New Music From Various Artists, Shane Parish
Various Artists
Listen All Around
(Dust-to-Digital)
This writer has uttered the phrase, “You’ll have to pry my CDs from my cold, dead hands” on more than a few occasions, and as listening habits have shifted away from physical media toward digital downloads and Internet streaming, it’s easy to take liner notes (Words! On paper!) for granted.
It always warms this critic’s heart whenever he encounters a carefully assembled and curated collection that treats a subject with the highest respect, and the new 2-CD compilation Listen All Around, which includes a hardbound book with ample notes, is impressive on many levels.
The 47-track collection is comprised mostly of field recordings made by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey from the ‘50s, covering eastern and central Africa in the Belgian Congo, Kenya, Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
While Tracey—who is the founder of the International Library of African Music—recorded a great deal of traditional folk music, this compilation focuses on popular music.
The gorgeous book, which contains detailed info on each track, provides historical context, as countries were moving toward independence from colonialism, and it maps out the wide array of international influences that shaped these songs.
While genres in other parts of African can be felt, such as Ghanaian highlife and South African kwela, we’re told that selections were also influenced by Cuban music—rumba and son and the well-known clave rhythm (a.k.a. the Bo Diddley beat)—American country music, jazz, Hawaiian music and European folksongs and lullabies, among many other varieties.
The collection is sequenced in a way that moves from one cluster of songs, organized by genre, to another, and some key features reappear throughout the set—fingerpicked guitar, warm vocal harmonies, a struck bottle for percussion, and so on.
“Napenda” (“I Love”) from Coast Social Orchestra has a rich, charming sound with accordion, saxophone, clarinet and trumpet parts, while the big band Merry Black Birds’ “Chineno” (“Little Speech”) is peculiar, with a trembling, nervous saxophone and muted trumpet.
An odd standout is “Chemirocha III” by Chemutoi Ketienya and Kipsigis Girls, which pictures the American country guitarist Jimmy Rogers as a half-man, half-beast blood-drinking cannibal. As explained in the liner notes, medical efforts in Africa were sometimes misunderstood, with white doctors drawing blood samples from Africans without proper explanations—some thought the blood-drawing had sinister purposes.
While this writer is happy to rave about the liner notes, they don’t overshadow the music itself—joyous, stirring and fun stuff—which can be enjoyed without context.
Shane Parish
Child Asleep in the Rain
(Null Zone)
On the topic of creative intuition, with regards to his new solo album Child Asleep in the Rain, Asheville, N.C. guitarist Shane Parish said, “I believe that if you steep yourself in the raw materials of an art form and you are honest with yourself about who you are, expression will manifest itself in many different shapes and they will all be you.”
It can also be taken as a “hope you like my new direction” statement. Parish has built up his reputation as an eclectic and technically gifted player in the intense and complicated instrumental rock band Ahleuchatistas, and he also has a repertoire of solo acoustic guitar material based on Appalachian folk, including the 2016 album Undertaker Please Drive Slow released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.
Once an artist has confidence in his craft, he can trust himself and let go, following his imagination in whatever direction it goes, on an intuitive level.
Child Asleep in the Rain is Parish’s self-described “new age ambient bedroom psychedelic filmscore album,” and it’s a multi-tracked home-studio solo recording with the electric guitar as a primary instrument.
On the dark opener “The Great Great Wall,” Parish’s squiggly guitar sounds float above commanding, sustained bass guitar tones and simple, yet mysterious piano notes; it’s a song where the emphasis is totally on mood rather than melodies, like the title track, which clutches the listener with its rapid tremolo guitar effects and gentle, uncertain wandering.
The cyclic round piece “Never See the Sun,” written by Parish’s wife Courtney Chappell, folds its melody in on itself, regenerating and sprouting in gratifying ways, and another of the album’s highlights is “Angular Essences,” which glistens with echoing, ringing notes and what sounds like sustained EBow notes with vague elements of minimalism.
The enigmatic “Ghost Dream” offers an ambient knot-tying tension, while the gripping “Chest Cavity Portal” spotlights Parish’s unconventional electric guitar noises and effect warping. Child Asleep in the Rain shines a light on more facets of Parish’s imagination, with sound exploration and compelling moods articulated with a gut-level trust.