- Fat Freddy's Drop & Jon Lusk - - - -
1 - Segun Adewale - Nigeria - Ase - Nigeria - Segun Adewale
2 - Kottarashky - Mandra - Opa Hey! - Bulgaria - Asphalt Tango
3 - Dr John - Walk on Guilded Splinters - Gris Gris - USA - Atco
4 - Francois Muduga - chante avec Cithare - Burundi: Musiques Traditionelles - Burundi - Ocora
5 - Tom Waits - Trouble's Braids - SwordfishTrombones - USA - Island
- Fat Freddy's Drop in session** - - -
6 - Fat Freddy's Drop - The Raft - in session - New Zealand
7 - Fat Freddy's Drop - Boondigga - in session - New Zealand
- Radio Ping Pong with Jon Lusk - - -
*8 - Fiji Police Band - Amazing Grace - Fiji Police Band - Fiji - Ode
9 - Yoon Jeong Heo - Recitation of Pleasure in Zen, Part 4 - Geomungo Solo - South Korea - C&C/EMI
*10 - Lai Muang - Yang Luang - Old Harp of Lanna - Thailand - unknown
11 - Blue Asia - Kun-nu-shu - Sketches of Myahk - Japan - Vivid Sound
*12 - Kris Drever - Steel and Stone - Black Water - Scotland - Reveal
13 - Sevval Sam - Ben Seni Sevdiğumi - Karadeniz - Turkey - Kalan
*14 - Marta Sebestyen - Vision - I Can See the Gates of Heaven - Hungary - World Village
- Fat Freddy's Drop in session - - -
15 - Fat Freddy's Drop - Afrique - in session - New Zealand
16 - Fat Freddy's Drop - Ray Ray - in session - New Zealand
- - -
17 - Salif Keita - Baba - Moffou - Mali - Universal
18 - Odade Wethu - Sengizokufa - Kuyoxaban' Amadoda - South Africa - Gallo
19 - Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté - Ruby - Ali & Toumani - Mali - World Circuit
** Dallas Tamaira aka Joe Dukie (vocals, guitar) - Chris Faimu aka DJ Fitchie (MPC, mixing desk) - Iain Gordon (Keyboards)
Desmond 'Warren' Kerr, guitars - Scott Towers, sax - Toby Laing aka Tony Chan, trumpet
Joe Lindsay (trombone)
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I have been quietly besotted by Fat Freddy’s Drop since receiving their 10” single ‘Hope’ back around 2003. I rarely played vinyl in those days, at home or on the radio, but became obsessed with the haunting mood of this reggae-style mantra, and included it as the final track on my compilation World 2004. To my amazement, the band did not include their best song on their debut album Based on a True Story, which was a disappointment for other reasons, lacking focus and songs that sounded complete. [There was a different song titled ‘Hope’ on the album, but that just made things more confusing and deflating].
In the meantime, I saw them live several times, including once at WOMAD New Zealand, not far from their home town of Wellington, and began to understand how the lack of focus was deliberate, as they put themselves and their audience into a trance. But if any of this suggests the indulgence of 1960s hippies or San Franciscan smokes, I’ve led you down the wrong track. In performance and conversation, these guys are sharp, funny and wide awake, as tonight’s programme hopefully demonstrates.
Having been so disappointed with their first album, I approached the new one with lower expectations. But Dr Boondigga and the Big BW fulfils every hope I ever had, and goes even further as they expand their range beyond reggae and dub into early 70s street funk (War, The Meters, Average White Band) with flashes of jazz, New Orleans funeral marches and Memphis soul.
Watching Fat Freddy in the past, I’ve wondered why they don’t have a live bass player or drummer, normally the fulcrum of any reggae band. At this session, I began to get the point. At the centre of everything stands Chris Taimu, known as ‘Mu’, who used to be a DJ. Back around 2000, after he invited local musicians to come and improvise over the tracks he was playing, a band began to evolve. The structure has remained the same, with Mu at his mixing desk at the centre of operations, programming drum rhythms and playing bass lines on his synthesiser.
With this set-up, Mu remains in control in all situations, whether the band is making a record, playing a festival or doing a radio session.
Around the room are musicians playing guitar, keyboards and horns, and vocalist Dallas Tamaira. Excuse me if I go into raptures over Dallas’ voice, but he bypasses my critical faculties and messes with my mind, my heart and other places untouched by Caribbean rum, Danish beer or any other stimulant. Right now this is my favourite group in the world, and I hope you like them too.
In the midst of all this sat another guest from New Zealand, Jon Lusk, the journalist who has been involved in helping to edit the mammoth Rough Guide to World Music, now in its third edition whose second volume covers Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The range of music is so huge, we could not do justice to it in our short exchange, but at least now you know the book is out. As always, it looks gorgeous, feels good and reads well. In addition to noting recommended albums by major artists, each section has a playlist of specific tracks which is useful for any reader to follow up, not only radio DJs looking to expand their range.
Near the start of the programme, I scratched an itch by finally playing a sequence of the atmospheric track one from the 1967 Ocora album Burundi back-to-back with the singers that it has always brought to mind, Dr John and Tom Waits. Thanks to World Service listener Jim Anderson for pointing out the specific Tom Waits song from Swordfishtrombones which is so obviously based on the Burundi track.