Tag Archives: World Music

Album review – Franka de Mille: Bridge the Roads

10 Jun


Fluid, assured and with an underlying catch of vulnerability: Franka de Mille sings “Gare du Nord” unplugged

Bridge the Roads: a collection of atmospheric, melancholy chansons

Bridge the Roads: a collection of atmospheric, melancholy chansons

The influence of the chanson doesn’t always cross easily into British musical sensibilities, which tend to favour a more ironic or cynical approach when it comes to exploring gut-wrenching emotion in song. But occasionally, a singer emerges who revels in the shape and form of an art-form with a commitment that transcends the reservations and embarrassments of tastes that might be more naturally drawn to the bleak introspection and political nuances of folk noir.

Franka de Mille’s album, Bridge the Roads, delivers such a revelation – a collection of atmospheric, melancholy chansons about separation, longing and atonement which disarm the listener with their honesty.
The lyrics don’t dissemble. Cradled by discreet strings, shimmering mandolins and yearning accordions, they spin raw tales of hurt in which the story-teller reaps the consequences of deception – not least in the album’s centrepiece, “Gare du Nord”, which details the devastation of parting with an existential frankness that harks back to Juliet Gréco at her most mesmerising.

Fluid and assured, with an underlying catch of vulnerability, de Mille’s voice is the perfect vehicle for a journey that begins with the upbeat, country-tinged incitement to “Come On” and the fiddle-enhanced self-realisation of “Fallen”, before things grow increasingly dark and contemplative with “Solo”, a lament that plays cleverly with the song title. “Birds”, punctuated by a wail of anguish that could come from the heart of the Balkans, later picked up in the visceral pain of “So Long”, is a deeply affecting exploration of a father/daughter relationship.

Occasionally, the sun shines through the gathering clouds, hinting at the possibility of healing from these bruising experiences: “Bridge the Roads” itself is a number which sets out the defiant promise of survival and resilience just in time. A complex, rewarding blend of European influences and evocative song-writing.

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Album review – Silje Leirvik: Endless Serenade

12 Feb

Silver & Gold: the throbbing undertow of Silje Leirvik’s songs would grace the soundtrack of any psychodrama

Endless Serenade: epic songs which offer more than a clichéd view of Scandivian bleakness

Endless Serenade: epic songs which offer more than a clichéd view of Scandinavian bleakness

The huge British appetite for Nordic Noir TV has tended to distract attention from another, more subtle cultural invasion: the rise of the Scandinavian singer/songwriter. Or, more specifically, the rise of the female Scandinavian singer/songwriter.

The throbbing undertow of Norwegian Silje Leirvik’s new album Endless Serenade would grace the soundtrack of any psychodrama, Scandic or otherwise. But there is much more to this rich collection of epic songs than inscrutable bleakness. Complex in theme and structure, they navigate shifting moods, ideas that morph tantalisingly in new directions just when you think you have them in your grasp.

With producer Rhys Marsh, Leirvik has experimented with tape delay machines, which gives a grainy, textured quality to the electro backing, peppered with pedal steel guitar. Her voice dances and soars above the almost industrial pulse of the reverb (shades of Sweden’s Anna von Hausswolff) as she steers a fascinating course between symphonic ballads (“Glass of Water”), folk-tinged stories (“Leah’s Song”) and sophisticated pop (the single “Silver & Gold”).

Like her compatriot, Anne Marie Almedal, Leirvik is too sophisticated a musician to be filed neatly under a generic label of Northern melancholy. Her lyrics are less rooted in landscape but there are edginess and dark moments of contemplation aplenty, balanced by passages of ethereal beauty and revelation when she discovers fresh truths about the opaque nature of love (“And Then Love Came” and the gently ironic, gritty “Serenade”).

All of the tracks are sung in English, with the exception of “Snø”, a lush ballad with a sweeping, cinematic feel which builds to a muted crescendo on a flute-and-drum backing. Leirvik’s vocals reach a compelling peak in her native language but they are glorious throughout, never more so than in the gentle, flowing “The Last Dance”.

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Album review – Sara Syms: Fade to Blue

21 Dec

Dance on my Grave: Sara Syms offers a bleakly lilting invitation

Fade to Blue: Sara Syms is honest, thoughtful musical company

Fade to Blue: Sara Syms is honest, thoughtful musical company

With Fade to Blue, Chicago-born Sara Syms has produced a debut album steeped in Americana. It’s a heady mix of blues-tinged roots, with dashes of bluegrass and jazz, which reflects the diversity of her influences, including Patty Griffin, but is also an emphatic statement of musical independence.

From the storming “Devil Came Around”, through the bleakly lilting “Dance on My Grave”, to the lyrical sensuality of the title track and the irresistible hook of “Waves Crashing”, Syms and her song-writing partner Lynn Verlayne have crafted a rich aural patchwork of numbers.

Each song draws on the insight of experience and explores the many complexities and shades of relationships. These are not the laments of the romantic victim so much as a quest for affirmation and clarity, acknowledging that when it comes to love, nothing is ever simply black and white. Sometimes, as Syms sings in “Free”, you just have to borrow a silver lining.

“Someday” and “Gypsy Dreams” are two songs about longing from different angles, the first bittersweet and hopeful, the second hinting at the exotic distractions of a romance based on fantasy. “One Last Hit” is a suite of fables about the destructive power of addiction, while the sad, poignant beauty of “To Be in Love” explores what we’re missing if we don’t live in the moment.

Fade to Blue is an assured debut album, and an intimate take on universal themes. Syms is thoughtful, honest and touching musical company – never more so than on the final track, with its uncluttered realisation that “All We Have is Now”.

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Album review – Nynke: Alter

8 May

How Alter was made: Javier Limón and Nynke at work

Alter: Nynke blends northern and southern cadences to arresting effect

Alter: Nynke blends northern and southern cadences to arresting effect

I don’t know how many Frisian language albums have been released in the last ten years but I suspect that Nynke pretty much has the field to herself at the moment with Alter, a shimmering collection of self-penned songs that draw on many musical influences from beyond Friesland, her birthplace in the northern Netherlands.

Even to a non-speaker (there is a smattering of English to leaven the mix), her lyrics have a runic, poetic quality as they weave in and out of some fascinating rhythms. After a gentle, haunting start, the album comes fully to life with “Nei Hûs”, which announces itself with a Moorish chant before launching into a swirling epic against a backdrop of silvery guitars.  On the next track, “Foarsizzing”, the influences move north with a sprinkling of balalaika-like strings that sound positively Russian.

A hint of flamenco is never far away, and it’s no surprise to discover that Nynke’s collaborator-in-chief here is Javier Limón, head of the Mediterranean music department at  Berklee College of Music in Boston, who has also worked with Estrella Morente and Mariza. The sonic blend of northern and southern cadences is arresting, conjuring vivid geographical images that shift constantly, catching the listener off guard. Just when you think you’ve settled in one scene, Nynke’s pure voice sweeps you off to a new, undiscovered landscape.

The one English-language track, “Awaiting”, hints at the depth and melancholy of its Frisian companions. This isn’t quite Nordic noir but it definitely inhabits the sombre space between Mediterranean fire and inscrutable northern melancholy. On “Eftereach”, Nynke has the audacity to blend more feverish Flamenco guitars with an intoned Frisian poem, and the result washes over you like soothing water with an unexpected, icy kick.

Alter could be the most idiosyncratic album you’ll hear all year. Compare it with the splendours of next week’s Eurovision Song Contest and think how different the competition would be if everyone used it to explore their musical heritage in a similarly inventive way.

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Album review – Karen Ruimy: Come With Me

8 May

Whisper: Karen Ruimy sets out on a voyage of discovery with a nearly-power ballad

Come With Me: North African beats meet flamenco and chanson in a hypnotic mash-up

Come With Me: North African beats meet flamenco and chanson in a hypnotic mash-up

Polyglot Karen Ruimy’s debut album, Come With Me, is so full of colliding influences that the more you listen to it, the harder it is to pin down exactly what sound she is striving for.  It’s a head-spinning mash-up of flamenco, chanson, trance and Arabic styles. But whether she’s singing in Arabic, French, Spanish or English, the overall effect is oddly compelling and soothing, evoking the chill-out fringes of Mediterranean club land one minute, sweeping desert vistas the next.

This is a sound the Israeli singer Ofra Haza pioneered in the late 1980s, fusing world music with strong electronic and pop rhythms. Joining forces with Youth and Justin Adams, Ruimy has given it a fresh gloss, writing mystical, meditative lyrics and setting them against an impressively international range of musical textures . “Come With Me” and “Fragile” have already been big club hits with their insistent, soaring hooks and contrapuntal beats.

Ruimy was born in Morocco, growing up there and in France. So when things quieten down on “Les Oiseaux” and “Mojave Moon”, it’s no surprise that she can also work the more conventional chanson style of influences such as Michel Berger and Véronique Sanson, delivering silky, meandering ballads with an understated assurance.

Towards the end of the album, this almost takes her into power ballad territory with “Traveller” and “Whisper”, although her chops aren’t robust enough to launch them fully into the stratosphere. Atmospheric, dreamy musing is more her comfort zone as she builds her vocal around hypnotic North African patterns with Flamenco notes,  as in “Sangré” and the chugging, trance-like title track.

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Review – Gabriele Tranchina: A Song of Love’s Color

19 Mar

Gabriele Tranchina: something of an enigma

What a queue-jumper Gabriele Tranchina turns out to be. A pile of CDs sits accusingly on my disk awaiting critical attention. I’d been sampling and tasting here and there, planning an orderly assault. But on Monday, Tranchina’s new album – A Song of Love’s Color (Jazzheads JH1176) – landed fresh from New York, inveigled its way onto my player and has been sitting there ever since, spinning an insistent spell, and demanding listen after listen.

Think Lambert, Hendricks and Ross meet Pink Martini, with a dash of Astrid Gilberto, a streak of Ute Lemper, a hint of Mina and a sense of Anita Baker, and you can begin – just about – to anticipate the startling effect of Tranchina’s voice as she juggles rhythms, styles and languages to create a constantly shifting mood. One minute you’re chilling to late night jazz, the next you’re swept up in a Jobim samba, before being caught in the headlights of a hypnotic, almost Weill-ish lieder.

All of which makes her a bit of a marketer’s nightmare – and precisely the kind of performer that Art of the Torch Singer loves. The cocktail of jazz, world music, vocalese and chant might well be overwhelming if it wasn’t for the relaxed consistency of the band, led by Tranchina’s husband Joe Vincent – who wrote several of the tracks and is responsible for the cool, spare arrangements. Tranchina clearly thrives on the freedom this gives her to swing between techniques and tones.

The album kicks off with a Fugain/Delanoë chanson, “Chante Comme Si Tu Devais Mourir Demain”, which pretty much describes Tranchina’s mission. The title track follows, revealing her dexterity with a melody and some alluring phrasing. Later, a traditional Hindu prayer provides the basis for a swirling, syncopated chant that also includes a brief rap, “Asato Maa (Sat Chit Ananda)”, and a Spanish lullaby – “Duérmete Niño Bonito” – has an authentic, shuffling last-dance-of-the-night atmosphere. “Siehst du Mich” – a poem by Else Lasker-Schüler, set to music by Joe Vincent – concludes the album on a beautifully sombre, brooding note.

A Song of Love’s Color, mixed by Joe Vincent and Randy Klein, and mastered by Gene Paul, was recorded in New York in the summer of 2008. Its release is long overdue. Tranchina herself – German-born and New York-raised – remains something of an enigma, despite the stylish art work on the sleeve. A trawl around Youtube and MySpace yields nothing in the way of clips.

Her people should do something about that fast, because once you’ve heard this you’ll want to know more about an artist who clearly has something different to offer the homogenised world of modern popular music.

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