WOMAD 2011 - Friday and Sunday thoughts

The centre of gravity appears to have shifted in the three years since my last WOMAD experience, away from the main stages to the Big Red Tent at the opposite end of the excellently-appointed Charlton Park arena. I know in the past that strange dance-related events happened there long after we grey-hairs were tucked up in bed (sometime after 9:30pm), but just an hour into Friday and the young Womadeers were already out in force, packing the space for a serendipitous wig-out to blazing Congolese stand-in Baloji. The Belgium-based singer’s appearance threatened to peak the festival barely before it had started, and was a microcosmic example of the visa-related shenanigans that have affected WOMAD line-ups over the years, as the EU-based African answered the call made necessary by Sierra Leone’s Bajah and the Dry Eye Crew’s lack of timely paperwork.

This year, thanks in large part to a partnership with the French Music Office, a more Eurocentric approach was plainly in evidence, with quirky experimentalist Chapelier Fou one of a number of left-field continental artists that blessed the nearby Charlie Gillett stage over the weekend. The Frenchman mixed samples and loops around shards of classical violin, an instrument heard in a more warmly traditional setting on the same stage two days earlier as young fiddler Rua MacMillan lived up his 2009 award as Scotland young musician of the year. Another Scottish fiddler, Aberdeenshire’s Sarah Beattie, wove threads of Gaelic beauty through trio Pacific Curls’ Maori tunes and tales rich in atmosphere and verve (disclaimer: sometimes musical impressions can be accentuated by positive culinary – and musical - experiences in the flavoursome Taste the World tent).

Early evening saw the Siam Tent come into its own, as it inevitably does when the hottest part of the day is behind us, with the Ethio-dub mashup of Dub Colossus seeping dark and dirty east African jazz-tinged grunge out of which emerged a crowd-popping version of Up Town Top Ranking.

Back in that Red Tent, a vibrant Friday afternoon (a capella girl quintent The Boxettes a picture of charm and preternaturally flexible diaphragms) turned into an exuberant old school punky reggae party courtesy of the mighty national treasure the Dub Pistols (they may have been on something, who can say?) while on the Open Air Stage the various Cuban and Malian greats that make up Afrocubism fought a poor sound mix and almost insurmountable expectations to deliver a set that made up in charm and individual musicianship for what it lacked in spark and interplay. Charm aplenty from Abigail Washburn too, the claw-hammer gal from America lighting up the Radio 3 (aka The Real Charlie Gillett) Stage with her wry observations coloured by expert but unshowy banjo and mountain-dew voice, her between-song patter remaining just the sweet side of cutesy. The contrast between this cool and folksy (in a good way) sound and the rawer, more WOMtrad sound of the extraordinary Sufi soul vocal aerobics of Faiz Ali Faiz later that night could not be more extreme or indeed more apposite to this land of sensual contrasts.

Plenty of contrast too in the heavy north African (by way of Paris, natch) groove of Aziz Sahmaoui and the University of Gnawa. I’d have liked to have seen just a bit more of the guimbri bass that lends gnawa such a heady and individual style, but the crowd wasn’t complaining at this intricate blend of oud, kora and guitar so neither will I (especially as their workshop was so bright and watchable). This was Sunday afternoon, and my new favourite stage the BRT was showing worrying signs of a...crouch...towards the worst of all festy blights, the cordon sani-chair that springs up around the edge of a tent as the forty-plus (I know I am – shoot me if I ever get like this) begin to suffer from Festival-Leg. This is a bit like trenchfoot only not nearly as painful, potentially fatal or indeed worthy of such defiantly stiff-upper-lipped, head in a book/The Independent intransigence in the face of anybody actually trying to get in to witness the performance. The masterful Penguin Café were the carriers, transporting the disease from their Cambridge Folk festival appearance the previous day, and so in the absence of any possibility of ingress, attention (and tippy-toed apologies) were turned to the Open Air stage Italian all-black-clad folk-rockers Nidi D’Arac, one of the undoubted hits of Friday/Sunday, full of rhythmically propulsive Mediterranean guitar-driven gusto and bursts of shit-kicking intermingling violin.

A veritable hit on a top-notch day, but possibly matched by Amparo Sanchez’s admix of Espana, Americana, Mexicana and that keening, gravelly vocal. The pocket dynamo’s throaty vocalising is as nothing to the extraordinary Ayarkhaan, a trio from the Russian republic of Sakha whose guttural cadences (think the Trio Bulgarka transported to Mongolia) create a mesmerising pocket of space around their static, sumptuously attired figures. They stop time with those voices, but also bend it and the air around them with a remarkable aural toolset that comprises no more than the jaw’s harp (which they call khomus, which appears to be a phonetic Asian term for all manner of instruments). A veritable BBC sound department array of ambient textures and impressions are issued forth. You name it - birds, galloping horses, grasses blowing in the breeze - boy can these ladies deliver.

On the same day, old-time Ghanaian guitarist Ebo Taylor served as an interesting comparison with Brooklyn-based rapper and fellow Ghanaian Blitz the Ambassador. Both are ‘old-skool’ in their way, but whereas the former taps into the new-found zeal for Afrobeat and Highlife guitar figures to deliver a jaunty take on early 70s west African swamp-pop, the rapper references the early days of ‘consciousness’ hip-hop and jigs it all up with some loose Troublefunk go-go style brass which thankfully buries his rather average delivery in a rolling bubbling groove. Two sides of the same coin, both perfectly at home on a broiling Womad afternoon.

What else? Nathale Natiembe, chanced upon in a sparsely-attended dance workshop. Nevertheless her stark, emotive maloya suddenly made sense placed in its dark, contemporary setting; and finally, this year’s guitar discovery Bombino from Niger, a cool, intimate purveyor of singer-songwriterdom that speaks to every soul and is a perfect comedown after a weekend of sensory highs.

DISH OF THE FESTIVAL: Goan Fish Curry for the nth year running.

WOMAD Charlton Park 2008

Have there ever been two more contrasting Womads than the first two at its new, expansive home in the back garden of the Earl of Two-Counties (Suffolk and Berkshire, curiously) amongst the rolling hills of the Wiltshire countryside? No glutinous mud this year, no traipsing three miles to finally reach a sign that points you back in the direction whence you came, no un-briefed stewards and pitiful on-site communication. Womad is back, as sunny, friendly and ear-nose-and-stomach-nourishing as ever – in fact, now that the floods have cleared, we can finally see how much roomier, grassier, shadier and less dusty it is than the tired old Rivermead rec by the Thames.

The Open Air (Main) Stage kicked off on Friday to the unfortunate sound of the Tashi Lhunpo Monks of Tibet’s reflective, reverential songs being backed by the heavy Cubano thud of the Rumberos de Cuba, who were sound-checking in the neighbouring Siam Tent. It was like all your worst Realworld new-age fusion nightmares had come to haunt the new site set-up. The problem never got quite as extreme as that again in my experience, but sound bleed from (and between) the three main stages was an issue for many, especially the patrons of the smaller Speakeasy and Little Italy stages; one of the few small wrinkles to iron out for next year.

The Radio 3 Stage suffers no such problems, as it is sited away from the main arena amongst the lovely little glades and arboretums that house the various alternative therapy and “wellness” traders. This stage is where the lesser-spotted Womad Anyman can be found – fifty-something years young, grey-haired and bespectacled, these creatures park their spreading bottoms on folding chairs about three rows from the front, head buried impassively in their Guardian arts pages (am) or Dean Koontz novel (pm), stirring only to take a snap of each artist for the photo album. Such serenity in the face of polyrhythm was severely tested this year by the Bedouin Jerry Can Band. There's something about their name that seems to imply novelty - they use jerry cans (or jerkans as they call them) and ammunition boxes as percussion in addition to the traditional frame drum, flutes, simsimiyya and wolf skin fiddle - but even though there's a lightness of touch to the music and a jollity to the delivery, there's genuine musical artistry there as well, and a fine sense of the role the music (and coffee making) plays in the Bedouin community of the Sinai desert in Egypt. Hips shook, heads nodded, and Friday was off to a stormer.

Justin Adams has gone a considerable way towards filling the Strummer-sized hole that exists in the area where contemporary British rock music meets its past American influences and the music of the world today, and he’s found his Tymon Dogg in Gambian riti (single-string fiddle) player Juldeh Camara. They rocked the Radio 3 stage on Sunday with their Bo Diddley-meets-buzzsaw-violin, although clumsy scheduling had them up against last year’s festival darlings (and multi-World Music Award-winning) Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba, who once again proved themselves to be just about the grooviest band in the world today. Niger’s Malam Mamane Barka is trying (with a more traditional approach) to do for the biram what Bassekou has achieved with the ngoni, bringing the evocative sounds of the rarely seen 5-string harp-lute to a wider global audience. Judging by his impromptu performance in (and outside) the ever-excellent Taste the World tent (which surely needs no explanation), he has the charm and (more importantly) voice to pull that off, and will be back to beguile the UK again later in the year.

Other African highlights included veteran Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab who performed a Sunday evening seduction on the Main Stage, although the real treat was to come an hour later as a stripped back version of the Afro-Cuban ensemble reprised three tunes for Charlie Gillett’s World on Three radio show. Gillett also showcased Zuzana Novak, an Anglo-Czech who qualifies as honorary African for her convincing study in Zimbabwean mbira thumb-piano music, and her solo set was a welcome encore to her performance at the admirably intimate (but sound-bleed afflicted) Saturday evening Speakeasy session. And Malian Mamani Keita looks finally to have begun building up the recognition she deserves for her excellent 2006 album with French guitarist/producer Nicolas Repac, their punchy Saturday afternoon Sicily Tent performance leading to a sell-out run on Yelema the next day.

The strong African showing was arguably not reflected in other broad geographical areas. Eastern Europe and the Middle East seemed particularly badly served, although the little I caught of Serbian siren Svetlana Spajic’s set with the implausibly-talented British folkie Andrew Cronshaw seemed to suggest that I missed a real belter. Heart-stoppingly soulful vocals were also to be heard on the Sufi night session, with Uzbek vocalist Monajat Yulchieva every bit as sparsely affecting as fellow-Uzbeki Sevara Nazarkhan was enchanting a couple of Womads ago.

Enchantment is Mor Karbasi’s game, particularly so at the Speakeasy session, backed by partner Joe Taylor. Astonishingly beautiful, with a stirring album of Sephardic songs receiving plaudits in all the right places, expectations were high for the UK-based Israeli’s performance in full ensemble (and multiple dress-changing) mode in the Siam Tent the previous day. The jury remains out on this one, the set being impressive without fully engaging, maybe the result of a performance that was almost too well-staged and deliberate. Sa Dingding from China also delivered a staged, costume-varying performance, ambitious in its theatricality but slightly disappointing in sound, her sweet, frail voice too often lost in the heavy, multi-instrumental mix.

Shane MacGowan lost his voice years ago – in alcoholic mixers rather instrumental mixes – and as admiring I am of his timeless canon of London-Irish songs, his way-beyond-tiresome cartoon drunken Mick performance was an (albeit extremely well-received) blight to Sharon Shannon's ground-shaking Friday night ceilidh. From folk-based dance to the ragga-soul of Mista Savona - the Australian funkateers cooked up two horn-honkingly sweaty boogiesome sets to delight the under-30s (and many of we over-40s to boot), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a younger Womadian age-group than that at the front of Main Stage for the Niles Rodgers self-tribute band masquerading as Chic (Rodgers-composed Sister Sledge songs in abundance) for their perfectly-judged showbizzy set that tapped right into the audience up-for-a-party mood. Contrastingly, Squeeze turned up, ran through an uninspiring greatest hits set and left having barely made a mark on the festival.

The great Toumani Diabaté left a permanent mark on the Womad world when he was just a cherubic twenty-something kora ingénue, and he represents the durability of the unique event’s mark on its extended family. Performing on Friday evening in the Siam tent with a smaller, tighter Symmetric Orchestra than usual (the kitchen sink must have been held at customs), Toumani introduced his kora-playing son Sidike (who himself is barely out of his teens), local UK-based Senegalese friends Seckou Keita and Jali Fily Cissokho, and perhaps the greatest master Manding vocalist of them all, Kasse Mady Diabaté. Youth, experience, family, friends. And great music. A perfect summation of the essential elements that went into another great Womad weekend.

WOMAD Charlton Park 2007

Friday

I arrived at an absolutely bogging new Charlton Park site at midday to a scene of total and utter chaos. The new WOMAD location is in a wonderful area of bucolic North Wiltshire beauty, the campsites ringed on a hill overlooking a far more expansive site than that at Reading. But local weather problems just over the border in Gloucestershire had left the organisers bereft of tracking and flood protection equipment, with a late Thursday downpour rendering the main site a vast muddy mess. Vehicles were being towed into the car park. That’s how bad it was, and the word “schlep” took on a whole new onomatopoeic dimension as I trudged through 12 inch-deep sludge to the wrong campsite (the first of many organisational cock-ups that weekend – correction: second, there were nowhere near enough shuttles buses departing too infrequently from the nearest train station 7 miles away. No, wait: third, I’d already circumnavigated the whole 3 mile festival site having been sent in the completely wrong direction by clueless gate staff).

Thank goodness for the unique spirit of the WOMAD crowd, and of course the music, kicked off by the Tanzanian roots band the Zawose Family, who carry on resolutely where late founding members Charles and Hukwe left off. Toots and the Maytals were next, and reggae always goes down well at WOMAD, particularly when performed by the great Freddie Hibbert. What can be better than a soul singer lost in a roots-reggae sound? Well, Samba Mapangala & Orchestre Virunga’s old-school (ie mid-‘80s) electric rumba came close. By now the hardier Womaders had acclimatized to the pitiful conditions, and a pleasing snake of conga-ing teenagers meant that at long last we were up and running. Amerexican diva Lila Downs was next, slightly contrived for my tastes, except when leaving the bare bones of an acoustic guitar and harp to support that extraordinarily rich voice.

All that was main arena fare, but a delightful feature of the new site is the arboretum, where workshops take place in sun-dappled glades, and the Radio 3 stage sits protected from sound spill for the first time ever at the top of the hill. The spiralling, high-energy traditional bagpipe-and-tabla dance music of Southern Algeria's Marzoug was the first of many highlights there, another one being the mighty Bassékou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba. The ngoni-wielding maestro, his band and his gorgeous, honey-voiced wife Ami Sacko are the new stars of world music and tore the place up on three separate occasions over the weekend. Long may they be ignored by mainstream ignoramuses and nostalgia junkies, because I don’t want the thrill of seeing such a wild and inventive sound at close quarters taken away from us yet awhile. Speaking of mainstream, earlier I’d managed fifteen minutes of headliner Peter Gabriel, a nice enough chap but pretty dull musically, I found, despite a host of exciting artists from Daara J to Guo Yue.

Saturday

A short day for me (you’ll be pleased to read) because I was away to a wedding later in the day. But I did catch the superb, entrancing Egyptians El Tanbura, Bassekou again, and the sunny electric guitar pop of Mozambique's Massukos (complete with the surreal sight of a tractor gliding effortlessly through the audience at one point).

This meant I missed the rainfall that ended the participation of quite a few of the less hardy (or, it has to be admitted, able-bodied) attendees, and also the apparently storming performances of soul-to-roots-to-gospel songstress Candi Staton and nu-English-folk project The Imagined Village (by all accounts, the appearance of Billy Bragg thankfully failing to spoil the work of various Coppers, Carthys and other English folkies from Anglo to Asian). And a (reportedly) huge, and hugely disappointing, Isaac Hayes.

Sunday

Back with a vengeance, starting with the Cambodian "blues" singer and long-necked guitar player, Kong Nay and his very pretty protégé, Ouch Savy. It was all very bluesy as well, straight out of Mississippi by way of...wherever they’re from in Cambodia, and one song in particular sounded as if it could be translated straight to English and handed as-is to Otis Taylor. Steel Pulse were a tad disappointing, on early because of motorway-delayed problems for other acts, they re-trod early seventies roots-reggae competently enough without really setting the place alight. A quick diversion via the beautiful Chinese classical-folk music of the Silk String Quartet to the ever-sparkling Sam Tshabalala from South Africa. Then on to the big names. Tinariwen were somewhat depleted due to illness but really rocked the place anyway, their stagecraft coming on a treat in lieu of personnel, and the stripped-down sound forced the power from their playing rather than sheer volume. Worked a treat.

After a brief pleasant tea-time interlude with a DJ slot by the great (and, happily, healthier) Charlie Gillett and his mate Hamid Zagzoule, we had fado superstar Mariza at her powerful, beguiling best, in fine vocal form and back to the stark three-guitar backing that suits her emotive phrasing. The Taj Mahal Trio were somewhat disappointing, reluctant to stray from a pretty straight 12-bar blues, so Antibalas had to provide an antidote with their multi-cultural, funky Afrobeat-to-jazz dance music. Baaba Maal and his Daande Lenol were the headliners, but were a bit of a let-down, the act far too mannered and ponderous these days. It’s a fine enough electro-mbalax sound, but is nigh on 25 years old now and needs shaking up a bit. Relief was provided by the acoustic parts, and the day was finished off exquisitely by the perfectly-judged delivery of Le Trio Joubran’s reflective (m)oud music.

Every WOMAD is great and original in its own way – this one will be remembered for uncharacteristically bad organisation and poor communication throughout (even allowing for the exceptionally bad summer weather), numbskull security (this lot thought they were at Glasto: they need to tap into the unique WOMAD ethos), the fact that some stewards hadn’t introduced their collective arse to their elbow, and the sheer breathless complacency with which many of the organisers and festival-goers approached the potential effects of the weather.

But it will also be remembered (as ever) for some of the greatest musical moments of many people’s lives. Oh, and I got to see the beautiful Mariza looking as incongruous as possible wearing green wellies and digging into a pizza. Worth 120 quid of anybody’s money.