LE MAGAZINE DES MUSIQUES EN COULEURS

Creole NRW September 5th 2008

Under the tent of Solendo, the exploration launched yesterday continues to map out the many cornerstones of ‘creole’ music. These fruitful encounters between the arts of disparate origins open up and redefine that label of ‘world music’ very much at the heart of our concerns here. The view through the German prism is complementing, questioning and enriching our hexagonal habitual view: From techno-musette to a rap in the language of Goethe delivered with a Latino accent, from a Western re-interpretation of Iraqi maqams to Eritrean blues :  though still a bit shy, this ‘creole’ music scene is asserting a plural diversity.

After the electro-accordion coupling of the duo Resonator, the Kapelsky trio (guitar, violin, bass) deliver their ‘eastperanto’: Influenced by jazz, klezmer and gypsy, the tangle of their virtuoso strings evokes a universe of dissident harmonies. A pinch of humour peaking out from under the strings helps to tickle and to lighten up the somewhat ‘classical’ approach.

With Lagash we continue in direction of Iraq, with Saad Tamir (percussion, vocals) and Bassem Hawar (djozé) showing off their gentle and talented personal take on maqam. Surprisingly in this context, the piano brings in warm and rounded notes, with sustained and jazzy harmonies, just like the clarinet, with its velvety tone circling around the melody of the fiddle. An accomplished fusion, delicately arranged, a convincing suprise, with the daf drum at the heart of this translation that doesn’t betray the original.

 Are they from Tyrol, from Bavaria, or from a mythical ‘beer festival’? The two accomplices of Furiosef wear hats and real wooden clogs, and play a berimbau, a big drum, and honking toy horns; they drown a trumpet in water in rescue of an unlikely ‘Titanic’ and generally manipulate German humour with such brio that our limited knowledge of the language misses many subtleties (as evident from the audience’s laughter). Allusive to the extreme they juggle with clichés improvising over nursery rhymes; all the while never loosing touch with a certain swing nor the perfect command of their instruments (accordion, piano, trumpet, mirliton). Furious, these Josephs! Like a Thomson and Thompson of German music they breath some fresh air over the audience, with a dead-pan humour, sometimes reminiscent of crude student jokes, yet never missing the point. We are hooked.

Second last in this big-hearted evening, the krar of Eritrean Samson Kidane delivers an engaged blues tinged with Western colours and grooves. The evening closes with the performance of La Papa Verde, a mix of cumbia, salsa, afro, reggae & punk, just as universal as the ‘potato’, but alas, at times a bit heavy. With the seating taken out for the occasion, the audience is promised a fiery finale to the evening.
See you again tomorrow.

Translated by Katerina Pavlakis