The Beginner's Guide to Johnny Kalsi

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 127, May 2017.



There are few people as synonymous with their instrument as Johnny Kalsi is with the Punjabi double-sided barrel drum, the dhol. The drum lends bhangra music its distinctive sound, and Kalsi has probably done more this amazing instrument’s popularity around the world more than anyone. It’s clear that there’s never enough music for Johnny Kalsi: he’s been involved with almost every world fusion group you could mention. If you’ve attended any sort of world or folk music festival in the UK, it’s likely that you’ve seen him do his stuff.

Born in Leeds and raised in London, Kalsi didn’t come from a musical family. But raised Sikh, songs and music were still part of daily life, from hymns and prayers to readings from the holy book. This exposure led him to learn tabla at age seven (“all the lads do at that age”), and music became a passion when he took up the drum kit in high school. The dhol came at 14 when he auditioned for a local bhangra band as a tabla player – they decided they wanted a dhol instead, so he tried it out and it stuck. By this point, it was obvious that Kalsi was something special, his experiences and skills from tabla and drum kit helping him develop a unique approach to the dhol drum. Within two years he was touring the world as a member of the biggest bhangra group at the time, Alaap.

From that point, Kalsi has blasted his dhol on the albums and stages of so many legends. Starting with Alaap, he was also there for the heydays of Fun^Da^Mental and Transglobal Undergound in the 90s. On the same touring circuit as these groups was the Afro Celt Sound System (ACSS), fresh from the success of their debut album. After many shared bills and becoming friends both on- and off-stage, ACSS asked Kalsi to play a few beats on their second album. He ended up contributing more than that – his dhol became an important aspect of the Afro Celt sound almost immediately, and he joined their ranks for good. He even took a step to the fore in 2016; since they reformed, Kalsi’s drum has shaped the band’s whole sound. When ACSS frontman Simon Emmerson embarked on a mission to create folk music to reflect the England of today, with its many international influences, Johnny Kalsi was of course natural for the project. That became the Imagined Village, and was hailed as one of the sparks of the latest English folk revival. Again, Kalsi’s sound was key. And, as if being a crucial member and sonic element of many of the most forward-thinking fusion groups of the last 25 years was not enough, he’s also taken part in seemingly endless collaborations with international artists. From world music favourites like Peter Gabriel, Khaled, Dimi Mint Abba and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, to more unexpected artists such as Avril Lavigne, the Kaiser Chiefs and Nelly Furtado, Kalsi’s dhol has enlivened hundreds of recordings and concerts.

But when he gets talking about his work, it’s obvious what Kalsi considers his real baby: The Dhol Foundation (TDF). First and foremost, TDF is a school for kids to learn the instrument, but they’re also an internationally touring and recording band, with four albums under their belt and another coming in June 2017.

It all started when he was touring with Alaap, being approached every night by people asking for lessons. He always said no, until he was convinced to make a one-off workshop to a couple of people in Slough. They persuaded him to come back once more, and there were six students. “By the time that happened, it was too much for me to look back. And that was The Dhol Foundation.” From that base, the project grew into the first ever institute of dhol, and with it, Kalsi created the first dhol-teaching syllabus, The Dhol Bible. His passion and excitement for the school is obvious. “People are teaching with that bible all over the country, and I’m quite proud of that! That bit was my fault.” At its peak, there were 14 schools and about 700 members. As with anything that grows, it makes branches: smaller groups formed and broke off, and from these more groups still. Now there are hundreds of schools around the world.

When they perform in public, TDF are second-to-none. Their live band is the ‘A-team’, those that have progressed through the ranks of the school to professional standard. This way, they are ever-fluctuating, featuring up to 30 drummers and giving opportunities to promising younger members. It’s a powerful spectacle, as Kalsi says: “It’s a massive wall of drumming noise, it’s wonderful to watch.” That noise has led them to perform on some of the world’s biggest stages; you may have seen them in the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony, the Royal Variety Performance or the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

It’s on TDF albums that Kalsi really lets loose his creative side. These albums can be called Kalsi’s solo work, but they’re much more than that: “If it was just a dhol drumming album, it would become very monotonous and boring.” Instead, they echo the rest of his career, full of collaborations with international artists – musicians as disparate as Sultan Khan, Etran Finatawa, Michael McGoldrick and Natacha Atlas have graced TDF albums. It’s all mixed up, produced by Kalsi and with a healthy dose of dhol drumming to top it off. TDF have a fifth album ready to release this year – Besant will be a celebration of springtime – that will no doubt continue this trend. Kalsi sums his albums up well, saying “they’re all different flavours, they all sound different, they taste different, they look different when you close your eyes. And I love that!”

With the latest album in the works, running The Dhol Foundation schools and now a member of the reformed ACSS, Kalsi has, as ever, got his hands full. But you’d suspect that’s just how he likes it.


Best Albums

Afro Celt Sound System
Volume 2: Release (Real World Records, 1999)
Kalsi’s first recorded outing with the groundbreaking world fusion group came at the height of their fame, and he brought the first Asian flavours to the Afro Celt ensemble.

The Dhol Foundation
Big Drum: Small World (Shakti Records, 2001)
The debut album under the TDF name was a tour-de-force of bhangra and electronica, and provided the groundwork for their future releases with guests including Natacha Atlas.

The Dhol Foundation
Drum-Believable (Shakti Records, 2005)
TDF’s second album continues with all the fun of their first, brings in more international influences and contains probably their most banging track to date, the Irish-Indian bouncer ‘After the Rain’, with fiddler Mairead Nesbitt.

The Imagined Village
Empire & Love (ECC Records, 2012)
The middle album of The Imagined Village’s trilogy, their first as a cohesive band and a classic of Anglo-Indian folk music. Kalsi’s dhol and tabla are essential to their sound.

Afro Celt Sound System
The Source (ECC Records, 2016)
The new-look ACSS, risen from the ashes and with Johnny Kalsi as a member of the leading triumvirate, returned reinvigorated with this amazing album, their first for 11 years.



If you like Johnny Kalsi, then try…

Tabla Beat Science
Tala Matrix (Palm Pictures, 2000)
Indian percussion-led dubtronica of the tabla variety. This masterpiece is the only studio album by the supergroup including Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, Talvin Singh and Karsh Kale, masterminded by producer Bill Laswell.

Girma Bèyènè & Akalé Wubé - Éthiopiques 30: Mistakes on Purpose

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 127, May 2017.

Girma Bèyènè & Akalé Wubé
Éthiopiques 30: Mistakes on Purpose
Buda Musique (67 mins)

For the better part of 20 years, Buda Musique’s Éthiopiques has been the go-to series for Ethiojazz and traditional music from Ethiopia. You won’t find that here. Éthiopiques 30 covers a wide range of styles, from cheesy country ballads to slinky rock, from smooth and groovy soul to hard funk (and, okay, maybe a little bit of jazz) – all dripping in that classic Ethiopian sound.

Crooner Girma Bèyènè was a star in the ‘Swinging Addis’ period of the 1970s, but recorded very little of his own music – it was his compositions and arrangements that gained more notoriety. After being off-the-radar in the US for 25 years, he slowly made his way back onto the Addis music scene, and in 2015 was invited to play a concert with French collective Akalé Wubé – it was obvious then that a recording was necessary. With artistic direction from Éthiopiques curator Francis Falceto, Bèyènè and Akalé Wubé have recreated and reimagined the songs from the singer’s golden era, along with one Akalé Wubé original, the instrumental ‘For Amha’.

From Bèyènè’s age-worn voice and evocative spoken-word passages adding extra emotional dimensions to his classics to Akalé Wubé’s sometimes-sleek, sometimes-raucous arrangements, there’s only one term for it: this album is immaculately cool.

Various Artists - The Original Sound of Mali

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 127, May 2017.

Various Artists
The Original Sound of Mali
Mr Bongo (79 mins)

The dance band craze of the 1970s saw groups from all over West Africa putting their own spin on Latin music. Mali was no exception, where deep Mande roots blended with twinkling guitars, crunchy synths and punchy horn sections. This compilation explores the best of Malian music from that golden age.

Featuring tracks from the biggest groups of the era, such as the famous rivals of Les Ambassadeurs and the Rail Band, this album also showcases lesser-known bands, including Idrissa Soumaoro et l’Eclipse de l’Ija, whose long-lost recordings never received an official release.

This collection takes in the spectrum of Malian dance band music, from the more traditional, griot-inspired styles as heard on ‘Fadingna Kouma’ by Zani Diabaté’s Super Djata Band, to some straight-outta-Havana salsas like Les Ambassadeurs’ ‘Fatema’. An interesting inclusion is a piece in the wassoulou style (based on traditional hunters’ music) by Alou Fané & Daouda Sangaré. It’s as wonderful as the rest, but lacks the dance band aesthetic and stands out because of that.

Nevertheless, with such a wealth of amazing music from this period in one of the most musically-renowned countries in the world, it’s difficult to go wrong; The Original Sound of Mali certainly doesn’t.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble - The Road is Long: Live at Savoy Theatre

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 126, April 2017.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble
The Road is Long: Live at Savoy Theatre
No Problem! Music (37 mins)

When you have four attempts at recording a live album in Cotonou, Benin, and each of them fail, what do you do? Well, when your name is the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble, the next step is rather obvious. That’s how the voodoo funk group ended up recording their third album on New Year’s Eve 2015 at the Savoy Theatre in Helsinki, Finland.

With this sort of band – their music made for heavy all-night dance parties – the popular opinion is that ‘you have to see them live’, so it’s a pleasure to hear the ensemble in their natural setting.

Of the five tracks on this album, it’s the two pieces from the group’s debut, ‘Agamafa Hèdé’ and ‘Adande’, that feel the tightest. That’s no doubt due to them having longer to stew and develop on the setlist, and consequently allow the band to let go and jump more: there is some seriously wigged-out Afrofunk sax solos on these tracks.

As enjoyable as this live album is, it serves as more of a teaser for their shows: the music is fun but it can’t recreate the atmosphere, and the length (only five tracks) will no doubt leave you angling for more.

Fendika - Birabiro

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 126, April 2017.

Fendika
Birabiro
Terp Records (47 mins)

Azmaribetoch are the centres of Ethiopian traditional music, places to enjoy the songs, dance and stories of the azmari troubadours. The Fendika azmaribet, run by dancer and artistic director Melaku Belay, is one of the most renowned in Addis Ababa, and with its house band recording and touring internationally as two ensembles – Fendika and Ethiocolor – their reputation is now extending worldwide.

Reflecting Addis Ababa’s standing as a cultural hub, Fendika’s repertoire expands across the many regions and ethnicities of Ethiopia, and their third album shows it off well. Birabiro captures an authentic aural experience of the azmaribet. The ensemble is small and acoustic – the music is made from just voice, kebero drums and overtone-rich masenko fiddle. But together they provide a whole range of atmospheres, from dark and bluesy on the track ‘Zelesegna’ to the party vibe of ‘Yewolaya Weyo’. It’s just a shame that we’ve not yet found a way to give the full impact of dancers on CD or vinyl.

So the next time you’re in Addis Ababa, head over to Fendika azmaribet for a great evening of music and dance – in the meantime, get this album and go there with your ears!

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?

Yishak Banjaw - Love Songs Vol. 2

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 125, March 2017.

Yishak Banjaw
Love Songs Vol. 2
Teranga Beat (46 mins)

In 1986, Yishak Banjaw sat down at home to record an album of traditional Ethiopian music, using a borrowed Casio PT keyboard, live and direct into a single tape player. What he created was a wonderful style that resembles what we’d now call chillwave or minimal wave.

The overall sound of this album is magnificent: the timbres of the melody take on different personalities, from dreamy and Hammond-like to swirling and raspy; layers of repeating patterns add a psychedelic flavour as they float above tinny electric drum beats. Combined with the slightly stretchy and sibilant tone lent by the transfer from cassette, the whole album is given that warm, washed-out vibe so strived for by today’s -wave producers.

And under all of these aesthetics lies a solid base of Ethiopian identity. The tracks are all strongly linked to the culture’s traditional soundworld, and the distinctive pentatonic scales and the melodic rhythms make it difficult to mistake this music’s origin.

With this re-release on the Greek/Senegalese label Teranga Beat, Love Songs Vol. 2 becomes Banjaw’s very first album outside of East Africa. It’s a real treat. Hopefully we will be able to hear Vol. 1 sometime soon!