Top of the World

A bellowing big band from the other side of the Atlantic

Hailing from Québec, where they formed in 1976, La Bottine Souriante have gone on to sell half a million records across 12 releases and garner dozens of awards and along the way. The name means ‘smiling boot’, a reference to the worn-out soles of a working man’s footwear. The 11-strong line-up features a weighty brass section, as well as violin, mandolin, guitar, keyboards, double bass, a percussive dancer, and three lead vocalists.

They’re a Québécois Bellowhead in the way they combine traditional music with funk, jazz, salsa and world music in a highly energetic and sophisticated set of arrangements. The verve with which they tackle the Franco-Celtic music of North America certainly has close parallels with the English folk big band; both are known for their brilliant spectacle of a live set.

Appellation D’Origine Contrôlée has 12 tracks, with an emphasis on traditional songs and reels plumped up by big-band arrangements. The opener, ‘Cette Bouteille-là’ (This Bottle) sets forth with slap bass and foot percussion, funk guitar chords, and multiple rhythms over which the brass section blasts welcome notes. Then the call-and-response vocals of a heavy drinkers’ song come in, toasting the devil in the drink and concluding with a reel dedicated to a corked bottle of wine. 

You long for a bit of breathing space at times, but their restless energy and inventiveness never let up. With the high reputation of Québécois bands such as Le Vent Du Nord and Genticorum having spread across the Atlantic, La Bottine Souriante look dead set on joining the party.

Tim Cumming

Dark lord of tango noir uncloaks his latest

When Argentinian rocker Daniel Melingo took a stab at tango in 1998 with songs like ‘Narigón’ and ‘José el Cuchiyero’ on his debut Tangos Bajos, he gave tango canción a much-needed shot in the arm and created a new audience for a genre that had fallen out of favour. Critics call his music ‘punk tango’; Melingo calls it ‘tango bizarro’. Fourteen years and five albums on, he’s still telling funny, fable-like stories about losers, grotesques and lowlifes. Half of the songs on Corazón y Hueso are raw tango dubs laced with lunfardo, the prison slang beloved of tangopoets as well as football fans. But Melingo has always had a soft spot for folk music and the sweet-sounding ‘Negrito’ is almost a lullaby, while ‘Fabula’ finds him doing a very un-punky singalong with kids. 

The chiaroscuro mood works: just as the dark songs are tongue-in-cheek, so the lighter ones exude more hope than faith. Certainly mellower than he used to be, Melingo remains a wag and a wit, and his heavy smoker’s voice is growlier than ever. He tilts his fedora to all kinds of influences, from the West End musical to Edmundo Rivero, from Bukowski to Carlos Gardél, all within his country’s wonderful, underrated, under-exported folklore heritage. This is more a flirtation with surfaces than a true roots music, but it remains deeply interesting, exploratory and provides tango - born on the margins - with a healthy edginess.

Chris Moss

Remarkable big-band with unusual takes on klezmer standards

The music and musicianship on this recording is outstanding and the concept intriguing. ‘The Other Europeans’ refers to the Jews and Roma who have both been marginalised – or worse – by the nations of Europe. This project brings together outstanding musicians playing Yiddish klezmer and Roma lautari music largely from Bessarabia (now Moldova), where Jews and Gypsies often played together before World War II.

An eight-piece klezmer sub-group and a six-piece lautari sub-group were assembled by pianist and accordion player Alan Bern (Brave Old World), who leads the project. Alongside Bern, the klezmer group includes Christian Dawid (clarinet), Matt Darriau (various winds) and Guy Schalom (drums), while the lautari group includes Martin Bunea (violin), Adam Stinga (trumpet), Petar Ralchev (accordion) and Kalman Balogh (cimbalom). The recording was made live at a concert at the Yiddish Summer Weimar course in 2009 and is stunning. Out of the full, 14-piece band opening, the serpent-like clarinet of Christian Dawid rises with a sinewy elegance in a lovely Romanian doina.

In Bessarabia there were towns that were predominantly Jewish, others that were predominantly non-Jewish and others that were evenly mixed, such as Edine, from where music appears on the second disc. ‘In many cases, Jewish and non-Jewish audiences demanded the same repertoire but played in markedly different styles,’ writes Bern in the excellent liner notes. There are several tunes that are well-known in klezmer circles (thanks to revival bands), but played here in very unusual versions. For instance, there’s an extraordinary version of ‘Khaiterma’ – better known as the Naftule Brandwein tune ‘Der Heisser Tartar Tanz’ – played by Matt Darriau on clarinet and Mark Rubin on slap-bass in a lop-sided rhythm that the lautari guys apparently loved. Another highlight is ‘Lautar Clarinet Suite #1’ with Moldovan Adrian Receanu on clarinet, Bulgarian Ralchev on accordion and Hungarian Balogh on cimbalom, in which the seductive ‘Sârba’ dance is awesome.

On the second disc there are sequences for violin, trumpet and a full-band ‘Edinets Suite’ which, like all of this music, seems to recreate a lost world of Jewish (and Roma) music. Without question, this is one of the most important klezmer releases in years. 

Simon Broughton

Inspiring collection from the late Scots world raver

Martyn Bennett, a native of St Johns, Newfoundland, who grew up in Speyside with his mother, the singer and folklorist Margaret Bennett, remains a much-missed and inspiring figure in contemporary Scottish music, six years after his passing. Albums such as Bothy Culture and Grit are benchmarks of how to fuse the contemporary with the traditional in a powerful and compelling way.

This collection comprises 11 tracks, beginning with ‘Ud the Doudouk’, one of Bennett’s early forays into world music, with Middle Eastern drones combining with elements of rave to create a sound that’s built to last. ‘Liberation’ is a stunning setting of Psalm 118, recited by Dundee singer Michael Marra, with the Gaelic voices of Murdina and Effie MacDonald, recorded in 1964 wreathed through the rave dynamics of Bennett’s musical assemblage. ‘Swallowtail’ shows how an Irish reel, learnt directly from flautist Cathal McConnell, could be tuned into 90s rave, with drum’n’bass patterns swirling around the lead tune on the pipes. ‘Harry’s In Heaven’ samples archive voice recordings, marrying them to dance music and glam rock guitar dynamics, while ‘Crackcorn’ carries the same trick into harder electronic territory.

Best is the majestic ‘Blackbird’, a slower, mid-tempo exploration of the Scottish folk tradition and 21st century dance, with the sampled voice of Lizzie Higgins punctuated by fuzzy drones, a loping drumbeat, and symphonic synths, all cleaving close to Higgins’ keening melody. The final ‘Stream’, a ten-minute epic from his first album, is a more ambient, mid-tempo melding of found sounds, beats and pipes, a chill-out room amid the frenetic energy and innovation that marked out much of Bennett’s music.

Tim Cumming

Retro be damned: unashamedly 1970s and proud of it

Touted as an epistle from a ‘time when people dared to make liberated records.’ this collaboration between two Brazilian totems is a delicious experiment in time travel, retrieving and recording long lost songs in a modern studio. Remarkably, they retain pretty much all their 1970s-vintage atmosphere. An obvious comparison is Visions of Dawn, the 1976 Joyce-Maestro-Vasconcelos project with which Upside Down (together with the forthcoming Broken Bridge) forms a loose acid-folk trilogy. Listen more closely, however, and there are distinct echoes of Vasconcelos’ parameter-pushing film scores in the jazzy Chinese whispers of opener ‘Horizonte’ and the gargling ad-libs of ‘Jungle Bells’.

It’s bassist Maestro, however, who wrote and arranged most of these pieces, invoking a beatific vibe and epitomised by the gorgeous ‘Ancient Truth’, which, with Vasconcelos banging out the clave under rapturous multi-layered harmonies, strings and humming acoustics, sounds like Pentangle breezing in on Milton Nascimento’s Clube Da Esquina. Though Joyce is absent, her spirit is very much present in ‘Ouvinda Estrelas’, as conjoined vocals levitate over syncopated handclaps, while the singer Kay Lyra casts a holy glow on a stunning, sobering arrangement of Villa Lobos’ ‘Canto do Pajé’.

What holds it all together is a vision of song as something fundamental, the promise of music making life better. It’s a record that reminds you why you fell in love with Brazilian music in the first place. If only there were more like it.

Brendon Griffin

Spanish squeezeboxer meets classical quartet

Everything is suddenly alright with the world when an album comes along and blows your mind: especially when it’s from an artist you respect and enjoy, but whom you feel has been resting on his laurels recently. Scintillating, sublime, stupendous – let’s pull out all the adjectival stops for this one from Kepa Junkera, Basque trikitixa player (that’s the button accordion to you and me) extraordinaire and France’s Melonious quartet. Fourteen Junkera pieces, heard on previous discs from him, are re-worked with this iconoclastic ensemble, who each play a different size of mandolin. The set bristles with vitality, due to innovative arrangements by their lead Patrick Vaillant.

The quality and clarity of play is thrilling, busting any mould you might like to fit it into. Hints of Mediterranean, South American, Renaissance classical and other musical styles come into play for a fine range of fandangos, the popular Spanish folk form that takes on different characteristics depending on the region. Trikitixa rhythms played with agile dexterity by Junkera zip in and out of mandolin layers that shift between accompaniment and succinct solos. Melonious’ cutting-edge classical background deepens the emotional depths of Junkera’s music, using the broadest palette of light and shade. If I have one beef it’s that, while the music speaks for itself, the scant liner notes consist merely of a greeting in Basque, Spanish and French, apart from some photos. Junkera has a healthy English-speaking audience and there’s no excuse for lack of information.

Jan Fairley

Thoughtful Iranian melds the personal with the political 

Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor is one of the world’s most sublime musicians.

If he’s not a better-known name, it’s because the Persian spike fiddle isn’t exactly a popular instrument, and also because of his unwillingness to compromise the artistry and intensity of his music. Nonetheless he has been a vital ambassador for Persian musical culture. ‘This was one of the most difficult stages in my life, where darkness and violence seemed to be taking over,’ he writes in the liner notes, referring to the disputed Iranian election of 2009. ‘I chose to be with the people and play music for them, feeling more connected than ever before. This album is the product of that dark period. The process of making this music and letting it be heard allowed me to realise that I will not stand alone.’

The album is groundbreaking from a musical point of view. Kalhor plays a new bass kamancheh, built by Australian instrument maker Peter Biffin, which he calls the shah Kaman. He’s accompanied here by Ali Bahrami Fard on bass santur (hammer dulcimer): the pair gave an incredible concert together at the London Jazz Festival in November with the brilliant tombak drummer Madjid Khaladj. It’s the santur that starts the album in its dark, low register and it’s almost three minutes before Kalhor enters, sounding more like a vocalist than a string player, as if in prayer. The tone of the album is dark but incredibly passionate. The standout track is the lengthy 12-minute ‘Where are You?’, full of dynamic interplay between the two musicians. The tracks run naturally and organically into each other and it takes time to get to the heart of the music. But the playing, the instrumental textures and the emotional intensity are extraordinary. The final title-track is ecstatic but ends abruptly - suggesting the real conclusion is yet to come.

Simon Broughton

Whorl music

There comes a point when every serious folk musician has to ask what their music’s for. They are not the drovers, maidens and jolly Jack Tars who bequeathed it, so if traditional material is to have any contemporary relevance beyond nostalgia for an imagined past, musicians must find a way to usher it into the modern age.  From folk-rock to folktronica, reinvention has tended to mean dressing traditional material in the preferred clothes of the day. But Spiro do something altogether different. The mesmeric result is cinematic, breathtaking and beautiful.

As with previous albums Pole Star and Lightbox, Kaleidophonica takes traditional tunes from the north-west of England as its starting point. These often consist of a theme and many variations, each building in rhythmic and melodic complexity and bearing fruitful comparison with minimalist classical music and electronica. The influences of these contemporary forms are clear in the way the four band members use acoustic instruments to build exquisite loops, but Spiro do not simply reinvent the old but rather uncover deep harmonic and rhythmic structures that were in the music all along.

Pieces like ‘Softly Robin’ and ‘Rose Engine’ explode as shuddering cascades of notes; the aptly named ‘The City and the Stars’ paints the metropolis at night. From this traditional ground Spiro build new, characteristically bittersweet compositions like the poignant ‘We Will Be Absorbed’. With both they evoke a beautiful melancholy that is traditionally English and yet wholly of the now. Folk has never seemed so relevant.

Andy Letcher

Raunchy rumba from East Africa’s finest

It’s gratifying to know that some record labels are still able to recognise the value of compilations of vintage, previously unavailable African music. The Tanzanian Vijana Jazz Band has had neither CDs nor LPs released outside of their East African homelands. I’ve already enjoyed some of their recordings from the mid-80s, making it all the more thrilling to be able to hear them in the earliest phase of their career (1975-80). Vijana play a predominantly Swahili-language version of the mighty rumba sound popular primarily in the two Congos, Kenya and Tanzania. Whilst their guitar-led, horn-embellished rumba bears similarities to the Congolese template, there are differences – mainly in the vocals – that demonstrate that Vijana were not slavish copyists. There is a vocal earthiness, even a lack of polish, that is really quite appealing. Likewise instrumentally, there’s an unsophisticated quality to the recording that actually lends itself to the musical enjoyment – it’s rough and raunchy.

There is a clear Tanzanian slant to Vijana’s style, though the liner notes point out that there is also an influence of benga music (a lively fast Kenyan style), and frequent lyrical references that suggest that Vijana were aiming for popularity as much in Kenya as Tanzania. The liner notes also relate a fascinating tale of how some of the tracks here were issued by the group when they were moonlighting under the name Koka Koka Sex Battalion (hence the title). This is another musical revelation from the ongoing Sterns reissue series.

Martin Sinnock

Today’s greatest sitar player?

A foremost protégé of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, Kartik Seshadri has very rapidly emerged as one of the world’s best sitar players, bringing tremendous artistry and a unique personal expression to India’s favourite string instrument. A child prodigy, he began performing full-length solos when he was just six years old and has since absorbed numerous musical influences, leading to collaborations with the likes of Philip Glass among others.

This album, recorded in Canada, features the Karnatic (South Indian classical tradition) raga ‘Hamsadhwani’, a delightful pentatonic scale which has always been a firm favourite of North Indian musicians – vocalists and instrumentalists alike. Seshadri plays a fabulously lyrical version of it, very ably accompanied by Pial Hussain on tabla, whose Benares style, renowned for its rhythmic complexity, is the perfect complement to Seshadri’s own hallmark of weaving the most terrifically intricate rhythmic patterns on his sitar.

The second track is the relatively rare ‘Raga Vasant Panchami’, the name of a Hindu festival celebrated in honour of goddess Saraswati (goddess of learning, art and music). In India, it heralds the arrival of spring and Seshadri’s interpretation easily evokes images of mustard fields turned a heady mix of yellow and green, even in the midst of a British winter. A delightful performance and an absolute must for sitar fans.

Jameela Siddiqi