Manafonistas

The 34 tracks on Native North America, Vol. 1: Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country 1966-1985 were curated and painstakingly annotated by Kevin „Sipreano“ Howe. He assembled this set from independent, often privately pressed, 45s and LPs culled from garage sales, flea markets, private collections, and broadcast sources from the CBC archives.

Its focus is solely on music from the Canadian side of the North American border, while its purpose is to document the sonic wellspring that emerged as aboriginal peoples used media and cultural surfaces in Canada and across the continent to express individual and collective identities. Packaged in a hardback, cloth-bound book full of artist biographies and interviews, this is a document that turns Eurocentric culture back on itself, using it to serve different ends.

Many of these artists employ popular musical forms and readily reflect the influences of Woody Guthrie, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, CCR, Phil Ochs, Buffalo Springfield, Hank Williams, and Hank Snow, but they stand apart in doing so. The music’s central themes are almost uniquely Native American in the manner of reportage, history, and storytelling. Topically, they can range from community-based reflections to nature and socio-political commentary as well as less weighty insights.

Taken as a whole they leave a record of everyday life from the perspective of a historical, often ancient identity. There is a poignance in virtually every song (even the deliberately humorous ones), because they are rooted in cultures that have been marginalized to the edge of extinction by Anglo colonization and the long reach of capitalism. Sometimes they are offered in the code of tribal languages.

There are many highlights, but more importantly, there is virtually no filler. Willie Dunn (who passed in 2013 while this was being assembled and bookends the collection) has three tracks here, as do songwriters Willie Thrasher and Willy Mitchell — they all come from various roots and branches in the folk-rock tree of aboriginal consciousness and activism. Their collected nine songs would have made a fantastic comp by themselves. But there is real stylistic diversity here. There’s the grooving pop in the Sikumiut Band’s self-titled song, the haunted country-rock of Ernest Monias‘ „Tormented Soul,“ the Canadian folk-country frames of Alexis Utatnaq’s „Maqaivvigivalauqtavut“ (sung in Inuktitut) and Morley Loon’s traditional Cree chant set in psychedelic effects on „N’Doheeno.“

Disc two includes the surf instrumental „Modern Rock“ by the Saddle Lake Drifting Cowboys; the Chieftones‘ multi-harmony vocal group pop „I Shouldn’t Have Did What I Done,“ and William Tagoona’s baroque country rock „Anaanaga.“ The last ten minutes include two chants: Groupe Folklorique Montagnais’s Inuit „Tshekuan Mak Tshetutamak“ and Dunn’s „Peruvian Dream 2“ with Jerry Saddleback, which deliberately attempts a rockist pow wow. This is killer music from another present era, a reality that has co-existed with the „official „one that ignores it. Due to Howe’s exhaustive efforts, that story — an essential part of the continent’s cultural narrative — begins to emerge. It’s not only fantastic, it’s necessary.

(published by allmusic and highly recommended by manafonistas
with a knack for heartbreaking folk music)

Der Schriftsteller Ahmed Naji wurde zu zwei Jahren Haft verurteilt, in Ägypten, einem Land, in dem die Justiz gnadenlos gegen Intellektuelle vorgeht. Die Strafe erhielt er wegen Verletzung des öffentlichen Anstands. Das Literaturmagazin Akhbar al-Adab hatte das sechste Kapitel aus einem neuen Roman von Naji veröffentlicht. Ein 65 Jahre alter Rechtsanwalt nahm Anstoss an einer darin enthaltenen Sexszene und erstattete Anzeige, weil er bei der Lektüre Herzrhythmusstörungen bekommen habe. Wenn jemand die Anschrift dieses Anwalts kennt, geben Sie mir bitte Bescheid: ich schicke ihm gerne die englische Ausgabe von William Burroughs‘ „Naked Lunch“, mit der Auflage, dass er sich bei der Lektüre fortlaufend in ärztlicher Kontrolle befindet. DER ARTIKEL ZU DEN HIER BESCHRIEBENEN VORKOMMNISSEN FINDET SICH IN DER SZ VON MORGEN, im Feuilleton, S. 11: „Sie sind verhaftet! Und zwar alle!“ Verfasser: Paul-Anton Krüger.

The record of April will be a duo: piano and trumpet, and though it s confined most of the time to these instruments only, with discreet electronic undercurrents in certain moments, it  shares a comparable level of intimacy with another classic from the ECM-catalogue – ya remember „El Corazon“ by Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, trumpet, percussion, and a lot more? Good. A COSMIC RHYTHM WITH ITS STROKE is of that high calibre.

(to be continued)

Bass player Chuck Rainey pulled off a muted slap-bass effect on the bridge without Donald’s or Walter’s knowledge, crouching behind a partition during the recording sessions to hide his thumb action. „Aja“ was released during the height of the disco craze, and Becker and Fagen wanted absolutely nothing to do with that genre, but Rainey succeeded in adding an underlying funk edge to what is easily the album’s best groove track. Combined with the drumming of Rick Marotta, with his subtle high hat slips and syncopated bass drum, the sick guitar solo from Jay Graydon, and the 4-part overdubbed vocal harmony of Michael McDonald, Rainey’s playing helped make „Peg“ my favorite cut on „Aja.“

The smile, well, I was there, in Eno’s studio, at the early sessions of this project. This doesn’t influence my subtle degree of enthusiasm, believe me! There is no stiff agenda in the ongoing collaboration between Brian Eno and Karl Hyde. The only routine may be to break the rules of decent, nostalgia-driven recyclings. Finding deep pleasure in free improvisations with the help of some inventive spirits as well as pre-recorded programming & samples. At their hands collective ideas materialize into promising shapes.

But, well, patience is the mother of thrill-seeking! There might have been false beginnings, wrong endings, the whole baggage of losing something, missing something, and getting lost in the „free improv“-approach. You just have to be ready not to miss the rare tickets for the unholy grail, and then you’ll fire on all cylinders, – a piece of crap turns into a shining tune, every wrong footstep can land on fruitful ground.

Nothing comes out of nowhere, because there is no nowhere in the vast spaces of the unconscious. Every „nowhere“ in the creative process is a buried treasure, a stand-by modus of the dreaming mind. Of course these guys have their tastes and preferences and desert island grooves spinning around: they love the call-and-response patterns of Fela Kuti, the merciless repetitions and „forward momentum“ of Steve Reich’s classic works, or the funky expressionism of the Talking Heads in their salad days.

At the same time nothing is more boring than play homage with undoubtably good taste, decent tunes, perfect timing and a self-conscious „those were the days“-state of mind. What you get on „High Life“ is a fabulous collection of six oblique, diverse and coherent tracks, producing simultaneously disorientation and deja vu.

Strange lyrics are part of the game, too: „The door between us is Lilac / and made of something like light / but not“ („Lilac“). The listener who is ready to enjoy this music at his or her own risk will be lost in distant echoes resembling certain stylistic spheres that receive a continuous deconstruction of the extraordinary kind.

How can a record that contains hard-strumming guitar parts, liquid half-buried-in-the-mix-vocals, gospel-tinged pseudo-disco-vibes, catchy slow motion melodies on the verge of „last breath-syndrome“, short prog-rock shots (from a deserted area of the court of the Crimson King), be such a rewarding and deep listening experience (rather than being a quite nice visit to a curiousity shop)?

A short answer? „There’s simplicity in it“, Eno sings on the last track, a vintage „ambient song“. Yes, simplicity. And intricacies, too, but hard to tell the difference. Don’t trust first impressions. Listen sideways.