Manu Chao - La Radiolina (Because)

There’s something intoxicating about Manu Chao’s seemingly effortless internationalism. A poly-lingual perpetual motion machine – both live and on record – no one seems to have, or stir up, so much fun while being on the right side of bringing public attention to so many global wrongs. As a performer-activist he’s got Michael Franti beat, if only because Chao sings can address a broader spectrum of the oppressed in their mother tongues. Sonically, thematically and in the titles of his records Manu Chao has created the simulacrum of a pirate radio satellite gathering and bouncing signals as he circles the planet – a 24/7 antidote to Voice of America. My only complaint is that La Radiolina (Italian for portable radio) clings a little too fondly to the formula of his earlier records Clandestino and Proxima Estacion: Esperanza. Blessedly he has retired the PacMan-like ‘ping’ sample that permeated these two records, but in most other respects there is little to distinguish La Radiolina from his previous work. However, if you are looking for something refreshing check out the radio player at manuchao.net – predictably lots of Manu, but interspersed in a pretty glorious global mix.

Mekons - Natural (Quarterstick)

Natural betrays the Mekons UK punk-era origins and – quite frankly – if somebody had tried to pass this off as a collection of recently discovered out-takes for the unreleased sides 7 & 8 of the Clash’s Sandinista! I think I might have bought it. Older, wiser, and certainly more bucolic than Strummer, et al, c. 1980, but fast forward from cold war to global warming and the Mekons work is still infused with the same sense of urgency that put the Mekons on the front lines contra Thatcher during the miners’ strike. There is little of the pastoral in the 12 ‘rural’ themed songs on Natural. I think it’s fair to say the Mekons have a deeply ambivalent attitude toward both the country and the town. These songs are written in the space in between, where the ‘old fox is eating from the bin’ and Jet fighters swoop loud and low during a hillside ramble. However, the record is littered with reminders that we are only a power blackout away from a potent primordial darkness in which ‘twisted trees sing, dark, dark, dark.’ Campfire songs for the end of oil.

Taraf de Haidouks - Maskarada (Crammed Discs)

Ever killed time with those translation websites, taking a line of text, translating from English to (let’s say) Japanese and back again? “You’ve lost that loving feeling” ultimately coming back as “the feeling which has the love was lost.” The echo of the original sentiment is still there, but it’s awkward, diminished by having much of its essence stripped away. Maskarada suffers from the same problem. Gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks committed to learning pieces by 20th century classical composers – Bartok, Albeniz, Ketelbey – who were inspired by Roma folk music. Promising in theory, but disappointing in practice, the result is labored, stiff and far too reverent – especially for this lot! Having devoted the first half of the CD to this experiment in “re-Gypsification” the Taraf de Haidouks cut loose with a set of their own tunes, which, free of the baggage of a composer's score, sound – by contrast – all the more sweet in their unmediated, shambolic glory.