MUSIC | Records – Jazz & World
JAZZ & WORLD EXPOSURE
JAZZ GOVAERT, REIS, VICENTE, MARTINSSON In Layers (FMR Records) ●●●●●
Portugal is home to one of the freshest contemporary jazz scenes in Europe. A creative summit between emergent Portuguese and Dutch players, In Layers brings together trumpeter Luis Vicente and guitarist Marcelo dos Reis with drummer Onno Govaert and pianist Kristjan Martinsson. Weaving melodic fragments and rhythmic patterns into their investigations of timbre, texture and tone, the four musicians achieve a fine balance between abstraction and form. Reis and Vicente are highly distinctive, with the former adding flamenco flourishes to his deconstructed chords, and the latter offering a stream of bleats, snuffles and muted fanfares. The inventive Govaert generates a great deal of energy around resonant metallic tones, while Martinsson adds vivid colour and rhythm with his busy clusters and graceful repetitions. Anything but run-of-the- mill, In Layers breathes new life into European free improvisation.
JAZZ RAYMOND MACDONALD & GRAEME WILSON Cast of Thousands (Creative Sources) ●●●●● For its latest release, Lisbon’s Creative Sources turns its attention to Scotland and the saxophone duo of Raymond MacDonald and snazzy shirt enthusiast Graeme Wilson. Both are mainstays of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, as well as leading lights in the Concurrent research network for improvisation across disciplines. The music on Cast of Thousands has arisen from experiments carried out through that network, and bears the imprint of MacDonald and Wilson’s research into structured improvisation. ‘The Bucket of Kimchi’ is a dense weave of rapid-fire alto cycles from MacDonald and Wilson’s bold tenor outlines, while ‘Montelimar’ offers a curious salty-sweet lyricism. ‘Crow and Skylark’ could easily be a dry exercise in extended technique, but there’s real character and imagination to MacDonald and Wilson’s chorus of avian trills and raspy squawks.
WORLD BARGOU 08 Targ (Glitterbeat) ●●●●●
Nidhal Yahyaoui grew up in the Bargou valley, a forgotten region of the Tunisian highlands. Targ is his supercharged take on Bargou’s unique folk music, in which traditional instruments are underpinned by driving trap drums and fat Moog bass. The results are spectacular. Instead of a polite fusion, this is retrofitted trance music, in which the old and new meet on a pure energy level. Yahyaoui’s powerful vocal melodies are intertwined with Lassaed Bougalmi’s insistent lines for the flute-like gasba and the keening zokra. Together, they flow over Imed Rezgui's bendir polyrhythms and Sofyan Ben Youssef’s throbbing synths.
WORLD LULA PENA Archivo Pittoresco (Crammed Discs) ●●●●● Lula Pena’s first album since 2010’s Troubadour was worth the wait. The Portuguese singer-songwriter has a deeply personal style, drawing on fado, flamenco, bossa nova, French chanson, and folk songs from Greece, Sardinia and Chile. Using texts by Brazilian and Belgian poets, as well as her own lyrics, Pena writes songs that are both mysterious and empathetic. Her voice is a gorgeous thing: warm and finely grained, with a subtly expressive vibrato on sustained notes. She accompanies herself on acoustic guitar, beating out rhythms with her fingers and palm as she strums. A magical record.
WORLD VARIOUS ARTISTS Doing It In Lagos (Soundway) ●●●●●
This joyous collection of boogie, pop and disco from 1980s Nigeria is a party essential. Most tracks follow American trends, with Oby Onyioha’s elegantly hedonistic ‘Enjoy Your Life’ recalling Diana Ross’s collaboration with Chic. The talking drum breakdown on Odion Iruoje’s Afrocentric disco-rap gem ‘Identify With Your Root’ takes things back to the Motherland, a process reflected in the fidgety highlife guitars of Livy Ekemezie’s ‘Holiday Action’. Then there are the genuine oddities like the demented prog-disco of Willy Roy’s ‘Don't Give Up’, and Rick Asick’s ‘Too Hot’, with its gleefully silly calls to ‘get some ice!’ (All reviews by Stewart Smith) 78 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2017
THE MINK STOLES
Describing their sound as ‘David Icke and Robert Anton Wilson cover early Flaming Lips’ (there’s a concept for ya), the Mink Stoles are pure cosmic rockers based in Edinburgh. We caught up with Stephen Hill, the band's bassist, for a chat about their upcoming concept EP and that thorny topic: the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow. On the future We’re recording a four-track concept EP based on a story about nuclear world war. We have a fascination with conspiracy theories about secret governments, aliens, and the manipulation of society by the media. It’s not really splitting-up-with-your-boyfriend music, plus who doesn’t want to listen to songs about reptilian shapeshifters?
On who does what All the lyrics and music have been written by Matt [Grieve], some recently and some as long as 15 years ago. They all develop over time, whether in the rehearsal room or on stage, and Daniel [Hill] and myself usually tweak or change the drum’n’bass parts. With the recent addition of Phil [Harris], we hope to write more collaboratively in the future.
On who’s killing it We’ve played gigs with lots of extremely talented people, recently with the Wellgreen and Broken by Rock, who are both superb if very different from one another. The Legendary Graeme Mearns Band are magic and we heard a guy called Michael Cochrane during the festival who is a superb singer-songwriter.
On the Scottish scene There are two sides to the coin in Edinburgh. It’s based around the Fringe in August: extremely busy, lots of pop-up venues, a great buzz and gigs aplenty. However, the rest of the year can be sparse, though certainly not from a lack of talent. Recently we’ve started playing in Glasgow and getting a great response there from other bands and gig-goers. The scene there is healthier and more consistent at our level. There are more venues and more people attending gigs. (As told to Kirstyn Smith)
■ The Mink Stoles support Cymbals Eat Guitars, Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Tue 7 Feb.