Table of contents for June 2023 in Songlines

There can be no denying the cyclical nature of music. In the early 2000s, after a decade in which Britpop, grunge and big beats seemed to rule the roost, there was a need for a little quiet and reflection. I remember discovering Lone Pigeon after wearing out The Beta Band’s The Three EP’s and then getting lost in the early records of his Fence Collective comrades, namely King Creosote and James Yorkston. In those winding guitar licks and sweet Fifeshire turns of phrases I lost many an afternoon when I should have been studying. It was around the same time that Jim Moray released Sweet England and Eliza Carthy put out Anglicana, two albums that reimagined English folk music for a new generation, though I have to admit it was…

JOAQUÍN SABINA, an important influence on Jorge Drexler (as detailed in our last issue), is a Spanish singer-songwriter with an amazing comeback story; he’ll be playing at the Royal Albert Hall on May 19… at the same venue on May 27 will be BLACK PANTHER IN CONCERT, the box office hit’s original score being performed by Chineke! Orchestra with Massamba Diop special guest as talking drum soloist… The Barbican have announced a headline slot for Mexico’s LILA DOWNS on Jul 16 as well as THE UNTHANKS ALL-DAYER on Sep 10 which will feature the Northumbrian sisters and their band along with support from Lucy Farrell and Devon Sproule. The all-dayer will also take place at Sage Gateshead on Sep 9… ELIADES OCHOA is back with a new album and has…

The Wicker Man arrived fifty years ago in just a few London cinemas in December 1973, before a wider release in the UK and US. Since then, it’s reputation has grown and grown, becoming one of those cultural entities that seems self-contained within its own universe. It’s an emblem of Albion on screen and the visionary, sometimes outsider, traditions of British culture, with both the film’s nefarious locals and its music, which approximated the popular folk music of the time, to blame. Even a Nicholas Cage-starring reboot couldn’t ruin this one’s reputation. Now, to mark its 50th anniversary, a five-disc Collector’s Edition of the film will be released featuring all three cuts of the film in 4K as well as other goodies, including a new EP on Heavenly Recordings featuring…

Back in 2008 I wrote a Songlines article titled ‘Indian Music: A Near-Death Experience’. It pointed out that the best-known names in Indian classical music were, to put it politely, veterans. Among the ones still active at the time were Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma and Amjad Ali Khan, the youngest, who was then 62. Now, only Amjad and Hariprasad are still with us. The point I was making was that the old masters were just being promoted again and again because their names would sell and not enough was being done to encourage subsequent generations and new artists. A leading promoter of Indian music said: “The era of this music is passing. What’s missing is the soul. Today’s musicians may be technically better, but the…

When Angeline Morrison read WEB Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, a pioneering work of African-American folklore written 120 years ago about enslaved Black people and their descendants chronicling their lived experience in song, she was struck by a profound thought: “There have been Black people in Britain for centuries, so why do we not have folk songs about the Black experience here?” Sitting in a café at the Barbican with her autoharp by her side prior to soundchecking for a gig at London’s Slaughtered Lamb pub, she reasons that it is inconceivable that Britain’s pre-Windrush Black population did not have their own folk songs. “People of the African diaspora have been present in these islands since at least Roman times and if they were here, they would have…

Ruth Angell Hlywing Talking Elephant Records After working with the likes of Ashley Hutchings and Rufus Wainwight, Ruth Angell finally records her debut solo album, and it proves to be an intriguing and exquisite set which shows that she’s not just a fine violinist and guitarist but a highly original songwriter whose thoughtful, emotional lyrics and melodies match her cool voice. The title is from an old English word meaning shelter or refuge, and though there’s a sense of tranquillity to much of the album, the atmospheric songs about birds or delight in the countryside are matched against others that deal with death or the pain of those who fail to find safe refuge. The one non-original song is Joni Mitchell’s ‘Magdalene Laundries’, that powerful attack on the institutions to…

Unthank: Smith Describe the process of songwriting in this project. SMITH: I had already written songs like ‘The Natural Urge’ and ‘Robert Kay’, which I felt would work with traditional material and Rachel’s voice. Rachel brought a few traditional songs that she’d wanted to do previously. ˜is led me to adapt some words from various sources to create new songs. UNTHANK: I have dabbled with songwriting before, but I grew up surrounded by all these rich folk tales that stood the test of time, so I felt intimidated to add my own. Paul encouraged me to bring something to the table and I was working on [‘Seven Tears’] at the time, so tentatively offered it up. It took on a new life and shape which was very rewarding. What did…

Acid Arab Trois Crammed Discs There’s an essential difference between listening to Rachid Taha or Khaled and Acid Arab. These ten tracks are not songs perse, and one shouldn’t hold them up to the same high standards set by above mentioned rai superstars. The tracks are for the most part hypnotic, trance-inducing dancefloor killers not hum-along ditties. The guest vocalists don’t normally sing, but rather intone, the vocals embedded artfully in the beat-scapes as snippets and samples. The tracks are meant to engender a kind of cool, lowkey dancefloor transcendence. At times, Acid Arab aspire to something more and pull a catchy melody, as with ‘Halim Guelil (feat Cheb Halim)’ with its warbling auto-tune vocals and chiming, minimalistic melodramatic chordal progressions, superimposed with what sounds like ney flute, though this…

Footsteps (Music Today, 1998) Her debut. With her father alongside on harmonium, she sings ragas ‘Bhatiyar’, ‘Kaushik Dhwani’ and a delectable dadra-style ‘Pahadi’. Pure (Sense World Music, 2004) Recorded live in London, with Yogesh Samsi on tabla. After exploring ‘Raga Madhuvanti’ at length, she closes with a gorgeous thumri in ‘Misra Mand’. Reviewed in January/February 2005 (#28). Kaushiki (Sense World Music, 2007) Superlative triple set. Nine studio recordings across vocal styles from north and south India; the playful Carnatic Thillana’ is a highlight. Two bonus discs, recorded live at the Saptak festival, feature ‘Rageshri’ and a thumri in ‘Misra Pilu’. Reviewed in September/October 2007 (#46). Karvaan: The Beginning of a New Journey (Times Music, 2015) A change of style. On New Journey, Kaushiki sings six tracks written by her brother…

Musical gripes, rants and raves… Drummers: we love ‘em. They are – quite literally – the heartbeat of much of the world’s music, whether they’re holding down an ensemble in a groove or whipping up the audience with a frenzied battery. There are few more intoxicating experiences than those led by polyrhythms blasted from drum-skins, and for that, drummers, we humbly thank you. But over the past decade or so, I’ve slowly become aware of an on-going epidemic that is sweeping the rhythmic community with frightening effect… I’m talking of course about the plight of Bored Drummers in Quiet Sections of Concerts. It really is a worrying trend. The most easily infected are kit drummers who play in bands, but players of single drums and percussion sets are not immune.…

Catalina Maria Johnson A Chicago-based journalist, radio host and producer, Catalina’s focus is on how global music intersects with culture, identity and migration. She visits Austin, TX this issue to see if SXSW is back to normal (p83) Justin Turford Justin is a DJ, writer, creative producer and one half of international music advocates and party organisers Truth & Lies Music. This issue he leaves no stone unturned to curate our UK Festival Guide (p40) Yijia Tu Yijia is a Chinese musician, singer and ethnomusicologist based in the UK. She was once taught by Kadialy Kouyate, who she speaks to in this issue, along with Gao Hong, about their new collaboration (p38) Songlines was launched in 1999 and is the definitive magazine for world music – music that has its…

Producer, musician, DJ and broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal has not only recently released her second album, DREAMER, but is busying herself as guest director for Brighton Festival. Both projects come after Iqbal went through a diffcult-time–all the equipment in her music studio, including her nearly finished album, was stolen at the start of the pandemic. Soon afterwards, she got a phone call telling her that her grandfather in Pakistan was ill. Iqbal travelled across the world, with an acoustic guitar and harmonium in tow, to see him. She was never going to recover the music that had been lost, but time away allowed her to find a new music that went back to basics, connecting her to something more personal. She explains the influence of Pakistan on DREAMER, “This album was…

Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood ‘Ashufak Shay’ The first single from this unexpected collaboration is a fine indicator of their upcoming album, with Tassa and Greenwood joined by Lebanese vocalist Rashid al-Najjar, one of many collaborators on an album that spans the Middle East. WITCH ‘Avalanche of Love feat Sampa The Great’ The Zamrock pioneers are back with a smoking slab of psych-rock bolstered by Sampa The Great’s soulful and potent vocals.. The Mary Wallopers ‘The Holy Ground’ This take on a traditional County Cork song gives joyful, beautiful, sometimes raucous sound and story to sailors’ love of shore leave. It’s no wonder the Wallopers are selling out venues all over the UK. Jasdeep Singh Degun ‘Aapki Khushi feat Ashnaa’ Ashnaa Sasikaran takes the role of Eurydice in this gorgeous…

July 2023 (#189) On sale June 16 Fatoumata Diawara talks about her new album, Angolan star Pongo details her struggles to get to the top and Shirley Collins looks over her spectacular and ever-growing career. We profile an astonishing new album from exiled Afghan musicians and find out why percussion ensemble La Bomba de Tiempo are Buenos Aires’ hottest attraction. We take a trip down memory lane to remember Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens’ UK shows in the 80s. Sufi group Al-Kindi Ensemble return after the death of their founder and Peter One spills all on his journey from Ivory Coast to Nashville. We are also so happy to announce our new regular guest columnist, the one and only Eliza Carthy!…

The camera starts with an extreme closeup of Radie Peat’s face. She delivers the first line of ‘Go Dig My Grave’ a cappella. We can see her breath as she sings each word – the effect is chilling, both literally and in the way her spirit appears to be escaping as she sings ‘Go dig my grave, both wide and deep. Place a marble stone at my head and feet, and on my breast, a snow-white dove to tell this world that I died for love.’ A simple accompaniment tolls a death knell as the camera slowly pans backwards, showing Peat surrounded by mourners dressed in black, some with their faces covered, in a cold, stark room where the paint flecks from the walls. As the camera backs out of…

BRÌGHDE CHAIMBEUL Brìghde Chaimbeul grew up on the Isle of Skye, speaking Gaelic and steeped in the culture, tunes and stories. “All Gaelic speakers have to know a song or two,” she quips. “It’s a big part of the language.” Chaimbeul sings beautifully but is best known for playing the Scottish smallpipes. These are ‘cauld wind’, blown by bellows rather than the player’s breath, with a chanter playing the melody and three more pipes providing constant single notes, the drones. These are, for Chaimbeul, crucial. “I definitely wanted that big drone sound. I wanted a bit more bass as well.” Chaimbeul’s new album, Carry Them With Us, begins with ‘Pililiù – the Call of the Redshank’ and she uncannily captures the speedy staccato peepings of the bird. “There’s a strong…

Like many things that emerged out of 2022, it all began on a Zoom call. In this case, with two virtuoso musicians from China and Senegal – “as far away as one could go on the map,” they laugh – connecting through music. The result was Terri Kunda (The House of Friendship), an album and musical dialogue that represents the first time that the pipa (four-stringed plucked lute) and kora (21-stringed lute-harp) have been recorded together as a duet. “It’s all my fault!” exclaims Gao Hong, the internationally-acclaimed pipa player, explaining this project’s development. “I’ve been fascinated by the kora for a very long time. The first time I heard [it], I could almost hear the pipa in it.” When Gao came to London in 2022, she wanted to meet…

Lekan Babalola Aladura Songs Book Oyeku Records Aladura Songs Book finds two-time Grammy Award-winning percussionist Lekan Babalola – Lagos, Nigeria-born and living in his adopted Birmingham (UK) since 2010 – paying effervescent tribute to his musically polymathic father, Amos ‘AO’ Olayiwola Babalola. The Aladura of the title refers to the Nigerian Christian sect of the ‘Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim’ founded in 1925, for whom ‘AO’ wrote copious hymns. What results is a fizzing mélange, equal parts devotion, homage and celebration, mashing together Babalola senior’s eclectic musical signature – a melting pot into which were poured accents drawn from apala, sakara, jùjú, Afrobeat and waka liberally laced with influences from further afield including blues, jazz, soca and country & western – with Babalola junior’s own brass-led instincts, exultant…

It’s a while since we had a new album from Kimmo Pohjonen, but rest assured this extraordinary accordionist, whose projects range from dance and orchestral collaborations, to music for wrestling and tractors, is always plotting new musical surprises. On the new album, Voice of Northern Lowland (Svart Records ****), he teams up with long-term collaborator, vocalist and guitarist Ismo Alanko to form Pohjonen Alanko in some fearless combative forest floor growling, electronic adventures and far-away hymns from long ago. The sound design by Tuomas Norvio is exquisite. Duetting of a different kind comes from Knut Buen (fiddle) & Sigmund Groven (harmonica). Buen is one of the most revered Hardanger fiddle players in Norway and here we meet him as poet too, giving voice to a lifetime of feelings and experiences…

Christopher Adler Landscape Traces: New Music For Khaen, Vol Two Liber Pulveris Recordings The khaen is a bamboo free-reed mouth organ played by ethnic Laotians in Laos and Northeast Thailand. Performed solo, or as an accompaniment to poems and dances, it plays an important role in Laotian identity. Since he began learning the khaen in the 1990s, San Diego-based academic Adler has worked to expand the repertoire of the instrument through his own compositions and those of contemporary composers. The first release in his New Music for Khaen series was Triangulations: New Music for Khaen, Vol One, released in 2020. For the second volume, Adler ‘selected instruments in different pitches and with distinctive timbres’ for each composition, enabling him to explore further the tonal possibilities of the khaen, which he…

What was the thinking behind this collaboration? FLECK: To me, a collaboration where nobody changes is not a collaboration. It’s a mash-up – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I like a collaboration where I have to learn… What is great about this quartet is that everybody has to stretch in the direction of the other people. The music echoes the different worlds we all come from. What was it like recording together again after all these years? FLECK: When we made The Melody of Rhythm, Edgar and I barely knew Zakir – and we were just learning what kinds of things worked for this combination of instruments. MEYER: The addition of Rakesh to the original lineup opened up the musical possibilities in a multifaceted way, to a more…

“In 2017 I had a breakdown. I dealt with that breakdown by buying as much music from 2016 as I possibly could. As a result, I now own over 600 albums that came out in 2016 and I’m convinced it’s the greatest year for music of all time,” proclaims comedian James Acaster at the beginning of his Perfect Sounds podcast. The journey he describes in that introduction has now somehow led him into a new career as a musician. Well, not quite, that career was already there, just on hold. “My first comedy gig was when I was 21,” he tells me, “and I was still in bands at that point.” Bands with names such as the Wow! Scenario and Capri-Sun Quartet. “My main aim was to be a musician,…

01 Planxty Planxty (Polydor, 1973) Also called The Black Album, this groundbreaking debut brought together Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Dónal Lunny and Liam O’Flynn, each of them giants of the music scene. It opens with ‘Raggle Taggle Gypsy’ and closes with ‘The Blacksmith’, with haunting renditions of tunes like ‘Planxty Irwin’ drawing up drone roots that the likes of Lankum would go on to explore in the 21st century. 02 The Bothy Band Old Hag You Have Killed Me (Mulligan Records, 1976) A classic set, and a signifier of what was to come, bringing Irish traditional music to life the way Fairport had done in England, and featuring a cracking line-up of star players on whistle, bodhrán, fiddle, guitar, flute and pipes, including Paddy Keenan, Matt Molloy and Dónal Lunny,…

BENIN: Angélique Kidjo (right) has been awarded the Polar Music Prize, given as ‘International Recognition of Excellence in the World of Music.’ Chris Blackwell also received the award… CHILE: the song/performance piece ‘Un Violador en Tu Camino’ (A Rapist in Your Path) became the anthem of Latin American protests against violence towards women in 2019. The art collective behind the performance, LASTESIS, have now published their manifesto, Set Fear on Fire: The Feminist Call That Set the Americas Ablaze (Verso Books)… FRANCE: Jean Paul Capitani, co-founder of the Actes Sud festival, has died aged 78 after fatally falling from his bike… INDIA: the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre opened its doors in Mumbai on March 31. The centre aims to be a ‘first-of-its-kind, multi-disciplinary cultural space’ and opened with a…

• 100 pages of stunning content exploring the region’s history, musical styles and traditions• Profiles on the countries of Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina• Over 120 recommended album reviews• Exclusive opinion piece on the role of music in Latin American politics The Music of Latin America + The Music of West Africa available as a bundle for the special price of £19.99 Order online at magsubscriptions.com/songlines or call +44 (0)1722 716997 *Free P&P for UK orders. P&P postage will be added to international orders.…

Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you! Covering the context I forgot to include this in my response to your readers’ survey! I’d appreciate more Songlines magazine covers which give a stronger sense of place. I understand that you’d want to avoid stereo› pical images of ‘exotic’ musicians in ‘exotic’ locations and I’m not suggesting, for example, that Indian musicians should line up in front of the Taj Mahal. It’s also not for lack of charisma on the part of the musicians depicted; stars like Lido Pimienta and Erol Josué burst out of the picture with no need for fancy backdrops. But Songlines is so good at putting the music into its geographical and social context that it just seems a shame when so many covers show…

Although Lankum have made it clear that what they’re doing is not traditional music, they have never been shy in talking about how they came to their versions of specific songs and all the artists that played a part in the process. The group’s Ian Lynch goes to extreme lengths to do this on his podcast, Fire Draw Near. As well as episodes simply picking out his favourite earworms, there are specials on particular songs, with two episodes being dedicated to ‘The Wild Rover’ (aka ‘Moonshiner’) which Lankum perform in a startling ten-minute version on The Livelong Day. Songs from the new album have had the same treatment, with special episodes on ‘Go Dig My Grave’ (“The version of the song that we recorded was first heard by Radie on…

Brothers Comatose Ear Snacks Swamp Jam Records That this San Francisco-based band records and performs with numerous like-minded guests suggests the current good health of country rock in Northern California, where most of the guests are based, if not in other parts of the US. There’s also a healthy eclecticism to this sixth full-length release by the Brothers Comatose. It extends, at the top of the track list, from mid-century white gospel to a cover of the Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Women’ to one of the album’s two original tracks, with covers of Cake, Springsteen, Tom Pet—, Janis Joplin, and R&B jiver Brenton Wood showing up further along. The Brothers’ bluegrassy instrumentation and close-harmony vocals distinguish their approach to covers from the originals, perhaps rendering those songs more accessible to their…

Lucy Farrell has a fine track record with Furrow Collective, among other groupings, and We Are Only Sound (Hudson Records ****) is her solo debut, atmospherically recorded at Wenlock Abbey in Much Wenlock. She’s a brilliant singer of traditional songs, and these originals, negotiating the rapids of relationships, parenthood and existence, are intimate, self-reflective folk-pop songs of insight, beauty and depth. Guitarist Kris Drever and bassist Ben Nichols are among the sympathetic guest players. Farrell’s singing is gorgeous. You wait ages for a Lucy Farrell album to come along, and now it’s here. Climb aboard. Leveret celebrate a decade of exploring and reviving English instrumental music on their new set, Forms (Leveret ****). There is, once again, a range of antique song sources, from Playford to the likes of poet John…

Sarah Aroeste Savor Sarah Aroeste Music and food go well together. So much so that singer Sarah Aroeste and chef Susan Barocas decided to join forces and celebrate Sephardic culture and tradition in quite a unique project. Each of the ten tracks on Savor (meaning flavour) revolves around a specific Sephardic food item, and while Sarah Aroeste sings the words and melodies rooted in the Iberian Jewish tradition, Susan Barocas develops the corresponding recipe. Therefore, if you wish to, you can listen to these Savor songs and watch a companion cooking video where ten female chefs prepare the various dishes. Musically speaking, the Ladino singer explores ten quite different genres, from the desert blues style of ‘Siete Modes de Guisar la Berendjena’ and the sweet ballad of ‘La Envenenadora’ to…

Brought to you by Classical Matthew Barley Electric Signum Cellist Matthew Barley’s latest album sees him showcase eight composers writing music for solo cello and electronics, the plethora of works spanning from 1980s Jonathan Harvey to recent commissions. Electric is a timely album when, following the scoring work of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, electro-acoustic cello has become ubiquitous in film and TV. The longer works draw the best from Barley’s warm tone and sensitive playing. Harvey’s ‘Ricercare Una Melodia’ creates a compelling drama from superimposed cello lines, some cantabile, some pizzicato. Oded Ben-Tal’s ‘Present Perfect’ features contrasting sections of discursive and spare style; using real-time AI, the electronics part is subtle but engaging. Some works eschew real-time signal processing for a pre-recorded backing track, such as Jan Bang’s ‘Noticing Things’,…

In early March 2020, the massive SXSW (South by Southwest) Conference and Festival – held yearly in Austin since 1987 – was cancelled. Its sudden absence was one of my first realisations that the virus we had been hearing about was a terribly serious health situation. Over the decades, SXSW had become indie music’s epicentre, a conference where creatives converged to participate in a 25-track program that included music and film & TV. „ Thee inaugural music festival showcased 177 artists on 15 stages. When I first attended in 2012, it boasted over 2,000 performing on 104 stages. What drew me to my first SXSWs was the ever-expanding international presence at the music showcases. It was an ideal space to take the pulse of indie music emerging in a plethora…

“Ricardo Dias Gomes gained his initial reputation playing bass with Caetano Veloso’s most rock’n’roll orientated band Cê, from around 2006 until 2012, when tightly configured electric guitars dominated. But that wasn’t his first instrument. As a teenager, he had played jazz and classical piano. “I got fed up with the cerebral way of thinking about the music, and picked up the electric bass,” Gomes recalls. “That’s the instrument that I really fell in love with…” Over the past ten years, he has split his time between the bass and, harking back to his piano days, playing keyboards or organs on records by Thiago Nassif, Ava Rocha and Jupiter & Okwess. Now, on his latest album, sramba, released under the name of fellow multi-instrumentalist Domenico Lancellotti, we find him with a…