1 - Gabi Lunca - Dă, Mamă, Cu Biciu-n Mine! - Sounds from a Bygone Age, Vol 5 - Romania - Asphalt Tango - CD-ATR 1508
2 - Umalali - Nibari - Garifuna Women's Project - Belize - Cumbancha - CMB-CD-6
3 - Idrissa Soumaoro - M'Bas Den Ou - Desert Blues Vol 3 - Mali - Network Medien - 495122
4 - Sa Ding Ding - Oldstar by Xilin River (self-created language) - Alive - China - Universal - 60251732006
5 - Julien Jacob - Dierel - Barham - Benin - Volume - VOL 0701
6 - Mor Karbasi - Nuestros Amores - The Beauty and the Sea - UK/israel - Mintaka - MINBT003
7 - Tribali - Never Give Up - Rough Guide to Indian Lounge - Malta - World Music Network - RGNET1192CD
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Mostly a panorama of exceptional voices, which is probably an apt description most weeks. Where once my attention might have been drawn by rhythms or virtuosity, now it is almost always the voice that pulls me in (or makes me wince).
Gabi Lunca
Four tracks on Gabi Lunca’s Sounds from a Bygone Age Vol 5 were previously included in the excellent double album, Gypsy Queens (Network Medien), but have even more impact when set alongside her other songs. The series is turning out to be unexpectedly essential for those of us who want to own and share with our friends as much of the best music ever made as we can afford and have space to store.
Umalali [photo courtesy www.afropop.com]
When you have heard enough of the Garifuna Women’s Project, you’d better let me know. Otherwise, I’m liable to keep playing it to the end off the year. Having become familiar with the strange voices of the ten singers featured in the group collectively known as Umalali, I’m now enjoying the accompaniment arranged by producer Ivan Duran.
Idrissa Soumaoro
My first impression on glancing at the track list of the third volume of Desert Blues was of over-familiarity. Lucky enough to have been supplied with most of the source albums, I didn’t feel the urge to listen to these songs again. But luckily a friend prevailed on me to put it on, and it’s a perfect example of a compilation that brings songs back to life by sequencing them with wit and skill. Idrissa Soumaoro was a guitarist in the Rail Band until he decided to become a music teacher, in which capacity he introduced Amadou and Mariam to each other when Amadou was his assistant and Mariam their student, at the School for the Blind in Bamako, Mali. Idrissa doesn’t record and play live much any more, but it’s good to hear ‘M'Bas Den Ou’ again.
Sa Ding Ding
The attention paid to the album Alive by Sa Ding Ding is probably out of proportion to its actually quality, and is all to do with timing. For many reasons, China is in the news, and so a rare release in the West of an album by a Chinese artist was bound to be of interest, especially as she turns out to be young and attractive. The album is sometimes weighed down with predictable western-style production, but individual tracks stand out, including ‘Oldstar by Xilin River’ which she sings in a language of her own invention. I am hopeful that Sa Ding Ding will come to sing with an acoustic line-up during my slot on the Radio 3 stage at WOMAD at the end of July, when I will present a two hour show on Sunday in the format previously broadcast on Radio London. Radio 3 will pick out the bits they like for broadcast the following night (July 28).
Julien Jacob
I sometimes ponder whether there are enough candidates for a whole show featuring artists who have made up their own languages – Sui Vesan of Slovakia is another – but for now settle for just one more example, Julien Jacob, whose latest album Barham is very easy on the ear. His songs sound as full of meaning as those by a singer using an existing language that is unknown to me. I wonder if he has written a dictionary.
Mor Karbasi [photo courtsey www.simcha.org]
Mor Karbasi has seemingly sprung out of nowhere, a British singer of Israeli origin who shares Yasmin Levy’s fascination with reviving the Ladino repertoire of songs brought out of Spain when the Sephardic Jews were exiled by the new Catholic regime in the 13th Century. It’s always fascinating to consider how tolerant the Islamic Empire had been during the previous centuries, allowing Christian and Jewish quarters to flourish in all its major cities.
The Rough Guide to Indian Lounge is not the most enticing of titles or concepts, but actually much of it is fine, notably the final track by a group of musicians from Malta who call themselves Tribali (presumably pronounced Tribal-eye).