'Go Marko Go!' by The Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar

20 December 2007

I've been listening this week to the new Boban Markovic album 'Go Marko Go!' (now credited to The Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar): while there are a couple of tracks I'm not sure I would have included there are several tunes that bowl me over every time - the tremendously funky 'Latin cocek', the slightly cheesy ballad 'Cig (Avalanche)' and the frenetic and amazingly exciting 'Dzumbus Funk' - wow!

'Clare in the Community' (Series 4) by Harry Venning and David Ramsden

17 December 2007

We headed into London last Friday for our first visit to the BBC Radio Theatre in the basement of Broadcasting House. We were there to see the recording of two shows for the new series of 'Clare in the Community' by Harry Venning and David Ramsden (previously reviewed here in January 2007). It was great - still one of the best things on Radio 4. It always impresses me how slick radio actors are - recording a half-hour show in a single take then only needing a few small re-takes to amend minor slips. It was wonderful to see Sally Phillips whose facial expressions are just as funny on radio! And it was fascinating to watch those actors playing multiple parts - sometimes within the same scene. It is interesting how low-tech radio drama still is - all the actors clustered around a single microphone clutching their scripts - the technique hasn't really changed in the past fifty years. The new series of 'Clare in the Community' goes out on Radio 4 on Wednesday mornings at 11.30 am starting on 16 January.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

11 December 2007

This year's Northampton Symphony Orchestra 'Christmas Cracker' concert last Sunday had a teddy bear theme - featuring 'The Teddy Bear's Picnic', 'The Tame Bear' and 'The Wild Bears' from Elgar's 'Wand of Youth' and the narrated piece 'Paddington Bear's First Concert' by Herbert Chappell. The stage was festooned with teddy bears of all shapes and sizes and, when trumpeter Nick Bunker made his traditional fancy dress entrance at the beginning of the second half, he was inevitably disguised by a full bear costume - looking remarkably like he had just won the Turner Prize! Carols, film music ('E.T.'), mulled wine and mince pies and Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride' left us in no doubt that Christmas is definitely on its way.

'The Three Musketeers' by Mike Ames & Steve Allen

10 December 2007

Barry has been painting the outside of our house and when he told me he was a regular pantomime dame my first reaction was to say "oh no you're not!". But it turns out that Barry is a leading member of the Tread the Boards Theatre Group in Milton Keynes so last Saturday we were at the Madcap Theatre in Wolverton to see this year's pantomime. In a move that would please Mark Pemberton, Tread the Boards had avoided the usual suspects in favour of a new adaptation of 'The Three Musketeers' by Mike Ames and Steve Allen. Rather a loose adaptation it has to be said - incorporating 'The Man in the Iron Mask', 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. The musketeers (motto: "All for one and every man for himself") were obviously played by women. Barry was not playing the dame this year, instead doubling at the King of France and the front half of a great pantomime horse. The plot was perhaps a little ambitious for some of the younger members of the audience: I'm not sure they really followed the finer points of French politics though, by the end, they had certainly latched onto the need to boo Cardinal Richelieu vociferously. The quality of acting and singing was naturally a bit mixed but there was a great show-stealing performance from Ian Nutt as the Queen of France and some fine mugging from Sally Hulme as D'Artagnan. And as one of the villains was skewered by a sword in the final scenes she fell to the floor shouting "save me a part for next year!".

'Segu Blue' by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

6 December 2007

For many people ‘world music’ really means West African music. The prominence of international superstars Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal has focused the attention of world music promoters and media on a small number of West African countries. But for me much of the most feted of this music sounds too like familiar American or European pop with a slight African tinge. I do have a soft spot for the retro fusion of the great big bands of the 1970s: the Rail Band of Mali, Bembeya Jazz of Guinea and, particularly, Orchestra Baobab of Senegal whose reunion album of 2002 ‘Specialist in All Styles’ first turned me on to the world music scene. Their Cuban/African sound is always infectiously danceable and I have fond memories of seeing them at the Derngate in Northampton in 2002. But my favourite West African artists are those who use traditional instruments and styles to create distinctively modern, serious and beautiful music. I particularly like the Wassalou music from Mali as sung by the clear strong voice of Oumou Sangaré or the more breathy vocals of Rokia Traoré. Rokia Traoré’s 2003 album ‘Bowmboi’ is a much played favourite of mine – a series of intensely rhythmic, sparsely decorated songs featuring the twang of the ngoni and the mellow xylophone sound of the balafon (and including two amazing tracks with the Kronos string quartet). As with much African music it makes much more sense when you dance to it: I saw Rokia Traoré at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2003 and every song lasted about 6 times longer than the recorded versions as she repeatedly lost herself in her joyously exuberant dancing. Many of the best CDs of traditional Malian music in recent years (including albums by Toumani Diabate and Ali Farka Toure) have featured the virtuoso ngoni playing of Bassekou Kouyate. The ngoni is a small guitar-like instrument that looks like a rough hewn wooden cricket bat with a few strings strung along its length and creates a quiet, deadened twang. Bassekou Kouyate comes from the hereditary griot tradition and is the outstanding ngoni player of our time. I have been listening this week to his own CD ‘Segu Blue’ (with his band Ngoni Ba) which is definitely one of my albums of the year. I saw him perform at this year’s Womad Festival and he was captivating. This music is quite unlike anything else and takes some listening (and dancing) to really appreciate – but that, of course, is an essential part of it’s appeal.

'the very best of éthiopiques'

29 November 2007

I don't usually buy compilations or archive recordings - wary of the amount of money I spend on music, and the number of hours in the day I have to listen to it, I generally restrict myself to new albums - but this week I have been listening to a 2 CD selection of Ethiopian music from 40 years ago - and it is remarkable. The flowering of Ethiopian popular music in the 1960s - incorporating Western instruments and influences but retaining the distinctive pentatonic scale and asymmetrical rhythms of the country's traditional music - was severely curtailed in 1974 by the new Mengistu regime's curfews and censorship which lasted until 1991. In recent years the golden age of Ethiopian music has been rediscovered, largely because of the efforts of one man - French record producer Francis Falceto who, from the late 1970s, starting collecting vintage recordings on reel-to-reel and vinyl that have so far formed the basis of 23 volumes of the 'Éthiopiques' series of CDs. To help us find a way in to this mammoth treasurer trove, Falceto has this year created a 2 CD sampler: 'the very best of éthiopiques'. It's addictive listening: to my ears there is a degree of 'parallel universe syndrome' about it. When John Williams was writing the music for the cantina scene in the original Star Wars film, George Lucas told him to imagine “several creatures in a future century finding some 1930s Benny Goodman swing band music in a time capsule or under a rock someplace – and how they might interpret it”. The music of swinging sixties Addis Ababa reminded me of this quote: electric guitars, saxophones and Hammond organ are used to create something completely unique but strangely familiar. The elements of naff produce the epitome of cool: highly recommended.

'Belshazzar's Feast' by William Walton

26 November 2007

Once a year our two local choral societies, Danesborough Chorus and Milton Keynes Chorale, join forces to stage a major work. Last night we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see them perform Walton's 'Belshazzar's Feast' accompanied by the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and conducted by Ian Smith. The evening started with the only cantata by John Ireland, 'These Things Shall Be' - a lovely piece I hadn't come across before which shows the influence of Elgar but also includes hints of Stravinsky and Debussy. Though I've heard it before I had never attended a performance of 'Belshazzar's Feast'. It's dramatic stuff with the original 'writing on the wall' which tells the king and his guests that they have been 'weighed in the balance and found wanting'. Walton's music is appropriately terrifying and magnificent featuring the full power of the enormous chorus, an extensive array of percussion instruments, two harps, additional (offstage) brass and a fine baritone solo from James Rutherford. An ambitious undertaking (you could palpably feel the intense concentration of the participants!) Danesborough Chorus and Milton Keynes Chorale achieved an impressive, exciting performance.

Vieux Farka Touré

23 November 2007

Last night we were at The Stables to see Vieux Farka Touré - son of the legendary Malian blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré who died last year. Ironically Vieux is remarkably young - he'll hopefully grow into his name - but he is already a fine guitarist very much in the style of his father. He has that same ability to make his electric guitar talk and sing in upbeat and distinctively African blues. His band are tight and slick - with the best drummer I've seen for ages. Vieux has been catapulted into the limelight by his father's name and might have benefited from first serving an apprenticeship as guitarist in someone else's band: his stage presence (entry, exit, patter etc) need some work. But his music is highly recommended - if you haven't heard any other examples of Africa's recent reclaiming of the blues you could do worse than start with Vieux Farka Touré. His first UK tour has still to visit Reading, Southport and Glasgow and his acclaimed eponymous album is out now.

'Kurr' by Amiina

20 November 2007

I am grateful to Tara Connaghan for alerting me to the Icelandic group Amiina whose album 'Kurr' I've been listening to this week. The cover photo shows the four girls sitting at a table: they are knitting but they look remarkably like they might be about to play the table in the manner of Karbido (reviewed here a couple of weeks ago) and the sounds they make are equally peculiar and entrancing. Amiina create miniature instrumental soundscapes: as if they have been locked in the school music cupboard overnight, the girls try out a wide variety of instruments including strings, woodwind, brass but mainly loads of tuned percussion. Gentle, quiet, repetitive and soothing.

'Kaushiki' by Kaushiki Chakrabarty

20 November 2007

Despite my enthusiasm for 'world music', it took me some time to start to appreciate Indian classical music. My way in was a label called 'Sense', based in Leicester, and specifically the album 'Kala' by the exceptional young exponent of the North Indian violin, Kala Ramnath. Perhaps there was something about the familiarity of the violin rather than sitar or sarod - though the North Indian style sounds quite different to the violin of western classical music - but 'Kala' captivated me. With Indian classical music (and profound apologies to real afficionados!) you can't really dip in and out - you need to settle back and listen to the whole piece, letting it wash over you and latching on to the repetitive figures which gradually, and very subtly, change to take you seamlessly from the slow alap (introduction) to a frenzied climax. Other 'Sense' recordings I would recommend include 'Samwad' (violinist Kala Ramnath with sitar player Purbayan Chatterjee), 'Akaash' (Rahul Sharma playing the santoor - a type of hammered dulcimer), 'Drive East' (shorter, lighter tracks by the group Yashila, featuring Kala Ramnath) and 'Pure' (by the young vocalist Kaushiki Chakrabarty who won a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music last year). This week I have been enjoying the new album by Kaushiki Chakrabarty (also on the Sense label), simply titled ' Kaushiki' - a 3 CD set full of variety and beautiful singing.

'The Glass Cage' by J B Priestly

20 November 2007

We were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton on Saturday to see 'The Glass Cage' by J B Priestly - an interesting, unfamiliar play set in Toronto in 1906. The McBane family prepare to welcome three young cousins - the children of black sheep Uncle Charlie - whom they have never met. These three mysterious strangers at first appear shy, quiet and intimidated but all is not as it seems. We are in classic drawing room drama territory but the dark sense of foreboding and the ambiguity of the out-of-place strangers suggests something much more modern - by someone like Edward Albee perhaps. Laurie Sansom's production was straightforward - without the adventurousness of Stephen Daldry's 'An Inspector Calls' - but there were some impressive performances - particularly from Rebecca Grant and James Floyd and a great turn from Robert Demeger. The text could have done with some pruning but it was an interesting evening.

‘Churning Strides’ by Thee, Stranded Horse

14 November 2007

Calling your band ‘Thee, Stranded Horse’ suggests a degree of pretentiousness and the album ‘Churning Strides’ is strange stuff indeed. ‘Thee, Stranded Horse’ is the French guitar and kora player Yann Tambour – though he plays the kora like a guitar and the two are mostly indistinguishable. He sings very quietly in English and French, often in a peculiar nasal voice, sounding like Nick Drake imitating Joanna Newsom. He never reaches Newsom’s hysterical exuberance though at times he matches her for incomprehensible lyrics. He is also a master of the Pinteresque unexpected pause. Serious, mesmerising, odd, pretty but never particularly cheery.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

14 November 2007

For many people the opening of Grieg’s Piano Concerto conjures up images of Eric Morecambe and ‘André Preview’ but it always takes me back to the Concert Hall at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1983. I had recently become the principal horn player in the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra and we were playing the Grieg concerto with Peter Donohoe. There are several exposed horn solos in the piece and I was incredibly nervous. More than 20 years later, when I hear the passages of music leading up to one of those solos – even listening to the radio – I still get a shiver down the spine! Peter Donohoe gave an amazing performance – playing extremely fast and incredibly flamboyantly. At the end of the first movement there was rapturous applause – a really exciting moment. Some people frown on applause between movements but when it is a spontaneous expression of delight (rather than a polite sense of duty), as a performer, it is immensely satisfying. At the end of the concerto Peter Donohoe treated the audience to several encores and it gradually began to dawn on me that many people had come to hear him rather than us! Amongst all the orchestral concerts I have played in over the years it still stands out as a highlight. Last Saturday we tackled the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra accompanying Lucy Parham. In contrast to the showmanship of Peter Donohoe, Lucy gave a beautiful, delicate performance, emphasising what a wonderful piece of music it is. Coupling the Grieg with Dvorak’s lovely seventh symphony created a gentle, romantic programme which drew a polished performance from the orchestra. And this time I was not playing the first horn part so I could relax and enjoy David Lack’s excellent solos.

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

5 November 2007

Last weekend I played with Milton Keynes Sinfonia in a concert which included Elgar's Symphony No. 1. I can usually take or leave Elgar but the first symphony is a great piece of music - you can hear why listeners to its original performances in 1908 felt that England had finally produced a composer who could bear comparison with the great Germanic symphonists. The first movement opens with a beautiful, slow, typical Elgarian tune with a gentle, plodding accompaniment. Throughout the movement - and those that follow - just when you have been sufficiently distracted to forget the opening, this theme returns again and again as if it has never stopped going. It's like a few players have been shut in a separate room to play this quiet tune continuously and every now and again we open the door to check they are still there. Meanwhile, while the door is closed, we are taken on a mammoth emotional journey with grand climaxes reminiscent of Brahms or Wagner but always distinctively Elgar - as the omnipresent opening them constantly reminds us. Great fun to play - a great piece of music. The first half of the concert saw Timothy Short play the Piano Concerto in G major by Ravel - and incredibly ambitious piece, parts of which sound like they could have been written by Gershwin, and a virtuosic performance by Short.

'Karbido - The Table'

5 November 2007

We started last weekend by going to see four men playing a table! If you've ever drummed your fingers on a table you will be aware of the musical possibilities it holds. Now imagine attaching a microphone to the underneath of the table top and turning up the amplifier so that every gentle stroke, scrape or tap on the surface resonates around the room. 'Karbido' are a quartet who sit around a square wooden table creating the most amazing sounds from it. As well as exploiting the percussive qualities of the wood, they place items on the table (a metal bowl which sounds like a bell when struck, a selection of half-filled wine glasses which sing when a finger traces the rim, a spinning coin etc.) and use other items attached to the sides of the table (metal plates which can be struck or played with a violin bow, guitar strings, flutes and a didgeridoo). In an hour-long performance they create a wide variety of musical styles and sounds including alap, congotronics, throat singing, ambient/new age and heavy rock. Some sections would stand alone as musical tracks - others are more fascinating in terms of the choreography of the four players reaching across the table and across each other. The audience - seated in the round so that we could all see the faces of one or two of the musicians - moved from bemused anticipation through amused appreciation to enthusiastic acclaim. And once the players had left the stage the audience surged forward to spend ages peering and prodding the star of the show and its four wooden legs. Bizarre and captivating - take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWik13ZyjbM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vDTy_W6ors

'The Fourth Bear' by Jasper Fforde

29 October 2007

Having been charmed by 'The Big Over Easy' (reviewed here in April 2007), I had been eagerly awaiting the return of DCI Jack Spratt and DS Mary Mary in Jasper Fforde's second Nursery Crime Division novel, 'The Fourth Bear'. I wasn't disappointed. Goldilocks is missing, bears are buying and selling illegal porridge and Punch and Judy are turning out to be the neighbours from Hell. 'The Fourth Bear' is another mixing bowl of remarkably silly parodies which works because it has at its heart a solid and intriguing whodunnit. Slightly more focussed and less rambling than its predecessor it still manages to incorporate aliens, ancient Greek immortals and characters from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Edward Lear. Fforde manages to make the most two dimensional characters both believable and sympathetic. There is a touching sub-plot about the stigma associated with being a PDR (Person of Dubious Reality) - though the closer you look the more it seems that everyone in this book is a PDR. This leads to some surreal metatextual moments (particularly Jack's psychiatric interview by Virginia Kreeper) with lots of characters clearly in search of an author. And 'The Fourth Bear' is extremely funny with some lovingly crafted and truly awful puns. The ten pages of Chapter Four serve purely to lead to a groan-inducing pun. A minor character is introduced on page 63 in order to lay the ground for a series of appalling puns on page 319. All great fun - and when you've finished, the book comes complete with 'DVD extras' - a 'making-of' documentary, deleted scenes etc which you can access through Fforde's website, but only by answering a question which requires you to have finished reading the novel. I'm very much looking forward to 'The Last Great Tortoise Race' which will be the next outing for the Nursery Crime Division.

'Stardust'

26 October 2007

Last night I returned to the Pola cinema in Welshpool which reminds me a lot of my childhood film-going at the Scala in Withington - cinema as it used to be. I saw the children's fantasy 'Stardust' starring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, the always impressive Mark Strong and a show-stealing Michelle Pfeiffer as a witch trying to regain her youthful beauty. With a wealth of cameos including Peter O'Toole, Ian McKellen and Robert De Niro and plenty of opportunity for spotting familiar British actors in bit parts it was lots of fun. Visually sumptuous with more than a hint of Terry Gilliam, it has a quirky but satisfyingly predictable plot - enjoyable baloney.

'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens

22 October 2007

Finished it! 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens is a very long book but I've really enjoyed the journey. It definitely helped being familiar with the plot from the BBC TV adaptation and it actually felt satisfyingly indulgent to take so long over each of the key scenes I remembered. Like most Dickens novels 'Bleak House' was originally published in instalments but, unlike some of his other books, this didn't result in a rambling plot. 'Bleak House' is tightly plotted and covers a relatively short period of time - and a fairly limited geography. The various narrative strands are interlinked and draw together with a brooding sense of fate and inevitability - and only a small amount of cheesy coincidence. The murder mystery plot that seemed to dominate the TV version comes very late in the novel and is not exploited half as much as it could have been - the conventions of detective fiction having yet to establish themselves. The structure of the book is interesting with two alternating narrators: Esther Summerson recounts her own story with hindsight in the first person while an omniscient third person narrator in the present tense shows us what is going on elsewhere. The third person narrator adds some great poetic descriptive passages: the technique of 'floating' over the streets and buildings of the Inns of Court and dropping in on various characters before flitting on to another location reminded me of 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas. But the main attraction of Dickens is the characters - and there are some wonderful creations in 'Bleak House'. To anyone who is familiar with the story, the names themselves will always instantly recreate the distinctive personalities: Tulkinghorn, Guppy, Krook, Smallweed, Lady Dedlock, Old Mr Turveydrop, Snagsby, Caddy Jellyby, etc etc. There is a dose of sentimentality and melodrama but the book also addresses an impressive range of social and political issues within its relatively small frame. And it is often very funny. Having worked for some years in the area around Chancery Lane, there was a particular attraction for me in the geography of the story. If you too have been expecting a judgement you can now release the birds - I recommend 'Bleak House' to the court.

'The Flying Club Cup' by Beirut

16 October 2007

In 'Gulag Orkestar', the wonderful CD by Beirut (reviewed here in November 2006), twenty-something Zach Condon from Albuquerque, New Mexico, drew on the Gypsy brass sound of the Balkans. In his follow-up album 'The Flying Club Cup', which I've been listening to this week, he somehow manages to adopt a series of completely different styles whilst remaining distinctly recognisable. Here he travels across Europe, lingering particularly in France. Pulsating rhythms, mostly in quick waltz time, provide the landscape over which his languid vocals soar - often multi-tracked to create a chorus of Condons. His slightly strained, mock-operatic voice reminds me at times of Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy. The songs all have a feeling of melancholy ennui. The instrumentation includes the ukulele and accordion of 'Gulag Orkestar' as well as strings and piano. The brass sound is more mellow: accompanied by a wealth of percussion including clashed cymbals and tambourine it conjures up the image of a Salvation Army band leading a particularly cool New Orleans funeral march. I can't wait to see what he does next.

'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams

12 October 2007

I'm loving the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Douglas Adams' novel 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' (Wednesdays at 6.30 pm - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/dirkgently/). Dramatised and produced by Dirk Maggs who so wonderfully realised the final instalments of 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' after Douglas Adams' death, for any Hitch Hiker's fans this is a real treat. And it's so long since I read the book I've completely forgotten whatever tenuous grasp of the plot I might have had at the time. Listen to it - and then listen again to try to work out what's going on! One of the best uses radio could be put to.