Sheila Stewart: From the Heart of the Tradition (Topic Records)
An intense collection of oft-mourn-some songs from this matriarch of a big Scottish Traveller family, the Stewarts of Blairgowrie. She has a forceful declamatory style, yet pursed into a precise, penetrating sense of narrative. Some are English songs; others, such as The Parting Glass, are Irish; more are Scotsy, like the 17th-century murder-song, Mill o'Tifty's Annie. But all are steeped in her Traveller's idiom. The subjects are cautionary: fratricide, love-suicides, chain gangs, beaten wives, and a sober version of Ewan MacColl's Moving-On classic. And it's all quietly relentless, reminding me of song-collector Hamish Henderson's description of meeting her family 40 years ago - "like holding a can under Niagara Falls".
Mic Moroney
Justin Vali: The Sunshine Within (Bush Telegraph Records)
Hats off to the African Cultural Project for bringing in this sophisticated Madagascarian trio, with their shifting, trans-rhythmic string textures. Justin Rakotondrasoa adopts the name of his instrument, the valiha - a long bamboo tube with strings tethered to gourds at each end, thumb-plucked like a harp. His cascading intricacies are under-shaken by guitarist Romeo "Doudou" Tovoarimino's complex staccato triplet-strums and Heri Randrianasolo's soulful bass/ kabossy/ vocals. Morphing between dominant rhythms, the African beats absorb moires of Latin, Hindu, even south American colour, sometimes even reminiscent of the NYC minimalist school. Above it all, the boys set up call-and-responses with swelling harmonies, constantly jamming up their big, sunny, life-affirming head-funk.
Mic Moroney
