Favourite Listening of 2015

It’s that time of year again, and 2015 has provided a particularly diverse and exciting range of new (to me) musical listening. My favourite half dozen albums of the past year are detailed below for your consideration, and hopefully enjoyment.

As an aside, my listening was briefly interrupted this year by the final expiry of my trusty hi-fi, after 23 years sterling service, as the amplifier died and the attached CD player made an increasingly alarming range of noises. So what to do? I’m as impressed as anyone by the clever new ways of listening to music; my credit card sized iPod containing 250 CDs-worth of music still amazes me, providing tolerable sound quality and a handy ability to be plugged into the car stereo, and networked and blue-toothed options abound. But still nothing comes close to a decent hi-fi with a couple of reasonably-sized high quality speakers, fed by good quality source material, for fully appreciating a piece of music in all its detail, mood and subtlety. It frequently even trumps live music when focussing purely on the music, as the latter is at the mercy of remarkably common dodgy sound systems, engineers and acoustics that can leave you deafened and/or puzzling over the lyrics or the crudeness of the sound.

Reports in recent years of the impending death of the CD in favour of the download, streaming, or some such internet-enabled nebulosity, left me wondering if it would still be sensible or even possible to invest in a replacement CD-based system. It became necessary to take a deep breath and plunge briefly into the rather disturbing world of hi-fi magazines (£200 for a 1m cable anyone?) to educate myself. The message I got from this little exercise was strangely reassuring; buried in many of the reviews of weird and wonderful digital audio devices at absurd prices was the frequent referral to CD-quality sound as the standard that many new devices still aspire to, but frequently don’t reach. And since I’ve also detected a renewed commitment to the issuing of new music of the sort that interests me on physical CD (not to mention my existing collection), I decided I was going to stick with it for as much of the next 23 years as possible. So a couple of shiny new boxes have been installed at moderate expense, the sound quality is even better than before, and I can get promptly back to thinking about the music rather than equipment (very much the opposite, I fear, to regular readers of those magazines - I believe it’s largely a male thing)...

 

The Gloaming

The Gloaming are the new band of the profoundly impressive Irish sean-nos singer Iarla O Lionaird that I was fortunate enough to see perform in great style in 2014 (see 19May2014 post). On this, the bands eponymous first album from 2014, the deeply moving Gaelic songs performed by Iarla on the first and final tracks would alone justify its purchase price, yet there is so much more to it than that. Indeed more than half the tracks of the highly coherent whole, more like a symphony of movements rather than a collection of disparate tracks, are instrumentals. And these, including both fiddle and guitar played respectively by the formidable Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, but also fine sensitive piano from Thomas Bartlett, are measured, consequential, and often semi-classical in range and flow, though always with a traditional Irish core that is occasionally allowed freer rein. Overall this is a serious, magnificent, timeless piece of work that will always reward the thoughtful listener.

Olivia Chaney: The Longest River

So at last the long awaited debut album arrives, and has to immediately run the gauntlet of the sky high expectations that have been given too much time to accumulate. On initial listen it’s a pretty good piece of work: crystalline, emotive, intricate, elegant and polished, with material centred on youthful growing pains that the recording label, witness promotional tours in Australia and the US but not the UK, have clearly decided is best suited to an offshore/transatlantic market. Good yet measured and caveated early press reviews however, prioritising timely publication perhaps, suggest that those high expectations have not been exactly met. After a couple of listens I tended to agree, there seemed no immediate wow-factor of the sort perhaps we were all expecting, knowing just how uniquely talented and engaging Chaney is - based on live performances and the 5-track EP of a couple of years ago. And yet. This album has refused to let go and has drawn me back again and again, and has grown in stature with every listen in a way I recall of the best of the likes of Joni Mitchell. I’ve finally had to admit that this is actually a very fine and often poignant work, with sufficient depth and quality to provide substantial and sustained rewards, and am left pondering whether some of the writers so keen to be first with a review would actually write something different given a later opportunity.

Attwenger: Spot

23 tracks in 40 minutes from Austria’s finest alpine duo delivers a quick-fire Germanic accordion/ drums/ synthesizer based object lesson in rampant creativity and sheer beguiling entertainment that leaves many other established artists looking comparatively shabby in those departments. See my previous (15Nov2015) post on this splendid, criminally unsung outfit for far more.

Stick In the Wheel: From Here

This is not a nice album. It’s brash, in-yer-face, Essex. Raw down-to-earth contemporary stories are mixed with almost brutal no-nonsense reworking of traditional folk standards for an effect that some of a nervous disposition might find offensive (“the antidote to twee” has been one description, “punk-folk” I might almost suggest). Somehow evocative of many current injustices and with an air of not-so-quiet desperation; but boy is it bracing! They still call it folk, but it seems to have blown guys in Arran jumpers with fingers in their ears to kingdom come. fRoots magazine Critics Poll Album of 2015. Awesome. Nuff said.

Moriarty: Epitaph

I picked this up while stranded at Orly airport, nudged by a vaguely remembered favourable review and, yes, its exquisite hardback book format. Moriarty are a well-established French-based band fronted by distinctive singer Rosemary Standley, who sing in English but have been strangely absent from British soil for some years. Whatever their origins, the bands core sound is, if anything, gusting towards American traditional (blues, ballads, hillybilly…), though always versatile and, as I’m discovering, always compelling. Epitaph indicates an album whose central theme is death, and how it is variously coped with, yet this is not the complete downer it might sound – Moriarty have a talent for originality, atmosphere and for getting the feet tapping, and spirits (pun intended) can’t be kept down for long. They also put a high value on craftsmanship, evident both in the sheer quality of their performances and their beautifully presented albums – Epitaph comes in a cloth-bound book full of intriguing and elegant drawings and hand-written lyrics.

The White Stripes: De Stijl

OK so this is catch-up time for the old codger who is just 15 years late on this one. Based on the well proven rule that 90% of current mainstream pop/rock music is mutton dressed in myriad different ways as lamb, I don’t really track it very much. This obviously runs the risk of missing the odd gem, which is a pretty good description of Jack and Meg White, alias The White Stripes. This is the first album of theirs I picked up, and I was immediately blown away by the power of rock music being performed with greater charisma, originality and sheer competence than I’ve heard it for a very long time. Superficially some of it may sound like much that has gone before, but this is somehow considerably superior to most, with some great classy musicianship, and very very addictive. It’s a while since I bought three albums by the same outfit in as many weeks, and it was also rather novel to be twice congratulated on my choice by young music shop staff; respect!

The White Stripes also have an irresistible ability to tease you into nudging the volume up, and up, and even to wonder if perhaps some slightly bigger speakers might be in order…  Hmmm, where exactly did I put those magazines?

Happy listening, however you do it.


See also: Favourite Listening of 2014 

Alpine Punk Anyone? The Genius of Attwenger (and John Peel)

I always struggle when someone asks me what sort of music I like. The honest if facetious sounding answer is good music, of any sort. This seems to run counter to a common expectation that you should instead name a limited number of widely recognised genres, bands or singers. Musical categories are something of a necessary evil; they provide a vocabulary for trying to describe what you hear and feel but can also act more negatively in reverse by creating perceived boundaries beyond which many fear to tread. This can be reinforced by the music media which often operates in a correspondingly compartmentalised fashion, with both media and public hence having to choose which individual “compartments” they are going to engage with, the natural consequence being that all else gets excluded.

I’ve just finished reading the hefty, addictive and cumulatively impressive tome Good Night and Good Riddance by David Cavanagh which documents the late great radio DJ John Peels’ approach to, and profound influence on, new music engagement and taste in Britain. 35 years of subversive and provocative broadcasting that miraculously survived BBC conservatism allowed Peel to encourage large numbers of new unconventional musicians, and steered listeners to the vastly enriched world thus created. However, Peel broadcasts were never easy listening; they were akin to panning for gold: often deeply uncomfortable, patience testing, and with large amounts of crap to get through. Yet you still knew you were in the best possible place to encounter genuinely life-changing nuggets, and so you did – everyone who stuck with it will have their own prizes.

A key part of Peels radio approach was a kind of shock tactic; in addition to being willing to play virtually anything on his shows, however obscure, rough or provocative, and of any genre, as long as it had some sort of (often well disguised to his listeners) merit to his ears, he made a particular point of sequencing tracks in the most jarring way possible. This left the listener all over the place, constantly trying to re-adjust; it was hard work and challenging – but I soon realised that was the point, to (often brutally) challenge his audience, to see if they would “get” yet another music possibility. In so doing they had to constantly question their current preferences and boundaries – mind expanding stuff.

All of which is a rather long-winded introduction to celebrating a rare new release by one of my favourite category-busting bands of the last twenty years. A largely unrecognised duo from Austria about which Peel in typically perfunctory style simply said “I have no idea what it’s all about, but I like the general noise a great deal”.

Attwenger

Attwenger comprise Markus Binder and Hans-Peter Falkner from Linz, Austria who on their emergence in the early 1990s had a highly distinctive, rapid, in-your-face sound, which could be broadly described as manically fast drums and accordion overlaid with inscrutable Germanic lyrics, often spoken rather than sung. It was sufficiently new, raw and engaging that it provoked the (possibly tongue-in-cheek) coining of a new genre – Alpine Punk, recognising its core building blocks lay in the traditional music and instruments of their homeland. Their initial 1991 release Most captures this style best, and is still a fun listen – with even the occasional yodel creeping in. Others such as the notable Bavarian band Hundsbuam Miserablige subsequently joined in and developed the theme further (their leader inspired by an Attwenger concert), and their eponymous first album from 1996 is also well worth a spin.

Early Attwenger were highly influential in firing up a whole Alpine New Wave and enjoyed considerable acclaim, locally at least, to the extent that it all got a bit much and they ceased to exist in 1995 to get a break from it all. Two years later however, they roared back with something very different, and this ability to move on with great originality and panache has proved to be one of their key assets. The 1997 release Song left the punk moniker well behind and hinted at how their longer term evolution would progress, to something far more sophisticated and interesting. Dominated by clubby repetitive trip-hop and jungle beats, centred around the synthesizer with only light-touch folk and traditional elements, Song broke very different ground with its small number of long mesmerising tracks. Yet it in turn was something of a transitional step, marking out new territory of interest, before inventively amalgamating this with the earlier more traditionally based style to arrive at a far more creative, varied, yet balanced and satisfying sound that gelled fully for the first time in 2002 on the album Sun, which took them to a whole new level and remains a firm favourite of mine.

Attwenger largely sing/speak in an Upper Austrian dialect that is beyond even many Bavarians, let alone a wider audience; a situation the duo use to advantage by treating the vocals more as another interesting sound source than an explicit source of meaning. But with each album from Sun onwards it’s got a lot more intriguing than that; wordplay has become a key part of their art, with careful positioning and emphasis of occasional words or phrases that have alternative meanings across several languages they create fascinating ambiguities and pulses of meaning (or possible meaning anyway) that jump out at the careful listener of a particular language in time with the music. It can all get quite beguiling.

 

This complex and absorbing style has developed and matured in unhurried fashion from Sun through the subsequent albums Dog (2005) and Flux (2011), to the very pleasing latest offering a couple of months ago, Spot. The latter is an object lesson in creativity and sophistication, with 23 diverse tracks nearly all under two and half minutes, showcasing a level of entertaining and playful inventiveness that most artists would give an arm for. Seek it or its predecessors out for a rewarding new musical experience ranging from the languid to the frenetic. Oh, and play it loud for greatest appreciation, this really isn’t music for half-measures.

Getting my first Attwenger albums in pre-internet times was a rather mysterious experience; sending cheques off to the sole UK distributers, the splendidly named Klang Records at the Tolkienesque address of Midgehole Road, Hebden Bridge in the deepest darkest Pennines. I had visions of a flea-ridden establishment like something from the slightly disturbing TV black comedy series The League of Gentlemen. They now have a clunky, rarely updated website of exquisitely obscure recordings – are they really still there I sometimes wonder?

Coincidentally I only recently discovered that klang is German for sound – so actually a rather boring name. Sometimes it’s better not to know; although such changes in perception with language are pure Attwenger!

 

Despite nearly 25 years of inspired music making Attwenger are hardly known in Britain and as such they epitomise the great music that is out there in the wider musical world that many would find exciting and rewarding if only they knew about it and could hear it for themselves. John Peel was a special and relatively lonely explorer and champion of new music on the national airwaves in his time, an impressive one-stop shop for those with sufficient open-minded hunger. A few others on the radio have subsequently picked up the baton to varying degrees, and arguably across a wider front, though generally with a lot less appetite for the truly experimental and half-formed. But the key now, in this digital era, is perhaps for each of us to develop that appetite, beyond any simplistic constraints of familiar artists or genres. The internet-enabled means for new musicians to put stuff out-there and for listeners to find it, with or without the help of intermediaries, means exciting and rewarding new music is literally at our fingertips if we want it enough to go looking. Maybe we just need to first hear that one fantastic piece of music that tells us just how good it can be…



The tip of the John Peel tribute iceberg

 

In Pursuit of Poetry – A Personal Journey (as it has to be)

How many of us, I wonder, do justice to poetry? Perhaps it is the ultimate written form, striving to say so much with so few words in an ultimate distillation; invoking strange alchemies to achieve improbable and powerful evocations. However it can often be too much effort to unravel those cryptic complexities, feeling more like doing the Times crossword, and I for one have certainly struggled frequently in slowly developing a rewarding engagement with poetry.

That process seems though to have recently reached a tipping point, and I now find myself in an exciting and more comprehensive relationship with the work of a small but growing number of poets. To understand how this came about I’ve been tracing my history of engagement with the form, which you may care to compare your with own.

I have always loved the rural above the urban and, in my younger days particularly (but still somewhat), the wilder the better with hillwalking and mild mountaineering dominant interests along with the creative capture and interpretation of such places. Hence the landscape work of the late photographer Fay Godwin was an early passion, her stark monochrome images of the wilder parts of Britain making a significant impression. Collecting books of her work starting with the still magnificent 1985 volume Land, I subsequently picked up a cheap and unassuming earlier work Remains Of Elmet, only to discover I had inadvertently bought my first book of poetry. While full of Godwin’s atmospheric photographs of the harsh beautiful landscapes of the Pennines, it was also a book of strong uncompromising poems by Ted Hughes. But rather than Godwin simply producing images to accompany existing poems, this was a more intriguing joint project where Godwin first took photographs that captured the essence of the area as far as she could, and Hughes then wrote poems triggered by particular images that struck a chord with him. The synergy and impact of the joint representations and interpretations remains marvellously strong, and certainly strong enough for me on first encounter to register the power of poetry for the first time. Hughes raw, visceral lines (epitomised by titles such as You Claw The Door and The Sluttiest Sheep in England) were an invigorating slap in the face akin to being out on those moors lashed by gale driven rain.

 

In subsequent years my preoccupation was very much with exploring the Scottish mountains in all their splendour, seasons and weathers. In doing so it was impossible to avoid encountering the evocative poetry of the prolific Norman MacCaig, who provides a stirring, yet tender, thoughtful and relatively uncomplicated narrative to such hill-going activities. His work is a clear demonstration that poetry need not be cryptic or difficult, and that if it talked of the things that you were most passionate about, the motivation to engage with and savour the work regularly and fully was easily forthcoming. For the keen hillwalker there are endless gems such as Climbing Suilven and A Man in Assynt, but in truth MacCaig captures the whole of Scotland in every aspect, and much of the human condition besides, hence there are rich rewards for anyone with a love of the country or of life itself.

 

More recently I have found equal pleasure in exploring regions other than those with mountains, and an early affection in this new phase was South Devon which my better half and I visited repeatedly for a number of years. Exploring the exquisite coast, the rivers from estuary to moor, Dartmoor itself, and the bohemian atmosphere of Totnes were all special pleasures. And all of this proved to be a kind of preparation for the full appreciation of the mesmerising Dart, published in 2002 by young poet Alice Oswald. Dart is the unsentimental book-long poetic description of the River Dart, gradually moving from its source on the moor, through Totnes to the sea at Dartmouth. It reads almost like prose and makes frequent use of local characters Oswald encountered, both describing and quoting them at length to fascinating effect. Knowing and loving so many of the places described created a strong connection for me which again meant I was able, and continue, to draw much from it and revisit it often. There is even a rather fine recording available on CD of Oswald reading the entire work, which takes about an hour. Her slightly severe voice is perfect for it, and strangely and subtley reminiscent of Ted Hughes, to whom many consider Alice to be the natural successor.

 

And so, via rewarding encounters with better known poets such as John Clare and Dylan Thomas, to more recent times, and a new and unexpected connection that has taken my appreciation of, and engagement with, poetry to a new level. I know and love the countryside around Petersfield in Hampshire well, having previously lived in the town for several years, albeit without making any literary connections at the time. Last year I began revisiting the area since it is now once again within easy reach of home, and savoured the rediscovery of the beautiful varied landscape of both open downs and steep wooded hangers. A favourite walk has always been north up through Steep village to Ashford Hanger and down the far side to Hawkley, with variations extending to Selborne also. As I was enjoying this area on foot last year I dimly registered the Edward Thomas memorial stone on the slopes of the Hangers, and having done so realised that Matt Hollis’s recent prize-winning biography of Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France, might be necessary reading. This was encouraged by the fact I had recently read Thomas’s book The South Country, a curiously poetic piece of prose of a kind I had not previously encountered, which while beautifully evocative of rural southern England and clearly written with great passion, was idiosyncratic in aspects such as the refusal to name the specific places he was writing about. Hence my initial failure to connect Thomas with the Steep area.

 

That Hollis’s work was required reading proved something of an understatement, for rarely have I devoured a book with such indecent haste. But more telling was that having realised Thomas’s greatest work was his poetry, and having picked up a volume of that work to read in parallel with the biography, I then found I consumed the poems from cover to cover in a matter of days, drawing deeply from them as I went, and which I have found hard to leave alone since. This is a new level of appreciation for me which seems to stem from knowing intimately the places he writes of, walking them via the same routes and with a similar regularity, and due to the deep insights into Thomas’s situation provided by Hollis (clearly benefitting from being a poet himself). For there is something almost mythical in the tragic story of Thomas that makes him stay with you; haunted by serious depression and financial insecurity despite being one of the most influential literary critics and prolific prose authors of his time, but only realising he could write poetry three years before he died in France at the battle of Arras on Easter Monday 1917. The outpouring in those slender years was however astonishing, and despite often being referred to as a war poet all his poetry passionately reflects the love of rural England and the folk within it that meant most to him. His work is tinged with a melancholy that adds a special power, a symptom of the overbearing war and his depressive nature perhaps, or a deeper recognition that when something is sufficiently beautiful or precious it becomes potentially heartbreaking – constantly at risk from mans stupidity or mortality.

And so, hopelessly hooked as I now am, this weekend I will again walk out to the pub with no name near Petersfield, have a pint in the Edward Thomas bar, look at the map, and decide which direction to head next. Thomas’s soulmate Robert Frost for sure, David Jones, Liz Berry perhaps? The possibilities (that work for me) are expanding…

And poetry has a wider definition after all, than its written incarnation. Is it not what we all reach for in some form, above and beyond the basic drudge of life?

Literary Walking in Hampshire - A Slippy Slidey Affair

The affection I have for my adopted home county of Hampshire has grown steadily down the years, but an unanticipated new enthusiasm has recently taken hold as I slowly register its dense connections with the English literature I’ve belatedly engaged with and am learning to love. A simple walk out of Petersfield today, through the village of Steep and up onto the Ashford Hangers, and then down towards Hawkley had us (almost literally) falling over literary associations and resonances.

It was a cool murky start as we wound our way past Bedales school towards Steep, where the war memorial revealed the first surprise. I’ve cycled past this little pillar perhaps a hundred times in my life yet never stopped to read it; today we did and registered the inclusion on the roll of honour of one Edward Thomas, poet, writer, and literary critic. The countryside and country life were Thomas’s muse and his work some of the most evocative of southern England ever produced. He settled in Steep with his family in 1906, and walked and wrote prodigiously, although he only turned to poetry from his staple prose in 1914 with the encouragement of his close friend the American poet Robert Frost. As we strolled to the northern edge of the village we passed Thomas's first home, Berryfield Cottage, where it was good to see that it still seemed to be someone’s normal home, with no blue plaque or tourist paraphernalia in immediate evidence.

 

Then it was the stiff pull up through the wooded hangers, picking our way, initially alongside a clear spring-fed chalk stream, through sticky mud on slippy chalk, gradually aware of increasing height but tantalised by the characteristic view-blocking trees. On reaching the top of Shoulder of Mutton Hill a glorious, expansive view south east should have been ours, one of the finest in southern England and referred to in several of Thomas’s poems. But the murk hid it for now, so we pressed on along the ridge.

As we were about to descend northwards towards Oakshott two deafening quad bikes roared up, spraying mud everywhere as they turned sharply down the track we were also to follow. The peace was well and truly shattered and tranquillity was hard to re-establish as we slithered down the steepening quagmire of the track, deeply gouged by 4x4s and water run-off. The going became increasing difficult and exasperating in the claustrophobic tradition of many a Hampshire sunken lane, and sufficiently vertiginous to be a little like trying to down-climb an ice-covered gully. At a final absurd precarious friction-free giant step, with no sensible way forward, we made a more emotional literary connection. Nearly 200 years ago the indefatigable William Cobbett explored this area on horseback and railed regularly and heartily in his classic Rural Rides against the perilous muddy morasses he had to negotiate down its sunken lanes. What can I say except that my better half produced a sequence of suitably impressive expletives in classic Cobbett style (she formerly of William Cobbett Middle School, Farnham) as we struggled to accept we were just going to have to turn round and climb all the way back up through the mud to the ridge.

Looking north to the distant church tower of Hawkley, from Ashford Hanger

 

This we did in suitably dark mood, having had our route to Hawkley neatly curtailed. Nonetheless we somehow remained friendly towards a group of exaggeratedly polite off-road motorcylists who descended gingerly towards us, clearly aware that public acceptance of their blatantly destructive activity was on a perpetual knife-edge.

Regaining the ridge we claimed our recompense, for the mists were clearing rapidly and the sun beginning to energise all about. To quote Cobbett as he sat on horseback near this spot in 1822:

“…out we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger! And, never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted! I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land and not water.”

Looking south-east from Shoulder of Mutton Hill towards the distant South Downs

 We drank it all in as we had our lunch, equally amazed and inspired at the panorama of hills and woodland extending east and south, subtly lit, with the distant skyline of the South Downs the elegant backdrop. Far down below, directly at our feet, sat Berryfield Cottage, a sublime location – how did it take the troubled Thomas so long to turn to poetry here? (But then it was already largely there, his prose is often almost poetry, exemplified by the magnificent The South Country and In Pursuit of Spring).

 

Descending the open slope of the hill is a rare delight on the wooded Hangers, to be drawn out as much as possible, with the view initially widening as partially obscuring trees are passed, before compressing vertically as further height is lost – perhaps there is a sweet spot halfway down, not far below the Edward Thomas memorial stone. The simple octagonal plaque poignantly reminds us of Thomas’s tragic early demise aged 39, killed by the blast of a shell in the Battle of Arras, on Easter Monday 1917 only two months after arriving at the front. He refers to this hillside in a number of poems, notably in When First:

“When first I came here I had hope,
Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat
My heart at sight of the tall slope
Of grass and yews, as if my feet

Only by scaling its steps of chalk
Would see something no other hill
Ever disclosed...”

Looking down from Shoulder of Mutton Hill, Berryfield Cottage is the right hand building in the foreground

We ambled back towards Petersfield in the sunshine, stopping for contemplation in Steep churchyard, only forgoing the interior and its Edward Thomas memorial windows due to the calamitously muddy state of our boots (I hear Cobbett muttering!). A beautiful, annoying, frustrating, uplifting day with much to take away (and return to)…

Favourite Listening of 2014

OK, so here for the record are my favourite new (to me at least) albums of 2014. No agonising was involved in their selection, since by definition they had to pick themselves – standing clearly above all else I’ve heard this year. Regular readers will see few surprises as I’ve telegraphed most of these in earlier posts, though there are a few words below on the one exception, the rather marvellous Mishaped Pearls. At the risk of contradicting my recent post promoting world music I have to wryly acknowledge that this years top listening is all from Britain and Ireland; I was tempted to contrive otherwise but it would have been just that, a contrivance. The stuff coming out of these islands just now is simply too damned good; and I’m also intrigued that this set of five albums happens to form a remarkably coherent combination, beautifully reflecting the diversity of said islands. Savour…

 

Duncan Chisholm - Affric (Scotland): see 26 January post

9Bach - Tincian (Wales): see 22 May post

Fernhill - Amser (Wales): see 29 July post

Eithne Ni Uallachain - Bilingua (Ireland): see 24 December post

Mishaped Pearls - Thamesis (England):  This really shouldn’t work. German mezzo soprano Manuela Schuette meets down-to-earth musical adventurer Ged Flood and his large multi-instrumented crew to perform radically reworked English traditional songs themed directly or indirectly on the River Thames. It should be nauseating or a complete car crash, and probably both, but somehow, with the golden thread of Manuelas strong elegant voice running through the whole, and the sheer class, taste and creative energy of all concerned, it manages to be jaw-droppingly beautiful from start to finish. A classic, and also a tribute to ace musician and producer Gerry Diver (hubby of equally ace singer Lisa Knapp who figured in this post a year ago) who was brought in for the project.


See also: Favourite Listening of 2013

World Music, and its current British suffocation

World music, perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s that little afterthought category in the corner of your (increasingly rare) music store. So what exactly is it if it’s so small and unimportant?

Of course it essentially means “rest of the world” music from a western English-speaking perspective, since the store, its internet equivalents, the music media, and increasingly the live music scene, in Britain at least, are dominated by music made by and for English speakers, with a little gaelic folk and a fair bit of classical thrown in. After all, that’s what people want… isn’t it?

But hang on a minute, isn’t world music actually something rather enormous? In fact, strictly isn’t all that western English-speaking music really just a small subset of it, and given western English speakers probably make up considerably less than 10% of the world population, isn’t there an awful lot of great music to be had from the other 90% of that population? The answer, for anyone who’s taken the time to look, is an absolutely deafening YES; there’s an overwhelming amount of excitement, richness and diversity to be had everywhere you look, with genres and sub-genres galore. I’ve spent most of my adult life discovering and savouring this treasure trove and remain bewildered at what a minority interest it is given the gems on offer. The sheer scale of this missing (in Britain) music is nicely illustrated by the two massive tomes that comprise the Rough Guide to World Music, first published fifteen years ago at over 1400 pages in an act of apparently almost lunatic enthusiasm and erudition, and which has continued to grow significantly since. To put that in perspective, the corresponding Classical Music guide barely makes 500 pages.

A rather large catalogue of what's currently missing in British music coverage

To my mind this begs a few questions, mainly stemming from the basic point that people can only want what they know about. So who’s telling them, and more to the point who’s not? Of course there are specialist sources out there for those already plugged into this area (e.g. the excellent fRoots and Songlines magazines in Britain) but how do you get to listen to stuff to establish what floats your boat? How can you be serendipitously drawn into different areas of world music if you never chance across it being played? At this juncture it’s impossible to avoid pointing a finger at the mainstream broadcasters in Britain, and the BBC with its public service remit in particular.

Current BBC radio music broadcasting has four main channels to play with (Radio 1,2,3 on analogue and digital and BBC6 on digital only), with Radio 1 and 2 catering for the established mainstream music (all that English-speaking stuff from the music store). Classical-only Radio 3 roams the airwaves like some sort of superannuated dinosaur that has somehow failed to go extinct, with slightly patronising token forays into jazz and (very rarely now) world music; I have nothing against classical music but the monopoly the BBC allows it, given their limited resources, increasingly seems like something from a bygone age. To its credit BBC6 Music does try, and does manage to be more diverse and stimulating, but even it has not fully and openly grasped the whole world music thing. Interestingly though, following a robust repelling by listeners of BBC plans to axe it, BBC6 Music is now going from strength to strength with its listening figures beginning to outstrip those for Radio 3.

BBC World (Music) Service anytime soon?

So what of live music, which is usually the best way to do justice to outstanding talent? If all else fails surely you can just try going to a few concerts/gigs where recommended foreign musicians are playing? This may still work if you’re London-based, but good luck anywhere else in Britain. Within the last twenty five years there have never been fewer such world music performances going on than right now. It’s tricky to nail the reasons for sure, certainly they fell off very sharply after the last financial crisis perhaps because venues or labels couldn’t afford the costs, and the tightening of security may be making it trickier for some foreign performers to get visas. But my overwhelming sense is of a depressing level of conservatism amongst event organisers. Festivals are more popular than ever all over Britain and run through much of the year, and yet when I scan the impressively long lists of performers for them, they’re full of competent but same old same old names that you only want to see so many times, and it’s rare indeed to spot a truly outstanding and exciting new name from overseas despite the vast untapped talent out there.

Rumour has it that the new controller of Radio 3 has a taste for world music, and the editor of fRoots keeps hammering festival organisers to show some gumption, so let’s hope things have reached rock bottom and that the only way is up – it certainly feels that way. If popularity and success require the oxygen of publicity then world music in Britain is currently suffocating.

As for me, I’m fine – the exciting and uplifting discoveries keep coming and the obscure CDs from sometimes equally obscure addresses keep arriving; it’s all those who are missing out I’m concerned about.

A Pyrenean Adventure - high camps, vultures and whistling marmots

It wasn’t the most dignified of arrivals. Stranded at the final motorway toll payment station with hazard lights flashing and my credit card well and truly stuck in the machine slot, awaiting the “man from Pau” to come and extricate us. Something of a Winnie-the-Pooh moment. After an increasingly sweaty ten hour drive from the Channel coast Mark and I were tantalisingly within sight of our objective; at least we could admire the jaggy Pyrenean skyline from where we sat, albeit partially obscured by black thunderclouds. After half an hour, and the partial dismantling of the recalcitrant machine, I was presented with a slightly battered card and a receipt for payment, and we were waved on our way. Skirting the tacky fringes of miracle-industry Lourdes, and eleven and a half hours after rolling off the ferry at Caen, we chugged dazed into the campsite at Cauterets: put tent up, have shower, knock up quick functional meal on stove, go to bed, sleep deeply.

In theory we’d gained a day by covering the length of France in a single push, In practice of course we were too knackered to hit the trail next morning and wisely spent the day gathering our wits, planning in detail our first sortie into the mountains, and desperately trying to distil out of the absurd amount of kit and food in the car what was actually needed for this initial two day backpacking trip. The philosophy of the holiday was to do a series of separate mainly multi-day backpacking trips to get up and deeply amongst the Pyrenees, and through high camps experience them to the full without the subtle insulation and constraints that tend to come with mountain hut use. The obvious down side to this approach was the sizeable packs we would have to carry, often in hot sun, a combination I have neatly managed to avoid for most of my mountain experience – so this first outing was always going to be something of a personal test, not to mention a shakedown/proving of the whole approach for both of us for the next fortnight.

Beautiful Lac d'Estom at the head of the Vallee de Lutour

Thankfully, while initially a struggle to put on the next day, my rucsac didn’t prove crippling once in place, and as we steadily climbed southwards up the pleasant Vallee de Lutour the sun had the decency to stay behind the clouds for a few hours, helping us acclimatise to the level of effort required. We cruised nicely to the beautiful Lac d’Estom with its deep green waters, overlooked by many day trippers eating their lunches. We had our lunch too, we’d done over half the days distance so maybe this lark wasn’t going to be too bad after all. Unfortunately we hadn’t done half the days climbing or any of its rougher terrain, we’d ascended 700m so far but a squint at the map revealed another 900m to come, over the rugged Col d’Arraille. Hauling myself over this bouldery col so early in the holiday with full camping gear was the biggest physical struggle of the whole thing for me, and it was a very weary descent westward from there to our camping spot at 2150m, dramatically located directly below the north face of the Vignemale and one of the biggest rock walls in the Pyrenees.

The Vignemale (3298m)

No sooner had we got the tent up and got ourselves organised than weariness was temporarily eclipsed by the adrenaline rush of intense lightning, deafening thunder and torrential rain, the thunderclaps booming off the huge nearby rock faces. The weather persisted and we were forced to seal ourselves up in the tent and cook our evening meal listening to the lashing rain, which continued into the night. In a repeat of the miracle of the very first night I slept beautifully in the tent; this for a person who can’t normally fall asleep in a tent (a tricky shortcoming for a backpacking holiday), clearly total exhaustion is a good cure and one I was able to encore a few more times yet.

The morning dawned clear and sunny and we savoured our situation over what was to become our standard simple wild camping breakfast (large mug of tea, large bowl of muesli, both with rehydrated milk powder). The drama of the Vignemale dominated, gradually being lit by the rising sun, with a small but striking glacier sitting below it. The original plan had been to leave the tent where it was and climb the relatively easy Petit Vignemale summit in the morning before returning, packing up, and descending the Vallee de Gaube. However we were both too weary, after such a strenuous preceding day, to contemplate the climb and so packed up and made the most of the (actually rather long) beautiful descent down the Vallee de Gaube in sunny weather, to Lac de Gaube, Pont d’Espagne and ultimately the car at la Raillere.

Mark at Lac de Gaube, after descending the valley in the background

It was a satisfying first outing, which hence set the tone for the rest of the trip. It was good to simply confirm I could walk all day with a large enough rucsac to enable sustained backpacking, including substantial climbing and hot sun, and we’d both learnt that we wouldn’t be climbing 1600m in a single day with such packs again! After a nice rest day in Cauterets (cafes, pizzas,…) we were re-energised for a more substantial trip, this time a planned five day foray across the border into Spain and back, with possible summits in the offing. It was however interesting to note how reaching summits played a very secondary role on this holiday compared to most mountain walking I’ve done, it was more than satisfying enough to be traversing through the stunning high valleys and over cols that were generally only a few hundred metres lower than the multitude of jagged peaks.

Vallee du Marcadau

Despite the extra food that had to be carried we felt stronger on this longer outing and got into a good steady routine. The heavy packs made for a more measured pace and outlook that arguably allowed more to be taken in and appreciated. From Pont d’Espagne we wandered up the exquisite Vallee du Marcadau to camp at the Chapelle du Marcadau near the Refuge Wallon hut, within sight of the peaks clustered around the 3005m Grande Fache. We dozed off to the sound of the nearby stream and the cowbells from the slopes opposite. The next day was a particularly fine meander up through the small lakes of the Lacs de Cambales, toward the tricky boulder fields guarding the Col de Cambales. On this stretch we were regularly leapfrogging a friendly Spanish couple, Maria and Alberto, also with big packs and their beautiful white Pyrenean mountain dog which carried its own supplies in its panniers. We all converged at the col, which at 2706m was the highest point we hauled large rucsacs to, and had a chat over lunch with our new friends, one of whom thankfully spoke workable English. Large vultures could be seen drifting along the ridgelines looking for small furry fodder below as we ate. Further down the subsequent descent we met again for the last time, and I was astonished to see that Maria, having kicked off her boots and socks to chill out, had immaculate pink-painted toe nails; quite an achievement amongst hardened mountain goers who generally have battered and bruised toes!

The remote Chapelle du Marcadau, below the Grande Fache (centre)

Climbing through the Lacs de Cambales, towards the Col de Cambales (low point on the skyline)

Entering Spain shortly afterwards, we spent a lot of time finding a good campsite on rock-strewn ground in a neighbouring valley at about 2400m since the plan was to keep the tent here for two nights to allow a single relatively unladen day for peak bagging. It was a great perch for admiring the sunset over the Spanish mountains and the mists battling over the mountains from France; there is a natural weather divide between the two sides with mists regularly drifting south in the evenings but struggling to convincingly establish themselves on the Spanish side.

The next day was spent climbing eastward with light rucsacs up to the Col de la Fache back on the border, and then eschewing the obvious and popular ascent of Grande Fache itself (which Mark has climbed before) for the rarer pleasures of the Pic de Cambales to the north. Err, only to realise after a while that we had taken the wrong line and were climbing the rather more obscure Pene d’Aragon instead! We were suitably chilled about this however, and carried on with the serendipitous route change, to a very photogenic and prolonged lunch on the 2918m summit. Often the slightly lower peaks provide the best views of all, putting the highest mountains in context, and that certainly seemed the case on this occasion.

Mark on the summit of Pene d'Aragon (2918m)

After returning to the tent and another memorable overnight on the Spanish side, including watching the ubiquitous whistling marmots hurtling around the hillsides, it was time to head back into France. We’d originally intended to take two days over this but had realised it was achievable in one at a push, and that push came with deteriorating weather. Hence we scrabbled back up the Col de la Fache in light rain with occasional thunder, and began the long descent back to the Refuge Wallon and then the Vallee du Marcadau. The weather chased us all the way with waterproofs on and off more times than I can remember, and startling thunder and lightning at increasing frequency as we approached Pont d’Espagne.

Returning to Cauterets, for which we were developing a certain attachment, we felt we had earned a bit of a blow-out evening meal, but to keep costs down we headed for the take-away pizza parlour. Slightly anxious at the moderate size of box a customer left this establishment with, we decided that maybe three pizzas between two was the best policy to avoid any possibility of under-nourishment. Suffice it to say that this was an act of gross underestimation on our part, each of these three pizzas was a major meal in itself. We got through two and half before hurting enough to call a halt! Fortunately cold pizza is good packed lunch fodder so the leftovers kept us going for the next couple of days.

After another rest day, and drying out day for our kit, it was time to plan out the remainder of the holiday. We wanted to explore a little further from Cauterets, and also fancied a single day outing with smaller rucsacs, so we headed east over to Gavarnie in the car and did a strenuous and highly rewarding ascent of the distinct peak Pimene, which at 2801m proved a nicely varied and interesting climb and viewpoint. The Cirque de Gavarnie is justifiable regarded as a highlight of the whole Pyrenees, being a dramatic semi-circular distinctly terraced rock wall rising to 3000m, and we had an outstanding view of it from the summit ridge of Pimene.

Carl approaching the summit of Pimene (2801m)

Cirque de Gavarnie from Pimene

To finish the holiday we decided to go for one last special high wild camp, and headed further east to the less frequented Neouvielle region. The drive over to our start point near Bareges took us along the start of the ascent to the Col du Tourmalet, famous as a regular climb in the Tour de France. Quite a few cyclists were out and I confess to a compelling mixture of envy and sympathy for them, I would love to ride this and other classic continental climbs on my bike, yet the scale of even just this early part of the climb was inescapably daunting.

Setting off with full packs from the enticing looking country restaurant of Chez Louisette, typical of the establishments which the French seem to excel at, we headed south and steadily climbed up the steepening tracks to the rather ugly Refuge de la Glere at 2150m. Beyond this however we entered beautiful intricate higher ground from which we could look down on a number of small lakes and valleys, as well as out to wider horizons to the west and north. Idyllically a healthy stream was flowing through this just where we wanted to camp, providing our water supply and soundtrack for the night.

Camping at 2200m in the Neouvielle region

We savoured this camp and its situation which was in many ways the best of the holiday, and in the morning made a meandering foray further south, delayed by early rain, towards our original objective of the peak of Turon de Neouvielle at 3035m. However, due to the late start but also our general pleasure in our surroundings, we didn’t feel the need to push on to the summit and decided to turn around on reaching the high Lacs de Maniportet. This felt more like a success than a failure, an acknowledgement perhaps that simply ticking off summits risked tokenising a more rooted and all-encompassing appreciation of our surroundings and why we were really there. The whole fortnight had developed and matured such feelings, encouraged by our approach but also the very nature of the Pyrenees that seems subtly to invite it, a fine thing indeed to take back home.