Ustad Saami - East Pakistan Sky

First published on The Quietus.

Ustad Saami
East Pakistan Sky
Glitterbeat Records (36 mins)

Naseeruddin Saami is a master – an ustad – of khayal, a highly-ornamented style of Hindustani classical music. His delicate voice and intricate command of a centuries-old tradition is capable of casting spells. Saami’s style is unique. His personal system divides each octave into forty-nine surti (microtones). For comparison, European music theory divides the octave into twelve, and Hindustani theory has mostly agreed on twenty-two. The core melodic elements of each piece – the raag – only use seven notes, Saami’s forty-nine surti gives him many times more options to inject the slightest nuance into every syllable, introducing changes so small that the conscious brain may not register them, but that are instead felt in the emotions of the listener. Now seventy-seven years old, Saami is still considered the only master of this surti system.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

My Instrument: Aga Ujma and her Sasando

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 171, October 2021.



The sasando is a rare instrument. It hails from the small Indonesian island of Rote, but it’s little-heard within Indonesia, and almost entirely unknown internationally. Although it looks a little like a short, squat harp, the sasando is a tube zither, its strings arranged in a full circle around a thick bamboo stem. In fact, it’s remarkably similar in sight and sound to its not-so-distant Austronesian cousin, the valiha from Madagascar.

The sasando’s most striking feature, however – and what sets it apart from its relatives – is the giant sail that is attached to both ends of its body, giving it a distinctly maritime feel. This sail is made from the leaves of the lontar palm, and serves the function of a soundbox – the space between the parabolic sail and the strings amplifies the sound, as well as bouncing it back to the musician (very useful when some of the strings are not visible behind the bamboo tube).

Polish musician Aga Ujma was a student at the Surakarta Institute of Arts in Indonesia when she first came across the sasando while at a music festival on Bokor island. She fell in love. “When I saw the sasando on stage for the first time, I was so mesmerised by how it looked, even before I heard it,” Ujma says. “But I really loved the sound and I was so lucky, I was staying at the same hostel as the musician, Ganzer Lana. He’s the main sasando guy in Indonesia, and he became my teacher.” She spent her final months in Indonesia studying under Lana, who crafted for Ujma her very own sasando, complete with specific innovations to allow for easy touring. It uses transducers to enable amplification, and can be mounted on a stand to be played sitting on a chair rather than – as traditional – on the floor. Even the sail has been modernised: “For most sasandos, it is always open. But mine folds up. This is a new invention that it folds, to make it easier to transport.” How many other musicians can say their instrument has a giant, telescopic sail?

The sasando has existed on Rote since at least the seventh century. At that time it only had five or eight strings, made from the bamboo stem’s skin, but it now has 32, made of wound metal. Having never played an instrument like it, it took some time for Ujma to become accustomed to the sasando. “It was very painful! Sometimes you play an instrument and you just don’t get it. Every person learns in a different way, but it was so difficult for me. You basically play four different things with two hands.” Around the 360° of strings, the musician plucks a bass pattern with their left fingers, chords with their right fingers and the melody with their thumbs. “My education as a classical pianist was actually really helpful, because it reminded me a lot of playing Bach’s fugues. You have to control so many melodies with just two hands, and that’s the same with sasando.”

Now based in London, Ujma’s music has gone from strength to strength, with Indonesian music playing a vital part. On her 2021 debut EP, Songs of Innocence and Experience, she shows off an undefinable alt-folk with distinct echoes of Björk and Joanna Newsom, and an intimate connection to the sounds of the sasando. As the zither doesn’t use the standard European equal-temperament tuning system, it lends Ujma’s melodies a shimmering, mystical quality.

For an instrument with such a unique construction, an ancient past and a beautiful, unearthly sound, it is tragic that the sasando is so little recognised outside of its own small island. But with the work of Ganzer Lana in Indonesia and Aga Ujma in Europe, more and more people are getting the opportunity to discover it for themselves – from Rote to the world.


Photo: Aga Ujma plays the sasando at the Serpentine Gallery, by Holly Whitaker.

Arushi Jain - Under the Lilac Sky

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 171, October 2021.

Arushi Jain
Under the Lilac Sky
Leaving Records (49 mins)

Arushi Jain is an Indian-born, classically-trained Hindustani singer. She is also a Brooklyn-based modular synthesizer enthusiast. Using these two powerful and personal instruments, Jain’s Under the Lilac Sky is a beautiful ambient marriage of her two homes.

Just as ragas are entwined with a specific time of day or year, this is an album of sunsets. Everything here is consciously liminal: between day and night; between India, the US and somewhere imaginary; between melody, timbre and texture; between voice and synth. Jain’s music is all of them and none of them.

There are no beats here. The whole album feels like an extended alap. Various organic and electronic voices discover sonic possibilities conjured up by complex drones, and in doing so, build vast mystical scapes. The mood is always calm, although it treads a strange line between comforting and unsettling, always in the most evocative way. Echoes of Sheila Chandra bloom throughout as layers of silken sargam overlap upon low, raspy bass – there is a definite retro vibe but one that is distinctly rooted in the 2020s.

It could all very easily have tipped into the perilous realm of New Age, but instead, Jain has made a very impressive album – the perfect soundtrack to a warm, perfumed breeze at sunset.

Badume's Band & Selamnesh Zéméné - Yaho Bele / Say Yeah

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 171, October 2021.

Badume's Band & Selamnesh Zéméné
Yaho Bele / Say Yeah
Innacor Records (46 mins)

Badume’s Band are one of the mainstays of European Ethio-jazz, with over a decade of experience as the go-to backing band for Swinging Addis legends such as Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshèté. Now celebrating their 15th anniversary, the band (in a slimmed-down trio formation) release their long-awaited third album – their first since 2011 and their second spotlighting singer Selamnesh Zéméné.

Unlike the pop star Ethio-jazzers, Selamnesh is from the tradition of the azmari, wandering bards that sing history and political commentary under layers of comedy and poetics. Azmari music has a unique sound, based on the Ethiopian pentatonic kignit scales and distinctive kebero drum rhythms. On Yaho Bele, Badume’s Band give the azmari repertoire a rocky punch without losing any of its unmistakable flavour.

It’s in the slower, bluesier pieces where the whole group shine the most, such as on ‘Ye Ambassel Mare’, where distorted guitar solos over a sparse groove and hints of extended jazz chords while Selamnesh’s powerful voice stretches high above it all. In fact, this new, smaller set-up of Badume’s Band actually allows everyone the space to flourish, still creating rich backdrops for vocal fireworks without it feeling crowded.

Azmari songs with a rock swagger and an Ethio-jazz swing – it certainly is an exciting combination.

Garth Cartwright & Quintina Valero - London’s Record Shops

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 171, October 2021.

Garth Cartwright & Quintina Valero
London’s Record Shops
The History Press (176 pages)

Following on from his 2018 deep dive into the social history of the UK’s record shops, Going on a Song, author and regular Songlines contributor Garth Cartwright has teamed up with photographer Quintina Valero to document the shape of London’s record trade during one of its most uncertain periods.

Cartwright and Valero visited 36 record shops around the capital, grouped into seven distinct neighbourhoods of Soho, Camden, Ladbroke Grove, Brixton, Peckham & Camberwell, Hackney and Whitechapel. Each shop gets its own profile, varying in length from a couple of paragraphs’ description to a detailed chronology and in-depth interview with owners. On top of that, each district is explored in terms of its musical history and legendary record shops and venues sadly lost to the ages.

The lovely thing about the book is that the ‘shop’ aspect of the record shops isn’t the focus. Instead it’s a love letter to the culture of these small shrines to good music, and the passion, knowledge and enthusiasm of the characters that exist within their orbit. The shops and their people reflect all manner of musical styles, subcultures, clientele, ages and opinions, a great snapshot of the huge diversity and all-encompassing nature of London’s musical scene. It also serves as a historical document: the unmistakable shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic looms large over many of the interviews, photographs and stories, very much placing this book in this specific time.

In terms of a ‘coffee table book’, London’s Record Shops ticks all the boxes. It’s full of beautiful, interesting and informative photographs to leaf through at leisure, and the text provides an enjoyable read, even in a dip-in-and-out way. And if you ever find yourself in London with a spare afternoon, it would doubtless serve as an essential guidebook. Just remember to bring your wallet.

Hamdi Benani, Mehdi Haddab & Speed Caravan - Nuba Nova

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 170, August/September 2021.

Hamdi Benani, Mehdi Haddab & Speed Caravan
Nuba Nova
Buda Musique (51 mins)

Medhi Haddab's rai-punk outfit Speed Caravan have somewhat escaped my attention since their brilliant 2008 debut Kalashnik Love, but this album of classical Algerian malouf repertoire with master Hamdi Benani certainly made me prick up my ears. Although renowned as a classical singer and violinist, Benani was always a fearless innovator: the evidence is in the ease at which he twists his two instruments around whatever Speed Caravan throw his way.

The album starts like fairly standard rai fusion, but by the end of the first track it’s already evolved into Maghrebi psytrance led by Haddab’s Frampton-esque oud-vocoder. By then all bets are off. Sometimes there’s a distinctive Tuareg vibe, or a Latin lilt, or a full-on surf-rock growl, but it’s always with an unmistakable Algerian aesthetic, whether in the gasba flutes harking to rai’s origins or even the synths hitting all the tastiest quarter-tones in the maqam. All with that extra bit of punk attitude, of course.

Nuba Nova ended up being Benani’s final project; he died of COVID-19 in September 2020, aged 77. He was respected for pushing the boundaries, and this album does real justice to that legacy – as well as being a proper banger on its own merit.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble - Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 170, August/September 2021.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble
Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble
Flowfish Records (39 min)

It took the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble until their fifth album and tenth year to go eponymous. It takes time to know thyself, after all, and the Ensemble pretty much have that worked out. In that way, this new album (referred to by those in the know as HCE5) is largely more of the same from them: West African-angled soul-jazz, albeit this time with occasional hip-hop courtesy of guest rapper Synik from Zimbabwe.

Made remotely in Finland and Benin, with band members working out how to use recording software on-the-fly, HCE5 nevertheless sounds as cohesive and polished as if the group were all together in the studio. The resulting Afrosoul is smooth and uplifting – real easy morning Radio 2 vibes – that does slip into cheesiness fairly often. It’s best when they give the sound a bit of an edge, such as on ‘Djogbé Ana Zon’, which nods to modern Afropop alongside xylophones and some shrieking jazz solos; it’s a slightly more challenging listen, and all the more rewarding for it.

Appropriately for a self-titled album, the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble have solidified the sound that they have been working on for the past decade. They stick to what they know, and they do it well.