4 tracks really worth a listen

Here are 4 tracks really worth a listen which I’ve dug out from the back of the cupboard over the holidays – they’re arriving here one by one, one a day…

(1, Christmas Eve) TIDES by Nitin Sawhney from Beyond Skin LISTEN

I don’t know too much about this album, I never liked it that much when I got it in around 1999 after it was nominated for the Mercury Prize. After I saw Talvin Singh play a couple of weeks ago at Kings Place, Kings Cross at a Not So Silent Movies session with Evelyn Glennie, and really enjoying his drumming (as well as hers – it was a brilliant improvised percussion-focused session), I had a vague memory of having one of his records – but it turned out to be this one. Wrong talented British Indian. But nevermind, it turned out to be a great find – loads of fabulous tracks such as Nadia and Broken Skin. But Tides was the stand out. It picks up on a big theme of the record, nuclear weapons, in particular in India and Pakistan but weaving a thread all the way back to Oppenheimer and Los Alamos. It melds the Drum & Bass spine of Beyond Skin with jazz piano and the gentle breath of the waves. The piano theme is very reminiscent of Stan Tracey on Starless and Bible Black. And like that precedent, it’s simply beautiful.

Disturbed ocean after French underwater nuclear test, Mururoa Sept 1995

(2, Christmas Day) DON’T YOU GO by John Martyn from Glorious Fool LISTEN

A lot of John Martyn’s work from later in his career is written off in the wake of his classic 70s albums like Solid Air, but he never made a record that didn’t have something of genius on it. Glorious Fool came out in the bad taste decade that was the 80s, in 1981, produced by not-to-everyone’s-taste Phil Collins. From memory both of them were in the aftermath of messy divorces. This track has an immense sadness in it, a keening quality you get in Irish sean nos singing. It has a background drone reminiscent of the bagpipes (he went to school in Glasgow, real surname McGeachy) or uillean pipes (he died in Ireland), complemented by a simple piano. It’s an anti-war song though which war he had in mind I’ve no idea, the Falklands conflict didn’t break out til the following year, but there’s never really any shortage to chose from. Listen to it at the right moment and there never was anything more melancholy.

by Alfred Eisenstaedt

(3, St Stephen’s Day) PARADISE CIRCUS by Massive Attack from Heligoland LISTEN

One of those cases where an album has a track that just stands out a mile. The combination of Hope Sandoval’s Mazzy Star-style laid-back vocals and a phat old bass line are a totally winning one, perfect for back to mine in the wee small hours.

Hope Sandoval

(4 plain old Thursday) TIGHINN AIR A’mhuir Am Fear A Phosas Mi by Capercaillie from Nadurra LISTEN

From memory I came across Capercaillie on a compilation of Celtic music, most of which was Irish, but they were holding up the Scots end. I don’t know much about the band and have no idea what the song’s about, although I think I heard the word Gra in there a few times which is Love in Irish so I presume the same in Scots Gaelic. It’s a sweet sound any way and very reminiscent of Irish singers like Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan (who I met in Carlingford a couple of years ago and had a drink with at the sailing club bar) and the Brennan sisters of Clannad (one of whom is a friend and whose painting The Ghost of Our Trees sits in my hall below). Bottom line, I just like listening to the soft spoken Celtic words.

Karen Matheson