Vox and Socks
Last weekend we went around the world.
One of the greatest ways to experience a landscape, a culture, a history or a people is through their music. But how do you illustrate music in words? Surely a blog about music is a contradiction in terms, a waste of time and an unsatisfactory story, without a sound track? You are probably right but we’re going to give it a go anyway. As we said, last weekend we went around the world – in music.
Our journey started with a brief stop-over in central Tanzania with The Zawose Queens, a mother and daughter combo carrying on the tradition of father/grandfather Hukwe Zawose: large and lustrous rhythms and harmonies, radiating warmth and welcome. https://www.thezawosequeens.com/
But we were actually on our way to the Iberian peninsula in Europe, so hurried on to sit at the feet of LINA_, a shepherd’s daughter from north eastern Portugal. Classically trained, she now combines traditional Fado music with the 16th century poetry of Luís de Camões and 21st century electronic music.
Her wandering, soaring vocals create patterns in the air but also present us with the weekend’s greatest conundrum: we had no idea what she was singing about. https://www.lina.pt/lina/
And yes, you’ve guessed it, we were at a world music festival. WOMAD (World of music, arts and dance) was founded by Peter Gabriel and others in 1980 and is now an international staple. Currently based, in the UK, at Charlton Park in Wiltshire, WOMAD is a rich, deep, funny, relaxed, satisfying fruit cake of everybody’s folk music, literally electrified, but as subtle, outlandish, political, personal, historical, futuristic and satisfying as only music can be.
Food is also very much part of the experience and we counted around 40 food outlets in the main arena area alone. The English staple of coffee and cake is available everywhere and the queues at breakfast and mid-morning are witness to the hugely appreciated English pastry and toastie menu.
But there is just nothing like being taken to Pakistan and Spain (Qawwali Flamenco) while eating an apple and cinnamon French crěpe.
A potential problem with WOMAD, however, is the number of stages and the resultant planning required to nip from one stage to another to be sure of hearing all you want. On the plus side, if you’ve missed your favourite on, say, the Charlie Gillett stage, you may well be able to catch them doing a workshop in a tent somewhere else.
Thus we caught up with an Italian group (Ars Nova Napoli) at the ‘Taste the World’ stage where certain groups are invited to cook something from their home cuisine, submit to being interviewed and play music, often simultaneously. Ars Nova not only cook pasta but use traditional instruments, reinterpret long established tunes and create some new ones of their own as well. Their music is fast and furious, swirling at breakneck speed, but occasionally creating a pause for a melodic soloist - perfect for that hot Mediterranean or Wiltshire evening. Their tarantella certainly uplifted the audience but goodness knows what it’s speed does to the players. https://www.arsnovanapoli.com/
The big one for Friday evening was the duo that is Amadou and Mariam (https://www.amadou-mariam.com/), a couple who met in Mali’s Institute for the Blind in the 1970s, are still married and still making music. What a contrast to the Israel based rappers ‘DAM’, performing in Arabic, English and Hebrew. Under a silent dance of Palestinian flags carried by members of the audience (below right), the atmosphere was electric (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAM_(band)). We finished the evening in Edinburgh (as you do) with Young Fathers (https://www.young-fathers.com/), described by trio member Graham G Hastings as “hip hop without the rules” and “just like it’s rock without the guitars”. New to us (surprised?), but it works.
In contrast, on Saturday, the London Bulgarian choir is very colourful, very formal and now, apparently, with many non-Bulgarian speakers. Bulgarian folk music first passed though the Iron Curtain thanks to the 1980s record ‘Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’. The recording was a huge success – you can still find copies in boxes of second hand CDs – but the choir was, one suspects, very much a Soviet invention; today the London Bulgarian choir carries on the folk tradition in a very different atmosphere. Apparently we were listening to songs about shepherds and nightingales, about freedom fighters and about love. Yep, that’ll do nicely.
Genticorum, in contrast is a three-piece Québecois group who prefer larks to nightingales. Their music clearly reflects the influences of Francophone immigrants and the equally toe tapping Celtic traditions which arrived from the west of Britain and Ireland.
We followed that with a very different take on the French abroad, this time via kora player Seckou Keita and the Homeland Band, keeping the African sounds of Sénégal very much alive. The vibe couldn’t be more different.
Where next? Wales of course for Cerys Hafana, her elphin face just visible over the heads of the audience, while her seemingly enchanted fingers fashion compelling melodies from a triple harp (is that three times more difficult than a ‘standard’ harp?) and an extraordinary array of other instruments. We slip quietly away at the end for a Goan fish curry.
The night finishes (for us) on New York’s Lower East Side with Gogol Bordello, described as ‘riotous gypsy punks’ with a big dash of ‘Eastern European sounds’. I’m still not sure what that combination should sound like but Gogol Bordello is (are?) loud, chaotic, eccentric, arresting, surprising and utterly mesmeric! Unsurprisingly, they are very hot on supporting Ukraine, and have collaborated with others on the song "Man with the Iron Balls", dedicated to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It’s Sunday and maybe we have saved the best ‘til last. You will probably not agree with us but something advertised as ‘stirring vocal harmonies from the Caucasus’ will always make Terroir sit up and take notice. Indeed it made us stand up and lean on the rail at the very foot of the stage for the entire set.
We were not disappointed. Three young women in Chechen dress lined up in front of us with the more mature figure of Bella, armed with an accordion, keeping a motherly eye on things. They were magic!
The Ensemble lives in the Pankisi valley in eastern Georgia and sing of their former homeland in Chechnya, now a Russian republic. They sing Georgian songs too but are passionate about protecting and conserving their Chechen cultural heritage. The sound is four-part, close harmony, with the Chechen flute and accordion in support.
Sometime later that afternoon, they appeared again at the Taste the World stage, creating dumplings cooked in stock and a traditional salad (sadly it all ran out before we got to the front of the queue), plus singing and telling us about how Bella created the ensemble.
Someone asked about their recordings – CDs? You Tube? No, they replied, we are active on social media but no recordings. ‘Quick’, someone called out, ‘get them a contract’. You can follow the Pankisi Ensemble on Instagram and Facebook. Terroir already does. What a find.
Our farewell to WOMAD was Baaba Maal, headlining on the Sunday night main stage. What a show! Pure theatre, with splendid vocals and band, and a vibrant message about the need to tackle climate change. We couldn’t stay to the end, however, as we had reality waiting for us in the form of a 9am dentist’s appointment the following day.
So that’s how we travelled the word in a weekend and accounts for the ‘Vox’ part of the title. But what about those socks?
Music festivals mean you spend a lot of time sitting on the ground. Audiences tend to differentiate into three distinct horizontal bands: the upper level is formed by the people who stand, the middle is made up of those who sit on folding chairs and the lowest level are those who sit on the ground either on rugs or portable folding festival seats (favoured by Terroir). At Terroir level you see a lot of socks. Friday’s audience favoured brightly coloured stripy socks, probably made out of bamboo fabric. Saturday’s socks tended to be vivid patterns and bright colours. But Sunday socks were overwhelmingly plain black or plain white socks. What was that all about?
