Log #5 - The Handsome Family - Tales of Birds and Snow

An international flavour here with Americana pioneers The Handsome Family and Euro Symphonic Pop from German/Danish band, the classy Efterklang. The African continent is represented by Baka Beyond.

1. Efterklang - Piramida,

2. The Handsome Family - Through the Trees,

3. India Arie - Song Versation,

4. Baka Beyond - Ete,

5. DJ Vadim - USSR Repertoire,

6. Jill Scott - Who is Jill Scott?

A clean sweep this week, which is sort of surprising even to myself, as I was really enjoying the new Whitest Boy Alive entry and Kings of Convenience still (but sure they will make re-entries at some point). A change is sometimes enforced somewhat prematurely by other housemates with less staying power!

Efterklang are an amazing Danish band now making some of the greatest pop music out there today. Check out some of their videos on youtube. They started out a bit more indie and experimental and over the course of half a dozen albums (this one being their most recent) have matured into the consummate band - think Coldplay but with more originality and edge. Also great live, often with an orchestra. They've come a long way since I saw them in a room above a pub in Brighton.

The Handsome Family, and in particular this album, is where it all started for me, in Americana that is. I heard Weightless Again on a sampler album - "we stopped for coffee... in the Redwood Forest" and was hooked. Superb, albeit rather disturbing and bizarre, lyrics - short stories about birds, snow and death... 

The giant of Illinois

Died from a blister on his toe

After walking all day through the first winter snow

Throwing bits of stale bread

To the last speckled doves

He never even felt his shoe full of blood

Delirious with pain, his bedroom walls began to glow

And he felt himself soaring up through falling snow

And the sky was a woman's arms

Inspiring album artwork of nature and Through the Trees is this week's cover art, and my record of the week.

I don't know anything about India Arie except she has been championed by the late great Wayne Dyer. The songs are fairly middle of the road and quite souly and funky but er hem quite middly of the roadie. Neil Young famously said his Harvest album put him in the middle of the road and afterwards he headed straight for the ditch. 

Similarly Jill Scott is pretty new to me but this album sounds very current with laid back soul grooves reminiscent of some new chilled hip hop around at the moment (this CD has some of those annoying phantom tracks inserted at the end to thwart random plays, hence has to go in slot 6 of the magazine).

Talking of laid back you can't get more laid back than DJ Vadim - his average BPMs are so slow they barely register and make DJ Shadow seem like Metallica. I haven't really got into this album yet but his more song based Soundcatcher is brilliant.

Baka Beyond are a sort of Afro-Celt fusion band. Great live and sound how you'd expect with a bit of African music (specifically drums and guitars), and some Irish fiddly bits. Their best known album is probably The Meeting Pool but this is pretty similar, probably a bit more authentic to it's roots but less groundbreaking.

Read More

Water Music From The Rain Forest

The much maligned term “world music” is entirely apt for Baka Beyond’s The Meeting Pool which records the coming together of a wealth of musical cultures. The group take their name from the Baka rainforest people of Cameroon with whom band leader Martin Cradick struck up a fruitful musical partnership following a visit to the region in 1992.

Field recordings provide much of the music’s African flavour (indeed the Baka people share writing credits and royalties are channelled into local development projects). With studio contributions from other African and European master musicians Cradick has created an intoxicating Afro-Celtic stew.

This multicultural infusion is most obvious on Meeting of Tribes; a traditional Cornish reel is played on Turkish and Arabic instruments, with African drumming and a didgeridoo drone! Its East meets West, North and South, modern and ancient; an organic melting pot of a dish that should taste overdone but is surprisingly delicious.

The understated but constantly hypnotic percussion and Cradick’s careful use of samples together with his circular guitar patterns preserve continuity throughout such myriad shifts in style. Furthermore unlike some less sincere world music dance projects that seem to do little more than paste some banging modern beats over traditional instruments The Meeting Pool is authentic and subtle (only in the final remix track are the traditional drums replaced with more electronic Western dance beats).

This wonderfully atmospheric album simply drips with water.

This wonderfully atmospheric album simply drips with water; from the lush green packaging to the ambient rainforest noises, the distant voices and laughter, the shakers and rain sticks, and the clatter of wooden percussion that permeates throughout each track. The upbeat opening Woosi hypnotises with an African guitar loop and Baka chanting. The gentle Ancestor’s Voice ebbs and flows before merging seamlessly into a tribute to the River Lupé via wonderfully evocative water slapping. Ohureo is a beautiful Gallic lullaby with Paddy Le Mercier’s violin soaring to the heights.  Despite the Irish influences his rootsy fiddle playing is far more Scarlet Rivera (as most celebrated on Bob Dylan’s classic Desire album) than Riverdance. On Journey the Frenchman also plays flute over another infectious groove laid down by Senegalese percussionist Sagar N’Gom.  The quiet Ndaweh’s Dream highlights yet another exotic instrument, this time a ngombi (forest harp), before the rousing finale Booma Lena.

Read More