Reviews

Shirati Jazz

After the very welcome release of Issa Juma’s World Defeats The Grandfathers, Stern’s follow up with another East African classic anthology, with another cute title – which refers to the respect accorded to the leader of the band, the late Daniel Owino Misiani, founder and central figure of Shirati Jazz. Also known as Mwalimu or ‘teacher’ in Swahili, D.O. was born a Tanzanian in the town of Shirati. He set up a band in his youth and had to leave home because of the trouble his songs were causing. He went to Kenya, where his Luo people are the third-largest part of the population, and again started stirring things up with hypnotic songs of social and political comment. His great achievement was to invent the benga beat.

Here in all its down-home majesty is a selection of benga hits and otherwise from the ‘70s, characterised by bold throbbing bass, click-click drums over simple bass beat, long vocal lines sung in harmony, punctuated by circling twin lead guitars and occasionally sax. It sounds quite simple – and the component parts are usually straightforward – but benga is particularly insistent dance music. It may not have the voluptuous complexity of Congolese rumba, nor the euphoric headiness of its Tanzanian relative, but it’s solid, effective and sometimes liable to sweep you up in a passage of pure magic.
• www.sternsmusic.com | distributed by Discovery: www.discovery-records.com | Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Martha Mavroidi

Rebetiko purists hold Manolis Chiotis responsible for one of the most unforgivable crimes of Greek music history. In the 1960s, the virtuoso rebetis adopted – and popularised – the electrified, four-course (tetrachordo) bouzouki. Exit raw, bluesy rebetiko; enter arrogant showmanship and insipid noodling. The electric bouzouki is synonymous with all the cheap Greek taverna clichés that polluted Greek music in the late 20th century. (Non-believers and the curious: consult the ‘Radical Movement For Rebetiko Dechiotification And Bouzouki Detetrachordization’.)

So I was not filled with hope to learn that Athenian musician Martha Mavroidi had built the first known electric lafta (a Greek/Turkish folk lute). But fortunately, this is not technological innovation for its own sake, or – worse still – to amplify some careless virtuoso performance. Instead, contemplative space defines her music – unsurprising, perhaps, given this album’s origins: Rila is the highest mountain in the Balkan peninsula, and on it stands a monastery with a hidden garden. Here, the songs of this album were born. The words of the excellent title track evoke this solitary peace: “By the river there is a garden, with no flowers nor human voices / Stones blossom in the small yard and two chestnut trees cast their shadow.” Amongst this arcadian imagery there are darker images too, the “drowned stars” and “the enemy’s bullets”.

Mavroidi describes her album as a “crossroads of sounds from the Balkans”, and the breadth of this cultural fusion is evident in its diverse instrumentation. Alongside her voice and lafta, a shifting line-up of musicians join her on vocals, bendir, daf, baglama, saz, trumpet, clarinet, guitar, violin and recorder. But even with this complex meeting of instruments, The Garden Of Rila remains a triumph of sympathetic arrangement, gentle instrumentation and quiet confidence. And even that electric lafta sounds wonderful.
• www.myspace.com/marthamavroidi | Buy from Amazon.co.uk

The Owl Service

Originally formed by Steven Collins in 2006 as a musical outlet for his love of British 1960s movies and TV, The Owl Service appears to have evolved through various eclectic diversions into a rather beguiling outfit devoted to exploring not only traditional song, but the pastoral moods it often evokes.

There’s nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking about their approach or the material they’ve chosen – predominantly well-known folk revival favourites like Polly On The Shore, Sorry The Day I Was Married, Willie O’Winsbury, Thorneymoor Woods and Banks Of The Nile – but their seven-piece set-up offers plenty of contrasting colours and moods and this turns out to be a rather lovely, unassuming, unpressurised collection. If only I knew what it meant I’d probably describe the daintily upbeat Ladies Don’t Go A-Thieving, the chiming I Was A Young Man and the ethereal The Bold Poachers as ‘psych folk’ or ‘wyrd folk’ or something, though there’s nothing too contrived or overly arranged about their presentation.

The influence of Shirley Collins is stamped all over it from the medieval lilt of The Ladies Go Dancing At Whitsun to Nancy Wallace’s unaccompanied Sorry The Day I Was Married, seguing cleverly into a jangling Willie O’Winsbury, which develops apace and is later effectively reprised in funereal fashion in acknowledgement of the song’s processional Wicker Man connotations. There’s a telling guest vocal by Alison O’Donnell of Mellow Candle on The Lover’s Ghost, while Jo Lepine delivers a hymn-like The Loyal Lover over a neat piano arrangement and, after a fleeting blast of The Gower Wassail, the album ends in spooky fashion with Lepine solemnly delivering the dark tale of Cruel Mother over an intimidating drone.

In truth you wouldn’t have to search too deeply to find better versions of every track included, but the Owl Service subtly and unselfconsciously create their own pleasing ambience, the tracks hanging together unusually well and, with an attractive sleeve detailing the provenance of every track, it’s a well-rounded and satisfying work.
• www.rifmountain.com | Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Alasdair Roberts

There are people who just don’t get Alasdair Roberts. I know this because, on the occasions I play his CDs in polite company, the first blast of his morose voice and miserable songs is usually met with a volley of uncomprehending scowls and baffled stares. More fool them, I say – Roberts is one of Britain’s most singular and original talents and if he initially sounds strange, nobody ever said music should be easy.

I mention this because there is a chance – admittedly a minor one – that this enriching collection of some of the folk tradition’s most colourful and dramatic ballads may just be the one to win over the sceptics.

Roberts has a way of inhabiting his material with such individual intimacy it feels as if the peculiar characters who invariably populate the narratives are close personal friends… or mortal enemies. His excellent last album Spoils seemed to invent an entire parallel universe, but this time the folk tradition which has inspired so much of his written material is itself the focus, the material ranging from the gruesome tales of Long Lankin and What Put The Blood On Your Right Shoulder, Son? to some of folk’s most iconic songs, like The Golden Vanity and Barbara Allen.

He did enter this sort of territory previously with his murder ballad album No Earthly Man in 2005 – one of the bleakest and most austere records of the modern era – but his approach here is entirely different, offsetting the starkness of his voice and most of the material with engaging arrangements, non-threatening delivery and an outstanding supporting cast, including Emily Portman on vocals, Donald Lindsay (pipes), Alastair Caplin (fiddle), Christine Hanson (cello), Bill Lowman (harp), Ben Reynolds (lap steel), Stevie Jones (bass) and Shane Connolly (drums). They lend the album a delicious, baroque feel that paradoxically sounds both weirdly ancient and compellingly contemporary. Consequently, it all sounds vulnerable and plaintive rather than fierce and scary, as exemplified by a yearning version of The Lover’s Ghost lent a perfect flavour of pathos by Ben Reynolds’ subtle lap-steel. Another staple murder ballad Two Sisters has a disconcertingly chirpy ambience on the back of Caplin’s dancing fiddle, while Emily Portman – herself no stranger to the dark side of song – adds a harmonic guile that somehow underlines the disquieting nature of Little Sir Hugh and Young Emily. An unexpected bout of folk-rock, albeit with unusual rhythms, suddenly envelops The Burning Of Auchindoun and there’s even a jaunty guitar instrumental Kilmahog Saturday Afternoon, written by Alasdair’s late father Alan Roberts, who was Dougie MacLean’s musical partner at the time of Alasdair’s birth in Germany.

If any album is to pluck Alasdair Roberts from the cult cocoon that consigns him to the margins of any number of spurious genres we may try to invent to accommodate him, then this is probably it. But to paraphrase Groucho Marx, would Alasdair want to join any genre willing to accept him as a member? Unlikely.
• www.navigatorrecords.co.uk | UK distribution by Proper. | www.alasdairroberts.com | Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Cass Meurig & Nial Cain: Deuawd (Fflach:Trad CD323H)
Now this is good, a delicate sidestep into old Welsh tunes and in-keeping originals that sit well together, bound by thoughtful guitar playing from Nial and lamb-like fiddle from Cass (ex-Fernhill). An air of homeliness fits the mood, contemplative but quietly daring to be different. A huge thumbs up. www.fflach.co.uk

Katie Rose: Fol-De-Rose (The Rose Window no cat. no.)
Limited-edition EP of Katie’s folkie quest follows her wandersome (seemingly) wilfully arty excursion through some trad folk staples (and Heart Like A Wheel). Initial unfavourable impressions are dissipated on closer acquaintance, as subsequent plays reveal intelligence within the idiosyncrasies, and by the tangy, mesmeric finale Sweet Primroses you’ll be totally hooked. www.myspace.com/katierosewindow

The ShamRockers: Just Plain Lucky (own label no cat no.)
True to type, The ShamRockers are another bunch of American Clancy Bros. and Irish Rovers wannabees, lost in a ‘60s time warp. Lusty and impassioned ballad thumping and minimal musical backing, without the Clancys and Rovers’ authenticity and spirit. www.portpolsonplayers.com

David Rotheray: The Life Of Birds (Proper PRPCD061)
Ex-Beautiful South/Homespun songwriter presents slices of personal, reflective socio-cultural commentary disguised as ornithological concept-album. Excellent guest vocal performances (Jim Causley, Bella Hardy, Eliza Carthy, Julie Murphy, Alasdair Roberts et al.) and instrumental support, if generally the quality of David’s songwriting, and the personalities of the individual singers, mostly tend to make a stronger initial impact than the musical settings. properuk.com | davidrotheray.com