PICK OF THE MONTH
Manuel Cardoso
Requiem, Lamentations, Magnificat & Motets
Cupertinos / Luís Toscano
Hyperion (dist. PIAS)
CDA68252
I can’t seem to stop listening to this magnificent disc, and honestly, I kind of wish I could just keep listening to it all month instead of all the other releases (wonderful as they are) that I’ll be recommending in this issue of the HotList. What we have here is a perfect storm of musical beauty: a magisterial late-Renaissance work that regularly surprises you with unexpected twists of melody and texture, performed by a choral ensemble whose angelic blend is matched by its unwaveringly perfect intonation and lustrous tone. This is the first recording I’ve heard by Cupertinos, a choir specializing in Renaissance choral music from Portugal, and my next item of business after I finish typing this review will be to find out what other releases I’ve been missing. In the meantime, I can only recommend this glorious disc in the strongest possible terms to all library collections.
CLASSICAL
Franz Schubert; Friedrich Burgmüller
Die Nacht
Anja Lechner; Pablo Márquez
ECM
2555
Rick’s Pick
Passionate but restrained emotion, combined with deeply poignant melody: that, in my view, is the combination of traits that characterizes Franz Schubert’s most successful compositions. (Think of his Ave Maria setting; there’s a reason why just about everyone in the Western world can sing at least the first two bars of that piece.) Friedrich Bürgmuller, a German composer only a little bit younger than Schubert–and of whom I’m embarrassed to say I knew nothing before encountering him here–wrote in a somewhat similar vein, and this program of arrangements for cello and guitar features three of his nocturnes distributed between Schubert’s famous “Arpeggione” Sonata and transcriptions of his songs and piano pieces. Cellist Anja Lechner and guitarist Pablo Márquez have been playing together for years, and you can tell; they sound like siblings quietly conversing by the fire in a parlor. Strongly recommended to all collections.
Steve Reich
Sextet; Double Sextet
Ekkozone / Mathias Reumert
Mode (dist. Naxos)
300
The music of Steve Reich continues to divide both listeners and critics: are the repetition and minimal harmonic movement mind-numbing, or do they make possible the perception of other kinds of movement and development–notably the complex rhythmic patterns and shifting downbeat emphases that emerge? This recording of Reich’s marimba-and-vibes-based Sextet and his later winds-and-strings-based Double Sextet will not settle the question; but for those who find his music more exciting than enervating, it provides some wonderfully committed and high-energy performances of these important works.
Hieronymus Praetorius
Missa Tulerunt Dominum meum
Siglo de Oro / Patrick Allies
Delphian (dist. Naxos)
DCD34208
Rick’s Pick
Hieronymus Praetorius has suffered a fate similar to that of Michael Haydn and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach — languishing in the shadow of his more-famous and -celebrated brother. It seems especially unjust in this case, given the magnificence of H. Praetorius’s Missa Tulerunt Dominum meum, which (rather astonishingly) has never been recorded prior to this release. The London-based Siglo de Oro choir sings with a tight and colorful blend and delivers this emotionally intense Eastertide composition with a perfect balance of joy and longing. The program is filled out with complementary works by Hans Leo Hassler, Andrea Gabrieli, Orlando de Lasso and Jacob Handl, and it is an unqualified triumph.
Dictaphone
Collection (3 discs)
Denovali
DENCD0000287
Rick’s Pick
I wish I could better explain why I find this music so hypnotic — mainly because explaining that kind of thing is, you know, exactly what I’m supposed to be doing here. But I find Dictaphone’s music simultaneously entrancing and inexplicable. It’s abstract, but not structureless; there’s usually some degree of rhythmic regularity, and recognizable melodies often emerge from the cloud of sound and noise. You can’t call it minimalist, really, because it changes too much. There are moments that recall Jon Hassell’s “Fourth World” experiments, and others that sound like ECM jazz, and others that are hard to distinguish from mid-20th-century avant-gardism (though less abrasive than the music of that period tended to be). Sometimes the mood is — I don’t know — grumpy? At others it’s not even a mood, just more like a flavor. Like I said, I find all of it hypnotic and hugely enjoyable. This three-CD set includes four releases from Dictaphone’s back catalog: m.=addiction (2000), Nacht (2004), Vertigo II (2006), and the very limited edition Poems from a Rooftop (2012). This collection is itself available only in a limited release, so snap it up now.
Charles Dieupart
Six Sonatas for Flute with a Thorough Bass
Isabel Favilla et al.
Brilliant Classics (dist. Naxos)
95572
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain
Flute Quartets Op. 12 (2 discs)
Wilbert Hazelzet; Fanaticus
Resonus (dist. Naxos)
RES10222
Here are two absolutely lovely collections of early-18th-century French chamber music for flute. The Dieupart sonatas are performed on recorder by the magnificent Isabel Favilla, whose steadiness of intonation (always a touchy issue on that instrument) is impeccable, and whose accompanists include cellist Roberto Alonso Álvarez, lutenist Giulio Quirici, and harpsichordist João Rival. Dieupart is a relatively obscure composer and as near as I can tell, this is the only available recording (possibly the first?) of his flute sonatas, and they are a delight. Louis-Gabriel Guillemain’s is something of a tragic story: hugely celebrated in his time, he succumbed to alcoholism and committed suicide after a long decline, and today his name is largely forgotten. He was reportedly a dazzlingly gifted violinist, but he also shone as a composer, and although his output was small (eighteen published works) this set of quartets for flute, violin, bass viol and continuo nicely showcases his skill. Flutist Wilbert Hazelzet is a titan of the early music scene, and while I wish his transverse flute had been miked a bit more closely so that we could better hear the subtleties of his articulation, this is a gorgeous album overall and can be confidently recommended to all early music collections.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The String Quintets (3 discs)
Klenke Quartett
Accentus (dist. Naxos)
ACC80467
Reviewing a Mozart album is, in some ways, kind of silly–what are you going to do, say that the music is only so-so? What the reviewer is left to do is evaluate the performance, and perhaps the utility of the product. In the case of these (modern-instrument) performances of Mozart’s string quintets, the scores come in very high on both of those counts: the Klenke Quartett (with the addition of guest violist Harald Schoneweg) deliver performances that I can only call “luminous,” their tone crystalline but rich and their interpretations insightful–conveying beautifully the characteristic “here comes the Romantic era” emotion of Mozart’s middle-period music as well as the classical formalism that constrains it. Few other composers combined sprightliness and humor with depth as effectively as Mozart did, and the Klenkes do full justice to that complexity. Highly recommended to all classical collections.
Various Composers
From Hungary to Taiwan
Formosa Quartet
Bridge (dist. Albany)
9519
One might reasonably ask what unifying theme could bring together a program of works by American composer Dana Wilson, Chinese composer Lei Lang, Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, and Taiwanese-American composer Wei-Chieh Lin. The answer is: folk song. And what makes this four-work program especially interesting is that the folk traditions on which the various works draw come from two very specific and distinct countries: Hungary and Taiwan. Wilson’s setting of Hungarian folk melodies is followed directly by Liang’s long, single-movement work based on the traditional music of Taiwan’s aboriginal tribes. Then comes Bartók’s famous fourth string quartet (heavily influenced by melodies he had collected during field expeditions with Zoltán Kodály), followed by Lin’s setting of four Taiwanese folk songs. It’s a fascinating and often challenging program, brilliantly performed by one of America’s top young string quartets.
JAZZ
Ran Blake; Claire Ritter
Eclipse Orange
Zoning
ZR1013
The fact that Ran Blake takes first billing on this live two-piano concert recording can be read as a quiet tribute to him from Claire Ritter, his former student and now a force in modern jazz piano herself — and also the owner of the Zoning Recordings label, on which the album will be released on February 15. And the fact that the program features two Thelonious Monk tunes reflects the fact that the concert took place within a few days of Monk’s 100th birthday, and that Monk has been such a big influence on both Ritter and Blake. The rest of the concert consists of duo and solo performances of pieces written by each of them, with a few standards thrown in as well. (Saxophonist Kent O’Doherty joins them on several tunes, but they are otherwise unaccompanied.) At times the music is sweet and lyrical with explicit nods to the past, and at other times things get spiky and experimental, neither of which should surprise long time fans of both of these extraordinary pianists. If your library supports a jazz piano pedagogy program (or just a jazz program), do not pass this one up.
Ken Fowser
Right on Time
Posi-Tone
PR8191
For saxophonist/composer’s Ken Fowser’s fourth album as a leader, he decided to change things up. Whereas his first three efforts had featured him leading a standard-issue quintet (sax and trumpet in front of a piano trio), on this one producer Marc Free convinced him to build his ensemble around a Hammond organ — leading, predictably enough, to a program with a funkier, greasier edge than usual, as well as to a slightly expanded instrumental palette: sax, trombone, trumpet, guitar, organ, bass, drums. The result finds Fowser spending more time in blues and funk territory, but also using his newly-configured group to explore Brazilian (“Samba for Joe Bim”), waltz (“Don’t Let Life Pass You By”), and hard-bop (“Duck and Cover,” “On My Way”) styles. As always, his charts are tons of complex-yet-accessible fun and his solos are a delight. Fowser is, in my opinion, one of the top young jazz bandleaders on the scene today.
Eric Dolphy
Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (3 discs)
Resonance
HCD-2035
Rick’s Pick
A “prophet” can be any number of things: someone who foresees and foretells the future; a divine madman from the desert who tries to convince a wicked city to repent; the founder of a new faith. Saxophonist and composer Eric Dolphy arguably played all of these roles during his all-too-brief life and even briefer career, helping to usher in the jazz avant-garde and deeply influencing subsequent generations of experimental and free-thinking saxophonists. This three-disc set is not easy listening, but it is essential. It includes the two albums he made with producer Alan Douglas (Conversations and Iron Man) along with a full disc’s worth of studio outtakes, all in monaural recordings, the stereo tapes having been lost long ago. For those who haven’t heard this music before, it will likely come as a revelation (see what I did there?): the light-hearted, Caribbean-flavored “Music Matador” somewhat belies Dolphy’s reputation as a wild-eyed experimenter, though it contains both sweet lyrical melody and crazy skronkiness; “Love Me” is a solo sax excursion, somewhat wild but grounded, and certainly not crazy; “Alone Together” and “Muses for Richard Davis” (previously unissued) are both pieces for bass clarinet and bass, alternately experimental and straight-ahead, and the same is true of his sax/bass arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday.” On the Iron Man album things do start to get a bit crazy, though his playing and arranging remain disciplined: the boppish-but-funky title track provides a solid scaffolding for Dolphy to get harmonically nuts, squawling his proto-harmolodic lines all over what is an otherwise relatively conventional program of 1960s jazz charts. “Ode to Charlie Parker” is a gorgeous (though somewhat abstract) flute-and-bass duet. “A Personal Statement,” a bonus track, is deeply strange, featuring Dolphy in musical conversation with piano, bass, percussion, and a countertenor vocalist. This whole package is an adventure, and should find a place in any library’s jazz collection.
Harry “Sweets” Edison
The Classic Albums Collection (4 discs)
Enlightenment (dist. MVD)
EN4CD9157
And speaking of packages that should find a place in any jazz collection, here’s the Enlightenment label back again with another four-disc set that includes eight classic releases by a towering figure of mid-century jazz: in this case, trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison. Edison made his bones as a member of the Count Basie Orchestra before moving to California in the early 1950s and pursuing a career as a leader. During that decade he produced quite a few fine albums under his own name, and these are among the best of them: Buddy and Sweets (with Buddy Rich); Sweets; Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You; Going for Myself (with Lester Young); The Swinger; Sweetenings; Together (with singer Joe Williams); and Wanted to Do One Together (with Ben Webster). Listening to these albums, all of which were recorded with small combos and reflect the best of what straight-ahead 1950s jazz had to offer, you might come to the conclusion that Edison got his nickname from his trumpet tone, which is indeed sweet and burnished, even when he plays with a mute. (The nickname actually arose from his popularity with women.) Some of the finest moments are those that find him alongside titans of the pre-bop period, including Basie himself as well as the great tenor saxophonists Ben Webster and Lester Young. And to its credit, the crew at Enlightenment took the trouble to provide a full personnel listing this time, outside of the text of the liner notes. A very fine collection all around.
Jentsch Group No Net
Topics in American History
Blue Schist
CD004
Rick’s Pick
I have a rule of thumb when it comes to modern jazz: beware of compositions with titles like “Manifest Destiny” and “Suburban Diaspora” (to say nothing of “Lincoln-Douglas Debates”). But it’s in the nature of a rule of thumb that you can’t always follow it strictly, and that’s the case with guitarist/composer Chris Jentsch’s latest large-ensemble work. Its seven pieces are not tone poems, though there’s a programmatic element to the swinging “Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” on which trumpet and trombone engage in some good-natured back-and-forth. Other tracks are more abstract and harmonically meandering, though “Suburban Diaspora,” the album’s most lyrical piece, comes as something of a surprise with its almost elegiac flavor. One of the things that struck me about this composition was Jenstch’s generosity — you don’t hear his guitar come to the fore until seven minutes into the first track, and even then it only stays there for a moment. This is not a jazz guitar album; it’s an outstanding piece of jazz-classical fusion that achieves the elusive goal of offering the best of both worlds. Strongly recommended to all libraries.
Dennis Coffey
Live at Baker’s
Omnivore
OVCD-320
This one, on the other hand, most certainly is a jazz guitar album. Or, more precisely, a jazz/soul/funk album. Leading a quartet that also features keyboardist Demetrius Nabors, bassist Damon Warmack, and drummer Gaelynn McKinney, legendary session man and Funk Brothers veteran Dennis Coffey delivers a smooth but not slick live set that includes jazz standards (“Moonlight in Vermont,” “All Blues”), a fusion classic (David Sanborn’s “Chicago Song”), a 1970s R&B hit (“Just My Imagination”), and one Coffey original (the much-sampled 1971 hit “Scorpio”), among other treats. Coffey shows off his stylistic range and his estimable chops, but also his taste–and gives his sidemen some room to show off as well. The production quality is exceptional for a live album, and the whole thing is a treat: easy to listen to without being easy listening.
FOLK/COUNTRY
Sineag MacIntyre
Lòn Bàn
Greentrax (dist. MVD)
CDTRAX396
The word that kept coming to my mind while listening to this lovely album of traditional Scottish songs was “careful.” And I mean that as a compliment: whereas many Celtic musicians approach the source material as an opportunity to show off (often with wonderful and thrilling results), others set the songs and tunes the way one might a jewel, doing their best to draw the listener’s attention away from the performer and towards the music itself. This seems to be the favored approach of celebrated singer Sineag MacIntyre, who performs these songs (many of them closely associated with her home township of South Uist) at moderate tempos and with a minimum of accompaniment. A few melodies may be startlingly familiar to listeners not steeped in the Gaelic song traditions — notice, for example, that “Èiridh Bileag Ùr-Ghorm” is sung to the same tune as the French carol “Noël nouvelet” — but even for longstanding fans of those traditions many of these numbers will be a revelation, as is MacIntyre’s sweet, clear, careful voice.
Jeff Scroggins & Colorado
Over the Line
Patuxent
CD-325
Rick’s Pick
Everything that I just said about Celtic music goes double for bluegrass, which is regularly — not to say constantly — used as much as a vehicle for virtuosic showing-off as a showcase for great songs and tunes. On their latest album, banjo player Jeff Scroggins and his band Colorado take a very different tack: not skimping on the virtuosity (listen carefully, in particular, to how gracefully Scroggins shifts back and forth between traditional Scruggs and more modernistic melodic/Keith-style picking) but never letting it distract. At very few points, while listening to this album, are you going to say “Wow, that sure was a fast solo” — but at multiple points you’ll say “What a gorgeous song,” and if you listen closely you’ll also find yourself saying “Nice note choices.” You’ll also notice what fine lead singers guitarist Greg Blake and Allie Hakanson are, and what a tasteful mandolinist — and great tune-writer — Tristan Scroggins is. (And you’ll say “Hey, isn’t that Mark Schatz on bass? The Mark Schatz?” Yes, it is.) Highly recommended to all libraries.
Tyler Grant; Robin Kessinger
Kanawha County Flatpicking
Grant Central
GCR1802
The two general schools of steel-string guitar playing are flatpicking (using a plectrum) and fingerpicking. Both traditions have honored places in various folk traditions, with flatpicking favored in the contexts of bluegrass and old-time music and fingerpicking more often preferred by folksingers. Tyler Grant and Robin Kessinger are masters of bluegrass and old-time flatpicking, and this delightful album documents a two-man jam session in a friend’s cabin, during which they play a varied set of fiddle tunes (“Soldier’s Joy,” “Rights of Man,” “Flop Eared Mule”), country blues (“No Hard Times”), and even a Tin Pan Alley song (“Russian Lullaby”). They sing on several of these numbers, but while both are pretty good singers it’s the picking that is the real draw here. The final track, however, is an unaccompanied gospel hymn (“A Song! A Beautiful Song!”), sung in slightly shaky but moving harmony by Grant and Kessinger. Nice stuff.
Bob Sumner
Sings Wasted Love Songs
Self-released
BSR0001
Rick’s Pick
Better known as half of the Vancouver-based duo The Sumner Brothers, Bob Sumner explains his first solo outing by saying that he’s “kind of a junkie for sad songs and ballads.” He demonstrates that beautifully and with straightforward articulateness on this lovely rainy-day album, one that murmurs with deep emotion even as it benefits from architecturally meticulous songwriting. As you listen to these songs you won’t necessarily notice anything special about Sumner’s voice, but you’ll notice how well he sings (those are not the same thing, obviously). You’ll also notice the economy of his lyrics and the gem-like precision of his melodies — not to mention his chord changes, which keep startling me with their spare perfection.
ROCK/POP
Buzzcocks
Another Music in a Different Kitchen (reissue)
Domino
REWIGCD126
Rick’s Pick
Buzzcocks
Love Bites (reissue)
Domino
REWIGCD127
Rick’s Pick
If you, like me, had allowed yourself to forget what a pulse-poundingly perfect punk band the Buzzcocks were, then the 40th-anniversary remastering and reissue of their first two full-length albums provides a great opportunity to remind yourself. Their sound was sharp and tight, bursting with barely-contained aggression even as their lyrics went to somewhat more weird and whimsical places than those of their colleagues at the time tended to (sample couplet: “Sooner or later you’re gonna listen to Ralph Nader/I don’t wanna cause a fuss, but fast cars are so dangerous”). These reissues are packaged with new liner notes and photos, but (unfortunately) no additional music. Nevertheless, if your library doesn’t already own them this is a perfect opportunity to fill in a collection gap.
Phonseca
Between a Dream (digital only; out 15 February)
Self-released
No cat. no.
Matthew O’Connor, who has an eclectic background as a keyboardist in various Bristol bands and as a composer of library music, now records as a solo artist under the name Phonseca, and his debut album fascinatingly walks the fuzzy line that separates ambient electronica from synth pop. One of the elements that tends to separate the latter from the former is the presence of a beat, and several tracks on Between a Dream most certainly feature beats — though to call them “grooves” would be something of a stretch. That being said, one of the album’s surprises is a quiet and strangely-mixed cover of New Order’s 1980s hit “Bizarre Love Triangle,” with female vocals drifting in from the middle distance. It’s not being marketed this way, and it may not sound like it at first — but ultimately this really is a synth-pop album, and quite a nice one at that.
Kate Bush
Remastered — Part II (reissue box; 11 discs)
Fish People
No cat. no.
How big does an artist’s audience have to be for it to stop making sense to call her a “cult artist”? Certainly Kate Bush has had a large worldwide fan base since she emerged as an utterly unique prog-synth-Gothic-Romantic-multimedia-singer-songwriter in the 1970s. And if she has rarely had hits in the US, her songs have graced the Top 10 in England no fewer than 25 times. But then, the British charts tend to be a bit more welcoming of radical quirkiness than the US ones, and if one important characteristic of a “cult artist” is radical quirkiness, then Bush pretty much has them all beat. (Her breakout hit was a love song to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.) Anyway, this is the second in a two-installment set of multi-disc reissue boxes; both include lots of new and unreleased material in addition to remastered versions of all of her original albums. The remastered sound is outstanding, and the added depth and clarity make it easier than ever to appreciate the wonderful strangeness of Bush’s musical conception. The packaging may prove a bit unwieldy for library collections, but you can expect demand from the members of her cult — a larger one than you might expect.
The Flesh Eaters
I Used to Be Pretty
Yep Roc (dist. Redeye)
CD-YEP-2644
Here’s the thing about the Los Angeles punk scene, circa 1980: one of its defining features was the deep debt its bands owed to country, blues, and rockabilly. There were bands like X, who drew deeply on country and hillbilly traditions, and straight-up rockabilly/R&B revivalists like the Blasters, who emerged from the punk scene despite having almost nothing stylistically in common with it (apart from manic energy). Then there were the Plugz, who drew on Latino traditions as well. And then there were the Flesh Eaters — basically a punk supergroup that pulled together members of all three of those bands under the leadership of singer/lyricist Chris D., who always kind of sounded like he was acting in a horror movie and for whom the guys from X and the Blasters and the Plugz put together some suitably dark and creepy backing music. And guess what? Now those guys are all back, and it doesn’t sound like any of them have gotten over their existential angst — least of all Chris D. Shelve this one next to albums by the Cramps and then keep a close eye on anyone who picks them up; they’re probably up to no good.
Various Artists
That’ll Flat Git It!: Rockabilly & Rock’n’Roll from the Vaults, Vol. 30
Bear Family (dist. MVD)
BCD 17566
Rick’s Pick
And if you want to know why rockabilly held such fascination for the punk rockers of the L.A. scene, check out this breathtaking series of musical archaeology by the brilliant Bear Family label. It should be an ongoing source of national shame that it’s taken a German label to bring back to light so much of America’s country and rock history, but thank heaven someone’s doing it. This particular series is now an amazing 30 volumes deep, and the latest installment features twangy, bouncy, hard-rocking treasures from artists you’ve probably never heard of: Ray Griff, Otto Bash, Ric Cartey, Janis Martin, and many others. The disc transfer has been done with loving attention to sonic detail, resulting in admirably clear sound but no artifical stereo or other ill-considered interventions. Detailed liner notes complete a package that every library should own.
WORLD/ETHNIC
Anchorsong
Cohesion
Tru Thoughts
TRUCD356
For his latest release, Masaaki Yoshida (recording, as usual, under the name Anchorsong) has drawn on a variety of Indian musical traditions: notably classical percussion and Bollywood songs. But this doesn’t end up sounding like pseudo-Indian dilletantism or Indian pop manqué. Instead, it ends up sounding like an Anchorsong album: sonically dense but melodicaly nimble, funky but graceful, experimental (and maybe even avant-garde) but accessible. He pays careful attention to the actual pitches of the percussion instruments, using them for melodic purposes, and creates something both fun and deeply interesting. A new Anchorsong album is always cause for celebration, and all libraries should take note of this one.
Earl Cunningham; Earl Sixteen
Earl Cunningham; Shining Star
Burning Sounds (dist. MVD)
BSRCD913
So what do these two albums have in common to justify their release together on this hourlong one-disc twofer? Well, both artists are named “Earl,” for one thing. Then there’s… um… well, okay, certainly the fact that both albums are legitimate roots-reggae classics originally issued in 1983 — and the fact that both are presented in “showcase” style, with a dub version following each vocal mix. The backing bands are different (the Roots Radics in the first instance; the Aggrovators in the second), but both albums were produced by Earl Morgan (“Earls” were pretty thick on the ground in Jamaica at the time). The sound is a bit sludgy, with that bassiness that reflects both local preferences of the period and the fact that this CD was almost certainly “mastered” from vinyl copies of the original LPs. But the music is outstanding.
Various Artists
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II
Six Degrees
No cat. no.
Rick’s Pick
There’s a fascinating and tragic backstory to this album. During World War II, scholars from the Kiev Cabinet for Jewish Culture fanned out across Europe collecting hundreds of new Yiddish songs that depicted the experiences of Jews during wartime: serving in the Soviet army, being imprisoned by the Nazis, working for socialism in the outposts of Siberia and the Urals. The goal was to publish a collection of these songs, but — in a cruel but all-too-common historical irony — one of the scholars was arrested and the group’s work suppressed during Stalin’s anti-Jewish purge. Almost 50 years later the documents were discovered in several unmarked boxes in Ukraine’s national library, and 20 years after that a group of musicians at the University of Toronto decided to record some of them. The result is this beautiful, fun, and painfully sad album, one that brings to light mid-century Yiddish songs of great emotional depth and political acerbity. The songs featuring vocalist Sophie Milman are a particular highlight, but this whole album is a must for all academic collections.
Stella Chiweshe
Kasahwa: Early Singles
Glitterbeat (dist. Forced Exposure)
GB 061CD
Many of us are familiar with the instrument known as the mbira, or thumb piano; what is less commonly known is that the word also denotes a whole style of music that has been held sacred in South Africa’s Shona culture for over a thousand years. Stella Chiweshe is now widely known as the “Queen of Mbira,” but as a young woman in the 1970s and 1980s the option of becoming a professional musician in this arena was not open to women, and not only would no men teach her how to play, no instrument builder would make an mbira for her. In order to record the first single on this collection (which consists entirely of recordings never previously released outside of Africa), Chiweshe had to use a borrowed instrument. But that song made her a celebrity, and after South Africa achieved its independence she began touring internationally. This album consists of 7″ singles recorded between 1974 and 1983, and featured both her nimble playing and her singing; it’s strongly recommended to all libraries collecting contemporary African music.
Djénéba & Fousco
Kayeba Khasso
Lusafrica (dist. MVD)
762602
Billed as “the new first couple of Malian music,” singer Djénéba Kouyaté and her husband, guitarist/singer/songwriter Fousco Sissoko are pulling the ancient traditions of griot singing into the 21st century — not by plugging them into a digital or electronic context, but by incorporating new stylistic elements (note the one-drop reggae grooves and the bluesy guitar and cello accents that pop up from time to time here) and, more subtly, by bringing in contemporary topical content and what is sometimes a somewhat sunnier and more optimistic lyrical outlook. Their voices blend beautifully, and the songs are both melodically winsome and appealingly spare and direct in their arrangements. More proof, if it were needed, of the enormous musical diversity that exists on the huge African continent–both across it and within its various regional traditions.
Zenzile
5+1 Meets Jayree
Yotanka (dist. PIAS)
YO 73
Rick’s Pick
I have regularly drawn attention to the deep and rich reggae scene that has grown up in Berlin, which has emerged not only as a world hub of traditional roots reggae but also of more forward-looking and experimental styles. A bit lower on the international radar is the emerging scene in France, and one of the leading lights of that milieu is Zenzile, a band founded over 20 years ago in the city of Angers. Their eleventh album is a collaboration with singer Jayree, presented in showcase style (each vocal track followed immediately by a dub version). The grooves are deep, thick, and heavy, with plenty of dubwise atmospherics and elephantine basslines, simultaneously harking back to the classic rockers era of the early 1980s and expanding that tradition into the new century. If you have patrons who clamor for Basic Channel releases or classic Roots Radics material, then hand-sell this outstanding release to them and watch them ask for more.
CD HotList 