fRoots

[ian]

A glorious evening of cross-cultural bewilderment, organised by the Sublime Frequencies label who – judging by tonight's bands and the interval music – are on a mission to promote the world's cheesy keyboard cultures at high volume. Good on them! This the first night of a national tour: well done to Brighton Festival for jumping in the deep end.

Anything at volume in the sound-souping acoustic of a large church is rarely going to work too well, as regulars at the Union Chapel will know, and this was no exception. Group Doueh are a four piece from the Western Sahara, Morocco. On the left, a sullen looking man with shades perched on his head playing an amplified tidinit, and later a black Strat, with tone controls wound to "cheese grater", volume to 11 and tuning problems. Next to him a jolly looking singing man, a keyboard wrangler with tone set to "wince", and a woman singer playing a large drum. They take no prisoners, musically, though it's sometimes hard to tell which is tuning and which is taxim before the transfixing songs kick in. It's inspiring stuff, taking music from the vaguely Tinariwen/Tartit mould out into the realms of '60s psychedelia, Jerry Garcia and aural paint stripper.

The audience, two parts Wire reader to one part elderly Brighton Festival-going couples, are stunned but thrilled. 50 minutes was enough though: it'd be good to hear them somewhere that doesn't turn the sound into mush and razor blades.

Omar Souleyman's quartet are utterly extraordinary. The keyboard here is more mature cheddar than vache-qui-rit: the electric saz player is staggering in his virtuosity. Yer man Omar, a proper-job Syrian folk/pop hero, stands there in shades and a subtle grey djelaba and, as more ferocious musical mayhem unfolds, declaims rapid-fire lyrics. But why is there a taxi driver standing between him and the saz hero, occasionally glancing at Arabic words on a laptop? He, it turns out, is the "poet" - a normal figure in this music - who whispers words into Omar's ear, presumably to be turned into pearls of Syria pop wisdom. Whatever, it is indeed wildly thrilling.

I'd love to see them again in somewhere more appropriate: not just acoustically. Standing in a church watching all this with a large be-crossed Jesus hanging over the heads of the performers whilst an audience with a higher incidence of rucksacks than ought to be socially acceptable gaze at them open-mouthed while clutching cans of beer was just a little bit too weird for me. One can only speculate what culture shock must have hit the performers.

Still, I played Omar's latest CD very loud in the car all the way back up the M23. It works for motoring . . .

Rest of dates on this tour at http://froots.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4322

Do give it a go if you're not faint-hearted!


Group Doueh


Omar Souleyman