VINYL OF THE MONTH
African Head Charge A Trip to Bolgatanga (On-U Sound)
I first saw Erol Josue on stage in Essaouria, Morocco, during the Gnawa Festival of 2011, when he fronted Jazz-Racine Haiti. The Haitian-born voudou priest turned R&B singer struck me as one of the most flamboyant frontmen ever to hit a stage.
theartsdesk team arrived at the WOMAD site with a degree of trepidation this year. Coming at the end of one of the wettest Julys in recent memory and the day after a serious deluge, was it going to be another Womud?
Fortunately, Thursday was a day with enough sunshine and wind to dry the ground reasonably well and apart from the odd mud puddle, things weren’t too bad. However, once we’d consumed a welcome beer and started snacking on the fantastic food that was on offer, everything felt even better.
Music from the Temple of Light has for its cover image a minimalist 17th century representation of Tantra. In this instance, a deep blue field bordering on black, scored by a golden yellow square, an arrow hanging down from the square’s centre, and a break in that arrow opening up near its tip.
It’s an absorbent and contemplative representation of forces rarely seen and beyond our control, and there’s a strong golden thread of the contemplative and of forces from beyond embedded in the album’s music, and its sacred edge.
TUESDAY 27TH JUNE 2023
I wake up around 11.00, get outta bed around 12.00.
Even when Peter Gabriel is bleak, he has reasons to be cheerful. Early on in his set he opined that soon enough “none of us will have jobs anymore”, referring to the ongoing rise of artificial intelligence, although this was followed by him stressing the positives that can be found in such new technology. It seemed fitting, because Gabriel himself, now 73, showed on this evening that optimistic possibilities of the future occupy his thoughts as much as ever.
Synths has a special attraction in a world that aspires to modernity. Thirty years ago Algerian Rai, which combined elements of traditional North African music with rock, was characterised by the sweet and slight tinny sound of electronic keyboards. Slightly tweaked they could imitate the harmonics and microtonal universe of Arab music. Now they are all over Africa, as well as in the super-charged dabke wedding music of Omar Souleyman and many other places.
The circular form of the large turf-roofed round house at the Ancient Technology Centre in Cranborne, Dorset, is tailor-made for music in the round. The latest in the series of Jaminaround concerts made the most of the intimacy that the venue provides, with music that engaged the audience in a way that conventional staging makes difficult.
Danûk are a group of exiled musicians, mostly Kurdish, and Morîk is their very appealing first album. They draw their bewitching songs and instrumentals from Kurdish tradition as recorded on wax cylinders in the early years of the 20th century by German and Austrian ethnomusicologists and companies.
These encounters are ones that may lead to lifelong relationships, with the halls at Kings Place this coming weekend filled with music from Mali, Colombia, Turkey, Georgia, Estonia, Tibet and a woodland in Sussex.