BRIGHTON collective The Mummers are the sound of the carnival coming to town, arriving with an audacious flourish of brass and strings, conducted by their ringmaster Raissa Khan-Panni, who has crafted a fully formed debut in glorious technicolour.
Opening track March Of The Dawn sets the scene with its curt salvos of military-style brass and drumming, smoothed over with Khan-Panni's soaring Bjork-like vocal. The moreish orchestral arrangements become a little saccharine on See Alice, but otherwise this is an audacious introduction to exactly the kind of exotic troupe you would want to stumble upon at the heart of the Glastonbury Festival.
KASABIAN: WEST RYDER PAUPER LUNATIC ASYLUM
***
COLUMBIA, £12.72LADROCKERS Kasabian have been gassing to anyone who will listen about how their third album will change the face of music as we know it, or some such inflated claim. Strangely, it just sounds a bit like their last album, with fewer electro rock anthems.
The Beatle-y Thick As Thieves might be considered merciful progress on an Oasis album but just sounds like an obvious retro gambit here. Elsewhere, the hand of Gorillaz/DJ Shadow producer Dan the Automator can be heard on the electro-psych sculpting of Secret Alphabets, while singer Tom Meighan discovers subtlety for the first time on Ladies And Gentlemen (Roll The Dice). Not bad, just not quite as good as it thinks it is.
CLASSICAL
BEETHOVEN: THE COMPLETE PIANO CONCERTOS
***
NONESUCH (3CDS), £24.45THE release of Richard Goode's complete Beethoven Piano Concerto set has been something of a stop-go affair, with various delays suggesting there may have been problems with the final production. But the finished article is impressive in its consistency, Goode presenting each one of the five works – along with Ivan Fischer and his gutsy Budapest Festival Orchestra – with more polish than vigour.
These are not interpretations centred on the same exploratory zeal as Artur Pizarro, whose recently released set of Beethoven's last three concerti along with Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is considerably more riveting. Nor do they display the same tangible intellectual dialogue that gives the Pizarro/Mackerras coupling its edge-of-the-seat fascination. Instead they are safe and steady, slower by comparison, and musically satisfying if lacking a little in challenge to the listener. The unaccompanied opening of the Fourth Concerto is a case in point – it's rather anonymous in character.
Nonetheless, many fans will find Goode's playing pleasurable and inoffensive, though it is considerably more vital than certain of his Edinburgh Festival appearances of late. Personally I like an edge to my Beethoven. Fischer occasionally finds that in his orchestra, but ultimately the onus is on Goode to invigorate the music and I'm not sure he does.
JAZZ
SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA: RHAPSODY IN BLUE LIVE
****
SPARTACUS RECORDS, £12.72THE long-awaited second release from the SNJO features a performance recorded on the opening night of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival in 2006. Tommy Smith led the band in his new arrangement of George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, with Brian Kellock as a superb piano soloist. To say arrangement, though, doesn't give the true measure of Smith's inspired re-working of this well-loved piece.
Clocking in at close to three times the length of the original, the saxophonist's version delivers an initial surprise by discarding the famous opening clarinet glissando (saved for later in the piece), the first of a host of original touches. While much of the added length is devoted to excellent soloing from all across the band, the new ensemble writing is equally compelling.
FOLK
PEATBOG FAERIES: LIVE
****
PEATBOG RECORDS, £10.72THOSE who feel that the Skye-based folk-rock-jazz fusion outfit don't quite capture the full-on exuberance of their live show in the studio will surely not be disappointed by the rampant energy on this disc, recorded in Edinburgh and Durham last year. The band – with fiddle, pipes, guitar and an excellent jazz-derived horn section which is underpinned by keyboards, bass and drums – hit the ground running and never let the intensity slip.
Piper Peter Morrison is the principal composer, with a couple of tunes from fiddler Adam Sutherland, although the wide ranging frame of reference that feeds into all their music is neatly encapsulated in the shifting idioms and styles packed into the 18 minutes of the only non-original, The Dancing Feet Set. If there is a slightly formulaic feel to their approach at times, they serve it up with a full measure of commitment and conviction.
WORLD
SARA TAVARES: XINTI
****
WORLD CONNECTION, £13.70YET another young singer from Cape Verde, but this one is different. Sara Tavares sings in a kittenish, almost conspiratorial manner: hers is not an art which demands that the listener attends closely to every note, but it is a pleasure to spend time with her.
Part of the seduction lies in the expert way the accompaniment is laid down, with guitars, a flute and a vibraphone creating a soft halo of ambient sound. Unlike her singer compatriots, she doesn't feel any need to genuflect to the genius of Cesaria Evora, the singer who first drew attention to the music of these rocky islands.
Like many of those singers, she grew up in Lisbon, where her parents had emigrated to earn a living; as a teenager she founded the first Portuguese Gospel choir, making Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin her exemplars. She gravitated to pop, then found herself at home in the expat Cape Verdean music scene: this record reflects her return to her roots.
8"Xinti" means "feel it," which is apposite. Sung in Portuguese, Cape Verdean creole and street slang, the songs she has written here are bursting with warmth, but they also evoke nature, Voz di vento (Voice of the Wind) being a lovely example. Listen to them, she says, "as though they are an inner prayer".
LEGENDS OF BENIN
***
ANALOG AFRICA, £13.72I HAVE never gone a bundle on Afro-beat, but for those who do – and there are plenty of them – this CD will be mandatory. Here are a series of tracks by the top Benin composers recorded between 1969 and 1981: the sound quality is no better than you'd expect, but the music itself is bursting with verve. Gnonnas Pedro, Honore Avolonto, El Rego et ses commandos, and Antoine Dougbe are among the singers. Until now their music has only been available on rare vinyl discs.
The full article contains 1106 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
