CD review: Mayra Andrade – Storia Storia

An overnight star was born when Mayra Andrade’s debut album, Navega, was released in 2006. Gloriously sunny but full of energy, anchored with Cape Verdean rhythms but always looking afield for inspiration, it was one of those ‘of the moment’ records for world music. Inevitable comparisons were drawn with the original Cape Verdean diva, Cesaria Evora, but in truth, the voices and life experiences of these two women set them apart from the off. Andrade’s tastes are more international (like her upbringing, which took in Cuba, Germany, Senegal and Angola) and she weaves Brazilian, Cuban and other European and African influences into her songs. However, Unlike a high percentage of Cape Verdean people, who live abroad, Andrade’s is not music in exile, She sings principally in the Creole language of Cape Verde and her music is rooted in the song forms of the Atlantic archipelago.

Given the success of Navega and considering her youth and beauty, there was always the danger that Andrade’s record label, scenting easy money, would point her towards a too-smooth or easy-listening second release. In a funny way, this has happened. Stória Stória is an even more approachable listen than Navega: the production is fuller and the melodies are perhaps more even-keeled. But fear not, the new album has the stamp of Andrade and her closest collaborators all over it. Any reservations come with the caveat that the new album reveals a more mature artist working at greater depth. In short, it’s a more sophisticated offering.

That remarkable, smoky voice is given space to breath by Brazilian producer Ale Siqueira while the frequent brass, wind and string accompaniments are perfectly pitched – not intruding on the swing of a song but adding texture and emotional weight. The string arrangements especially (by well-known – again Brazilian – cellist Jaques Morelenbaum) add languidly but lustrously to the atmosphere, as on the beautiful ballad ‘Morena, Menina Linda’ and also ‘Odjus Fitchádu’, the results of a recent Andrade collaboration with Israeli artist Idan Raichel.

Other stand-out tracks include the title track, in which Andrade’s poetic tune develops into a slinky chorus sung by a children’s choir; the call-and-response cool of the percussion-led ‘Nha Damáxa’; the one French number, ‘Mon Carrousel’, which Andrade composed with Portuguese accordionist Celina Da Piedade; and the final song, ‘Lembránsa’, a Cuban-style morna with a delicate cameo from regular partner, Roberto Fonseca.

Stória Stória proves Andrade is a serious and thoughtful artist. If she continues to surround herself with such an eclectic crop of musicians, there is no doubt that as a singer, songwriter and lyricist, her Andrade’s star will continue to rise.

I could sing you so many tales
Of these sons of the Atlantic
Crushing rocks to extract their island joy
No other place on earth
Belongs to us like Cape Verde

Coming not-so-soon: The Berlin Phil heads to London

It took a rare piece of collaboration by the two big beasts of London’s arts venues – the Barbican and Southbank centres – to bring off a remarkable coup for the capital: a four-concert residency, in February 2011, by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle. Over four consecutive nights, the orchestra will perform a chamber and three symphonic concerts, covering repertoire from chamber music by Schubert and Schoenberg to Mahler’s mammoth third symphony.

To have the opportunity to potentially experience four concerts in a row by the world’s still pre-eminent orchestra represents a triumph for London audiences. Sir Simon is not known for his love of the symphony orchestras that distinguished call our city home; he only usually comes to London to guest conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The Berlin Philharmonic is not a regular visitor either: Rattle has never conducted his orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall. So to witness Liverpool’s finest on the podium is certainly a draw, but to see him with the Berliners in full throttle with Haydn, Schubert and Mahler is enough to make any music lover salivate.

It would be wise to be quick on the draw for tickets though. Expect it to sell out sharpish. I’m lucky enough to have tickets for the first Barbican concert: a late Haydn symphony, a new horn concerto by Toshio Hosokawa and Schubert 9. I hope I’ll still be alive to see it.

Stocking filler – try some Cape Verdean sunshine

Cesária Évora may have put the Cape Verde Islands on the music map, but the next generation of artists from the Atlantic archipelago is now also bringing its extraordinary variety of music to the world, something singer Nancy Vieira does stylishly on her third album, Lus (Light).

Click here to listen to an extract from title track ‘Lus’.

Read the full review in the January/February 2010 (#65) edition of Songlines, out now.

YouTube Highlights – Radiohead’s Kid A in a new light

As the pre-eminent ‘thinking man’s rock band’ of the past 20 years, it is perhaps not a surprise that Radiohead’s music has inspired frequent re-interpretation by cognisecenti enamoured of the band’s sometimes experimental but always distinctive and powerful sounds. New to the fray is an arrangement of Radiohead’s iconic album, Kid A, for piano, electronics and string quartet by London-based composer and arranger, Stephen Polydorou.

Launched in 2000 to acclaim and dismay in equal meausure, Kid A was a watershed moment for Radiohead, as they downed guitars and instead crafted an eerie masterpiece dominated by a new electronic and beats-driven landscape. The album has very much stood the test of time and now has classic status. Polydorou’s ‘classical’ arrangement takes the album’s 10 tracks and spins them in new directions, with influences that range from minimalism and electronica to Chopin and folk music, paying homage to Thom Yorke’s talent for melody but creating a new structure and atmosphere for the music. Plans are afoot for appearances at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival, so keep an eye out for this exciting project.

Rupa & the April Fishes at Cargo, Shoreditch

If Rupa and her April Fishes love to whip up a carnivalesque frenzy on their records, in the flesh their approach is even more sweaty and joyful. Whistles, microphone banditry and thundering percussion form the energetic backdrop to the band’s delivery of their distinctive brand of multi-stylistic world-folk music during this storming set at East London’s trendiest venue.

Rupa herself, centre-stage and dressed in black boots, white knee-high socks and colourful skirt and top, cuts an impressive figure with her spread of frizzy, dark hair. But what is more striking about Rupa & Co. on stage is that you see six musicians in the round, who, despite the non-stop party atmosphere, combine to deliver their punchy songs – mostly from recent release Este Mundo (click here to read a review) – with well-oiled ensemble playing, each adding to the band’s sound with their own distinctive musicianship.

Take trumpeter Marcus Cohen, for example. Instead of blasting away riffs like sidekick brass players tend to in upbeat bands, Cohen is a genuine jazz player, forming tight runs off Rupa’s vocals and never allowing flabby phrasing to take the bite out of his improvisations. Similar things could be said about each of the April Fishes, not least accordionist Isabel Douglass, whose gritty playing gives Rupa’s songs their gypsy flair.

In between numbers, Rupa took the time to explain a little more about the band’s global agit-pop outlook and tell the crowd a about the their US/Mexican border trip, inspiration for much of the music on Este Mundo, with its borderland themes and internationalist concerns. Appropriate perhaps that they finished with ‘Soy Payaso’ with its eastern tabla-style opening developing into a foot-stomping burlesque dance of epic proportions. Stirring stuff.

Watch San Francisco’s finest in action:

Trouble in Timbuktu

It was saddening to see a BBC news report last night on the dangers of Islamic extremism in the desert region of Northern Mali, the main city of which is of course Timbuktu. This famously remote region had been opening up to more of the outside world over recent years, largely because of the rich cultural history of the people of the southern Sahara, with its mud mosques and music festivals, not least the annual Festival au Desert, an international celebration of Touareg culture.

Northern Mali is no stranger to political strife and violence of course. The songs of world music stars Tinariwen
are often concerned with the sporadic Touareg insurrection against the Malian government. Yet the Touaregs are not aligned with this al’Qaeda offshoot and have indeed fought with them. As so often seems to happen, Islamic extremist forces come from elsewhere in the Muslim world, besmirching a region’s reputation and making life more difficult for its inhabitants.

It is a crying shame that, if crimes like the killing of British tourist Edwin Dyer continue to happen, Timbuktu and its environs will be associated not for its peaceful people, culture and astounding music, but for foreign-imported terrorism. I’m hopeful that the Malian governement and people will manage to eject these unwelcome intruders.

London Jazz Festival – Regina Carter at Ronnie Scotts

If ever there was proof that jazz is now an international music, it was at Ronnie Scotts last night in the form of violinist Regina Carter. Detroit-born and a natural blues-woman, Carter is from jazz heartlands, but her band combines an accordion and kora (plus talking drum) with bass and drums, to create a rare soundscape.

Carter is performing two nights at the home of London jazz, presenting new music from her forthcoming album, Reverse Thread, a collection of songs that “explores the music African diaspora” as she describes it. The band kicked off with a perfectly poised but funky arrangement of an Amadou & Mariam number and later performed a Ugandan folk song, before which Carter played the club a ‘field recording’: a haunting female voice accompanied by the sounds of village life.

An imaginative bandleader and a thoughtful musician, Carter is also quite some violinist. Unlike many modern jazz violinists who favour the electric route and a more-is-more virtuoso approach (think Nigel Kennedy), she is first and foremost a jazz musician – the violin just happens to be the instrument she communicates with.
Instead, Carter and her band favour a more acoustic approach (Carter’s violin is miked from above), letting their instruments sing naturally even if it means the audience have to listen harder – not a problem in a packed but attentive Ronnie Scotts.

Carter’s music is rooted in the blues and improvisation. She has a soulful way with her fiddle but can play with real bite. Like the father of jazz violin, Stéphane Grappelli, there is a magnetic relationship between her bow hairs and string, enabling her to move effortlessly from gritty improvisation to the purest gossamer textures.

Head to Ronnie Scotts tonight to see if you can catch her – seats at the bar are sometimes available.

Also, click here to see Carter in action, watch this YouTube clip of her performing with Ray Brown (of the Oscar Peterson Trio).

CD review: Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotono – Echos Hypnotiques

Due to innumerable reasons, some great artists and bands fail to achieve the posterity of their peers, and so it was with Benin’s Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou whose name should be as recognisable to African music fans as Orchestra Baobab and the Bamako Rail Band.

Working to right this wrong is Analog Africa’s founder Samy Ben Redjeb, who spent years tracking down the numerous tracks cut by this prolific group of musicians. Subtitled ‘From the Vaults of Albarika Store 1969-1979’, Echoes Hypnotiques is the second instalment is Ben Redjeb’s excellent series and focuses on music recorded in the EMI studios in Lagos for Benin’s Albarika Store label.

Benin is a small country but musically it punches above its weight with a thriving music scene, due in no small part to the importance of music and dance to the ceremonies of the Voudon (or Voodoo in the west) religion, the primary cultural force in Benin. The Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou, one of Benin’s most popular bands during this period, combine local rhythms with Afrobeat and, from further afield, funk, Latin and soul, to create music with a truly hypnotic groove (hence the title).

Propelled by ever-present percussion, blaring horns and nifty guitar work, the band’s sometimes sprawling songs also feature various vocalists, who add to the mix rather than set the tone. The lead singer often leads a call and response figure with a chorus repeating phrases, as on the energetic ‘Noude Ma Gnin Tche De Me’. Members of the Orchestre also indulge in some brief but deeply funky soloing. Two guitar solos – on the previously mentioned track and ‘Houte djein Nada’ – stand out especially, as does a soulful sax solo on ‘Azoo De Ma Gnin Kpevi’.

The spirit of the Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou is not about soloing though, but sustaining the groove. What is striking about this compilation of studio-recorded tracks is the atmosphere of a live performance to these tracks. The sound quality is usually pretty good and a little of bit of poor tuning and rough-round-the-edges playing doesn’t spoil the good vibes and talented musicianship at play here.

DON’T MISS – The Philharmonia’s re-rite project

In a building called the Bargehouse, nestled behind the Oxo Tower on the South Bank, something very special is happening. Over three levels in this dilapidated space, the public can step out of the cold and into the body of an orchestra to experience the action of The Rite of Spring unfolding around them.

This is the Philharmonia Orchestra’s re-rite installation, the first ever ‘orchestral digital residency’, inspired by Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Esa-Pekka Salonen and realised a by a large team from the orchestra’s Digital Projects department. To explain the installation in brief: the orchestra were filmed performing Stravinsky’s masterpiece with 29 cameras. These different points of view from within the orchestra are then screened in the various rooms of the Bargehouse, with the audio also coming from the relevant part of the orchestra. This means visitors can effectively ‘tour’ the orchestra by walking from room to room. There are a number of interactive features as well as a central hub from where all the action can be viewed.

We’ve seen the scale of new media projects being developed by orchestras, opera houses and venues rocket over the past few years, but in terms of sheer complexity, this is by far the most ambitious I’ve witnessed as of yet. The danger in this new sector is justifying the effort – will this project really benefit the visibility or education work of my organisation? Re-rite surely stands up here. It is performing a public service in an extraordinarily creative way, offering people unfamiliar with the workings of an orchestra a way in and reminding MUSOs why they fell in love with classical music in the first place.

My only concern is the location, which is easy to miss in an area dominated by the Tate Modern. There should be thousands of people coming through the doors of the Bargehouse each day. Perhaps a way of guarenteeing that would have been to put the installation in a gallery like the Tate Modern…

Re-rite is free and is open 10am – 6pm daily. It runs until 15 November.
Click here to find out more at the Philharmonia’s re-rite site.

CD review: Speed Caravan – Kalashnik Love

French-Algerian four-piece Speed Caravan is the brainchild of oud virtuoso Mehdi Haddab, whose other groups – DuOud and Ekova – have also fused the Arabic lute (electrified) with cutting edge contemporary sounds. However compared to DuOud’s experimental 2009 release, Ping Kong, Kalashnik Love is a blast of anger that reveals Haddab’s radical side.

Speed Caravan delivers its music with very much the feel of a live show – at breakneck pace and with furious energy. Haddab’s co-conspirators are bass player Pascal Teillet, Hermione Frank on electronics and vocalist Mohamed Boumar. Together with an eclectic array of special guests (a worldwide range of producers, DJs and vocalists, including Richard Archer of British indie band Hard-Fi and Spex MC from Asian Dub Foundation) the band piles a range of references and styles onto its core east-west sound: oud and guitar riffs, thundering beats and Arabesque melodies.

Haddab’s flair and Teillet’s bass playing are the driving force behind Speed Caravan’s punk attitude; no better example is a riotous version of The Cure’s ‘Killing an Arab’ sung by the rai-rebel himself, Rachid Taha. This is not the only western pop song covered with irony here: the band also tackles the Chemical Brother’s ‘Galvanise’, with vocal contributions from a number of rappers.

Haddab’s point seems to be that if western pop musicians can sample from other cultures at will (as the Chemical Brothers did with a Berber tune on ‘Galvanise’), then he can do the same back. However, the covers, alongside the other overtly political tracks (like ‘Dubai’, a devastating critique of the city’s absurd excesses, delivered in a heavy metal growl) aren’t the best tracks musically, even if their messages sum up the album’s mood.

For me, the instrumental tracks on Kalashnik Love find Speed Caravan’s music at its most immediate and startling. Haddab’s oud playing is a huge draw and although it doesn’t feature as much as it perhaps could, he plays with unrestrained abandon when it is, the instrument’s cascading lines more than holding its own in Speed Caravan’s busy soundscape.

On songs like ‘Parov Yegar Siroon Var’, Haddab’s spiky riffs spar with the bass and electronics, while the mind-blowing bassline on ‘Idemo Dalje’ would be at home in any nightclub. The glossy final track, a remix by Mo DJ of ‘Aissa Wah’ sums up Kalashnik Love: music overflowing with energy and ideas, if at times over-produced.