074: Très Très Fort, by Staff Benda Bilili

Staff Benda Bilili (DR Congo)
Très Très Fort (2009)
11 tracks, 59 minutes
Bandcamp • Spotify • iTunes (with extra tracks and videos)

There was quite a discussion within world music circles around Staff Benda Bilili. They were a global hit with a fantastically compelling story behind them: a group of musicians left paraplegic from polio, living on the streets of Kinshasa in specially-adapted motor-wheelchairs and practicing their music in the city’s zoo – they were a world music marketeer’s dream. But therein lies the debate: would they have been successful without that story?

Arguably not, but that says more about the problems of ‘world music’ than it does Staff Benda Bilili: they certainly deserved their fame on the strength of their music alone. It’s mostly a mix of Latin-inspired genres such as soukous, played on a bunch of ultra-cool semi-acoustic Socklo guitars (check them out), but whereas that description may bring to mind raucous party music, this album, their debut, is actually really delicate. There are lots of slower, more romantic-sounding pieces together with warm and gentle three-part harmonies and bits of feel-good reggae now and then. They do do party-mode sometimes – especially in live performances – but this record is much sweeter overall than that would suggest.

The real revelation of the album is Roger Landu. When the album was recorded, he was a 17-year-old street kid, playing his home-made and self-invented monochord, the satongé. Made from a paint can, a bent stick and some fishing wire with some jury-rigged amplification, it’s such a singular sound. It’s high-pitched and squeaky, rather bendy in its pitch and even slightly imprecise, but in Roger’s hands it can be the perfect melody instrument, especially when backed by the band’s twangy guitars. In Staff Benda Bilili’s second album, Roger got to show off his singing voice too, which is absolutely lovely, but he leaves vocal duties to his elders, here.

Unfortunately, the band split in 2013 due to internal arguments, paranoia over money and accusations of mismanagement, having made only one more album and conducted a handful of European tours. The group splintered apart into factions, and some of them formed part of the later group Mbongwana Star, but they never managed to reach the heights they’d hit after their first album. As far as I can tell, Roger Landu hasn’t appeared on any other international releases since, but a Facebook search shows that he’s still making music. Maybe we’ll get to hear it one day. I hope so.

073: Oj Borom, Borom, by Maniucha i Ksawery

Maniucha i Ksawery (Poland)
Oj Borom, Borom (2017)
16 tracks, 46 minutes
Bandcamp • Spotify • iTunes

This album is mad. It has a weird concept, and it sounds exactly like you’d expect that concept to sound, except, somehow, good. Concept: a Polish folk singer, singing traditional Ukrainian songs with utmost reverence, accompanied by avant-garde jazz double bass, and nothing else. There is absolutely no reason why it should work, but it does.

The singer is Maniucha Bikont, who was taught these songs of Ukrainian village life by three fierce old ladies, Hanna, Halya and Lonia. The women were happy to teach Maniucha as many songs as they knew, but the condition was that she had to be able to perform each one perfectly before being taught the next one – the process took five years in total. Double bassist Ksawery Wójciński is an important figure in jazz and improvisatory music, playing with many top names in Poland as well as creating his own solo work on which he plays all the parts himself.

When I saw them live at WOMEX 17 in Katowice, Poland, their stage presence really accentuated the contrast of styles. Maniucha wore a simple pink dress and alternated between sitting down and singing with hands on hips or clasped in front of her; Ksawery wore the loudest shirt I’ve ever seen, a flowery/tie-dye sort of thing, while he plucked, strummed, bashed, scraped and basically climbed all over his bass when the opportunities arose.

Despite their differences, the two musicians are obviously very much in tune with each other, with enough trust running both ways for each to leave enough space for the other to do their thing. They come together, sometimes in agreement and sometimes in contradiction, and also depart from each other at times, but never in ways that leave the pieces feeling lacking.

I would like to explain really how they make their clash of styles work so well, but I’m not sure I can. Their sounds are worlds away from each other, but maybe this is a case of being so different, that they’ve looped back around and met up again, back to back.

072: We Free Kings, by Roland Kirk

Roland Kirk (USA)
We Free Kings (1961)
9 tracks, 37 minutes
Spotify • iTunes (well cheap!)

It’s Christmas in March, hurray! The second most happiest time of the year! But it’s okay if you don’t celebrate Christmarch – this album is an evergreen selection of rocking hard bop with a couple of sweet ballads here and there.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk (this album was released before he added the first bit) is most well-known for his ability to play multiple saxes at once. It’s impressive, and makes a really unique sound, but up until this album, it was regarded as a gimmick for him to hide behind while still wowing audiences. With We Free Kings, though, he proved that it was merely an extra string to his bow – his chops are in full evidence throughout this album.

Here he plays tenor sax, a modified soprano sax, a straight-bodied alto sax and flute. He solos with all of them at one point or other, but for me, it is his fluting that really stands out. His great innovation of vocalising into the flute while playing has since become the sound of jazz flute, and it’s demonstrated to great aplomb on ‘You Did It, You Did It,’ with bonus ecstatic yelps and barks, which usually has me yelping along in delight too.

On top of it all, though, is the title track. Yes, it based on the Christmas carol ‘We Three Kings,’ but Kirk’s version isn’t Christmassy at all – in fact, it just highlights how jazzy a piece that carol is, and what a shame it is that we’ve confined it to a single month of the year only (see also: ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,’ ‘The Holly and the Ivy,’ ‘The Coventry Carol’). Under Kirk’s direction, it starts mostly true to the version we all know, albeit with a wicked swing, played on flute. But then he switches to soprano where it slowly breaks down into some psychotic, almost-free jazz. It's quite fun to compare it to yesterday's album, actually. We get a little bit of a piano solo and some sax chords as a bit of a breather and return to the flute. The melody comes back, but it’s not quite recovered from the freak-out in the middle and sounds all the better for it. What an amazing track!

It’s quite amazing how anyone could have mistaken Rahsaan Roland Kirk for a pretender with a party trick. He was the real deal, and We Free Kings proves it. Just don’t try to play it at a Christmas party. I made that mistake: it doesn’t go down well.

071: Walking Shrill, by the Hua Family Shawm Band

Hua Family Shawm Band (China)
Walking Shrill (2004)
9 tracks, 79 minutes
Spotify

Don’t stick this one on if you need a soundtrack to a relaxing evening to tap your toes along to – this is not easy listening. I don’t even really enjoy listening to this, to be honest, apart from maybe in minute-long chunks. Fortunately, this is a blog for Good Albums, not enjoyable ones (it’s all conditioned anyway), and you should definitely give this one at least a listen.

This is chuida music from northern Shanxi province in China. It is ceremonial music that was traditionally used for weddings, funerals, 100th day and 80th birthday celebrations, although now it’s mostly just heard at funerals or 80th birthdays. The ensemble can be made up of many musicians playing sheng (mouth organ), hao (trumpet), mei (flute) and huhu (fiddle), but the most important – and striking – sounds of the ensemble are the two suona and the percussion.

The suona is a shawm with a large bell on the end, making for a very loud, very piercing sound. When played in pairs, both instruments embellish upon the same melody, with the higher-pitched suona (known as the zoujian, ‘walking shrill’ – hence the album name) having the freedom to flourish right at the top of the register. Together with the drums, clashing cymbals and gongs, they get a really intense noise going on. Although it’s all precomposed apart from those flourishes, the way the sounds all combine with each other and the way the rhythm seems to clatter along puts me strongly in mind of the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.

You’ll find much better and more in-depth information about chuida and the music of Shanxi in the work of Dr Stephen Jones. Helpfully, he has a pretty sizable post about the music and the Hua Family Shawm Band themselves over on his own blog, which I would heartily recommend. This is challenging music if you’re coming from a Western frame-of-reference, but it’s definitely worth checking out as an important piece of cultural heritage. And you never know, you may just find your next favourite style.

070: Amassakoul, by Tinariwen

Tinariwen (Mali)
Amassakoul (2003)
11 tracks, 46 minutes
YouTube playlist (it’s not 100% perfect, but you’ll get the idea) • Spotify (not in the UK) • Amazon Music

On the very second day of this blog, we talked about Kel Assouf, who I consider to be probably the most exciting band playing Tuareg guitar music at the moment. They bring a fresh, new energy to a fairly crowded marketplace. And – having seen them live again recently, I can confirm, they are brilliant…but can anyone ever live up to the originators? I’m not too sure.

At the beginning there was Tinariwen. Formed in the military barracks of Libya and the refugee camps in southern Algeria by Tuareg musicians with roots in Kidal in the Malian portion of the Sahara, Tinariwen were, by all accounts, the first to take the traditional Tuareg music and play it on electric guitars, adding in ideas from Dire Straits, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley while they were at it. That was back in the 1970s, and the style they created became known as essouf, tishoumaren or simply ‘guitar.’ By the time Tinariwen came to the attention of Western music biz people in the early 2000s, they were already legendary throughout the Sahara. Their first international release came in 2001, but it wasn’t until their second album, Amassakoul, that Tinariwen properly started to receive attention. Then they exploded and the rest is history – they’re one of the biggest African bands of today, commanding audiences well outside of the typical ‘world music’ set, playing huge venues and collaborating with many top artists, as well as spawning many, many imitators and innovators.

I reckon that Amassakoul was the turning point for Tinariwen’s international career, and its quality backs it up. It showcases everything that gave the band such a striking sound when they first started performing in the UK. The loping, camel's-gait rhythms, the droning guitars and the unmistakable and unique way they are played, the sun-baked bluesiness of it all. It is so spacious, and it’s hard not to feel the beating sun and mile upon mile of bare sand completely ingrained within the music. It’s also interesting to hear bits of the band’s music that were eventually left by the wayside, such as the breathy odili flute so evocative of the desert wind. The only thing that the album doesn’t capture is the band’s striking image: between seven and ten towering figures, in long, flowing robes and with their faces almost entirely covered by the iconic tagelmust turban-veils, swaying slightly while the fingers upon their guitars make almost imperceptible movements that result in beautiful sounds.

Tinariwen have gone on to release lots more albums, and to even more critical and commercial success than this one, but Amassakoul, released at the beginning of their international career, is still the one that, for me, perfectly captures everything that made Westerners so crazy for Tuareg music of all sorts, and turned Tinariwen into global stars.

069: Octet, by Steve Reich

Steve Reich (USA)
Octet (1980)
3 tracks, 47 minutes
Spotify

If you’ve been reading this blog a little bit already, you’ll understand why Steve Reich is one of my favourite Western classical composers. The technique he is most famous for, and that is demonstrated so excellently on this release, is that of shifting phase: a short melody or other musical idea is repeated over and over, while another version of that idea is played simultaneously but at an ever so slightly different speed, or using a different number of beats, meaning that the patterns of consonances, dissonances and silences change subtly with every repetition. The effect in an ever-evolving journey into the music itself, the sound of the instruments and your own brain, which, in searching for meaning among the musical chaos, conjures intense musical moiré. Endlessly repeating melodies evolving through minute variation? We already know that that’s extremely my bag.

Octet as an album is really successful in capturing Reich’s techniques in some of the most easily understandable but still intensely interesting repertoire. The three pieces that are included here each show off Reich’s phasing in different ways. ‘Music for a Large Ensemble’ uses a familiar orchestra-style set up and includes beautiful and cinematic swells from strings and vibraphones on top of his more standard rhythmically-phased themes. The next is ‘Violin Phase,’ an earlier composition that shows his phasing in a stripped-back form, with literally six beats of melody repeated on three violins that slowly grow further out of sync with each other and back again over the course of 15 minutes. ‘Octet’ (which was later tweaked and entitled ‘Eight Lines’) uses several different melodies to phase in different ways throughout the piece, but which change so slowly as to change almost completely without you really realising it.

Although all three of the pieces on this album are quite intense mathematically, the overall effect is relaxing, and rather mind-altering. I once saw Mr Scruff open a five-hour DJ set at the Beatherder Festival with an almost complete rendition of ‘Music for a Large Ensemble.’ It was unexpected and there was definitely a few sceptical looks around, but it was actually a really effective way of changing people’s headspace for an afternoon of eclectic music in the woods.

Octet is a great way to spend a little less than an hour letting your brain enjoy itself on this mental playground, while you can just relax and enjoy all the mad leaps, flips and turns it comes up with along the way. Who needs mind-altering substances when you can expand your consciousness with just a few repeating violins?

068: Cosmic Thing, by the B-52's

The B-52’s (USA)
Cosmic Thing (1989)
10 tracks, 47 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

You know the B-52s, and Cosmic Thing has two of their most well-known songs on it in ‘Roam’ and ‘Love Shack.’ The rest of the tracks on the album deserve attention too, especially ‘Junebug’ and ‘Cosmic Thing.’ It’s mad that the album is only from 1989, as their sound is so retro. I’m not sure what sort of retro because there’s bits that could have been pulled directly out of the 60s, 70s, and 80s in there, but their sound is that of a sort of timeless, intergalactic go-go. The group never take any of it too seriously. It’s just a big laugh with a bunch of freaky people and everyone’s welcome to join in and dance.

Importantly, everything about the album – from Fred Schneider’s over-the-top carnival-caller’s patter and partytime lyrics to the groovy technicolor artwork and the cheeky winks that I’m sure everyone involved was giving 80% of the time – it’s all so wonderfully camp. In fact, in my notes I just wrote ‘Camp!’ and I think the exclamation point is important in making that statement.

But for me, this album isn’t about the music (although it is, of course, Good Album quality). It is so indelibly linked to a place and an emotion for me. When I was little, we often used to go on camping holidays at a place called Shell Island on the west coast of Wales. I absolutely loved the times at Shell Island, playing in the sand dunes, going crabbing and rock pooling, skipping stones on the River Artro, bonfires, the whole lot. But to get there, there was first the long (for a little boy) car ride from our house in Cheshire that needed to be endured. For most of the journey, we’d listen to the radio, but there was a certain point on the drive, among the hills of Snowdonia, that FM radio couldn’t reach – that’s where the B-52s come in.

It feels like we only had a small handful of tapes in the car, always the same ones, and it was always the B-52’s Cosmic Thing that was reached for as soon as the radio drifted off into white noise. And because that was always about the same sort of place, the tracks always came at the part of the journey every time. It means that every time I hear the song ‘Love Shack,’ not only do I get filled with the memories of the excitement and restlessness for holidays and the smell of the sea and the feel of the sand on my feet, it also transports me back to a very specific place, on a winding road with a cliff rising up to the right of us. It’s so vivid to me. It means we’re almost there.

So, this is holiday music for me. You should listen to this album and enjoy it – it’s good! – but just know that you won’t be enjoying it as much as a seven-year-old on the way to Shell Island.

067: Luo Roots, by Various Artists

Various Artists (Kenya)
Luo Roots (1990)
11 tracks, 50 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

The Luo are an ethnic group from inland Kenya and Uganda and their roots music is just great. Lucky, then, that that’s what we’re listening to today! It’s the word ‘roots’ that’s important here – it’s probably why they called the album Luo Roots, come to think of it – because this isn’t in the strictest sense traditional music. The music featured here has many elements from the old traditions, especially in the songwriting techniques and instruments used, but the music itself is much faster and takes inspiration from benga music. Benga is a guitar-based style that evolved from Congolese soukous (and before it, Cuban son) when it was played by Luo musicians living in Nairobi. They brought their traditions into the music and, in turn, the traditional Luo musicians adapted their own playing to reflect the popular style that everyone wanted to hear. And that’s what Luo Roots is about.

It’s cool to hear this blend of the traditional-but-modern, or the modern-but-traditional, in this way. The band that is featured on most of the tracks on this album are called the Kapere Jazz Band. Their members play instruments such as the orutu one-stringed fiddle and the nyangile (an amazing contraption that pairs a wooden box, a metal ring and a stick to provide both percussion and bass), and are joined by musicians playing the nyatiti lyre. Their harmonies are wholesome and their rhythms are breakneck. It is interesting that they still refer to themselves as a jazz band. It shows how much they distance themselves from the ‘traditional’ label despite their sound, moving instead towards the lexicography of the upper-class dance bands such as those in the Congo. Only the last track on the album strays from the ‘roots’ sound, instead going full-on benga with Orchestra Nyanza Success with their lovely twinkly electric guitars. This track provides an interesting contrast to the rest of the album, and really helps show how much Luo music has had on benga.

As well as being an album full of great, dancy music, Luo Roots is also handy for reminding us that there isn’t always a stark difference to be made between traditional music and internationally-inspired pop music. Often the influences of each run deep across the spectrum, and even music that sounds deeply traditional can be just as tapped into those international circulations as anything else – and maybe even be just an electric guitar and a drum kit away from being downright pop.

066: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, by the Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols (United Kingdom)
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977)
12 tracks, 37 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

The Sex Pistols and Never Mind the Bollocks… have already been the inspiration for hundreds of thousands of words, and I doubt I’ll be able to add anything particularly enlightening to them, so I’ll try to keep it short today.

Although the ‘point’ of punk and its DIY attitude was that musical skill was entirely optional – anyone could be in a punk band, all you needed was the right attitude and something to make noise with – the Sex Pistols could actually play. On the recordings, at least; Sid Vicious was so bad at playing bass that they actually omitted him from all but one of the tracks. The album itself, though, has well-played music that still sounds fresh and exciting today, powered by the sarcasm-driven shouting of Johnny Rotten that takes centre stage without just sounding pathetic, which it might have done in another setting. Instead, it’s a great reflection of almost-aimless juvenile rage that explodes out of your speakers.

This must surely be one of the most important albums in history. It’s almost clichéd to state how influential it was at the time, and continues to be. The most famous songs such as ‘Anarchy in the UK,’ ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘Pretty Vacant’ still hit with a sting after all these years, let alone the more often forgotten album tracks such as ‘Liar’ and ‘Holidays in the Sun.’ Riffs like the ones on this album can still be heard in the music of hundreds of bands across the world. You don’t even have to look that hard, there’s probably one playing in a pub near you tonight. But just because it’s a cliché to say it, doesn’t stop it from being a bloody good record.

065: Moussolou, by Oumou Sangaré

Oumou Sangaré (Mali)
Moussolou (1989)
6 tracks, 32 minutes
Bandcamp • Spotify • iTunes

Oumou Sangaré is known as ‘The Songbird of Wasulu,’ and for good reason. Hers is a voice with such an awesome power and utter majesty. My heart leaps every time I hear Oumou sing, and I’m not the only one – she’s one of the biggest names in Malian music, both at home and abroad. Oumou’s style is wassoulou (named after the Wasulu region of Mali – it’s a subeditor’s nightmare), a style based on the sacred music of the hunters that was turned into a pop music by the youth of the 60s, using the signature sound of the kamelengoni bridge-harp. Oumou has revolutionised the style throughout her career, but on Moussolou (Women), her debut album, her sound was far rootiser.

The album was recorded in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire to put out as a tape for the local market in Mali. The album sold over 200,000 copies and made Oumou a star; it was this attention, together with a recommendation from Ali Farka Touré, that led to the album being released internationally by World Circuit Records. It’s a short one at just over half an hour and only six tracks long, but it’s all there needs to be to make a really well-crafted piece. The ensemble is also quite small – that’s where the rootsy sound comes in: it’s just kamelengoni, guitar, bass and violin, and with a couple of backing singers. The violin – played by Aliou Traoré – is an interesting addition to the style. It switches between a more American style such as would be found in country music and a most definitely West African sound that imitates the one-stringed soku fiddle.

The proper highlight, it almost goes without saying, is Oumou’s voice. It’s indescribable, really. You’ll just have to listen and find it out for yourself. I will do a bit of name-dropping here, though: of all the musicians I have interviewed, Oumou Sangaré may just have been the most thrilling. When I asked what song she sang when she entered a competition as a six-year-old, the title didn’t come to her straight away, so she sang a short refrain of it to jog her memory. This was as she was just putting on her make up backstage before a show, but the sound that came out of her mouth was from another dimension, it was so beautiful. Just imagine what it sounds like when she tries.

Moussolou was recently remastered and reissued in 2016 – that’s the version that’s on Spotify and everything (and that's the cover, above left) – and as a download it’s really cheap at only £5. There’s really not much excuse not to dig into this record that made a superstar.

064: Dubstep Allstars: Vol. 04, by Youngsta & Hatcha (mix)

Youngsta & Hatcha (mix) (United Kingdom)
Dubstep Allstars: Vol. 04 (2006)
44 tracks, 123 minutes (2CD)
YouTube (Disc 1) • YouTube (Disc 2)

Writing this blog has made me realise how little I know about a lot of the music I love. This album is a good example, I think. I really like the music it contains, but I’m not sure I have enough of the correct vocabulary or knowledge of the style’s history to talk about it in the depth it deserves. I just have to talk about what it means to me, and why I love it so much – hopefully you’ll agree, and if you know more than I do, I always love to be corrected and educated!

This is dubstep from before it became a clichéd pop add-on: for a while, it felt like any pop song with a wobbly bass was classed as dubstep (I guess it’s like when any music with an acoustic guitar is called ‘folk’). But the style is much more than a bass synth with an LFO stuck on it. To me, dubstep is just dub without the reggae. It uses all of the same production qualities as the Jamaican style, but approaches them from a different direction, one informed by drum and bass, instrumental hip-hop and techno. Like dub, it takes these faster, dance-focused styles and turns the attention to the sounds themselves. Not that the focus shifts from dancing, of course, but this is more often a slower, more spacious groove. It’s darker than dub too, although in a way I can’t really describe – it feels a little dingy, in a good way.

This particular double album is from the Dubstep Allstars series, which saw eleven volumes between 2004 and 2013, showcasing the breadth of the style with a load of guest DJs on the mix. This one, Vol. 04, is mixed by Hatcha on Disc 1 and Youngsta on Disc 2. I like mix compilations, as they really give you the opportunity to revel in the vibe without having to take breaks at the end of the tracks: they’re basically ready-made club nights with only good music – score! On the whole, I think I prefer Hatcha’s contributions on this one, as his selections are more chilled-out and open. Great for very late nights.

Once again, this is a type of music that I’d love to hear more of and learn more about. Judging by the quality of these two mixes, I guess the place for me to start would be the other ten editions of the series!

063: Homestuck, Vol. 1-4, by Various Artists

Various Artists (multiple countries)
Homestuck, Vol. 1-4 (2011)
12 tracks, 65 minutes
Bandcamp

The album by Shnabubula from the other day wasn’t a video game soundtrack, and neither is this one, although you might mistake it for one. Instead, it’s the soundtrack to a webcomic, one of the most famous there has been, actually. I can’t think of any other webcomic that has a soundtrack, but then again, this isn’t any other webcomic.

Homestuck was written and drawn by Andrew Hussie, and the plot starts with a bunch of friends acquiring a new video game and spirals out of control from there. It’s an epic adventure in terms of both the story and the length. Not only does the plot grow increasingly more outlandish and complex, but so does the comic itself: it starts as single panels with a short subtitle, and expands to includes gifs, Flash animations, side projects, games, textlogs, interesting bits of URL-fu and more – so of course it would have a soundtrack. The style of the comic is in the manner of an old-school illustrated text adventure video game, and the music it includes is in keeping with that style. It makes sense that the music is just as in-keeping. This album is a collection of the music featured in the first four acts of the comic.

Because there are a bunch of different composer-performers on the album – the material was written separately by a community of twelve fans – there is a variety of approaches to musicifying Hussie’s adventure. The music stretches from straight-up 8- and 16-bit programming that could be direct from the NES or SNES, to touching solo pieces on piano or violin and grand classical-style pieces. There’s also some plain mad shit, like a dirging lament sang (?) entirely by cats. All of it has a creepy and foreboding atmosphere, which echoes that of the comic, but there’s also more than enough to make you laugh in there too. Like many soundtracks, motifs are used throughout that pertain to certain situations or characters; it means that, when you listen to this album from start to finish, it evolves and grows, making it a rewarding listen on its own without any knowledge of the source work.

The highlight of the album comes right at the end, in the form of a piece called ‘Black,’ written by Toby 'Radiation' Fox*. I used the word ‘epic’ before, and that is extremely appropriate for this one. Here, I'll attach the video:

It’s a perfect culmination of the whole album. It’s dark, it’s funky and it uses General MIDI in a way that I’ve rarely heard paralleled. The sounds of General MIDI are quite crap reproductions of real instruments, but here they are used in their own right, turning their uncanny-valleyness into a strength: my favourite is a saxophone sound that is warped to play so fast, exceed the normal range above and below, make pitch-bends and even chords as to be wildly inhuman. Together with 8-bit sounds, synthesisers, pianos and even a sample from by 1910s vaudeville star Eddie Morton, this is a right headbanger that brings in so many references from the history of video game music to create a masterpiece.

I have to admit, with regret, that I’ve never been able to finish reading Homestuck. I’ve tried starting it from the beginning twice, but both time I’ve gotten, well, ‘stuck’ at the same sort of point and just haven’t been able to push past it. It’s a shame because I really enjoy it. Maybe I should try again…at least I know that there will be much more great music in store for me.


*Really interesting thing I found out just on proofreading: this is the same Toby Fox that went on to create (and compose) the game Undertale, which has been a massive hit over the last few years, and another game with an excellent soundtrack. Cool!

062: Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music from South Africa, by Various Artists

Various Artists (South Africa)
Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music from South Africa (2010)
12 tracks, 65 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

Despite how I love so much of the music from the African continent, I have a hard time with South African music. I do try, but a lot of it just doesn’t hit my ears right. I find a lot of it to be just a bit too fluffy – I don’t know why and I can’t even really define what I mean by ‘fluffy.’ It's something to do with the way the melodies and harmonies are constructed that just doesn’t work for me. Entirely my problem, of course, there’s nothing about South African music that’s bad in general, I’m just weird like that. So when I find music from South Africa that hits me right, I’m always stoked to dive in; I feel like that about Shangaan Electro.

Shangaan Electro is a scene that revolves around the Limpopo region of South Africa, but it’s spread all over the country. The style is named after the Shangaan people of that region and the music and dance is inspired by their traditional culture. In the Electro version, though, everything is pushed to 11: where Shangaan music is fast, Shangaan Electro is faster; where Shangaan dances are energetic, Shangaan Electro dances are frenetic and completely wild.

It’s all based around drum machines and synthesisers with a range of brilliantly tacky timbres. There’s a particular focus on marimba sounds that hark back to the traditional styles, and the vocals over the top of it all can reflect anything from traditional song to soul, R’n’B and hip-hop. Every track has those short, circular melodies and heavy drum patterns that I seem to love so much, the ones that feel like they could go on for hours. It reminds me quite a bit of mchiriku music from Tanzania, like we heard from Jagwa Music in January – the aesthetics are similar but they’re approached from a different sort of direction, and there’s a little more of a conscious production element with Shangaan Electro. Every aspect of the music is precision engineered to make it the danciest possible, and personally I find it wonderful to exercise to, for the same reason – it never stops, so you don’t want to either.

I know I’ve not really talked about this album in particular, but that's a testament to it. Released on the Honest Jon’s label, the album is a compilation of Shangaan Electro hits, and it was the first time the style got any real exposure in Europe. It’s basically a sampler, a who’s-who of the stars of the genre. The compilers did a great job at introducing the style and its different facets in one succinct album, and it really makes you feel clued-in in just over an hour, simply by listening. So if what I wrote up there sounds at all interesting to you, let this album be your first port-of-call.

061: Escondida, by Jolie Holland

Jolie Holland (USA)
Escondida (2004)
12 tracks, 48 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

Country music can be many things, from deeply traditional to almost parodically cheesy and pop-inflected, but wherever it is on the spectrum, the best of it (for me) evokes a very specific emotion: a soft, wistful melancholy, similar to the Lusospherical concept of saudade. This album by Jolie Holland captures that emotion perfectly.

She has a really beautiful voice that she shows off brilliantly here. Gentle but slightly reedy with a really strong Texan accent and a fragile vibrato that she uses very sparingly but always in the right places – it absolutely melts me. As an album, Escondida is mostly in the country realm, but there are blueses and elements of hot jazz in there too, which allows it to go nicely off-kilter sometimes. Wherever she takes it, it’s always with a calm that’s almost lazy in the most agreeable way, but that doesn’t stop her making some interestingly angular and jazzy melodies to her own compositions.

My favourite tracks are two traditionals that Jolie makes her own in different ways. The first, ‘Old Fashioned Morphine,’ is a take on the spiritual and blues standard ‘Old Time Religion’ with lyrics changed to reflect the different rumination. The song is slow, the feel is cool and the melody is lovely, but it becomes extra special when the horns come in. The trumpet and soprano sax weave slinkily in, out and around the layers of the piece, intertwining with each other and Jolie’s voice. It makes for some really interesting comings-together and movings-apart and puts me in mind of C.W. Stoneking at his best.

The other is ‘Mad Tom of Bedlam,' a traditional English folk song. It’s quite popular, so I’d heard it a few times on the London folk circuit before listening to this version, and sang it a couple of times in floor spots myself, too. Now Jolie’s broken it for me. Her version is fast, accompanied only by a trap kit played with brushes and it is so bluesy. She’s not changed it from the English version that much, just a few tweaks to the rhythm here and there, and a few bends to the pitches at the correct moments and that’s it – I can never hear or sing it the same way again. It’s a blues piece now. It just never knew it until Jolie Holland got her voice around it.

Country music is a style that I really enjoy listening to, but I feel like my knowledge base is never as broad as it should be. This is an album I really dig, so if you have any ‘If you like this, then try…’ suggestions, please do chuck them my way. I’m all ears!

060: A Night in San Francisco, by Van Morrison

Van Morrison (United Kingdom)
A Night in San Francisco (1994)
22 tracks, 147 minutes (2CD)
Spotify • iTunes

Van Morrison has famously always been the grumpy old man of rock, even before he was that old, and it would be an understatement to say that he’s a hot and cold performer. Catch him on the wrong evening and he will absolutely despise you for making him sing for a couple of hours. Knowing that, I wonder how hard it is to make a live album with him. For A Night in San Francisco, though, that obviously wasn’t a problem – he is on fine, fine form here.

It’s an interesting show (actually, that would be interesting shows as the album was recorded over two separate concerts – that album title is a lie). It’s almost like a gala in some ways. Van and band play as many medleys as they do individual pieces, quite often just playing a verse or two before moving onto the next song-fragment. There’s originals and covers and there’s a million musical references all the way through, it makes many of the tracks sound like live mash-ups. Even his most famous pieces aren’t safe: for my money, the best mash-up on the album is a medley of ‘Moondance’ and ‘My Funny Valentine,’ but with the bassline from ‘Is That Jazz’ by Gil Scott-Heron and an organ solo featuring Gershwin’s ‘Summertime.’

Adding to the gala-rific feel of the album are a bunch of guests who are brought on every so often to sing their bit. I know this is Van the Man’s show, but some of his guests seem a little under-utilised, and they’re not exactly B-listers either. Imagine getting John Lee Hooker to join you in your show, and only have him sing and play for a total of one minute and four seconds – I actually admire the ballsiness of it. It’s not just the guests that are top-draw; the regular band isn’t half bad either, with Georgie Fame on organ, Teena Lyle on vibraphone and Candy Dulfer on alto sax to name just three of the eleven.

The ensemble are much more than Van’s backing band. The musicians are all featured at some point, with at least one solo per piece. As such the whole vibe is much jazzier than I usually think of Van Morrison’s music – it’s usually there in the background, but here it feels like he’s making those vibes the cornerstone of his show. One slight hang-up: he’s got this really annoying thing going on where, whenever he mentions one of his musicians (which he does a lot, after most solos and several times when he gives a whole-band run through), he always says their name twice. ‘Teena Lyle, Teena Lyle,’ ‘Haji Ahkba, Haji Ahkba,’ that sort of thing. Innocuous at first but quite irritating after nearly two-and-a-half hours. But would it really be Van Morrison if he wasn’t mildly infuriating at some point in the set?

When you’ve got a ticket to see Van Morrison live, you never quite know what you’re going to get. But when he’s on song, like these two nights in San Francisco…well, what a couple of shows these must have been to witness.