Giant Donut Discs® – April 2011
3. 4. 2011 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[Ken Hunt, London] It can be really beastly to be separated from kith and kin on the treasured island. But then one casts one’s eye around and one realises that those waterside plants aren’t all hemlock water dropwort, mugworts, figworts etc. There are the mangoes, for example. And the flamingos don’t always get away with raiding the mango orchard, though barbecued flamingo can grow fair tiresome. Instead one dons the fiesta clobber and dances like a demented chap to the music of Aruna Sairam, Robb Johnson, Tommy McCarthy, Dresch Quartet, Lily Allen, Bhimsen Joshi, Rendhagyó Prímástalálkozó, Françoise Hardy, Traffic and Robb Johnson again. It keeps the flaming, raiding flamingos out the orchard if nothing else.
Kārthikēya – Aruna Sairam
One of the most consistently coruscating female vocalists in the South Indian tradition, Aruna Sairam presents a master-class in melody matched to vocal rhymicality on this double CD. The piece is set in Valaci and in the ādi rhythm cycle. Her performance is brilliantly understated and is accompanied by Embar Kannan on violin, P. Sathish Kumar on mridangam (double-headed barrel drum) and Dr S. Karthick on ghatam (tuned clay pot). The violin ornamentations and solo responses are superb. That said, this entire release is inspiring. From Gāyāka Vāggēyakārās (Rajalakshmi Audio RACDV 08249/50, 2008)
Not an advert but a recommended source for South Indian music is Celextel Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. in Chennai – www.celextel.com – which greatly undercuts prices outside India where prices ratchet up scandalously.
The Young Man With The Girlfriend & Guitar – Robb Johnson
Richard Williams’ obituary of Suze Rotolo in The Guardian set me off a spiralling train of thought. Coincidentally I had only begun reading her autobiography, A Freewheelin’ Time (2008) a fortnight before. I did copy-editing on Robb Johnson’s Clockwork Music: maybe that’s why its lyrics are deeper within me than many of his other albums. The title gives the scenario away. He sings, “She’s hanging on his arm & every word/Like they were poetry/Just like Suze Rotolo in 1963.”
It struck me as fascinating that an album cover image had done and meant so much. Then Bonnie Dobson sent me a link to something one of her friends, Susan Green had written about Suze Rotolo called ‘Fifty-Two Years and Countless Cats: Good-Bye, My Friend.’ So, this song sparked a concatenation of associations sealed with a farewell kiss. From Clockwork Music (Irregular IRR048, 2003)
Susan Green’s memories of her friendship with Suze Rotolo are at: http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/03/fifty-two-years-and-countless-cats-good.html
Down That Road – Tommy McCarthy
At Prague’s Khamoro 2003: World Roma Festival I had the chutzpah to do a talk about Scottish Traveller culture within the quite separate Roma (Gypsy) context. It was a talk that arced between Scotland’s intertwined yet different Roma and Traveller cultures with a few Punjabi linguistic connections strewn here and there. I cannot say whether I would have expanded the talk and taken it further afield to Ireland had I known about Tommy McCarthy. I might have spoken more about John Reilly, an unaccompanied singer based largely in Co. Roscommon in Éire whose LP The Bonny Green Tree (1978) on Topic remains one of my twenty most favourite LPs of traditional music ever to emerge from the British Isles in its geographical, as opposed to geo-political sense.
My old friend Hans Fried, the son of the Austrian poet Erich Fried, was the first person to hosanna Tommy McCarthy in my earshot. After five decades of friendship and ping-ponging cultural inspirations to and fro I figure he still knows more than me. So, anyway, Hans said to listen and so I did. This is the first song on the album and it jumped out and lit a powder trail to explosive future discoveries. Ron Kavana produced and engineered. From Round Top Wagon (ITCD 001, 2011)
Bánat, Bánat – Dresch Quartet
Nigh on ten minutes of Hungarian folk-jazz with a J.S. Bach beat on a theme of ‘Sorrow, Sorrow’, originally released on their album Révészem, Révészem (‘Ferryman, My Ferryman’). For the sheer vibe they capture. From A Népzenétől a Világzenéig 2 From Traditional to World Music (Folk Európa Kiadó FECD 037, 2010)
The Fear – Lily Allen
It’s a great, joyful, rip-snorting song that distils so much about contemporary society. It’s about packing plastic and not caring about consequences (“And I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless/Cause everyone knows that’s how you get famous”). It’s about fame, no longer knowing or caring about reality (“And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore”) and riding roughshod over anyone in the way of achieving those goals. The wit of the lyrics is counterbalanced musically, once the nylon-strung guitar fades out, by the (I hope), deliberately jejune sound palette and relatively uncomplicated mix. But there again I’ve been wrong before. No matter, lyrically it is nuanced and amusing. From It’s Not Me, It’s You (Redial 5099969427626, 2009)
Yeh Tun Mundna – Bhimsen Joshi
I have no idea where Bhimsen Joshi released this gem. It is a poem by Kabir, the weaver, philosopher and mystic. In its aphoristic simplicity it ranks as one of the finest pieces on the human condition, the cycle of life and death and treating others ethically. In rough translation, it goes something like this:
“The body is brittle [transient]
One day you will be one with the dirt.
Says dirt to the potter,
‘Why do you dig me?
The day will come when I shall bury you.’
The wood says to the carpenter,
‘Why do you put holes in me?
The day will come when I shall burn you.'”
Any steer on where Bhimsen Joshiji recorded this masterpiece gratefully received.
From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVFl9u_ZkTs
Ken Hunt’s obituary of the singer from The Independent of Tuesday, 25 January 2011 is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bhimsen-joshi-singer-widely-regarded-as-the-greatest-exponent-of-indian-classical-vocal-music-2193228.html
Három széki dal – Rendhagyó Prímástalálkozó
The piece’s title translates as ‘Three songs from Szék’ and the ensemble’s name as ‘Primas Parade’. Ágnes Herczku and Éva Korpás are the vocalists singing solo or together. Róbert Lakotos plays viola and violin, Mihály Dresch flutes, László Mester viola and Róbert Doór double-bass. The piece is earthy and there is dirt under the nails of these musicians. In a good sense. From A Népzenétől a Világzenéig 3 From Traditional to World Music (Folk Európa Kiadó FECD 052, 2010)
L’amour ne dure pas toujours – Françoise Hardy
The first happiness of the day gave way to regrets that love doesn’t last all in one year. Françoise Hardy delivered both Le premier bonheur du jour and L’amour ne dure pas toujours in 1963. (Of course, it’s a cheap link…) Whether it was a Golden Age of Francophone pop music or not is immaterial. It was a time when a generation stepped on the merry-go-round. Including Bob Dylan who penned a poem with her in mind for his Another Side of album. A Hammond B-3 extravaganza as well. Blink and you’ll miss the entire song at under two and a half minutes in total. From The Vogue Years (BMG Buda Musique 3017530, 2001)
Every Mother’s Son – Traffic
Re-visiting the DeLuxe reissue of Traffic’s John Barleycorn Must Die rammed home how psychologically complex this composition by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi is. It goes from the brooding to the ecstatic. It is taut, tense and plaintive in different ways on the live version recorded at the Fillmore East in New York City in November 1970. One of my albums of all time. But this is the original studio version. From John Barleycorn Must Die (Island 533 241-1, 2011)
The Day We All Said Stop The War – Robb Johnson
On 15 March 2003 Central London got snarled up with protesters of every hue, faith, class and political persuasion. Well, nearly – “We even got a Liberal or two.” This was Robb Johnson’s response to the Stop the War march. Fittingly, he wrote it in Ilmenau in old East Germany. In the song he says, “We got […]/Placards that make you angry/Placards that make you laugh…” One of the banners that got the biggest laugh and the biggest response said, “I wish I was French!” On account of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ refusal to participate. And now there is another war with no discernible exit strategy and the French are participating. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more it changes, the more it’s the same old deal. From Clockwork Music (Irregular IRR048, 2003)
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