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Written in Folk Roots issue 132, 1994

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Bring It All Home
Kamahuk kcd-1 (1993)

The musical output of some countries can leave you yearning for something a bit wilder and stranger.
      Poland isn't one of those countries.
     Take this album, for example. The first three tracks set the agenda: Saudzia Laukai (translated as "Fields Roar"), an acappella rendition of a Lithuanian traditional song by Maria Krupowies Voices is followed by one of Jorgi's special brand of wild instrumental from Maciej and Waldemar Rychly, the appropriately entitled Dziki ("Wild"), then a track from the album Twinkle Inna Polish Stylee, a meeting between Jamaica's Twinkle Brother (Norman Grant) and Trebunie-Tutki's Polish traditional singing and fiddling which caused something of a stir last year around the world music radio set.
      There follows Bally & Power Bross's Polish-Malagasy fusion music, traditional singer Barbara Furmanska with the group Rawianie which lurches engagingly between tradition and hot-thumb-bass jazz, Polish-Wolof fusion from Mamadou Diouf & Kinior Orchestra, and more tracks from all the aforementioned plus a dance tune whose title means "Bare-footed but with spurs" from Wojciechowski & Kiniorski, and, rather incongruously in this context, Maria Krupowies singing the Yiddish song Dona Dona and Louisiana Red & Blues Nightshift with Mama's Little Children.
      A good deal of the production is the work of Wlodzimierz Kleszcz "according to his own concept", and the hand of "Megadubmaster Adrian Sherwood", working in a London studio, is evident on several tracks. The charms of repeat echo, panning and the other tools of remixing can ultimately seem like an empty, unrelated overlay on someone's music, but I guess it can help to stir up ideas. This sort, anyway, doesn't go in for those dull, repetitive sampled rhythm patterns; it really is Jamaican dub, not house/trance remix. There's a very likeable dry humourous feel to much here. The sleevenote says that the material is previously unavailable on CD; it seems to be a taster for the subsequent CD issue of the eight albums on which it draws. As with many samplers, it's hard to get a sense from it of what the full albums are really like, but it's certainly an entertaining hors d'oeuvres.


© 1994 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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