Elegant and melodious trumpet so often infuses the songs on this album, these then worked with other instrumentation like the riff baritone sax of Tony Kofi beneath a Miles Davis-esque muted overplay by Wallen on opener Spirit of Bilal, where, in addition, found sounds and the vocal of Boujemaa Boubul provide further depths. These recorded sounds, for example, segue into the next track Captive Caravan with a storm as the field sample to start. Horn and sax work in a punchy tandem as well with other percussive instrumentation and vocal tunes to create an ambience of outdoors and expansiveness to then end on a cow/oxen growl beneath Gnawa percussion. This then itself segues into a fly-buzzed [uncomfortably so] intro to Sailor of the Sounds and a subsequent dub/hip hop rhythmic follow-on – the flies buzzing in and out – and Moroccan Boubul’s singing continuing to layer the ‘African’ landscape. The closing title track has a wonderful call/response between Wallen and Kofi that erupts into a furious debate, eventually defused to Larry Bartley on bass and Tom Skinner on drums [superb throughout] reminding them to pick back up on the dual melody. This wonderful mix exemplifies over and over the album's richly creative musical journey.
Imagine my happy anticipation of seeing Wallen play at
Exeter next week.
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