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63 f PAUL JAMES ounousou. This is never going to be easy music to listen to. It does not reveal all its The Drowned Lover And Other Dark facets at first glance, but stick with it and you Tales Mummerfy-01 will get there in the end. Blowzabella’s long-serving reed man takes www.hirustica.com centre stage with an album primarily based Vic Smith on “interpretations of traditional English songs with strong stories that are as relevant now as then”. Recorded in his own home stu- TREBUNIE-TUTKI & dio and self-produced, James sings and plays QUINTET URMULI saxophones, border bagpipes, bass guitar, drums, percussion, piano, electric piano, Duch Gor – The Spirit Of The Mountains organ, other keyboards, synths, samples and Unzipped Fly UFCD 010 programming, gralla, shawm, and concertina, while a huge cast of guests After their unlikely but entertaining collabo- (including familiar names Beth Porter and ration with reggae band the Twinkle Broth- Gregory Jolivet) contribute everything but ers, family band Trebunie-Tutki from the the kitchen sink. Tatra highlands of southern Poland have Shirley Collins once memorably been looking for other effective combina- remarked that she dislikes jazz because it tions, and they’ve found a good one, indeed makes her fidget, so it’s likely that the a much more natural and integrated blend, Grande Dame of English folk song would with the Georgian traditional vocal and choose the simple voice, piano and concertina instrumental quintet Quintet Urmuli. arrangement of The Topman And The After- The Georgians don’t just bring their rich guard over the busier, more complex settings polyphonic vocals but Georgian instruments of The Drowned Lover and The Ballad Of Sara too: Georgian lutes , bass panduri Grey. The one non-traditional song – Big Corn and bass chonguri, bagpipe, salamuri whistle Photo: © Judith Burrows and bowed . (in The Fields) (by James’ late friend Desmond Paul James Simmons) features an uncluttered and effec- In Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka’s high-strain- tive rock band backing with violin, very much ing voice in traditional Góralska style I hear a These songs may be experiments within in Oysterband territory. lot of his late father Władysław, who was the estranged folklores, or glamours cast by new patriarch of the family and band, which now James cuts loose with his sax on the fre- instruments in unfamiliar contexts, but the comprises Krzysztof on vocals, fiddle, bag- netic dance tune Once There Was A Lone band insist that the recording sessions saw a pipe, wooden single and double and Wolf and border pipes on Falco E Colomba. complete trust in the “heterogeneity and long wooden trumpet, Jan Trebunia-Tutka’s The atmospheric Dulcinea De La Mancha charisma” of their guests. There are delicate vocals and viola and Anna Trebunia- floats on electric piano and electric guitar, contributions from Ustad Liaquat Ali Khan on Wyrostek’s voice and chugging highland whilst Wakeful recalls his late 1980s work revelatory sarangi, Michał Zaborski on viola, cello, with Andrzej Polak and Kuba Wilk on with Nigel Eaton as Ancient Beatbox. DJ Feel-X behind the decks, and Amrat Huss- fiddle and double bass. Paul James is, of course, a hugely accom- sain and Sanjay Khan (of the Dhoad Gypsies plished and versatile musician, but he’s really from Rajasthan) on tabla and harmonium The material comes from both groups. It just finding his own voice as singer. While the respectively. They fit seamlessly into the includes fine versions of several of Trebunie- instrumental arrangements here variously familiar WVB set-up of fiddles, viola, dulcimer, Tutki’s best known songs, including Hej recall (for this listener) Ti Jaz, Soft Machine, hurdy-gurdy, bass, extensive percussion and Giewoncie, Krzysztof and Władysław’s slow Harold Faltermeyer and Shamal-era Gong, it’s brass. And Kayan Kalhor, playing the Iranian tribute to their local mountain Giewont. The the traditional songs that provide the focus. kemanche, is listed in the liner notes, quite slow songs soar and surge, and the up-tempo A courageous and personal record that simply, as “genius”; the band talk about how songs are a coming-together of the celebra- rewards repeated listening. his contributions made them feel “as if every tory spirits of the two traditions. pauljames.eu single cell, all nerves and synapses, vibrated”. The contrast with the shapes of the And all this listener’s synapses seemed to do Georgian songs brings out Tatra highland Steve Hunt exactly that, too. music’s strongly characteristic scale with its www.kzww.pl natural-scale type augmented fourth. Most WARSAW VILLAGE BAND striking exposition of this is the tensely John Pheby serene final track, Anna Trebunia-Wyrostek’s Sun Celebration Jaro 4335-2 singing of Anioł (Angel), to droning bowed bass, dusty harmonic slithering fiddles and “Therefore, if the solar fire is resemblant of SERANDOU touches of melody the fire abiding in the bodies of living beings, Zinder Hirustica HIR011966 uzf.com.pl the sun itself must be alive” is the Cicero maxim that introduces the elegant packaging The ingredients that make up this stew are Andrew Cronshaw of Warsaw Village Band’s vast but thrillingly very diverse: lovely Malian voices, Irish wood- focused seventh album. Evocative photogra- en , calabash percussion, experimental phy juxtaposes retro urban nostalgia and jazz tuba, kamélé n’goni, African flute, live ROSIE HODGSON rural sublimity around a two disc sonorous, electronics… let’s mix in some more ; Rise Aurora Rosie Hodgson deep excavation of modern and traditional let’s try pifano and ‘Flute Japurutu’ (whatever solstice evocation. Midsummer Rain Song has that is!). We need some more percussion so Rosie Hodgson describes her music as “‘with- just such depth, a rumble of rich and deadly we’ll put in some Brazilian pandeiro and out bells and whistles”, trusting on the audi- serious strings, counterpointing voices raised some godjé from Niger. Now the sauce: that ble magic woven by her and Rowan Piggott in dark celebration. should consist of free-form improvisation, through voice, fiddle and guitar. And, by and Eighteen years into their career, the cook slowly and we can dish up an album large, this rings true. Rise, Aurora is an desire this time was to compose connections called Zinder. impressive debut album by this young singer- that the band have heard, learned and felt The resulting meal is very indigestible at songwriter who has risen through the folk with musicians from throughout their career first. It would be easy to follow an early dis- circuit to become a BBC Young Folk Awards and across the world. However this is no arti- missive opinion but experience tells us to per- finalist. This album shows startling originality, ficial connectivity or compromised tradition, sist. These practiced musicians all have good with every track either written or arranged but collisions so beautiful that boundaries reputations and they would not persevere by her or Piggott – stretching from an adap- become obsolete in a beguiling tension the with this unless they were onto something. tion of a Kipling poem to a Liverpool Lullaby band describes as: “The two natures of the Repeated listening does bring some written when Hodgson was only fourteen. world: Yin and Yang, male and female… day rewards. The traditional Malian parts are the When trying to describe Hodgson’s voice, and night, the sun and the moon.” easiest to latch on to. The delightful voice of comparisons to the distinctive singing voices As with many of the tracks, Viburnum Yacouba Moumouni accompanied by the of figures such as Bella Hardy and Kate Rusby Orchard features Mercedes Peón, happily lost harp-like kamélé n’goni provides a calm oasis can easily be drawn – her tones are certainly in this most vivid of lucid dreams. She bur- but then the links between what the flutes haunting and beguiling. Whilst the smooth nishes and echoes obvious and comfortable are contributing begin to emerge as they sound of her voice sometimes has the tenden- melodies into a brilliant outsider narrative, a start to follow the same complex lines and cy to push songs towards a slower, more rest- disturbing dance with a percussive back- gradually the music begins to touch the right ful rhythm, Piggott’s smooth and infectious ground. The result is Galicia meets Warsaw. spots for the listener. In the end it is the fiddle lines manage to pick the tune up and Brass, when it unexpectedly arrives, is radical- longer tracks that are the most satisfactory, carry it onward, forcing the listeners to tap ly and genuinely ethereal in contrast. especially the nearly ten minutes of Hardouy- their feet and keeping the song moving.