The album reaches Ethiopia

And you may ask yourself, well... how did I get here?

Let's see, I was in Tripoli with a taxi driver, then in Elizabethan England with the bantam boys -- they were some sort of black electrobethan eunuch dandies, I guess -- and then, wondering where to go next, I remembered an African singer my friend, the composer Roddy Schrock, mentioned on his blog a couple of months back, Alemu Aga. I listened to Alemu Aga at the time, some sound samples of his album in Buda Musique's Ethiopiques series, and was struck by the grave sensuality of his poet's voice and the resonant, buzzy, yet soothing sound of his beguena. So the next thing became a trip to Ethiopia to channel the Aga.

I started by sampling my fuzzy-stringed acoustic guitar, which sounds quite like a beguena, and improvising a complex yet intuitive sequence into EZVision. I also wanted to create a rhythmic backing a bit like the one you can hear in this sample of some Addis Ababa azmari street musicians. Well, my electronics didn't really capture the intimacy of Alemu Aga or the dry snappy zest of the azmaris; what emerged was something not a million miles from Talking Heads circa 1980.

The lyrics took a while. A structureless song like this needs a chantlike vocal. At first (influenced by Alemu Aga's title 'Death of the Lefthanded Man', the Epic of Gilgamesh, and, musically, 'Tomorrow Never Knows') it was a song about death with psychedelic-ethnic vocal inflections. But that felt too sombre and portentous. So then it became a first-person retelling of the plot of a great film I saw recently, Hyenas, a transplantation to Senegal of Durrenmatt's play 'The Visit'. But I didn't like the silly African accent I was adopting as I tried to play the character. Finally, it became a song about divining for water, sung in Orominya, one of the languages of Ethiopia. I added a lot of sounds and made a lot of 'tape' manipulations. That's where it is now. Here's the mp3... in fact, this time there are two:

The Water Song (Nick mix)

Sorry, this track is no longer available. Please buy the CD when it comes out!



The mix I ended up with incorporates a piece by Roddy Schrock (we met in Tokyo last year, spent new year together in Berlin, and Roddy's now based in Holland, making music for contemporary dance amongst other things), inspired by Alemu Aga. I liked the much more radical nature of Roddy's composition. It added an avant garde edge to my piece. The 'Nick' mix just uses Roddy's piece as a background texture, the 'Provisional Roddy' mix foregrounds it. But Roddy is working on his own mix: 'At some point,' he writes, 'I would find it interesting if I re-remixed them again, sort of moved them back towards the experimental side of the spectrum.' When Roddy makes that mix, I'll link to it and take down the Provisional Roddy mix I'm posting here. Anyway, all comments and donations (one dollar suggested) are welcome, as usual!

I have to say I'm not sure if this track is just a curiosity or if it will end up on the album. That depends where things go, thematically and musically, from here. By the way, the mp3 posting will have to end when I sign a contract with Cherry Red for the CD release of this album, which is likely to happen soon. I want there to be something still undiscovered, some remaining mystery, when the record comes out.

The Water Song

Orominya
Woha chigralla
Woha yellem
Woha koom

Mook gasgazza
Na amboha
Aneed gatata gra na ky

Dehnaderu
Ayasfeligegnim
Koom sigarra
Ayasfeligegnim koom

Leslassa ishi
Katata aneed
Woha yellem
Aydellem

Tenastalign
Denaderu
Chigr alla
Chigr yellem