The Sound Of Silence

A mixture of current happenings such as moving house, the prospect of being off-line for two weeks whilst AOL re-connect me and worse still, the unintentional deletion of all files on my MP3 player (goodbye Sony Sonic Stage) means I won't be blogging for a while. I'm sure I won't be missed that much, if at all. But just in case, there's no need to call the Missing Persons Hotline.

Adios for now, amigos.

Misha Alperin - Her First Dance

"Her First Night" on the ever-reliable ECM label is a highly enjoyable album from the Ukrainian musician and pianist Misha Alperin. This, his latest album released in 2008 is a beautiful piano-led mixture of instrumentals which effortlessly combine haunting with melancholic, dramatic with melodic, and some jaunty faster pieces complement the variations in style. Some of the more melodic pieces here are not a million miles away from "The Promise" by Vassilis Tsabropoulos', an amazing album which I raved about here, but that would only be a lazy comparison.

Alperin is joined by Arkady Shilkloper on French horn, flugelhorn and on violincello Anja Lechner. The latter I am fast becoming a big fan of through albums such as "Chants, Hymns and Dances" and "Melos" with Vassilis Tsabropoulos and "Ojos Negros" with Dino Saluzzi and various recordings with Rosamunde Quartett with whom she is a member.

I don't know if it's anything with getting older, but lately I find my musical preferences leaning towards to the more slower paced and mellow side of the musical spectrum. Not a bad thing I would say, for sometimes we need to take a step back from the chaos of daily life. Saying that, I am not a pipe and Horlicks man. Yet.

Key tracks for me include the title track "Her First Dance", "Tiflis" and "April In February", to name just three.

The best place to source sound clips is here.

Staff Benda Bilili - Barbican, London 10/11/09

Support on this show came from Muntu Valdo, a singer songwriter from Cameroon. A very able guitar player to say the least, who, as well some very competent warbling, also plays the harmonica. What more could you want? Perhaps add some fancy effect pedals enabling some impressive looping in order to confuse the less technically minded in the audience who probably thought he was miming, add some audience participation and hey presto! After 20 minutes, boredom sets in and I wonder why artists like this can get away with selling CD's at gigs for 15 pounds. This is straight from the label or artist direct to the public without the need for the distributors cut. Something not quite right there. Of course the artist needs some bread, but there is no reason why a CD selling at a gig should cost anymore than a tenner. Simple. Curiously the Staff Benda Bilili CD was being sold for 12 pound and there are eight people needing bread and lots of it too, because by the look of the energy they use up on stage, these guys need their carbs by the lorry load.

There were high expectations for this band tonight, their "Très Très Fort" album has been higly acclaimed worldwide and this, to my knowledge would be their first concert outside of their homeland.

OK, so let's get the important bit out of they way first. Staff Benda Bilili are a group of disabled Congolese street musicians move around in customized tricycles. They also who live in the grounds of a zoo. I say that this is the important bit only because this is the main marketing angle on the group. Take that away and you are left with the music. A very energetic mix of Congolese rhythms and Cuban rumba, with a combination of six vocalists of varying degrees of quality and my favourite bit, a customised hand made one string guitar which on the CD quite sounds manic and naturally is difficult to play in tune, but live it sounded even wilder and the sound gets very, very distorted and the frequency seemed to cause problems for some of the assembled audience. Great! This was very danceable stuff but looking at the stiff Barbican crowd seated as if, quite frankly, that it were a freak show (some looked positively horrified when one of the wheel-chaired musicians leapt from his wheelchair. I half expected someone to go to his aid). I would go as far as to say some of this audience have never experienced anything remotely resembling fun throughout their entire lives. There was a break-off rebel splinter group of dancers of fifteen people or so who were getting some evil stares from the stiff stuck-up posse. For the record, I didn't dance, but I shook my legs a bit.

So to round off, not exactly mind blowing but a very enjoyable evening which reminds me how lucky I am to be living in London (or at least in a few days, quite close to London) where there is such a wide variety of things to do musically and otherwise that is virtually on your door step.

Here is a live clip of the band from a recent TV appearance.

The Cramps - Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?

Here is a great clip of The Cramps on The Tube from around 1986 with the curious little ditty - "Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?", a great track from the "A Date With Elvis", one of my favourite albums from that era.

Frontman Lux Interior sadly died earlier this year at the age of 62. This clip shows what a great performer and showman he was, but doesn't come near to what an exciting live experience by The Cramps was like, having being lucky enough to have seen them in concert twice.

The Biggest Reggae One Drop Anthems 2009

This is one of two fairly representative compilations on Greensleeves Records of the current reggae music trends currently popular in Jamaica. That is, good, bad and very ugly. The other compilation is "Biggest Reggae Dancehall Anthems 2009". But more about that in few days.

A few years ago the term "One Drop" seemed to refer to the more cultural end of the reggae spectrum. Nowadays it the term is bit looser, seemingly describing everything that is not "dancehall". Although you could describe some of these tracks as "dancehall". Confused? Good. Bear in mind these guys just make music and it's only the record labels that insist on having to lump everything into a genre to help sell records, which is understandable I suppose.

So to "The Biggest Reggae One Drop Anthems 2009". To start off on a positive note, the tracks here that tick some of the right boxes are: Mr. Wiliamz - "No Cigarette", which follows a recent trend by Alborosie of re-licking 80s dancehall rhythms. The tune on this occasion is Triston Palma's "Joker Smoker". Nice vibes on this one, but the subject matter is as old as dinosaurs, while Peetah (Ex Morgan Heritage) & Assassin's "Hot A Road" is a big tune for sure. I haven't heard any new Capleton for yonks so it was enjoyable to hear "Acres". But guess what it is about? Ganja! There's a surprise. Queen Ifrica with "Dem Nah Lear" holds its own. Lukie D could read out a menu and it would still sound good. Even his reading of Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown's "No Air" would be acceptable, if it hadn't been spoiled by the one called M'lonie, who sounds like a drunk teenager on karaoke for the first time. Beres just does what he does best with "Can't Say I Never Tried", while Luciano, Junior Kelly and Lutan Fyah go through the motions.

On the bottom of the pile is Gappy Ranks - "Heaven In Her Eyes". Da'ville - "Missing You Right Now", Marcia Griffiths & Busy Signal - "Automatic (Keeping It Real)" and Glen Washington - "Vibes". All of which are so lightweight they could induce sea sickness and acute nausea even if one was miles away from sea. Romain Virgo's self explanatory "Alton's Medley" is quite frankly just pointless. There are also tracks by Alborose and Sizzla, who have tracks lifted off recent albums.

So enter at your peril. One for the download massive methinks, choice your tracks and then job done. If there is anyone could could sit through this compilation more than once, I salute you and recommend you seek medical advice.

Rabih Abou-Khalil - Arabian Waltz

Rabih Abou-Khalil has a new compilation out at the moment entitled "Selection" and it is essential. I will go into more details when time allows. But in the meantime, move the furniture out of the way and and feel this one: "Arabian Waltz".

Radical Dance Faction (RDF) / Military Surplus

Radical Dance Faction always used to get tossed on the dodgy "crusty dub" pile. This is true to a certain extent considering they used to attract a hell of a lot of crusties to their gigs (what ever happened to crusties?) and their music certainly could be described as dubby. I saw them live many times during the early 90s. I particularly remember one gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden and still sticks in my mind as one of the best gigs that I ever attended. I recall that I spent a lot of time on stage that night and I'm not too sure why.

Founded by Chris Bowsher in Hungerford, Berkshire and starting out as Military Surplus in 1986 before becoming Radical Dance Faction. The band had many line up changes before splitting up in the late 1990s. Their music mixed elements of reggae, dub and punk. Chris Bowsher, more than a poet than a singer, spoke rather than singing his lyrics. He was often joined on record and on stage by the more accessible and melodic sensibilities of Linda Goodman.

Bowsher wrote about such topics as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in the song "Chinese Poem". He witnessed the Hungerford Massacre and wrote about this harrowing experience in "Hot On The Wire" and in the poem "Hungerford Poem".

They released two essential albums: "Borderline Cases" and "Wasteland". both currently unavailable. The latter set featuring hot shot reggae drummer Style Scott, a former member of Roots Radics and Dub Syndicate. A third album "Raggamuffin Statement" followed, but that was a dodgy clumsy hotpoch of recordings of live material and demo-quality material.

The band reformed a couple of years ago as Military Surplus/RDF and played a handful of gigs. One of which was in Hitchin early in 2008, which included Murph from the Rhythmites on guitar, and old time Military Surplus member Steve Swann (Dub The Earth and Revolutionary Dub Warriors) on vocals. Below are some of the pictures I took on the night

A new album was planned for last year but nothing has yet emerged..

Here are three audio clips. "Chinese Poem" and "Hot On The Wire" - both mentioned above, and are on the "Borderline Cases" album. The third clip is of "Babylon" which is on the album "Wasteland"

Kroke - Out of Sight

I first became aware of Kroke's music through the album "East Meets East" a superb timeless set released in 2003 in which they collaborated with mockney violinist Nigel Kennedy, The album was for me is an absolute triumph and introduced to me this extremely talented Polish group.

Formed in Krakow, Poland in the early 90s, originally a trio, consisting of double bass, accordion, violin, before expanded to a quartet by adding a drummer/percussionist. Originally a Klezmer band, performing "standards" but also writing and performing original compositions, you can almost smell and feel the vibes of being in Kazimierz, the old Jewish distinct of Krakow. I once got very lost there in the fog, but due to my excellent navigational skills found my way out and back to my hotel unscathed.

Anyways, "Out Of Sight" is Kroke's seventh album - not including two live albums "Live At The Pit" and "Quartet - Live At Home". In truth, anyone who has albums like "Eden" and or "Trio" will not have any real need for this. Kroke's sound has changed over the years, but this album is not a good example of it - for that you should check out "The Sounds Of The Vanishing World" or "Ten Pieces To Save The World". For me. this set borders on tedious and some tracks are just plain annoying. I just can't put my finger on it. It's a combination of too much vocals/wailing and unnecessary whistling and musically, in part, it's almost like a bad parody of themselves. Without breaking down each tracks, there are three or four good ones on here, but not enough to recommend because there is nothing new or remotely inspiring on this album.

Criticisms aside, Kroke are still truly remarkable musicians and I urge you to seek out their music and catch them live if you can.

For sound clips from "Out Of Time". Check Kroke's website here.

Pop Classics Part 8 - Styx - Babe

Nope, I will not hang my head in shame. You should know by now I don't do "guilty pleasures". There is always something I have always loved about this song. there is a simple quality about it, something that lacks in most of today's' efforts in the "hit parade", where over-the-top production values rule.

Styx originally released "Babe" in 1979, and I picked up the 7" of this in a charity shop in Harrow a few years later and, have since helped it to reach a natural progression back into the charity shop cycle.

A pop classic for real. Lighters at the ready.