Sound of the World
Wrasse Records 169

I am so sick of compilations. To me, most compilations seem like the province of newbies. The compiler cherry-picks the obvious greatest hits from a genre and then spits them out as a definitive look at African blues, Malian blues, Latin dance favourites, Best of Slick Salsa, Best of Sloppy Salsa, or whatever. I listen to those that come my way, and even review them in print, but I usually know all the good songs and am not particularly intrigued by the obscure cuts. Therefore it was a great pleasure to get Sound of the World, a double-disc set put together by BBC radio DJ Charlie Gillett. Charlie is in a good position as he not only gets EVERYTHING but even gets to hear stuff not available to us mortals. For example he recently got invited to Russia to judge a music festival and some of his discoveries from that trip provide the most interesting moments on this new set.

Of course being a DJ is not that easy. I mean you don't need any actual musical ability, though it helps. Mainly you need an ear to pick out what's new and original and then to find the cut that is going to click. I have many DJ friends who only try the "side one track one" approach. If that doesn't set their foot tapping, they forget it. "Wow, what's that great song?" they ask me. "It's the second cut on the B side," I tell them. So it's work, and often you dismiss an album because there's only one good song then are glad when it shows up on a compilation and wonder if you should have tried harder. But life's too short to be listening to mediocre albums over and over trying to find the good bits in them. The first disc kicks off with Daby Balde from Senegal. Not a familiar name but this cut will have you looking for the album Introducing Daby Balde (on Riverboat records) to see what else is on there. Next up is Bulgaria and the first of the "gee I didn't know those white people had so much soul" moments. Actually it's Boris Iliev's clarinet that sets this apart, and the vocal by Sissy Atanassova is great, reminding you of those other gypsies, the ones that appear in Bollywood production numbers! OK cue the video on this one! But track three, "Geo" by Ivan Kupala from Russia, is the first that makes you grab a pen and say I have to write this down-- Radio Nagra-- must try to find this album (try http://www.soyuz.ru).

I know many of you will disagree but I thought Amadou and Mariam were crap in concert with their French rock band and though Amadou plays a good R&B guitar, Mariam's vocals were shrill and the din was awful. I liked their previous two albums, but I didn't bother with their Manu Chao-produced album Dimanche A Bamako. However the best cut from it, "Coulibaly," is on here. It is followed by the first one you are going to either love or hate, Camille a French singer who wants to be Bjork but settles for Jacqueline Brel. I hit the forward button. The next one starts like Miles Davis' "Elevator to the gallows" and I am thinking we are in for some more weird French time-warp crap, but then an arhythmic drum comes in with some dubby bass and I know Mr Gillett has been clubbing in France & it is, well, kinda interesting. There's a hip hop feeling to it but the best part is the stretch between the jazz trumpet of Ludovic Venu and the Wolof vocals of Jean Gomis (a relative of Rudy?). The group is called, inexplicably, Mei Tei Sho. Streets of Laredo rancheria is up next with a Canadian woman of Mexican extraction named Lhasa. I imagine if you caught her act, you might dig this. On the other hand if she appeared on Sabado Gigante she might get the hook. Now I am getting an itchy trigger-finger and pop forward to Darko Rundek & Cargo Orkestar with a good cut from Ruke (on Piranha) which I enjoyed. (I went looking to see if I had reviewed it and found I had rubbished last year's Charlie Gillett compilation, so things are definitely looking up!) After some bad rap from Nairobi Yetu (at least it's in Kiswahili), the first disc mellows out with State of Benghal vs Paban das Baul, followed by ther first encounter between Ali Farka Toure and kora player Toumani Diabate and then the jazzy reggae of Anzacs DJ Fitchie and Joe Dukie, who give us "Midnight Marauders," with a solid horn chorus. (The Duchess found it boring and asked me to take it off.)
Disc two starts with Issa Bagayogo, top of the pile where he belongs. Brazilian flava-of-da-month Seu Jorge pops up for a moment with his squeaky cuica accompaniment. On the recommendation of two different people I watched the Life Aquatic with Steve Zizou movie to see Seu Jorge. He was awful (David Bowie covers? Forget it!) and the movie really stank, or sank. The first thing that catches me by surprise is Shukar Collective. I didn't know you could actually imitate Lee Perry! But this second disc gets very slack and I venture could have been left out entirely. True, there's Youssou Ndour, but we all have that album Egypt as it's the best thing he's done in decades. Ana Salazar from Spain does the "Ay-yi-yi-yi" chorus which you can hear at any soccer match. (Though recently at a forgettable Premiership game in England I noted that "Guantanamera" has become the most popular melody for fans to co-opt.)

By the time we get to Japanese horns doing "Jingle bells" (Tokyo-chutie-iki's "Otome sankabi") I feel like I am wasting my time. I hate the shotgun approach: pack the CD with lots of stuff and someone's bound to like some of it. The consumer isn't fooled by the offer of "buy one get one free." Quality not quantity is what we want. The last cut by Think of One is a Belgian-Morrocan collaboration with another big nod to Jamaica. It's a good ending, but the most interesting stuff on here is by the Russian artists Gillett has discovered. Someone might consider a Best of Russian New Wave or whatever and ask him to compile it and open up another frontier to us music fans. --Alastair Johnston