Maghreb Bass: Sofyann ben Youssef

First published in fRoots issue 425, Summer 2019



“We allow ourselves to create this dream space where we fantasise about the future. That is because our respective countries are witnessing very strong changes, politically, economically, geo-politically. In those places we feel a sense of responsibility to be proactive toward a future. The present we don’t like at all and we have to fucking change it.”

In talking about the process behind his solo-with-collaborators project AMMAR 808, Sofyann ben Youssef gives a succinct manifesto for a Maghrebi futurist movement, and the philosophy that permeates his music regardless of its musical direction. Whether he’s behind the synth, behind the mixing desk or behind the scenes, there is no doubt that Sofyann is changing the future of Tunisian music.

Tunis-born and Brussels-based, Sofyann has been crucial to three of the most banging projects to explode out of North Africa in the past five years: Nigerien Tuareg rockers Kel Assouf, Tunisian mountain musicians Bargou 08 and the aforementioned AMMAR 808. His masterful synth wrangling, drum programming and holistic production wizardry have instilled these projects with a heart-pounding energy and a deliciously dark undercurrent while taking nothing at all away from the traditions at play. When Sofyann is involved, multiple musical worlds come together with mutual enrichment.

In his time, Sofyann has studied everything from Western, Arabic and Hindustani classical music to jazz, metal and all manner of electronica. It’s all beloved to him and it’s all there in his work, and it’s as AMMAR 808 that he allows his musical philosophies and practices to be most easily heard – and seen. The first album under that name, 2018’s Maghreb United, saw him joined by musicians from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, all bringing their own influences to play among Sofyann’s ever-sympathetic production to create a style that he calls ‘Maghreb bass.’

His way of working is at once that of a mechanic and that of an artist. He spends a long time learning about every musical element involved, and breaks them down into their most basic constituent parts before building them up into a different form. Where so many ‘world fusion’ projects collide different cultures together to mixed success, Sofyann brings them together from the same foundations into one, new culture. And once that material is prepared, he becomes the sculptor. “Once the song is recorded, the most exciting part kicks in, which is placing new elements on the rhythm, and that’s going to change everything. It’s a superfast process. Sometimes it takes ten minutes to make a song, sometimes I do it while listening to it and that’s it. And that’s super intense. You get all sweaty and you’re scared to lose that momentum. That’s the most intense part, and the rest is just fine tuning.”

The end result is a hypnotic soundscape that stretches from the dusty ground to outer space. Science fiction is an important cultural touchstone for Sofyann, so it’s not too surprising that his outlook – musically and politically – tends towards the intergalactic and the cinematic. His solo project AMMAR 808 is as much for the eyes as it is the ears.

“I wanna present things that are useful to the world, and beautiful, and also that could have impact and inspire people to a different way of thinking,” he explains. “I think today we live in a very visual world, and the bandwidth of an image is much higher than a sound. You see a lot of information in an image that sound sometimes cannot cover. It’s complementary; that is why AMMAR 808 as a project is very visual. We shot original material for the show. I did a residency of one week or so with visual artists, a fashion designer, actors, dancers, to create the filmic material of the project. I wanted to do some sort of holistic experience with this project and find the best way to express it and articulate it on the stage.” The outcome, as engineered by VJs during the AMMAR 808 live shows, is an ever-changing collage of film and images equally inspired by the traditional and the abstract, full of masked dancers, ecstatic swirls and distorted colour. The whole thing feels actually rather disorientating and unnerving. The atmosphere created by the visuals generates the perfect mindset to allow the audience to fall into the music head first.

The all-encompassing fusion of musical styles, emotions and worldwide traditions is making waves back in North Africa, as well as in the European/North American ‘world music’ scene. With his musical projects, Sofyann is challenging and changing the way that Maghrebis discuss and imagine music: “I get super positive reactions there, but to process the information, people always feel obliged to make some sort of comparison to western bands. ‘Yo, this is like the Chemical Brothers of Tunisia!’ things like that. It’s kind of interesting really. There is a missing vocabulary to grasp the project.” In this way, his work is changing not just Maghrebi music itself, but also fertilising the ground upon which it grows, opening up new possibilities and directions for potential exploration while still empowering the roots and traditions from which the rest are built. That development is also taking place thanks to Sofyann’s activities in Tunisia’s home-grown music industry.

Mass upheaval has affected every level of Maghrebi society over the past decade, and the musical ecosystem reflects this, but Sofyann sees this as an opportunity for optimism: “To be honest the music scene in Tunisia is not too structured and not too organised, but that makes a lot of things possible to happen. In Europe, for instance, things are super-organised on that level, but we have the chance to rethink the whole system. So I hope that at least in the Maghreb and the region that I know that changes like that can happen.” Naturally, he’s leading the charge.

In 2013, he co-founded the first Tunisian music export office, Tumex. That came a little early; the scene wasn’t quite ready to export to an international audience, and political instability meant that funding streams eventually dried up. Tumex closed after three years, but it started to lay the groundwork and began to get Tunisia’s local scene noticed on the international market. It’s only been a few years, but a lot has changed since then, and Sofyann is once again making moves to evolve the landscape. This year, he launches Goul Music, a record label “based in Tunisia, from Tunisia, and with Tunisian dinar.” With Goul Music, the aim is to showcase the music of now, introducing the lesser-known sounds of Tunisia to the rest of the country itself, as well as the rest of the world. The label launches with a series of field recordings of contemporary folkloric music, and will move onward to younger traditions, with the view to change opinions of Tunisian music: “the catalogue will be more about stimulating young people into new ways of seeing music and themselves.” And here again we see Sofyann’s holistic approach: great music on its own can touch a person, but its impact is all the more powerful when contextualised in an effective way – as such, the Goul releases will be comprehensive and multimedia, featuring interviews and documentary footage to allow a depth of understanding that has so far been lacking in relationship to this music.

I hope that it is not too obvious to say that he is a busy man. Busy is never in his plans, but it seems to creep up on him nevertheless. “The thing that can fail sometimes is time. I don’t want to do much, but I want to do good. But I always end up doing much as well!” And looking at his schedule for the coming few years, he is definitely doing much. As well as the forthcoming releases on Goul Music, the latest album by Kel Assouf, Black Tenere, came out just last month, and the second AMMAR 808 album is very much in the works – he hints at a South Asian focus this time around. And that’s not to mention the five or so other albums that he will be producing or guesting on over the course of 2019. It seems his work is only just beginning.

With everything that he does, it is clear that Sofyann ben Youssef is working towards the future of Maghrebi music and, with that, society at large. “We have all sorts of events happening in Tunisia, on a political level, on an economic level, it’s not easy. But it’s hopeful. And I think that has an impact on music. It has a positive impact in a way that people are trying to reinvent themselves. It’s always like that after big changes, you see different possibilities.”


Photo: AMMAR 808, by Sia Rosenberg; Sofyann ben Youssef, by Stine Sampers.

C.W. Stoneking: Musings from the Deep South to Kanye West

First published in fRoots issue 423, Winter 2018



C.W. Stoneking is an artist for whom ‘unexpected’ is probably the default setting. How else to describe such a fine purveyor of American roots music who also happens to be a towering, youthful-faced white Australian man? He surprises first-time listeners, throws curveballs at long-time fans, and everything he does contains at least some background level of bafflement for all involved.

There are multitudes in Stoneking’s music. It’s probably easiest to describe him as a ‘blues artist,’ but the term disguises what makes his music special. There’s so much in there. A 1920s pre-war blues sound is key, but there’s almost equal helpings of New Orleans jazz, jug band music, hokum, country and calypso, and he’s lately brought in elements of jump jive, early rock’n’roll and gospel. His gift is that he brings them all together without anything sounding out of place. He finds the strands that connect all of these different styles and gently braids them together. It’s what he values more than anything: “It’s getting everything to unify really. The music, the flow of it, keeping it moving, with no dead spots. Then I guess having the lyrics and the meaning that flows in that too, you know? Getting it all to knit together in a way that, if you didn’t speak English maybe, you’d still be able to feel the melody, or the sounds of the words. If you did, then the meaning would also flow. That’s sort of what I’m trying to do, I guess.” When so many on the blues scene are trying to sound ‘authentic’ – whatever that is – it’s that unity of sound that allows Stoneking to actually achieve it, and with apparent ease, too. Back in the day, no-one was ‘just’ a blues musician, or a jazz or country musician, and so neither is he.

Stoneking’s work can never really be second-guessed; you never know what you’re going to get. After charming his audiences with acoustic parlour guitars, National resonators, tenor banjos and a band laden with brass on his first two albums, he dropped all of that to go electric with his latest, 2014’s Gon’ Boogaloo, which was all about his Fender Jazzmaster and doo-wop backing vocals. While acoustic is still in his plans (his most recent tour was a solo affair: just him and a gorgeous 1937 Epiphone Deluxe), it seems like he’s ditched the banjo for good; he’s been known to go on the occasional but vicious anti-banjo tirade. When I try to ask him about it, he suffices with “I have to be careful with what I say. People get angry about that sort of stuff.” Maybe he’s been advised by his lawyers. Maybe it’s just part of his own epic, enigmatic legend.

Storytelling is one of his most potent powers. That man knows how to spin a yarn. He started his musical life in high school, but asked if he was a blues artist back then, he says: “I wouldn’t have said I was an artist of anything, except for maybe a bullshit artist!” It would seem that never really changed. He has the air of an old vaudeville master, a carnival caller or maybe a market huckster. By 2008, the UK was in the middle of a mini blues boom sparked by the successes of Seasick Steve, and a good story was all-important. Each artist had to have their own romantic blues myth for cachet, and Stoneking had the tallest tales in his backstory, rejecting the down-home believability of the aforementioned Steve for way-out parody. His thing was that he had worked for a time as an assistant to a witch doctor in New Orleans, before getting drunk and finding himself on a ship bound for the Congo, only to get shipwrecked and land on a beach in Gabon…it was a saga that got more madcap and rambling with each retelling. I’m sure I recall hearing some sort of narrative detour to a dildo farm at one point. These are stories to be taken with a bucket of salt.

Naturally, his songs are similarly irreverent and fantastical. His albums are full of tales of talking animals, hoodoo gone wrong and a myriad of characters in unfortunate situations in locations from jail to the jungle to heaven itself. It’s probably easy to tell that a common thread in Stoneking’s music is his humour. If we’re talking about the authenticity thing, it’s one thing that makes him stand out from the crowd. It’s surprising how often musicians today forget how funny a lot of the old-time music really was, blues or otherwise. Almost all of his work is drenched in that humour, whether it be sly innuendo, ridiculous sitcom or his particular knack for extended conversations between fictional friends – the man holds a whole pantheon of personalities under his stylish fedora and slicked-back hair. Simply put, he’s just not so bloody earnest all the time, which is a breath of fresh air to be honest. It also makes the times when he is earnest particularly touching – an example is his straight-ahead ‘Charlie Bostock’s Blues,’ a heartbreaking ode to one of Stoneking’s former bandmates and his tragic end.

How does Stoneking make that world so relevant to his own life? How does Australia impact on his sound? It’s not something he’s really pondered too heavily, but his answer is a musing that takes him off on a ramble about the nature of aesthetics. “When I first was driving around in the south of America, it was the first time I realised the Australian lens that I was maybe hearing stuff through. You know when you’re daydreaming, you hear music and you sort of feel like there’s a landscape emanating from the person’s voice or the sound of the music? Hearing Charlie Patton or Son House sing back in the old days, I realised that the landscape of that internal world wasn’t really the world that those dudes were actually in. It wasn’t cut-down jungle and floodplains and green, which is what it made me think of. It was more like where I grew up: desert, an Australian sort of arid. Which I’d never thought about, and I was like ‘huh, it might be different.’” Maybe his music doesn’t sound Australian, but those experiences as an Australian in Deep South America have informed the sound: that never-quite-real landscape he heard in the voices of blues masters certainly does emanate from his own.

And his voice is probably the most recognisable thing about Stoneking. It certainly helps with that authenticity too. It’s a voice that has been mistaken many times for an aged African-American porch-dweller of the 1920s, perhaps with some shortage of teeth. Except he’s not putting it on. Not really. The accent isn’t quite his own (although he owes that proficiency to his American parentage), but when he speaks, it is in that same soft, slow drawl that caresses his music. With another musician, it could all come across as somewhat tacky and distasteful, but not with Stoneking. He is so deeply immersed in the world that his music conjures that it’s hard to imagine him any other way, somewhat like a Lord Buckley of the blues.

That unique voice of his also has a habit of cropping up in strange places. Really, who else would be better to provide the voice of a gentlemanly vegetable fellow, as Stoneking did alongside Elijah Wood in the charming cartoon short, Tome of the Unknown, in 2013? He could most recently be heard on notorious blueshead Jack White’s album Boarding House Reach earlier this year. Such things are unexpected even for Stoneking himself: his blues skills were not needed here; his contribution is a somewhat opaque spoken-word poem, written by White. “It was all kind of mysterious. I had to wear black and be at this plain-looking building on a certain floor at a certain time. They’d taken all the light bulbs out and put all black lights in. He had this sheet of paper with these words written on it, and I just read it. I didn’t really understand the content of it, it’s just…me talking something I don’t fully understand, or even partially understand. But he was into it, so that was his thing. He sent me the record just before it came out and I was like ‘Oh my god…’ Millions of people are going to hear this and it’s going to be a track that everyone goes ‘what the hell is this? Hit the skip button!’ Who cares, though?”

After such an odd experience, would he ever want to collaborate with other artists in his own work? His answer is immediate, and unsurprisingly surprising: “Kanye West. Yeah, I’d like to make a record with him. He’s about the only one.” That was an answer that hung in the air a bit. Does he care to elaborate on that? “I just like how he puts stuff together, his rhythmic piecing of sounds. I would like my flavour but using his ideas a bit, you know?” He definitely sounds sincere, but there is that bucket of salt from earlier…

Who really knows what is next in store for C.W. Stoneking? He does, maybe, although I wouldn’t bank on it. There was a six-year gap between his second and third albums. It’s already been four years since then, and he says the ideas for the next one are just about starting to emerge from the ether. Band or solo? Electric or acoustic? Old-time blues or some other star in that constellation…or Stoneking x Kanye? No idea. All that can really be certain is that it won’t be what you’re expecting.

Root Salad: The Como Mamas

First published in fRoots issue 422, Autumn 2018



Como, Mississippi is a small place. It’s a rural town that sits on the edge of the Mississippi Delta, home to just over 1,000 people. Its size may be diminutive, but Como is world-renowned for its history of blues; it’s the hometown of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Otha Turner, among others. In today’s Mississippi, though, the town is known for one thing: gospel. The Como Mamas are telling the world all about it.

The Como Mamas are three wonderful gospel singers: Ester Mae Wilbourn, Della Daniels and Angelia Taylor. They’re a family group – Della and Angelia are sisters, Ester Mae is a cousin – and they’ve been singing together for fun and faith since childhood. Their start as a performing group, however, came rather by chance about ten years ago, when Della was looking for a record label to listen to her nephew’s hip-hop group. There was no interest in the hip-hop, but when Daptone Records learnt of Como’s gospel tradition, they headed down from New York and were blown away at what they heard – especially that trio from the Mount Moriah Church.

Those voices! They each have their own special sound. Della’s voice is sweet and girlish; Angelia’s is low, rich and occasionally roaring; Ester’s is somewhere in the middle. Each voice complements the others perfectly, and as they all weave together – sometimes melody, sometimes harmony, sometimes dancing over and between the two – they create something that is truly soul-nourishing.

As well as releasing two records – 2013’s Get An Understanding and 2017’s Move Upstairs – Daptone also gave the Como Mamas their name. Della says it took a while to adjust to: “At first we didn’t like it, we was like ‘that sound like they kinda making fun of us.’ But when the people of Como heard that our group was named after their town – and it’s such a small town – they started getting so excited, they kept asking us will we go here, will we go there, and it seemed like the more they was able to get us to participate, the more they became interested in us, you know?” Music is in the Mamas’ blood as much as it is in the blood of Como. Angelia recalls tales of her elders, “I listened to them tell the stories of when they were younger, they went to town and they went to church all the time and sang gospel, and that was just the big highlight of their week. That’s all what Como was big on back in the day, because they had nothing else to do! No other recreation but gospel or blues, that’s all they had for fun and enjoyment!”

While so many gospel stars make music closer to neo-soul or even pop, the Mamas stick to that older style. Theirs is the sound of old spirituals simmered in the birthplace of the blues, and there is no question that this is music of the soul. They’re the real deal. When the Mamas sing and dance and preach, they radiate power. Their sounds are hypnotic. In their live shows, their call-and-response sections can last five minutes or longer, endlessly repeating and subtly varying short phrases that swirl around the room. There are connections there with esoteric musical traditions from around the world: strangely, it doesn’t feel a million miles away from a Moroccan Gnawa ritual.

Gospel is just relentlessly joyous. It’s almost impossible to hear the Como Mamas sing without having a big stupid grin on your face by the end of the song. It’s telling that Angelia’s advice for the world is “don’t let nobody steal your joy.” She lives that message too – in May, she was shot through the chest in a drive-by shooting, but it was only two months later that her shining smile was lighting up all it touched as she shouted the good word at the group’s very first UK gig.

As their name implies, the Mamas have plenty of life experience to pour into their music. They picked cotton in the fields together as children, when Mississippi was still full of ‘whites only’ signs; now they’re matriarchs, with their own broods expanding to include great-grandchildren. They’ve seen it all. But for them, they couldn’t have chosen a better time to gain international recognition. “Because I am a Christian and because my life is in the Lord’s hands, I know that he knows when the best time was for me to do what we do,” says Della, “Because if I was younger, I would have a job and I wouldn’t be able to travel, there probably wouldn’t be no Como Mamas. The time is better for me now, because if I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to do that, I can just go on tour!”

It would be doing them a disservice not to mention the Mamas’ deepest passion – God’s word. They’re gospel singers after all. It’s the subject of every song, and every conversation with them is liberally sprinkled with Bible quotes and teachings. Spreading the word is their life’s work and deepest pleasure, and when they’re on stage, that energy is so palpable, whatever your faith. The Como Mamas may not make music at the cutting edge, but they uphold a real roots tradition that survives and thrives in the churches of Como, Mississippi. And they do it gloriously.


Photo: The Como Mamas, by Aaron Greenhood. Left-to-right: Ester Mae Wilbourn, Della Daniels, Angelia Taylor.

Africa Oyé 2017 - Sefton Park, Liverpool

First published in fRoots issue 412, October 2017



Africa Oyé
Sefton Park, Liverpool
17th & 18th June 2017

Africa Oyé has the rather clunky tagline of ‘the biggest live free African music festival in the UK’. All true, but it is also one of the best UK festivals full stop – a joyous celebration of music and culture and a true community event. Every year, an audience of families, friends and music fans of all ages and backgrounds head to Liverpool's beautiful Sefton Park for a weekend full of legends and up-and-comers of African and Afro-diasporic music.

The festival has long been seen as a jewel of the city’s cultural calendar, and with 2017 marking their 25 year anniversary, they pulled out all the stops for this special edition, inviting back some of the many stars who had graced the Oyé stage over its history. They were helped by some good luck, too. After last year's event was rather dampened by a torrential downpour, there was much relief that this year took place during June’s heatwave, and not a single cloud could be spotted all weekend. An estimated 80,000 people came by, making it the biggest edition yet.

The line-up featured twelve artists from eleven African countries – from Madagascar to Mauritania – as well as the UK and Jamaica, and special slots for community music and dance projects from across Merseyside. Unlike most summer festivals, though, missing an artist is not a problem at Oyé: there’s just the one stage, and the field is encircled some of the best Caribbean and African kitchens in Liverpool. They add the tastes and smells of jerk barbecues and curry goat to the colourful costumes, the beautiful sounds and the beating sun to complete the multisensory party.

Saturday set the bar with wonderful performances from Angolan semba legend Bonga and the new stars of Zimbabwean music, Mokoomba. Sunday, however, took everything to another level, every artist fitting the vibe to a T.

The day kicked off with the discovery of the weekend: the duo of Kenyan oud player Anwar Ali and British guitarist Dave Owen and their laid-back, romantic Swahili songs were a lovely start to a sweltering Sunday afternoon. The day continued and the knock-out acts kept coming, including the overall highlight, Jupiter & Okwess International. The powerful figure of Jupiter presided over some of the heaviest and darkest Congolese funk you’re likely to hear, and provided an interesting contrast with the band before, the Odemba OK Jazz Allstars, representing the DRC’s golden age of dance band music. Two groups playing very different takes on the same traditions, and both making the Oyé crowd bounce.

Filling Oyé’s traditional Sunday-night reggae headliner was the oft-sampled reggae legend Max Romeo. The singer’s Jah-laden roots music had the crowd – by now including a large portion of Liverpool’s Rasta community – dancing as hard as they had all day and brought the festival to a fitting close.

After 25 years of music and dance, and hopefully many more to come, a sunburnt and rather merry punter was the one to sum up just what the festival means: “I love Africa Oyé, it's like Christmas for Scousers!"

Photo: Odemba OK Allstars live at Africa Oyé 2017, by Mark McNulty.

Alma - Root Salad

First published in fRoots issue 405, March 2017



There are worse surroundings in which to discover new music than a cosy pub in the middle of Lancashire, filled to the brim with folk music experts. But it was there in the Holden Arms in the village of Haslingden that I first saw Alma perform, as part of the 2016 English Folk Expo (EFEx).

They played at the invitation of the EFDSS, and from the beginning of their set, it was obvious that their choice of Alma was spot-on. A trio of two fiddles and a guitar, the band were completely tight from the first note and continued to take their audience on a whistle-stop tour of European and Middle Eastern folk dances.

Alma are fiddlers Emily Askew and John Dipper and guitarist Adrian Lever. All three are highly experienced and knowledgeable in English folk, but Alma’s music is perhaps best described as instrumental folk from around the world, performed with an English accent. They still explore English tunes, but their repertoire also reaches much further, with pieces from France and Sweden, all the way to Bulgaria, Tunisia and Iraq.

The decision to expand from our isles was inspired by Emily’s participation in the Ethno summer schools: “people came from all over the world and shared their folk music. Being inspired by their music directly and live, it made me want to hear more and delve into it.”

While the traditions from which Alma’s tunes originate are usually very clear, the sensibilities with which they are performed are distinctly English. It is hard to define how, exactly. It’s in the small things: the way the melodies are ornamented and the rhythms are felt, and how the harmony and interplay is constructed.

But it cannot be said that Alma don’t treat these tunes with respect. The background of each piece is researched before arrangement. John: “It’s really important to us that it’s not considered pastiche. It’s important to know what each tune does. With all of the stuff that we play, we know about the dances concerned and how the music works for that dance.” This respect and research can be heard in the music, and stops it from sounding like Brits on holiday performing cheap knock-offs.

As important as the group’s repertoire is their instrumentation. The concept of the fiddle is at the heart of the group: the project came from Emily in 2014, with the idea of exploring the disparate traditions of fiddles and similar instruments around the world. Around a year later, the trio was formed. This set-up works perfectly for their music, giving each musician a vital role while still leaving creative room to manoeuvre. Adrian says, “we work quite intuitively and through improvisation. We try to be three voices, as much as we can be,” and indeed, their techniques end up sounding like musical conversations. It’s not uncommon for pieces to branch out into three distinct countermelodies, each player making their own integral contribution to the melodic whole.

With their line-up finalised and their sound taking shape, it was time to record their debut album. But nothing’s that simple. “We had a bit of a nightmare with it!” recalls John, “We recorded it all in September 2015 and when I came to edit it, I was listening through to individual tracks thinking ‘that’s weird, there’s BBC Radio 4 all over there’ and then I found there was taxi radio on another track, and disco radio on another, all at the same time. It was nutty!”

While an avant garde radio mashup may have turned some heads, it wasn’t Alma’s sound. After a refund from the recording studio, they ended up re-recording the whole thing in a living room bedecked with duvets, carefully positioned around a sofa and with Adrian stood in the fireplace. It was this recording that became Varieties, released on RootBeat Records in July 2016.

Now with one album under their belt, they’re already looking to the future. Their showcase at EFEx went down a storm and has already seen them added to the 2017 Shrewsbury Folk Fest and Towersey Festival line-ups, with more big festivals to be confirmed. A second album is already on their minds too. “We’re still in our early stages – we’d only just become the trio when we started recording the debut album,” says Adrian, “so we’re looking forward to finding different ways of arrangement and sound to see where we can take it.” These different ways include adding songs to their repertoire. This seems like rather a big shift, but the ideals behind the group remain, as Emily explains: “We’re looking at songs from around the world to connect to the theme of the tunes we’ve been doing. We’re currently looking at a Serbian song that Adrian sang at his wedding – me and John said ‘we have to try that together!’”

Tunes or songs, it is obvious that Alma will continue the musical globetrotting and passionate arrangements that make their music so special.

Whoever said that nothing good can come from a trip to the pub?

Dizu Plaatjies and Friends - Ubuntu: the Common String

First published in fRoots issue 393, March 2016

Dizu Plaatjies and Friends
Ubuntu – The Common String
Mountain Records (58 mins)

As one of South Africa’s foremost ‘world music’ exports, an expert in the musical bow and many of his country’s traditional styles, Dizu Plaatjies is a musician who constantly strives to evolve his sound. This has led to the creation of this ‘and Friends’ album, exploring other sounds with the help of his guest musicians.

In this album, Plaatjies is once again backed by his Ibuyamba Ensemble (the band he formed after leaving the legendary Amapondo), but the sound is more formed by and focussed on the many guest musicians that he introduces, including South African classical guitarist Derek Gripper (most well-known for his transcriptions of kora pieces for guitar) and French jazz group L’Arbre Canapas.

The idea of Ubuntu is commonality, and it’s not a huge surprise that this album strives towards the pan-African. The end result is actually more pan-Southern African, although his guests provide very occasional influences from more northerly climes such as Uganda and the Mandé region.

Quite a few of the tracks here are very repetitive – and not in a trancey, circular fashion that drags you in, either. These include the opener 'Bantu Biko', which repeats the same few lines for more than four minutes and is not the best advertisement for the rest of the album. The repetition comes back with the obligatory song to Nelson Mandela, 'Mandela Afrika', a self-consciously ‘epic’ sounding track that feels a bit cheesy and out-of-place.

However, despite a few weak tracks, there are definite highlights on the album that do redeem to some degree. The maskandi-with-mbira 'Langa Ola' and the dripping-with-blues 'Phalisa', both featuring the 12-string goodness of guitarist Nthombi Thongo are prime examples, and the Derek Gripper-led 'Ukuzu kwe Langa' is particularly beautiful.

There are definitely more enjoyable tracks than not here, although there are quite a few pieces that seem less polished than they could be. It leads to an overall average-to-good album, which may stand up better to listening and downloading instead.

Damily - Very Aomby

First published in fRoots issue 393, March 2016

Damily
Very Aomby
Hélico Music (52 mins)

Is there any country so adept at bringing such effortlessly joyous and sunny music as Madagascar?

Damily is a star of tsapiky, the unique guitar style from the town of Tuléar, in the southwest of the island. As a mixture of music from several different traditional Malagasy cultures and South African dance styles, tsapiky guitar is fast, circular and, of course, made to move your body.

The France-based group travelled back to Madagascar to record Very Aomby and the end results are delightfully lo-fi; with crunchy guitars and distorted vocals, the whole album is lent an earthy and down-home vibe. Every track was recorded as-live, with no second takes or re-records, and several of the tracks were recorded in a makeshift metal tent at a party – it all lends to the atmosphere of a bunch of mates having a homemade jam just for you. The album and its production pull off the immersion perfectly.

While songs themselves talk of many subjects – in fact, most often of various unfortunate events and scenarios – the music itself never lets up in its infectious danciness. Even in its more introspective and quieter moments, the music seems to command that you at least sway along, and it’s difficult to listen to more than a few seconds of any track without feeling better about yourself.

Toumaranke - Takhaudi Dékau: Inside the Chicken’s Mouth

First published in fRoots issue 393, March 2016

Toumaranke
Takhaudi Dékau: Inside the Chicken’s Mouth
Self-Released (58 mins)

Percussion and voice from the Guinean ensemble, led by a Brit and recorded in Gambia. Drums, balafon and gongomah (mbira-like lamellaphone) – with occasional bridge-harp and satongé sound-alike – intertwine with polyrhythms and polyphony in this as-traditional album. Good record, if mostly unremarkable.

Fatau Keita & the Naawuni Bie Band - Selina

First published in fRoots issue 388, October 2015

Fatau Keita & the Naawuni Bie Band
Selina
Goete Institut Ghana (49 mins)

Dagbamba singer Fatau Keita hails from the northern region of Ghana, and together with his eight-strong band Naawuni Bie (meaning ‘God’s Children’ in Dagbani), he creates a music that could best be described as updated highlife with a palmwine edge.

Although the musical basis of this album lies firmly within Ghana, Keita’s Dagbamba culture means his vocal style leans more to the Islamic West – it’s often reminiscent of Baaba Maal and he places highly within his influences singers such as Youssou N’dour, Kante Manfila and Salif Keita.

The best pieces here come about when these two spheres of influence blend most seamlessly. 'Tie Kumm' is your track for this – it’s a stripped-back, dark and hypnotic groove that could probably carry on all day if it weren’t for the fade-out. The last piece, 'Won Boraa' (labelled on the album as a bonus track), is another highlight and a bit of a contrast from the rest of the album: a lovely acoustic palmwine with just guitar, shaker and vocals.

It’s not a perfect album by any means. Most of the tracks are of a rather average quality, and in a few places it sounds as if rather heavy autotuning is used on Keita’s vocals: it’s strange, as his qualities as a singer are obvious, and the use of the autotuner serves no musical purpose.

However, for this reviewer, the album as a whole is ruined by its third track, 'Act as a Woman', which is (as its title would suggest) a rather misogynistic song imploring a woman to know her place. It’s unsavoury and, while it may be more acceptable for the local market, is rather misjudged for an international release. That’s a shame, as it puts a dampener on a mostly enjoyable album which contains a couple of stand-out tracks.

Anouar Brahem - Souvenance

First published in fRoots issue 388, October 2015

Anouar Brahem
Souvenance
ECM Records (2CD, 89 mins)

Look here for a lesson in subtlety and restraint. Souvenance is one of those now-rare specimens: a double album of original material; over the two CDs, the album clocks in at about an hour and a half.

Although the Tunisian Anouar Brahem is classically-trained in the oud, this album doesn’t immediately stand out as Arabic; instead, it feels like Western contemporary classical music, written and performed by jazz musicians. Or perhaps vice versa – or more accurately, both at the same time. It seems to owe some influence to Glass, and Miles Davis during his smooth period, but Brahem’s compositions are all his own. The Tunisian core of his writing becomes apparent slowly, but is indeed all-encompassing, heard in an unexpected semitone, an unfamiliar glissando or the unmistakable swoop of an Arabic melody.

Although the Souvenance is made up of eleven tracks, each piece seems to be part of one whole, both CDs of the album halves of a single work. Musical themes recur throughout – if not directly, they are hinted, similar patterns of rhythm or melody stirring some uncanny recognition. It all works together. Each composed note feels to have been meditated over, and whether the texture is focussing on sparse, singular notes or massed, arpeggiated runs, there never seems to be more or less than is needed, musically or instrumentally.

The arrangements here are for quartet (Brahem’s oud, plus piano, bass clarinet and bass) and string orchestra (the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, conducted by Pietro Mianiti). With the string orchestra at hand, it would have been all too easy for Brahem to overuse their voices and the power they can bring. Subtlety comes through yet again, however. Sound comes in well-weighted bursts and swelling waves, the orchestra often providing the soundscape for the quartet to explore and make its own, with the strings offering breezes of their own sympathetic story.

Souvenance is an impressive and intelligent work, a credit to Anouar Brahem as a composer and both the quartet and orchestra as musicians. A perfect combination of the classical styles of North Africa, Europe and African-America.

Electro Bamako - Now

First published in fRoots issue 385, July 2015

Electro Bamako
Now
CSB Productions (50 mins)

Phwoar! Now this is an album.

In the sphere of world electronica, collaborations with South Asian and Middle Eastern artists and musics seem to far outweigh those with West Africans, but when it is done (and done right), it can lead to some stonking tracks. Now is from a trio of a Malian (Paul Sidibe) and two Frenchmen (Damien Traini and Marc Minelli), and their collective name is pretty much apt. Electro Bamako create music that crosses through electronica, funk and underground rock, but always present are the urban Malian grooves that make the project as exciting as it is.

Bringing to the table guitars and production, Minelli has been experimenting with electroMalian music and collaborations for more than a decade now, but with the Electro Bamako trio and this album, he seems to have found the correct combination, and it’s his best yet.

As well as his unmistakably Malian vocals, Sidibe joins the party by adding his kamele ngoni (literally, the ‘young man’s harp’) to the sound. The kamele ngoni’s rattling staccato riffs, together with the karignan (iron scraper), bring the western elements together, uniting them with Wassoulou music – the non-griot style made famous in Europe by Oumou Sangaré.

The real highlight of the album comes at the end: Fentiki Ni Fentan is the last of the album tracks proper (the disc also contains three radio edits), and is really superb – it has a backing worthy of old-school hip-hop and the whole thing rolls around hypnotically, it’s a shame when it comes to a close and signals the end of a brilliant album.

Prince Buju - We Are In The War

First published in fRoots issue 385, July 2015

Prince Buju
We Are In The War
Makkum Records/Red Wig (48 mins)

Prince Buju hails from the North East Region of Ghana and plays the kologo, a two-stringed lute related to the ngoni, and sharing common ancestry with the banjo. This album is entirely solo – and it’s not one of those fancy multi-track one-man-band things, every track is a single-take affair with only Prince Buju and his kologo.

Almost all of this release is taken from Buju’s debut Ghanaian cassette, which was released in 2011 under the title Roots And Culture Music. The only newly-recorded piece here is the title track. This version of the album retains the feeling of a local-market cassette, and not only because of the soft hiss that remains behind most of the tracks: the recent trend for cassettes has brought a refreshing slew of international music that hasn’t been ‘world musicked’ and Buju’s sound is no exception.

Much of the album’s associated literature talks up Buju’s links to King Ayisoba, a fellow Ghanaian kologo player, but Buju’s music feels even more rootsy. It’s great to hear the no-nonsense, bluesy riffs with Buju’s high-pitched yet gritty voice sing about personal and local matters, which all give the record a sense of that allusive, ill-defined but most important ‘authenticity’.

The manner in which the kologo is played means that all the tracks included here from the original cassette remain in one key – it’s a rather insignificant thing, but for someone who is used to albums using a variety of keys (which, when you think about it, is kind of arbitrary) this can grate slightly, with the ear becoming tired. But this is a very small issue. Don’t expect overly much from the production values and this could be an album that you really dig.

Kala Jula (Samba Diabaté & Vincent Zanetti) - Sangoyi

First published in fRoots issue 384, June 2015

Kala Jula (Samba Diabaté & Vincent Zanetti)
Sangoyi
Buda Musique (55 mins)

This collaboration between Malian griot guitarist Diabaté and Swiss multi-instrumentalist Zanetti is now in its fourth year, and with Sangoyi, bears its second album – the first as a strict duo.

Zanetti has worked with Sahelian music for nearly thirty years, in both West Africa and Europe, setting up a collaborative ballet along the way, and calls the Mandé lands his adopted home. This doesn’t necessarily come across in his music.

Most of the tracks contained here are unfortunately bland. Although the fusion of Malian and Western styles is pulled off quite smoothly, it doesn’t feel as if either particularly benefit from it: the music of the Mandé griots is reduced by the soft-rock folk, but the European's music doesn’t feel as if it could stand on its own, either.

When they hit into a groove, as they do in the track ‘Le Lion de Ségou’ (where they’re joined by trumpeter Yannick Barman), it seems amazing that they can keep the track from spiralling into an epic jam. It’s a little disappointing that they don’t, as these tracks finish leaving the listener wanting more.

The fact is that the majority of this album is just boring – sedate and calm enough to perhaps work well as background music, but reveals very little substance under any scrutiny…and this is even more of a shame as it containing one or two genuinely enjoyable and interesting tracks.

Zomba Prison Project - I Have No Everything Here

First published in fRoots issue 383, May 2015

Zomba Prison Project
I Have No Everything Here
Six Degrees Records (31 mins)

This is a rather hard album to write about, as the quality of the music is not necessarily its main focus. It features 20 recordings made inside the Zomba Maximum Security Prison in Malawi, where most people are held for life, their ‘crimes’ ranging from murder to witchcraft, and where children born within the walls must remain until their mother’s release. But in their music, their status as prisoners (or, on occasion, prison officers) seems less significant: the album is a document of ordinary people, singing their own songs. Some sing gospel, some repentances, warnings, stories; some are guitarists, bassists or drummers. The music and song on offer here is of an understandably varying quality – these are by and large not musicians, but people brought together and surviving together.

As the whole album only comes in at a little over 30 minutes long, there are quite a few very short tracks here, and many fade out, leaving one wanting for the full piece. A stand-out example of this is the intense, all-female percussion track ‘House of the Dance’: it’s a shame that we only get to hear 16 seconds of it, especially as six hours of material were recorded altogether.

This collection brings to mind old ethnomusicological field recordings; they feel very in-the-moment and the recordings seem to exist to preserve the memory of the culture represented. With this, however, there also comes a slight uncomfortable feeling of the ‘higher power’ of the neutral (Western) producer. The material was recorded and produced by Ian Brennan, who does seem to have a knack for finding projects with world-music-friendly ‘stories’ (he’s also produced the Malawi Mouse Boys and the Good Ones) but this album does have the chance of achieving change. Resulting funds and awareness from this release are already helping those of Zomba Prison, as three women have already been released and three more having their sentences reviewed as a result.

Mohamed Abozekry & Heejaz Extended - Ring Road

First published in fRoots issue 383, May 2015

Mohamed Abozekry & Heejaz Extended
Ring Road
Full Rhizome/Jazz Village (75 mins)

Born in Egypt and living in France, the young oud player Mohamed Abozekry is not content to play only the traditional repertoire of his instrument. Instead, with the rest of his quintet Heejaz Extended – saxophones, piano, double bass and hand-percussion – he uses his instrument to initiate a whirlwind of international jazz.

All in all, the ensemble takes as much influence from Indian music as it does Arabic, Abozekry’s oud even resembling a sarod on occasion. There’s also elements from around the world: a couple of pieces are based on Cuban grooves; Ethiopian scales sneak their way into the occasional solo; and a qawwali-esque harmonium illuminates the second track, ‘Messages’.

Through all this, the one thing that remains a constant is the jazz. The styles that come to mind on the album are those of the classic late-50s/early-60s masters. You can hear Miles Davis in the harmonies, Horace Silver in the melodies and a haunting of John Coltrane throughout. Whether in the driving energy of a head or a quiet but tense, ballad-like section, the legacies of the masters come before feel respected and palpable.

Although the album is made up solely of Abozekry’s wonderful compositions and with his name on the front of the cover, it’s not his oud that takes precedence on this album; all the instrumentalists are involved in an equal way. This lets the group rid itself of the often-mishandled ‘fusion’ label and allows the music to be what it is – exciting jazz that is expertly crafted, well-executed and that will take your ears on a trip around the world.

Dorsaf Hamdani - Barbara Fairouz

First published in fRoots issue 382, April 2015

Dorsaf Hamdani
Barbara Fairouz
Accords Croisés (61 mins)

It’s a brave person who takes on the repertoires of two legendary artists, especially when they are from such different styles as Lebanese singer Fairouz and French chanteuse Barbara. Here, Dorsaf Hamdani is that person.

The liner notes to the disc imagine the album as a fictional meeting between the French and Lebanese singers, and that’s basically a perfect description of the music within. The tracks alternate between the French and Arabic, and, at the beginning of the album, sound close to the original styles. As the tracks and the ‘meeting’ progress, however, each style begins to seep into the other until, by the end, each piece presents a beautiful fusion, an Arabic chanson.

Hamdani trained to sing malouf music from her native Tunisia, but has expertise in many styles from around the Arabic world as well as French, Persian and jazz music, all of which give her the skills to work her voice around, through and between the songs and styles of her heroes with ease.

Credit should also go to the project’s musical director. Daniel Mille leads the musicians – a quartet of guitar/oud, violin/oud, percussion and himself on accordion – through the same journey as Hamdani, slowly bringing the Arab influences to the French, and the French to the Arabic in a subtle, sympathetic and accomplished manner.

It is when the styles blend that Hamdani and her musicians create their best music, and the musical creation of a hypothetical meeting between Barbara and Fairuz is what makes this album more artistic and musically interesting than just a set of covers.

The Khoury Project - Revelation

First published in fRoots issue 382, April 2015

The Khoury Project
Revelation
Enja Records (64 mins)

Over the past year or so, there has been a real glut of great Middle Eastern/North African jazz albums – recent records by Hijaz, Majid Bekkas Trio and L’Hijâz’Car have set the bar high. Now, Revelation by the Khoury Project can join their ranks.

The core members of the ensemble are the Jordanian Brothers Khoury – Basil, Osama and Elia – who bring violin, qanun and oud, respectively. For this project they are joined by double bass and jazz and Arabic percussion.

The elegance of the Khoury Project’s compositions is evident from the off, with the imaginatively-titled opener 'Intro' an intricate qanun solo with Arabic melody above complex chords that bring to mind ballad-jazz pianists. As the album continues, the group’s nuance becomes apparent: all the core elements of Arabic classical music and jazz are retained, meaning that their combination with each other seems so natural that at times one can forget that the traditions are from opposite sides of the world.

There are also other themes explored throughout the album, with a couple of pieces reflecting flamenco (especially their version of Paco de Lucía’s 'Zyryab', recorded live in Paris), and these additional influences are handled with ease. It’s a difficulty to pick a highlight from this record, the pieces are consistent and all seem to have equal value to the album as a whole.

Is there something about Arabic music or jazz that make their fusions so often successful? It just seems to work. Take nothing away from these musicians though: it is a combination that requires knowledge of many musical languages as well as virtuosity, and Revelation is another great example of this.

Jaume Compte Nafas Ensemble - Tariq

First published in fRoots issue 381, March 2015

Jaume Compte Nafas Ensemble
Tariq
ARC Music Productions (48 mins)

So, here’s another album aiming to draw comparisons between Iberian, Arabic and other Mediterranean music using fusion. Ho hum. But wait! In Tariq, multi-instrumentalist Jaume Compte and the Nafas Ensemble have made an album that doesn’t abide by the same overused template of flamenco plus oud and darbuka. Instead, they use the various genres from around the Mediterranean as a starting point to making a style that is their own, and end up with some beautiful art music.

The album’s sound is mostly based around Western strings, which take in the Arabic, Spanish and Greek influences together with a Western classical sensibility and put out a beautiful, effortless blend of it all. These strings provide the base upon which different flavours are variously added – accordeon, Iranian kamancheh, Spanish and Catalan vocals, glimpses of Indian music and breezes of Balkan – while Compte adds guitars, oud, bouzouki and all manner of percussion and ambient sound effects to round off the textures. These interchanging layers give each piece its own identity and create what feels like a story that flows through the whole album.

It’s so refreshing to hear an album that approaches the Iberio-Arab fusion with sensitivity, class and originality. At a time when this sort of fusion seems to be very much in vogue, it is for these very reasons that Tariq and the Jaume Compte Nafas Ensemble stand out from the crowd.

Temenik Electric - Ouesh Hada?

First published in fRoots issue 381, March 2015

Temenik Electric
Ouesh Hada?
Nomad Café Productions (37 mins)

Marseille has long been known as a hotbed of North African culture in France, with many French-Arab subcultures having their genesis in the city. It’s not surprising, then, that a band such as Temenik Electric would flourish in such an environment.

With members from France and across North Africa, Temenik Electric create Maghrebi rock, but go much further than the sounds of pioneer Rachid Taha or more recent groups such as Speed Caravan by using elements of electronica, dub and blues together with many distinct North African styles from Algerian raï to Hassaniya music of the Western Sahara to create an intense but body-moving piece of work.

Although they’re often described as ‘Electric Gnawa’, the music of Ouesh Hada? does not contain too many obvious elements of the Afro-Moroccan style; there are no guimbri lutes, and rarely the sound of the metal castanets, the qaraqab. However, the album’s loping rhythms and extended sections of repetition that put you into a semi-trance before you fully realise what’s happened really does create the essence of gnawa that pervades each track. Despite the use of oud, nay, heavily distorted guitars, all manner of synths, and some deep percussionscapes, the gnawa infusion feels perfectly natural – a testament to the musicians who create such a nuanced style.

Ouesh Hada? is an outstanding album: perfect to rock out to, but also to lose yourself in. Play loud and fall into the groove of Temenik Electric!

Hijaz - Nahadin

First published in fRoots double issue 379-380, January-February 2015

Hijaz
Nahadin
Zephyrus Music (38 mins)

It seems to be a good time for Arabic-flavoured jazz.

Hijaz is a quartet based in Belgium with members also hailing from Tunisia, Portugal and the UK. The band’s stated philosophy is to focus on the interplay between the oud, with its Middle-Eastern tuning and quarter-tones, and the piano, the traditional jazz instrument with its rigid western tunings. This album, though, shows that the group actually go further than this – all four of the players (the quartet completed by double bass and Arabic percussion) make very valuable contributions to the sound.

The jazz that Hijaz play is clean but not afraid to journey over to the verges of tonality, and Nahadin contains a good mix of ballads and more upbeat, rhythmic pieces. There’s also some downright funky sections, such as the bass and percussion intro to 'Desert Dancer', which could easily work as an intro from the classic jazz of the 1960s.

The tracks are arranged between the standard jazz structure of head-and-solos and something closer to through-composition – often, the solos will dissolve into a more open-ended exploration of the themes. About half of the tracks also feature a taqsim-like unmetred intro, often rendered in a jazz style, which is a nice touch.

The balance between the jazz and Arabic sounds is near perfect. There are also subtle Indian influences evident, and the track 'Hawa' explores these in more depth, introducing bansuri flute to the group’s line-up. The sound that Hijaz create seems crafted to worked best as instrumental, so when Arabic-style vocals (both sung and spoken) are introduced once or twice throughout the album, they do seem a little superfluous, at best.

Overall, a great album with an interesting and sometimes exciting look at the connections between the scales, rhythms and timbres of the Arabic and jazz forms. One of the best and most successful fusions of its kind.