague, indistinct noises with their kit or whatever they have close to hand. The first indications of the Bored Drummer are fairly basic and innocuous: rumbling on the tom-toms, using soft beaters to create a wash of cymbals (the more bored the drummer, the more cymbals are involved; bonus points if they’ve managed to sneak a gong onto the stage), or tinkling on a strategically placed set of chimes.

But from those initial inklings of the condition, the possibilities are endless. It can take many eclectic and eccentric forms. Anything that can make an interesting yet still essentially non-descript sound is fair game: cowrie shells are rattled, spring-based contraptions are used to imitate thunder, cymbals are sounded with violin bows, all manner of rainsticks, maracas and home-made bell trees are shaken… I’ve even encountered musicians picking up and dropping heavy chains just to have something to do. The really out-there go so far as to entertain themselves with unpitched wind instruments such as conches, bullroarers and whirly-tubes. Maybe you haven’t noticed this habit yet, but you will now I’ve mentioned it. And you’ll notice it every single time it happens.

Where does this strange phenomenon come from? I guess it’s rooted in the big Late Romantic orchestras with their huge percussion sections – the composers needed to entertain their musicians through multi-hour works, and so littered them with frequent timpani rolls and cymbal crashes. But I think this current strain dates back to small-band jazz. In the early days, jazz drummers could get away with shuffling on a snare with brushes in the quiet bits, but eventually the long ballads and unmetered solo sections of more progressive styles rendered the drummers’ keen technical abilities temporarily surplus to requirements. From there, the boredom only increased, and the phenomenon of random percussive twiddling started to spread.

“It adds atmosphere!” the drummers will no doubt be quick to plead, from all the way back there on their little platforms. And sometimes it does, if their contributions are subtle enough, employed sparingly and judiciously by thoughtful and skilled musicians. But that’s not usually the case, is it? More often than not, it offers little more than vague, contextless white noise that – if anything – gets in the way of whatever atmosphere is being created, especially if the audience’s attention is diverted from that atmosphere towards the ostentatious percussion the drummer is now brandishing.

I’m sure you’ll agree, the problem of Bored Drummers is clearly a worrying trend. So how can we fix it? Well, some solutions have already begun making their way onto the stage. Lately, some drummers have been given a little keyboard or Kaoss pad, with the task of adding a drone, ostinato or other synthesised atmosphere to these quieter moments. It won’t work in every scenario, but it’s much more welcome than the current state – although it does come with the added danger of allowing a drummer the dangerous capability of full scales. Can you imagine the carnage? God forbid.

Maybe the solution could be to offset the quieter moments with more loud ones. Let’s hear more drum solos! We don’t seem to get as much of these nowadays, and a tasty solo is always fun. If we have more of them, maybe we’ll tire the drummers out so that they won’t need to use their bottled-up Animal-esque energy during the quiet bits. Or maybe we can all chip in and give them all a small handheld games console that they can whip out during more subdued moments to entertain themselves (ideally with headphones attached)? I don’t know.

To any drummers reading – we care about you, we need you and we appreciate your contributions to music all over the world for the past 7,500 years. We want you to be safe, and we don’t want you to be bored. Keep doing what you do best: creating thick topiaries of thumping bombast and crashing cymbal, or else an intricate filigree of complex polyrhythm. And when things slow down and take an introspective turn, put down that extravagant home-made noisemaker or whatever other doohickey you’re reaching for. Let the music breathe and the atmospheric mists rise unmolested by crinkles, rattles or chimes. Don’t get struck down by the Bored Drummers in Quiet Sections of Concerts illness – we’re all here to support you and protect you and keep you doing the Music Gods’ work. Now, we’ll see you next time you’re on stage, and we look forward to hearing your art. Stay well, stay healthy. And maybe you can keep a shaky egg, for very special occasions only.


Photo: Drum kit, by Ewan Topping. Used under licence CC BY 2.0.

Ahl Nana - L'Orchestre National Mauritanien

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 188, June 2023.

Ahl Nana
L'Orchestre National Mauritanien
Radio Martiko (68 mins)

A never-before-released record of a once-famous, almost-forgotten group who were the progenitors of their very own style: this album is a crate-digger’s dream. It’s also a record that might even rewrite music history – label Radio Martiko announces that it ‘mark[s] the birth of the genre that is known in the West as Desert Blues.’

Ahl Nana were some of the first stars of modern music in Mauritania in the 1960s and 70s – a family band from the country’s Arab-Berber population, their music combined traditional Berber styles with modern sensibilities and cosmopolitan influences from across the trans-Saharan trade route. To add to the novelty, they substituted traditional instruments for Western ones: the one-string rababa fiddle became a violin, and the tidinit lute sat alongside electric guitar, with a conga-type drum and tambourine standing in for the tbal (kettle drum) and daghumma (rattle). The songs composed by the group’s violinist, leader and matriarch Debya mint Soueid Bouh became known across the Sahara.

Despite the group’s success, their performances remained the domain of concerts and radio sessions, rather than commercial records. A royal invitation to Morocco finally persuaded the group into the studio in Casablanca in 1971; they had fun, but that was the last they heard of the recordings. Records were pressed but never sold, and the Nana family never even saw a copy until Radio Martiko found some in a Moroccan backroom and arranged this reissue – it’s lucky for us that these recordings are finally reaching ears.

It might be cliché, but this music really does echo the Saharan environment: the guitar is distorted as if its amp is covered in grit, and the heterophonic melodies of the voices, violin and guitar jangle like howling winds. The performances sound informal, as if occurring in a family living room, which gives everything an enjoyable looseness and allows the songs to be expanded up to the ten-minute mark. And yes, sometimes it does sound really bluesy – some of the tracks could definitely host a harmonica solo without anything sounding out of place – but there are surprises, too: the album’s opener is a version of the Bollywood classic ‘Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche’, sung in the original Hindi with a distinctive Saharan edge to its rhythms. The broad international influences, the combination of traditional and contemporary, the radiant cool of it all and the high-quality recording all add up to an album that sounds much more modern than its 1971 creation.

So what about the claim that this is the birth of the ‘desert blues’? Well, that awkward term is always an imposition from a Western perspective – it’s a label that encompasses many different styles from many different cultures, only linked by a passing similarity to the American-born blues. Asking whether something is or is not desert blues is usually the wrong question. Nevertheless, Ahl Nana’s music does seem to have deep resonations throughout Saharan culture. In a fascinating interview included in the album’s sleeve notes, singer Mouna mint Nana mentions that her family’s success influenced other groups to make music that was not only modern and international, but indelibly Mauritanian as well, an aesthetic that spread out across the Sahara. Important and hugely popular musicians such as Tinariwen and Youssou N’Dour took Ahl Nana’s songs into their repertoire, and their own impact has reached around the world.

In the end, issues of rarity and questions of historical impact are all secondary to the music itself. And this music is lovely, made at a crossroads between cultures and between tradition and modernity, and throwing up a unique and sometimes surprising sound that is deeply Saharan. This reissue is an honour to the legacy of Debya mint Soueid Bouh and her family.

Entoto Band - Entoto Band

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 188, June 2023.

Entoto Band
Entoto Band
Guitar Globetrotter Recordings (37 mins)

Entoto Band are a Netherlands-based group directed by guitarist Joep Pelt and fronted by Ethiopian singer Helen Mengistu and Eritrean saxophonist and singer Amanyal ‘Million’ Tewelde. Like so many modern Ethio-jazz groups, they are clearly heavily inspired by the classic, timeless Swinging Addis-era sounds, the distinctive pentatonic melody lines and gently loping rhythms. But Entoto Band make those styles their own with thick layers of heavy, dirty funk (powered by Hammond organ and a meaty synth bass) and more subtle references to Cuban music, soul, dub, Afrobeat and even house music, as well as modern Habesha pop.

The use of instrumentation is particularly impressive here. The six-piece group make deft use of multitracking (multiple synth parts at once; Amanyal’s saxophone and synth-aerophone lines becoming a whole horn section) without taking away from any individual’s effort – everyone gets a chance to shine. The rhythm section of synths-drums-percussion is always tight, and always grooves hard, with enough space for the fireworks of whoever is stepping to the plate next.

Entoto Band’s debut record really serves to underline just how epochal original Ethio-jazz scene was, and just how flexible that style can be, that it can still sound so fresh and exciting in so many different contexts while remaining immediately recognisable.

Dur-Dur Band International - The Berlin Session

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 188, June 2023.

Dur-Dur Band International
The Berlin Session
Outhere Records (37 mins)

In the 1980s, Dur-Dur Band were one of Somalia’s biggest groups, in high demand and performing their uniquely Somali disco in nightclubs and hotels all over the country. But the 90s brought civil war and an oppressive regime, and Dur-Dur’s members scattered across the globe.

Reissues of the band’s classic albums have gained acclaim, but The Berlin Sessions marks their first original release since their split. Sort of. Dur-Dur Band International aren’t the Dur-Dur Band but a Dur-Dur Band, one of multiple rival formations continuing the group’s legacy. This is the UK-based faction, headed by bassist (and the only original member) Cabdillahi Cujeeri. But really, that’s all politics. What do they sound like? Well, not great.

The group’s signature groove is still there – a mix of disco, funk, reggae, soul and Somali styles such as dhaanto and heelo – but the performances feel too loose, missing the crispness of a band playing as one. The spacious and reverb-laden production doesn’t help here, instead making the separate sounds blurry and hard to distinguish. And up at the front, none of the group’s three singers really give a stand-out performance either.

It’s great that live Somali music is back in the studio and on the stage, but this isn’t the triumphant return that Dur-Dur Band deserves.