Qwanqwa - Qwanqwa Live

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 201, October 2024.

Qwanqwa
Qwanqwa Live
Qwanqwa (73 mins)

For three studio albums, Addis Ababa-based Qwanqwa have explored the range of Ethiopian traditional music, performing pieces from many of the country’s different ethnic groups, shaking things up with elements of Ethiojazz, funk and psychedelia, all played on the traditional krar (lyre), masenko (one-string fiddle) and kebero (drums), and the less-traditional bass krar and five-string violin. Until now, the group’s albums have been mostly instrumental – Qwanqwa Live introduces azmari singer Selamnesh Zemene (lately heard with Badume's Band) as their full-time vocalist. And it’s a revolution. Selamnesh really brings things to the next level, providing a focal point to the instrumentals but fully capable of soaring off into breathtaking melismas at a moment’s notice. Special mention should also be made of globetrotting masenko player Endris Hassen, whose one-string solos conjure up rock and jazz with impeccable subtlety. This live release is pieced together from their 2022 US tour – keep an eye out for future dates.

Atlas Maior - Hadal (Deluxe Edition)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 201, October 2024.

Atlas Maior
Hadal (Deluxe Edition)
Dead Red Queen Records (38 mins)

This deluxe edition collects Texas-based jazz quartet Atlas Maior’s recorded output from the past four years. It’s an album of two halves – Side A is the band’s 2023 all-instrumental mini-album Hadal, and Side B is two tracks made with Pakistani kafi singer Ali Pervez Mehdi plus two remixes. Side A is the strongest, where the group really show what they’re capable of, the pieces built from the inspired interplay between alto saxophone and oud. There is strong influence from classical and folk traditions from across the Arab world, and there is a hearty debt to free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. It’s a great example of exploratory small-band jazz, with exemplary solos. After this glorious journey, Side B falls a bit flat. Mehdi’s Sufi vocals are beautiful, but seem to constrain the free-flow of electric creative energy otherwise present. The remixes are similarly enjoyable while adding little.

Atse Tewodros Project - Maqeda

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 201, October 2024.

Atse Tewodros Project
Maqeda
Galileo MC (51 mins)

The Atse Tewodros Project is the brainchild of singer Gabriella Ghermandi, and the project’s second album is a tribute to the women of Ethiopia, including the Queen of Sheba and going all the way back to Dinkinesh (or Lucy), one of the earliest-known hominids. Like its founder, the project is Ethiopian-Italian, featuring a core of Ethiopian traditional instrumentalists bolstered by Italian jazz musicians and occasional Senegalese guests on kora, guitar and sabar. In fact, the group excel when they stick to their two main strengths: trad Ethiopian and jazz. The further they stray from those – for example, with cheesy reggae, body-music or rap breaks – the flatter it falls. The stand-out performance of the album comes from Fabrizio Puglisi, whose Herbie Hancock-style electric piano and synth solos enliven any track they’re featured on, especially the track ‘Dink Hona’, where all the best elements of the group’s collaboration are brought to the fore.

Amaka Jaji - Tidet

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Amaka Jaji
Tidet
Bloc C (39 mins)

If you're anything like me, you only need three words to make you want to listen to this album: Libyan Tuareg trap. Ooof, now there's promising. And Amaka Jaji delivers. Tidet grooves right from the start: synths mixing with pentatonic Saharan guitars, drum machines set to maximum lope, Jaji’s raspy, almost-whispered and ever-so-slightly autotuned songs in Tamasheq and Arabic, field recordings of Sufi events around his hometown of Ghat sampled over deep, dark bass… Everything about this album serves to paint a portrait of a Libya-raised, Tunis-based multi-instrumentalist intimately connected to his Tuareg and Sufi roots and profoundly immersed in the popular music of the world, from hip-hop and trap to raï and electronica. In the press release, Jaji says: ‘Tidet is not just an album; it's an act of resistance and a declaration of identity from an indigenous Tuareg artist.” This is modern, outward-facing Tuareg music like you’ve never heard before – and it’s all the better for it.

Bassekou Kouyate & Amy Sacko - Djudjon: L’Oiseau de Garana

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Bassekou Kouyate & Amy Sacko
Djudjon: L’Oiseau de Garana
One World Records (61 mins)

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba have been the world’s ambassadors for Bamana jeli (griot) ngoni music since their first album in 2007. Now on their sixth, they’ve dropped the band name in favour of further highlighting the wonderful jelimuso (and Bassekou’s wife) Amy Sacko. A slightly strange move, as the band are still here and Amy only sings on half the tracks. But never mind. Djudjon is a tribute to Bassekou’s hometown of Garana, Mali, and it shows the group at their most stripped-back: no ostentatious guest musicians, no effects pedals. It grants the listener space to appreciate the interweaving textures of the ensemble, Amy’s powerful and subtle voice, Bassekou’s nimbly virtuosic ngoni – and his occasional, innovative use of a bottleneck blues slide on his lute. Bassekou and Amy aren’t breaking any particularly new ground as they have done in the past, but this is still a lovely, solid set from the first family of Bamana ngoni.

Temporal Waves - Temporal Waves

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Temporal Waves
Temporal Waves
Linear Fade Records / People Places Records (63 mins)

Canadian tabla player Shawn Mativetsky has performed and recorded across many genres for the past 25 years, but this is his first album under his new moniker. Don’t let the percussion fool you – there is little South Asian to Temporal Waves except for some rhythmic phrasing and the occasional tihai. Instead, the tabla is suffused into vast, cinematic synth-futurism with dubtronic and retro video game edges – think Vangelis and Wendy Carlos playing on an Atari in a Whirl-y-Gig chill-out room. It’s all guided by a very strong sense of sci-fi aesthetic, from the hi-tech fantasy forest cover art to the synthscapes that toe the edge between optimistic utopia on one side, and menacing dystopia on the other. Temporal Waves isn’t doing anything particularly new or groundbreaking here, but he does serve up a big dose of nostalgia: the 80s and 90s vibes are real. Stick this on some bassy speakers and have a blast from futures past.

Rəhman Məmmədli - Azerbaijani Gitara, Vol. 2

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 199, July 2024.

Rəhman Məmmədli
Azerbaijani Gitara, Vol. 2
Bongo Joe Records (39 mins)

Bongo Joe Records’ first foray into gitara music from Azerbaijan (the aptly-titled Azerbaijani Gitara by Rüstəm Quliyev, released in 2020) was a revelation. Now we get Vol. 2, this time a compilation of the work of Rəhman Məmmədli… and cor, it’s just as good.

The key ingredient in gitara is the electric guitar – specifically Jolana guitars from Czechoslovakia, which Azeri musicians realised was a perfect fit for creating an exciting modern blend of folk and classical styles, as well as influences from East and West. Məmmədli’s speciality is in pointing gitara towards classical mugham, transforming emotional, solemn art music into a wild rollercoaster of guitar wizardry accompanied by synths, programmed drums and the occasional accordion.

This album’s opener, ‘Qoçəlı̇’, is the perfect example. You get about one second of synth drone to tune in and prepare for what’s coming before Məmmədli comes roaring in, guitar already on full-distortion, creating a beautiful, unmetred improvisation; later, Casio beats and frame drum come in, and it just turns up to the next notch again. Like Quliyev, Məmmədli’s style shows clear influence from the iconic tar in the way he picks the strings and crafts his runs, and in the minute adjustments he makes within each note, bending the strings freely and subtly, gaining access to the most ecstatic of microtones. But what is most astonishing is the sheer vocality that he gets out of his guitar. At times there is an uncanny sense that the sounds he makes are literally that of a master singer, even affecting techniques such as zəngulə, a sort of chromatic yodelling so distinctive of mugham.

The programmed backing tracks and beats sometimes get a bit wearing, but they're never allowed to linger on their own for long before they are inevitably and completely overshadowed by guitar. It’s that good. Two volumes into the Azerbaijani Gitara series, and it’s all gold. I wonder how many more master musicians, how many treasure troves of gitara are still waiting to grace our ears? I can’t wait to hear more.