Here to be Heard, made by US film-maker and punk rocker William E Badgley, has such a juicy, pertinent story to tell that it never palls. Over 84 minutes, contemporary interviews and old footage build a two act drama that reveals The Slits to be one of the most underrated bands of their era.
Young Echo is a sprawling Bristolian collective, comprised of individual musicians Jabu, Vessel, Kahn, Neek, Ishan Sound, Ossia, Manonmars, Bogues, Rider Shafique, chester giles [sic] and Jasmine, who combine and re-combine in various permutations like Bandulu, FuckPunk, O$VMV$M, Gorgon Sound and ASDA. But here, for the second time in album format, they've put everything together under the one name and allowed it to blur together into something that is, frankly, very, very Bristol indeed.
With December upon us theartsdesk on Vinyl has been kept busy with sacks full of fantastic plastic, so much so that we’re saving the poppier stuff for a pre-Christmas blow-out in a week’s time, so watch out for that.
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.
SIMPLY THE BEST: THEARTSDESK'S FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF 2017
Alan Broadbent: Developing Story ★★★★★ The pianist's orchestral magnum opus is packed with extraordinary things
It’s impossible to discuss TootArd without digging into the history of their region. They’re a funky desert blues outfit but they don’t derive from Saharan Africa; they were born and raised in the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. This is the region Israel grabbed off Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967, then fully annexed in 1981, claiming it as Israeli territory. However, Arabic Syrians who remained were rendered stateless, given “Laisser-Passer” travel papers by the Israeli government rather than the passports of a full citizen. Hence the album’s title.
The band, currently consisting of Nakhleh brothers Hasan and Rami (vocals/guitar/bass/percussion) and saxophonist Amr Mdah, are now based in Europe. They originally came together as a reggae covers outfit and there’s certainly a rolling dub feel to some of their music, but their first album to receive international release has more in common with the likes of Tinariwen and Tamikrest, as is made clear from the festival-rockin’ explosive opening title track, protesting their statelessness in song.
These musicians are also marinated in Arabic classical and western pop, which adds up to an approachable sound. They’re kind of a jam-band but with the discipline to keep things tight, percussion bubbling to the surface on cuts such as “Sahra” and the droning, propulsive “Bayati Blues”. Wind instrumentation swoops in and out, giving a rich sense of Middle Eastern jazziness. TootArd are equally capable of mellow numbers, stoned-out widescreen affairs that do, indeed, summon up the desert, as on the melancholic closing instrumental “Syrian Blues” or “A’sfur”, which bears a passing resemblance to Hans Zimmer’s iconic music for the film Thelma and Louise.
Because it’s not sung in English the politics of Laisser-Passer are implicit rather than battering at the average listener. However, TootArd’s way with a groove is compulsive and liable to drag listeners bobbing and dancing unforced into their musical world.
Overleaf: Listen to the title track of TootArd's "Laisser Passer"
Of all the idiosyncratic artists coming through the door opened by punk, Adrian Sherwood remains one of the most singular. Reggae had been given a new platform and Sherwood, though he has never done anything remotely musically akin to punk rock, comfortably found a place alongside boundary-crossing post-punk individualists like The Pop Group and Public Image Ltd. The former’s Mark Stewart and the latter’s Jah Wobble went on to record with Sherwood’s On-U Sound label.
To some critics, Joss Stone manages her career with the authenticity and conviction of her accent at the 2007 Brit Award ceremony. Yet with seven albums under her belt, a Grammy, two Brit Awards, and her own record label by the age of 28, her approach seems to be working. And for this latest, she’s stepped boldly outside her familiar soul territory. She got to know Jamaican star Damian Marley for Mick Jagger’s and Dave Stewart’s project Superheavy, and amongst the stew of flavours on display this time, reggae is the spiciest.
This latest Friday night vehicle for archive footage and pop performances was the tour bus, as BBC4 invited us to hop into the back of the van for a quick spin through the "golden age" of touring rock bands (which the producers clearly felt ended with the Eighties).
Various Artists: Front Line – Sounds of Reality
Once upon a time, Matthew “Matisyahu” Miller was the Hasidic reggae singer. There was only one, and the beard he sported for the first three albums made him pretty easy to spot. He still calls himself the “Hasidic reggae superstar” (on “Watch the Walls Melt Down”), but now, for this fifth studio album, he’s sleek, smooth and groomed, like any successful performer from LA, with a cosmopolitan stylistic palette to match.