Female 100 Part 4
Abida Parveen - Chants Soufis du Pakistan (Live) (1995)
I know next to nothing about Parveen but intend to find out much more as this album is glorious. Qawwali is a type of Pakistani folk music. This Lp consists of a fluttering harmonium that seems to weave in and out of the bubbly tabla beats, all majestic like. Then there's the voice, a big, proud, powerful thing. Parveen's vocals might seem impenetrable at first but like Coltrane's sax it's a rewarding thing to follow, through its peaks and troughs, commanding warbles to childlike gargles, heartbreak to heartmake. Brooding then ecstatic in a change of a note.
With a lot of tracks going beyond ten minutes it's a lengthy album. But for me it's a constant joy.
Aretha Franklin - Aretha's Gold (1969) (Comp)
The voice. The songs.
Beach House -Devotion (2008)
A plodding, generic, indie bore, thought I. But given the right place (night, with headphones) and mood (depressed, natch) Beach House got me crumbling like a polystyrene man. Victoria Legrand's crystalline voice, so majestic, so commanding, reverberates around swirling church organs and sliding guitar whimsy.
Devotion speaks to me, baby.
Middle of the road, but I'll still get there.
Judy Henske - Judy Henske (1963)
Live album. Judy has an extraordinary voice, full of grit and power and she does calm and mellow just as good. The audience laps it up, whether she's performing swing or folk ballads. That her stories and audience banter are so funny and occasionally surreal is a sweet bonus.
Bessie Smith -The Empress of the Blues 1923-1933 (1971) [Compilation]
Just essential really. The harshness of Smith's voice and lyrics juxtaposed with the gleeful swing of the brass and piano captivates me. This stuff may have been recorded when our great grandparents were still about but it's likely to be better than anything that was released last week.
Victoria Williams - Loose (1994)
There's so much going against this record - William's over quirky voice, her lame Tom Waitisms, ultra polished production, dreadful lyrics - yet I really enjoy Loose. I guess this is all down to the fact that Williams knows how to
write a tune. Everything here is instantly catchy and memorable and sounds like the comfort of a trusty old friend. The sound is very commercial folk pop fair, but the musics tasteful and tactful and there's enough strings, blowing of horns, washes of harp and harmony and fiddles of fiddle to keep me intrigued. Actually, the only song I don't like here is the cover of 'It's a Wonderful World'.
Rita Lee - Build Up (1970)
Eccentric Brazilian pop from the bird in psych legends Os Mutantes. That groups wackiness is contained in a pop context for Build Up and I like it about 10x more than anything by Os Mutantes, a group I find irritating, frankly.
I'm trying to think of a song that sonically conveys joy as satisfyingly as "Hulla-Hulla", and I'm struggling.
Robin Roberts - Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (1959)
Striking, pastoral Celtic folk. Robert's bruised voice is one of the saddest I've heard.
The Raincoats - The Raincoats (1979)
Scruffy, scatty, bratty punk oddity. I don't no how they manage to make violins sound so f
ucking beautiful in this context, but they do, outdoing the Velvet Undies in the process.
Yma Sumac - Voice of the Xtabay (1950)
It always seemed unlikely to have a human voice that could mimic Louis Armstrong, Marge Simpson and a theremin in the space of a single bar, but here it is, the Voice of the Xtabay, warbling with joy over lush lounge muzak with eastern percussive backbone, production technique being way ahead of its time.