Summary:

Chapter 14 is the sixth of seven chapters dedicated to one of the key “genotypes” presented in this book: that dedicated to world music. The chapter begins with a brief etymological and stylistic gloss of world music, along with an offering of ten reasonable touchstones for this species. It then proceeds to the main thrust of the chapter: the unwinding of the historical and then musicological details behind the five “hits” for Subject 6, a devotee of the world music species. These five (four in the book, one on the website only) are: Cheb Mami’s “Youm Wara Youm”; Youssou N’Dour’s “Birima”; Hamza El Din’s “Assaramessuga”; Afro Celt Sound System’s “Release”; Ravi Shankar’s Morning Love .  The chapter closes with a range of potential candidates for addition / future hits for Subject 6, based on proximity on various levels to the five seeds.

Supplements:

• Page 513

( Presentation of 5th “hit” discussed for Subject 6: Afro Celt Sound System’s “Release” ):

The following is the full discussion of the 5th song of the world music genotype, Afro Celt Sound System’s “Release”, heard on the way home from work. It was excluded from the main text and delimited to the website only:

A Night Club High-Note: Afro-Celt Sound System’s “Release”

Afro-Celt Sound System’s “Release”  resumes a rather more conventional account of world music—a collaboration between an eclectic “world fusion” band and an eccentric Irish rocker, Sinéad O’Connor. Such might make us wonder if the more traditional discourse heard in the el Din was but a genotype anomaly…

Background

Simon Emmerson, a London-based guitarist, founded Afro-Celt Sound System (ACSS) in 1995 following a recording session with West African singer Baaba Maal. A celebrated singer / guitarist from Senegal, Maal has pursued a quite different musical terrain (based on the yela genre) than fellow countryman Youssou N’Dour.[1] During the session, Emmerson noted the similarity in melodic style between a traditional West African song and some Irish airs he knew, and had a crazy notion: to combine West African and Celtic musical practices into a single ensemble. Recruiting a pair from Maal’s band, some traditional Irish musicians he knew, and some EDM artists to capture the London club scene, ACSS was born.

The band was immediately signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label, for which it released 6 albums between 1996 and 2005. All have been both critically and commercially successful—including the 1999 gold record Volume 2: Release .

Gabriel himself has been a forceful advocate of world music going back to at least 1980, when he co-founded the World of Music, Arts, and Dance (WOMAD) Festival; this series of concerts and workshops combines Western and non-Western artists, and is still going strong today. Real World Records, formed in 1989, became an obvious complement to the festival, with a roster that includes Pakistani Quawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Turkmenistan ensemble Ashkhabad, the Creole Choir of Cuba, and the Blind Boys of Alabama, to name a few. ACSS has been the label’s biggest seller after Gabriel himself. Moreover, Gabriel has collaborated as a singer/composer with dozens of “world” musicians, including Youssou N’Dour, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento, and ACSS—notably on their 2001 hit, “When You’re Falling”. In so doing, Gabriel stands prominently among a small list of rock icons—including Paul Simon, Sting, Bob Geldof, Bono, and George Harrison—who have helped introduce millions of listeners to world music practices that they otherwise may have never known.

Analysis

“Release”, the title track from the group’s 1999 sophomore album, arose in response to a tragedy that befell the band. Just prior to beginning recording, their keyboard programmer, Jo Bruce (son of Cream drummer Jack Bruce), died suddenly of an asthma attack, leaving the band devastated. During an impromptu session, O’Connor contributed vocals to a then-incomplete track, wherein she channeled the spirit of their recently departed colleague with new lyrics: “Don’t think you can’t see me…” Her healing participation enabled the band to complete the song and the album—which went on to become their biggest seller.

In their own words, ACSS makes no attempts to produce authentic music of any particular region—whether West African or Irish (Celtic). Rather, the inherent mastery that the participating musicians have of their respective traditions is brought into an intentional cross-cultural exchange to produce something entirely new. “Release” is a prime example: the track combines the tama (talking drum), the djembe (frame drum), uilleann pipes (Irish bagpipes), Irish whistle, hurdy gurdy, accordion, balafon (West African xylophone), Irish harp, synthesizers, electric bass, drums, and vocals in English, Irish Gaelic, and Malinke (a common West African language) into a kind of musical smorgasbord. From a listening experience standpoint, therefore, diversity in texture and sonority become the prime points of focus, quite apart from the elements that bind them together.

The elements that do bind them, however, are musicologically quite simple and straightforward. Key among them is the use of a sustained drone or pedal point—as noted, a staple of musical traditions around the world. Following the subtle rise of Eno-esque ambient synth sounds, a tempo-less tama solo begins just as a mid-range C pedal point starts to emerge. Once established, it will remain throughout the rest of the 7:36 track. The djembe and rock drums soon lock into a medium 4/4 groove—part African, part drum and bass—as N’Faly Kouyate, the band’s Guinean griot, recites in Malinke. At 1:17, the song “proper” begins with the establishment of a harmonic movement above the C pedal: a 4-bar pivoting progression from C7 to F minor/C (2 bars each)—ornamented by an atmospheric melodic line: G-F-Ab-Bb. This will be the first of three repeating chord progressions above the C drone that will provide harmonic movement and variety to the track (Figure 14.W1):

O’Connor introduces the song’s main vocal melody (1:38)—less a melody in fact, than a 2-bar ostinato that repeats successively 7 times before altering to a cadence that reinforces its overall “bluesy” nature (Figure 14.W2):