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WOMAD 2016

WOMAD 2016
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WOMAD 2016
Charlton Park
Malmesbury
England
July 28-31, 2016

In 2015, half of the WOMAD festival's long weekend suffered a deluge of rain, the strength of its music having to do battle with a general spiritual soddenness. This year's edition thankfully featured uniformly pleasant conditions, with the downpouring held off until Monday morning's packing-away activities. The World Of Music, Arts & Dance has now reached its tenth year on this Charlton Park site, with a few 2016 tweakings and rotations of its physical set-up, just to keep the crowds from becoming complacent. A key joy of WOMAD is its persistence in presenting a significant number of artists who are making their UK debut, or are otherwise unfamiliar. There are always major discoveries in global sound to be made during this festival. Not that it's ever lacking in known headliners, this year's starry acts being George Clinton, John Grant, Baaba Maal, Asian Dub Foundation and St. Germain.

In the Bowers & Wilkins tent, matters often took an electronic turn, to show off this hi-fi company's sound system. A Guy Called Gerald played remarkably early, opening Friday's programme at 2pm, surely one of this Manchester native's earliest sets in nearly three decades of performing. Although his "Voodoo Ray" became a key minimalist electronica recording in 1988, Gerald Simpson's sound has moved with the times, currently incorporating multiple elements and sounding very much in the now, and very much a product of live improvisation. About halfway through his concise one hour set (most of this fest's artists don't get to play any longer than that), the stuttered beats started to knit together in a tightly-stepping web, different sonic layers meeting at rhythmic intersection points, as Gerald entered a 30 minute climax, reaching just the right cut-off point when desired. The bass bumps were heavily loaded, but the trebly gnashing was equally pointed.

The Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra offered a complete contrast, relying on the old school rock band construction, although subtly streaked with trace elements from her heritage territories (she grew up in Paris). The very traditionalist presentation was what marked her out, with an attention to grand stadium gestures, but without any annoying crowd control measures. Zahra possessed a kind of hippy abandonment, garbed in a long, voluminous dress, topped with a jaunty cocked hat. Once this titfer was removed, there was much shaking of long tresses. The band's moves were reliably predictable within this rocking vocabulary, but very effective nevertheless, as they were executed with good taste and clenched restraint. Zahra hopped between French and English, with a peppering of Berber language. She knows how to work a crowd without irritating them, coming across as completely and sincerely involved.

One of the main festival highlights arrived early, with the Polish string quintet Volosi, taking folk and classical fusion to new extremes. They weren't exactly a hardcore Polish fiddling combo, with their cello and upright bass, the repertoire and style containing hints of a classical deportment, but Volosi's physical delivery was about as extreme as they could take it, without smashing up their frail axes. They had a love of gathering together in a tight cluster, as the tunes reached their flailing points, ever-quickening virtuoso peaks topping each other in an unstoppable rush. They took tunes higher, faster and harder, ripping out massive detail and depositing it on the eager crowd, creating a civilised rabble at only four in the afternoon.

Virtually straight afterwards came Bamba Wassoulou Groove, another of the weekend's supreme peaks. Featuring drums, percussion, bass and a trio of spangling guitars (the Super Rail Band's Moussa Diabaté dazzling on one of them), their full power was revealed when singer Ousmane Diakité came onstage, his vocal power thrusting forward and upwards, goading the tunes towards a tougher existence, with the aid of his hand-held tail-duster. Certainly one of the weekend's dancing hot spots, loaded with compulsively complicated, light-footing prompts.

Later, in the same Siam Tent, the Lebanese microtonal trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf led his large Parisian band, their thrust having graduated to an even greater bombast nowadays. Maalouf fronts a rousing crew, not least along with his fellow trumpet section, but the presentation was almost too enthusiastic, too much on an epic scale. He was undoubtedly carried away by the moment, but these epic musical gestures sometimes sounded too overblown, particularly when surrounded by some of the subtler sounds found at this festival.

Speaking of subtlety, John Grant was next up on the Open Air Stage, as brooding and deadpan a musician as could ever be hoped for, his theatrical, rich-voiced phrases emanating from deep within his bushy beard. The Michigan-born Grant is like an ultra-perverse Elton John, when he sits at the keyboard, his songs often inflamed by a sense of dark drama, a massive platform for lines that are sometimes unnervingly throwaway in their poetic impact, packed with specific and obscure artistic references, and loaded with unlikely rhymes, augmented by his three-piece backing singer posse. Grant is a stand-up comedian for those of us who enjoy a grim smile. When his songs are riddled with stray electronic content, the approach is suddenly twisted, heading from evil pop to morbid low-range disco pulsations, always with his voice resonating at the music's heart. He's emotional but guarded, almost mocking himself, and sometimes his audience, with a gleeful cruelty. As a headline act, Grant gave an oddly introverted performance, once the day's dancing had ceased, the crowd involuntarily drawn into his personal world of confessional celebration.

Back in the Siam Tent, mohan veena slide guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt led a spread of seated musicians in a lively exploration of Hindustani classical music, though with an even more vigorous momentum than usual. In this rare appearance, Bhatt infused his runs with a rock'n'roll energy, his Desert Slide ensemble attaining a ripping extremity that married spectacular virtuosity with an uncaged friction.

An eccentric start to Saturday came at high noon, with cosmic multi-instrumentalist Paddy Steer, consolidating a Manchester theme for this early slot in the Bowers & Wilkins tent, following the previous day's Gerald opening. Steer is also known as a member of the Homelife collective, but his solo shows are now a more likely platform. Clothed in a post-Sun Ra styled shiny robe and head-gear, ostensibly playing a drumkit, Steer is also surrounded by customised, ancient electronics gear, vintage wobbly keyboards, latched-on xylophone, and piles of exotic percussion. His mode is highly rhythmic, but in a cranky fashion, prompting the question: are these complex outer space time signatures, or is everything disintegrating, slipping out of hand? This doesn't matter when Steer is gluing all together by sheer force of enthusiasm. The bricolage becomes a vital part of the clattering drive. Inexplicably, he switched from sparkly crown to adapted space helmet, although this might have had an important role in altering his voice. Afterwards, he balanced said helmet on his teetering tower of electronics, adding an extra amount of suspense to the set.

There was much anticipation for the return of the Songhai ensemble, makers of two classic collaborative albums, released in 1988 and 1994. This was a meeting between the Spanish flamenco crew Ketama, English jazz-folk bassist Danny Thompson and Malian kora maestro Toumani Diabate. Unfortunately, Thompson wasn't involved with this reunion, and doubly unfortunately, the band were unavoidably delayed in their arrival at the festival site. The golden rule in such a situation is to remain aware that your set-time is your set-time, and any extension is not possible within a tightly structured multi-stage festival timetable. So, it's advisable not to spend 25 valuable minutes fine-tuning a soundcheck. With the very high quality of the festival's sound team, this could have been done on the hoof, as the band were playing. In the end, they managed an extra five minutes, providing barely a vinyl LP's running time, which was just about adequate. The music was slick and expressive, especially under such harried circumstances, but the crowds had suffered, with their original focused energies dispersed.

Hopping across to the Siam Tent again, sitarist Anoushka Shankar was already embarking on some radically different directions. Previous occasions have seen her not straying too much away from a classic Indian classical framework, but her current band is journeying into fusion areas, mashing together shehnai reed-flute and electronics. With complete confidence and striking success, it must be added. There was one particular point during the set where the entire orientation shifted towards a brutalist thrash metal sound-wall, with Shankar skating across the riffersphere, completely at one with this style excursion.

Time for yet another supreme highlight, as the London foursome Sons Of Kemet conquered the Big Red Tent. Tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings is joined by a tuba and double-drummer onslaught (particularly when they're in duelling solos mode), taking New Orleans parade music and launching it into cosmic outer reaches, with flecks of Afrobeat, Ethiopian jazz, speed-ska and general free-form bluster. Their music is radical and danceable, achieving an aim that's still relatively rare. Hutchings kept up a lusty, raw-throated riff-vanguard, mostly seeking momentum rather than solo flashing. The level of intensity just kept on rising throughout their one hour set. This band are really bringing the jazz sensibility out to folks who might not think that they dig the sound, without any compromise. In fact, they're deliberately courting the extremes of their instruments, notably with Theon Cross negotiating some unbelievably nimble lines on tuba, at highest speed, and with fullest attack.

Saturday's headliner was George Clinton, still touring his leviathan Parliament/Funkadelic composite. Not that they were as leviathan as when he plays his regular New York City shows, but by any definition this was still a stage populated by a fulsome artist complement, many of them singers, rappers and/or emcees. The man himself refrained from singing, as the last few recent times he's been caught, hoarseness and gravelled delivery have been his chief qualities. Clinton's present position is being the ultimate catalyst, the set opening with a predilection for rapping, then gradually moving into the funk classics, including "Flash Light," "One Nation Under A Groove" and "Maggot Brain," the latter being an extended psychedelic guitar freak-out. This ritualistic Funkadelic number was placed just before the climactic disco funk-out of "Atomic Dog," giving the crowd a pause from the up-tempo beats. Once the final extended run began, all mayhem broke out, as band members disappeared into the crowd, scaled the monitor speakers or bumped along with an invited stage invasion. The set attained such a frenzied pitch that the massed festival-goers (surely almost everyone on the site had chosen to catch Clinton) united in a morass of crazed funkateers, in a truly communal bonding that's rarely experienced. Most of Clinton's shows in recent years enjoy varying degrees of greatness, so we just have to prepare ourselves for some unknown level of ecstasy.

On paper, the concluding Sunday looked like it would be quieter, and indeed there was a laid-back, but enjoyable, set from Portuguese singer Lura, but as the day progressed there was still a prodigious level of high quality, arresting performances. The earliest winner of the weekend was the live simulcast between the BBC's World On 3 and the Cerys Matthews show (6Music), although this was effectively in the latter's 10am slot, with the WOMAD broadcast section starting at 11.30am. The formula was excellent, presenting a fast rotation of artists, interviewed in-between their pieces, and with Matthews spinning some deliberately incongruous records whilst the acts were being changed over. It was almost shocking to hear these swing, blues, gospel and jazz items, making a startling contrast with most of the music otherwise heard over the weekend.

Matthews ruled the roost, with her effervescent personality and humorous asides, communicating strongly with each artist as she probed their backgrounds. Dom La Nena was born in Brazil, but later lived in Paris and Buenos Aires. She's a one-woman band, with the aid of looping pedals, layering cello strokes, soloing on top, rapping its body for a rhythm track, and singing over all of these parts. She expertly built up a pair of songs, rich with atmospherics, still retaining a sense of minimalism, despite all of their makings. The East Pointers, from Prince Edward Island, favoured more extroverted tactics, even though their own three-piece line-up is still quite minimal. They compensated for this by stirring up the crowd via fast fiddling, staccato banjo-picking and enthusiastically strummed guitar, vocals a result of spirited teamwork. The Spanish singer Buika took another path, reining in her powers to present an intimate chamber manifestation of her songs, which are not as much in thrall to flamenco as they were, close to the beginning of her career. Buika's commanding presence fixed her voice at centre-stage, and this brief appearance was actually superior to her main set. Presumably a new song, "Deadbeat" is an immediate classic, taking Buika's work in a very different direction, holding its own personality, and outside of easy genre placement. Following such an early-riser spectacle, a spell of relaxation, lounging in front of Lura, was called for, the calm before another spate of dancing acts.

First, though, there was further contemplation, sitting cross-legged in front of the smaller Ecotricity stage, entertained by the Hanoi Masters presentation. This was a reflection of the recent album, War Is A Wound, Peace Is A Scar, featuring two veteran Vietnamese musicians reflecting on war-zone experiences from four decades ago, along with their younger female colleague, all of them multi-instrumentalists. Tools were changed rapidly, including lute, banjo and zither equivalents, as well as assorted percussion, and a large, curved, hung marimba construction. There was also an instrument with a mouth-insert on a string (k'ni), allowing a transmission of cavity-sonics, supplementing the string-sound. The pieces ranged from deep melancholy to a lighter mischievousness, ending with a bendy one-string (dan bau) Hendrix outbreak, just to surprise everyone. Certainly the most educational and serene set of the festival, but not without its humorous interludes.

The late afternoon and evening was dominated by African dance-orientated acts, or at least that was the direction your scribe chose to take. The buzzing, amplified Congolese likembe thumb-piano extremists Konono No. 1 weren't quite as transcendental as usual, but still turned in a memorable set. Immediately following, veteran Ghanaian highlife bandleader Pat Thomas brought out his Kwashibu Area Band, radically updating the gloriously quaint sound of his 1970s and '80s work, bridging the territorial borders of Nigerian Afrobeat. The modern band have a bouncier, jerkier, tougher sound, providing a new kind of beat for the WOMAD crowd to work out steps to, as highlife artists aren't often presented at this festival. Until recent times, the style has lain slumbering, but now seems to be regaining in popularity.

St. Germain (otherwise known as Ludovic Navarre) is beginning a fresh phase in his career, following a hiatus studying West African music. Earlier this year, the Frenchman launched his new touring band, featuring a spread of players, nearly all of them hailing from different African nations. Embellishments to his electronic pulse foundation are laid down by electric kora, saxophone, percussion and guitars. This was already the third occasion that your scribe had witnessed this show in 2016, and as anticipated, it has developed through constant touring, the players now having grown a palpable rapport, latching onto a driving momentum and communicative confidence. Now, they'd reached the point where they'd worked out physical routines to playfully romp around the stage, solo spotlight parts invested with charismatic projection. Most of the music is recent, but Germain and crew lobbed in a clutch of his classics from the late 1990s. This was another prime partying session to close out as headliner on the weekend's last evening.

The day's ultimate pinnacle, though, came courtesy of Les Amazones D'Afrique, a new mostly-female supergroup, featuring a front line of West African vocalists, backed up frazzlingly by a pair of alternating lead guitarists. The singers included Kandia Kouyaté, Mamani Keita, Mariam Doumbia (of Amadou & Mariam fame), and soulstress Nneka. With such a spread of interpreters, the range was broad, with authority, sexuality, stateliness, sassiness, fierceness, softness and joyfulness all being paraded against an almost incongruous overcurrent of Afro-psychedelic guitar parts. A triumphant way to conclude a particularly strong edition of this always-excellent festival.

Photo Credit: Inès Elsa Dalal

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