Justin Adams is on something of a roll these days, at least as rolls go in the world music genre.In addition to his day job as Robert Plant’s main axman, he’s one of the masterminds behind Festival du Desert and the ‘Saharan blues’ group Tinariwen’s rise to prominence in the last few years, along with their many imitators.He also has a successful collaboration in process with Gambian griot Juldeh Camara, a collaboration that’s kept them at the top of the WMCE for most of the last four months.Now he’s got a new album out, “rivermudtwilight” by Les Triaboliques (The Triabolical Ones), in collaboration with two other world music veterans Ben Mandelson and Lou Edmonds, themselves also guitarists though manning a plethora of diverse, if similar, instruments for this project, notably the oud-like cumbus and fretless kabosy.Considering that he wrote all but two of the album’s songs, it’s notable that he’s willing to share the spotlight in what could be a timely Justin Adams solo effort.But the collaboration is a good one.They sound as if they’ve been playing together for years; maybe that’s because they have.
I guess it was only a matter of time before Western musicians with experience in world music bands would come home and form their own bands.Next, musicians from Chinese world music bands will join with Moroccan ones I suppose.If some people lament the golden age of the BAND as metaphysical entity, I welcome the current age of band as project, multiple collaborations on many levels.But that impermanence doesn’t have to imply carelessness or sloppy work.Indeed Les Triaboliques have anything but a ‘trevil-may-care’ (get it?Triabolical/trevil?) attitude, in what are some exquisitely crafted songs spanning the folk traditions from Africa to Andalusia to Aberdeen.With the possible exception of ‘Ledmo,’ something of an acid-grass instrumental doodle, the majority of songs are nothing if not intense, albeit not necessarily fast, songs.
The album’s opening song ‘Crossing the Stone Bridge’ sets the tone, and along with ‘Black Earth Boys’ may be the most accessible song on the album, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best.The ballads ‘Turns the Worm’ and ‘Shine a Light’ positively beg you to enter the dark side- if only for a moment- and the traditional ‘Jack o’ Diamonds’ could hold its own with ‘John Barleycorn’ as an example of a traditional song successfully gone pop.On the title song Adams indulges in a little ‘chicken pickin’ as the vocals intone ‘got to find a simple life’ in a compelling dirge-like lament.In fact all of Adams’ compositions show a surprising poetic sensibility that is rare in any form of popular music, not least of all ‘Crossing the Stone Bridge’ (‘we belong to the earth… everything is recorded’).
‘Afsaduni’ has a strong Arabic connection while ‘Gulaguajira- I the Dissolute Prisoner’ invokes an Afro-Cuban feel, albeit mixed with Russian lyrics. In what seems something of a British tradition, Les Triaboliques give ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ a go… and nail it.I almost cried.That song has been re-defined as a medieval English ballad meandering through the centuries to re-emerge as conditions dictate.Last but not least ‘Phosphor Lane’ closes the album in something like an inverse Jimi Hendrix version of ‘Star Spangled Banner’, an anthemic closing ceremony.
Les Triaboliques re-invent the stringed instrument as a tool of the earth, its favorite son and favorite father, playing the blues while wiping away the sweat.Thus the blues returns to the dirt from which it came.The album evokes nothing so much as a bygone era, an era in which strings were plucked like so much wheat- or cotton- being harvested, whether in England or the High Atlas or the remote steppes of Asia.This is the Medieval Era of darkness, superstition… and magic, an era in which cultures that had long gone forth and divided began to reconnect with one another.Fortunately you don’t have to wait for these minstrels to wander to your town in order to hear the message.The hard work’s been done for you already.You can just click ‘Download.’ That’s “rivermudtwilight” by Les Triaboliques.Check it out.
