A somewhat exotic show this week with a slight variation of approach. We’ve got five fascinating independent artists from Amsterdam (with their take on the music of Curaçao), Montreal (singing in Spanish), California but with a song in Serbian and, of course, a German Ska band.

 

Take My Hand - Dirty Primitives (Lille, France)

The band comprises Jean Bernard Hoste: singing, feet drumming and basic guitar along with David Bausseron: guitar, noise / Fuzz and More Fuzz! The minimalist duo’s music is described as “electric and noisy primitive”.

Located somewhere near the crossroads of stomp garage rock and blues folk noise. The line-up offers two electric guitars, a bass drum, a hi-hat, and a few touches of "random loop" electro. Dirty Primitives played their first concerts in 2011

www.dirtyprimitives.com

 

Chilly Winds (Trad. Appalachia) - moira smiley & VOCO (CA, USA)

Moira Smiley & VOCO have created on their new album, Laughter Out of Tears (released September 15, 2014 on Whim Records), pulling together people from Australia, Europe, and all throughout North America.

Redefining harmony singing with the power & physicality of folksong, the avant-garde fearlessness of Béla Bartók and vaudevillian combo of cello, accordion & banjo.

Working with voices has always been Smiley’s joy.   A virtuosic singer, she works with artists as varied as Paul Hillier, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, KITKA, Tim O’Brien, Solas and tUnE-yArDs, and has sung everything from Stockhausen and Stravinsky to traditional folk music – which remains her deepest love, to the level that she’s spent time as a song collector in the Balkans. She’s recorded Irish sean-nós on her solo record Rua, been featured on radio, television and films, taught at the University of Birmingham in England and several American universities, and been the recipient of an enviable list of grants and awards.

In 2006 Smiley formed VOCO, a five-piece group of singers and players, with an improvisational - and uniquely vocal - approach to American and Eastern European folk music, and Smiley’s polyphonic originals.

“The band is made up of spare ingredients,” she says. “There’s usually cello, always body percussion, and everyone sings, of course. I write for three or four voices in harmony, and I play banjo and accordion.”

Laughter Out of Tears continues a journey Smiley has begun with VOCO’s three previous releases.

Oj Jabuko (trad. Serbia) - moira smiley & VOCO (CA, USA)

A second track from Moira Smiley.

www.moirasmiley.com

www.facebook.com/VOCOinfo

 

Relojes - Alejandra Ribera (Montreal, Canada)

Alejandra Ribera has a small tattoo inside each wrist. On the right, in Spanish, is the word ‘Listen’: on the left, ‘Remember.’ They’re not for display, but reminders to herself, watchwords for living and art. And she does both without compromise on her long-awaited second album, La boca (release: June 10, 2014 on Pheremone Recordings), a disc that brings together all the separate strands of her life and creativity.

“My first album (Navigator, Navigather) came out in 2009, and people said I was crazy to wait to record the second,” she explains. “But I knew I wanted to work with producer Jean Massicotte (Lhasa de Sela, Patrick Watson). He was booked, so I waited for three years until he was available. And I was right; he was the person to find my thread, no matter whether I was singing in English, French or Spanish.”

In part, her approach to words comes from the fact that Spanish was her first language. Her father hails from Argentina, and the family spent a year there when Ribera was very young. Finally, when they returned to Canada, she announced that she was just going to speak English.